Page 45 of The Messengers of Magic

Chapter Thirty-Two

I n the days that followed, Pen found himself standing by the window with Frankie at his side, watching, waiting, willing the mysterious woman he’d seen with Carolyn to reappear.

He was certain she’d looked straight up at him the other day as she and Carolyn left the bakery. Not just a glance, eye contact. But how could she have? No one had seen him since the day time stopped.

The moment had nested in his mind ever since. Maybe it meant something. Maybe she was different. Maybe she could be his new chance at escape.

Trying to keep the dangerous thread of hope from unraveling, he busied himself in the kitchen. Tugging open the fridge, he found the same few items as always. He pulled out the eggs and cracked one into the old cast-iron pan. Frankie yawned, then padded over to sit at his feet.

“I know, bud. Same old breakfast,” he said, poking at the egg with a spatula. He’d taken to cooking even when he wasn’t hungry. Just to fill the air with movement, smell, something real. He salted the egg, turned toward the kettle.

That’s when he heard it.

The sound of the apartment’s doorknob being turned.

Another rattle. The doorknob twisted again.

He moved quietly across the room, Frankie beside him, tail low and twitching. With breath held tight, he flicked the lock and slowly opened the door.

There, standing in the shadows on the stairs, was the outline of a woman.

He stepped back instinctively, half-hidden in the gloom. However, Frankie darted forward, slipping through the gap between Pen’s legs, and bolted past the figure. There was a short gasp, followed by a short scream, unmistakably the sound of a woman.

She had seen Frankie. The fox was real to her. That meant the barrier wasn’t absolute; there was still a way through. The woman stepped forward, and the light caught her face. It was her. The woman who followed the moth. The woman from the street. Peering into the half-lit room.

Pen held utterly still, unsure if she was seeing him or simply sensing something. Her gaze swept past him without landing, and his brief hope stuttered. She hadn’t seen him.

She crossed the room, examining the bookshelves, pausing at the window. Pen drifted behind her, captivated. Up close, she was stunning, with that rare, natural beauty few possessed, entirely unaware of the storm her presence had stirred in him.

She turned abruptly, almost as if she had sensed him nearby. Her eyes met the space beside his face. But then she moved on, continuing her quiet exploration.

After taking a final look around, she left the apartment and headed downstairs into the shop. Pen couldn’t help but follow.

Downstairs, she wandered the shop floor, notepad in hand, occasionally scribbling notes. Pen trailed behind her. When she finished, she set her notes aside, shrugged into her jacket, and left. But she glanced back, right as Pen stepped behind the Romance section.

Hope, fierce and unrelenting, surged through him.

He didn’t sleep that night. He paced the shop. What if she doesn’t come back? What if I blink and six months have passed?

Before dawn, Pen was back downstairs, pacing, muttering, eyes flickering to the door every few minutes.

And then she returned. This time with a bucket filled with gardening supplies and a determined look on her face.

He watched through the window as she trimmed the ivy away and cut back overgrown hedges.

He hadn’t noticed how worn and neglected the bookshop’s exterior had become.

The place, like everything outside the time loop, had aged.

All his hard work from before, the paint, the polish, the careful curation, erased.

Time had pulled at the edges like a loose thread, unraveling all he’d done until the shop looked untouched again.

Later, Dottie and Iain crossed the street to join her, arms full of treats and their usual bright smiles.

Pen leaned closer to the window, straining to hear.

Their voices were muffled, broken by laughter, but he caught her name, Adelaide, and that she was Carolyn’s great-niece who’d bought the bookshop.

Pen straightened. This was it. This was his chance. They say the third time’s a charm. But this time, he’d have to be careful. No more floating books. No more messages in objects.

He scanned the counter. A handful of paint sample cards lay piled up.

He studied the colors she’d set aside, and an idea began to form.

He reached for the letter opener and used it to lift the navy strip and place it atop the stack of samples, leaving his preferred choice, the emerald green, separate on the counter.

Then, he waited.

Adelaide entered the shop only moments later and made her way to the counter. Her brow furrowed. She looked at the single green paint strip, then at the stack. Pen sagged against the bookshelves.

It had worked. He’d managed to move something that wasn’t directly tied to the day he’d disappeared. Granted, he’d used an item from that day to do it, but it was progress. This small success opened up a world of possibilities.

But before he could revel in his victory, she picked up the green paint strip, cast another puzzled look around, and left.

“Damn it,” he mumbled. “Too much?”

That night, Pen paced again. Every idea he came up with to reach her felt like a dead end. Too cryptic, too eerie, too likely to send her running. He found himself in the hidden room, slouched in the captain’s chair.

He ran his fingers over the Underwood typewriter keys as he stared off into space.

Then suddenly the familiar sound of chimes broke his trance. Pen sat upright. Not the chimes of the front door.

They rang again. The unmistakable chime of the Astral Synchronum. The first time he’d heard them in what must have been years. Pen jumped to his feet, ready to race upstairs, but his shirt sleeve snagged on the Underwood’s edge. He stopped to free it, and in that instant, realization struck.

The typewriter. He’d fiddled with it that day. Now this might work.

The chiming had stopped by the time he’d freed himself from the typewriter’s grip, and instead of heading upstairs, he slid a sheet of paper in place, sat back down, and stared at the keys.

What could he say? What wouldn’t scare her?

After several false starts and crumpled pages, he settled on something simple. A few quick taps and he was done.

He pulled the page free, folded it, and, with a silent prayer, walked upstairs. There, he slipped it into the letterbox next to the front door, half poking out, impossible to miss. Then he stepped back, heart hammering, and waited.