And then, p.5
And Then, page 5
She flicked through her emails, scanning over them and responding to any that needed her attention. After the second cup of coffee, she glanced at her phone. 7:30—an hour until opening. Patrick’s shift started at 9, meaning he would get there sometime between 9:15 and 9:40. Sighing, she picked up her mug, stretched, and walked out of the office, wanting to go through the library to see if there were any other issues.
The library was massive; it was so vast that it was impossible to believe that it was privately owned. The Mitchell Library had been a passion project of Luci’s grandmother, Annabelle Mitchell. The woman had used a portion of her very sizable inheritance to build the library and fill it with as many books as possible. It had thrived and nowadays was considered one of the best libraries in the area.
It was a two-story building with a basement. The first floor housed mostly non-fiction and audiobooks, along with several meeting rooms and study nooks. The second floor wrapped around the interior of the building, giving the main annex of the library a large, open feel, and made it possible to look up at people on the floor above. The second floor had all the fiction and children’s books. The kid’s section also had a small collection of toys and puppets and an area dedicated to storytime. Honestly, Luci loved it all, even when there were issues with the building.
She took another deep swig of coffee. Caffeine really did make everything better.
She began to move across the entryway to begin her morning chores: check the overnight deposit box and check in those books; load up the cart and return all the books Alva hadn’t gotten to last night to their proper location; check the pipes in the basement to make sure they were still okay; and check for and fix any unforeseen problems that might have happened during the night.
‘Luci come come Luci’
She blinked. She had almost forgotten about Simon. Now that she was awake, she realized his behavior this morning had been a bit strange. Normally when she let him out, he would do an entire circle of both floors of the library. He knew enough not to come and say hi until she had a cup of coffee in her hand. But this morning he hadn’t cared at all. The only other time she had seen him behave like that was the day after her grandmother had died. Despite being a parrot, he had known something was off when it was Luci, not Annabelle, who had come to take care of him that morning.
An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of her stomach, making it squirm uncomfortably.
“Simon?” she asked. “What’s up?”
‘Bad thing, come come’
Bad thing? The squirming in her stomach intensified and something began crawling up her back. What did that mean?
His voice was faint, as though it were coming from the upper floor. Slowly, hesitantly, Luci walked up the steps, one hand running up the railing. When she reached the top landing, she paused and scanned the area for signs of Simon. It took her a moment, but then she saw it—a flash of grey with red tail feathers swooping intently over a single row in the mystery section.
She walked over hurriedly, wondering if she was going to find a broken window, or that someone had thrown all the books on the ground, or maybe someone had gotten sick yesterday after she left and Alva hadn’t bothered cleaning it up.
But when she rounded the corner and finally got a look between the shelves, she saw it was none of those things.
It was much, much worse.
The woman was staring up at the ceiling with sightless eyes, her body splayed. Her face was caked in make-up in a way that seemed almost intentional, instead of an amateur hand putting on too much. Her platinum-blond hair was in disarray as it fanned out all over the floor. Her dress was old-fashioned, covered in silver spangles, reminiscent of a flapper girl’s. Purple bruises circled the woman’s neck like a choker.
‘Bad bad, Luci look’
Simon had fluttered down to perch on her shoulder, speaking directly in her ear. She barely felt or heard him, too absorbed in the image in front of her. She was frozen, rooted to the spot in shock, her mind unable to process what was in front of her.
Finally, a single thought seemed to get through: That is a dead body. It was enough to shatter her paralysis.
Her cup fell to the ground, shattering and sending coffee everywhere as she screamed.
~~~
Find out what happens next! Continue Reading AND THEN There Were Feathers – on Amazon.
Peyton Stone, And Then
