So this is becoming a novel, but here is the beginning.
This is, was, my favorite bookstore. I would spend hours here, picking up old books and random, breathing in their dark musty smell, and reading curled in a ball in a dark corner with a cup of cheap tea or Coffee. It isn't a high end store and I usually could live the words of the books I was reading, undisturbed by any living thing, except perhaps one of the many cats that spent their life in the store. I would spend whole afternoons, rainy or otherwise, trapping through the long dark shelves, finding notes written as book marks stuck between the weather and age beaten pages and I could lose my self in tales and adventures of anything I chose. I remember one time, one time I lost myself, lost myself so hard I couldn't get back out.
My Name is Shayna Harris, I'm not dead, exactly, but this is the story of how I died, died, to every one I cared about.
I headed to that Bookstore immediately after school, as I always did on Thursdays. The Library is called Labyrinth Books, it is located only blocks from my house, and on the outside appears very run down. That Library has a magic to it thats hits you like a bomb when you step through the doors. I loved getting hit by that magic and that day was no other.
“Hello Mrs. Gregory.” I said cheerfully pulling my back pack off and depositing it in my usual spot near the front of the store.
“Hello Shayna dear.” Said Mrs. Gregory looking up from her knitting. Mrs. Gregory is, was, a lovely plump old woman with perfect teeth and a very ready smile. I think I have been like a kid to her since her own had moved on and she always light up when I came in. Mrs. Gregory always wore a long flowered dress and an old fashioned apron. She spent her life behind the desk knitting for her grandkids and fussing over her cats. Mrs. Gregory's husband, who preferred to be called Greg, usually sat in chair leaning against a wall near the back of the store, his stiff leg and cane stretched out in front of him. To a new comer at the shop, almost every one except me, he would appear to be asleep. I knew he wasn't though, occasionally I would see him shift his weight and I always saw his eyes darting around, following people and cats, like a conductor watching his cellos.
The store it self was, a lot, but in a word, beautiful. The ceilings were low, the lamps that hung from them were ancient, dim, and dispersed. Sconces along the walls, by the squishy chairs and in brackets along shelves gave a flood of light to a small area once turned on, which only a few of them always were. The floor between the shelves was lined by soft and very old carpets marked by the hundreds of feet that had passed through over the years. Mrs. Gregory had once suggested getting new years. I had protested loudly and even Greg had spoken up, something that rarely happens, and that put a final veto on the matter. The shelves though dark and old were never dusty and they carried in them the worlds in the books that few have ever ventured to. I say this because all of the books are used, very old, and they hold not only the stories written in them but also those of all the people who have owned them before the Gregory's. I loved to explore these stories as much as enjoyed to read the words written there. It's funny how much you can learn about a person from the pages he or she folded down, reread so many times they look see-through and oily, and the vague pencil and pen marks in the margins and in the back covers.
I walked through the dusky shelves and went to find a spot to set up. There were many oddly shaped alcoves in the store. In all of these there were seats. A different amount for every one as the sizes differed greatly. I found one with only one, big plushy winged arm chair with a puff that matched. I put my Tea down on the small table, switched on the light and went to find the book I had all but finished last week.
i have trouble not making all the short stories Novella's

"We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruit. Who knows upon which soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots." `Christina Rosetti
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