sanctuary | on hold indefinitely

fifteen | rumours

"Oh, look who decided to grace us with her presence," Lennox huffed by way of greeting.

Greer frowned, pausing for a moment in the threshold of the bookshop. Shyla was rifling through paperwork desperately while Lennox scribbled notes down on a scrap piece of paper at the front desk. The bookstore was otherwise quiet, though not dead today as it usually was—an elderly woman browsed the biography section by the window and Greer could just make out the top of a man's head a few aisles down in the crime and thrillers. It hardly seemed as though they should be rushed off their feet.

"It's a Thursday," she answered, closing the door to lock out the cold after having shaken the raindrops from her umbrella. "I always take the afternoon shift on a Thursday." She shrugged her coat off and hung it on the coat stand, placing her umbrella beside it carefully. She hoped her grandfather would not notice the puddle slowly forming beneath them where the droplets fell onto the wooden floorboards.

"Yes, well, that might have to change." Lennox peered over his glasses at Greer, his face flushed as though he had been running around all morning. "I need you in the back. I've had people in and out all day. It's like Picadilly bloody Circus." He cast her a secretive glance, his eyes shifting to the back corner where the beads separated the storefront from the back corridors where they met with clients. "Don't bother putting your apron on."

She had been reaching to where it hung on the peg, but she stopped at his words, her hand falling to her side. Only now did she notice the way her grandfather's eyebrows were furrowed, the way his slightly crooked jaw was tensed as though he was grinding his teeth. Beside him, Shyla cast her a look of distress as though corroborating his words.

"We're that busy?"

He nodded. "Come with me."

Greer obeyed, glancing furtively at Shyla as she disappeared down the aisle. He was flustered, his curls piled on top of his head as though he had been raking his hands through them so much that they had learnt to defy gravity.

The beads clattering together felt too loud against the silence as Lennox led Greer down the corridor. He stopped by the door of the waiting room—a room that had barely been used in the last few years, even on their busiest days. The two, worn couches were occupied, one with a family of four—two men, a son and a daughter—and the other a younger man and woman holding hands. By the window, a middle-aged man and a teenage girl stood, his hands on her shoulders protectively.

Lennox spoke under his breath to avoid being overheard. "I've already met with three other clients this morning. If we get any more, we might have to start turning people away."

Greer stepped back so that she was no longer visible to the families in the waiting room. "How can we be this busy? We usually get one or two clients a week."

He pulled a rolled-up newspaper from the back pocket of his trousers and handed it to Greer. His brows were knitted together, his hair sticking up in chaotic wisps of grey. "Why do you think?"

She unrolled the paper and skimmed the headline quickly. It was the same story as the one Shyla had showed her the day before last: human remains in Cumbria. Only, of course, the remains were not just human. They were witches, her aunt's among them somewhere.

"I was at an elder's meeting yesterday. The whole community is in a bloody panic," Lennox continued upon seeing Greer's expression change to one of understanding. "No idea who's doing it still. They're talking about witch trials and hunts again. We've gone back to the bloody middle-ages, I'm sure of it. Everyone wants protection, Greer. Everyone."

"How much good can our protection do them?" Greer asked quietly, her mouth dry as anxiety began to twist in her stomach. "Protectors have been killed, too. If Clair and Michael couldn't ..." she stopped to swallow the familiar ache in her throat. "If they were victims of this, too, that means we're all in danger."