She knew that red envelope. Emily couldn't say she'd ever received a howler before, but she knew what the envelopes looked like, and she'd been avoiding opening it for days. Every so often,
it would angrily shake and shiver like a neglected housewife and so the Scottish witch figured it was time to cut the cord and slice open the damn thing. Using her finger to rip open the seal, which promptly gave her a papercut, she cursed. Ouch. Even though they were so minor, papercuts were universally some of the most painful wounds one could acquire. Didn't matter who you were -- it was a well-known fact.
The dull throb of the papercut had momentarily distracted her from what was to come, and her body stood rigidly at attention when the red paper began to scream at her, its parchment tongue wiggling about as it snarled. Jesus. She could barely understand it. Off to a friendly start, she saw. Eventually, Emily gave up and plugged her ears, waiting for the unintelligible shrieking to subside before she picked it up to note the return address. There was none. Of course. She did notice, however, that it was addressed to one of her pennames -- ah. Must've been an angry reader abusing the "please write to me at __" note at the bottom of the article to inappropriately articulate a disputing opinion. They were wrong, though. Those findings were conclusive! Everybody knew that except for people who clung to archaic models of thinking concerning the subject, and she'd be caught dead before being lumped in with that camp of freaks.
Emily crumpled the paper up and tossed it into the wastebasket underneath her desk that sat on a raised ledge in the middle of the store and lifted her face to the bell on the door ringing, false smile curving her lips weakly. "Hey, there. Welcome to Eximius. I'm Emily. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you'd like any help locating a title or if you need me to unlock any of the titles in the glass cases, and I'd be happy to do that for you."
@Mateo Galván
