by Sam Cheever
Yeah. That was just the ticket.
Feeling better with the thought, I went to get dressed for work.
“Did you put this here?” I asked Sebille a while later in the shop.
She cast a glance toward the aged leather book and shook her head. “No. I thought you had.”
I ran my fingers over the golden letters of the title, feeling their smooth, raised contours. “Blank Expression.” I frowned. “What a strange title. Do you think it’s supposed to be a novel?”
“More like a bad joke,” Sebille muttered crankily.
A careful flip through the book proved that the pages were still blank. “Weird.”
Sebille set aside the dusting rag and eyed the book, leaning over the counter as I turned the pages. “I don’t think this book’s that old.” She placed her hand over an empty page, palm down, and closed her eyes. “Thirteen hundreds. Maybe late twelve hundreds. No older than that.”
I couldn’t imagine someone doing a joke book in the thirteen hundreds. “A journal, maybe?” I ran my fingertips along the page, searching for anything that might indicate hidden text.
Sebille opened her eyes and shrugged. “Doubtful. This was in the magical artifacts library. It has to have magical properties. Maybe the text appears when it’s needed.”
“That doesn’t seem very helpful. How in a Troll’s flipflops are you supposed to know when to look at it?”
Sebille set the dusting spray down next to her rag. “I’m going to lunch. Do you want me to bring you something?”
“No, thanks. I’m still full from the two bagels I ate for breakfast.”
She headed for the door,
“You’re sure you didn’t bring this book up here?” I asked again.
“I’m sure,” she called over her shoulder.
A soft, warm body twined around my ankles. I glanced down, smiling. “Hello, Mr. Wicked. Where have you been all morning?”
“Meow.”
“Where did you hide your friend?” I asked my cat, my curiosity tempered by the realization that I really didn’t want to know. Where frogs were concerned, out of sight was delightfully out of mind. Unfortunately, telling myself that didn’t make it so. I was vaguely aware of a niggle of worry about the little green guy. I didn’t really know what kept frogs alive, but I was pretty sure whatever it was, my bookstore didn’t have it. I sighed as I realized I needed to locate the frog and come up with a plan for him, moving forward.
As I straightened, the bell over the front door jangled cheerfully. I pasted on a welcoming smile, which immediately died when I spotted my visitor.
Candice Quilleran was the oldest daughter of the Quilleran clan. She was also the least trustworthy, the least honest, the meanest, and the greediest. In fact, it appeared that Candice was determined to be the “est” of all things.
She sent a shifting gaze around the shop, her wide, yellow eyes scouring every nook, cranny, and corner of the store before settling on me. When she blinked, she reminded me of a mean-tempered bird, like a vulture.
When she saw me staring at her, Candice twisted her thin lips upward in a parody of a smile. “Naida. How are you?”
I bit back my honest response, which would have gone something like, “I was doing better before you came through the door,” and nodded. “I’m just fine. How about you, Candice?”
She shrugged her response, her gaze sliding along the baseboards and between the rows of book-laden shelves.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” I asked the other woman.
She started toward me, her expression turning sly. “I was looking for something…unique. I wondered if you might have it.”
Thinking the unique thing she was seeking most likely started with Mr. and ended with Wicked, I played dumb. “And what would that be, exactly?”
She seemed to be searching for a crafty way of asking what she and the rest of her family had already asked a hundred times. I was pretty sure she’d come up with it. After all, she was the est-est of her entire family. “Do you sell, um, animals?”
And there it was. She truly did deserve her est title. “Mr. Wicked is not for sale.”
She pretended to look shocked. “Mr. Wicked? The cat? Oh, my, no. You misunderstand. I’m looking for a different animal. Actually, he’s not exactly an animal. He’s kind of a, well, reptile maybe?”
She seemed to be asking me what she was looking for. Even if I could see inside her mind ─ shudder ─ and interpret what I read there, I had no desire to put any effort into helping her. In fact, my energies were more likely to be spent in making sure she was disappointed in her search. “I don’t sell snakes either. Sorry.”
“Maybe reptile is the wrong word…”
“Lizards? Nope. Don’t sell those either.”
“He’s really more of a…”
I was losing patience with the game. “Can you describe this…animal?”
“He’s about this big,” she held her hands about five inches apart and cupped them. “And he’s got bulgy black eyes…”
An uncomfortable feeling made little alarmed flutters in the vicinity of my heart. I tried to wipe all expression from my face as I listened to her struggle not to tell me what she knew she needed to tell me.
I decided to play with her a little. “Are we talking legs or wings?”
“Legs, I guess.”
“Gills or lungs?”
She frowned. “I have no…”
“Feathers or hair?”
“I think he’s bald…”
“Warm blood or cold?”
Candice slammed a fist onto my counter and I blinked, fighting a smile. “I’m looking for a frog. I know he’s here. If you return him to me now, I won’t accuse you of theft.”
Of their own volition, my lips curved into a not-so-nice smile. “A frog? Well, why didn’t you just say so. I believe he’s in the woods behind the shop.”
She looked cautiously optimistic. “Really?”
I nodded enthusiastically. “At the pond. You can’t miss him. He’s green and has bulging black eyes.”
Candice realized I was messing with her and her expression turned murderous. “You give me that frog, Naida Griffith or I’ll curse you all the way through the next five generations of your kin.”
I let the smile bleed away, tugging the roiling energy in my belly forward and allowing it to escape through my gaze. She blinked rapidly as a bright, silver glow filled my eyes, flaring brighter as my anger built. “You can swear at my family and me all you want, Candice Quilleran. That won’t make me give you something I don’t have. It won’t even make me give you something I do have. Now leave this shop before I do something we’ll both regret.”
Much to my surprise, she spun on her heel and stomped toward the door, stopping as she wrenched it open and turning back to me. “You’ll rue the day, Sorceress.”
I flapped a hand in her direction. “I’ll leave the ruing to you, bird. Now fly away before you really start to annoy me.”
She did. And she slammed the door behind her hard enough to vibrate the walls in my little shop. But I wasn’t worried about the slamming door.
What I was worried about was the fact that the empty book flicked itself open as the door crashed into its frame and pages started flipping rapidly until they came to a rest on a page somewhere near the middle of the big book.
And a picture of my visitor the frog stared out at me from its yellowed pages.
4
A Bumpy Cup of Tea
As soon as the bumpy backside of Candice Quilleran disappeared behind the slamming door, Mr. Wicked emerged from his favorite hidey-hole in the cabinet underneath the cash register.
“Meow!”
“It’s safe, little man. The evil witch is gone.” I reached down and picked him up, holding him against my chest as he purred happily.
He rubbed the top of his head under my chin and then struggled against my grip and leaped onto the countertop, where he took up residence on top of
the book with the empty flipping pages.
I mean, empty and flipping pages, not empty flipping…you know what I mean.
I stepped out from behind the counter and moved across the store, taking a seat at the small round table I’d set up near the shelves for patrons who wanted to peruse the books in greater depth before buying or renting them. I’d made two stacks of books on the surface of the table and was cataloging them for future sale.
My cup of rosemary tea sat cooling in between the stacks, its fresh aroma sweetening the air as I opened the first book. The volume was a compendium of advanced spells for healing warts and a wide variety of skin diseases. Not my most compelling item for sale in the shop, but definitely useful. The book I was cataloging was actually the second volume on the subject, which I’d purchased because the first volume was so popular on loan.
I reached for my tea without glancing away from the grotesque pictures of skin abnormalities in the thick tome and my fingers wrapped around a cool squishiness rather than the glossy handle of my favorite cup.
“Ribbit!” the squishy squatter belched out as my fingers squeezed him.
I shrieked, jumping out of my chair and taking three stumbling steps away. “What in the world?”
Just like in my dream, the frog was ensconced in my teacup. Its front feet, paws, hands, or whatever were draped over the rim of the cup and its black gaze was locked onto me.
“Ribbit.”
“You already said that,” I grumbled none too happily. “How did you get into my teacup?” Even as I asked the question, I knew it was a silly one. After all, if frogs were known for anything, it would be for hopping. Clearly, my unwelcome intruder had hopped up onto the table. The larger question was why was he in my teacup?
Surely, he didn’t think it was a tiny, fragrant pond?
I know. Don’t call you Shirley.
Mr. Wicked trotted over on silent paws and jumped up onto the chair I’d recently vacated. He leaped onto the table and touched his nose to the frog’s…um…snout?
I grabbed him, jerking him away. “Don’t touch him or we’ll be using that nasty book on warts and rashes to heal your cute little face.”
Both cat and frog glared at me, obviously painting me as a frogist or an amphibian bigot or something equally hideous. I felt the irrational need to defend myself. “What? I don’t like frogs. Sue me.”
The door opened with the jingling of the bell and I hurried over to greet my neighbor Leandra, who owned an herbalist shop next door. Because of the magical nature of both our businesses, we often shared customers and sometimes worked together to help a desperate client.
She was also my best friend and a truly gifted witch.
As usual, Leandra was dressed in a flowing dress that brushed her ankles and danced frothily on the air as she moved. Her well-padded form moved through the door with an unnatural grace and her turquoise gaze shot unerringly toward my little cup of problems on the table. “Ah,” she said, “So, that’s it.”
Relief filled me as I, perhaps deliberately, misunderstood her statement. “Oh thank the goddess, he’s yours?”
Lea’s laughter was musical and filled with actual humor. “Mine? Not a chance, dove. He belongs to the Quillerans.” She tucked a wavy strand of light brown hair behind one ear. “He’s got their magic signature all over him.”
Despair turned my stomach sour. I sighed, my shoulders drooping. “I guess she wasn’t lying.”
“Who?” Lea asked, walking over and plucking my visitor out of the cup as if she handled frogs every day. I had a sudden moment of concern as I tried to remember if Lea had any jars filled with floating frog parts in her shop.
“Candace Quilleran. She blew into the store a few minutes ago demanding that I give him back.”
Lea’s face flushed with irritation. “And yet here he still is.”
“What can I say, it goes against my better instincts to give that woman anything she wants.”
Lea placed the frog onto the floor and Mr. Wicked jumped down to sprawl beside him, batting his paws playfully in the frog’s general direction.
For his part, the frog pretty much ignored my cat. His black gaze seemed…erm…ribbeted on Lea and me.
Sorry. I couldn’t resist.
“How did you get him?” Lea asked as she watched the frog watching us.
“He just showed up. But he seems to be Wicked’s friend.”
Lea crouched down, her skirts tumbling around her legs like waves against the sand, and scratched my cat’s chubby belly. “Who’s a good little Familiar?” she cooed.
Wicked playfully batted at her hand, claws sheathed.
Lea smiled. “He gets cuter every day.”
I couldn’t help agreeing with a grin. “He refused to come out of his hidey-hole when Candace was here.”
Lea stood, her expression turning serious. “You mustn’t ever let her take him, Naida. He won’t be safe there.”
I hated when Lea told me that. She’d done it regularly since Mr. Wicked had become my companion. Pretty much every time one of the Quillerans had showed up at my store.
“As you’ve repeatedly told me. And I believe you,” I hastened to add. “But I’d like to know why he wouldn’t be safe. What would they do to him?”
She shook her head. “Some things aren’t meant to be discussed. That clan is famous for casting dark magic spells. Many an enemy has suffered because of their evil ways.”
I sighed. However bad her premonitions were, the fact that she wouldn’t share them with me made them even worse in my imagination.
Lea seemed to think the Quilleran clan was capable of unspeakable things.
She cocked her head, her gaze returning to the frog. “His aura is the color of flame,” she said.
“What does that mean?” I asked, interested. Any information I could get on the slimy intruder would help me figure out why he was there. I was starting to suspect he’d been the source of the magic wave that had sent me to my bed with a blinding headache the evening before.
“It means he’s got a purpose that hasn’t yet been determined,” she told me unhelpfully. She cocked her head. “Or he’s suffering from gastritis.” She frowned. “Do frogs get gastritis?”
I snorted. “You’re asking me? I thought they were reptiles until I read a book entitled, Caring for Your Amphibian.”
Lea’s mouth opened and I held up a hand. “Don’t ask me why I read that book. Let’s just chalk it up to one of life’s little mysteries.”
Her mouth snapped shut and she straightened, casting another look over my unwelcome visitor. “Do you want me to take him?”
Boy did I! But I knew that if I didn’t discover the mystery behind the frog’s sudden appearance in my store, the dancing pickle forks would make a quick reappearance in my life.
“No. But thanks. I think he’s an artifact I need to rescue. Or he’s tied to one. I’m not sure exactly what he is. I don’t have a lot of experience with live artifacts.” I thought about that for a beat and then affixed a qualifier to the statement. “Unless you consider a butt-pinching chair from the world’s greatest perv alive.”
Lea waggled her brows. “Mind if I borrow that chair on Saturday? That might be the most action I’ve seen in a while.”
The guffaw burst out of me. I hugged my friend, shaking my head. “Trust me. You don’t want Casanova’s chair in your house. It will strip all the other chairs and get them pregnant before you can say, howdy hoo, what’s with you?”
Long after Lea left, I closed my inventory book and sat back with a groan. My back was stiff, my rump was sore, and I didn’t want to catalog anymore.
Sebille was in the artifact library, apparently talking to either her mother or her boyfriend on the mirror. I could hear her less-than-melodic voice even through the closed door. Mr. Wicked had draped himself over the stack of books as I worked. His pretty fire-colored eyes were closed and he was limp as a noodle, clearly asleep.
His friend, Mr. Slimy was safely ensconce
d in the box from the donut shop where Sebille had gotten our breakfast. I’d put a shallow bowl of water in the box, a clump of moss Lea had brought over for his bed, and a few half-dead flies Sebille had captured buzzing around the artifact library.
I grabbed a couple of the big reference books and carried them to their assigned spot on the Rental shelves. Sebille stepped into the bookstore as I was reaching for two more. “Hey. Was that your mom?” I asked.
She grimaced, coming over to help me file the books. “My brother. He’s such a derf. He was calling to see if he could borrow Mr. Wicked for a haunting this weekend. I told him Wicked didn’t do that kind of thing. But he thinks I’m just being a gnish about it.”
Sprites, if you haven’t figured out by now, have their own range of swear words that pretty much has nothing to do with real language. To me, it seemed like they just made them up as they went along. But I knew that wasn’t the case, because they all seemed to understand the meanings behind the gibberish words. “Haunting?”
She stopped with a couple of three-inch-thick books pressed against her chest. She was wearing her bright locks straight and free, the strands separating at the sides of her head to allow her pointy ears to show. Her striped socks of the day were orange and yellow. A particularly unfortunate color against the deep purple of her knee-length dress. “Cats are closely aligned to the spiritual world. They’re useful conduits for reaching spirits and can be used to force a ghost onto this plane.”
“Why would you want to do that?” I asked, shocked.
She shrugged, her expression filled with disgust. “Because you’re a derf and a gnish and you want to get back at your girlfriend for dumping your butt.”
“Ahh.” I reached for the last book on the table. “Mr. Wicked is not a party favor for your family, Sebille.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m well aware, Naida. That’s why I told him no.” She walked away shaking her head, her disgust firmly displaced from her brother onto me.
