Glimpse
The Complete Trilogy
Sara Jamieson
Copyright 2013 Sara Jamieson
Volume One
~~~~~~~~
It began with whispers from the west. They told of a mysterious, unnamed darkness that was appearing in far off places beyond the outer reaches of the kingdom. The stories were shared by travelers and repeated by fires, but the people did not dwell upon them. Why should they give them thought? Why should they be concerned? Such things were far removed from their lives of day to day and surely would never touch them. And so, the darkness continued to spread unchallenged. Connor Ridley, Shadows Fall
By Wednesday at 4:05, Kyle was so nerve wracked that his hands were shaking. Since the after school rush, such as it was, cleared out by four, there was no one around to notice or comment on his condition – that did not, however, make him feel much better about the fact that it was happening. He shouldn’t have anything to be nervous about. All he needed to do was make polite conversation with a girl – just enough that she wouldn’t be opposed to talking to him again. He could do that.
He wasn’t sure what was going on exactly -- just the fact that someone in this girl’s family was interested in his sister’s workplace. Then again, he’d never been around Connor Ridley very much, but, in his limited experience, he could tell that something had the man rattled. Connor didn’t seem like the kind of guy to be easily rattled. They hadn’t really told him what was going on, and he had been okay with that at the time. It was catching up with him now though and making him feel rattled right along with his sister’s boss. Something about this felt bigger than what they were letting on, but it was ridiculous for him to be thinking things like that. It was obviously business related. Connor probably just wanted a closer look at someone his family was doing business with; there was nothing wrong with wanting to know what kind of people you were associating your family name with – Connor was big on that. Why, then, did he feel like he was standing on the edge of something completely huge that he was going to completely screw up?
He needed to breathe. He was falling into that trap that Anna always lectured him about – getting carried away and imagining things that weren’t there. This wasn’t a big deal. He was just going to talk to a girl. He was going to talk to said girl in the context of doing his job. What could possibly go wrong?
He almost slapped himself upside the head as the thought passed through his mind. That was a surefire way to jinx the whole thing. It was probably a bad sign that the thought appeared right as the door to the shop swung open. It was 4:15 on the dot. It was almost unnerving. The same man that had always accompanied her took up his usual position on the sidewalk -- subtlety was clearly not one of the services provided by her security detail. The red head walked to her normal rack and plucked up a copy before moving to her second stop and flipping through a few options. She had offered a small smile as she first walked in and then proceeded to ignore his presence. That made it a normal day. As he had told Connor, he knew her habits. Some people might construe that as creepy, but, as he had explained to Connor, it was perfectly reasonable.
“She comes into the shop every week – Wednesday at precisely 4:15,” he had shared. “She looks over the collector items, has a couple of manga she follows off and on, but she always, without fail, picks up the new edition of Shadows Fall. I bet she would be thrilled to meet you. How much more of an in do you need?”
“Hold up a minute,” Connor had held up his hand as if it was a stop sign. “Why do you know all this?”
“Seriously?” He had asked him. “You’re seriously asking that question?” He had gestured toward the girl who remained featured in still capture on the computer screen. “A cute girl who is a regular customer at the comic book store, and you’re questioning the fact that I noticed the details?”
Kyle turned his attention back to the present. The girl in her plaid uniform skirt shifted to the collector item wall and began scanning all the items offered. He realized that his mission for the day was not to let things go in their standard pattern but to actually break the pattern and exchange words beyond pleasantries. He just needed something to get things started. Once he broke the ice, he was sure he could keep a conversation going. He could ask her what she was looking for (that would be helpful), he could comment on the weather (that would be totally inane), or he could completely miss his opportunity by wondering what he could say instead of actually saying anything until she was finished looking and had brought her comic up to the counter (and we have a winner). He was out of time. She placed her money in front of him as he slipped her new edition into a bag. He had to come up with something.
“So, Shadows Fall, huh?” He had to make an actual effort to prevent himself from rolling his eyes at the words. That’s really the best that he could come up with in terms of opening lines? He was deeply disappointed with himself.
“Yeah,” she drawled the word slowly as if she was uncertain of where he was going with his comment. That made sense; he didn’t know where he was going with his comment either.
“Ridley is from here, you know?” He tried. It was the best conversation starter he apparently had (he was so pathetic); he had to go with it.
“I’m aware,” she looked at him expectantly.
“Oh, here,” he said placing her change in her hand after he realized why she was looking at him expectantly. It certainly wasn’t because she was waiting to be dazzled by his stunning wit.
“Is that what got you started?” He didn’t have any option but to keep trying no matter how epically he was failing. Starting up a conversation with a cute girl in his shop was harder than it seemed it should be. Maybe this was why he had never tried it before. “The local connection?” Yes, because every comic book fan obsessively researched the creator before deciding whether or not they were going to read something. He was amazed that she hadn’t sprinted for the door yet.
“You aren’t usually this talkative,” she commented instead of doing the half expected sprinting. “Is this a special occasion?”
“No . . . yes . . . I mean, look,” he fumbled. “You’re in here every week. This place is always dead at this time. I just thought I would try making conversation.” He inwardly cringed at all the ways in which his attempts at talking to her were going wrong.
“I usually start with names,” she returned.
“Huh?” Yep, there were those brilliant conversational skills of his coming into play again. This had seemed so much easier when he was standing in his living room lecturing Anna and Connor about their lack of options.
“When I’m attempting to make conversation, I usually start with names.” She told him. He felt himself blink as he processed what she was saying. What he couldn’t figure out was why she was still standing there when he had just established himself as the world’s biggest idiot.
“Oh, right, I’m Kyle,” he offered probably three seconds later than he should have. “Kyle McKee.”
“Lia Lawson,” she offered her hand across the counter.
“It’s nice to meet you, Lia Lawson,” he replied squeezing her fingers slightly.
“It’s nice to finally exchange words with you, Kyle McKee.” She told him with a grin as her hand dropped from his and reached to adjust the strap of her messenger bag across her shoulder.
“We’ve exchanged words before,” he mentioned. Then, he mentally face palmed at his apparently boundless ability to find new ways to ruin this. The girl was talking to him; he shouldn’t question it.
“Well, if we’re going to be overly technical about it,” she conceded. “It’s nice to move beyond ‘Here’s your cha
nge’ and ‘Thanks.’”
“I guess I don’t exactly do much to promote a welcoming atmosphere here, do I?” He whispered in his best attempt at a conspiratorial manner. “Do me a favor and don’t tell my boss.”
“And yet I keep coming back,” she reassured him. “Some people like to be able to shop without being harassed by overzealous sales associates.”
“Oh.” Blast his overthinking tendencies. Was that a compliment or a criticism of his change in manner?
“Relax,” she told him with a smile and an amused glint in her eyes. “I’m glad you decided to talk to me today. You were just making conversation – not telling me I needed to buy stuff I didn’t want. It was . . . nice.”
“Nice,” he commented. “We keep coming back to that word,” he pointed out to her with a smile that for the first time since this conversation started didn’t feel like he was forcing it. What had he been nervous about? She was easy to talk to (once he stopped sticking his foot in his mouth).
“It may be that we are both desperately in need of a thesaurus,” she smiled back as she retorted. “Or maybe it’s just an accurately descriptive word for conveying the situation at hand.”
Huh, he didn’t really have a response for that. He watched as something he couldn’t identify flickered across her eyes and her teeth caught her lower lip. She scooped up the bag containing her purchase and started to turn.
“Hey,” he tried. Great, that was brilliant. What had he been thinking earlier? This was just making conversation, and he could do that? He obviously could not. Well, she had stopped and was looking at him with an eyebrow raised. He reached for something to try to salvage the moment.
“You always check the collector items, but you never buy. What is it that you’re looking for?” That was a legitimate question. It was even work premised, so it couldn’t be construed as weird. Although, it did imply that he had been watching her (which he had, but that so wasn’t the point) and that could possibly freak her out. He was way overthinking this.
“I’m just looking,” she said with a somewhat defensive shrug. The question was was she defensive because he was coming off as a pushy sales person, because the conversation had taken a turn that made her uncomfortable, or because she just didn’t want to admit what it was that she kept hoping to see on one of those shelves every week. He was still overthinking.
“No one browses that intently,” he found the sentence tumbling out of his mouth seemingly before his brain realized it was coming. If Connor didn’t shake him when he got home, he would do it himself (although he wasn’t entirely certain that that was physically possible). He was lousy at this. She was still looking at him with some mixture of confusion and was that amusement? Well, he supposed that having her laughing at him was better than nothing (and decidedly better than her rushing out of the shop to never return).
“Look,” he tried gaining confidence as he went (this was, after all, part of his job, therefore, something normal and expected). “What ends up over there is hit and miss. It’s mostly whatever happens to walk in, but Simon does pick up stuff that he thinks will go over well. If he knows what you’re looking for, he can keep an eye out. No promises, but he can’t try if he doesn’t know what you want.”
She seemed to be considering for a moment. He couldn’t figure out what it was she was considering, but it seemed to be much bigger than confiding her shopping habits to him. She placed her bag back on the counter and leaned a little toward him. One hand reached up to play with the silver chain at her neck.
“I was going to say that this is going to make me seem like a complete dork, but then I realized that you’ve seen me in all of my obsessive fan girl shopping glory,” she started.
He blinked in surprise before making a gesture that was supposed to remind her that he was the one who actually worked in a comic book store. He wasn’t entirely sure that the intention really translated well to an onlooker, but it felt like any words he said at that moment might break the atmosphere.
“Okay, here’s the deal.”