It had been a busy day at the bookshop; lately they had been getting quite a lot of traffic because of something someone said on TikTok (mystery bookshop owner’s deaths) and what with Halloween around the corner ….
“I say we go with it,” Sheila had said raising an arched brow at the sudden addition of shoppers that walked through the shop’s antique double doors all with hiking backpacks
And this was the sort of town where strange stories are glorified
So Sheila picked one store window and Faun another and they decorated gruesomely using horror fiction books the store conveniently always carried. H. P. Loveceaft, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelly, Bram Stoker ….but they might have got carried away with the extra special effects to bring the books to life
“Surprise! Fake blood!” Sheila pulled out of her giant handbag
So the bookstore was busy and so was the street with curious onlookers hanging around.
“We really have caused a commotion,” Sheila remarked, looking natural and beautiful as a trans Elvira as she peered out the shop window, “look— they’re taking a group selfie in front of the store with two of them faking they’re dead!”
“Oh that recent news story,” Faun rolled her eyes and felt fed up about it, “they just want to sensationalize to get views and will stoop at making up stories ….”
Sheila turned from the window knowing this was a touchy subject. What with Grant …. and suspicions surrounding him
****
And it was later back st her place— the Victorian lavender grey house with the now slightly less overgrown front garden and her place behind it —when she thought she heard someone at the door. It was the middle of the night and she was in bed having a disturbing dream. A knock.
Or was it in her dream?
And heading down the stairs she went through to the kitchen to look out the kitchen door window. But no. No one there.
Yet she heard it again. A knocking.
But it was coming from upstairs she now realized. Faun went back up the stairs back to her bedroom and now heard it again.
She smiled. Sat on the edge of the bed and knocked back.
She heard through the wall,
“are you awake?”
“Well now I am!” she said back through the wall
And for whatever reason her phone alerted a message as a text came from Grant:
<<come over>>
<<Im half asleep>> she replied
<<bring your own pillow>>
***
he didn’t bother to put the light on but he did move over on his bed for her
“Took you long enough,” he said but he opened his blanket to let her under and into the warmth of his bed cave
“How long have you been back?” Faun asked but then forgot the question because whatever she’d arrived in was adeptly removed and tossed onto the floor and at the same time his mouth everywhere, demanding, kissing her
And not a whoof out of King Leopold
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