Tomboy101: So it's, uh, been a long time, huh? Sorry about that. Life happens, you know? I guess I just got distracted. I'm working on it. Still don't own The Twilight Saga or its related enterprises. Hope you enjoy Chapter 1 of Medicine Woman!

The next morning I woke up bright and early as usual and as a special treat for Ali's first day at a new school and my first day back running my grandparents' bookstore I made us a towering stack of chocolate chip pancakes. As I was pouring two cups of chocolate milk I heard thumps on the stairs followed by the appearance of my purple pajama-clad daughter. Her thick red-brown hair was an absolute mess and she was still rubbing sleep from her eyes. Beside her trotted Trix, all bright eyed and disgustingly cheerful.

"Morning baby girl," I said.

Alivia made some incoherent sound, plopping down in front of her plate and stared at it, obviously confused as to why there weren't any pancakes in front of her. She tilted her head blearily up to look at me then swiveled her gaze to the plate stacked high with pancakes I held. "Use your words, Ali," I said.

"P-pancakes please?" she said through a yawn.

"Here you go." I scooped two of the deliciously warm flapjacks onto her plate.

We ate in relative silence, Ali too tired to talk and I quite content to enjoy the early morning stillness. Ali had woken up, however, by the time I loaded her and Trix into the truck. She chattered happily about all the things she hoped to do on her first day of school which included, but was not limited to, making a new best friend, mastering the monkey bars at recess, visiting me at the library, and liking her new teacher.

I smiled and ruffled her hair, wishing her luck outside the elementary school's wing. I would have walked her to her classroom but she insisted on walking herself. Wanted to prove to her new teacher and classmates that she wasn't a baby, she said.

Sometimes I wish she hadn't inherited my independence, I thought, watching her until she disappeared into the school.

With a sigh, I turned away, stepping back into my truck. It was time I start my own day.

Ravenwing Books stood separate from the long, one story, strip mall style building with which it shared a sidewalk. The walls were brick painted white by plaster that had begun to crack. Tall windows were set into the front on either side of a glass door reinforced by metal grates on the inside. I parked around back, and walked to the front, my heels and Trix's claws tapping lightly on the asphalt. As we walked I forced a lid over the jar in which I kept the emotions that would have swamped me at the sight of this place.

A tarnished brass key hung amongst the myriad of keys on my key ring. I'd had it since I was thirteen and it shiny with newness. Trix waited patiently as I picked it out and carefully slid it into the bolt lock. I twisted the key. The lock clicked open. I replaced my keys into my purse and twisted the doorknob, pushing the door open

Above me the little copper bell jingled merrily. The distinct smell of books and pine filled the shop. I took a deep breath and smiled. Trix, not understanding why I was standing in the doorway, nosed her way past me and trotted inside. Obviously she knew that she would be queen dog here. I bit back a laugh.

Inside the store was dark but I reached my hand behind one of the shelves against the wall by the door and flipped the switch. The fluorescent bulbs in the brass fixtures flickered on. Ravenwing Books was a good sized store; it had enough room to double as the Tribal Library. In the artificial light the wooden floor gleamed and I could see the bookshelves that lined every wall and created several isles in the middle of the room—I heard Trix's claws clicking as she explored the stacks. Carved wooden signs hung from the ceiling above the shelves by brass chains proclaiming the different genre sections. To my left, built against the wall, was the checkout counter complete with an old fashioned cash register. Behind the counter, sunk into the wall, was another bookcase filled with what looked to be ledgers, and I knew hidden by the counter was a card catalog with the book preferences of everyone who had ever bought or borrowed from the store since it was opened by my great grandfather. In the back of the store, sectioned off from the store portion, was the Tribal library.

I'd always liked the story about how my great grandfather had offered his bookstore up to be the school library. I was proud to be a Ravenwing. I'd spent almost all of my free time here growing up. My lessons in Medicine Woman-hood were almost always held here in the back office. I'd worked here part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer since I was thirteen. At sixteen I was restocking the shelves when my water broke. That was a funny story. Grandad always used to tease me that Ali had wanted to come out so she could read but I took her away from the books by going to the hospital.

My smile faltered. My stomach twisted, a dull ache filling my chest. I missed my grandparents. They had raised me since I was three years old when both my parents died in a car crash. It was hard to think about La Push without them.

I quickly wiped away the lone tear that had leaked onto my cheek. Now was not the time for tears. I walked over to the counter, my four-inch, blood red, peep-toe velvet pumps tapping against the wooden floor, and I pushed open the little swinging door on the side. I set my purse and Vera Bradley computer case—a college graduation present I would not have been able to afford on my own—on the floor. On the counter next to the cash register were two ledgers, one brown and one black, and in between was a bright yellow sticky note. I picked it up.

The note was from Lou Atkins, my grandfather's best friend who had kept the shop open for me for the past two years. He wrote that these were the most recent ledgers. He also reminded me that the black ledgers were for the shop and the brown ledgers were for the library, signing with a cheerful "Hope to see you soon!"

I crumpled the post-it in my hand and tossed it into the trashcan under the counter then flipped open the black ledger. The ledger was a little less than a foot long and maybe half a foot wide with lined pages divided into four columns of varying size labeled date, customer, item, or amount. Lou's easy-to-read block handwriting covered a third of the pages. The last purchase was a How To…For Dummies book by Adam Jones for $11 dated yesterday. The surname was unfamiliar so I assumed Mr. Jones was from Forks.

I left the shop ledger open to that page and turned to the library ledger. It was almost identical to the shop ledger except its pages were divided into six columns instead of four, each labeled either date, student, item, due/renewed, returned, or overdue/fine. The last book checked out was A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and it would be due tomorrow unless whoever checked it out called or came by to renew it. Brady Fuller was written as the student with 'HS' next to his name for 'high school'.

A shiver went up my spine, a bubble of anxiety welling up in my chest. I don't know why. I only half remembered Brady—it was a small Rez so everyone knew or knew of everyone. He had been a scrawny kid five of six years younger than me, but there was nothing about him that would make nervous just because I read his name in my library ledger.

I decided to ignore whatever irrational twinge of unease his name made in my brain and instead focused at the task at hand. First things first, I needed to turn on the Open sign.

I walked back to the door and flipped the red neon light sign on and pulled up the blinds. When I turned back around Trix was looking up at me from beside the checkout counter. I smiled. "Stay," I said.

She cocked her head to the side but didn't move. I exited the store, the bell chiming again, and went to my truck. In the bed was a three foot by three foot dark blue dog pillow. I lifted it up and carried it back inside. It smelled of pine shavings and when I dropped it onto the floor in front of Trix she wagged her tail at me. "You're spoiled," I told her.

She ignored me and proceeded to make herself at home, scratching and fluffing up her new bed to perfection. I rolled my eyes and sat on one of two of the tall wooden chairs behind the counter. I got out my laptop, flipped the screen open and booted it up. It took a minute but soon I was spending what easily could have been long minutes of absolute boredom surfing the web, more specifically Pinterest. I love Pinterest. I have a whole board devoted to shoes, my favorite item of clothing. The bottom of my closet is full of them.

I don't know how long I was idly Pinning before the bell above the door pinged. I looked up. A Quileute girl, probably around seventeen or so, with pin-straight black hair down to just past her shoulder blades, smooth coffee-brown skin, and large brown eyes had entered the store. She walked a few steps into the shop fussing with something in her messenger bag. It wasn't until she was almost directly in front of the counter that she looked up. She stopped when she saw me and frowned. "Um, hello," she said. "Who are you? Where's Mr. Atkins?"

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Mr. Atkins retired. I'm Dakota Ravenwing. Who are you?"

The girl pointed over her shoulder in the vague direction of the sign hanging above the store's door. "You mean like 'Ravenwing Books'?"

I nodded. "Yep."

"Oh," she blushed, "uh, hi. I'm Arianna Lahote. I'm your first period library assistant. I also work here part-time on weekends. Or, I, uh, used to?" she looked at me questioningly.

I smiled and held out my hand. "Hi Arianna, it's nice to meet you."

Arianna returned my smile albeit warily and shook my hand. "Nice to meet you, too, Ms. Ravenwing."

I shook my head. "Ms. Ravenwing makes me sound old. Call me either Dakota or Kota. None of that Misses crap."

Arianna laughed. "Whatever you say, Dakota."

I nodded. "Good. Now, tell me what exactly we're supposed to be doing."

"You mean you don't know?"

"Well, it's been five years since I worked in this place. Things could have changed."

Arianna shook her head. "I doubt it. Mr. Atkins always said he ran the place exactly like your grandparents did."

I smiled. "Well that makes things a hell of a lot easier. Why don't you run me through your usual morning routine, then?"

Arianna nodded. "Alright." She started to come around the counter but stopped, eyes focused down and a grin spreading slowly across her face. I leaned until I could see around the counter.

Trix, the shameless attention seeker, had stepped directly into Arianna's path, tail wagging, tongue lolling, big brown eyes gazing hopefully up into Arianna's face. "Oh," I said, "that's Trix."

Arianna glanced at me. "Can I pet her?" she asked hopefully.

I shrugged. "Sure. She's supposed to be a guard dog but she's really quite useless."

Arianna promptly dropped to her knees, hand out stretched. Trix ignored the hand, instead crowding forward into Arianna's personal space, tongue reaching out and swiping a thick streak of slobber up her cheek. Arianna laughed and returned my overenthusiastic dog's greeting happily, rubbing her ears and scratching down her spine.

Well, if Trix liked the girl she couldn't be all bad. While an absolutely useless guard dog, Trix was an excellent judge of character. "You mentioned that you work here on weekends?" I prompted as Arianna stood, still smiling at my overexcited dog.

Arianna nodded, turning her brown eyes to me. "Yes. Mr. Atkins hired me about a year ago, first as just a summer thing bet then he said I could still work here during the schoolyear." She bit her lip. "Is that alright?"

"Sure," I said. "I don't see why not. I'll need help getting back into the swing of things and then after that, well, it's always good to have an extra pair of hands around. Why don't we start by you running through what you normally do as the library assistant?"

Arianna nodded. "Okay. Well, usually I put back the books that were returned to the library through the drive-by return slot which can take all period."

I smiled, well remembering the arduous task of re-shelving and suddenly grateful it wasn't mine anymore. "Alright, then, don't let me interrupt you. I don't want to disrupt your normal routine if you know what you're supposed to do."

Arianna returned my smile. Coming around behind the counter she entered the small office behind me to put her bag down. When she returned she grabbed the return cart and dragged it to the large metal bin under what looked like an overly large mail. As she began pulling books from the bin I turned back to my computer but now with someone around it didn't seem quite appropriate to be surfing Pinterest. I closed my laptop with a sigh and pulled out the library ledger once more. Flipping it open to the most recent page, I called, "Is the checkout time still two weeks?"

Behind me Arianna yelled a muffled, "Yes!"

"Okay, then," I said. Rummaging through the front desk's top drawer I found a pad of paper as well as a pen. I remembered well my grandfather doing this, shaking his thick white hair, a laugh in his brown eyes. He would bemoan the forgetfulness of youth but I knew he didn't mean it. Not once had he ever actually fined a student for not returning their books on time. The adults who borrowed from the library, sure, but never the students. It is so difficult to find children who actually want to read, he would say. Who am I to punish them for liking a book?

He would remind them, however, when a book was supposed to be due. Would write them a quick note telling them if they wanted to extend their keeping of the book that they should just let him know. I did the same now, writing a quick note to Brady Fuller and a few others whose books were due either that day or in the next few.

By the time I was finished Arianna had left the return bin and disappeared among the stacks, Trix following her in the hopes of more scratches. I could hear her in the library section as she placed books on shelves or stepped on a squeaky floorboard. Other than that the shop was quiet.

And so the morning passed in easy silence. Arianna was a diligent worker who, by the time first period ended, had replaced all of the returned books back on their shelves. As she gathered up her things and bid me goodbye I asked her if she knew how I was to get the book return reminders to the students (when I was in high school that had been my job but I suspected there was a different way of doing things now).

She held out her hand. "I'll take them," she said.

I thanked her and handed over the notes which she tucked into her messenger back. With one last wave and rub to Trix's ears, she exited the shop, darting across the street and into the school. I watched her go with a faint smile. I like her, I decided.