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Chapter 1. Cicadas Hiss While Tarot Cards Turn 

(Roxie's POV)

The Purple Owl leaned into its foundation like an old woman settling into a favorite chair, and I'd memorized every groan and complaint the building made by now—the third floorboard from the door that always squeaked no matter how carefully you stepped, the way the ceiling fan clicked twice on each rotation, the particular hiss of the ancient radiator that meant someone had come in from the heat and the humidity was rising. Thursday nights were always the same: the bookshop closed at eight, the regulars drifted home or to the Bluegrass Note, and I locked up before making my way through the cluttered back room to the converted garden shed that served as my radio booth. The shed smelled of hot dust and cold coffee, old cables and the metallic tang of equipment that had been running too long, and the foam padding I'd stapled crookedly to the walls did almost nothing to keep the August cicadas out of the broadcast. At nine, I'd flip the switch, pull the headphones over my ears, and let my voice drift out into the dark for whoever was listening.

"Welcome back," I said, my mouth close to the old microphone, the metal cool against my bottom lip. "It's ninety-three degrees outside and the cicadas are having a better night than most of us. I'm Roxie, you're listening to Midnight Oracle, and I've got the cards out and the kettle on if anyone wants to call in and tell me what's keeping them awake."

The phone lines blinked green and amber, a constellation of lonely people waiting to speak, and I shuffled the inherited tarot deck between my palms—the edges worn soft by my grandmother's hands and then my own, the images faded but still clear enough to read. I took calls for an hour, pulling cards for insomniacs and the heartbroken and the ones who just needed someone to listen, and between calls my mind drifted the way it always did in the quiet spaces. I thought about my mother's last call, the careful way she'd stumbled over my pronouns and then corrected herself too quickly. I thought about the years I'd spent being everyone's confidant and nobody's choice, the way I'd learned to make myself small and useful and easy to leave. The flashbacks came in fragments: a crush who'd called me their best friend on a Friday night and kissed someone else by Saturday morning, a relationship where I'd been the secret safe harbor and nothing more, the exhaustion of performing easy-going while something brittle hardened in my chest.

The shed door creaked open and I looked up to find Oscar framed in the doorway, his honey-blond hair catching the dim light and his pale blue eyes already lined with the dramatic eyeliner he wore for his Thursday night shows. Eli appeared behind him, shorter and quieter, his dark hair falling across his forehead and his soft brown eyes scanning the cluttered space with that careful wariness he always carried into new rooms. Eli flinched slightly when the space heater clicked on, and I made a mental note to warn him next time.

"Show got canceled," Oscar announced, sweeping into the shed like he owned it, settling onto the milk crate I kept in the corner. "Broken spotlight, six-hour repair. So I thought I'd come see what my favorite radio host was doing, but clearly you're communing with the void instead of keeping me entertained."

"Your favorite," I said, and I felt something loosen in my chest. "What about Dante? You said that last week when he brought you those new costumes."

"Dante doesn't make me laugh the way you do," Oscar said. "Dante's beautiful and talented and I love him dearly, but he also takes himself very seriously. You, on the other hand, have the kind of warm energy that makes people feel safe. It's a gift."

Eli drifted to the corner of the shed, leaning against the stack of old books I'd never quite gotten around to shelving, and I watched his shoulders relax incrementally as he found something solid to hold onto. I remembered the first time I'd met Eli, two years ago, when Oscar had brought him to the bookshop with that particular careful pride in his voice—someone who needed a place, he'd said, someone who needed to learn that the world didn't have to be a threat. Eli had flinched at everything back then, the doorbell, my voice, the sound of a customer laughing too loudly. Now he only flinched sometimes.

"Eli got a letter," Oscar said, and his voice had shifted into something quieter. "From his sibling."

I turned to look at Eli, who had his face half-hidden behind his dark hair and his hands tucked into the pockets of his muted green cardigan. "Your sister?" I asked gently. "The one who's been writing?"

"She still writes," Eli said, his voice so soft I had to lean forward to catch it. "She says I should come home for Christmas and just be myself."

"And what do you think about that?" I asked. Not a rhetorical question—I meant it, wanted him to know I was listening.

"I don't know if I want her to stop," Eli said slowly. "I think I just want her to understand what it was like. What I lost."

"We all lost things," Oscar said, and his voice was theatrical again but I could hear what lived underneath it, the sharp thing he never quite managed to hide. "The difference is, you're learning how to build something new with the pieces."

I looked at both of them—Oscar with his dramatic eyeliner and his carefully constructed armor, Eli with his quiet watchfulness and the small cross I knew he still kept in his pocket because he couldn't quite bring himself to throw it away. Their traumas were different from mine but the same shape. Oscar had been blacklisted from a theater company for being "too much," had watched himself become invisible as he aged past twenty-five. Eli had grown up in a household where love and control were the same thing, where he'd learned to whisper and flinch and apologize for existing. And I'd been the friend everyone called at two in the morning, the confidant who never asked for anything, learning early that the whole of myself was too much for anyone to actually choose.

"Anyway," Oscar said, abruptly changing the subject, "are you going to the festival planning meeting on Saturday? Dante was asking about you."

My chest tightened at Dante's name. I'd known him for years—since I'd first moved to Cassadaga, since I'd walked into Devine Threads looking for someone to shorten my favorite cardigan's sleeves and found him standing behind the cutting table with shears in his hand and a scowl on his face that was just concentration. We were friends, had been friends for a long time, but lately something had shifted. I'd noticed the way he moved through a room, the particular warmth of his voice when he said my name, the way his hands traced patterns in the air when he was explaining a design.

"I'll be there," I said, trying to make it sound casual. "The bookstore is hosting the crystal market, so I have to set up inventory anyway."

"Good," Oscar said, and I could hear something knowing in his voice. "Eli and I will be there too. We can all suffer together."

It was well after midnight when they finally left, and I stayed at the mixing board for another hour, taking calls, pulling cards, watching the phone lines flicker and fade. When I finally locked up and walked through the dark bookshop to the front door, the air outside was thick and wet, heavy with the scent of honeysuckle and the distant salt of the springs, and I stood on the porch for a long moment watching the fairy lights strung across the courtyard sway in the breeze. I let myself think about Dante's hands on a sketch pad, the way he traced patterns in the air, the callus on his middle finger from years of gripping shears. I'd noticed his hands before, of course I had, but lately I'd been noticing them the way you notice something you want to touch.

It doesn't mean anything, I told myself. Just attraction, just energy. I don't believe in love—I believe in connections, in spiritual journeys, in learning something from someone and then moving on.

________________________________________

Saturday morning, the humidity was pressing in from all sides by the time I unlocked the Purple Owl, and I'd barely had time to turn on the lights and put the kettle on when I heard the familiar jingle of the door.

"Roxie!"

Dante stood in the doorway, tall and slim in a patterned burgundy button-up that seemed to drink the light, his dark hair falling a little too long over his forehead. He looked beautiful the way a wound looked beautiful, sharp and fragile and demanding your attention.

"Crystal order," he said, his voice theatrical and warm. "Father's been asking for weeks, and you know how he gets when he has to wait."

I laughed despite myself, reaching under the counter for the velvet tray I'd set aside. Dante's father was a good man, patient and generous, proud of his son without quite knowing what to do with that pride. The shop was his legacy, and that weight pressed down on both of them.

"I've got a new batch of amethyst clusters," I said, setting the tray on the worn oak counter. "The woman who harvests them said this is the most vibrant she's seen in years."

Dante moved closer, his fingers brushing the edge of the tray as he examined the stones, and I watched his hands—the way his thumb traced the shape of a cluster, the way he held them up to the light.

"These are beautiful," he said softly. "Father's going to try to buy half the tray."

"He always does." I was aware of the space between us, the heat of the morning, the way my own body felt suddenly too warm. "He bought six tumble stones last month and then told me he didn't know what to do with them."

Dante laughed, and the sound made me want to find other things to laugh about just to hear it again. "He collects things he doesn't need and then finds a use for them anyway. It's how he ended up with me."

Something caught in my chest at the words, the dry acknowledgment of his own existence as a possession. I'd seen his mother's brooch-ring on his finger, the one she'd left him when she passed, and I knew he wore it like armor.

"I brought the measuring tape," Dante said, pulling it from his pocket with a flourish. "In case you needed anything altered. I've been meaning to fix that cardigan of yours."

"You can't fix something by measuring it in the middle of a crystal display," I said, but I was already pulling off my cardigan. "My sleeves are fine. They're supposed to be that length."

"Everything is supposed to be exactly what it is," Dante said, draping the tape across my shoulder. "The question is whether it's what it wants to be. Fabric doesn't lie the way people do."

I stood there while Dante measured my arm, his warm fingers brushing my skin through the thin fabric of my blouse, and I let myself imagine what it would be like to be seen this way all the time—not as a role or a function, but as someone worth measuring, worth fitting.

"I had a dream about you," Dante said, casual but his eyes watching me carefully. "Last night. You were standing in a meadow full of black-eyed Susans, holding a bouquet you kept trying to give away, but no one would take it."

I laughed, and it came out a little higher than I intended. "That sounds like something you'd make up just to see my face."

"Everything I say is something I made up," Dante said, pulling the tape away with a soft snap. "Fabric doesn't lie, but people do all the time. I just happen to make up beautiful lies instead of hurtful ones."

"Yeah," I said, letting myself look at him directly. "That's the kind of person you are. You make up beautiful lies for people because you want them to feel like they're part of something."

Dante's eyes were dark and careful in the morning light, and I saw something in them—recognition, maybe, or surprise—that made my chest tighten. But then the flashback hit, sharp and unwelcome: a crush from years ago, my hand on their arm, their voice saying you're my best friend, Roxie, you're so safe, as they leaned toward someone else. I'd been the one they told their secrets to, the one they trusted, and I'd watched them choose someone else entirely.

I stepped back behind the counter, needing the distance. "I'll have your order ready by Tuesday. Let me know if your father needs more tumble stones."

"Always," Dante said, pocketing the tape with a grin. "I'll see you around, Roxie. And if you dream about me, I hope you're not standing in a meadow trying to give away a bouquet that no one will accept."

"Should I hope you're accepting it?" I asked, and I hated how careful the words sounded.

"Always," Dante said. "I'm always accepting. That's the problem."

He left, and I stood behind the counter with my fingers pressed into the wood, my chest tight and a question taking shape in my throat that I didn't dare speak. I reached for my amethyst pendant, felt the familiar cool weight against my palm. This didn't mean anything, I told myself. Just attraction, just energy. I didn't believe in love. I believed in journeys and connections and learning something before moving on.

The only way to stay safe.