Cloaked and The Antiques
Authors note! This is the fifth episode of Riley and The Antiques. Content warnings for this episode is unreality.
October 5th
Riley put down her book when a clack sounded from in front of her. There stood a hooded figure. The cloak was a dark blue and had a small hand insignia embroidered on the chest. She looked at the counter. A painting depicting a blonde Victorian woman's profile had been carefully set down. This painting, she remembered, had been behind various decorations and it was on the wall. There was no way the stranger could've walked in, moved all those decorations, and pulled it from the wall in total silence. Riley had great hearing, as her dad told her many times. "Like an owl." She set her book down on the shelf in the counter and touched the painting delicately. A headache erupted and the name "Josephine" repeated over and over. She turned the painting over with delicate hands and saw the price. "Fif-Fifty dollars, please." The stranger reached into the robe and brought out a clenched hand. The hand was smooth and dark skinned. It hand been well taken care of. The hand opened and out came coins. Coins that shouldn't have fit in the hand but did. The figure took the painting and moved silently and swiftly from the shop, opening the door that should've creaked but didn't. Riley stood in silence for a minute, then put her hand on the coins to sort them out. They were warm. She spent almost half an hour counting. Four hundred and ninety nine dimes. "Who was that?" A voice asked. Riley turned. It was her father. Today was his in day, she realized. "I don't know." Her father stared at the door, then the coins. His eyes changed from curiosity to morbid realization. "What did they buy?" He asked, keeping his voice as monotone as possible. Riley recognized this from the times weird things had happened in her childhood. "The old painting of the blonde woman." Her father turned swiftly around. "Alright." He walked back into the office.
Riley wrote down Josephine in her notebook and put it back on the shelf. She thought for a moment, then picked it back up and drew the insignia on the page next to the name. Her headache pulsed.