Death is My BFF Rewritten (Book 1 of the Rewritten Death Chronicles)

Chapter 19: Ace

            The Crossroads. It was the name of a small shop. Or at least it felt small from the outside. It had an ancient looking wooden door and small bells that greeted you as you walked in. Paranoia gripped me. Without even looking at anything inside the building, I hurried to the shop window and peered out from behind thick curtains. I expected to see hooded men outside. There were none.

            "Faith," Thomas said from a distance. He sounded like he was in awe. "What is this place?"

            The first thing that I saw when I turned around was an empty receptionist desk made of pure gold. Then my eyes dropped to the floor, taking in the most beautiful marble I had ever seen in my life. I was wearing ugly black converse. I cringed as they squeaked along the gorgeous floor, as I lingered around Thomas stood. My jaw went slack. Books. Books were everywhere. I was drawn to them. There were thousands and thousands. The place seemed to grow larger as I took in the many tall shelves around me. There were books of all different sizes and colors. Old leather covers and titles on the spine that I had either never heard of, or couldn't understand because they were in a different language.

            "None of these are in English," Thomas said, blowing dust off of one of the books. "This one says it's in... Garlic?"

            Frowning, I grabbed the old book from him and wiped off an ugly dark smudge. "There was stain. It says Gaelic."

            "Oh..."

            As if I was under some sort of spell, I handed the book numbly back at him, running my fingers down the spines of books as I explored the library. Thomas sat down on the floor and started to read quietly to himself. I decided to leave him be. Thomas had been through a pretty shocking event and I thought the best thing to do was to give him a little bit of alone time to calm down.

            I was intrigued by everything--even the screws holding the shelving together, but I didn't dare take a book out like Thomas had. It felt wrong. Something within me told me not to touch anything, like they didn't belong to me.

            There was something magical about that place.

            When I got to the back of the book store, I started to see pamphlets about a Psychic.  I picked one up, studying the golden, upside down palm with an eye on it. Continuing further towards the back of the store, I felt drawn towards a certain place and pushed past a heavy curtain into a secret room with dim lighting. It looked straight out of typical cliché movie with a psychic in it, with thick dark carpets and odd decorations. There was even an ominous chandelier hung over a circle palm reading table.

            I hovered my hand over the ancient looking artifacts scattered around the dark room, stopping at necklace displayed in a thick glass case. I had never seen anything so small yet so detailed. It was a blue stained-glass medallion on the front, and on the back of it, hidden from the front, was a cross with a cynical black snake wrapped around it.

            Subconsciously, I placed my hand on my chest where I had always worn a cross on my neck. Two crosses, which I had lost in Death's presence. One, at the carnival. The other, when the Raven Demon had tried to kill me for whatever reason. The cross somehow grounded me, reminding me of my morals and my family. Now there was nothing there.. I thought a cross would protect me from evil, from Death, but for some reason it hadn't. But he had injured the raven demon. Malphas.

            I was too afraid to tell my mother I had lost her gift to me, plus my grandmothers old cross that had been passed down from generation to generation. I was too afraid to tell her anything now. If she knew anything about Death, it wasn't obvious. If she knew about the contract, it absolutely wasn't obvious. I had begun keeping my distance from both of my parents ever since the psychologist incident, isolating myself from them, and they hadn't said a word about it. That wasn't like them at all, too. Usually they were involved with everything I did and fought to have a presence in my life. We were a family that loved communication and each other. Recently, we only said good morning and good night, and I was locking myself in my room and turning the music up higher.