Page 2 of Cooking Up a Demon
“No lover.” He looks me over slowly with a toothy grin. A forked tongue comes out to sweep across his lower lip before blunt teeth bite into the flesh. “I could help you with that.”
“No.” I shake my head, sending my pink hair flopping everywhere in the loose, messy bun it’s tied up in. “No, thank you. I don’t have time for a lover. Unless you plan on picking up a broom I have no use for you. Be gone, demon.”
“As you wish.” The demon disappears from the kitchen in another billowing plume of smoke. I cough until it feels like my ribs are cracking. When I can finally open my eyes, the demon is gone.
“Well, that was weird.” I pull the window closed and grab a can of chicken noodle from the cupboard.
Chapter Two
Two
Ifeel marginally better the next morning as I make my way into town. My head is less stuffy, and I’m coughing up mucus, which makes me feel a lot less like I am drowning. It is disgusting, but I’ll take it.
After parking in the alley behind the bookstore, I head around the building to the bakery next door. The baker has an unfortunate skin condition that makes him look greenish, but he makes the best damn cinnamon rolls I’d ever tasted.
After securing my sugar rush for the morning, I let myself into the bookstore. Even pushing through the door is enough to cause my shoulders to droop. There is so much work to be done.
My Nonna left the family and moved to the PNW when I was a little girl. She and Dad had a huge falling out. I’ve only seen her a couple of times over the course of my life. It came as a huge surprise to learn she left me everything after she’d passed away in November.
Everything being an old cabin and a failing bookstore in a small town in mid-Oregon. While everyone said her death seemed sudden, she clearly hadn’t been doing well for a while.Both the house and the store are in need of deep cleaning and repairs that speak of long neglect, not only a few months of emptiness.
I’ve been focusing my attention on the cabin to make it livable, but I have to get the store up and running or I will go bankrupt before I even get going. I haven’t done more than stick my head inside to find the accounting books, because Nonna still did her accounting in a spiral bound notebook, for fuck’s sake.
I head straight to the checkout counter and set my things down. I take a fortifying drink of coffee, then grab my ipad from my bag. Time to take some notes and make a to-do list.
Pen poised in hand, I turn to inspect the damage. Except, it isn’t as bad as I remember. I hadn’t imagined the cobwebs hanging like a house of horrors or the solid inch of dust on the floor, but both are gone.
“What the fuck?” I say to the room at large. There is no answer. Of course there isn’t. The door was locked when I came in. There is no magical cleaning fairy.
Except, there is a demon I’d told to pick up a broom.
No. Nope. That is actually insane. Except, I can’t think of any other way the store magically cleaned itself. I really hope I didn’t accidentally sell my soul to a demon in exchange for sweeping up.
Three hours later, I am sitting on the floor surrounded by books. There is no rhyme or reason to Nonna’s ordering. There are books that have been on the shelves for years. The return window on them is long closed. I have no clue what to do with them.
I learned Nonna’s lawyer had taken care of all open invoices from the store funds. Rent and utilities are paid for another three months. I have three months to turn this chaos of a store into a functioning business.
And I have to turn it into a functioning business because I have nothing left. I quit my job and sold everything that hadn’t fit into my car. I drove for four days straight across the country. My parents told me I am insane. That I should have flown out, signed the paperwork, and sold everything.
There is something about the idea of a cottage and bookstore in Oregon that appeals to me. It isn’t like I really had anything going for me back in Florida. I’d been working a soul-sucking job answering phones for an insurance agent and living in a tiny apartment with two other people. My last girlfriend cheated on me with my boss. My married boss.
The chance to start over somewhere new felt like a life preserver after days of treading water in the ocean. When the lawyer contacted me with the details of Nonna’s estate, including a paid off house and a profitable bookstore, I jumped.
Except, being here and seeing the state of everything is a lot more work than I imagined. I have no clue how the store was profitable. It isn’t welcoming. It seems to carry a crazy array of books that don’t go together. And not a single person has knocked on the door since I arrived.
Almost as if my thoughts summoned them, there is a knock on the glass door. I nearly jump out of my skin and bump into a stack of books on aliens. The woman– girl? –on the other side ignores my less than graceful moment and offers a small, careless wave.
I manage to make it to my feet without knocking everything over and step over my fairy ring of books to get to the door.
“Hi, hello, sorry, we’re not open.” The words come out in manic pants.
“Oh,” The woman is younger than me by a few years, but she isn’t the teenager I first assumed. She offers me a wan smile and takes a step back. “Sorry. Do you know when you’ll be open again? I really need a book.”
I almost laugh, but manage to catch the semi-panicked sound before it escapes. I don’t even know where to begin sorting out the chaos of the store. Legally, I am able to operate again. I’ve gotten my business paperwork in order, so there is nothing stopping me from letting her in. Nothing except the store is absolute chaos.
“I doubt you’ll be able to find anything, but come on in.” I step back and hold the door open for her.
“Oh, wow, did a bomb go off?” She takes careful steps into the store and manages to avoid knocking over a pile of books I forgot about behind the door.
