Hi!
I’m posting chapters (raw & unedited, just for you!) as I’m writing them. I’ll be adding them to this web page as they’re draft and also to YouTube as audio files, if there’s interest. Enjoy this pre-Halloween treat! ~Cate
Chapter 1
I didn’t profile my guests.
Not exactly.
But on days when I wasn’t swamped wi
th in-store shoppers and filling online orders, I liked to guess at the motivations of the people who entered my shop.
Every type of person came into Sticky, Tricky Treats, my year-round, Halloween-themed candy store. Not an exaggeration, because everyone either loved sweets or knew someone who loved sweets.
And since I offered the best specialty, handcrafted candies in town, I saw the sweet-tooth regulars, the occasion shoppers, the apology gift buyers, and the seasonal crowd.
The past hour or so had been a lull, with online orders that didn’t need to go out until tomorrow and only a customer or two in the store at a time, so I’d been entertaining myself playing the “why candy, why today?” game.
There’d been the harried mother of three who just needed a little something special for herself on a tough day. The kids had been absent, likely in school, but something about the large purse and comfortable clothes said busy mom, and the tired look in her eyes spoke volumes as to the type of day she’d been experiencing.
I placed a handful of lavender-lemon drops as an extra surprise for her inside her bag.
Then there was the PMS’ing thirty-something. Well aware that the sugar would give her a happy high for the moment, but that she’d be suffering for the indulgence later.
I slipped a tiny packet of dark chocolate-covered almonds and hazelnuts into her bag. If she didn’t like nuts or dark chocolate, so be it. But she’d probably feel slightly less terrible after eating them as a snack than she would after eating the milk chocolate caramels with sea salt. No judgment though. I loved those salty-sweet candies during certain times of the month myself.
A few others passed through my shop, and I gave each of them my best effort. I was fairly confident in my guesses. Sussing out shoppers’ motivations was one of my superpowers.
I looked at a customer, focused on what they needed, and poof, their candy motivation popped into my head. If they didn’t come to my checkout counter with the candy I thought they needed, I slipped a little something extra into their bag. I could afford it. The shop had been on solid ground for about three years now. And it made me happy to give my guests a little something to make their day better.
Occasionally, a lone shopper whose candy motivation eluded me would cross my threshold.
Today was one of those rare instances.
I surreptitiously studied the man who whose motivation would not be named. Still, nothing poofed into my head.
Tall, solidly built, scruffy-jawed with dirty-blond hair and a good sprinkling of grey in his short beard, there was nothing about him that should have prevented me from making a good guess.
It was possible I was distracted by his level eight hotness, but I’d had the occasional nine come in the store and still managed to pinpoint their candy motivation.
He walked through my small shop examining each display. He paused in the sugar cupcake topper section, scrutinizing the pumpkin tops.
They weren’t my favorite item. Once they were gone, I wasn’t planning to make more. The idea had been for them to look like the sliced off top of a pumpkin, like a pumpkin hat. The result wasn’t entirely up to my standard, and I’d been in a bit of a mood when I’d been working on them. My ex had sent me a stream of less than friendly text messages that evening.
Not those poor pumpkin toppers’ fault, but the product had been forever tainted in my mind.
Level eight didn’t pick up the pumpkin toppers. Rather, he continued his perusal of my wares, stopping only once more to give my candy sticks a thorough gander. Another, non-favorite of mine, or at least the orangey-brown ones were. The evening I’d made them, I’d been a bit peeved about some offensive behavior perpetrated upon my innocent lawn. My friend Betty, who happened to live a few houses away, had sent me video evidence of my least favorite neighbor blowing leaves into my yard.
Level Eight, with his unknown candy motivation, toured my entire stock of treats and happened to land on two of my least favorite candies, both made when I’d been in a particularly poor mood. I didn’t have a lot of foul moods, so they truly were standout items in my shop.
And then he headed to the exit.
I was about to be offended—not many people entered Sticky, Tricky Treats without purchasing at least one small goody—when he paused at the door and flipped the sign to closed.
“Excuse me!” The words flew from my mouth before I’d considered the danger factor.
A man had just isolated me in my own shop.
That could not be good.
I slid my hand casually to my rear jeans pocket, where I’d stashed my cell phone.
He paused, as if surprised by my objection. “The sugar pumpkins and the candy sticks are for sale?”
What? No, I put them out on the shelves with price tags for fun.
But I didn’t voice my inappropriate thought. Instead, I replied calmly, “Yes. All of the candy on the shelves is for sale.” Then again, I did give my customers little extras at no charge, so I added, “Though I do sometimes give samples.”
Candy for sale and for sample, shocker, since this was a candy shop.
As evidenced by the sign on the door and all of the candy.
“Sophia Emmaline Dorchester, you are under arrest for the illegal sale and distribution of cursed candy.”
Oddly, it wasn’t the “cursed” part of his impossible statement that first struck me.
Or even the arrested part.
It was the odd inflection in Level Eight’s speech. I thought he might possibly be German, though his English was practically native.
Then I realized some strange (possibly German) man was attempting to arrest me.
And then I realized he’d accused me of selling “cursed” candy.
Clearly, a crazy person was having a break with reality inside my candy store.
Oh. My. God.
And that crazy person was flipping the lock on my shop door.
***If you want to hear me read it… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7K4cYCnZLY&t=19s
Chapter 2
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