Amber Hartley's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Amber Hartley had saved for six years to open a bookshop and café on main street, and now she was losing the race for every empty storefront in town. She refreshed the rental listing on her phone again. The vacancy she wanted had vanished in the night, marked LEASED before she could even call. It was the third one this month. She set the phone down on her kitchen table and pressed her palms to her eyes. Her tabby cat jumped up and walked across the listings, tail curled. Outside her window, ivy climbed the weathered walls of the row house where she rented two small rooms. Cozy, yes. But it was not a storefront. It was not the dream. "They're gone before I even see them," she told the cat. He blinked at her, unbothered. She pulled on her leather boots, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and shrugged into her jacket. If the listings were useless, she would walk main street herself and knock on doors. Someone had to know something the websites didn't. She walked the whole street twice. Every window held a business or a FULL sign. She slowed near the end, where a narrow building sat half-hidden behind an overgrown maple. Red and gold leaves spilled across its wooden awning. The windows were dusty, but inside she saw shelves. Old wooden shelves, built right into the walls. A striped lantern hung crooked by the door. No sign. No listing. No price. Amber cupped her hands against the glass. Books still sat on some of the shelves, left behind and forgotten. Her heart knocked hard. This place had been a shop once. And no one was fighting over it, because no one knew it was empty. She tried the door. Locked. A faded paper taped inside read: INQUIRE WITH OWNER. Below it, a phone number, half scratched away. She copied what she could and called. It rang six times. An old man answered, slow and wary. "That place," he said, when she described it. "Haven't rented it in years. Too much trouble." "I'll take it," Amber said. "I want to see it today." A long pause. "You can see it. But I warn you, it needs work. More than you think." "I don't care." "You will," he said, and told her to meet him in an hour. Amber ended the call and stared through the dusty glass at the shelves she already pictured full. For the first time in a month, she had something no one else could snatch away. She had a space. She just didn't yet know what the old man meant by trouble.