Guide The sneering glance and haughtily raised eyebrows flashed her way through the plate glass window, but Emmeline only smiled in return at the passing car that had slowed as it went by. Once she would have feared it a silent indictment of her shop, her way, her life… now she had grown accustomed to the glances, knowing that at the end of the day, the only real animosity that drifted her way came from still being seen as an outsider. Years in the desert town, and Emmy was still a stranger. But that was alright.
The world was a very different place for Emmy now, and that too was okay. She had changed with it, learned to adjust. Her shop was a lighthouse in the desert; some came to her for guidance, others for help, and still others to glare and proclaim her ‘one of them’. Still, Emmy didn’t mind. It was part of her now, as much as the polished hardwood flooring and delicately crafted shelves and counters at Unseen Insight had become her home.
The bells above the shop door let loose their quiet jingle as the door opened and blinded her with the afternoon sun, and for the briefest moment, Emmy was transported. In her mind’s eye, she saw a lean blonde Slayer with a wry smile, her first friend in Searchlight. A Watcher with a careworn face. The werewolf he had shot, arriving for his monthly supply of Valerian root. Another Slayer, a bright and bubbly girl who never learned to hold her liquor. The smiling handyman that had loved her, with his perpetual tan, littering sawdust about the floor. A brooding, booted artist of a Slayer, frowning as she stepped inside. All these faces flashed to Emmy’s mind, each carrying with it a million happy memories tainted with the quiet sadness of loss.
As the door closed and the brightness of the day dissipated, Emmy saw only what was really there: her ornery assistant, returned from taking his little dog on her afternoon walk. The time hadn’t touched Liam’s face at all, though it was beginning to show on Gus. The once caramel colored puppy’s fur was growing lighter in recent days and she had begun to slow down, and though she was nowhere near as old as she should have been, the sudden change had been startling.
“Hello Liam,” Emmy called politely, and he simply nodded in return. As he and his dog walked towards their storeroom home, the demon slipped quietly from his snaggle-toothed human face to his diminutive demonic form, the little dog paying the transition no mind as they went.
Returning to task, Emmy squinted once again at the new inventory book open in front of her. The pencil marks looked smudged again; she knew better than to think it was carelessness on her own part, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Taught to read at such a young age, her nose perpetually stuck in a book… it was only a matter of time before she would need glasses. It was something she had been putting off for some time, though it seemed it could not be held off much longer.
“Melanie,” she called into the afternoon quiet. “Melanie, come out here for a moment, would you?”
The pre-teen girl bounced into the main storefront from Emmeline’s office, her braided hair jingling with the weight of pink and silver plastic beads. Her rounded mocha-skinned face still bore a glimmer of childhood, till her cheerful expression and slim figure whispered of early adulthood.
“Sure, Em! What’s uhh... oh, sorry Emmy,” Melanie said, the handle of the office door breaking free in her hand as she pushed it open. “I’m sorry. I’m still getting used to all this.”
Emmy laughed softy. “Oh, that’s alright. No trouble, Melanie. I do believe this store could withstand a hurricane if it came down to it. I’ve broken more here than you’d imagine... even the plate glass in the front window.”
A sweet chortling laugh erupted from Melanie’s lips, and she clamped a hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle the giggles. “Omigod I could totally see you doing that!” she squealed.
“Can you take over this inventory sheet for me? I’m getting a bit worn around the edges with this, I’d rather not stare at the paper for another hour,” Emmy said, a smile ghosting her lips at the girl’s laughter. It had been some time since such cheerful abandon had made itself known in her shop; in truth, the young Slayer reminded her all too well of a good friend who wore the same sort of girlish smile well into her twenties.
Melanie nodded, discarding the broken doorknob on the countertop and hopping easily onto a wooden stool perched behind the counter, reaching to slide the open inventory book and pile of receipts that Emmy had been working with in front of herself on the countertop. She worked studiously for a long moment, the shopkeeper silently watching her as she did. Finally, Emmy spoke up.
“Your Aunt Janine called me this morning,” she said quietly, all too aware of the sudden stiffness in Melanie’s posture as the name of her mother’s sister was spoken. Emmy paused, then continued. “She’s gone back to Baltimore. She was very happy to hear, though, how well you’ve been doing, with your schooling and all.”
Melanie gave her a weak smile. “You’re a good teacher, Emmy.”
Emmy sighed, unsure of quite how to break the news. “Melanie, your Aunt Janine... she... oh, Melanie, she loves you so much and she was so glad to hear you were doing so well, she thought... she thought perhaps you’d do well to stay here, with us... on a more permanent basis. If you’d want, of course. It’s up to you.”
The girl was out of her seat in a flash, ready to throw her arms around the shopkeeper; when Emmy’s hand rose in front of herself in warning, Melanie remembered her strength and put on the brakes in time to stop a near-crushing incident. She was grinning wildly.
“I can stay? I can really stay! Of course I want to, Emmy!”
Emmy smiled in return, embracing the girl. Fate might have offered her a twisted road to follow, but in the end she had found her calling. She had her shop, and the tiny family she had made for herself. And now, she had a Slayer to guide.