Page 3 of Wolf Dad Energy

I don't sell hope. I sell clarity.

My phone buzzes beside the keyboard. Everly.

I smile despite myself.

Tea shipment finally came in. Stop hiding behind your laptop and come rescue me from tourists asking if moon water is gluten-free.

I snort. Typing quickly, I answer.

Give me twenty minutes. If someone asks whether mercury retrograde causes male pattern baldness, I'm leaving you there.

Three dots appear almost instantly.

Too late.

I laugh.

For a moment, the cottage is quiet except for the tapping of rain beginning against the kitchen windows.

I look around my office. The old wooden beams above me. The shelves filled with books.

The antique brass lamp beside my desk. The small framed photograph tucked behind my monitor where nobody online can see it.

A reminder that no matter how many people think they know me, they only know the version I allow them to.

The cottage creaks softly. I glance toward the ceiling.

"Don't start," I tell the house.

The house, predictably, does not answer. Not out loud, anyway.

I close my laptop and reach for my worn leather satchel hanging beside the door. The moment I step outside, October wraps around me. Cold earth. Fallen leaves. Wood smoke curling from chimneys. Apple cider drifting from cafés downtown.

The path from my cottage to the road is almost completely covered in leaves. I should rake them. I won't. The house looks better this way. More like it belongs.

The town of Sleepy Hollow spends all year preparing for October.

By now, nearly every storefront downtown is covered in black garlands and orange lights. Pumpkins crowd sidewalks. Skeletons lounge on benches as though waiting for buses. Tourists wander the streets carrying cups of cider while photographing every colonial building that might have inspired Washington Irving.

The town has figured out how to monetize folklore. I can't even resent it. It keeps local businesses alive.

A banner stretches across Main Street.

HEADLESS HORSEMAN FESTIVAL — TWELVE DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

Tourists cheerfully line up beneath it for photos.

A teenager dressed as Ichabod Crane dramatically pretends to faint every few minutes while his friends record videos.

Sleepy Hollow knows exactly what people come here to find.

Ghost stories. Legends. A little manufactured fear wrapped inside autumn nostalgia. If only they knew.

I lock my cottage door behind me and head toward Beekman Avenue. The old house watches me leave. At least, that's what it feels like.

Everly's shop sits halfway down Beekman Avenue between a boutique bookstore and an artisan chocolatier. The painted sign above the door reads:

Root & Reverie