Unbaked Croakies: A Magical Cozy Mystery with Talking Animals (Enchanting Inquiries Book 1)

by Sam Cheever

  A series of snorts sounded behind me. “I told you not to sit in that chair,” Alice said, shaking her head. “First rule of being a Keeper of the Artifacts, don’t touch anything you don’t understand.” She wandered away again, mouth moving and arms flailing to point from object to object without apparent order or plan.

  I followed along behind her, my thoughts spinning as I tried to grasp the rapid-fire information she was flinging at me.

  Something clattered to the floor behind me and I jumped, whirling around with a yelp of surprise. A colorful ball of ratty-looking feathers cartwheeled through the air and smacked into me, hitting me between my breasts with an outraged squawk.

  “Arrrrrghhhh!” It yelled into my face. “Avast ye blackguard, for Blackbeard’s sword will take yer head in one, two…”

  Alice’s hand snapped out and snatched a deadly looking blade out of the air, inches from my nose.

  “…Three!” finished the parrot gleefully. “Shiver me timbers, it’s a pirate’s life and a bottle o’ rum. The lads’ll have some bleepin’ fun!”

  I shoved the horrible creature away. He flew off with a cackle, feathers raining down on our heads as he fluttered above us in a messy circle.

  Alice expelled a frustrated breath. “You do attract trouble, don’t you, sweetums?” She threw the blade into the air and fired a silvery ribbon of magic at it. Quick as a snake, the energy wrapped itself around the blade and dragged it toward the nearest enormous shelving unit, settling it down onto the top shelf.

  A heavy black projectile leaped from the big wooden desk near the stairs, claws unsheathed as it swiped at the fluttering parrot. The cat barely missed the bird’s tangle of ratty feathers. A fresh spate of moth-eaten red and green feathers drifted into the air as the parrot rolled sideways in midair to evade the big cat’s claws.

  Fenwald landed far more lightly than I would have expected, given his size, and trotted across the artifact library, flopping to his side in a beam of sunlight that painted the floor in happy stripes.

  With another outraged squawk and several more bleeps, the parrot followed the sword to the top of the shelves and settled down next to it. In a blink, it had lowered its head and seemed to be sleeping.

  “Did that bird just swear at us?”

  Alice sighed. “I’m afraid so. He lived with pirates all his life and talks like a sailor. I brought a witch in to hex him with a magical bleeping spell. Nasty critter.”

  “Does he have a name?” I asked, eyeing his suspiciously still form.

  “No idea. I call him Parrot.”

  “Fenwald, come on Handsome Kitty.” Alice bared her teeth at me, making me flinch. After a beat, I realized it was her version of a smile. “I’m off to fix beans for lunch. You coming?”

  “That sounds…um…yes. Give me a minute?” I just wanted a few minutes by myself to try to make sense of something Alice had shared with me during the morning. I lifted my notebook, which was filled with half-written words, squiggly lines and sentences that trailed off into nothing as I’d tried to keep up with my teacher’s rapid-fire teaching style. “I’m just going to make some notes.”

  “Brilliant! I’ll give you a shout when lunch is ready.”

  As she disappeared through the door that divided the public-facing bookstore from the “Librarian Only” magical area, I gave a sigh of relief.

  I stood in front of an oversized desk and looked around at the immediate area, taking in the enormity of the task ahead of me. The room was bisected by two rows of enormous shelves with a narrow aisle between them. Each shelving unit reached thirty feet above my head, still nowhere near the ceiling, which looked to be at least fifty feet high and sported several enormous fans that slowly stirred the air in the massive room. Each fan had a light fixture attached, but none of them were on, yet the room was filled with light. Given the enormity of the magical inventory in the place, most of it probably as ancient as time, I’d have expected a stale smell, maybe even moldy and sour, like old furniture or aged books. But the air was as fresh as a sunny day.

  And, unlike the bookstore, the huge space was the perfect temperature.

  Directly across from the entrance to the store in front, was a garage-sized door that I assumed was used for oversized artifacts. Twenty yards in front of that door was a long, wooden table, which was covered with more artifacts, some of them in a jumble.

  Alice had said something about the artifacts on that table not being cataloged yet.

  I stood in the center of the space and lifted my gaze, turning slowly to take it all in. There had to be thousands, maybe millions of things on the shelves. They kept on going and going into the seemingly endless depths of the place.

  And I needed to learn about every single artifact.

  Every. Single. One.

  I was doomed.

  With that daunting thought, I turned to the table of uncatalogued items. If I had to memorize every item in the place, I’d better get started.

  And that table seemed like a great place to start.

  A truly horrendous smell filled the air around me. I waved a hand under my nose and grimaced toward the dividing door. What was Alice cooking?.

  I stared at the pair of woman’s shoes I’d been cataloging and blinked, trying to dispel the shadows wreathing their otherwise harmless-looking forms. I touched one of the shoes with a fingertip and felt a subtle vibration saturating the cloth, the sensation filling me with an inexplicable unease.

  I wished I knew how to read the artifacts. But I had a feeling it would take time and a lot more learning before I got to that point.

  Despite the horrible stench of whatever Alice was cooking, I was getting hungry. My stomach rumbled loudly.

  I set the shoes aside, deciding to ask Alice about them after lunch.

  My gaze fell on the next item on the table. It was a suitcase that looked like it had been stuffed with cabbages. There was a large grease spot on the top, and the semi-rigid sides bulged unnaturally. There were gaps around the edges where it appeared that the suitcase hadn’t entirely closed.

  It looked old.

  Like about a hundred years old.

  “Oy! Naida, I’ve got beans and bangers,” Alice called out.

  Bangers? I assumed bangers were some kind of British food, but they didn’t sound very appetizing. Smoothing my expression to neutral, I lifted a hand. “I’ll be right there.” No wonder the place stunk so badly, I thought. Anything called bangers had to be terrible.

  Fenwald bumped against my calves with an engine purr that could have powered a Ferrari. I looked down at him. “Hey, Fenny. Any advice on whether I should eat the bangers?”

  “Meow,” he told me, noncommittally.

  “You’re no help at all,” I grumped. I gave him a scratch. “If it looks terrible, I’ll just take your example and fling it into the corner when she’s not looking.”

  “Meow,” he agreed.

  He jumped up onto the table and started sniffing around the suitcase, pawing at the bulging bag.

  “Don’t mess with the artifacts,” I told him, setting my pad aside. “I’ve almost got them all organized.”

  “Meow!”

  With a sigh, I headed for the store. A long feather flew off the shelves and lodged itself into my hair. With a sigh, I reached up and tugged it out, giving it a chastising glance. “None of that now, you have an assigned spot. You’re supposed to stay there unless I call you.”

  The feather rippled gently, quivering in my hand. I narrowed my gaze on it. “What’s your magic, anyway?”

  The tip wasn’t covered in ink, so I assumed it hadn’t been used as a quill. A flowery scent filled my nostrils, and I grinned. “Woman’s hat, huh? I think you need to get back to it then.”

  I opened my hand and gave my fingers a little twitch in the direction of the artifact shelving. “Go on now.”

  The feather lifted from my palm, did a little shimmy, and then dusted my nose with its soft barbs before dancing through the air to the spot on
the shelves where a woman’s hat from centuries past waited. The hat was covered in plastic, no doubt sealed, but somehow the little feather had wriggled its way free to visit me.

  I smiled, giving it a little wave before heading toward my bangers and beans.

  If I survived lunch, I’d try to get the story on the hat feather.

  Alice settled a wide, shallow bowl in front of me. I looked down at a pale glop of beans with a fat sausage sitting on top. “She grinned happily. “Tuck in, now. We’ve oodles of work ahead today.”

  I glanced longingly toward the dividing door, wishing I could get back to my cataloging. I felt curiously competent when I was dealing with the artifacts. As if I’d been meant to work with them all along.

  Maybe I had.

  I took a bite of the pale-colored beans and forced myself to smile at Alice. She was watching me for my reaction. “Good, yeah?”

  I swallowed quickly and nodded. “Delicious.”

  Something dinged and she jumped up. “Brilliant! The bread’s done.”

  I shoved the pasty, tasteless beans around my plate, wishing Alice had a dog I could surreptitiously feed under the table. “I’ve been cataloging the artifacts on the table in the back,” I told her.

  She glanced up, humming her response. I watched as she settled a beautiful, golden loaf of bread onto another cat-decorated towel and dug in the drawer for a knife.

  “I’m almost done with them,” I said. I was hoping she’d be happy about my taking the initiative. But she seemed too engrossed in trying to get the knife to cut through the loaf of bread to pay attention. She hummed again, leaning all her weight on the knife.

  It barely dented the bread’s surface.

  She stood back, wiping her hands on her apron, which I noticed was also covered in black cats, none of which bore even the slightest resemblance to the mountain-lion sized Fenwald. “I’ll just let the bread rest a few minutes,” she finally said. “The fibers need to loosen.”

  I fought a smile. She sat down across from me, cutting into the sausage and taking a tidy bite. “This brings me back to Sunday meals with my mums and gram,” she said, smiling.

  “That sounds nice,” I told her.

  She gave me a sideways glance as she scooped up beans. “Did your family have any special meals?”

  The way she asked the question made me think she was fishing for information. I’d asked A.P. not to tell Alice any more about my family situation than he had to. I was embarrassed by my lack of magical upbringing, and mortified by the fact that I hadn’t grown up with parents.

  “My grandma liked roast beef with carrots and potatoes,” I told her, keeping my tone neutral.

  Alice held my gaze for a moment, no doubt noting my lack of enthusiasm. Finally, she nodded. “Brilliant. I’ll be sure not to fix that.”

  I snorted out a surprised laugh.

  She was intuitive. I’d have to remember that.

  To thank her for her kindness, I admitted, “I like tacos and egg rolls.”

  “Good enough.”

  We ate in slightly awkward silence for a few minutes.

  “I was wondering if you knew the story on that woman’s hat with the rogue feather?”

  Alice put her fork down. “Has that silly thing been a bother?”

  I shook my head and set my fork into my nearly empty bowl. To my amazement, the banger hadn’t been all that bad. “It came to see me. But I’m used to that. It’s no bother.”

  She nodded. “You’ve got a unique attraction for magical objects. They probably sense your unformed magic. I suspect it’s been a bit of a challenge at times?”

  I grimaced. “Living with a non-magic grandma, it was more than a challenge.”

  “I’ve known the type. She pretended magic didn’t exist?”

  It was hard to explain. “Not so much that as…” I pushed beans around in my bowl. “It took me a while to put a finger on it. The magic made her sad. I have no idea why, but it got to the point where I’d do anything to keep that look off her face.” I looked at Alice. “I don’t want you to think Grandma Neely was mean to me. She never was. She was kind and thoughtful in her own way. But something or someone hurt her badly once. She would never tell me. And she just couldn’t find it in herself to help me embrace my magic. So the two of us played parts for the twenty years we lived together. We both pretended there was no such thing as magic. And I pretended I was happy about it.” I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I don’t have much magic anyway.”

  Alice gave me a long look, her expression unreadable. Then she sighed, sitting back in her chair. “That’s a cockup for sure. Well, we do need to get you up to speed. Until we do, you’re going to keep having magical leakages.”

  I felt my eyebrows lifting. “Leakages?”

  “Yes. These objects aren’t coming to you of their own volition. You’re calling them to you.”

  “But, I don’t have any keeper magic.” I felt my face go white. I hadn’t meant to admit that to her.

  “Of course you do, sweetums. It’s raw and elemental, but it’s there. We just need to teach you how to use it properly.”

  She was wrong. I wasn’t inherently magical. I’d had twenty-two years to come to grips with that. But I didn’t argue. The last thing I wanted was to convince her of my unworthiness. The longer she believed I had promise, the longer she’d let me stay at Croakies.

  And I really wanted to stay at Croakies. More than I’d wanted anything in my life.

  Alice’s gaze slid back to the brick that was shaped like a golden loaf of bread. “Well, I should get that sliced up and put away, or it’ll get hard.”

  I pressed my lips together, gathering up my bowl so she couldn’t see me smile. “I’ll do the dishes.”

  “Brilliant.” Alice headed toward the dividing door. “I’ll be right back. I believe I’ve got just the blade in the back for slicing this bread.”

  I almost asked her if she meant Blackbeard’s sword but bit back the tease, not sure how she’d take it.

  It turned out her idea was worse anyway.

  “I’m certain Jack’s scalpel will be just the thing,” she murmured as she opened the door.

  My eyes bugging, I watched her disappear.

  Surely she didn’t mean Jack the Ripper’s scalpel?

  Did she?

  3

  Croakies or Bust!

  I left Alice to dismember…erm…slice the bread and returned to my artifact logging.

  Alice had told me I could look up the origin and purpose of each artifact by using Shakespeare’s desk, but I’d been too intimidated to try it. However, with a full belly and no desire to be anywhere near Jack the Ripper’s bread slicer, I decided it was as good a time as any to brave it.

  I decided to start with the pair of women’s shoes I’d cataloged last. The shoes looked brand new. The soles were spotless, the two-inch heels solid, and the pink cloth uppers pristine. They didn’t look as if they’d ever been worn. Which was surprising to me. The magical artifacts I’d handled to that point had all obviously been around a while. Many of them were ancient. Their age like a fine patina that had a definite feel against my skin. With that patina came a vibration I’d always noticed when touching magical objects. Latent energy.

  The shoes had no latent magical energy that I could sense. I couldn’t help wondering if Alice had brought them to the library by mistake.

  Getting slightly desperate, I searched the table again. I didn’t see the shoes.

  Fenwald was lying on top of the bumpy suitcase, bathing himself. The stench I’d noticed before, that I’d attributed to Alice’s cooking, still hung in the area. I waved a hand under my nose. “Is that you, Fenny?”

  The big cat stopped bathing to look at me, his entire body vibrating with disgust.

  “Sorry,” I said, eyeing him for signs that he was considering retribution. “I didn’t mean to disparage your hygiene.”

  After glaring at me for another minute, he went back to bathing.

&n
bsp; I sighed. “I know I put those shoes right here.” I moved a few things around, but the shoes weren’t there. “Humbug on a high heel!” I murmured. “I’m losing my mind.”

  “Meow!” Fenny agreed enthusiastically.

  “Button it, fuzzy butt.”

  A soft chime pulled my attention around. I frowned as a sheet of paper drifted to the floor behind me. “What in the…?”

  The dividing door slammed open, and Alice hurried through. Her expression was intense, and she still had the scalpel clutched in her hand.

  Uh oh, I thought. She’s been possessed by the spirit of Jack the Ripper. I knew that scalpel was gonna be trouble!

  “Why am I getting that order again?” she asked, looking confused.

  I was pretty sure she wasn’t talking to me. But I was the only one in the room, so I shrugged.

  “Meow!” Fenny said, just in case she’d been directing the question his way.

  “Here, sweetums, hold this for me, yeah? Cheers.” Handing me the deadly blade, Alice grabbed the sheet of paper off the floor, scanning it quickly. “Harridan hijinks!” she muttered.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “An artifact wrangling order. I’m to repossess a pair of magical heels. But I already retrieved those.” She slapped the sheet of paper down on the table and glanced around, shoving things to the side in growing agitation. “They were just here.”

  “The shoes?” I asked, stalling for time.

  “Yes. Did you put them somewhere?”

  “No. I was just looking for them myself. They were right there,” I pointed to a small empty spot on the table. “…when I went to lunch.”

  Alice sighed. “Well, that’s it then. It’s into the toxic vault for them once we’ve retrieved them again.” She looked at me. “This will be a good first retrieval for you.”

  All the blood ran out of my body and settled onto the floor. “Um, Yikes! I’ve only been here half a day…”