From the USA Today bestselling author of In the Middle of Hickory Lane comes Heather Webber’s next enchanting novel, At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities!
A mysterious letter. An offer taken. And the chance to move forward.
When Ava Harrison receives a letter containing an unusual job listing one month after the sudden death of her ex-boyfriend, she thinks she’s being haunted. The listing—a job as a live-in caretaker for a peculiar old man and his cranky cat in Driftwood, Alabama—is the perfect chance to start a new life. A normal life. Ava has always been too fearful to even travel, so no one’s more surprised than she is when she throws caution to the wind and drives to the distant beachside town.
On the surface, Maggie Mae Brightwell is a bundle of energy as she runs Magpie’s, Driftwood’s coffee and curiosity shop, where there’s magic to be found in pairing the old with the new. But lurking under her cheerful exterior is a painful truth—keeping busy is the best way to distract herself from the lingering loss of her mama and her worries about her aging father. No one knows better than she does that you can’t pour from an empty cup, but holding on to the past is the only thing keeping the hope alive that her mama will return home one day.
Ava and Maggie soon find they’re kindred spirits, as they’re both haunted—not by spirits, but by regret. Both must learn to let go of the past to move on—because sometimes the waves of change bring you to the place where you most belong.
At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities will be available on August 1st, 2023. Please enjoy the following excerpt!
Chapter 1
Ava
The letter had been sent by a dead man.
There was no doubt in my mind.
Fine. There was a little doubt. Okay, a lot of doubt. Buckets of it.
But after thirteen long hours in the car during which I’d thought of very little else, I couldn’t come up with anyone else who might have sent the note. Not one single person, other than Alexander Bryant, who’d died exactly a month ago yesterday.
Yesterday also happened to be when a late- summer breeze blew through my apartment’s kitchen window and caused an unassuming envelope to fall from the thin stack of this week’s mail on the countertop. The letter had drifted steadily downward, soundlessly landing at my feet while I’d been washing dishes.
The strange thing was I didn’t remember receiving the letter. I didn’t get much mail, so it should’ve stood out to me. But I had no recollection of the crisp kraft brown paper envelope that had no return address. Or the way my name and address had been hand- printed in neat letters that almost looked machine- produced except for the unevenness of the blue ink. I defi nitely didn’t remember the butterfl y stamp in the upper right corner of the envelope, the colorful sticker unmarred by an adjacent postmark too smudged to read.
Now, as I rolled to a stop at a traffi c light, waiting to turn left down a road lined with palm trees that swayed in the breeze, I thought it extremely odd I’d not noticed the stamp. Usually, all things animal- related captured my attention. But I had to admit that life had been a bit of a blur since Alex had passed away. My mind had been elsewhere, tangled up in a guilty net of what-ifs and should-haves.
“Are you sure this is the best job choice for you?”
My mother’s voice drifted through the car’s sound system, her concern crisp and clear.
“Only one way to find out,” I said, adjusting the volume on the Bluetooth system. Her sharp worried tones made my ears ache.
“Ava,” she said on a sigh. “I know you’ve been a little lost this past month, but this feels rash. You’ve always worked a computer job from home, now suddenly you’re applying to be a caretaker?”
I’d told her a little bit about the job I was applying for, but not all. I hadn’t told her how the position had come to my attention. Or that the job was in Alabama. Or that I’d driven through the night to get here.
It didn’t matter that I was twenty-seven years old—she’d have thrown a fit if she thought for a second I wasn’t taking good care of myself.
I almost hadn’t answered her call at all, but that would’ve only sent her into a blind panic. It was better to ease her fears now, get them out of the way.
I didn’t want her worrying about me. She’d had a lifetime of that already. It was only in the last couple of years that she could breathe more easily, sleep better, and live a normal life without feeling like she always had to be on alert to keep me safe.
I didn’t want to go back to what used to be.
“I think a change of pace will be good for me,” I finally said. I swallowed hard. “Get me out of my comfort zone.”
It was a gray morning, the sky filled with low-hanging clouds. Leftover rain droplets from a storm that had rolled through in the wee hours of the morning sat fat and sparkly on the edges of my bug-splattered windshield as I glanced at the dashboard clock: 8:38.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, unable to stop thinking about the letter that had set this trip in motion.
Inside the envelope had been a wrinkled piece of paper, folded neatly in thirds. It was a typed help-wanted ad that looked to have been crumpled up at one point then smoothed out. At the top of it, someone had written me a note.
Someone.
Alex?
The short, scribbled message had several of my ex-boyfriend Alexander’s earmarks. The cheesy buttercup line? That’s exactly something he would say. He had a way of making oldtimey phrases sound endearing. Plus, that double x? It’s how he’d always signed off on his text messages. The handwriting could’ve been his, that slanting, masculine scrawl, but I didn’t know for sure and didn’t have anything to compare it to other than a belated birthday card he’d given me back in June. But that had only xx Alex handwritten on it. He’d been a nice guy but not overly sentimental and often forgetful—always too focused on the next thing to simply be present, to take notice, to just be.
That, honestly, was one of the many reasons I’d broken up with him after only three months of dating. We’d parted the same way we’d started—as friends—and made promises to stay that way. But he’d pushed those boundaries in the weeks after the breakup. And then he was gone.
“All right, Ava,” Mom said. “I’ll let it go for now. What time is the interview?”
If the letter had come from Alex, why? How?
I let out a frustrated huff of air, my breath making a soft whistling sound, as if testing its wings in the unfamiliar humidity. I had a suspicion about a reason, but the how baffled me. I supposed it was possible he’d mailed the letter before he passed away. It could’ve been lost for a month in the mail system, then found and delivered recently. That kind of thing happened all the time. All. The. Time.
But . . .
Why send a letter? As someone who had his phone with him twenty-four/seven, why not just snap a picture of the want ad and text it to me? That seemed more like something Alexander would do. Snail mail was too old-school for him. Plus, why not put a return address on the envelope? Or sign the note? Also, it was only recently that I’d started looking for a new job—I hadn’t needed one when he was still here—so how would he have known? It had been only two weeks since I was fired, unable to concentrate on much of anything in the aftermath of Alex’s death.
“Ava?” Mom asked. “You still there?”
“I’m here. Just lost in thought.”
“I asked what time the interview is,” she said.
Without a doubt, the timing of that letter felt all kinds of unexplainable. Was it simply coincidence that the letter had fallen from the stack of mail the day before the job interview, giving me just enough time to get to Alabama? Never mind the strange manner in which it had floated to my feet. It was almost as if . . .
I could hardly allow myself to think that it looked like it had been taken out of the stack of mail by invisible hands and placed at my feet. Goose bumps popped up on my arms, and I rubbed them away. Ghosts weren’t real. They weren’t.
Were they?
Shaking my head, I finally settled on the letter being mysterious. That was all.
“Ava!”
My head jerked back at her shout. My ears rang. “It’s at nine,” I said quickly.
“You’ll text me after?” she asked.
“I promise.”
“All right, since you’re so distracted, I’ll let you go to concentrate on the road. I love you. Don’t forget to text.”
“I won’t. I love you, too,” I said, then disconnected the call and let out a deep breath.
I powered down the windows, letting the wind gust through the car. Immediately I picked up the scent of the sea in the air—a distinct briny smell that I recognized immediately even though I’d only been to the beach one other time in my life, on a family vacation to Florida when I was ten years old. The brief trip had been enough to fall in love with the water.
My blinker ticked steadily, the sound faint, nearly lost in the wind. Only a few miles back, I’d noticed dense fog sitting low along the shoreline. It masked any views of the gulf, but if I concentrated, blocking out the wind, the birdsong, the traffic noise, I could hear waves crashing against the beach, which somehow sounded both melodious and discordant, as if warning of dangerous surf while reminding that beauty could be found in chaos.
I wished I were standing at the water’s edge now. I’d dance in the foamy surf. Maybe fling myself in the salty water, let it flow over me, shushing all other noises, wash away all my worries. Over the years, I’d pleaded for a return to the beach, only to be denied again and again, because that one trip had ended in an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital and a vow from my mother that it was the last time we traveled so far from our home in Cincinnati.
I should’ve returned to the beach after I moved out on my own, but I’d been too fearful to go alone, my mom’s worries having become my own at some point.
I glanced at the clock: 8:40.
The red light finally gave way to a green arrow and I closed the windows to silence the noise. As I drove toward Driftwood, my stomach twisted with nerves. My mom was right. This felt rash. Why, after reading that letter, had I decided to throw caution to the wind by hurriedly packing, then jumping into my car to make the long drive to Alabama? All so I could apply for the job in the letter?
If there was anything I knew about myself, it was that Ava Laine Harrison didn’t throw caution. Or do spontaneity. Or wild-goose chases, which this foray south suddenly felt like. I was used to staying in my comfort zone, surrounded by familiarity. Routine. Quiet.
Especially quiet.
Now here I was racing to Magpie’s, a coffeehouse located in a cozy beachside community, so I could be interviewed for a dreadful-sounding job I wasn’t sure I even wanted.
I didn’t have a good reason why I was here. I only knew that I had to do it. It was a feeling that beat so strongly within me that there was no denying it, even when I wanted nothing more than to turn the car around, head back north.
As I approached a picturesque tree-lined town square, I turned right, carefully navigating the one-way streets. I wanted to inch along, to take in every detail I could of my surroundings, to study every shop. But I kept going, my sights on the coffeehouse, painted a pretty blue green, that I could see on the other side of the square. I threw a look at the clock: 8:44.
I made a left turn, then another as I searched for a parking spot and finally found an open space in between two golf carts not far from the coffee shop. I shut off the engine, grabbed my handbag, and jumped out of the car.
Walking as quickly as I could manage, I hurried along the brick sidewalk. However, as I neared Magpie’s, my steps slowed. Then stopped. Now that I was here, it felt too early to go inside.
Unfamiliar noises swirled around me like a tornado of musical notes, some low, like the rustling of palm tree fronds, some sharp, like the enthusiastic squawk of a seagull—conflicting but somehow harmonious.
I was grateful for the harmony. It wasn’t the norm. Then again, there wasn’t much about my life that could be considered ordinary. I was hoping that would change here in Driftwood. After all, that was what the letter had inferred, wasn’t it?
Everything you’ve always wanted is only one job interview away.
All I’d ever wanted—for as long as I could remember—was normalcy. I’d spent so much of my life tucked away, being kept safe and sound, that I didn’t know how to be part of a bigger whole. I longed to live someplace where people would treat me the same as everyone else. A place where I was simply Ava and not someone to be pitied or judged blindly.
Being in Driftwood was about as far out of my comfort zone as I could wander, yet as I stood here, my nerves settled, calmed. It gave me hope that coming here hadn’t been a big mistake.
So far, the small beachside town seemed perfectly normal. Magpie’s was one of two dozen businesses that comprised three sides of a square, each storefront painted a cheerful pastel color. On the fourth side, seemingly anchoring the town, stood a simple pearly white church topped with a bell tower and cross.
Sitting prettily in the center of the square was an oval green space. On one end of it two women sat on a blanket chatting as two young children kicked a red ball to one another, and on the other side of the lawn, a line dancing class was taking place with ten or so elderly participants.
As I watched the dancers scoot forward, then back, behind me came the sound of scuffling footsteps and the jingle of dog tags. I turned and saw a man and his dog walking along the sidewalk toward the coffee shop.
He was a big guy, broad and tall. The type of guy you’d expect to see with a Labrador, golden retriever, or German shepherd at his side—not a small cream-colored long-haired dachshund. The disparity amused me to no end.
Flashing me a distantly friendly smile, he said, “Good morning” as he used a hook on the storefront to secure the leash.
He had a nice voice, the timbre mellow with a hint of raspy.
With a quick rub of the dog’s long, furry ears he said, “I’ll be right back, Norman. Stay.”
The dog sat.
Norman? For some reason I’d expected the dog to be a girl with a name like Goldilocks or Godiva. He was just so . . . pretty. I sent him a silent apology for jumping to conclusions.
The man strode past me and pulled open the shop’s wide glass door. Bells tinkled and the scent of freshly ground coffee beans wafted out of the shop, along with the dissonant strains of many voices, the clink of dishes, the whizzing of a grinder.
Using his shoulder to prop the door open, he regarded me with downturned eyes, dark brown with golden flecks. I was taken aback by the heartache I saw in their depths.
With thick eyebrows lifted in question, he said, “You goin’ on in?”
I glanced at my watch: 8:49. It was too soon. I wasn’t ready. “Not yet, thank you.”
With a nod, he stepped into the shop. The door closed slowly behind him, but not before a hollow burst of a woman’s laughter floated out, sounding so brittle that it might break. That she might break.
As if the dog had heard the woman, too, and was sympathizing, he made a guttural noise, low and staccato. I wouldn’t call it a bark. It sounded more like it was half bark, half . . . quack. I immediately termed it a quabark. It was adorable. He was adorable.
“You’re a handsome fellow,” I said to him.
He blinked his sweet brown eyes.
Across the street came a burst of children’s laughter, and Norman quabarked again, as if wanting to join in the fun. Dozens of people roamed about, walking here, there, everywhere. Bicycles adorned with baskets rolled past, and people pulling wagons loaded with fishing gear headed toward the beach.
“This seems like a nice place to live,” I said to Norman.
He tipped his head and I swore it looked like he was nodding. I started to wonder if I was dreaming. This couldn’t possibly be real. Any of it. The mysterious letter. The out-of-character road trip. This delightful town, which looked postcard perfect despite gloomy skies. The beautiful, expressive dachshund.
To make sure my imagination hadn’t gotten the best of me, I held my breath until I felt fit to explode, then gasped for air. Instead of waking up in my apartment in Cincinnati, I still stood in front of Magpie’s, breathing in the salty air caught on a warm, whispering September breeze.
The line dancers grapevined left, then right, in rhythm to a bouncy country song. The little ones giggled as they mimicked— or mocked, I couldn’t be sure from this distance—the dancers. A golf cart rolled into an empty parking spot in front of a breakfast diner across the square, its brakes squealing. Norman scratched his ear, making his tags jingle.
All this was absolutely real, or surreal, if I was calling it straight. There wasn’t anything I could see or hear, near or far, that didn’t feel absolutely enchanting. Even the gray clouds were puffed up with charm, edged in pale gold, as if an artist had watercolored their scalloped ridges.
Could I ever possibly fit in around here? Among all this perfection? Little imperfect me, who’d so often been called weird or strange because some people didn’t know how to label something they didn’t understand.
As slivers of sunshine poked through the clouds, light spilled across the coffee shop’s aqua exterior. The unexpected brightness spotlighted an older woman sitting at a small table on the other side of a large picture window. With furrowed pencil-thin eyebrows lofted high, she peered at me, a hint of surprise in her steady gaze.
I returned the look, simply because I was spellbound by her attire. She wore a form-fitting black sequin gown that accentuated her overly curved spine and a black pillbox hat with a birdcage veil.
I offered the woman a hesitant smile. She responded by puckering her lips as though tasting something sour. Then she lifted her chin, sticking her nose up in the air, and turned her hunched back on me. The sequins on her dress shimmered in solidarity, as if bidding me a not-so-fond farewell, and I couldn’t help the spark of hope that flashed through me.
“Perhaps this charming town does have a place for an oddball or two.”
Norman’s tail happily thumped the ground. I took that as complete agreement and suddenly I wanted to be part of this charming town more than anything. I needed to get this job.
I glanced at my watch again: 8:51. Almost time. I put my hand on my stomach in an attempt to settle the nerves that had come sneaking back. I could do this. I could.
Taking a moment to scan inwardly, I searched for any dire signs of distress and found none. I let out a breath of relief, wondering for the thousandth time—maybe the millionth—when I would stop checking and accept that my body was healed.
The truth was that I’d probably never stop.
Self-screening for symptoms—warning signs—had been ingrained into me early. I had been only four years old when my life, my health, had taken a sharp turn on a road that offered no way back to what once was.
Outwardly, there was no hint that I’d ever been anything but healthy, except, perhaps, the dark bags under my eyes that I tried to hide with concealer. Truly, I hadn’t slept a whole night through since Alexander had passed away. If I was being completely honest, I hadn’t felt well since then, either, my grief and guilt affecting me physically as well as emotionally.
“Give it a little time,” my mother had said, “but call a doctor if it gets worse. You don’t want to take any chances.”
So far time hadn’t helped much at all. Yet I hesitated to call a doctor. I didn’t really want to go down that dreaded road again.
Lost in my thoughts, I jumped in surprise when the door to the shop flew open and a beautiful older woman with long black hair ran out like her feet were on fire. She quickly disappeared around the corner, her hurried steps pounding against the sidewalk.
A moment later Norman’s companion came out of the shop, carrying an iced coffee in a plastic cup and a paper dish full of whipped cream that he placed in front of the dog. Norman immediately set about lapping it up. The man took a pull from his straw as he waited for Norman to finish, then shifted on his feet, looking like he’d rather eat glass than make small talk with the stranger standing idly by.
Finally, he said, “Not from around here, are you?”
“That obvious?” I asked.
Thin gray clouds began to drift apart, revealing glimpses of cobalt-blue skies as he gave me a quick once-over. Then his gaze drifted toward my car—the only one parked nearby. My hatchback with its Ohio license plates screamed exactly how far I’d traveled to chase this particular wild goose.
“Not many wear wool around here, especially this time of year.”
As a smile warmed his eyes and chased away the somberness, I guessed him to be in his early thirties. He wore a wrinkled short-sleeve button-down shirt patterned with miniature red crabs, and blue twill shorts. On his feet were well-worn boat shoes but no socks.
“I know it’s a little out of place here at the beach, but it’s my lucky blazer.” I tugged at my vintage speckled purple jacket. It was an expensive piece that I’d found on a Goodwill rack years ago for a steal because it had a rip in the sleeve, a tear that had taken me no time at all to mend. I’d been offered every job I’d ever applied for when wearing this jacket to the interview. Granted, that had been all of two jobs, but still.
“Are you in need of luck, then?” he asked, the soft twang of a southern accent barely noticeable.
I smiled, hoping he could see only my hopes and not my regrets. “Aren’t we all?”
He glanced at his left hand, bare of any rings, and flexed his fingers. “Some believe you make your own luck.”
As a butterfly drifted between us, a monarch, identifiable by its deep-orange-and-black coloring, I said, “Well, I’m not one of those people. I’ll take all the luck I can get.”
I noticed this particular monarch had a unique anomaly—its right forewing had a white tip, almost as if it had been dipped in paint. The unusual marking shimmered, looking opalescent, even in the gray morning.
The wind gusted and the man lifted his chin, inhaling deeply as if he’d been suffocating the whole time he’d been standing there. “I’m Sam, by the way, and this here is Norman.” Norman had emptied the dish and was licking his lips with a tiny pink tongue. “Are you here on vacation . . . ?” With eyebrows lifted, he bent slightly forward and trailed off, obviously waiting for me to supply my name.
With him so close, I could easily pick up his scent. Hazelnut and citrus, deep woods and melancholy. “I’m Ava. And I’m actually here for a job interview.”
Suddenly I felt queasy at the risk I had taken by coming here. Before yesterday, I’d never driven farther than an hour away from home. Heck, I’d only had a driver’s license for a few years. Now I was in Driftwood, Alabama, all because of a ghos— I cut my thought off, silently revising it. All because of a mysterious letter.
When I’d opened that strange letter with that everything you’ve always wanted line, it felt like an opportunity to start life over, to take a leap of faith.
Which was why I was here, a stranger in a strange, charming land, ready to take a big, scary chance.
“I see,” Sam said. “That explains the lucky blazer.”
I nodded.
He turned his face into the wind again, breathed deeply. “I’m not sure you need that coat. I feel luck blowing in the air today. Blowing around you.”
“It’s the blazer, trust me.”
He only smiled at that, as if he knew better but had the good manners not to argue.
The butterfly that had been drifting around had a herkyjerky way of flying, almost like it was drunk. It dipped and rose repeatedly before finally landing on my forearm. There, its wings opened and closed slowly, the whooshing sound nearly blocking out all other noises. “Are butterflies a sign of good luck, too?”
Sadness shadowed the gold flecks in his eyes. “I’ve never heard of a butterfly as a symbol of good luck, but who knows? In these parts, most believe they represent life—more specifically, life after death. Anyone else around here would tell you that when a butterfly chooses to land on you like that, it’s a visit from someone in your life who’s passed on.”
I swallowed hard, thinking about the butterfly stamp on the letter and how the ethereal whooshing of the monarch’s wings suddenly sounded like a heartbeat.
Was this butterfly . . . Alex?
A rush of emotion came over me, and I struggled with whether I wanted to blow the butterfly off my sleeve or hold it close.
“Anyone else would say that, but not you? You don’t believe it?”
“I’m not sure what I believe in anymore.”
The strain in his voice, the mournfulness, came through loud and clear, sharing a painful ending to a story but none of the early chapters. Using my fingertip, I lifted the docile butterfly toward him. “I’m more than happy to share the experience.”
Confusion flickered in his eyes as he turned away to untie Norman’s leash. Then he picked up the empty whipped cream dish from the ground and tossed it in a nearby trash can. “I don’t think it works that way, but thanks. It’s real nice of you. But if monarchs are lucky, you hit the jackpot by coming here—there are plenty floating around these days. In a month or so, the whole town will be full of them, the sky nearly orange as they migrate south for the winter. The town celebrates by holding Butterfly Fest in late October. It’s a big to-do around here.”
The thought of witnessing the migration filled me with a joy I hadn’t felt in a good, long while. But if I wanted to stick around to see it, I needed a job. I checked the time: 8:58. I couldn’t procrastinate any longer. “I need to get going. It was nice meeting the two of you.”
The curious look was back in his eyes as he nodded. “Welcome to Driftwood, Ava. Maybe we’ll see you around.”
As they walked away, I carried the butterfly to a waist-high planter pot overflowing with flowers and gently placed the monarch on a pink petal. Its wings opened, closed. Again, it sounded to my ears like the beat of a heart.
No. It couldn’t possibly be Alex. That was impossible. It was just a butterfly.
But between it and the letter . . . it had me wondering about the impossible.
As the church’s bell started tolling the hour, I hurried toward the coffee shop’s door, a line from the letter going round and round in my head.
Be yourself and it’ll all be okay.
I wanted to believe it would all be okay. Wanted it desperately.
But how could it be, when I couldn’t change the fact that being myself was what had led to Alexander’s death?
Click below to pre-order your copy of At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities, available 8.01.23!
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