Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Really?” Ash asked.
“Yeah, no problem. I’ll be back soon.”
“Oh, here.” Ash fumbled in his coat pocket. “Take the van. It’s cold.”
He tossed Truman the keys, which fell through Truman’s fingers and clanked on the floor. Bruce was happy to participate in this new game, and when Truman got the keys, they were distinctly slimier than they had been.
“You’re gonna just give me the keys to your van?” he asked. “You barely know me.”
Ash raised an eyebrow. “Where are you gonna go, the far side of the island?”
Truman supposed that car theft wasn’t a big problem on an island with only three ferries a day.
***
Truman returned with his laptop, a notebook, markers, and Post-its, delighted to have a project.
“Okay,” he said when he was set up at the counter. “What’s the website?”
Ash had returned to stripping roses of their thorns, a task Truman had never before contemplated. “For what?”
“For Thorn.”
“Oh. Well. I don’t…it’s not… It’s a work in progress,” Ash concluded.
“Okay, well, lemme take a look.”
Ash grumbled something.
“What’s that?”
Ash walked over and typed something into Truman’s computer. He’d navigated to the Owl Island Chamber of Commerce website, which had a listing of local businesses. There, in tiny letters, was THORN (FLOWER SHOP). When he clicked on the hyperlink, all that came up was a phone number.
“Ummm…”
“Yeah, well, the progress is…preliminary?”
Truman blinked. “Do you not have a website?”
“You don’t have to say it like I don’t have a soul,” Ash grumbled.
“No, no, no, this won’t do. I’m going to make you a website. You have to have a website.” Truman began looking up domains. “Okay, how about thornflowershop dot com?”
“Sure, that’s—look, you really don’t have to…”
“Do you not want me to?”
“No, it’s just… It’s… You don’t have to go to all this trouble.”
“Okay, then I’m doing it. You’ll just need to buy the domain.”
If Truman hadn’t been looking directly at Ash’s face, he would’ve missed the wince. He clicked on buy domain to check the price.
“No worries. It’s, like, sixteen bucks a month. That okay?”
Ash nodded and let out a breath. “Yeah. Thanks.”
At first, Truman asked Ash question after question about how he wanted the site to look, what fonts he wanted, et cetera. But it soon became clear that Ash hadn’t thought about it, nor did he have strong opinions about it, at least not at the moment, so Truman stopped asking him and decided he’d be doing him a favor if he just made all the decisions and offered to change things later.
Soon, he lost himself in the soothing work of fonts, headings, hyperlinks, and SEO. He didn’t even realize how much time had passed until Ash put a sandwich in front of him on the counter.
“Where’d you get that?”
“My kitchen,” Ash said. He pointed upstairs.
Truman’s stomach gave an appreciative growl, and he took a bite. “Thanks, it’s really good. What kind of jam is this?”
“Wild blueberry,” Ash said. “My mom makes it.”
“Wow, first the coat, now the jam. Your mom’s totally making my day.”
Ash smiled and ducked his head.
“Okay, you wanna see?” Truman asked. “It’s pretty basic right now, but I wanted to get your thoughts first. I can change whatever you don’t like. Then when we’ve got it how you like it, I’ll get pictures we can add of the bouquets and stuff.”
Truman sat Ash in the chair and let him navigate through the site. When Ash looked up, his eyes were wide.
“It’s…wow,” he said.
He sounded choked, and Truman wondered if perhaps Ash was also starved of kindness.
“I can change anything,” Truman repeated.
Ash shook his head, and Truman felt a wave of giddiness wash over him.
“No,” Ash said. “It’s perfect.”
It wasn’t until Truman was falling asleep that night that he remembered he’d never asked Ash who Maisey had meant when she said Ash knew who they should ask about Agatha Tark.
A Message from Ramona
RAMONA to GREAT!A RUSSAKOFF
Sorry I wasn’t in town to greet you, kiddo, but I know you’re settling in. Don’t forget to explore the shadowy side of the city, and yourself. It’ll make you grateful you’re alive!
Chapter 8
Greta
Greta joined the group of tourists at the corner where they were to meet for the ghost tour. There were fifteen or so of them in total, mostly couples and families, and Greta amused herself trying to figure out who was into the occult and who had been dragged along for the ride.
In some cases, it was clear—the woman in the pavement-skimming black skirt and tattoos and her polo-shirted boyfriend, the stiff-looking couple in khakis and sneakers and their wide-eyed goth kid—but in others, less so. Like the group of sorority-looking girls clutching enormous grenade drinks and talking animatedly about someone’s hot brother. Or the father and son who were both in head-to-toe Dallas Cowboys apparel.
Once, on a family trip to Boston, the Russakoffs had done a historical bus tour. Greta and Maggie had hoped it would be a haunted tour, but it had turned out to be a lot of shit about Pilgrims, the Founding Fathers, and patriotism, which their parents had enjoyed in the vague way of parents relieved to have someone—anyone—else briefly in charge, but had left the sisters cold. Bored and hungry, they’d begun a game of I Spy that quickly devolved into chaos as all the things they saw were gone by the time the guessing could commence.