The first thing Alia did the next morning was make a list.
She titled it: "Ways Not to Lose the Bookstore in 60 Days."
She underlined it twice, sat cross-legged on the attic floor, and stared at the blank space beneath it for several minutes. Outside, gulls shrieked over the crashing surf. Downstairs, Micah was already on the phone with their landlord's lawyer, pacing behind the checkout counter with tense brows and a clipped voice.
They had time.
Barely.
But enough.
Maybe.
She started writing.
1. Legal appeal
2. Public campaign?
3. Petition?
4. Town support?
5. Any historic loopholes?
She circled #5.
That felt like something.
She remembered an offhand comment Micah had made weeks ago about how the store had once been a post office, and before that, a meeting hall, and even—at one strange point—an underground press hideout during wartime.
Eastcliff was the kind of town that forgot things. But it was also the kind that buried stories in its soil. If Whittaker's had historical value, maybe they could stop the sale—or at least complicate it.
And if there was one thing bureaucracy hated, it was complication.
---
Alia found herself at the town archive center an hour later.
It was housed in the back wing of the municipal library: dusty, windowless, and watched over by a bespectacled woman named Joan who seemed suspicious of youth, happiness, and breathing near books.
"What are you researching?" Joan asked flatly.
"14 Wicker Street," Alia replied. "Whittaker's Bookshop."
Joan narrowed her eyes. "Ah. That building's cursed."
"Excuse me?"
"It eats tenants," she said, and shuffled off without further explanation.
Encouraging.
---
Alia spent hours flipping through brittle ledgers and typed documents yellowed with time. The records were thin in some decades—whole years missing, or scratched out with red ink. But she found something strange in a folder labeled: Eastcliff Preservation Council, 1952.
A sketch of the original building—before it had become a bookshop. The notes called it a "Freedom Hall."
She blinked. Read the line again.
> Freedom Hall: Founded 1911. Used as safe house during the Writers' Suppression Acts. Confidential meetings. Literary press support. Building was never officially registered due to risk of seizure.
Alia's heart skipped.
She flipped another page. There, in scrawled pen:
> "14 Wicker. One of three remaining Freedom Houses on the coast. Private property. Still owned by the Halstead family, despite protests."
She sat back in her chair, breath catching.
They had something.
Whittaker's wasn't just a bookstore.
It was a piece of history.
Unregistered. Unacknowledged. But real.
If they could document this, they could petition the preservation board. They could delay the sale. Maybe even stop it entirely.
She stood up so fast her chair squeaked.
Joan raised an eyebrow.
"I think I just found a ghost," Alia said breathlessly.
Joan blinked. "Then file the paperwork like everyone else."
---
Back at the bookstore, Micah was still on the phone when Alia burst in, cheeks pink, boots dripping from sudden rain.
He covered the receiver. "You okay?"
"I found something," she said, slapping the document down on the counter. "Your great-uncle's building has secrets."
Micah blinked. Took the page. Read.
And then: "Wait… this is real?"
"As real as anything in this town."
Micah stared at the sketch like it was a message from another life.
"This changes everything," he said.
"Or at least buys us time."
He cupped her face in both hands and kissed her—once, fierce and fast. "You're brilliant."
"I know."
They both laughed.
And for a moment, even with the letter still taped to the back of the front door, the world felt manageable again.
---
Later that night, they sat in the attic together with mugs of tea and a pile of campaign posters that read:
SAVE WHITTAKER'S. SAVE OUR HISTORY. SAVE OUR HOME.
"I never thought I'd be the kind of person who ran a petition drive," Micah said.
"I never thought I'd fall for a bookstore," Alia replied.
"Which one of us is more unhinged?"
"Definitely you," she said, poking his knee.
He smiled, but it faded fast. "Do you think it'll work?"
"I think," she said carefully, "it's already working. People will care. This place is too full of words to go quietly."
He looked at her for a long time, eyes warm.
"You know what scares me most?"
"Hmm?"
"That even if we win, the world won't let us rest. That there'll always be another threat. Another storm. Another reason to rebuild."
Alia placed her hand over his.
"That's life," she said. "But we get to build it together now."
---
That night, a new letter waited in the typewriter.
Not typed. Handwritten.
The ink was smudged from rain. The paper worn around the edges.
But the signature?
M.
Not Micah.
A different hand. One neither of them recognized.
Alia read it aloud.
> To the keeper of words—
This building was a shelter once. Not just for books, but for people. Writers. Lovers. Survivors. It deserves protection.
_I don't know if this letter will reach you before it's too late. But know that walls remember.
Even if men forget._
— A Friend of Freedom
They stared at it in silence.
And for the first time, Alia wasn't afraid of the unknown.
She was ready for it.