Re: [Antique store: Atticus and Louis]
Louis found a charm in Atticus' short sentences and intelligence. The scent of old cigarettes didn't enhance that likeable quality, but neither did it entirely diminish it for him. It had never been said he had the best taste. He saw the red flags, as it had been said before, waving beautifully in the wind, and accepted them with peaceful awe. "Very," he said, with a smile. "And I will take that as a compliment."
Louis absorbed the details and cast an eye over the case under Atticus' elbow. It contained jewelry, mostly, as well as other small valuables - an extremely fine unset cameo, a tiny devotional book, a finely worked teapot the size of a thumbnail, a mysterious blue stone cushioned on a velvet swatch. "No Poe artifacts here, I'm afraid, but that doesn't mean they aren't in the store. Come," he said moving away from the counter, toward the stacked piles of goodies at the back. "This place has a way of surfacing things for people when they need them most."
He had such a strange life. In the real world, outside Repose, outside this store, an artifact of Edgar Allan Poe's obsession would not only be worth untold millions, it would be the academic find of the decade for literary enthusiasts. Yet he didn't doubt that it might very well be hidden in the depths of the store's library of oddities, and that if anyone but Atticus looked, they would never, ever find it.
He opened an ebony cabinet which sat on a fine oak table. It was chinoiserie to the max. "Take a look," he said, gesturing to the neatly arranged items, mostly small baubles, on the shelves inside. "Is this all you came for?" he asked. "Edgar Allan Poe?" It was dry, a little teasing, quite fond. Surely not.