To say the next day was busy would have been an understatement. It would have been Ever’s day off, but Taylor had a feeling that they would be slammed and had asked him to come in. The live stream of the winner had generated a modest number of views. Taylor had tagged Vets R Us, asking Zoe to come in but there was no response.

  While Ever and Chaos scooped, she called every, single person who had dropped a card in the box, informing them of the 10% off promotion. She seemed like a woman possessed; neither of the mythic beings disturbed her.

  A lot of the customers were the regulars: the parents who decided to treat their kids after school, or themselves after dropping the kids off, workers along Lygon Street taking a break during the quiet period between the lunch and dinner rushes and others that the three of them knew by sight and gave secret names to.

  There were many new faces; all in all, about a dozen people mentioned the promotion, much to Taylor’s delight. But there were plenty of other new customers; perhaps the festival really had put their name out there.

  The interesting thing for Ever though was the number of souls that floated through the door. In most cases, they accompanied those who were alive. A few of them came in on their own, looking at the flavors, drifting around aimlessly before leaving the store.

  Chaos had mistakenly asked one who had been staring at the nut flavors if he could help them. The nervous ghost looked up, shocked, before flying out through the window like a gust of wind. The primordial being really couldn’t tell dead and alive humans apart.

  You missed a reaping last week, Death mentioned, while Ever was handing a cup of hazelnut ice cream to a customer.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  *It was busy here.*

  There are plenty of ghosts about, just saying.

  *I will make it up, Mentor. I’ll do two reapings this week.*

  Mm-hmm. As much as it irks me, I’m going to have to agree with Chaos’ comment last week. You’re here to learn about life, not to live it.

  Ever clenched his jaw. From the corner of his eye, he thought he caught Chaos smiling.

  —--

  “Phew! That’s a wrap,” Taylor said. “Thank you again, guys. I know I’ve asked a lot of you. So yeah, days off for you tomorrow,” she pointed at Ever, “then the day after for you,” she pointed at Chaos.

  “Alright, have a good evening then,” Chaos nodded at them both before leaving. Ever raised his arm, giving him a perfunctory wave.

  “Oh my gosh, was that me?” Taylor gasped, hands over her mouth. She was looking at Ever’s upper arm; the bruise had darkened where she had knuckle-punched it. “I didn’t even hit you that hard.”

  “Apparently you did,” he replied. His eyes trailed her slightly worried face to the same spot on her own arm where some markings peeked out: ‘I IX IX IX’. He’d noticed them the day he met her but had never asked about it.

  “How did you get these?” Ever asked, reaching out.

  Taylor turned her shoulder away, looking elsewhere.

  “I’ll tell you some other time. Do you mind closing up?”

  “No, not at all.” Ever said.

  She grabbed her bag and quickly left the ice cream shop, leaving Ever wondering what he’d said wrong.