Page 22 of Justice & Liberty

I wasn’t a picky eater, but kibble was a bridge too far.

My choices, if I didn’t want to make the drive to Iowa City and back, were quite limited. I was already planning to drop into the coffee shop to grab a drink and pastry for breakfast, and I could have even more sugar from there for lunch. That seemed...healthy. Alternately, the general store had some basic choices I could grab and take to the shop, like tuna or crackers or...well, at least as many choices as you’d get in the average convenience store.

I didn’t love either idea, but I didn’t want to drive an hour before starting work for the morning, so the general store it was.

“Okay guys,” I told the cats, wiggling the bag with the kibble. “Off to the shop with us, I think. I have to stop for food, so you’ll have to be good in the car for a few minutes. Think you can handle that?”

They both gave me the unimpressed blank stare of a cat being asked a question it couldn’t care less about. I nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

Fortunately for me, they were both comfortable with what came next. They followed me out of the house without hesitation or complaint, and waited while I locked the front door and headed for Mom’s SUV. When I opened the passenger door of the car, they both leaped right into the seat and planted themselves there, like taking a car ride was an everyday occurrence, and that was good too.

I did not need to be cat-wrangling while leaving for the morning.

They curled up together on the passenger seat while I made the two-mile drive into town, parking in Mom’s old favorite spot outside the shop. I turned to them. “Okay guys, I’m going to the general store”—that elicited a grumbly annoyed sound from Hex—“and then the coffee shop”—an interested chirp from Bee—“and then we’ll head into the shop, okay? For now, both of you just stay here.”

I refrained from explaining myself and why I was going to break Mom’s moratorium on the general store to the cats. That would be silly, right? Even if magic was real, they were still cats.

The general store hadn’t changed since I was a teenager, let alone in the last week. It was a little bigger than your average gas station, and didn’t have gas pumps, but other than that, there were striking similarities. Slightly overpriced, bare minimum options, and standing vigil over it all, Lucy Beasley, aging blonde wannabe-town-matriarch.

“Well, well, well,” she said when I walked in, and that was...well, it was downright weird. She and I had never been besties, and her daughter had been kind of a jerk to me in school, but it wasn’t like we’d even known each other well enough for her to have an opinion about me.

“Mrs. Beasley,” I answered, as respectful as I could manage. The shop’s office had a mini-fridge, so I figured I would buy some bottles of water, some crackers, and maybe if she had a cheese option, that would be just fabulous.

This was going to take two minutes, in and out.

How bad could it be?

She was quiet, if sour-faced, as I looked around, grabbing the water and then searching for food options that didn’t seem designed for a six-year-old’s lunchbox. Cheese and crackers spelled with a z? Probably not. All the goofy-named individually packaged snack cakes with as many preservatives and as much sugar as they could fit into plastic wrapping? Also no.

Even if they were tempting.

Mmmm, chocolate.

Plain old crackers, check. Cheese...well, I was firmly of the opinion that actual cheese never ever came in a can, which meant the only option was string cheese. Okay, I couldlive with that. Maybe I’d prefer a nice cheddar, but that old saying about beggars and choosers wasn’t wrong.

I could buy some cheddar when I got up to Iowa City that evening. The co-op had always had an amazing cheese selection.

So I came up to the front with my water, crackers, and string cheese, setting them down in front of her, and tried offering up my best smile. “Good morning.”

Her sour face didn’t change for a second, but she gave me a nod. “Suppose you’re back to stay?”

“I am,” I agreed. The ruder she got, the more chipper I seemed to become, and if she kept going, I was going to explode into cartoon characterhood at any moment. “Headed over to look through the shop and see what comes next. To be honest, I never planned to take it over.”

She gave a decisive nod. “Good. It’s about time we got rid of that godless monstrosity.”

I blinked, staring at her a moment, and the whole excessively pleasant persona fled me all at once. Godless monstrosity? That was the kind of thing people had said in centuries past, that had ended with my own mother not telling me magic was real, because they were afraid assholes would murder them.

“The bookshop?” I asked, not bothering to try to keep the incredulity out of my voice. “The bookshop is a godless monstrosity.” The store had dozens, if not hundreds, of books on spirituality. To call it godless was nonsense.

“That woman never went to church a day in her life,” Lucy insisted.

“Because she wasn’t a Christian. I didn’t realize that was a crime now.” I stared at her, and while I would never have the benefit of my mother’s piercing black eyes, I thought I could mimic her bitchface pretty well, even if it was with green eyes.

She curled her nose, like something smelled bad, and looked me over. “Suppose I shouldn’t be surprised she raised you like that.”

“Open-minded and well-mannered? Yes ma’am, she did. She was the finest woman ever born, and I fully intend to do my best to carry on her legacy.” I dropped a twenty on the counter when the total came up at just under twenty dollars. Then, I grabbed my water in one hand and other stuff with the other, shoving it into my jacket pocket as I stepped back. “I’ll be reopening the bookshop as soon as possible. Just like Mom ran it. Just like she’d have wanted. As long as I’m alive and business continues to be excellent, I’ll keep right on running the shop just like Mom did.”

Head high, I swept out of the store. I probably looked ridiculous, but who fucking cared? What kind of utter bitch was mean about someone else’s newly dead mother?

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