Page 35 of Ghosted (The Ravenwood #1)

TWENTY-EIGHT

With the Night Before All Hallows Eve Ball coming up this Saturday, I have a lot to get done.

Despite wanting to figure out who murdered my…

Friend? With ghostly, orgasmic benefits?

Whatever. The point is, I have very little time to do much of anything outside of preparing the store for the ball.

I opened The Veil today after a quick “pits and bits” shower.

Now I just have to hope Lenore, our seasonal hire, is up to the task of holding down the fort while I stop into all the other shops on Main Street and collect the donations for the silent auction.

One thing I love about this town is the way we all come together for each other. Each small, locally owned business on Main Street helps out when needed, and together, we collaborate on creating some of the most fun town festivals around.

Our Harvest Festival and Holiday Festivals are epic, but when I asked for auction items to help us boost sales at the last business owner’s meeting, no one batted an eye. Every single person donated. Ravenwood rallies around its own .

I tear open a new box of shipping supplies and set them up in the stock room, wiping my brow free of sweat once I have them all sorted.

Even though it’s almost November, we’re having an unseasonably warm day today.

I’m still hungover from my little GHB latte, and the last thing I need is the sun’s personal vendetta against me.

I dust my hands off on the seat of my jeans and head into the store.

Lenore is already working, adding price tags to a few new clothing items we got in the other day.

“Hey Lenore,” I call. She swings her head my way, the decorative rings in her braids clacking musically as she raises a hand in a slow, fluid motion.

Aunt C met Lenore at a yoga retreat she was teaching and insisted she would boost the vibration of the store.

I take in Lenore’s smooth, deep complexion and her wide eyes that are always at half-mast, as if she can’t be bothered to open them all the way.

She’s too busy being Zen. I would love even a single crumb of her relaxed state of mind.

“Rae, hello. These crocheted cardigans are just darling. The woman who makes them has a fantastic Surya Virabhadrasana—Sun Warrior. So strong, she can stand there for hours. I don’t know how that correlates to crocheting, but all forms of creation are intertwined, don’t you think?”

I blink at her, the pounding headache drilling a hole through my skull not allowing me to partake in deep discussions about creativity and connectedness.

“Um, yeah. One form of creativity usually lends itself to another,” I say halfheartedly, not wanting to be rude.

“But hey, do you think you have the store for an hour or so? I have to get the stuff for the auction.” I throw a thumb over my shoulder towards the door.

She offers me a relaxed smile and nods. “Yes, I have it handled. Go about your business. And remember to drink some water. A hydrated body is a supple body,” she says wisely.

I made the mistake of telling her about my headache earlier today, and she offered me one too many turmeric chili remedies.

I finally had to announce it had gone away on its own, even though it hadn’t. My body and spicy food do not mix.

“Thank you,” I say, grabbing my bag from behind the counter. She waves off my thanks and goes back to her task.

I make sure to put on my darkest pair of sunglasses and push my way out onto the bright street. Despite the near-black tint of the lenses, the sun still needles my retinas. I wince and hope that the ibuprofen I took earlier kicks in soon.

The street is nearly empty, which isn’t surprising for a Monday morning, so I’m able to get to The Cracked Spine in just a few minutes.

The used bookstore is my first stop because Carlos, the owner, offered to donate a special book to the auction.

He wouldn’t tell me much other than that it’s a handwritten grimoire someone found in a local basement.

I open the door to his shop and am immediately overwhelmed with the smell of old books and furniture polish.

Carlos likes the books to speak for themselves, so any decor is kept to a minimum.

The store is a veritable labyrinth of bookshelves, stretching further back than you can see.

His checkout desk sits at the front, with paths leading into the shelves veering off every which way.

I’m sure it’s a fire hazard; but hey, death by book is a great way to go in my opinion.

“Rae, hi!” Carlos greets me jovially from his desk. His round face and equally round glasses, coupled with his white, close-shaven beard, make him look like a Latin American Santa Claus. He has the demeanor to match, so I always enjoy talking with him.

“Hey, Carlos. How are the grandkids?” I ask. His only daughter, Marisol, moved to New York around seven years ago with her husband to pursue the “big city nonsense,” as Carlos likes to call it.

“Good, good. Maritza just won an award with her dance group, and Luis and Miguel are doing well in Kindergarten so far.” Luis and Miguel are the surprise twins that Marisol and her husband had just a year after moving to New York. To say that their lives have been busy is an understatement.

“I’m glad to hear that everyone is doing well. So, can I see this book?” I ask eagerly. I love a good grimoire.

“Yes, yes. Follow me,” Carlos says before rounding the desk and locking the front door. He flips the sign to “Closed,” and then gestures for me to follow him deeper into the store.

We weave our way through the narrow aisles, the books looking almost like rows of teeth, as if we’re being digested by some great, literary beast. When we get to his stock room, he yanks the door open and ushers me inside, clicking the light on in passing.

A long wooden table takes up most of the real estate in the center of the room, and various books cover nearly the entire surface.

He turns to one of his floor-to-ceiling stocking shelves and reaches for a cardboard box. He brings it down, gently stacking a few other books and pushing them aside to make room on the table.

He carefully lifts out a book that’s about the size of one of the Mirriam Webster Dictionaries I remember from every classroom growing up.

But this book is no dictionary. The outside is made of a deep-mahogany, worn leather cover.

It was bound by hand, the yellowed parchment pages sewn together with a thick cord.

He hands it to me almost reverently, and I finger the symbol embossed on the front cover.

It looks to be some sort of family seal, but I don’t recognize it.

“May I?” I ask, fingers itching to flip open the cover.

“Of course,” he replies, stepping closer to my side so we can both look through it.

I flip the cover open, and the spine gives a tired creak like old bones weary to be moving again.

Leblanc Grimoire

The name greets me in a fine script that is difficult to decipher with my modern eyes.

“How did this find you, again?” I ask, gingerly flipping through the pages.

It describes everything in painstakingly small script, from local fauna and herbal remedies to the cycles of the moon and planets.

There are also several beautiful drawings and diagrams throughout.

“The Thompsons just moved into that gorgeous old home on the corner of Birch and Second Street. They found this under the floorboards in the basement when they did some remodeling. It was wrapped in linen and remarkably unharmed.”

“Wow,” I say, inspecting the page I’m on a little more closely. It’s detailing how to open the veil between our world and the spirit world using ash from sacred trees.

I wonder if it has anything else on spirits.

“I think it will be the perfect addition to your auction, don’t you? What better item for a mystical occult shop than a hundreds-of-years-old grimoire?” Carlos asks.

“I think it will be hard to top for sure. Thank you for donating it,” I say, closing the book gently.

“Of course! Grimoires aren’t typically what my customers are after, so I’m happy to part with it to help a fellow Main Streeter out. Me and the wife will be there on Saturday. She’s trying to talk me out of the silver sparkle bow tie, but I won’t let her. It looks fantastic.”

“I’m sure it does,” I say warmly, wrapping the book in an old t-shirt I brought solely for this purpose. I tuck the book in my bag more carefully than if I were handling a newborn. “I’ll see you and your fabulous bow tie there.”

“You go on, I have to check a few books for mites and add them to the system back here,” Carlos says, shooing me out of the stock room door. I wave to him in acknowledgment and make my way back through the claustrophobic stacks of books peering down on me from every angle.

I pull open the door to Brewed Awakening, greeted by cool air and the decadent smell of baked goods and coffee.

You’d think I’d be put off from coffee after yesterday, but I can’t resist its siren song.

And the owners of Brewed Awakening have agreed to donate a gift basket full of goodies, so we’re calling this a business meeting.

“Hey Rae,” Wren greets from behind the counter.

She’s in the middle of refilling the display case, tongs in one hand and a half-full tray of croissants in the other.

Her perma-scowl is even scowl-ier than usual.

I’m about to ask her what’s wrong when Julian, the owner’s son, swaggers out from the kitchen in back.

He went to culinary school, and now he makes pastries for Brewed in the morning before going to work at Lune Doux, a French restaurant in town .

Ah. That’s what’s wrong. The two of them are like oil and water, and he loves getting under her skin.