Wayward Magic (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 2)

by Melinda Kucsera

  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 have 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.”

  Of course. Brittany Fleming called the health inspector on me. Was this just one more step to getting Ettie’s shut down? “What do I have to do to open again?”

  “Just get rid of the hamsters and call me for another inspection. Piece of cake.”

  I nodded, taking the paperwork the inspector tossed my way. As soon as the door jingled behind him, I flipped my sign to closed and clomped up the steps to Roman with heavy feet.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, turning around and pulling off his safety goggles. He had been sanding the fresh drywall mud he had used to patch some cracks, and the powder hung in the air, creating a fine haze and making my tongue taste like chalk.

  “The health inspector was just here. We need to get rid of all the hamsters before we re-open…and also, nobody can live upstairs until we’re hamster-free.”

  “Double trouble,” Roman said. “I think it’s time to use more force than the live traps.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let’s call a professional.”

  My stomach twisted. “They’re going to want to kill them.”

  “But the store’s business depends on getting them out. And we don’t know if the exterminator will want to kill them. They might have a different option.”

  I took a deep breath. I was starting to like working with my hamsters around. I never felt lonely, even when I got here early in the morning or stayed late, but Roman was right. We needed to move forward with the business and getting Joe out of our house. “Okay, as long as I can keep Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. And maybe a Brittany, Jeannette, and Eleanor, too!” And as silly as I was being, Roman just laughed. That’s why I loved him. He put up with whatever craziness I threw his way. Even a shop full of hamsters, and if I didn’t have any self-control, it would be our house full of them, too.

  But they were cute, weren’t they?

  Chapter Seven

  “First, you need to figure out where the hamsters are entering your shop and close up the holes.” The man from Express Exterminators was short with a belly almost as big as he was tall. He ran his thumbs down his red suspenders while standing in the center of Ettie’s Enchanted Effect’s upstairs’ living room. “After that, I’d recommend large mice traps with some chunky peanut butter on the trigger. We can use some poison, but the problem with that is the animals die in your walls and begin to stink after a few days. The more we can get out of here with traps, the better.”

  Traps? I hadn’t thought we’d be killing the little critters to get them out of the shop. Something about having the trap’s hammer snapping those cute little critter’s necks didn’t sit well with me. “What other options do we have? Humane ways?”

  “Oh, a mousetrap is humane. They won’t know what hit ‘em.” He smacked his hands together, making me jump. “Snap! Glue traps aren’t quick, but they’re effective.”

  “How about something that doesn’t kill them,” Roman clarified. “Ettie’s grown quite fond of her shop’s inhabitants.”

  The exterminator with the name Fred embroidered on his light grey button-down work shirt crossed his arms over his chest, resting on his belly. “Everyone wants to be a hero. Nothing works like a good combination of traps and poison…well, except for a few big cats.” He laughed.

  All I could picture was a cat sitting at a tiny table with a big hamster platter that resembled Thanksgiving dinner.

  “Proper placement of the traps is crucial,” Fred said, walking around the room. “You want them in the areas the hamsters frequent. Where do you see food stores? Nests?”

  I led the exterminator around Ettie’s, pointing out where I’d seen signs of the hamsters. When we finished the tour, Fred led us outside, walking around the building.

  “I just can’t figure out how they got into your place. All the bricks are intact, and it’s not like hamsters are rampant on the streets.” Fred scratched his greasy hair. “If I had to take a guess, I’d say someone let a dozen or more pregnant females go inside your place and they’re stuck in there.”

  More confirmation that someone was still trying to put Ettie’s out of business. Was it my father-in-law? Brittany? Did she actually need that cage she bought for her son? Or was it the rest of her trouble-making trio? At the moment, it didn’t matter. I just needed these hamsters out of my walls and Ettie’s open again.

  I followed Fred back to his exterminator van, where he opened up the back and handed Roman and me a pile of mousetraps. “If you want to get started and set these up, I’ll be back with more supplies.”

  I wanted to hand the traps back to Fred, but he was up in the driver’s seat and the engine started before I could figure out what to do.

  I turned to Roman and looked into his worried eyes. “I can’t kill them.”

  “I know you feel that way, but I don’t know how much of a choice we have.”

  “I’d like to get some more live traps first. I think Ettie’s can be closed a few days while we figure this out.”

  “We’ve tried a few varieties already, but they’re not working as quickly as they should. I think the little guys are smarter than we give them credit for. You’d think someone would build a better hamster trap by now.”

  “Well, maybe we can figure something out.” I smiled, heading back into Ettie’s but a woman approaching us made me stop.

  “Natalia, what can we do for you today?” Luckily, I was already smiling because I didn’t think I could muster up the strength to plaster a fake one on my lips. Had she come to see her handiwork?

  “I’m just here doing an article on Ettie’s being closed. I read on the city inspector’s webpage that you are infested with rats.”

  “Not rats,” I groaned. “Hamsters. Very different.”

  “So is Ettie’s closed for good?”

  For a moment, I couldn’t find the right words to respond to that and I just stared at Natalia’s freckles that crossed the bridge of her nose, right beneath her glasses.

  Roman saved me. “Of course not. We’re going to get all the hamsters out. We’re going to set up more traps and Ettie’s will be open again soon.”

  “Where do you think the hamsters came from?” Natalia asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “They’re obviously not from out in the wild.” I laughed. Why was I wasting my time with Natalia? I had work to do inside Ettie’s. “Excuse us. We have to get to work.” I gave Natalia a nod and headed back into my store.

  “Of course,” Natalia called after me. “Thank you for your time.”

  When my chimes silenced, I realized how curious Natalia had been this time. “Do you think she’s finally coming around and accepting witches and enchanted objects?” I asked Roman, unloading the mouse traps from my hands into a basket tucked away under the cash register.

  Roman dumped his traps on top of mine. “We can hope, can’t we? Maybe she heard of your big donation to the Children’s Club.”

  “Hmm. Maybe. But it’s not worth dwelling on. We need to get some live traps set up. The exterminator wasn’t a bad move. He gave me ideas on where to set the traps and what bait to use on them. I hadn’t thought of peanut butter for hamsters.”

  Roman kissed my cheek. “Let me call Fred and tell him to hold off for a few days while we try more live traps. I’ll go see what I can round up in terms of bait and…better hamster traps.” He smiled.

  “Thank you,” I said.
r />   Roman chuckled. “Anything to keep you happy.” But there was a bit more to that. He knew we’d have to eventually resort to the methods recommended by the exterminator, but Roman would let me try it my way first…and even better, he’d never rub my nose into it.

  But I really thought I could do this without killing a single hamster.

  Chapter Eight

  I stood in the middle of our living room, hand-feeding Alvin, Simon, and Theodore sunflower seeds until their cheeks looked like they were going to pop. With every seed they took, a warmness grew inside me. Man, these guys were fun.

  A handful of days had passed since the exterminator recommended that we kill all the hamsters living within Ettie’s Enchanted Effect’s walls. In that time, I managed to capture over two dozen more hamsters in live traps, but there were still more. If I stood in the center of the main floor of the building with my eyes closed, I could still hear the little pitter-patter of feet, scraping and gnawing on the walls, and a few cute squeaks.

  Had I even made an impact?

  “Are you ready to go?” Roman called out to me from his home office.

  I smoothed the silky satin of the blue, mid-shin dress I wore that matched the natural blue witch highlights in my hair, then I ran my finger along the spine of one of the hamsters I had just caught who hadn't been named yet. My voice transformed into the tone you’d use to speak with a child. “I’ll be back later tonight. Behave and make friends.” I put the tan newbie female into a cage in my living room with some other females. I headed down the hallway and peered around the doorframe to where Roman sat with his laptop.

  He instantly closed the cover and smiled at me, probably amazed how well I could clean myself up. I wore red lipstick that my mother used to say was reserved for only troublemaking witches. Well, that was me today. Roman had never seen me in a fancy dress, since witches didn’t have wedding ceremonies like mortals did.