“Are you kidding me?” Kelly Desmond exclaimed, staring in horror at the storefront for the only bookstore in her small town. They were closing. Everything was 50% off. Nobody here bought books. Nobody sought knowledge. And now, she was never going to be able to get her hands on any true literature without driving into the city.
She wished she lived anywhere but here. Elmville was the kind of place where anybody with a good, solid head on their shoulders escaped as soon as possible. Kelly had been born somewhere in the Midwest, but had been brought here by her adoptive parents. The place felt like a tar-pit. Anybody who was creative, talented, or artistic got out of here as soon as they could. It was not the kind of place for an independent thinker. And if there was anything Kelly Desmond was, it was independent.
A surge of exasperation overwhelmed Kelly as she headed home. Her adoptive parents were sure to be getting worried about her by now. They were not the biggest fans of her free-thinking mind and adventurous spirit. They liked everything to be planned out and organized, with no room for error or variable.
Even though she was in her twenties now, they still had a tendency to hover. She was always trying to fight for her independence. It was completely confining.
But she would never get out of her little town. Her parents had everything already plotted out for her. She wasn’t going to go to college. She was going to take over the successful family business. She wasn’t going to need to waste her time or their money when she was already so well-established, right?
But she wanted school. She wanted to learn. She longed to explore the world outside this suffocating little town. She had never known it was possible to hate a place so much, but she did. She hated Elmville and everything it represented to her. Close-mindedness. Discrimination. Sometimes, even cruelty.
This wasn’t a good place for anyone to live. Especially, if they actually cared about the kind of things they would accomplish in the world. Kelly wanted to do something amazing. She wanted to see the world and meet bear shifters and wolf shifters. The kinds of people her stupid little town made feel unwelcome. She would never find a place here. Or someone to love, who would love her for who she was. Nothing had ever worked out for her here, and there weren’t the kinds of people she would even want it to work out with. Nobody understood her.
“You look lonely,” a strange voice said. Kelly looked up in surprise. Was she that readable?
Kelly’s heart thudded dully in her chest. What was going on? Who was this person? When she finally laid eyes on the person speaking, she found herself looking directly at a tall, gaunt man. He had the unmistakable feel of a shifter; that strange aura of magic and mystery that humans in this town always lacked.
“Who are you?” she asked, avoiding his question.
“I just set up a business in town here. It seems an ideal place. Would you like to come inside?” The man gestured toward the storefront and Kelly gazed at it, a tugging of fear in her chest.
“What kind of business?” Kelly asked. It was a small shop, dimly lit inside. There were no signs on the door or the front to indicate it was a shop at all. In fact, it looked more like an abandoned building. The man smiled.
“The most lucrative kind of business. I sense a need, and I fill it. And there are many needs in this little town. Such as the need for love. I can help you place an ad that will help you find your true love. Or, at the very least, a place where you can be happy.”
Kelly frowned. “How could you do something like that? That’s ridiculous.”
“It is a primal form of magic, but it is one that is very effective. Do you want to try it out or not?”
The man gazed at her knowingly, as if he had been able to sense her strife from miles away. She looked at him, trying to determine whether or not he was trustworthy. When she gazed into his eyes, she realized she did trust him. Even though it was ridiculous, and probably, very stupid.
“What kind of ad are you talking about? Do you work for the newspaper?”
“Kind of,” the man said, his lips curling into a small smile. “Are you interested? We can go inside and discuss it.”
Kelly knew she should probably be getting back to her parents’ house. She knew they would worry. And that she was supposed to have a small training session that night after dinner for when she finally took over the family business. The thought drove her forward, toward the door of the stranger’s shop. “All right,” she said with a small sigh.
When they got inside, the shop smelled vaguely of incense and sweet grass, and she looked around at the items she found there. There were shelves of magazines, and some small particles randomly scattered on tables with big price tags on them.
She walked to the register, where the man was standing, shuffling around for a piece of paper.
“You’re going to have to allow me to take your photo. And you can write down whatever it is that you wish on this paper. I will format it into the ad and it will go out tomorrow.”
Kelly stared at the paper for a few moments, bewildered and dumbfounded by the whole situation. She then pulled it toward her, taking the pen the man was offering, and considering what she might want to say very thoughtfully. When she finally had it figured out, she wrote it down and then push the paper toward the man. He took out a Polaroid camera and looked at her seriously. “Smile.”
Kelly did, and the flash blared in front of her eyes. She blinked hard, still seeing spots of light in front of her face, and the man smiled. “This is perfect. It captures your essence.”
Kelly stared at him for a moment, slightly uncomfortable by the words.
“I will let you know if there is any interest in your ad. I assume you do not want to be contacted directly. Come in and check with me in about a week, and I am fairly certain there will have been some interest by then.”
Kelly nodded, unable to speak. The whole situation was just too strange.
But the man didn’t seem to expect her to speak and simply smiled, ushering her toward the door of the shop.
“You are a very lovely young woman,” he said, with a smile. “I am sure you will find what you are looking for.”
Kelly walked away from the shop in a daze, halfway wondering if the whole thing had just been a very strange daydream. When she glanced back, the man was still standing there with his serene smile, and she continued on her way home and tried to push the thought of the man in the shop, and the possibility for new life, out of her head. It couldn’t really be possible. She was just being idealistic. She couldn’t believe in something as silly as this type of magic. No shifters in their right mind would come to Elmville.
And yet, she couldn’t help but hope for the best and feel a strange tugging of optimism surge through her body. She had done something. She was putting herself out into the world. Even if it was just her picture.