Filed to story: Tangled in Moonlight Unshifted Novel by Lenaleia
At some point, Mrs. Elkins had the husky leave the establishment, though it seems to be hanging around every time I check outside. Several customers try to pet her, but she just sits like a stoic little dog statue outside of the storefront.
Sometimes, when I take too long between checking in on the dog, I’ll glance up and see her snout pushed up against the window, squished up and showing her sparkling white teeth. I giggle every time, then poke my head out the door and hiss at her to stay off the windows.
I’m going to have to wipe them down.
Carlos comes in just after the lunch rush, and Mrs. Elkins pats my shoulder as she leaves. “I’ll get out of you young people’s hair, now. Carlos, take care of our new little angel, will you?”
He winks at me in outrageous flirtation that I’ve learned means absolutely nothing beyond mild affection. “Oh, you know I will.”
It’s not hard to laugh. Carlos just brings it right out of me. It used to be that I only ever laughed with Lisa, but now I feel like most of my day is spent smiling. Real smiles, not customer service smiles. Those, I have perfected.
I used them on my family all the time, and they definitely never noticed.
Damn, I’m thinking about them again. I’ve got to figure out how to stop doing that.
“Are you sure you’re okay working until closing again, Ava?”
Carlos’ words bring me out of my little minifunk, and I nod. “I need to make as much money as I can before the summer semester. I’m going to need money for tuition, books, miscellaneous fees, and then hopefully a car. Between rent and life necessities, I really need the overtime. I’m lucky Mrs. Elkins is even letting me work this much.”
He nods, wiping down the counter as I replenish napkins in the dispenser. “She’s got a way about her.
Takes care of us all. Sometimes I wonder if she’s even making money off this place. We sell a lot of coffee, but not so many books.”
He’s not wrong; I’ve thought the same. My shoulders lift in a vague shrug, and I start cleaning off the end tables of newspapers, magazines, and books.
“I have no idea, but I can’t imagine she would run a business just to lose money.” I pause, thinking of the sweet old lady and how she treats every customer who enters her shop like family. “Would she?”
“Wouldn’t put it past her.” Carlos puts together a sinful cup of carameltoffee mocha with an obscene amount of whipped cream and slides it toward me with a wink. “Here, just how you like it. Go take a break with that dog out there. Have you checked her for a collar?”
I nod, taking a sip of the ultra sweet beverage and sighing in bliss. “No collar,” I confirm with a shrug. “Huskies are notorious for running away. I’m sure she’ll wander her way back home when all the free scritchy scratches are gone.”
The day passes in a slow, meandering sort of way. People ebb and flow in a familiar pattern, and I’m surrounded by the scent of books and coffee. I don’t think I’ve ever felt peace like I do here, working at the Novel Grind.
When business is slow, Carlos regales me with outlandish stories and drama he reads on his social media news feeds. He’s been begging me to open up my own profile, but I always decline.
I don’t want anyone to find me here, in this last bastion of peace on earth. Which, yes, is a cringe level of melodramatic, but it’s how I feel down to my very soul.
Long after the sun set, it’s finally time to close, and the husky is still there, asleep on the sidewalk in front of our door. It takes little time to wipe down the last of the tables, gathering stray cups and napkins and tossing them into the trash. I’m exhausted from the double shift, but it’s the kind of tired that burrows deep into your bones and says you’ve worked hard. Like your body’s proud of you for what you’ve done.
Or maybe I’m a little bit of a masochist for thinking that way.
Carlos has me flip the sign on the door to ‘Closed’ as he counts out the register, his fingers flying faster than I would have ever thought possible when going through that much cash.
“Is your furry friend is still out there?”
I glance out the window and, sure enough, the husky is sitting there, staring at me, with her nose pushed against the glass, her pants leaving a foggy haze against it. Once again I’m struck by those eyes so eerily similar to my own, and I feel a bizarre tug in my chest. I want to take her home, but that doesn’t seem intelligent. I live in a tiny apartment above a store. I’m not even sure where she’s gone all day to do her business, because there’s no yard near us, just a tiny square with a wellgroomed tree popping out of it in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Still there.” I toss the rag into the sink and think of the boxes everywhere in my apartment. I’ve made little headway in trying to clean and organize everything, mainly because I’m taking every shift Mrs. Elkins lets me work.
Carlos hums a catchy little jingle as he finishes up with the money. “She’s waiting for you.”
I roll my eyes. “Why would she be waiting for me?”
“Maybe because you’ve been sneaking her treats all day? She probably thinks you’re going home together.”
I can’t help but laugh. It’s true, She’s been scarfing down bits of muffin and croissant whenever I had a chance to toss them her way. What can I say? I have a soft spot for animals.
“Well, we can’t just leave her out there all night. I guess it’s kind of late to say this, but should we call animal control?”
Carlos nods, closing the register with a ding. He grabs the deposit bag and looks toward the door thinking.
“They’re closed. I’m sure she’ll be fine overnight with all that fur protecting her. If she’s still around in the morning, we can call then. They can check for a microchip and contact her owner.”
I sigh, looking out at the husky again. She’s still staring at me, her nose all squashed against the window. “Yeah, you’re right. I justI don’t know. There’s something about her.”
“There’s always something. You know how many cats have tried to live in this shop over the years?” Carlos pats the top of my head in a way that reminds me of Phoenix. The Phoenix I knew before. Brotherly. Kind.
“You can’t adopt every stray that comes along. Come on, let’s go.”
I know he’s right. I’m still working on getting my life together. I know almost nothing about the city I live in, and I haven’t left my apartment or the store since the day I moved in. I have groceries delivered because I’m not sure how to get there and back without a car.
But still, as I look out at the husky, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something different about her. Something that whispers deep inside of me that she belongs here, that she’s found me for a reasontha
The husky is still here.
A call to Animal Control is simple enough, even though it feels like I’m betraying her loyalty to me. I feed her bits of deli meat I brought down from my apartment, and she goes into doggy custody with little fanfare.
My day is bleak without her, but somehow, when Carlos and I are closing, I hear a scratching at the front door and glance up to see the nowfamiliar sight of my little Siberian buddy.
Okay, she isn’t really that little, and has to weigh at least fifty pounds, but to me, she’s a baby.
Carlos laughs behind me, a hearty sound that starts deep in his belly and bursts out to reverberate through the store. “I think she’s keeping you, Ava.”
I let her inside, smiling when her cold nose gives my leg a gentle boop as she passes. “Hey, girl. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
She snuffles and tosses her head, chattering at me in that unique husky cadence. I ruffle the fur behind her ears with a sigh. “How did you escape, hmm? I hope you didn’t leave a mess.” I remember a viral video of a dog that went wild after escaping its kennel within a shelter somewhere, and the mess it left in its wake. If I recall correctly, that dog was also a husky.
Carlos snorts as the dog yips at me. “You may as well take her upstairs. I doubt she’s going anywhere. I have a feeling that the dog has chosen you. My mama would say it’s a spiritual connection. You should name her.” He taps her furry little snout with a grin, then shoots me a meaningful look. “Names have power.”
I jolt, finding wonder that someone put into words what I felt toward the mischievous, yet devoted to a bizarre level, stranger dog. But he’s right. I can’t keep calling her “the husky”, or “the dog”, can I?
Then again, I’ll be calling Animal Control again in the morning, so there’s that.
As if understanding my thoughts, she yips again and circles in agitation, chattering and groaning as her head bumps against me hard enough to throw me off balance. “I am not taking you for a walk every time you want to go potty,” I warn her, but my voice sounds like I’m happytalking to a child. “I’m calling Animal
Control in the morning, so you better go home if you have one. Otherwise, it’s back to the kennels.” I rub and scrunch my hands all over the fur at her neck, laughing when she falls over and exposes her belly to me, tail wagging against the floor.
“Come on, you silly little monkey. We need to close up. I’m serious, you need to go home.”
She blows out a little chuff, and I get the distinct feeling she’s doing the dog equivalent of rolling her eyes at me before following us out the door. She tries to follow me upstairs to the front door of my apartment, but I point at her with narrowed eyes. “No. You go home now. Find your family. I can’t take care of you.”
Whine.
“No way. No matter how cute you are, I just can’t. I don’t have the space. I don’t have the money. I’m sure you have a perfectly nice family that you ran away from. You should go back.”
Groan. That agitated circling again, before she curls up at the bottom of the steps and stares at me with mournful eyes!
I escape into my apartment, feeling like the worst person alive for abandoning her.
***
She’s still there in the morning, and Animal Control picks her up within ten minutes of my phone call, exclaiming how odd the camera footage is. If their words are to be believed, her kennel door just… popped open.
And she somehow escaped from one camera to the next. No one knows how.
My supernatural radar tingles at their words, but hello, she’s a husky. Not a wolf. I’ve never heard of a domestic dog shifter. Wolves, foxes, coyotes, panthers, and other wild animals? Sure. A dog? No. Not only no, but hell no.
And yet she’s there again when we close down the store.
Three more days pass, and she escapes each time, waiting for me to clock out every night. Mrs. Elkins even stays late one night to watch it happen, clucking her tongue and telling me that fate has brought us together. Carlos, of course, agrees. Even Lisa is laughing at me through phone calls and texts. She loves all the photos of her and encourages me to keep her, saying it’s beyond my control at this point.
I flick at one of the husky’s furry little ears. I’ve taken to calling her Selene, after the Moon Goddess that most wolf shifters believe in.
“Fine. I give in. Come home with me. I’m pretty sure Animal Control is tired of my phone calls anyway.”
She trills and yips in an excited canine melody and I laugh,
“Trust me, it’s not that great. You won’t have a lot of room, and I’m serious about you having to find a place to potty on your own. I’m not helping you.”
Selene croons, shoving her head under my hands and leaning into me with her full weight. I’m used to it by now and have myself braced to not fall over. “What do I feed you, though?”
She huffs.