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But the tinkling of the shop bell in the doorway told Abbey that the man she’d been waiting on was already gone.
Abbey felt a mixture of rage and helplessness sweep over her. Of course, this wasn’t the first time a customer had reacted badly to her blindness, but it was one of the more extreme examples of people being assholes due to her disability.
“Honey, are you okay?” she heard Aunt Rose ask as she touched Abbey’s arm lightly.
“Fine—I’m fine.” Angry tears pricked at her eyelids but she didn’t want Aunt Rose to see her cry. “I’ll just go in the back and get the broom and dustpan.”
“You do that—I’ll pick up the roses,” she heard her aunt say, but she was already hurrying to the back of the shop.
Just as she was closing the door marked, “Employees Only, No Admittance,” she heard the shop bell jingle again. And then a deep, familiar voice said,
“Hello—I am looking for Abbey.”
5
ABBEY
Abbey hid in the back of the store, her heart pounding so hard it felt like it was shaking her entire body.
It’s him—it’s him! The one from your dreams! shouted a little voice in her head.
No, it can’t be—they’re only dreams! she told it, trying to fight back. He’s not real—he can’t be!
But if that was true, then why did she hear the rumble of his voice and then Aunt Rose’s higher-pitched tones answering it?
Abbey dared to open the door a crack and peek out, but of course she couldn’t see anything but colorful blurs. One blur was more colorful than the others though—she definitely caught some gold in her field of vision as well as dark blue. The colors stood out against the various shades of red and pink and green that were the roses in the shop. Was that him?
She listened closely, trying to figure out what he wanted.
“I’m sorry,” her aunt was saying. “But I have kind of a mess to clean up right here. If you’ll wait for just a minute, I’ll be right with you.”
“That’s fine,” came the deep rumble of his voice. “I’ll wait.”
Abbey’s panicked mind filled with a jumble of questions. Was he really a Monstrum warrior? And if so, was he really the one from her dreams? What did he want with her? What was he doing here?
Well, she could get answers for at least one of those questions, she thought. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her iPhone. Scrolling through the apps by touch as the iPhone whispered quietly what each one was, she found the button for an app called “Be My Eyes.”
Be My Eyes was an app that connected thousands of seeing people who signed up as volunteers with visually impaired people who needed help with simple tasks. In the past, Abbey had used the app a lot while grocery shopping or doing other mundane chores where she needed someone to see details for her that her own eyes couldn’t discern. But she’d never used it for what she was going to do now, she thought grimly.
Double tapping the app, she was soon rewarded with a voice on the other end of the phone.
“Hi, I’m Madison—how can I help you?”
It was a happy, chatty female voice and it sounded youngish—like a girl in college, Abbey thought.
“Hi,” she said in a low voice, bringing the phone around to face herself. “I need some help—can you please describe the man, er, person I’m about to show you?”
“Uh, sure,” the voice said. “Just let me see him.”
Abbey turned the phone around and pointed it through the crack in the door at about eye-level.
“A little to the left,” the voice said. “I can’t quite see him…oh, there he is!” she exclaimed as Abbey tilted the phone. “Just hold it right there.”
“What does he look like?” Abbey whispered, trying to keep her voice down. “Is he a Monstrum?”
“Oh God, he must be—and he’s huge!” the girl returned. “I mean, he’s twice as big as that old lady he’s standing beside!”
Abbey swallowed hard. Aunt Rose was about five foot five—an inch shorter than Abbey herself.
