I laughed. “You’re a witch. You can just zap yourself up here.”
“But it’s downtown. Someone’s sure to see me appear inside the apartment through all these windows. That’s a sure way to get discovered as being a warlock. And that’s another thing. I don’t think living above a magic shop is best for me.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Joe didn’t give me a chance.
“Well, I gotta get going. Did you want a trip home, or will you coordinate it yourself?”
“Sure,” I said, but Roman overrode me.
“We got it, Dad. We’ll see you later.”
With that, Joseph disappeared into a shimmer of magic, leaving Roman and me alone in the apartment.
I threw up my hands. “This wasn’t exactly the romantic evening I had planned.”
“Oh, Hon, the night is young.” He took me by the waist and pulled me into his warm body, planting a soft kiss on my lips. “And don’t worry. Dad will come around.”
“Will he?” I asked.
Roman smoothed the wrinkles on my forehead with his thumb. “He will. I know him well—at least I used to know him. Give him time…and we need the time, anyway. There is a lot of work here.”
I laughed. “Okay. I trust you.” I dug my index finger into Roman’s waistband, tracing the curvature of his pants. “We should be getting home. Our place is empty and time is a-wasting.”
I snapped my fingers, transporting myself home, certain that Roman wouldn’t be too far behind.
Chapter Five
“What is that?”
Bev Lucero, Roman’s secretary from the Watersedge Architectural Group, had finally made it down to my shop, searching for something to help muscles recover quickly after a tough workout. She pointed towards the back corner of my store.
“That’s the teen section,” I said. “There are charms for luck with catching a ball, but nothing for sore muscles.”
“No,” Bev clarified, jetting her arm to the section again. “Not that…but that!”
I tilted my chin and circled the checkout counter to see nothing there other than the teen section. I followed Bev’s finger through the shop, stopping when I noticed a bit of dirt on the floor. Not a bit, but a pile of dirt. More like stuffing, or insulation.
Bev was on my heels when I approached the edge of the bookshelf where the insulation seemed to be pouring out from behind, then out came a big gray puff.
“Ahh!” Both Bev and I shrieked at the same time, making the rest of the customers in my shop jump.
I stepped forward with my hand covering my racing heart, carefully leaning around the edge of the shelving unit.
“What is it?” Bev asked.
My heart pounded as I leaned my head against the wall to get a good look at what was behind the wall.
More insulation moved, then a little furry creature scampered out, right towards my leg, crossing over my foot before my brain even connected with my body to pull away, and disappeared behind another bookshelf. I don’t know why I did it, probably more shock than anything else, but I let out another ear-piercing scream that rivaled any helpless woman in any horror movie ever made.
My scream triggered a chain reaction of feminine screeches, and before I knew it, my entire store rushed out the front door with their arms up and a chorus of exclamations like, “Rat!” “What is it?!” “Run!” “It’s going to crawl up our legs!”
Now completely alone in my store, I got a grip on my initial terror as I slinked forward, checking behind the shelf again. When I couldn’t get a good view, I snapped my fingers, releasing enough magic to make the wall glow to light up the dark corners and move the shelving unit away.
And that’s when twenty hamsters scattered: tans, grays, whites, and all the spotted variations in between.
As cute as they were with their little furry bodies, wiggly noses, and cheeks full of whatever seeds they had gathered from who knows where, my stomach twisted. Twenty hamsters couldn’t make their home in my store.
And where there were twenty that I had now found, how many more were still hiding out of view?
I turned around to see another twenty faces, only these were from my customers, as they pressed up to the glass front windows of my store.
Would this start mass panic? Would we face an epidemic similar to the fox tail one we had encountered a month ago? I snapped my fingers, replacing the shelving back where it belonged and stopping the magical glow, and headed outside to do some damage control.
“Did you get the rat?” Bev asked.
“It wasn’t a rat,” I said. “Just a few hamsters.”
“A few?” An older gentleman asked. “How many is a few?”
“I couldn’t see them all.” As soon as the words were out, I kicked myself, opening up the situation for criticism.
And criticism I received from none other than my neighbor, Brittany. Her voice was clear from the edge of the crowd. “Your store is infested with rodents?”
I spun around. “Nobody said it was infested. I’ll have this all under control in no time.”
“It’s out of control?” Brittany threw it out there, no doubt her intentional way to wind up the crowd. So much for us being at some kind of truce.
“No, no, no. Everything is under control,” I assured my customers, glaring at Brittany’s smug expression. She’d like it if Ettie’s Enchanted Effects was full of rodents, wouldn’t she?
“It better be,” Brittany said. “I don’t want those things coming over into the church. We share a wall!”
Another familiar voice filled the air, and when I looked up to see the middle-aged woman in her navy-blue police uniform, my shoulders relaxed. I hadn’t even realized how worked up I had been.
“Everyone should give Ettie some space,” Officer Gabby Gates said, pushing through the crowd. “I’ll work through this with her. Either get back in the shop or give us some space.” Officer Gates broke up the crowd, even sending Brittany back into her next-door church.
“Thank you,” I said once the commotion was under control. “You had great timing.”
“Nah., I swing by here every day since…you know…the fox tail incident. We still haven’t figured out how that happened, and I’m always on the lookout for anything suspicious.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, opening my front door, sending the chimes singing.
None of the customers followed me back inside. That was just my luck. As soon as business was booming, and it appeared we were going to get ahead, poof, something happened.
“So, what’s going on, exactly?” Officer Gates asked.
“Last week Roman and I found a nest of hamsters by the electrical box. I didn’t think much of it and took them home. Named them Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, if you’re interested,” I smiled teasingly, waiting for Officer Gates to stop chuckling. The little exchange made me feel like…I had a friend. It was nice, and I suddenly relaxed, spilling out the rest of the story. “Then today, Bev Lucero noticed something over in this corner,” I led Gabby to the back of the shop over to the teen section. “One hamster came running out, and when I moved the shelving, there was at least twenty more. Want to see?”
When Officer Gates nodded, I snapped my fingers, moving the shelves again.
This time, we only saw a handful of hamsters, as it appeared the others hadn’t returned.
Gabby rubbed her chin. “Hmm…Where there’s a handful, there are ten times as many. It looks like your place might be infested with these things. You’re best to get an exterminator in to clear them out before they start destroying things, like chewing through your wires.”
“Yeah, they did that last week.”
“And you haven’t done anything yet?”
“I really didn’t expect to have an entire colony of hamsters living in my walls. I mean, how does that even happen? Where did they have come from?”
“Rodents breed fast,” Officer Gates said. “Someone probably lost a pet who took inhabitance in your walls.”
Gabby rocked back on her heels with her thumbs tucked into her belt. “Actually, with as big of a variety of color I saw, I bet it was more than two.”
“Do you think someone planted these hamsters here?” My stomach twisted as a realization hit me. “Do you think this is like the fox tail incident? I’m being set up! I know I am! It’s just another attack to get Ettie’s shut down.” After the fox tail issue last month, I still had a short list of suspects who wanted to get Ettie’s closed, permanently.
Of course, there was Joe, but I didn’t want to believe it was him. Sure, he didn’t like magic being out in the open and offered to mortals, but he was family. It’s why we had opened our home up to him. Then, there was Brittany, who stood behind the church’s claim that witchcraft was an act of the devil. That claim had been disproved over and over again in the scientific community once us witches came out in the open during the Magic Movement, but some churches stuck to their old ways. Nataila Young, a reporter who moved here from Crystal Caverns hated witches for some reason. I still wasn’t sure why. And finally, the fourth person on my list was Watersedge’s mayor, Matilda Raab. She had lost a child due to a magic addiction of one kind or another.
Could any of these people be behind the hamster infestation?
Or could it be all of them, working together? I had seen them conspiring in front of my shop not that long ago.
“Now, now,” Gabby said, pulling me out of my accusatory thoughts. “You’re probably overreacting, but I’ll check into any massive hamster purchases at all the nearby pet stores, and I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, I’d work on getting the little critters out of here.”
The chimes dinged over the door, and I spun around to new customers. The hamsters would have to wait until I closed today. I had a business to run.
I thanked Officer Gates and greeted the couple that just walked in. Hopefully, the hamsters played nice until I could figure out how to get rid of them. Too bad I couldn’t snap my fingers and make vermin disappear. Messing with free will—even that of an animal—wasn’t something witches could do. Even magic had some limitations…especially mine.
But there were other ways. Whoever planted these hamsters here would learn it took a lot more than some cute little furry critters to get Ettie Sunward down.
Besides, I kinda liked ’em.
Chapter Six
With sunflower seeds or without?
I stared at Pet Palace’s entire aisle of hamster food while tapping my index finger to my lips. If I got Alvin, Simon, and Theodore the feed with sunflower seeds, would they still take treats from my hand?
But they sure loved those seeds.
I decided to purchase the cheapest bag for now, as I had a lot of mouths to feed. As I rounded the end of the aisle and headed for the checkout lane, the bright pink dress that only Brittany Fleming would dare to wear caught my attention. She headed out the glass sliding door, carrying nothing more than an animal cage.
One that looked perfect for hamsters.
Had my hamster problem spilled over into her store?
Or did she have her own little breeding colony going that she was using to fill my walls with those little critters?
“Does Brittney come here often?” I asked the teenage cashier who had the most unkept shaggy beard for his age.
“Brittney?”
“From the Church of the Saved. She just bought the cage.”
He shook his head, his greasy hair unmoving. “I haven’t seen her before.” He shrugged and scanned the hamster food. “It’s four dollars and fifteen cents.”
I whipped out my credit card and paid, heading out to the parking lot to confront Brittney, but as I scanned the few cars in the lot, I didn’t see any sign of her.
But no worries.
I knew where she lived.
I stood tall outside the Church of the Saved’s big wooden door. I took a deep breath, pulling it open.
“Brittany?” My voice echoed into the emptiness. I closed my eyes, listening. Could I hear hamsters in her walls, too?
Only silence greeted me.
Until I heard the sound of a chair scraping against a wooden floor and heels clicking.
Around the corner, Brittany came, wearing a very conservative, light blue dress. Did this woman even own pants? She stopped and almost tripped over her feet.
“Ettie. What brings you here? Have you come to be saved?”
I held back my laugh. I wasn’t the one who needed saving.
“I saw you down at Pet Palace this morning. You purchased a cage.”
“Don’t worry. Your hamster problem hasn’t hit my walls yet.”
I shook my head. “Then why did you need a cage?”
“Does it matter?”
She was going to play hard ball. There was no beating around the witch hazel bush. “It does. I couldn’t help but wonder if you are the reason those hamsters are inside my shop.”
“Me?” She huffed. “How could I have done that?”
“I don’t know. We share a wall. You could easily have found a way to get those little buggers inside Ettie’s.”
“Well, I didn’t. I’d never sabotage you. It’s un…moral. Unethical. The cage was for Matthew. He’s nursing a bird back to health that flew into our stained-glass windows.”
Could I ask to see the bird?
That was a bit over-the-line. I’d just send Officer Gates a text about this little detail and leave it in her hands to investigate.
“Well, I wish Matthew luck with the bird.” I smiled, adding the next part out of pure manipulation. “And I appreciate your honesty.”
Brittany didn’t flinch or give me any indication that my words did anything to her. I turned around, feeling my shoulders sag, as I headed over to my shop to open for the day.
Sure, I wanted to know who infested my shop with hamsters, but more importantly, I had to get them out of the walls before they did too much damage or chased my customers away.
At the moment, preventing myself from going back to being unemployed was way more motivating than catching whoever was behind this infestation.
I couldn’t let Roman take care of me my whole life. I had gone to college and had become a social worker…and now an enchanted object store owner, because I wanted to remain an independent woman. I wasn’t one to rely on a man to pay my bills.
Even if I loved the hamsters now running rampant in my shop days after Bev found them in the wall, I had to get rid of them. Throughout the day, while Ettie’s was open, I held my breath, hoping no customers noticed the little black eyes staring at them from beneath the shelving, the pile of seeds inside the enchanted objects, or that no little furry creature mistook a sandaled toe for their next meal.
“Welcome to Ettie’s,” I greeted my next customer this Saturday. I could hear Roman working upstairs, and it was nice to have him here. Even with Joe’s refusal to move into the apartment upstairs, we were still fixing it up, hoping to change his mind.
The man who had just entered my store wasn’t my usual clientele. He wore an old tweed suit coat and the way his eyes roamed the shelves told me he was nervous. But that was okay. I knew how to put my customers at ease.
I tried a different version of my greeting. “What can I help you find?” While in college for my degree in social work, I learned that an open-ended question always worked better than a yes/no one.
“I’m looking for the owner, Ettie Sunward?” The man’s full mustache barely twitched with his words.
“I’m Ettie. How can I help you?”
“Yes, Ms. Sunward, I’m here for an inspection. We received complaints that rats are scratching from inside your walls.”
“They’re not rats. They’re hamsters.”
“So, you do h
ave rodents here?”
I nodded. “I’m trying to get rid of them. We have live traps set, but those little critters are smarter than you think!” I knew poison would be quicker and easier, but they were hamsters. Cute, little, helpless hamsters. Who could poison them?
“Could you show me?”
“Shh,” I said as I tiptoed to the store room with the inspector right behind me. I readied the cage that sat on a little table near the doorway and moved a cardboard box away from the wall that hid an opening in the plaster walls. Inside was a colony of hamsters that would have done any ant farm justice. I quickly shot out my arm and grabbed a hamster, putting him or her in the cage on the table. I did this a few times per day and by the end of the day would have half-a-dozen or so of them out of my wall.
Half a dozen down…probably a hundred more to go.
The inspector looked into the cage on the table, now holding four hamsters. “Yeah, it looks like you have a few of them.”
“Just a few.” I laughed motioning to the opening in the wall where we had just seen a few dozen scatter.
The man pulled a clipboard out of a leather soft-sided briefcase and scratched down a few notes. He pulled off the piece of paper and handed it to me. “I see no reason to do a full inspection, as you admit to having a rodent problem. I have no choice but to shut you down until you get the critters under control.”
“Shut me down?” I shook my head. “Why? Have you been to Pet Palace? They have just as many hamsters as I have!”
“Isn’t it their business selling hamsters?” The inspector asked. “You don’t have a pet store license.”
“No, but I’m not serving food. I don’t know why it matters.”
“This property is also zoned residential. Is anyone living upstairs.”
“Not yet.”
“Well, it needs to stay vacant until the rats are under control.”
“They’re not rats. They’re hamsters! And they’re not bothering anyone.”
“Not true. They’re bothering your neighbor.”
Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4) Page 117
