No, this wasn't just a coincidence.

Allie decided she had very deliberately shown up at the creepy place with the creepy name and the creepy owner. Because it's there and freely available for perusing in that quaint way one entered a nursing home full of old people. And because Amanda had used that grin, the one that said she'd wanted proof Allie had actually been there before she designed another tattoo free of charge. The clockwork budgerigar she wanted since she was twelve. Her fluorescent pink sneakers chafed at the worn pavement underneath. Toecap tapping impatiently, because Allie was nothing if not leaking energy in places. Face glued to the display of feathered caps, a book opened on yellow pages with what she guessed was saying Ad hominem or some other generic Latin phrase in faded black ink. Allie flashed a toothie grin at her vague reflection in the window. An excavation of shit you couldn't believe people used to own and buy. That was the fun kind of old, honestly.

“Mandy, babe, just take a guess at who I found at the weird place!” The picture loaded in of Allie's smug face, brown bangs uncombed equally brown eyes that typical mischievous glint. A piece sign right next to one of those medical school skeleton things. “Still a spineless shit.” Which, ironically, genuinely missing a vertebrae. That made her grin even wider.

After several seconds her phone buzzed in a jolly jingle, Allie looked at it. “Not funny, Allie.” Then after a beat. “Alex wasn’t [i]that[/i] boney.”

“That wasn’t the point, but… fair. He had greasy bratwurst fingers and a pot belly.” Allie replied with the blunt side of a very heavy sledgehammer. “Okay that was mean, but you can’t deny the spine looks familiar.” And that, at least, got Amanda to reply with a cry-laughing emoji and several rolling ones. Along with a pointed; “You’re terrible.”

“That’s my middle name! Don’t wear it out, hun.” She sniggered, all impish glee. “Anyway, I'm going to brave the gauntlet now. Break a leg?”

“You’re actually going in? I was joking!”

“And I’m not. C’mon, you wanted to see the inside anyway. I’ll send pics.”

And with that, Allie stepped into that infamous place that stank of old wood and dusty old tomes. Phone tucked into her pocket, board tucked under her arm. The bell chimed, it sounded like the waking of the dead and the grin didn’t seem to falter.