Page 9 of Stalked By Shadows

“Feel free to borrow any books you want to read,” Micah said as he added a few more to the stack beside the one I was looking at. “I do have copies of almost all of them in back that I keep for lending. Sometimes they get damaged, sometimes they never come back.”

“I’ve never heard of this before,” I said to him, holding up the book. “411 mysteries…”

“Wildlife parks are beautiful and dangerous places.” Micah gave me a tight smile. “Interesting reading, right?” He walked away, and I wondered what that meant. I flipped through another of the books, this one was categorized by names of the missing. Stories of the lost. Most of them actually were categorized that way. It was the fourth book contents page that I was rustling through that I found midway down the page, “Micah Richards.”

I blinked at it for a moment, thinking I had to be seeing things. Only when I turned to the section, there before me was a picture of a “Have You Seen Me” poster with a photograph of a younger looking Micah on it. It had been dated over two years ago. Shit. Was that the thing that had changed his course? Was it polite to ask? I put the book down and returned to stocking, trying not to think too hard as endless questions cropped up in my brain.

A thousand horrors ran through my head of what might have happened to him lost in the wilderness. He looked healthy enough now. No external scars I could see. But I knew better than most that not all scars could be seen with our eyes, and the ones crisscrossing our souls were often the deepest of wounds.

There was a rush of customers sweeping through after five, and I stood beside Micah at the register while he explained how the system worked. It was actually an easy custom application. Items were scannable with a little QR code that Micah had been ticketing items with as he unpacked them. There was even a section for the tours, which was a little more complicated than a scan and pay system. Names had to be entered, IDs checked, and electronic passes issued via email. People were actually pretty friendly, and more than a handful bought art, despite the high price tags. I packed things up while Micah chatted. Sky came and went with customers, disappearing into the little back room for a while before both emerged again, sometimes the expressions were glowing, other times grim.

By quarter to six all the boxes were put away, including a new handful of books in the locked cabinet, of which only Micah had the key. The foot traffic had died down and Sky was at the register.

“Take a break,” Micah told me. “There’s food down the street if you’re hungry, or feel free to park your butt in one of the chairs in the back. I’ve got to run two blocks over to pick up some books I won in an estate auction.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” It wasn’t dark yet, and the streets seemed bustling.

“I’m good. Take a break. Sky will handle the register. If she gets backed up try to help out. I should be back in thirty minutes.”

I nodded and headed to the backroom and the large reclining chair stuffed in the corner. A break from people was nice, even if I hadn’t been forced to socialize much. The bookcase beside the chair was stuffed with copies of titles from the shop, including the book with Micah’s story in it. I grabbed that one and flipped it to the section on his disappearance. He wouldn’t have it in the store if he didn’t want people to know, right?

I settled in to read. It started off with a story of a hiking trip with his boyfriend. The retelling made it sound like they had been very much in love, and while his boyfriend, Timothy, had been an experienced hiker, he was also ten years Micah’s senior, and Micah had never been camping before. They’d only been out a day when Micah vanished without a trace in a public area with very clearly marked hiking trails.

Timothy claimed to have only turned his back for a few minutes. The small group of friends they’d been with had spread out over the area very quickly to search. And when that yielded nothing, authorities were called. Apparently, it had been a rather sizable manhunt, search and rescue there within hours with helicopters and bloodhounds. They found nothing. No footprints or discarded clothing. No sign of a struggle, and the police dogs couldn’t find Micah’s scent.

The police treated Timothy like a murder suspect, searching his bank records, home, car, and interviewing everyone who had known them. The media vilified him, even airing details about their videos despite the fact that neither man had ever shown their face in any of them. Ostensibly, Timothy had been very careful to protect both of them from the public, but the media had disregarded all of that for the sake of sensational news.

The whole case sounded horrifying, suspicious, and plain weird. Seven people had gone on that trip including Timothy and Micah. All of them had been hiking that day. All of them remembered that Micah was near the back of the group with Timothy, as they all attested to seeing his bright blue jacket many times when they looked back. The trail had been a wide hike up, no cliffs, ridges, rivers or lakes, for some distance, just trees and boulders. Then Micah was gone.

Missing for over three months, presumed dead, until he showed up across the country with no memory of where he’d been, in the same clothes, missing his shoes and phone. The phone was never found, signal having died months earlier in an entirely different state. Fuck.

I’d gotten to the interview section of the report when I heard Sky’s voice raised in the front, and jumped out of my chair like my hair was on fire. It was a tone of distress, and even though I couldn’t make out the words, I still rushed to her aid.

Okay, so maybe I did have a hero complex.

There were three normal looking people at the counter, two women and one man, all as white bread as could be. They looked almost like missionaries or something. One of the women clutched a clipboard. “Trade with Mark,” one of the women said. “It’s not that big of a deal. I’m sure Micah won’t mind.”

“I’m not Micah. I don’t make those decisions for him. And Thursday nights have always been his graveyard night. People reserve spots months ahead of time,” Sky defended. “He’s booked solid for tonight.”

“I can take over his group for tonight,” the man said. He was a middle-aged man with glasses and faded brown hair, unremarkable. “He can even keep the registration payments.”

I stepped up to Sky’s side and for a few seconds the group ignored me, but I cleared my throat and using my no-nonsense military voice said, “Can I help you with something?”

Three pairs of eyes snapped to attention, all having to look up to meet my gaze. “Not at all, sir. We’re working on scheduling. This young man is being difficult.” The improper pronoun was an intended insult, I could tell from the expression on her face. She looked like she’d come from a renaissance faire with her long blonde hair flowing over her shoulders and a floor-length dress in a white cotton with eyelets running down the skirt. The third woman was more ordinary in jeans and a T-shirt, but also appeared several years, or maybe even a good decade younger, than the other two.

“Skylar doesn’t handle Micah’s tour scheduling.Shecan help you buy something if you’d like, but you’ll have to take scheduling up with Micah,” I affirmed, taking Skylar’s stance and putting more emphasis on the correct pronoun. I gave her a kind smile. “I’ll handle the register now, if you’d like.”

Sky glanced my way once and then took the opportunity to vanish into the backroom. The three continued to stare at me, like they were confused. “Do you need something else? To schedule your own tour led by Micah? Perhaps I can interest you in handcrafted metal jazz musicians? Or a deal on T-shirts? We also have a great selection of sex toys in the back.” The three grumbled something between themselves I couldn’t quite hear. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” the man said. “We will speak with Micah later.” They left after throwing me some nasty glances. I waited until they were out of sight to check the backroom. Sky was wiping her eyes, makeup a little smeared from crying.

“You okay?” I asked her.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said waving her free hand and dabbing her face. “It’s not a big deal. I haven’t been… me… very long.”

Ah, I understood. “You’ve been you all along. The world has only been acknowledging you correctly for a short period of time, right?”

She nodded.