I pulled up outside my small, one-bedroom house just outside of town and sat in my car, unsure of what I was waiting for. My fingers gripped the steering wheel as I lost myself to my thoughts, the only thing catching my attention was the glint of the moonlight off the wine bottle I'd stashed on the passenger side seat.

Meeting Emil had been strange. Come to think of it, I knew nothing about him other than a first name, and where he lived. I had no way to contact him, to thank him for the wine - fuck. I should've asked if he wanted to share it with me.

Why did I always think of the thing to say after it was too late?

No matter, I thought to myself as I opened the car door and slid out into the night. Rain had started drizzling from the sky not five minutes before I pulled up, and part of me was hopeful it would have ended in time for me to walk inside without getting wet. No such luck.

I hurried from my car to my front door, wine bottle firmly in my left hand, and keys in my right. As I pushed through the door, a large gale forced it back shut behind me, sending a rattle through the bones of my old house. I pressed my hand against the support beam in the hallway, almost as if to soothe it, before proceeding into the lounge.

"Just gotta do it all again tomorrow," I said to myself. The wine sat on the small coffee table, its label gleaming under the soft lamplight. I made my way into the kitchen, the cool tile a contrast to the warm wood floors of the living room, grabbed a wine glass, and returned to sink into the deep cushions of the sofa.

My coffee table was a mess. A tarot deck, with four cards placed in front of it, took over most of the left side, with a handful of pendulums and crystals around it. Did I really believe in all that stuff? Maybe. Some days I consulted my tarot cards, and others I thought it was pathetic. Thinking that none of it was true. But it comforted me when I needed it, so I allowed myself the small pleasure of believing, even if not all the time. The right side was taken up with books of assorted genres and sizes. About a month ago, I'd developed the nasty habit of not putting my books back when I was done with them. It'd been a month of stress, of worry and concern - I'd tried to hold space for myself, to let myself break my self-made rules, but all it'd done was make a mess of my lounge and stress me out more.

I grabbed the wine and poured myself a drink before I slumped back into the thick cushions of the sofa. My eyelids dropped and my thoughts, as if I had no control over them whatsoever, drifted onto Ravenswood itself. A remarkable place. Ten years ago, I'd have believed no one if they told me I'd be running my store, with my home, in a town like Ravenswood. There was a magnetism to it, one that drew in the broken and the kind all at once. The days were soothing, and the nights were safe. Emil, though I barely knew him, had entered my life when I needed someone the most. Sure, I had friends in Ravenswood. People I could talk to. But Emil felt different.

My thoughts run away from me and I felt a smile involuntarily creep across my face as I daydreamed, replaying that first meeting with Emil over in my head. In the pit of my stomach, I felt an unfamiliar tingling, and I bit down on my lower lip as I tried to shake him from my mind. The coldness I'd felt when I met him should've put me off. Gut instinct was something I'd been a big believer in trusting, but last night, seeing him battered and bruised in my alleyway, I wasn't immediately put off. A genuine need softened the coldness and then it softened once more by a minor act of kindness.

The taste of wine lingered against my tongue for a moment after I swallowed it down, enjoying Emil's gift. He'd given me no reason to distrust him, and if anything, he'd seemed more reserved than even I. He hadn't forced himself on me, had expected nothing at all. He didn't coerce his way into my store, nor had he stolen anything from me - but it was odd how he appeared, bloody and bruised, asking for nothing but entry.

A friend of mine, Tilly, might have known something more about him. Perhaps I needed to call her and arrange for a meetup, either at the store or the local library where she worked. Tilly was a good woman, and she knew almost everything that there was to know. Much like me, she found pride in knowing about Ravenswood, knowing about its rich history - but unlike me, she enjoyed learning more about the current people who lived there. Perhaps she'd heard something about the sale of the old house — and perhaps she could sate my curiosity about who this presumably wealthy stranger was.

Either way, I distracted myself with some mid-tier show on Netflix and swore to myself for the rest of the evening, I'd stop thinking about Emil - he was a stranger to me, he didn't need to invade my thoughts entirely.