Chapter Three: The Door

I didn’t know it would feel like this.

Like the moment before a story begins, not the first line, but the breath before it.
The shop is finally real. The paint has dried, the shelves are full, and the air smells like sawdust, fresh paper, and the kind of candlelight that keeps secrets.
And yet… it still feels like I’m waiting for something.

For her.

I never learned her name, but I remember everything else.
The way her eyes lingered on the fantasy shelf. The way she smiled like we shared a story only we knew. The silver hairpin.. forgotten, fallen, now resting in my drawer like a promise.

For weeks, during business trips across Northern California, I wandered through bookstores in every town I landed in.
I told myself it was casual. That I just liked the quiet.
But it wasn’t the stories I was looking for. It was the moment.. the one I’d lost too soon.

And when I almost gave up searching… this idea started whispering to me.
Not just a bookstore. A signal. a keeper’s Flame. A chapter written in velvet.

So I built it.
The Velvet Chapter.

Most days, I pulled up in my green '67 Mustang.. its engine growling like a dragon that refused to be tamed. I told myself I was just here for the buildout, the paint, the shelves… but I think I was always listening. Always hoping I’d look up and see her standing in the doorway.

Every detail was for her.
The shelf where fantasy and romance kiss.
The softest music, the warmest light.
And beneath the counter… her silver hairpin. Waiting.

And maybe it’s foolish, romantic in the most ridiculous way.
But there’s a part of me that believes she’ll walk through that door.

Maybe not tomorrow.
Maybe not next week.
But someday.

Maybe this whole thing is just a romantic notion, something people roll their eyes at and say “he got carried away,” that “bookstores are a bad business move.”

But I’ll be here.

Watching the door.

Because some chapters don’t begin with introductions.
Some start with a feeling.

And if she ever finds her way to this little shop in Petaluma,
she’ll know..

this was always our next page.

Author’s Note
This is a work of fiction, written not by a novelist, but by someone with a bookstore full of dreams and a soft spot for spellbinding stories. Ashen isn’t real (probably). But the magic that inspired this place absolutely is.

I don’t claim to be a writer. I just believe in stories that leave the lights on in your heart a little longer.

If you're curious about the real story behind this shop, the less dramatic, but just as romantic, all you have to do is ask when you visit. I’d love to tell you. -Matthew