Riviere Antiques is my shop. I’ve been running it for quite a long time now. We collect sancta and we sell sancta, but in the majority of cases our customers are upset, angry, or sad on account of sancta. Only a very small percentage of people are grateful for them. No one seems to notice the shop, even though we’re right on the main thoroughfare. Sometimes it seems like we’re not even there—but we are. You know shops like that, right?
It had always been that way. The view from my desk at the back of the store was always a quiet one.
“Miss Riviere! Miss Riviere! Check this out!”
It started to get a lot livelier a few months ago. About the time MacMillia began working here.
Come to think of it, I feel like we started getting more customers around then, too.
“It’s very well done, if I do say so myself,” Elaina said proudly. She was another reason we had a lot more customers than before.
They marched up to my desk with a huge pile of photographs.
“What’s all this?” I was no judge of photographic quality, but then again, as a general matter I wasn’t very tuned into what was popular these days.
That’s what I was thinking as I picked up one of the pictures, because all I could do was squint at it and say, “This is a photograph?”
It was a small square of paper. On it I could see Kuroe and Shirona. The two dolls were facing me and waving.
“Hullo there!” Kuroe said.
“Yay there!” Shirona said.
“We wanted you to know that we’ve started working in a local restaurant,” Kuroe continued.
“We’d love to treat you to a little something if you’ll come visit us,” added Shirona.
They twirled around to show off their adorable uniforms.
It was a photograph…but they were moving and talking?
“Heh-heh-heh! How about that? Awesome, right? I found this sancta when I was rooting around town the other day,” MacMillia said, puffing out her chest.
I flipped to the next one and found a different picture.
“Okay, uh… Uh? MacMillia, is this right?”
It was Freja, the girl who’d started coming by our shop a little while ago.
“Yeah, perfect! You’re great! You’re adorable!”
“Oh… hee-hee!”
From the photograph, I could clearly hear Freja’s conversation with MacMillia, who was presumably holding the camera. What in the world was this?
“It’s a camera, but the pictures you take move and talk,” Elaina explained at my obvious perplexity. “Looks like we found a sancta even you didn’t know about, Miss Riviere.”
I was embarrassed to admit it, but she was right. “I didn’t know there was such a thing,” I said and sighed.
I’d lived in this country a long time now, and I’d started to feel like I had learned everything there was to know about sancta. On some level, I really hadn’t believed I would ever run across a sancta the likes of which I had never imagined. I guess you could call that egotism.
Each time I flipped through the pile, I found a new photo.
“Okay, Mackie, here we go!” Linabelle said with a wink, and then she blew a soap bubble through the air toward the camera.
“H-hey, stop that! No taking unauthorized photos of police officers!” That was Henri, bright red and trying to shove the camera away. A woman beside him laughed merrily.
These were all living images of people who had patronized our shop.
“There’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while now,” MacMillia said, looking at me. “I know you’re not great with photographs, Miss Riviere. But I can’t help feeling it’s sort of sad not to have any pictures of you.”
“Sad?”
“Yeah. I mean, when you want to look back and remember something or someone, it’s way better to have a photograph.”
I paused for a long moment. That feeling, that desire to remember things later—when I’d run the shop by myself, I’d never specifically wanted that. So I’d never taken any pictures.
“You don’t seem to like having your picture taken, Miss Riviere, but I thought maybe this would be better. See? You don’t have to press the shutter, you just stand here with the camera going and you get a photograph like the ones I showed you,” MacMillia said, excited.
I still didn’t say anything right away.
Goodness gracious.
I let out a sigh.
“Are you that desperate to have a picture of me?”
“Yeah!” MacMillia answered immediately.
It was obvious that I was going to wind up getting my picture taken, no matter what I said. So I replied, “Fine. Let’s go.”
Better to face the camera head-on than to have them chase me around trying to get a shot. I stood and looked them both in the eyes.
“That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear!” MacMillia cheered, and then she started setting up the tripod in the middle of the store.
I let the moment play out, watching it all happen. There was a time when I could never have imagined this. Me, deliberately having my picture taken. The shop so lively. Just the fact that I enjoyed having someone else in the store was something new.
Maybe it was showing on my face, because Elaina stopped and looked at me, surprised. “Miss Riviere? Everything okay?”
“Oh yes. Everything’s fine.” I gave a little shake of my head and a cough, and then I put on my serious face.
Whatever would I do if the camera caught me looking so happy?