His thick arms were crossed over his chest, and he squinted a little against the sun as he watched Louie take me down to him. The slow descent felt embarrassingly dramatic, and I was thankful to be able to open the cherry-picker’s gate and get out onto solid ground.
“Would you like help?” he asked as I started unloading paint buckets into the flatbed of my hand-me-down truck.
“No, I have it.” I hitched Louie back up to the rear of my truck, wiped the grease off on my shorts, and paused to get a good look at the sign from below. It looked perfect. I took a quick picture of it and sent it off to my client so I wouldn’t have to bother her while the hotel’s bar was getting busy.
“Are you hungry? I’m new to the area … thought a local like you probably knows a good place to eat,” he offered. I laughed, surprised at how forward he was being.
“I have dinner plans.” It wasn’t a lie. I’d promised my grandma I’d take her out. Disappointment crossed his gem-like eyes for a brief moment before he pushed it away.
“Well, do you know any good breakfast places?” He wasn’t letting up.
I rolled my eyes and huffed out another laugh. He was lucky he was cute. Breakfast seemed safer than dinner, and I could get free coffee before starting work.
“What’s your name?”
He said something, and I frowned, unsure I’d heard correctly.
“Seth?” I double-checked.
“Simeth,” he repeated. Watching his lips as he said his name, I felt goosebumps prickle on my arms and neck. I wasn’t sure why I was getting such a strange reaction from this man I’d never seen before. If I was honest, he wasn’t even my type, I usually went for the more quiet, nerdy guys.
I nodded, unsure of what kind of name that was. Who was this man? He had an almost otherworldly appeal: some sort of powerful magnetism that made it hard for me to take my eyes off him.
I gave in. “There’s a place a couple blocks from here called Carla’s Bakery.” It was a safe and public place and I happen to know they made great waffles. “I’ll be there around eight if you’d like to ‘happen’ to be there as well.”
A smile spread across his lips, and it was blindingly cute on his otherwise masculine face.
“Where are you from?” I had to ask.
“A tiny town over by West Coven,” he answered. “Moved here to look into expanding the family business.”
“Oh, nice,” I nodded. My phone buzzed and I checked it. The full payment from my client had come through. Perfect timing. “I have to get going, but … see you in the morning?”
“Can’t wait,” he smiled.
I wasn’t sure what I’d just signed up for, but I hoped I hadn’t just agreed to meet up with a serial killer.
Driving through Ember Abyss while the sun was setting made the whole town look like it was ablaze. From the old orange oak tree at its center out to the last outward spirals of streets and houses, the whole town looked like an orange flame. My heart swelled a little at the sight of it.
I’d entertained the idea of leaving town before, moving further East, away from this town that was all shifters and no rest. I had something that locked me into town, though, and I couldn’t leave her behind.
“I’m home,” I murmured as I walked through the front door of our half of the duplex. Most of the lights inside were off, despite the sun setting, and the air had a slight tinge of burned butter.
“Can you turn off the oven for me? I got caught on th-”
My grandma paused to cough, really hacking and aching. I winced as I rushed to her side. That cough was so mild two years ago, but lately it had snowballed into something terrible.
Glancing at the TV, I wasn’t surprised at what she’d got sucked into.
“You need to stay away from these ghost shows, grandma, they’re scams,” I sighed. She let out a couple more coughs, and I started towards the kitchen, which bordered the living room. I could smell something was either burning or getting close to it.
“But she’s just trying to get in contact with her mother, a lion shifter who passed on,” grandma said quickly. I knew why those stories tugged at her heart especially, but that was why I needed her to stop watching them. They weren’t healthy for her.
I just wanted her to be happy.
“You don’t need to watch it to know they’re going to fake some vague stuff and just scam the lady—it’s all for the ratings,” I reminded her. “Remember those fakers from the ‘90s who admitted they couldn’t talk to the dead? Seers have their limits, y’know.”
“Come on, why can’t you just try to believe? It’s more fun that way.” She laughed self-deprecatingly as I pulled out a burned chicken pot pie. I coughed a little on the burned smell, and she covered her mouth and nose with a hand towel.
“You’re starting to sound like me with that cough,” she teased.
“I just don’t want to get duped into this kind of nonsense.” I loved her, but I didn’t want her falling for these tricks and forking out money to talk to her deceased husband or aliens that didn’t even exist.
She chided me with a smile before apologizing for the burned food. It was my turn to humor her, and I couldn’t help but be relieved I’d gotten home when I had. Grandma could have burned down the whole apartment if I hadn’t arrived.
She’d always been obsessed with the fantastical and strange, believing in secret societies and bizarre species. She raised me telling me all of these stories with such conviction I thought they were true. On more than one occasion, I’d found myself in trouble for repeating them in class, and I remember clearly being beaten up in second grade because I’d said selkies were real. A lot of kids had thought it hilarious.
I stopped taking Gran’s word as gospel after that.
Her mind was starting to slip now, though. I watched as she paused trying to remember which cabinet the cups were in, even though we’d rented that duplex for seven years, and found myself hoping she still remembered each and every tale she’d ever told me.