Enchantment Emporium

by Tanya Huff

  Or would be important.

  Eventually.

  At least she knew where to find a good Korean barbecue. She factored that information into his tip.

  Kenny in the coffeehouse next door was an elderly Asian man who pulled Gran’s keys out from under the counter, cupped his hand over the pile, and demanded twelve fifty. “You know where she’s gone?”

  “No.” It seemed the safest answer and had the added benefit of being the truth.

  “Yeah, well, she’s an original, your grandmother. The things she could do with a yoyo…” As the pause lengthened, Allie cleared her throat and he reluctantly returned from wherever the memories had taken him, pushing the keys toward her. “If you hear from her, you let me know.”

  “She didn’t say anything when she left the keys?”

  “Just that you’d be coming for them.” Kenny pulled a dark red paper cup off the stack by the cash register and turned to the row of urns behind the counter to fill it. “Alysha Catherine Gale, five foot eight, long blonde hair, usually worn in a single braid, gray eyes, mole under the outside corner of her right eye, sprinkle of freckles, still bites her nails…”

  Allie curled her fingers in.

  “… drinks her coffee black.” He slid it along the same path as the key. “First one’s free.”

  Of course it was. “Thank you, Mister…?”

  “Shoji. But call me Kenny, everyone does.” Grinning broadly, he waved at the signed photos up on the wall. Allie recognized a few actors, a couple of politicians, one very well known hockey player, and…

  “Is that Bob Dylan?”

  “It is.” Kenny leaned closer although he didn’t lower his voice. “I met him at Woodstock.”

  “Okay.” Wondering how much of his own coffee he’d sampled, she picked up her cup and backed away from the counter. “I need to go and…” A wave of the keys filled in the blank.

  Kenny beamed, his face pleating into a hundred wrinkles, suddenly looking like one of the apple dolls Auntie Kay entered in the county fair every year. Auntie Kay’s were specific to people in and around Darsden East-“Don’t be ridiculous, Allie dear, of course it’s inert. Now.”-but, otherwise, the resemblance was astounding.

  Her two suitcases and her carry-on bag were exactly where she’d left them, resting on a charm scuffed into the sidewalk by the junk shop’s door. She paused, turned to face the street, and frowned. Something felt wrong. Off.

  A teenage boy slouched past; baseball cap on backward, dark glasses covering his eyes, jeans nearly falling off nonexistent hips, the tinny sound of Rita McNeil being the wind beneath someone’s wings coming from his earbuds.

  An SUV, two pickup trucks, and a car that looked a lot like her Uncle Stephen’s ancient Pacer drove by.

  Two pigeons stared down at her from the power lines while one stared up at the sky.

  Not exactly signs of an approaching apocalypse.

  She was probably just reacting to the entirely new and not entirely pleasant feeling of being so far from home.

  Key in the lock, she paused again and traced four lines scored lightly into the glass, the spread a little wider than her fingers. There could be a hundred explanations. Her brain kept fixating on the one involving claws, but that didn’t make the other ninety-nine any less valid.

  The lock turned with a definitive snick. The door opened silently, swinging in on well-maintained hinges. The bank of four light switches was just to the left of the door where light switches always were. Allie reached out with the hand holding the coffee cup and nudged the first one up with the rim.

  As the lights immediately overhead came on, hot coffee spilled over her hand.

  Swearing, she took four quick steps to a glass display case where she could put the cup down beside a half empty box of glow-in-the-dark yoyos and suck at the scalded skin at the base of her thumb.

  It took her a moment to realize what she was staring at through the glass top of the case.

  Resting on a folded paper towel, tucked in between a set of cowboy boot salt and pepper shakers and a set of four highball glasses commemorating the Winter Olympics, was a monkey’s paw. The fur around the wrist had matted into triangular clumps. Only two of the darker gray, leathery fingers were folded down. It still had a wish left.

  “Are you sure it’s real?”

  Even with the glass between them, it was making her skin crawl. “Pretty sure, yeah.” There was only one way to be positive, and Allie didn’t want to know that badly.

  “How much is she charging for it?”

  “Mom! I hardly think that’s the point. This is a dangerous artifact just lying out in the open.”

  “You said it was in a glass case.”

  Reaching around, Allie slid open the nearer half of the badly fitting wooden panel and then closed it again. Quickly. “The case isn’t locked. Anyone could reach in and take it.”

  “Sweetie, anyone stealing from your grandmother would get exactly what they deserved.”

  “No one deserves one of those things!” Was it moving? Was that a twitch. She tapped a finger against the glass but didn’t see a reaction.

  “If you can’t handle it, Auntie Jane says she’d be willing to join you.”

  “I’m surprised none of the aunties insisted on coming with me,” Allie muttered, placing a stack of folded T-shirts into her suitcase.

  “They want to, but Mother has always made it quite clear they aren’t welcome, and now they won’t go without an invitation.”

  “Won’t or can’t?”

  Allie’s mother smiled.“At this point, it’s impossible to tell. Things get tangled.”

  “No, it’s all right.” Auntie Jane or a monkey’s paw; wasn’t that a choice between the lesser of two evils. “I can handle things here. I was just startled a bit by…” Allie’s eyes widened. “Mom, there’s a signed photograph of a minotaur on the wall behind the counter.”

  “Probably Boris.”

  “He dotted his i with a little heart.”

  “Definitely Boris.Your grandmother seemed very fond of him.”

  Given the way Boris was built, Allie didn’t doubt that in the least.

  “You are in cattle country, remember.” There was the faint sound of a distant horn, and her mother sighed. “Oh, wonderful; your father stopped at Ikea on the way home from the airport. That explains why it took him so long. And it looks like more bookcases. I’m glad you got there safely, don’t forget to put the charm in the fridge. Tom, where are we supposed to put…”

  Once again, Allie was listening to a dial tone. “I could start getting a complex about this,” she muttered, closing the phone.

  Finding the monkey’s paw-for certain very small values of the word finding since the horrid thing would have taken work to avoid-convinced her she didn’t want to deal with the store until she’d had a shower, a meal, and a good night’s sleep. If Gran was keeping that powerful an artifact out in the open, there was no telling what she might have tucked in amongst the junk as a trap for the unwary. Or a not particularly funny joke. The differences could be subtle.

  Flicking off the lights, Allie picked up her carry-on bag and headed for the door opposite the store entrance, eyes locked on the employees only sign. If I don’t see it, I don’t have to deal with it until tomorrow. The door led into a narrow hallway-yet another door opposite led out into a small courtyard of scruffy grass boxed in by buildings on all four sides, three scruffy shrubs in a circular bed defining exact center of the space. To her immediate left, a somewhat grubby two-piece bath, and about ten feet to the right, the bottom step of a long, narrow staircase.

  A huge rectangular mirror covered almost half the wall between the door into the shop and the stairs. The glass alone had to be nearly six by four and the addition of the triple-molded pediment and carved frame easily added another foot each way. While her degree was actually in art history, working on the museum inventory had given her enough exposure to antique furniture that Allie was certain she was looking
at an actual 1870’s Renaissance Victorian piece in walnut, still wearing its original finish. Even with the few flaws she could see, it was worth around five thousand dollars.

  And then she noticed her reflection-black dress, black stockings, black shoes, little black purse, and black pillbox hat with a tiny net veil.

  “Oh, wonderful.” A number of the oldest aunties kept magic mirrors but not on this scale and, as a rule, they didn’t leave them running. Stepping back, she folded her arms over her white cotton sweater. Her reflection pulled a tissue from her purse and blew her nose.

  Finding meaning in any mirror most closely resembled playing a surreal game of charades.

  “If it helps, the aunties say Gran’s not dead.”

  Her reflection wavered and was suddenly in sweater, jeans, and sneakers standing in what looked like a casino.

  “Not likely. Not after the last time.” Auntie Jane had traveled to Vegas to bail her out, and she had not been happy about it even though a dollar slot machine at the airport had paid for the trip.

  Allie’s reflection wavered again, and she was naked. She could see Charlie’s charm glowing on her shoulder, but her breasts were a bit big.

  “Cute,” she muttered and started up the stairs.

  With any luck, Gran had left documentation lying around somewhere. Without an instruction manual and a way to turn it off, she was stuck sharing space with a large reflective surface exhibiting a juvenile sense of humor.

  No surprise; she found charms surrounding the apartment door. Most of them were the standard Gale protections, keeping out those who entered with intent to harm, but a couple were strangely specific. One of them seemed to be denying entrance to crows, and three of them, strategically located, didn’t just cover the door but were part of a pattern that warded the entire apartment.

  Gran had enemies?

  Feeling stupid, Allie connected the dots. Of course Gran had enemies. If Gran wasn’t dead, there was a good chance she was on the run from something. If she was dead, that something had killed her.

  Allie took a deep breath. A large part of her insisted that opening the door was a bad idea. The rest of her found the right key and slid it into the lock.

  All of her paused.

  If Gran was dead, there was a chance that Gran’s rotting, mutilated corpse could be on the other side of the door because if Gran was dead, there had to be a body. Okay, there didn’t have to be a body. Given what it would take to kill Gran, a body after the fact had to be considered optional. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t dealt with bodies before; the family maintained a hands-on approach to death.

  But, if Gran was dead, the thing that killed her could be waiting on the other side of the door.

  Reminding herself that dealing with either a week-old corpse or a something mean enough to get through Gran’s charms would be preferable to dealing with Auntie Jane should she call for help before she’d even unpacked, Allie pushed the door open and stepped into an enormous room that was living room and dining room and kitchen combined. From where she was standing, she could see neither corpse nor thing, so she stepped further in and pulled the door closed behind her.

  The last of the daylight poured into the room through tall, multipaned windows on both the street and the courtyard sides. The walls were a deep yellow and the floor a dark natural wood, the wide boards probably original to the building. The furniture was large, overstuffed, and predominantly upholstered in dark brown velvet. A quick glance under the cushions proved both of the sofas folded out into queen-size beds. The scuffed rectangular table could easily seat eight. Ten with very little crowding. Twelve if manners weren’t a factor. Gran may have left the family behind, but old habits died hard. Fairy lights had been wound around both of the thick steel poles supporting the massive beam that indicated where the interior load-bearing wall had been removed.

  Not actual fairy lights, Allie was relieved to see, although she wouldn’t have been surprised had Gran been dealing with the UnderRealm.

  There were three doors on the far wall.

  A double set of French doors, curtained in ivory lace, led into a large bedroom where the wood floor had been painted black and the walls were the same dark red as the heavy velvet drapes over the windows. Allie glanced in at the king-sized bed and tried not to think of minotaurs. There was a duvet on the bed, the red-and-gold damask cover safely purchased and charm free. Allie’d slept under family quilts her entire life, each piece of fabric placed by the aunties to fulfill multiple purposes-Gran had left that combination of protection and influence behind. Now, so had she.

  The middle door led to a narrow bathroom with a shower centered in a claw-footed tub, shower curtain hanging in a circle from the ceiling. The rug, like the duvet cover, had been bought, not made.

  The third door led to another bedroom piled high with boxes and larger pieces of junk in place of a bed. Peering into a box of bright green baseball caps, Allie realized no one in the family had known exactly where Gran had settled until the letter and the will arrived. She’d come home for holidays and rituals and stayed in touch by phone, but no one had ever visited her here.

  That was sad. Even the wild Gales needed family around them once in a while.

  There could be a clue to her disappearance hidden somewhere amongst the junk in the spare room.

  Or in the junk downstairs.

  Or in the medicine cabinet.

  Or under the sofa.

  “Where the hell do I start?”

  Her stomach growled.

  “Good answer.”

  Pulling the door closed, Allie realized she’d have to sleep in Gran’s bed.

  The sheets had gone into the dryer by the time the take-out Thai arrived. Allie’d picked the restaurant at random from the half dozen stained flyers stuck to the front of the fridge. The fridge itself held only the kinds of food that could last a week or even two; whatever had happened, Gran’d had warning. Or she’d lived on soy sauce, margarine, mustard, and extra old cheese-which couldn’t be ruled out. Auntie Ester had lived on gingerbread for the last two years of her very long life. Fortunately, as Allie hadn’t the faintest idea of where the closest grocery store was, the freezer and the pantry were better stocked.

  On her way back to the stairs, mouth watering at the scent of the Pad Thai Talay, the mirror showed her the delivery boy naked.

  “You go, Gran,” Allie sighed, taking the stairs two at a time. After she ate, she’d start in on the spare room and leave the store for the morning. Right now, skirting the edges of her grandmother’s life was all she could cope with, and that was only because she’d found ice cream in the freezer.

  “Honestly, Michael, who needs that much variation?”

  “Apparently, your grandmother.” He couldn’t stop snickering. “Anything look interesting?”

  “I don’t care if one them looks like yours, I’m not even considering the word interesting as a reaction to a drawer full of my grandmother’s sex toys. What am I supposed to do with them? Shut up,” she snapped as the snickering turned into a shout of laughter. “I mean, I can’t just throw them out. What if the bag breaks open and everyone knows where they came from?”

  “The family doesn’t have a charm for that?”

  “Oh, yeah, of course we have a charm to keep garbage bags from breaking open and half a dozen dildos belonging to our grandmothers from spilling out onto the pavement.”

  “Problem solved, then.”

  “Ass.”

  “You love my ass.”

  “Oh, please…” Allie reached up and turned off the bedside light. “… everyone loves your ass.”

  She could see him smiling, see him stretched out on one of their stupid perfect black leather sofas wearing a pair of worn gray sweatpants and an equally worn T-shirt, the tap tap of Brian working on his laptop the perfect quiet background noise. Stupid, perfect, quiet, background noise.

  “Lonely, Allie-cat?”

  She rubbed the ache in the center of her chest tha
t told her how far she was from home. “A little.”

  “Where’s Charlie?”

  “ Halifax. Working on a friend’s demo.” The heavy drapes blocked most of the city sounds. Allie pressed her other ear into the pillow and blocked the rest.

  “Want me to stay on the phone until you fall asleep?”

  The sheets smelled like fabric softener and the mattress was exactly the right combination of hard and soft. “I’m not six.”

  “I know. And I know you hate sleeping alone.”

  “Yeah, my life sucks. Gran’s up to something and all I get is a business, an apartment…”

  “An assortment of sex toys.”

  “I’m going to regret telling you about them, aren’t I?”

  “Probably.”

  “Good night, Michael.”

  She hung up before she could tell him she missed him and eventually fell asleep with the phone cradled in her hand.

  “There’s a Gale staying in the apartment?” Heavy black brows met in a vee over his nose. “You’re certain of that?”

  He shrugged. “Alysha Gale ordered take-out this evening. I just got word from one of my sources. She had it delivered to the store.”

  “I knew it was too good to be true when the old woman disappeared. Damn. Damn. Fucking damn!” One scarred fist pounded the words into the desktop, hard enough the silver letter opener slid off the pile of paper.

  He caught it before it hit the floor.

  “We’re too close to the day,” his boss continued, ignoring both the letter opener’s fall and its subsequent retrieval. “We have no choice but to stay and see it through. No choice for me but to stay and face the danger inherent in yet another fucking Gale!”

  “All right.” He kept his voice low, calming. Things happened when his boss lost his temper. Things that could attract attention, and-right now-attention was the last thing they wanted to attract. He knew that for a fact because not attracting attention had been a part of every conversation they’d had since Catherine Gale had first appeared on the scene and, for the last month, not attracting attention had moved to the top of the agenda. “I’m still not exactly clear on just what you think she’ll do.”