Page 2 of Cooking Up a Demon (Ghostlight Falls #5)

Chapter Two

Two

I feel marginally better the next morning as I make my way into town. My head is less stuffy, and I’m coughing up mucus, which makes me feel a lot less like I am drowning. It is disgusting, but I’ll take it.

After parking in the alley behind the bookstore, I head around the building to the bakery next door. The baker has an unfortunate skin condition that makes him look greenish, but he makes the best damn cinnamon rolls I’d ever tasted.

After securing my sugar rush for the morning, I let myself into the bookstore. Even pushing through the door is enough to cause my shoulders to droop. There is so much work to be done.

My Nonna left the family and moved to the PNW when I was a little girl. She and Dad had a huge falling out. I’ve only seen her a couple of times over the course of my life. It came as a huge surprise to learn she left me everything after she’d passed away in November.

Everything being an old cabin and a failing bookstore in a small town in mid-Oregon.

While everyone said her death seemed sudden, she clearly hadn’t been doing well for a while.

Both the house and the store are in need of deep cleaning and repairs that speak of long neglect, not only a few months of emptiness.

I’ve been focusing my attention on the cabin to make it livable, but I have to get the store up and running or I will go bankrupt before I even get going.

I haven’t done more than stick my head inside to find the accounting books, because Nonna still did her accounting in a spiral bound notebook, for fuck’s sake.

I head straight to the checkout counter and set my things down. I take a fortifying drink of coffee, then grab my ipad from my bag. Time to take some notes and make a to-do list.

Pen poised in hand, I turn to inspect the damage. Except, it isn’t as bad as I remember. I hadn’t imagined the cobwebs hanging like a house of horrors or the solid inch of dust on the floor, but both are gone.

“What the fuck?” I say to the room at large. There is no answer. Of course there isn’t. The door was locked when I came in. There is no magical cleaning fairy.

Except, there is a demon I’d told to pick up a broom.

No. Nope. That is actually insane. Except, I can’t think of any other way the store magically cleaned itself. I really hope I didn’t accidentally sell my soul to a demon in exchange for sweeping up.

Three hours later, I am sitting on the floor surrounded by books. There is no rhyme or reason to Nonna’s ordering. There are books that have been on the shelves for years. The return window on them is long closed. I have no clue what to do with them.

I learned Nonna’s lawyer had taken care of all open invoices from the store funds. Rent and utilities are paid for another three months. I have three months to turn this chaos of a store into a functioning business.

And I have to turn it into a functioning business because I have nothing left. I quit my job and sold everything that hadn’t fit into my car. I drove for four days straight across the country. My parents told me I am insane. That I should have flown out, signed the paperwork, and sold everything.

There is something about the idea of a cottage and bookstore in Oregon that appeals to me.

It isn’t like I really had anything going for me back in Florida.

I’d been working a soul-sucking job answering phones for an insurance agent and living in a tiny apartment with two other people.

My last girlfriend cheated on me with my boss. My married boss.

The chance to start over somewhere new felt like a life preserver after days of treading water in the ocean. When the lawyer contacted me with the details of Nonna’s estate, including a paid off house and a profitable bookstore, I jumped.

Except, being here and seeing the state of everything is a lot more work than I imagined. I have no clue how the store was profitable. It isn’t welcoming. It seems to carry a crazy array of books that don’t go together. And not a single person has knocked on the door since I arrived.

Almost as if my thoughts summoned them, there is a knock on the glass door. I nearly jump out of my skin and bump into a stack of books on aliens. The woman– girl? –on the other side ignores my less than graceful moment and offers a small, careless wave.

I manage to make it to my feet without knocking everything over and step over my fairy ring of books to get to the door.

“Hi, hello, sorry, we’re not open.” The words come out in manic pants.

“Oh,” The woman is younger than me by a few years, but she isn’t the teenager I first assumed. She offers me a wan smile and takes a step back. “Sorry. Do you know when you’ll be open again? I really need a book.”

I almost laugh, but manage to catch the semi-panicked sound before it escapes.

I don’t even know where to begin sorting out the chaos of the store.

Legally, I am able to operate again. I’ve gotten my business paperwork in order, so there is nothing stopping me from letting her in.

Nothing except the store is absolute chaos.

“I doubt you’ll be able to find anything, but come on in.” I step back and hold the door open for her.

“Oh, wow, did a bomb go off?” She takes careful steps into the store and manages to avoid knocking over a pile of books I forgot about behind the door.

“I’ve been called worse.” The joke falls flat between us. I close the door and flip the lock. Probably not the brightest move with a total stranger, but she is skinny and I can probably take her. If I fight dirty. And don’t have to out-run her. “So, what are you looking for?”

“Um, some local history books. I have a thing for it.” Clearly not the whole story, but I’m not going to pry. I sneeze and blow my nose on a tissue from the pack I have in my pocket.

“I think they’re in the back. I haven’t done much more than glance back there.” The woman tucks her hands in her pockets and heads toward the back of the store with a muttered thanks.

“Are you going to keep the bookstore running?” The woman calls up to me. She’s in the back corner behind a shelving unit.

“That’s the plan.” I shout back, picking up the stack of books I knocked over. “I think so, anyway.”

Honestly, I probably don’t have any business running a bookstore. Or a shop of any kind. I am good at customer service, but I have zero knowledge or ability for the rest of it.

“You should,” the woman says, coming back with a book in hand. “It’s kind of a mess in here right now, but the town supports our shops. I get it if you don’t, can’t live someone else’s dream, you know?”

She hands me the book and blows a bubble with her gum and snaps it. “Plus, there ain’t shit to do around here most of the time. Ms. May kept a lot of us in books.”

“It’s a lot, and I’m not sure I’m cut out for it.” I admit. I write down the book title and price on a sticky note beside the old register and stab it on the memo spike. Something I haven’t seen used since I was a kid in elementary school.

“Eh, you are or you aren’t. Maybe try doing it your way and see what happens.” She hands me the cash for her book, and I put it in the register. “Would love to see some new life around here.”

“Thanks… I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Delia,” she says as she takes her book from me. “Welcome to Ghostlight Falls…”

“Bea,” I fill in for her. “Thanks. For the welcome and the pep talk.”

“No problem. Just don’t tell anyone. Mostly because they won’t believe you. I’m not known for my pep.”

And with that, Delia leaves me alone. My mind racing with possibilities and $20 in the cash drawer.