Page 10 of Embers in Autumn

Amber

The weekdays had been brutal. Rain had hammered the town without pause, turning streets into rivers and leaving the shop eerily quiet.

I’d sat behind the counter listening to the roof creak and the drains groan, watching water blur the world into gray.

Hardly anyone had braved the storm, and every hour the till stayed empty felt like a weight pressing down on my chest.

But Saturday morning dawned bright. At last.

The sun cut through the clouds with a golden sharpness, warming the cobblestones and painting the world in color again.

I heard on the radio while brewing my coffee that parts of town had been hit hard by flooding, basements and storage units soaked.

I whispered a silent thank-you that my little corner of the world sat up on a hill.

If water had found its way into the shop, I would have lost more than inventory.

Books carried souls, and souls did not survive water damage.

I stepped outside before unlocking the front door, mug in hand.

The air smelled fresh, washed clean, sharp with the scent of wet leaves.

The apple tree just across the street had turned overnight, its canopy flaming gold and russet.

Yet the rain and wind had stripped it bare in patches, a confetti of leaves scattered along the pavement.

I caught myself smiling. Autumn in full swing, imperfect but beautiful.

Inside, I set the day’s playlist to something soft and cheerful, adjusted the pumpkins on the display table, and flipped the sign to Open. Within half an hour the bell chimed.

A woman stepped in, her hand clasped around a little boy’s. He was maybe four, cheeks still round with babyhood, eyes darting everywhere at once. The woman wore a light scarf and a smile that looked relieved to be out of the house.

“Hello,” I said warmly. “What are we looking for today?”

“Something to keep him busy,” she admitted, brushing windblown hair from her forehead. “He’s suddenly decided walls are for drawing. I thought maybe some coloring books, and a bedtime story so he doesn’t keep begging me for cartoons.”

The boy tugged at her hand, his other reaching for a basket of plush animals by the door. I crouched down so I was on his level. “Hi there. Do you like to color?”

He nodded, shy but eager.

“Well,” I said, standing again, “you came to the right place.”

I led them toward a low shelf near the children’s nook. Bright covers with animals, cars, and forests spilled across it. I pulled out one with thick outlines of jungle scenes, perfect for crayons that couldn’t quite stay in the lines.

“This one’s fun,” I told him, flipping to a page with a tiger mid-roar. “Or this,” I added, showing a farmyard collection.

His eyes widened, hands reaching. His mother laughed, shaking her head. “Looks like we’re taking both.”

“Perfect,” I said, then scanned the shelf beside us until my fingers landed on a picture book I loved. The cover showed a bear curled up in a cave, all soft blues and grays. The Bear Who Wanted to Sleep.

“This one’s a beautiful bedtime story,” I said, offering it to her. “It’s about a bear who’s so tired, but his forest friends keep waking him up. The rhythm of it is gentle, almost like a lullaby. Perfect for winding down.”

She opened the cover, flipping through the pages. Her smile softened. “Yes. This looks wonderful.”

The boy hugged the coloring books to his chest, his small fingers gripping tight.

As I rang them up, the sunlight slanted through the front window, catching the dust motes in a dance. The world outside felt alive again, voices drifting from the street, laughter echoing faintly.

It was the kind of morning that reminded me why I had opened the shop in the first place. Not for money, though I needed it. But for moments like this, connecting someone with a story, watching a child clutch a book as if he had just been given a key to another world.

“We’re hosting this next weekend,” I told her. “Costumes, treats, a little scavenger hunt through the shelves. He might enjoy it.”

“I want to be Spiderman!”

His mother laughed, ruffling his hair. “We’ll see.”

“Spiderman would fit right in,” I said. “Tell him the books will be cheering for him.”

They waved goodbye, stepping into the crisp morning, the boy already chattering about web-slinging and candy.

The bell jingled again almost immediately. Carol Winthrop-Deveraux-Bennett swept in, her scarf tucked neatly around her throat, her pearls catching the sunlight. She greeted the mother and child with a regal nod before striding into the shop as though it had been arranged just for her.

“Good morning, dear,” she said, setting her leather gloves on the counter before making her beeline for the shelves.

“Morning, Carol.”

She disappeared into the aisle, her voice floating back, low enough that the departing customers couldn’t hear but loud enough for me to catch. “No new arrivals this week? Really, Amber, you’re starving me.”

I smiled, stepping around the counter. “The shipment got delayed. All this rain made a mess of deliveries. Monday, I promise.”

Carol reappeared, standing tall and elegant despite her theatrical frown. “Monday does me no good. I’m leaving tomorrow to visit my daughter, and I wanted something new for the road.”

“What about your Kindle?” I teased gently. “I know you have one. You told me yourself.”

She arched an eyebrow, blue eyes sparkling. “Yes, but my vision isn’t what it once was. And words on paper stay still. The ones on screens seem determined to dance about the moment I get comfortable.”

I bit back a laugh. “So it’s the Kindle’s fault?”

“Absolutely.” She pressed a hand to her pearls, feigning offense. “Besides, young people these days have no respect for the preferences of the elderly. You should be fanning me with fresh hardcovers, not lecturing me on modern contraptions.”

I grinned, following her toward the shelves. “I do have a few books on knitting. Lovely large print, too.”

Carol turned her head slowly, eyes narrowing with exaggerated severity. “Amber, darling, the only books about knots I enjoy are the kind where someone is tied to a bedpost.”

My laugh burst out before I could stop it. “Noted.”

Despite the joke, her poise never slipped. She stood there with the elegance of a woman who had known loss, had weathered storms, and yet still carried herself like every room should bow to her charm.

Carol drifted along the shelves, her fingers trailing over spines as if she were a queen inspecting her court. “Really, Amber, what am I supposed to do on the train without a good smutty knight or a morally questionable alien to keep me company?”

Before I could reply, the bell above the door jingled again.

A young man stepped in carrying a large bouquet wrapped in pale brown paper.

The flowers were breathtaking—roses the color of mulled wine, deep orange marigolds, sprays of golden wheat, tiny white asters tucked between.

An autumn arrangement that looked like it had been plucked from the season itself.

“For Amber?” the delivery boy asked.

My mouth went dry. “That’s me.”

He handed them over with a polite nod, and as I cradled the bouquet, a small card peeked out. My name written in neat block letters. Beneath it, just a few words: For your shop, and for you. And at the very bottom, a phone number. Dean’s.

Before I could breathe, Carol was at my elbow, eyes gleaming. “Oh ho. What’s this, then?”

“Flowers,” I said weakly.

“I can see that. Who from?”

“Someone,” I muttered, cheeks burning.

She gasped, delighted. “Someone? Someone has good taste. Look at these roses, look at this balance. And the wheat! A man who knows symbolism. Do tell, who is he?”

“Carol,” I said, burying my face in the bouquet. “You’re not my mom.”

“Of course not. My children have manners.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure. But that's because back in ancient times when you raised them, people still beat their kids with clubs and threatened to feed them to dinosaurs.”

She laughed, a regal sound that filled the shop. “Touché.”

But then she leaned closer, her voice lowering. “So. Are you going to call this fine gentleman?”

I hesitated, fingers tightening on the stems. “I don’t know. We went for coffee once, but…”

Her expression softened, the humor fading into something far more genuine.

“Listen to me, Amber. A man from your past hurt you. He taught you to doubt yourself, to expect pain. That’s his legacy, not yours.

You can’t let one man’s cruelty chain you to suspicion forever.

Every new person deserves the chance to be seen with fresh eyes.

If you keep looking backward, you’ll never move forward. Life is short.”

Her words struck deep, like warm light in a cold place. I swallowed hard.

“You should start a podcast,” I said faintly, trying to mask the lump in my throat. “ Dating Advice from the 1800s.”

“If I did, darling, you’d be my first subscriber.”

Carol glanced at the flowers again, then at me, her eyes shifting from playful sparkle to something quieter, gentler.

“You know,” she said softly, “I wasn’t always so wise.

Or so sure of myself. When I was about your age, there was a man I thought I would marry.

He was handsome, charming, and he made me feel like the world bent in our direction.

But one summer he went abroad for work, and the letters stopped coming.

I learned through whispers he had married someone else.

No explanations, no goodbye. Just silence. ”

Her fingers brushed over the string of pearls at her throat, the tiniest tremor in her voice.

“I thought my heart would never heal. For years, I wore that betrayal like a heavy coat. It took me too long to learn that sometimes people leave because they don’t know how to stay—not because you weren’t worth staying for. ”