Chapter 3 #

Luna rounds the corner and stops dead. Her eyes go wide. "What a mess," she mutters.

Ice cream cups, ice cream cups everywhere. Wooden spoons in the grass and wedged between the petunias in the planters. A toppled napkin holder. A crumpled paper napkin drifts past her feet, snags on her shoe for a moment, then slips away again, as if daring her.

She sighs and starts spearing them methodically. Cup. Spoon. Another cup.

She glances to the side. Behind the counter, Alex is helping his last customer of the day, a girl with a ponytail. Alex is twenty-three, has messy black hair, and wears an oversized T-shirt under his apron, smeared with streaks of chocolate and strawberry. Broad shoulders. Kind eyes. The kind of guy you want to lean against. But more importantly: he's the only one here who sees her as something other than a park employee with a litter picker.

The girl with the ponytail studies the tubs of ice cream as though the fate of the world hangs on her choice. "Umm…"

Alex waits, hands on the counter, a faint smile on his face.

"Maybe… no, umm…"

Luna hides a grin and spears the next cup.

"Okay, vanilla," the girl finally decides.

Alex nods, piles two generous scoops onto a cone, and hands her the ice cream. The girl walks off. Then his eyes land on Luna. His eyebrows lift slightly and a broad smile spreads across his face.

"Vanilla?!" Luna cries the moment the girl is out of earshot. "After she kept us in suspense that long? I honestly thought we were getting at least a unicorn sundae with rainbow sprinkles."

Alex laughs, a genuine laugh that lights up his whole face. He grabs a cloth and starts wiping down the counter. "Hey Lu."

"Hey Alex, how was your day? I see you've made a mess of it again." She makes a sweeping gesture with her litter picker toward the battlefield of cups and spoons behind her.

Alex follows the motion, and his smile turns a little more crooked. "You have no idea."

He drapes the cloth over his shoulder and leans on the counter with both hands. "A toddler brought up the entire contents of his stomach right here. We're talking about a biological weapon."

Luna pulls a face. "Oof."

"Then I got chewed out by his father because he still had to pay for the ice cream." He scratches the back of his neck. "I ended up giving him a free milkshake just to get rid of him."

Alex leans a little further over the counter. "And that's not even counting the woman who complained that her sorbet was too cold."

Luna laughs. "Too cold?"

"Too. Cold." Alex raises his eyes to the heavens.

"No." Luna leans against the side of the counter, the litter picker resting against her shoulder. "I had a moment this morning too."

"Do tell."

"This little girl came up to me. She looked at me with big puppy eyes, turned to her mum and said—" She puts on a high-pitched voice: "Mummy, mummy, can I take a picture with the princess?"

Alex's smile widens. "Ah. Of course. Your hair."

"Okay, I'll admit it. I was flattered for like one second." Luna tucks a loose purple strand behind her ear. "Until the mother looked at me."

"Oh no."

"Her mother said—" Luna's voice shifts, the intonation turning a touch condescending: "No, sweetie, she's not a princess. She's just a cleaning lady. We saw the real princess by the castle, remember?"

Alex frowns. "Ouch. Harsh."

"That little girl looked so disappointed…" Luna jabs absently at a napkin on the ground. "I couldn't help myself, I said: Sometimes the cleaning ladies are secretly princesses too, you know. Just look at Cinderella."

"Nice!" Alex says, pointing a corner of the cloth at her. "Good comeback, Cinders."

"Well, that woman morphed into some kind of troll on the spot and yanked her kid away from me like I was contagious."

"Yep." Alex nods solemnly. "Classic troll behaviour. Shame I wasn't there. I'd have chased her off with my ice cream scoop."

He grabs the scoop and swings it through the air as if it's a great sword. A slightly awkward, heroic gesture. Luna's laugh comes out unfiltered now, and I catch myself smiling along.

"Vince would fire you on the spot," Luna says, still laughing.

Alex lowers the scoop. His smile stays, but something surfaces beneath it. He wipes his free hand on his apron and says, very casually: "Doesn't matter. I'm leaving here anyway."

Luna looks up. "What? No."

"Yeah, seriously." Alex sets the scoop down and wipes his hands on his apron again. "I was going to tell you. I found a job. A proper job. Nine to five at some company that does something with insurance. A coffee machine with powdered-milk cappuccinos. Friday drinks after work. The whole package."

Something in Luna's chest grows heavier. She knew this moment was coming: summer is almost over, everyone is moving on. But now that it's here, it feels too soon. She'd miss the jokes about awful customers, the shared looks whenever Vince is being difficult. Alex waving at her from his ice cream stall as she trudges past with her litter picker. And she herself still has no plan…

Ah. So that's what that mud dream was about, I realize now.

"And?" Luna tries, her voice just a touch too cheerful. "Are you looking forward to it?"

Alex shrugs. "I don't expect it to be amazing, but I've got to start somewhere. And it pays a lot better than handing out ice cream to screaming children."

"And you're a lot less likely to get puked on," Luna concedes.

"Depends how seriously they take Friday drinks." Alex starts covering the tubs, one after another. "Not for you? An office job?"

Luna shakes her head. "No, thanks. Nobody would mistake me for a princess there."

"Probably not." He looks at her for a moment, and a flicker of hesitation, or maybe caution, crosses his face. "So do you actually have a plan yet? For after the summer?"

Luna's smile fades. "No. I don't know yet."

Silence.

"I wish I had my mum's talent. Or dad's way with tools. But whenever I try to make something, it never turns out the way I'd imagined it." Her fingers go automatically to her bracelet, touching the spot where she messed up the pattern. "I'm not really good at anything."

"Come on." Alex rinses his ice cream scoop. "You don't actually believe that."

"It's true."

"Lu." He leans against the counter again and looks her straight in the eye. "You always win at Cards Against Humanity."

"I'm not sure that counts as a good thing."

"Okay, maybe not the best example. But you got the highest grades of the three of us in art history. You talked Zoey out of an existential crisis twice in one evening, and braided her a bracelet in between."

Luna looks at the ground.

"And," Alex goes on, softer now, "last year you wrote that killer thesis while working part-time and helping your dad when he had that back pain."

She shrugs.

"The real question is, what would you want to do?" Alex asks. "If you got to choose. Anything. No filters."

Luna stares at the planters for a moment. The sun has dipped behind the trees, casting its last orange rays over the set pieces. She opens her mouth, closes it again.

They had been the three musketeers: Alex, Luna, and Zoey. Three misfits who found each other because none of them had quite found a group after the first-year cliques had formed. And now Alex is starting an office job. Zoey is going off to do a master's. And Luna is standing here, with a litter picker, trying to put into words what she wants.

"I always want impossible things, that's the problem with me," she says at last, and lets out a sigh. "I asked Vince about a job as a set builder."

Alex looks up. "Really? And?"

"And nothing."

"Ah," Alex says. "Let me guess, he wants someone with experience?"

"Worse." Luna grimaces. "He wants to shut down the workshop to save money. Get everything made abroad."

"What a shame."

"Yeah."

Alex seems to know better than to push. Good man. I rather like him, this Alex.

They're quiet for a bit.

Alex wipes the already-clean counter one more time, then fishes his phone out of his back pocket. The case is worn along the edges.

"Have you heard Zoey's messages yet?"

"No, my phone's in my locker."

Alex unlocks his screen, taps, scrolls. "Okay. She sent three. Of course. Brace yourself."

He taps play and lays the phone flat on the counter. Zoey's voice blares out, the volume just a notch too loud.

"Oh. My. GOD. You guys. Listen. I swear, this holiday is a bad soap opera. It's been raining here non-stop. Non-stop. And I don't mean a bit of rain, I mean I literally thought I was driving into a waterfall this morning. A Scottish farmer I talked to said he was building an ark and I'm not a hundred percent sure he was joking."

Luna chuckles. "Sucks, but I mean… it's Scotland."

"Yeah, but wait. There's more."

Alex taps the second message.

"Okay. Okay okay okay. This is not normal Scottish rain. This is— wait, I have to—" A clicking sound, maybe a car door. The wind suddenly rushes closer, raw and hollow. "—okay, sorry. I pulled over at a viewpoint. Listen, this is going to sound insane, but I swear on my life: the rain is salty. SALTY. I'm miles from the sea, you guys."

Luna looks at Alex in surprise. "Salty rain? Is that even possible?"

Alex taps the third message. This time Zoey's voice is quieter. Less dramatic. "Guys. I'll send you a photo in a sec. I wanted to go walking by a loch near here, I was really looking forward to it. And, well, I just got there. There are dead fish floating in it. Loads of them. It stinks. This is so not okay. How are things there? Send me something normal please. A tree. A cow. Anything. Save my soul."

Click.

Silence.

Luna stares at the phone as though it might tell her something more. Zoey's disappointment settles in Luna's chest too. Her friend's first solo road trip was supposed to be an adventure. She'd been looking forward to it for months. Now the weather had well and truly rained on her parade. Salty rain, no less.

"Poor Zoey," Luna says. "She was so excited about it."

"Come here," Alex says, beckoning her over with his free hand and lifting the phone. "Quick selfie. We'll send her something normal."

Luna is already walking toward the counter. She steps in beside him and leans toward him, just like she's done a hundred times before. Alex stretches out his arm and tilts the phone. "On three. One, two—"

At the last second Luna brings her hands up in front of her chest, fingertips and thumbs pressed together, a small lopsided heart in the air between her and the camera. Alex sees it happening on the screen and is just starting to laugh as he takes the photo.

He checks the result, grins and turns the screen toward her so she can see.

A perfectly ordinary selfie. A big guy with messy black hair. Beside him, a girl who barely comes up to his shoulder, her blonde hair streaked turquoise, blue, and purple, making a heart. Both in aprons with a grinning elf mascotte on them.

"Send it," Luna says.

Alex taps. A soft whoosh and the message is on its way to Scotland.

Luna picks up her litter picker again. "I'd better get back to it. Before Vince catches me 'dawdling' again."

"Later, Lu."

"Later."

She turns and walks back into the park. The sun hangs low between the trees, throwing long shadows across the paths. In the distance comes the rattle of shutters rolling down and the squeak of gates being locked.

The vision starts to slip away before I even let it go. Luna's point-of-view grows hazier, as though mist is drifting in between us.

Enough for now.

I open my eyes and the shop slowly returns. The weight of the selenite in my palm. The smell of incense, herbs and books.

The notebook lies open on the edge of the table, its pages filled with what I just saw. Luna's imaginary jungle, the disappointment at Vince's words, Zoey's messages: all of it captured in ink.

Salty rain. Dead fish in a lake. It could be nothing, or it could be everything: perhaps the entire reason for this story. The fourth Narrator's Law forbids me from looking into the future, even if I could. Never look ahead.

We'll have to see.

The sign in the window still reads CLOSED. Lucky jumps onto her favourite spot on the windowsill, the spot where she can survey the entire street, like a little sentry.

Outside, the city is beginning to wake. The baker across the way is sweeping the pavement. A pigeon strolls along the edge of a gutter and Lucky watches with interest.

I need to open the shop.

More later.

Thanks for reading! #

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. If you’d like to support my work, consider following or subscribing. Feel free to leave me a note, I’d love to hear from you!

Check out my About page for more information.

💜 - Jasmine

Copyright © 2026 Jasmine Rovik. All rights reserved. All text and other content on this website belong to the author. You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, or use any material in any form without prior written permission. Want to quote or use something? Feel free to get in touch.