Chapter Four

I tried not to look at Collin and his friends when I left, but it was very tempting. As I rode the escalators down, I chanced a glimpse at their table only to find it empty. Losing all sense of discretion, I scoured the food court, looking for the bizarre group, but was ultimately disappointed. It didn't make any sense, though. There was only one entrance and exit to the food court; how could they have left without passing by Renee and me?

The question was still haunting my mind as we headed to the car, and in my distracted state, I almost passed the small bookstore nestled into the far corner of the mall. When I finally noticed the tiny shop, I guided Renee toward it and had to keep myself from running inside. My speed increased even more when I noticed a handwritten sign in the front window that said, "Help Wanted."

The bookstore—it was called Pages—was half the size of my house, with multi levels and the smell of old paper. The walls were a dark mahogany with matching shelves, tables, and chairs. There was no fluorescent lighting; instead, the entire space was illuminated by Tiffany lamps of varying heights. Smiling at the otherworldly ambiance of the shop, I found the front desk at the center of the ground level. Behind the register was a tall, brunette woman, wearing black-rimmed glasses and a purple cardigan.

"Hello," she said, smiling when I approached her. "How can I help you today?"

"I saw the sign in the window," I replied and pointed over my shoulder. "I'd like to apply for the job."

The woman brought her hand to her chest and released a breath of air. "Oh, thank goodness! I've had that up for almost a month, but no one's applied. Then again"—she motioned for me to follow her—"it didn't help that they opened that new chain store. You know, the one with the half-naked models plastered on the walls?"

"Yeah, I've seen it." I glanced at the endless shelves as we moved deeper into the store; this place was a lot bigger than I thought. It wasn't wide, but it was very deep. From what I could tell, the bottom floor was mostly reference books—travel guides, automotive repair, and such. "How long have you been open?"

"Five years now," she answered, pushing through a pair of doors that led to a stock room. I stopped outside the doorway, not sure if I should go back, also questioning if the store should be left unattended. However, when she spied me in the threshold, she waved me in. "Come on back."

I hesitantly acquiesced and glanced behind me. "Is it okay to leave the store front?"

"I don't usually get busy until seven," she commented and pointed to a tiny black box hanging on the wall. "I also have this little doo-dad—it chimes when someone walks through the entrance."

I felt like an idiot, but if I had said the wrong thing, she didn't say anything. Instead, she started flipping through a filing cabinet like crazy, tossing papers aside and letting them fall to the ground. Without thinking or being asked, I bent over and started picking them up, piling them in a neat stack on the green, wooden desk beside the cabinet. When she finally found what she was looking for—an application for employment—she held it over her head and shouted, "Voila!"

"I'm going to be honest with you." She attached the application to a clipboard and offered me a pen. "This is really just a formality. You're hired."

I couldn't help but laugh at the frankness of her answer—she almost reminded me of… someone. Seeing how I didn't want her to think I was a total nutcase, I stopped the line of thought that was obviously leading to the Cullens, and instead, I took a seat at the desk. It didn't take me long to fill out the application—the only work history I had was a month-long stint at Newton's, Mike's family's shop. Charlie had turned in my resignation when it was obvious I wasn't bouncing back from Edward's rejection, and I deeply hoped that my new employer wouldn't call them; Karen Newton was a gossip.

When I handed her my application, her neck jerked back in surprise. "Forks, Washington? Where exactly is that?"

"It's a few hours north of Seattle," I answered nervously, biting my bottom lip. "It's close to the Canadian border."

"Wow," she said and glanced back at the paper in her hands. "What brought you down south, Isabella?"

"Please, call me Bella. As for why I left Forks, well…" What was an appropriate answer that didn't entail spilling my guts about vampires? "I decided to move back in with my mom."

"Well, Bella," she said, playfully emphasizing my name, and tossed the application on the desk. "I'm Eleanora, but you can call me Nora. Your job is pretty simple: greet customers, answer questions, show people around, make suggestions, make sales, and sometimes do returns." Nora led me back out into the store, where Renee was waiting, an impatient scowl on her face. "You'll get to know the clientele easily enough—they're good people, but don't let them push you around because you're new.

"Most importantly," Nora said, her voice losing its joyful quality, and pointed to the third floor of the shop. "The restricted section is only accessible by me—under no circumstances are you allowed to enter that area."

"All right." My brow furrowed at the seriousness of her command. "What if a customer requests to go in when you're not here?"

"They won't." The finality in her voice was startling and left no room for argument.

She continued moving around the floor, explaining the finer details of the store—hours of operation, location of the mailbox, where to drop the nightly deposit—but I was hardly listening. Every now and then, I glanced up at the third floor of the shop. Although I intended on following through with her wishes, I couldn't fight the wonderment I felt over the restricted section. What was up there, and why was it so
restricted?

"All right," Nora said, extending her hands out. "That's it for now—when can you start?"

"Tomorrow is good," I answered quickly, and she gave me an odd, confused look. Something about her expression told me that I'd given the wrong answer, and I anxiously tried to do damage control. "Is that too soon?"

"Tomorrow is perfectly fine," she commented, rubbing the back of her neck and laughing. "Please forgive me, Bella. Usually new employees start a week after they're hired—at least, that's what I've been led to believe anyway. I've never met someone your age that was so anxious to start working."

"I'm sorry," I answered, assuming that I'd done something wrong. This was slowly turning out to be an extremely awkward encounter, and I found myself wanting to run away. Maybe trying to get a job wasn't such a good idea, especially with the trauma I'd suffered. "I can start next week, if you prefer."

"Are you okay?" Her words were genuinely soft and caring, but they also put me on edge. "Forgive me if I'm prying, or reading too deep into this, but you seem… upset. Is everything all right, Bella?"

I didn't know what to say to her. The truth was I wasn't all right, and I probably never would be, but the reason wasn't something I could share. Edward had left me with the intense burden that was his secret. Although he could disappear, vanish off the face of the earth, I was left with the memories of him. If his intention was to "not exist," he was failing miserably; he would always be alive to me.

Unfortunately, thinking of him only served to make this moment with Nora infinitely more awkward, especially when I grasped my torso with both hands in anguish. When this happened, I refused to meet her gaze, certain she probably thought I was a freak, but she surprised me.

"Tell you what," she said, her voice still soft, and she rested her hand on my shoulder. "Tomorrow's Saturday, right?" I nodded. "How about you come in around five-thirty?"

"Really?" I lifted my head, and I couldn't help the shock I felt. Despite my freak-out, she still wanted me as an employee. Either she was really desperate for help, or she somehow understood that I was hurting. I really didn't want to think about the latter, so I chose the first as the most likely. "All right, I'll be here."

Although I was still in a decent amount of pain, I held my head up a little higher as I walked out of Pages. For the first time since I stepped off the plane, I actually felt like I had something to look forward to. Instead of spending my afternoons and evenings wallowing in agonizing memories, I could focus on my job. On top of that, I would be earning a decent amount; Nora paid higher than minimum wage. So I was one step closer to my goal of buying my own vehicle. Things were definitely starting to look up for me… until we reached the car.

"Are you sure you want a job, Bella?" Renee complained as we pulled out of the parking lot and got on the highway. "Don't you want to be free for your senior year?"

"Free to do what exactly?" I couldn't understand why my mother was so against me having a job. "Trust me, Mom—this is the best thing for me."

"If you say so, Bella," Renee said, still sounding unconvinced that a job was anything more than mind-numbing work, and was pretty much where the discussion ended. The remainder of the drive home was filled with awkward conversation, the majority revolving around the weather, until we thankfully pulled into the driveway. I was halfway to the front door when Mom asked, "Would you like to use the car tomorrow?"

I stopped and turned to her, taken aback by her offer. "Um, sure … thanks, Mom."

My mother's suggestion had put her back in my good graces, and we walked into the house arm in arm. We found Phil sitting in the living room, his eyes glued to the television screen as if his life depended on it. I had a flashback to Charlie and his Saturday Sports parties with Billy Black and Harry Clearwater. The three of them would hoot and holler in front of the TV, and on occasion, I would make them snacks. Just thinking about how the three men had inhaled my homemade potato wedges made me smile, but it also made me want to crawl into a hole.

"Renee, come here," Phil called, waving us both over without tearing his eyes from the screen. "They've found another girl."

Another girl? I crossed the room and took a seat next to Mom and Phil. The blonde newswoman on the television was reporting on a story somberly, and she looked absolutely disturbed by the subject she was covering. They flashed a school portrait on the screen, and I gasped in shock; I recognized the girl smiling at me from the television. She was the cheerleader, the one who had taken the seat next to the bookworm on my first day. Come to think of it, I hadn't really seen her in class; then again, I hadn't actually been looking for her.

"Earlier today, Jacksonville Police were dispatched to Cuba Hunter Skate Park, where they discovered the body of seventeen-year-old Angelica Dumont. She was last seen leaving Andrew Jackson High School almost two weeks ago…"

"It's so sad," Renee remarked, her hand covering her mouth as she shuddered. "Bella, did you know her?"

"No, I didn't." The last thing I wanted was for Renee to start freaking out, and finding out Angelica had been in my class would definitely have caused her to. Ever since I had moved back, she'd been hovering more often, and it was starting to bother me. If anything, it made me miss Charlie even more; this subsequently caused me hours of pain. It was ironic that, in her quest to help me, she was only causing me more distress. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell her what she was doing to me—not unless I wanted to start seeing a shrink.

After a few more minutes of being fed the same information about Angelica's death, I eventually left Renee and Phil to their business and disappeared in my room. Once I had shut the door, I turned on the laptop and started researching Angelica's death. Phil had said they'd found "another girl," which meant that there had to be others. But how many more were there? Unfortunately, there were quite a few articles on murders in the Jacksonville area, but nothing that really formed a pattern. The only thing the incidents had in common was that the bodies had been dumped in remote areas, and there was a lot of blood.

Finding no new information, I shut off the laptop and leaned back in my chair. Why on earth was I looking up details on gruesome murders? Had my continuous pain over Edward caused me to search for my own distractions? It wasn't an unthinkable concept; the days of endless suffering were getting repetitive. After all, what if moving on wasn't a possibility for me; what if I was doomed to love Edward until I died? Should I follow his lead and fill my time with distractions? Moreover, what distraction could possibly be strong enough to sway my thoughts of him?

When thinking about him became too much, and I felt as though I'd never breathe again, my attention automatically searched for something to refocus on. My gaze ultimately fell on my backpack, thrown haphazardly against my desk in the corner of my room. If there was anything capable of keeping me sidetracked, it was Advanced Trigonometry. So I pulled out my book, flipped to the assigned pages, and proceeded to catch myself up in the world of mathematics. I was only half-successful, though; there were still moments when Edward would somehow slip into my mind. Sometimes in the strangest ways.

AB = distance of Bella from Edward, BC = Height of Edward = h (to be calculated)…

I let out a frantic cry and threw my hands in the air, frustrated; at this point, not only would I fail my class, but I would also be a quivering mess for the remainder of the night. After an additional fifteen minutes of failed homework attempts, I eventually shut my book and turned on the laptop.

Unable to find anything of interest to look at, I ultimately decided to respond to Angela's email. Of course, when I tried to craft a message, my mind blanked, and I couldn't think of anything to say to her. I eventually came up with something short and simple—something that wouldn't give away my misery.

When I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, I turned off the lights and crawled into bed. That night was a mirror image of all the others I'd had since Edward had left me. When I felt like I couldn't take it anymore, the strangled screams pierced through my nightmare, but I couldn't stop them. The dream was just like all the others—I stumbled across Jessica and Edward in the meadow—and it ended as the others had as well. I was yanked from the dream world, brought back to reality by my stepfather, Phil, shaking me to consciousness.

The memories of the nightmare haunted me throughout the day, and by the time five o'clock rolled around, I was anxious to start work at Pages. When I got there at five-fifteen, I found Nora balancing a massive stack of books in her hands while trying to help an older woman pick out something for her granddaughter. Not knowing if I should stand back and observe or not, I quickly took the books out of her hands and ran them to the register. Nora, meanwhile, tossed me an appreciative smile before navigating the woman to the second floor where the fiction books were located.

"Are you a mind reader?" She appeared behind me, hands on her hips, and I quickly gripped the side of the counter in response to her question. There was no way she could know about Edward; I knew that, but it didn't mean I didn't automatically think of him. Thankfully, she continued talking, completely oblivious to the torture I was suffering. "You pretty much saved my life back there, Bella. Honestly, I thought my arm was going to break under the weight of those books."

"Glad I could help," I muttered and turned away from her, my internal dam about to give way under all the strain her words had caused. However, as she pulled out a few pieces of paper from under the counter, I sucked in a mouthful of air and successfully pushed the empty feeling to the pit of my stomach. "Thanks."

"You can fill these out in the back," Nora remarked, gesturing to the door I'd been through one day prior, and handed me a pen. "Don't take too long, though—I've got a lot to show you."

Without saying anything more, she ushered me to the back room and left me to finish my paperwork. The forms were nothing I hadn't seen before—tax information, new hire checklists, a job description—and I was done in a few minutes. With papers in hand, I found my new boss at the cash register with yet another teetering stack of books in her hands. I was quickly getting the impression that she sometimes bit off more than she could chew, but I didn't say anything; I was just happy to have a job.

She promptly threw my paperwork under the counter and immediately started instructing me. She gave me another rundown of the store, the location of certain things, and the key to the safe. Last, but definitely not least, she gave me another warning about the third floor. As she spoke, I glanced up at the area she was speaking of, and I couldn't fight the curiosity that returned once again. I wondered if it was some kind of adult section, or had a bunch of naked statues in it. However, that scenario seemed highly
unlikely.

Later in the evening, I was pleasantly surprised by how busy the shop got. As soon as seven o'clock passed, at least twenty people piled into the store, asking questions and making purchases. While I wasn't familiar with the cash register yet, I had memorized the layout of the store and was able to guide shoppers around the store. The majority of them were regular customers who came in at least once a week, and I found talking to them to be somewhat entertaining and informative. I was so wrapped up in my discussion with a man named Mr. Daniels, I didn't notice it was time to close up.

"All right, Chase, that's enough for today," Nora commented, giving him a one-armed hug, and she started guiding him toward the front of the store. "I have to teach Bella how to close, and you need to get home before it gets dark."

I'd heard Charlie give the same warning to the small-town residents, and his words usually applied to wild animals in the area. With that in mind, it seemed like a strange sentiment to offer someone in a relatively big city, but Mr. Daniels was somewhat old, so I guess it made sense.

While she led him to the front door, I made my way toward the register. Today had been a remarkably good day, and I deeply hoped nothing would be able to ruin my mood. There was something else, though; when I was at work, I felt… different. The gaping sore in my soul had been somewhat bearable, and the old Bella—the one that hadn't been marred by the supernatural world—had made fleeting appearances. Although I was afraid of it, a bit of hope blossomed in me.

When Nora returned, having locked the door and turned off the light in the front displays, she smiled and patted me on the back. "You did well today, Bella—I'm impressed."

"Thanks." Her comment made me smile, and a light blush ran across my cheeks. I was happy there was something in my new life that I seemed to be good at; it was something I could focus on.

The next hour was spend putting away books, sweeping the first and second floors, and listening to Nora try to sing along with the showtunes blaring from her radio. As I rubbed some wood polish over the shelves in the fiction section, I was briefly tempted to climb the stairs to the forbidden third floor, but each time I tried, Nora called me downstairs again. So, I eventually gave up and focused on completing my closing duties. Once I was positive everything was clean and well-polished, I found my way back to the ground level.

"All right," Nora said and gestured to the touch screen register. "Closing the register is fairly easy once you get the hang of it."

After walking me through the nightly reports, closing the register, counting the money, and figuring out the deposit, she stood back and let me take over. I was thankful it was a simple process, and I caught on rather quickly. Nora praised me once again, commenting that her summer help had never been able to get the hang of it.

"Are you enjoying Jacksonville, Bella?" she asked as she packed up the deposit and reports. "Making any friends?"

Unlike with my mother, I didn't need to lie to Nora. For some unknown reason, I felt she understood everything I'd been through. This was utterly ridiculous, of course; there was no way she could fully
comprehend my pain. Still, her face was so kind and compassionate; I couldn't help but open up to her. "Not really—I've never really been the sociable type."

"Well that's no good." She paused what she was doing and stared at me, a pensive expression on her face. When I was about to ask if everything was all right, she snapped out of it. "A trait you share with one of your parents, I take it?"

My eyes widened, and I stammered slightly. "H-how did you know that?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Please don't look at me like I have three heads, Bella. You and I have quite a bit in common. My mother kept to herself a great deal—so did my brother—however, my father and I were always extroverted and outgoing. Personality quirks of fathers are typically passed to their daughters, and the same goes for the mothers and their sons."

"Oh," was all I could respond with, feeling like an idiot, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something she wasn't telling me. Still, I pushed my suspicion to the back corner of my mind and focused on closing the store. "Have you lived in Jacksonville long?"

"Not really," she answered. "I used to have a shop up in Chicago, but a close friend of mine suggested I try my luck here. To be honest, it was a good decision in the long run. I had too much competition where I was. Not to mention, everyone has been so welcoming here, and I haven't had nearly as much trouble as I did up north."

"Trouble?" The way she said the word sounded strange. How much trouble could other bookstores cause her? "I don't understand."

"Don't worry about it," Nora said with a laugh, and she waved her hand in the air. "It's not important anymore. Are you ready to go? We're all set—I just need to turn the alarm on and lock up."

After the alarm was set, the lights were turned off, and the door was locked, Nora and I headed to the bank to drop off the deposit. The bank was located around the corner from the store, with an outer slot that read "Night Deposits" on the front. Once we had dropped off the black envelope filled with money, we bid one another goodbye and went our separate ways.

Even though I knew I would see her the following day, I couldn't fight the tiny bit of sadness that spread through my chest. I wasn't sure why, but I felt more at ease around Nora, something I hadn't felt since before Edward had left. She was a mixture of Alice and Esme, a comparison I had mercilessly tried to avoid. Of course, the moments the two Cullen women had crossed my mind, I was forced to stop and wait until the pulsating, violent burning in my soul had receded. Once it dulled down to a subtle ache, I was able to resume my journey.

I had parked in the lower level parking garage, which seemed like a good idea at the time. However, as I ascended the stairs and walked out into the shadowy, seedy-looking area, I instantly regretted my decision. The lights on the grime-covered, stone walls were flickering in and out, and there weren't enough of them to successfully light the way to Renee's car. Still, knowing that I wouldn't get home by standing there, I started to trudge forward.

I was halfway to the car when I heard them. Footsteps.

As I glanced over my shoulder, I couldn't see anything but the dirty underbelly of the mall parking lot—mainly because the lighting was so bad—but I picked up my pace regardless. My heart was starting to pound in my chest, and as I closed in on my goal, I could hear my pulse thrumming in my ears. What if…whatever it was killing those girls was stalking me? Would Renee and Phil be forced to identify my body in a city morgue? What would my death do to Charlie?

I was almost to my car when the footsteps increased, gaining momentum. My face was burning, and I could feel my arms quivering in fear. Just get to the car… just get to the car… The incessant mantra in my head was only serving to freak me out more. Was this where my life would end? Where would I be
buried? Would the… Cullens come to my funeral? Despite the hypothetical horrors flashing through my mind, I pulled out my keys as soon as I reached the car. I was moments away from climbing in when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? You know what to do! I know it seems to be moving a little slow, but I promise things will pick up in about 2-3 chapters.
The Lights and the Field and Nocturne will be updated, I've just been side tracked recently. Family drama, sickness, school, you know the usual.