When I started work at the Wild Book Shop, it wasn’t quite what I had been expecting. Some of the books coming alive being the obvious thing, but there was also the vampires who were frequent visitors, and various other supernatural creatures that I’d only read about as a child. This, though, was something new.


“A ghost?” I asked, sceptically.
“Uh huh” nodded my friend Helena, who was sat across from me. “I’ve seen it.”
It was my first day back at work after spending Christmas at home with my family. The University term had started up again, and working here helped me pay some of my bills. Almost the moment I’d set foot in the door today, Helena had pounced on me with the news of our newest curiosity.
“So where did it come from?” I asked.
“Laura bought a load of new books in over the holiday,” Helena explained. Laura was our boss, and the founder of the Wild Book Shop. A cheerful woman in her late thirties, she spent a lot of her free time digging up old book to add to the Archive, the library collection we kept on the top floor of the bookshop. I didn’t know too much about where she found them, but I’d helped her sort a pile of new ones onto the shelves a few weeks ago.
“It doesn’t really do very much.” She sounded somewhat disappointed.  “All it did was stand there. And that’s all anyone else has seen, either.”
“How many people have seen it, then?”
“A few. I can’t remember. You’ll have to ask, later. And we can go and look at it.”
I smiled, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about this idea. I’d been working in the bookshop for a few months now, since the end of September, and I still wasn’t entirely used to the Archive. I’d had a couple of scares there early on, and although I was learning to relax more each time I went in, I still couldn’t quite shake my uneasiness with the place. I was, however, endlessly curious, and I wanted to see this ‘ghost’, if it was actually there.
“What’s it look like?”
“It’s this guy. He’s around our age, maybe a little bit younger. And dressed in these funny clothes, you know?” I smiled slightly. In her black and purple top with bell sleeves, and jeans with a red ribbon sewn down one side, Helena wasn’t really in a position to talk about other people having funny clothes. With her dark hair in a long plait down her back, she looked like the modern idea of a witch.
“I didn’t really get a good look at him, though. He disappeared pretty much as soon as I saw him.”
“Isn’t that kind of strange for a ghost?” I asked. “Don’t they normally show up because they want something? I mean, how can it get what it wants if it disappears when someone comes near it?”
“That’s a good point actually. Huh. Now I really want to know what it’s doing there.”
We pondered the mystery of the ghost for a while, but unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance today to look for it. Instead, we determined to get up the stairs next time we were both working, and have a poke around.
“Where are you off to tonight, then?” asked Helena. “Have you got much homework yet?”
I never quite understood when Helena managed to get her coursework done. She was training to be a vet, and had far more work than I did.
“Not yet. I’m meeting Matt in town for coffee.”
Helena raised her eyebrows. “You’re still seeing him quite a lot then?”
“Not seeing him, seeing him,” I protested. “Just meeting up for a chat and a drink. We’re friends.”
Matt was my ex-boyfriend, and the one responsible for me now knowing about the existence of vampires. Mainly because he was one. I’d split up with him a couple of months ago, but we still met up in the evenings every couple of weeks.
“Keep telling yourself that and see how long it lasts,” she suggested cynically. “Have fun, anyway.”
“Will do,” I called as I left.


I thought about what Helena had said as I walked down the road. She had unwittingly touched on a bad topic. I liked hanging around with Matt, and we got on really well. But I knew that despite him seeming happy with things, he wanted us to be more than friends. And I wanted to be, too. But I couldn’t go down that road with him, not yet. I sighed, watching my breath form a little puff of cloud in front of me. New year was supposed to be a fresh start. Unfortunately, there were too often problems that got carried over from the year before. This was one of them. I would just have to deal with it, eventually.



I started walking through the cobbled streets. It was another crisp winter day, and I walked quickly to my meeting with Matt to try and stop the cold from sinking too deeply into my skin. I pulled my woollen scarf higher, so that it covered my nose, and buried my hands deep in the pockets of my blue coat. I was staying in the city centre, so I managed to walk to the café without having to bypass any roads. Instead, I saw the busy people, rushing around to get their shopping done, or get home to their families and warm houses. Despite my best efforts, I was cold when I arrived at the café. And, just like always, Matt was already there. It was one of our favourite cafes to meet in – it was warm, and often had a fire going in the corner.


“Hi,” I said, pulling off my coat. “How was your break?”
“It was good thank you,” he said, smiling. “How were your family?”
“They were fine, thanks. Did you actually do anything interesting? Or do you not really have much of a holiday?”
“Oh, I have a holiday. Just not a very long one. We try to be open for new year’s eve.”
Matt owned and ran a bar near the river. I’d never actually been there, but I knew that it catered mainly to vampires.
“Did you have a big party, then?” I asked.
“Yeah, it was fun. All the people in my-“ he hesitated, “all my friends came round.”
He'd changed what he was going to say, but I knew the word he missed was 'coven' - his vampire equivalent of a family. Matt was the leader of his little group. I'd found out from another of his acquaintances that the leader was usually the strongest in the group - but that wasn't physical strength. That meant Matt was pretty powerful as a vampire - something that made him quite dangerous under the right circumstances. It was also something he hadn't told me about and, so far as I was aware, didn't know I knew. Of course, I didn't expect him to tell me everything about him. We were becoming quite good friends now, but at the time, we'd only known each other for a couple of weeks.
“Sounds good. Bet that can turn a bit wild, then, with all of you there,” I grinned.
“A bit,” he smiled back, the sparkle I loved coming into his eyes. “It would have been more interesting if you were there.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I can totally see myself hanging around some of your friends when they’ve been drinking. They’re quite scary enough sober, thank you very much.”
“They’re not that bad,” he protested. “And it does take an awful lot to get a vampire drunk. High on too much of… other liquids, perhaps, but not really drunk.”
“Oh. Cool.” I filed that interesting piece of knowledge away for later.
“You should come down and see the bar sometime,” he continued. “I think you’d like it.”
“But coming to a bar with you would be too much like a date.”
He put on an offended face. “Oh, darn, she spotted my cunning ploy,” he grinned. “What would be so wrong with coming?”
It was that smile of his, that horribly evil beautiful smile that kept making me reply. I blamed everything on that smile.
“I like us being friends. And we’ve had this discussion before. Let’s not go into it now, hmm?” I asked, sipping my hot chocolate.
We moved on and talked about other aspects of the holiday, and things that we were going to be doing over the next couple of weeks. But his words and hints crept into our other conversations, and I couldn’t help playing back at him and wanting what he was offering.

I attempted to remind myself that we’d tried that and it hadn’t worked out for me the first time.

But attempting only got you so far.