JeromyHow to Rid Yourself of Kids Toys: A Beginner's Guide
Mack Hart
Mornings are the worst. Ever since last fall, Andy had picked up the habit of setting an alarm, even on weekends, reminding herself that she should get up after a reasonable amount of sleep – the definition she'd never officially decided on. But even with the full ten hours of sleep, the pain in her head was reminiscent of how she felt after Kevin T-boned a truck; throbbing in her head like an aneurism and sending bolts of pain through her eyeballs. Nothing about the pain subsided when she looked about the room and flopped back on the bed, as defeated as a thrown rag doll. Shit was laying all over the floor where it had been half unpacked, meaning she had dug through it to find her stupid toothbrush when she arrived last night and left it in a pile that obscured most of the sad, cold corner where the rug didn't reach. Her clothes were buried in there. Along with everything she needed right now. Buried and demanding way too much work.
Somewhere in the black nothingness of her mind, a voice whispered that she was a slob. Thankfully, the voice was quickly trampled when she opened her eyes once more to discern that there was, in fact, no other place to put her clothes. That's not to say the room had no furniture. It was just that most of the stuff in this room was way past its expiration and could probably have been useful, if her aunt and uncle were looking for firewood. From the “bed” under the window, she could see into the dresser where the fronts of several drawers had fallen off, or more likely had been ripped off by some angry soul that Gen and Jeromy had placed in solitary confinement up here. God knows what kind of monsters they would do that to. There was a large crack running down the center of the stand up mirror, making it pretty much useless, and all the legs on the bed had at some point fallen victim to some unknown tragedy. Beyond that, the gun rack seemed to be in the most promising shape. Only two of the nubby things that stuck out had been ravaged, leaving the top half open as a potential coat rack.
The only items that seemed completely untouched by the apparently violent history of the room were the desk and its armchair. Probably because they had ganged up they'd managed to fight off anything that would try and jump them, as was attested to by their obvious friendship. In previous years, when Andy had tried to rearrange things, they always seemed to end up next to one another, regardless of where she placed them. She could move the armchair away from the desk easy enough, cause let's be real, fancy antique armchairs don't really belong with IKEA writing desks, but whenever she tried, she would come back to find them next to each other again. Fuckin' brats.
Alex’s movements had not gone unnoticed. From his hiding place beneath the chair, Hannibal had seen his human sit up and flop back down, obviously using the universal signal for breakfast time. Alex’s failure to rise once more, however, indicated that the time for action was nigh.
Purring like a helicopter, Hannibal padded over and squeaked loudly. When Andy ignored him, Hannibal seemed to realize that more drastic measures were needed, and he squeaked again, hopping up onto the bed. Three minutes of harassment later, he was successful.
Swearing, Andy dug carefully through the mess on the floor for clean clothing. The whole process could probably have been completed in five minutes, but every thirty seconds or so Andy caught herself staring absently at the wall, or the floor, or something else equally interesting. When she finally did drag her ass from the floor, fully dressed, Hannibal had settled in to some spot on the bed, blinking his fluffy little eyelids as he watched the early morning suffering of his human he loved so much.
They made eye contact and he blinked slowly, clearly in ecstasy between his comfy spot and proximity to his beloved.
Andy snorted and rolled her eyes. “I'm leaving.”
He lifted his head and shook it, looking at her for a moment, as though wondering if she could possibly be even considering walking away from him when he was looking so cute.
She smiled and scratched behind one ear, causing him to loll his eyes back pleasurably, then she took her hand away and made for the door.
Hannibal stood, stretching slowly, then sprang from his spot, landing gracefully on the floor like a goddamn ballerina.
Out in the hall it was surprisingly cold for a summer day, especially at this time in the morning. The sun would be high in the sky now, baking the high-pitched roof of the house until you could legitimately fry an egg on it (which was, in fact, possible at this house). And yet, somehow, it managed to never heat up on the inside. It was like walking through an infinite refrigerator at all times. Maybe It was cursed? Or intentional? There were too many possible explanations.
Andy took a right, making for the stairs at the end of the hall. Most of the rooms along the way were meant for guests, not that there had been enough for these for some time. Generally, the downstairs rooms would be filled first on account of their expensive medieval taste and lack of clutter from the storage. Only in times of emergency were these rooms used, or, on occasion, when a large enough gathering was happening in the area. Honestly, though, that never really happened anymore. As soon as the Hanning house opened up in SoCal, people stopped having their big parties up here. Too much rain or something.
Behind one of the big brown doors, little feet shuffled, leaving behind a shadow, and a giggle ran off into the distance.
Hannibal crouched low as the shadow came out from under the door, crawling away like Peter Pan's miniature evil twin (but harmless of course; this is a civilized house). Backing up slowly, her little fluffy monster friend lowered himself close to the ground, coiling up like a jack-in-the-box and fixing his little beady eyes on the moving target. Stilling himself like a tiger in the grass, he waited for a moment when the shadow paused, turning its head to look at the aggressor. Then, testing his weight on each foot, Hannibal coiled back and sprang, sailing through the air in one graceful bound, claws outstretched, tail straight, eyes fixed to sink his little daggers into... nothing.
Andy shook her head, walking on as the dangerous little beast batted away at the empty shadow, which snickered, dancing up the wall and out of reach, leaving the fuzzy thug far below.
Hannibal squeaked at it, frustrated, sitting on the ground below, one paw raised to bat. It chuckled maliciously, scampering away, pleased to have inflicted suffering upon the little fella, but bored with the game.
Reaching the staircase leading down from the center of the hall, Andy shook her head. Why a cat? Why not a lizard or something that would sit on her arm? Maybe cats were just the most like dragons. Proud, solitary hunters. Fuck ‘em.
On the first floor, nobody was in the kitchens just yet. Agnes generally didn't show up until at least 7:30, and her assistants not until ten when it was time to prepare lunch for the family and any random people who wandered in expecting a free meal - the “freeloaders,” who seemed to really like Gen, regardless of her feelings for them. If any were coming they would trickle in around eleven when lunch was being decided and they could be sure to catch the missus at home somewhere.
All things considered, Andy had a good ten minutes to scrounge before being disturbed. Her little furry friend had taken to getting mighty feisty with the birds in the yard when he had to wait for a meal. Not that his feathery appetite was really a problem. It was more that the gardener would have killed to catch him in the act. But actually. The man was too handy with a shovel for her liking.
He trotted through the door as she cracked a fresh can of tuna, mewing in delight as she spooned it into a safer, not-so-jagged container; one that wouldn’t deign to touch his whiskers.
Andy carefully stepped over his back as he twined through her legs, purring affectionately, to drop the spoon in the sink to be cleaned... probably later. Maybe. Eh.
Setting the bowl down on the ground at her feet, she leaned back on the counter, thinking through the details of the issue.
8-year-old Tony broke his arm “mysteriously.” 6-year-old Chrissy had three seizures in the same place on three separate occasions with no history or other signs of epilepsy. Uncle Alington had a psychotic episode later in the same room where Chrissy had her seizures. Now Gen was scared and desperate enough to intentionally call her “niece”.
It had only been about 15 hours and already Andy felt as unwelcome as emotionally possible. Kellington had denied Alex’s request to attend college this year, something she had been super pumped about, in order to send her out here to butt-fuck-nowhere Caridon where his sister had requested her presence on account of some good old paranoia. It didn't matter that Gen had made it clear since the incident on that one Christmas that she wanted nothing to do with her fake niece. Based on the treatment she'd been getting from the family, it was a mystery why Gen had asked for Andy and not St. Kevin, her fake older brother.
But, after all, Kellington's sister was his real baby. Anyways...
The problems? Tony was notorious for keeping his injuries a secret, Chrissy was 6 and may be developing some seizure disorder, Alington was insane to begin with and protective of Chrissy, and Gen was over the moon paranoid. This could literally be anything or nothing at all. Fuck life. Time to solve a goddamn magical mystery.
Hannibal was sitting in front of an empty bowl, licking his lips and staring up at his lady through half closed eyes. What a little pig. Now a pig, why not a pig? Or maybe a piglet? Why a cat?
Andy shook her head, blinking back at her little buddy. At least he was a spunky little guy.
“Wanna go check out our crime scene?”
He stood up, licking his lips one more time and staring up at her expectantly. Yup. Just as expected.
The upstairs playroom was deserted, toys littered about like a trailer park in tornado alley. Nothing looked particularly out of the ordinary, just like a regular preschool ten minutes before the cleanup song started. Three toy chests stood on the right side of the room, positioned on either side of the great fireplace that was basically never used. Two of them were left open with toys spilling out the top in a volcano of spoiled kid that made Andy cringe. The third had been shoved into the corner – probably Seth's from when he was actually young enough to play with toys up here. Now, of course, he was too cool for that shit, unlike his younger siblings.
There was nothing strange about it. Not a thing that didn't belong. And yet, it felt somewhat malicious. There was a buzzing in her ears that she just couldn't place, like a live wire vibrating on the edge of her consciousness.
She scanned the toys quickly, deciding there was little there of interest to anyone but a bored kid, and began checking the furniture instead. Two armchairs that each cost more than her car when it was new, a chest of drawers full of coloring supplies that would have made Carravaggio jealous, a large, suspicious looking mirror that probably swallowed people in its spare time, a table beneath some empty shelving covered in classic early childhood Picasso drawings, and a grate to stand in front of the fireplace and keep the ickle-babies out of it. Goddammit.
Andy could still sense the sort of buzzing happening on her periphery, but there was nothing she could see that could be causing it. There didn't appear to be any abnormalities in the walls, furniture, floor, windows or even brickwork around the fireplace. Or were there?
She carefully stepped over the girls' toys that probably belonged to Chrissy, placing her ear up to the brickwork around the fireplace. The humming was definitely louder over here, working its way into her mind, jumbling her thoughts a bit. She shook her head a tad. Hmmmm....
Kneeling down, she brushed some of the things out of the way and moved the gate to allow access to the interior of the fireplace.
Clearly, it had once been used, even if that was over a hundred years ago. Black soot covered the inside, caking her hands as she pressed on the inside of the chimney. The buzzing was definitely more intense down here, which was suspicious, but there were still so many things that it could be. It would give her a bit of a clue if someone else could hear it.
She shook her head again, backing out of the fireplace. This was starting to make her feel a little sick. Maybe it was time for a break. Hannibal was standing right behind her, looking around as though a bird was chirping nearby that he felt the urge to murder. Perhaps little fellas like him could feel it too.
“Do you hear it?” she whispered.
His head whipped around and he blinked slowly and happily at her, walking closer in high hopes of receiving an affectionate pat. Maybe he wasn't so sensitive.
“Dork.”
She ran a hand down his back and shook her head. It was time for a break. Whatever this was it was starting to make her a little nauseous.
She locked Hannibal inside when she took a trip into Caridon. There were far too many things that could kill him out on the grounds of the Black Estate, (yup, clever name for a large black house), and he was too prone to attacking things much larger than kitty cat sized.
The little car bounced along down the road, somehow hitting every pothole no matter how hard she tried to avoid them. There was at least one woman in town who could probably help her in tracking down the source of the buzzing. Years ago, Aunt Gen had invited over Helen Jackson, the hippie lady who ran the candle store downtown, to hold a séance when she thought the house was being haunted by a malevolent spirit. Yeah, crazy and paranoid, you see it now. It had turned out, Uncle Alington had just been starting to lose it back then and was misplacing stuff and forgetting he had done things, but all the same, Helen was pretty legit. She had been in charge of other things since then, like helping to get together the magic community of western Oregon into some sort of control. If her choices were between asking Helen Jackson or precious Aunt Genevieve Leisting for an in into the professional magic community, Andy was gonna pick the strange psychic lady every time.
Downtown Caridon was dead on Mondays. Almost nobody was out on the old bricked streets, not even to buy groceries, and the beach view restaurants were empty except for a few of the elderly who had gathered in the Blue Anchor to hold what looked to be a very spine-tingling game of bingo on the back porch.
Most of the parallel parking spots on the street were open, and even the two hour parking which was usually packed with ocean-goers on weekends still had two spots left. Mrs. Kindall nodded politely to Andy through the window of the bakery as she stepped out of her car out front, store devoid of any activity. Maybe Andy could get a muffin or something on her way back. If nothing else, that could be a bright side to coming into Caridon. Silver linings.
The candle store was three doors down, shaded with heavy curtains in an old building that looked as though it was built by the first settlers to move west. It had total east coast architecture that painfully reminded Andy of a big house on the seaside in Maine, but the décor was easily something straight out of Portland.
Two big round candles burned in their hand-blown glass containers in the display, flanking a sign barely readable under all the beads and scarves that had been draped over the top. “Buy One Get One Free”, it read when Andy ducked her head to see under the drooping of the top scarf. A few more candles could never hurt. If she wasn't broke, this would actually be slightly tempting to help get the smell of sadness out of the room upstairs.
Andy found the front door, a big glass shop door that had been covered by a scarf decorated with interconnected trees. Typical. If nothing else, Helen could probably direct her to the underground hippie society of Portland, Oregon. Somebody there had to be on enough acid to find the playroom ghost.
Sighing, she pushed through.
Immediately, her head began to throb. Magic, color, light – anything that could cause a headache for someone like Andy.
The store looked eccentric on the outside, but the inside was something else. Sometimes it was amazing that these people doing magic out in the real world, reading fortunes at carnivals and making houses self-cleaning sort of stuff, weren't caught. In the Pacific Northwest, it was less of a mystery why – after all, loads of people walked around doing downright bizarre things; it was normal. This was above and beyond that.
Helen Jackson's candle store, Waxing and Waning, was downright foreign. Lights were suspended from the ceiling by threads, no wires connecting them to the walls. Scarves hung from the lights; beads hung from the scarves; little talismans hung from the beads. Paintings of famous sorcerers through the ages hung on the walls, draped with decoration that almost obscured them from view. And on top of almost everything, there was every type of candle imaginable.
Tall, short, fat, thin, even a few slimmer than pencils were lining the walls, stacked on cases, or suspended in little metal cages like chandeliers from the wood paneled ceiling. About a third of the ones in the room were already burning, an overpowering smell that almost stopped Andy in her tracks, and of those, perhaps only one in ten were burning like normal candles. The whole rainbow was represented here in candlelight, flickering in the rare, sacreligious breeze of fresh air that trickled from the open door. Each flame burned at a different height as well, some even in a different shape. One that particularly stood out front and center looked like a dancer, burning red on top of a small glittery candle in a glass jar.
There was nothing subtle about the place. It was about as low key as a dog in a tutu buying a bus ticket. Seriously, how did these people get away with it?
As Andy entered, a small bell above the door twinkled loudly, causing a skinny little woman in perhaps her mid-forties to look up from behind a desk. She looked fairly normal, except that she didn't look normal at all. Her hair was a good six feet long, draped over her lap, and she sat with her feet up on the desk – something that most people didn't do at work after the age of about twenty.
She was wearing overalls rolled up above the ankles and a bright orange T-shirt with ragged sleeve ends, like she chopped them off with her garden shears last time she was out picking her herbs. Her feet were bare and her face lightly lined, wearing a bandanna that matched the color of the overalls.
She smiled as Andy entered, taking her feet down and setting down her knitting on the desk.
“Good morning.” She beamed as her confused visitor entered, leaning forward so she could get a better look at Andy, which immediately made the younger woman feel like a bug on a tac. Picking up a pair of round glasses off the desk, the woman put them on and her smile broadened a little more, along with her eyes. “Ah, we've met before, haven't we?” Her voice was smooth and soft, like what librarians always seem to sound like.
Andy nodded, still looking around at where someone had apparently dropped a psychedelic nuke. “Yeah, I'm Andy. Gen and Jeromy Leisting's, uh, niece. You're Mrs. Jackson, right?” She was married, wasn't she?
She made to glance at Helen, but the woman was already standing beside her. Andy blinked. Spooky as fuck.
“Yes, that's me, but you can call me Helen. Pleased to meet you, again.”
Helen held out her hand, and Andy shook it, now focusing her attention entirely on the woman. There was no way she was appearing like that again. Too weird. “Pleased to meet you, too.”
Helen glanced out the windows. “Now how can I help you? Did you need something for the Black Estate or was there something else I can do for you?”
“Well,” Andy glanced out the window, but when she turned back, Helen was standing by the desk again, leaning on it. It was gonna take some magic of her own to keep her attention on this one goddam lady. “I've been working on a bit of a problem and I was hoping for someone more expert in it than me.”
Helen was nodding enthusiastically. This was probably just about the extent of the poor woman's magical interactions that didn't involve candles. “Yes, yes, of course. Go on.”
Andy swallowed. “Well, Gen thinks there's something or someone causing her family members to go wacko in the playroom. I thought she was nuts, cause, well, you know, but I picked up a... a something when I was in there. I don't actually know...” How the fuck do you explain to someone the buzzing sensation? It was nothing anyone else had ever felt, so far as she could tell, and there was no telling what it had been. Fuck, how do you explain the whole situation?
But still, Helen was nodding excitedly. “Yes, I'm aware of your unusual gift.”
Pft. Gift indeed.
“Could you describe this... something?”
Andy shrugged. “It just felt like some kind of energy.” Jesus, she sounded like some hippie lady talking about her last acid trip. “I dunno.”
Helen's eyes were focused right on Andy, like she was trying to read into her soul or some creepy shit. “Hmmmm, interesting.” She squinted a little, still not breaking eye contact or blinking. “Well, what do you mean by 'wacko'? What happened to the other family members?”
Andy shifted uncomfortably. “Chrissy had a few seizures, Alington had one of his episodes, and Tony broke his arm. But those are all pretty standard. The only unusual thing was in the playroom.”
Helen nodded, hmmm-ing a little more. “Well, dear, I have very little background in this, but have you considered a curse of some kind?”
Andy crossed her arms, looking down. “Not really. To be honest, I'm not a hundred percent sure any one thing could do this.”
Helen nodded again. “Well, I've heard of cases in the past where curses of some kind cause people to do things they wouldn't usually do, or take to the extreme things they would do. I must admit, I'm no expert in these kinds of things, I usually learn about most of this through my son, though he's out of town right now.”
Goddamn it. One expert and they aren't even around. “Is there anyone else I could contact about this?”
The woman shrugged. “You might try the Black Anchor. They usually have a pretty good idea of who's in town who knows about things.”
Andy frowned. “You mean the Blue Anchor? The restaurant?” Was Helen actually crazy?
Helen smiled and shook her head. “No, no, the Black Anchor. I forgot you're from out of town. If you just go into the Blue Anchor and tell them you would like to sit in the coal room, they'll help you out.”
Andy nodded, but slowly. “I see.” She glanced around the room again, but had to blink when the flaming dancers traded candles. Too much happening in one room.
“Perhaps if you were considering solving this issue by yourself I could offer you some of my son's books,” suggested Helen, who had teleported again and was now behind the desk, rummaging through a drawer. “I'm sure he wouldn't mind you taking a few for something like this.”
Andy bit her lip. Borrow some random dude's stuff? No thanks. “That's okay, I think I'll get it. Somehow. Probably.” Never.
But Helen was admiring a key she had pulled out of the drawer. “Ah, yes, this is the one.” Then to Andy, “My dear, I insist. It would be shameful if you came all this way for nothing.” Her eyes sparkled, “And besides, perhaps it will spice things up in that big empty house.”
Andy wasn't sure that anything could 'spice up' the Black Estate without a paintball gun and some vibrant ammo, but she followed Helen anyways to a door at the back of the shop.
Ducking under a rainbow of scarves that hung over the back wall, Helen opened a plain wooden door. As she passed through, she glanced over her shoulder at the front of the shop. A loud click reverberated from the door and half the candles extinguished, as though there had never been anything so ridiculous as a wooden shop full of lit candles.
Andy gulped as the room went dim, or at least more dim than before, and followed the witch lady out of the room.
The eccentricities of the place didn't hit her at first. What was truly amazing about the next room was the wall of normal-ness that hit Andy full on after the previous fifteen minutes of sorcery show-and-tell. The couch didn't run around the room. The end tables on each side looked stolen from a hotel. The walls were blue. The few bright colors that decorated the place were, dare it be, tasteful, and was that a cordless phone?
“They should be right over here,” Helen was saying, cutting across the room to a door on the left that looked as perfectly ordinary as if it were pulled straight from the home of a suburban couple. Plugging the key into the lock, she turned it to the right. Then to the left. Then quickly to both directions. As Andy approached, stepping gingerly across the uncomfortably spacious room, Helen spun the key in the lock three times to the right and it clicked, allowing the door to swing open.
In the room beyond, the décor once again blew her mind. They were jumping to a castle, a lot like the Black Estate, with stone floors covered in thick carpets and expensively furnished space. Unlike the Black Estate, this one had none of the modern flair Gen had placed around with the polished floors and Renaissance decoration. In fact, this was sparsely decorated with the exception of the few pieces of furniture positioned around the roaring fire.
Andy looked around slowly as she stepped through the door, wondering if this was some kind of joke. Helen could definitely be the type to play this. Two sitting rooms and two themes? Seriously?
The throbbing in her head had picked up intensity now, beating away at the inside of her skull like a demolition team had taken up residence behind her eyes.
Pausing to shake her head and squeeze her eyes shut for a moment, Andy hoped it would pass. It was spreading to her stomach at this point, making it twinge slightly as though she'd been chugging bleach. This was getting really annoying. Kellington had been able to set it off, for sure, but nothing like this. Whoever this son was, Andy hoped that she'd never have to see him face to face. The guy probably burned holes in the ground wherever he stepped to be able to leave magical residue behind like dog hair.
“Are you alright, Andy?”
Helen had paused, standing before a huge, rounded, solid wood door set into the wall on the left.
Andy shook her head again to clear it then nodded. “Fantastic.”
A flicker caught the corner of her eye, and Andy looked to a tall window on the back wall above a staircase that lead up above them. Outside it was dark. Wasn't it daytime when she walked into the shop, like, just a few minutes ago?
“Where are we?”
Helen was just turning back to the door she had been working on, but she paused, following Alex’s gaze to the window.
“Oh, yes, hmmmm.” She scratched her head, running the fingers through her hair to smooth it back down. “To be honest, I'm not quite sure. This is my son's home, he gave me that door for my birthday -” she pointed to the door back to the normal sitting room “- but I couldn't tell you where this place stands.” She shrugged, looking around. “He's never told me. All the same, the library is right through here.”
Pushing through one last door, Helen led the way into an expansive room that can only be described as the Library of Congress for the magical world. Tall bookstacks soared to a ceiling three stories above their heads, surrounded by enough balconies to make the Black Estate jealous. Everywhere, colorful candles, clearly brought in from Waxing and Waning burned in sconces on the walls and on the ends of the bookcases, illuminating the room in a flickering dim light that made it look like a scene out of a haunted mansion movie. Hollywood would literally kill to get film time in this place. Edgy teenagers would sneak in if they knew it existed. Andy would love to get some time to look around if it didn't make her head hurt so much. Basically, it was a pretty sweet library.
Helen practically floated over to a statue standing near the door, smiling up at it like a girl scout on a cookie fan's doorstep. “Excuse me, I'm looking for books that have information on both cursed objects and anti-magic, please. Or, better yet, A Sage's Guide to Mysterious Mystical Phenomena, that one is excellent. Please.”
The statue was grotesque, like a gargoyle, except easily eight feet tall and disturbingly lifelike in comparison. It's massive head stood with it's mouth half open, large enough that he could fit Hannibal's entire body within it like a squirmy potato chip. What an image.
At the sound of Helen's words, the edges of the stonework flickered a little with a pale light, shivering before the two women. Andy fought the impulse to step back as a ghostly eight-foot-tall man stepped from the statue, gliding between them with the ease of an ice skater on a lake.
Shivering, Andy turned to follow, feeling a cold breeze pour off of the man like it did off a frozen corpse. So much cooler than the library search engines at the community college. Literally.
Making eye contact with Helen, the witch lady gestured for Andy to go ahead, turning herself to join the line heading away into the library.
The heavy carpeting swallowed their footsteps as they followed him, first along the sides of the stacks, and then into the heart of the room. In the darkness between the books, Gargoyle Man lit the way with a shimmering blue aura, just faint enough for Andy to question whether it was actually there, but strong enough that she couldn't quite dismiss it. It gave him a faint outline, just enough that he could lose anyone who happened to forget their glasses that morning, but could easily be followed by the two women as he sailed along. Glancing down at his feet, she took note that he didn't actually touch the floor either. Maybe he was trying to make up for a lack of height in life, but as it was, he floated a good inch or two above the ground, making no sound at all as he wafted through the place like a plastic bag on a main street. Andy shivered, glancing away and almost walking headfirst into a bookcase as she veered off course. At the last second before she collided, the light increased just enough from the end of the row that she caught herself, stumbling slightly, then righting herself to follow Gargoyle Man a little more closely.
Silence descended almost completely as they emerged from the stacks, entering the center of the library, where a few tables had been placed in the middle of the skyscrapers of books. A few had been left on one of the tables, one of them open to a picture of a pentagram with some caption underneath that Andy couldn't make out; some kind of chicken scratches that some calligrapher probably tried to bury out of humiliation. Shame they failed.
Passing the tables, the trio disappeared back into the darkness. Andy looked around as they wandered back into the books. Not ten steps in, however, Gargoyle Man stopped abruptly. Andy caught herself just in time the edges of that cold breeze to avoid walking right through him. Fucking hard to walk in here. She let out a breath, relaxing after the sudden surprise and looked up at Gargoyle Man to see what the problem was.
He was looking at the bookcase to their left where a whole bunch of books that were probably bound before people walked on two legs were standing, titles obscured by the darkness.
Andy glanced at Helen, who had stopped beside her, but the woman just raised her eyebrows and smiled excitedly.
“How do we...see...”
But Andy was interrupted when the light behind her grew. Whipping her head around, she looked at Gargoyle Man, who was now glowing bright blue in the darkness – enough, she now realized, that they could read the titles as clearly as if he were a real lamp. Did they sell these at IKEA?
“Here it is! A Sage's Guide to Mysterious Mystical Phenomena.”
Helen ran a finger down the spine of a really fat book, brushing off some of the dust that had collected over the gold lettering. Fancy.
Pulling it off the shelf, she handed it to Andy. The younger woman braced herself, expecting to be pulled over with the weight of the thing, but as it landed in her arms, she was pleasantly surprised. The thing weighed less than her bag when she'd done work for Kellington, and that was really saying something.
She looked at it curiously. The cover was black and plain, simple gold lettering that matched the spine illuminating the title on the front, but no author or company. Interesting. What kind of a person doesn't advertise it when they write a book longer than fifty pages? Magicians, sorcerers, sages – such freaky weird people.
“And I just thought, there's another excellent book here somewhere... Would you take us to the Archival Encyclopedia of the Arcane?”
The light dimmed and Gargoyle Man turned to face them. Instead of walking through them, however, he walked into the bookcase, straight through the books, shoulder poking out above Alex’s head, and around to the other side of the two women.
Helen turned to follow, but in the dim light, Andy glanced back once more at the shelf where the Guide had come from. Of the titles she made out, they were all about curses – just what Helen had asked for. Convenient.
Gargoyle Man led them back the way they'd come, out into the main entrance of the library once more, then over a few cases and back in, where he stopped once again, this time facing right.
“Right there,” purred Helen, pulling the book off the shelf before the ghostly man could even clap on.
She nodded to him as she pulled it off the shelf. “Thank you.”
He dipped his head and vanished, leaving behind only a puff of vaguely blue smoke that shimmered as it dissipated. Andy blinked. What a guy.
A sudden heavy weight was added to the book she held as Helen dropped the Encyclopedia on top of the Guide. Andy almost dropped the two straight away. While the Guide had been light as a feather, the Encyclopedia was like carrying a two-year-old dragon in her arms. It sat like a pound of lead on top of the lighter book, threatening to pull her over before she got a good hold.
“Well, those ought to set you on your way then.”
Helen beamed, facing Andy once more.
“The Archival Encyclopedia of the Arcane will give you access to what is essentially the entire library here. Most of the information collected here can be found within those pages if you are polite. As for the Sage's guide to Mysterious Mystical Phenomena, you'll find it more useful when dealing with strange, normally unexplained phenomena.”
She patted the books, and Andy had to look down as she pitched forward a bit. She hugged them closer, but her arms complained at the corners of the bindings where they dug into pressure points.
When she raised her head not half a second later, Helen was already striding through the door. Goddamn magical people.
Trotting along after the hippie lady, Andy followed out of the library, glancing suspiciously at the massive gargoyle that had been their guide. The question stood as to whether or not he had ever been a real person. Perhaps more importantly, how he screwed up enough to get stuck showing people around a library for a sorcerer for the rest of eternity.
The thought reminded her of the throbbing behind her eyes, and she sighed slightly.
“I will tell you, my dear, a nice thing about that Sage's Guide is that if you find your question isn't answered in either book, if you write it down and stick it within those pages, you'll find it answered on that paper within a day or two.” Helen shrugged, closing the library door behind them. “It's probably more convenient in an emergency to contact Kade directly, and he should be able to help you, but it's essentially the same thing.”
Andy glanced at Helen as she stepped gingerly across the stone floor, trying not to upset her headache too much.
“Kade?”
Helen nodded, opening the next door with the same odd key pattern as the last time.
“Yes, my son.”
Alex’s jaw dropped. It all made sense. Kade Jackson. Duh. Kellington knew the guy – the son of Weston Evstern and apparently Helen Jackson. No freakin' kidding.
Back when she'd been a kid, Evstern had come to their house frequently to work with Kellington. The guy had been powerful, even for a sorcerer, and she'd always hid on the floor of her room, hugging her roiling stomach and pressing her pounding head to the cool floor.
“That's okay.” Anything but that. “I should be able to figure most of this out on my own, thanks. The books will be helpful, though. Probably. I think.” Fuckin' hell.
Both women fell silent as they passed through the living room of Helen's home and back out into the shop where the candles were burning and doors were open as though they'd never left. Goddamn Kade Jackson. How'd she get mixed up in this again? Oh, right. Gen. Gen and her stupid lack of help with solving her stupid goddamn problems that didn't even exist. What if there was actually just nothing. What if she was taking this headache and pain and bullshit for nothing?
Making a bee-line for the door as best as she could, Andy tried her best not to imagine what was going to happen when Jackson came home and realized some seriously powerful books were missing from his collection.
“Good luck, dear, and come back soon!”
Andy nodded to Helen as she wove between tables and drooping scarves, working towards the exit and the freedom. Maybe it wasn't too late to just hit the road in her bug. She could just ditch these books with the Leistings and never come back. Maybe make a living off of solving people's magical problems. You know, something like that. Magical people would fork over the cash to get their problems fixed. At least, better than Gen and Jeromy would. But that's a given.
“Thanks Helen. I'll have these back to you soon.” Like hell she was coming back soon. What she really needed was a big mug of tea and a cuddly little demon. Cat? Beast? Whatever he was.
Mack Hart
Mornings are the worst. Ever since last fall, Andy had picked up the habit of setting an alarm, even on weekends, reminding herself that she should get up after a reasonable amount of sleep – the definition she'd never officially decided on. But even with the full ten hours of sleep, the pain in her head was reminiscent of how she felt after Kevin T-boned a truck; throbbing in her head like an aneurism and sending bolts of pain through her eyeballs. Nothing about the pain subsided when she looked about the room and flopped back on the bed, as defeated as a thrown rag doll. Shit was laying all over the floor where it had been half unpacked, meaning she had dug through it to find her stupid toothbrush when she arrived last night and left it in a pile that obscured most of the sad, cold corner where the rug didn't reach. Her clothes were buried in there. Along with everything she needed right now. Buried and demanding way too much work.
Somewhere in the black nothingness of her mind, a voice whispered that she was a slob. Thankfully, the voice was quickly trampled when she opened her eyes once more to discern that there was, in fact, no other place to put her clothes. That's not to say the room had no furniture. It was just that most of the stuff in this room was way past its expiration and could probably have been useful, if her aunt and uncle were looking for firewood. From the “bed” under the window, she could see into the dresser where the fronts of several drawers had fallen off, or more likely had been ripped off by some angry soul that Gen and Jeromy had placed in solitary confinement up here. God knows what kind of monsters they would do that to. There was a large crack running down the center of the stand up mirror, making it pretty much useless, and all the legs on the bed had at some point fallen victim to some unknown tragedy. Beyond that, the gun rack seemed to be in the most promising shape. Only two of the nubby things that stuck out had been ravaged, leaving the top half open as a potential coat rack.
The only items that seemed completely untouched by the apparently violent history of the room were the desk and its armchair. Probably because they had ganged up they'd managed to fight off anything that would try and jump them, as was attested to by their obvious friendship. In previous years, when Andy had tried to rearrange things, they always seemed to end up next to one another, regardless of where she placed them. She could move the armchair away from the desk easy enough, cause let's be real, fancy antique armchairs don't really belong with IKEA writing desks, but whenever she tried, she would come back to find them next to each other again. Fuckin' brats.
Alex’s movements had not gone unnoticed. From his hiding place beneath the chair, Hannibal had seen his human sit up and flop back down, obviously using the universal signal for breakfast time. Alex’s failure to rise once more, however, indicated that the time for action was nigh.
Purring like a helicopter, Hannibal padded over and squeaked loudly. When Andy ignored him, Hannibal seemed to realize that more drastic measures were needed, and he squeaked again, hopping up onto the bed. Three minutes of harassment later, he was successful.
Swearing, Andy dug carefully through the mess on the floor for clean clothing. The whole process could probably have been completed in five minutes, but every thirty seconds or so Andy caught herself staring absently at the wall, or the floor, or something else equally interesting. When she finally did drag her ass from the floor, fully dressed, Hannibal had settled in to some spot on the bed, blinking his fluffy little eyelids as he watched the early morning suffering of his human he loved so much.
They made eye contact and he blinked slowly, clearly in ecstasy between his comfy spot and proximity to his beloved.
Andy snorted and rolled her eyes. “I'm leaving.”
He lifted his head and shook it, looking at her for a moment, as though wondering if she could possibly be even considering walking away from him when he was looking so cute.
She smiled and scratched behind one ear, causing him to loll his eyes back pleasurably, then she took her hand away and made for the door.
Hannibal stood, stretching slowly, then sprang from his spot, landing gracefully on the floor like a goddamn ballerina.
Out in the hall it was surprisingly cold for a summer day, especially at this time in the morning. The sun would be high in the sky now, baking the high-pitched roof of the house until you could legitimately fry an egg on it (which was, in fact, possible at this house). And yet, somehow, it managed to never heat up on the inside. It was like walking through an infinite refrigerator at all times. Maybe It was cursed? Or intentional? There were too many possible explanations.
Andy took a right, making for the stairs at the end of the hall. Most of the rooms along the way were meant for guests, not that there had been enough for these for some time. Generally, the downstairs rooms would be filled first on account of their expensive medieval taste and lack of clutter from the storage. Only in times of emergency were these rooms used, or, on occasion, when a large enough gathering was happening in the area. Honestly, though, that never really happened anymore. As soon as the Hanning house opened up in SoCal, people stopped having their big parties up here. Too much rain or something.
Behind one of the big brown doors, little feet shuffled, leaving behind a shadow, and a giggle ran off into the distance.
Hannibal crouched low as the shadow came out from under the door, crawling away like Peter Pan's miniature evil twin (but harmless of course; this is a civilized house). Backing up slowly, her little fluffy monster friend lowered himself close to the ground, coiling up like a jack-in-the-box and fixing his little beady eyes on the moving target. Stilling himself like a tiger in the grass, he waited for a moment when the shadow paused, turning its head to look at the aggressor. Then, testing his weight on each foot, Hannibal coiled back and sprang, sailing through the air in one graceful bound, claws outstretched, tail straight, eyes fixed to sink his little daggers into... nothing.
Andy shook her head, walking on as the dangerous little beast batted away at the empty shadow, which snickered, dancing up the wall and out of reach, leaving the fuzzy thug far below.
Hannibal squeaked at it, frustrated, sitting on the ground below, one paw raised to bat. It chuckled maliciously, scampering away, pleased to have inflicted suffering upon the little fella, but bored with the game.
Reaching the staircase leading down from the center of the hall, Andy shook her head. Why a cat? Why not a lizard or something that would sit on her arm? Maybe cats were just the most like dragons. Proud, solitary hunters. Fuck ‘em.
On the first floor, nobody was in the kitchens just yet. Agnes generally didn't show up until at least 7:30, and her assistants not until ten when it was time to prepare lunch for the family and any random people who wandered in expecting a free meal - the “freeloaders,” who seemed to really like Gen, regardless of her feelings for them. If any were coming they would trickle in around eleven when lunch was being decided and they could be sure to catch the missus at home somewhere.
All things considered, Andy had a good ten minutes to scrounge before being disturbed. Her little furry friend had taken to getting mighty feisty with the birds in the yard when he had to wait for a meal. Not that his feathery appetite was really a problem. It was more that the gardener would have killed to catch him in the act. But actually. The man was too handy with a shovel for her liking.
He trotted through the door as she cracked a fresh can of tuna, mewing in delight as she spooned it into a safer, not-so-jagged container; one that wouldn’t deign to touch his whiskers.
Andy carefully stepped over his back as he twined through her legs, purring affectionately, to drop the spoon in the sink to be cleaned... probably later. Maybe. Eh.
Setting the bowl down on the ground at her feet, she leaned back on the counter, thinking through the details of the issue.
8-year-old Tony broke his arm “mysteriously.” 6-year-old Chrissy had three seizures in the same place on three separate occasions with no history or other signs of epilepsy. Uncle Alington had a psychotic episode later in the same room where Chrissy had her seizures. Now Gen was scared and desperate enough to intentionally call her “niece”.
It had only been about 15 hours and already Andy felt as unwelcome as emotionally possible. Kellington had denied Alex’s request to attend college this year, something she had been super pumped about, in order to send her out here to butt-fuck-nowhere Caridon where his sister had requested her presence on account of some good old paranoia. It didn't matter that Gen had made it clear since the incident on that one Christmas that she wanted nothing to do with her fake niece. Based on the treatment she'd been getting from the family, it was a mystery why Gen had asked for Andy and not St. Kevin, her fake older brother.
But, after all, Kellington's sister was his real baby. Anyways...
The problems? Tony was notorious for keeping his injuries a secret, Chrissy was 6 and may be developing some seizure disorder, Alington was insane to begin with and protective of Chrissy, and Gen was over the moon paranoid. This could literally be anything or nothing at all. Fuck life. Time to solve a goddamn magical mystery.
Hannibal was sitting in front of an empty bowl, licking his lips and staring up at his lady through half closed eyes. What a little pig. Now a pig, why not a pig? Or maybe a piglet? Why a cat?
Andy shook her head, blinking back at her little buddy. At least he was a spunky little guy.
“Wanna go check out our crime scene?”
He stood up, licking his lips one more time and staring up at her expectantly. Yup. Just as expected.
The upstairs playroom was deserted, toys littered about like a trailer park in tornado alley. Nothing looked particularly out of the ordinary, just like a regular preschool ten minutes before the cleanup song started. Three toy chests stood on the right side of the room, positioned on either side of the great fireplace that was basically never used. Two of them were left open with toys spilling out the top in a volcano of spoiled kid that made Andy cringe. The third had been shoved into the corner – probably Seth's from when he was actually young enough to play with toys up here. Now, of course, he was too cool for that shit, unlike his younger siblings.
There was nothing strange about it. Not a thing that didn't belong. And yet, it felt somewhat malicious. There was a buzzing in her ears that she just couldn't place, like a live wire vibrating on the edge of her consciousness.
She scanned the toys quickly, deciding there was little there of interest to anyone but a bored kid, and began checking the furniture instead. Two armchairs that each cost more than her car when it was new, a chest of drawers full of coloring supplies that would have made Carravaggio jealous, a large, suspicious looking mirror that probably swallowed people in its spare time, a table beneath some empty shelving covered in classic early childhood Picasso drawings, and a grate to stand in front of the fireplace and keep the ickle-babies out of it. Goddammit.
Andy could still sense the sort of buzzing happening on her periphery, but there was nothing she could see that could be causing it. There didn't appear to be any abnormalities in the walls, furniture, floor, windows or even brickwork around the fireplace. Or were there?
She carefully stepped over the girls' toys that probably belonged to Chrissy, placing her ear up to the brickwork around the fireplace. The humming was definitely louder over here, working its way into her mind, jumbling her thoughts a bit. She shook her head a tad. Hmmmm....
Kneeling down, she brushed some of the things out of the way and moved the gate to allow access to the interior of the fireplace.
Clearly, it had once been used, even if that was over a hundred years ago. Black soot covered the inside, caking her hands as she pressed on the inside of the chimney. The buzzing was definitely more intense down here, which was suspicious, but there were still so many things that it could be. It would give her a bit of a clue if someone else could hear it.
She shook her head again, backing out of the fireplace. This was starting to make her feel a little sick. Maybe it was time for a break. Hannibal was standing right behind her, looking around as though a bird was chirping nearby that he felt the urge to murder. Perhaps little fellas like him could feel it too.
“Do you hear it?” she whispered.
His head whipped around and he blinked slowly and happily at her, walking closer in high hopes of receiving an affectionate pat. Maybe he wasn't so sensitive.
“Dork.”
She ran a hand down his back and shook her head. It was time for a break. Whatever this was it was starting to make her a little nauseous.
She locked Hannibal inside when she took a trip into Caridon. There were far too many things that could kill him out on the grounds of the Black Estate, (yup, clever name for a large black house), and he was too prone to attacking things much larger than kitty cat sized.
The little car bounced along down the road, somehow hitting every pothole no matter how hard she tried to avoid them. There was at least one woman in town who could probably help her in tracking down the source of the buzzing. Years ago, Aunt Gen had invited over Helen Jackson, the hippie lady who ran the candle store downtown, to hold a séance when she thought the house was being haunted by a malevolent spirit. Yeah, crazy and paranoid, you see it now. It had turned out, Uncle Alington had just been starting to lose it back then and was misplacing stuff and forgetting he had done things, but all the same, Helen was pretty legit. She had been in charge of other things since then, like helping to get together the magic community of western Oregon into some sort of control. If her choices were between asking Helen Jackson or precious Aunt Genevieve Leisting for an in into the professional magic community, Andy was gonna pick the strange psychic lady every time.
Downtown Caridon was dead on Mondays. Almost nobody was out on the old bricked streets, not even to buy groceries, and the beach view restaurants were empty except for a few of the elderly who had gathered in the Blue Anchor to hold what looked to be a very spine-tingling game of bingo on the back porch.
Most of the parallel parking spots on the street were open, and even the two hour parking which was usually packed with ocean-goers on weekends still had two spots left. Mrs. Kindall nodded politely to Andy through the window of the bakery as she stepped out of her car out front, store devoid of any activity. Maybe Andy could get a muffin or something on her way back. If nothing else, that could be a bright side to coming into Caridon. Silver linings.
The candle store was three doors down, shaded with heavy curtains in an old building that looked as though it was built by the first settlers to move west. It had total east coast architecture that painfully reminded Andy of a big house on the seaside in Maine, but the décor was easily something straight out of Portland.
Two big round candles burned in their hand-blown glass containers in the display, flanking a sign barely readable under all the beads and scarves that had been draped over the top. “Buy One Get One Free”, it read when Andy ducked her head to see under the drooping of the top scarf. A few more candles could never hurt. If she wasn't broke, this would actually be slightly tempting to help get the smell of sadness out of the room upstairs.
Andy found the front door, a big glass shop door that had been covered by a scarf decorated with interconnected trees. Typical. If nothing else, Helen could probably direct her to the underground hippie society of Portland, Oregon. Somebody there had to be on enough acid to find the playroom ghost.
Sighing, she pushed through.
Immediately, her head began to throb. Magic, color, light – anything that could cause a headache for someone like Andy.
The store looked eccentric on the outside, but the inside was something else. Sometimes it was amazing that these people doing magic out in the real world, reading fortunes at carnivals and making houses self-cleaning sort of stuff, weren't caught. In the Pacific Northwest, it was less of a mystery why – after all, loads of people walked around doing downright bizarre things; it was normal. This was above and beyond that.
Helen Jackson's candle store, Waxing and Waning, was downright foreign. Lights were suspended from the ceiling by threads, no wires connecting them to the walls. Scarves hung from the lights; beads hung from the scarves; little talismans hung from the beads. Paintings of famous sorcerers through the ages hung on the walls, draped with decoration that almost obscured them from view. And on top of almost everything, there was every type of candle imaginable.
Tall, short, fat, thin, even a few slimmer than pencils were lining the walls, stacked on cases, or suspended in little metal cages like chandeliers from the wood paneled ceiling. About a third of the ones in the room were already burning, an overpowering smell that almost stopped Andy in her tracks, and of those, perhaps only one in ten were burning like normal candles. The whole rainbow was represented here in candlelight, flickering in the rare, sacreligious breeze of fresh air that trickled from the open door. Each flame burned at a different height as well, some even in a different shape. One that particularly stood out front and center looked like a dancer, burning red on top of a small glittery candle in a glass jar.
There was nothing subtle about the place. It was about as low key as a dog in a tutu buying a bus ticket. Seriously, how did these people get away with it?
As Andy entered, a small bell above the door twinkled loudly, causing a skinny little woman in perhaps her mid-forties to look up from behind a desk. She looked fairly normal, except that she didn't look normal at all. Her hair was a good six feet long, draped over her lap, and she sat with her feet up on the desk – something that most people didn't do at work after the age of about twenty.
She was wearing overalls rolled up above the ankles and a bright orange T-shirt with ragged sleeve ends, like she chopped them off with her garden shears last time she was out picking her herbs. Her feet were bare and her face lightly lined, wearing a bandanna that matched the color of the overalls.
She smiled as Andy entered, taking her feet down and setting down her knitting on the desk.
“Good morning.” She beamed as her confused visitor entered, leaning forward so she could get a better look at Andy, which immediately made the younger woman feel like a bug on a tac. Picking up a pair of round glasses off the desk, the woman put them on and her smile broadened a little more, along with her eyes. “Ah, we've met before, haven't we?” Her voice was smooth and soft, like what librarians always seem to sound like.
Andy nodded, still looking around at where someone had apparently dropped a psychedelic nuke. “Yeah, I'm Andy. Gen and Jeromy Leisting's, uh, niece. You're Mrs. Jackson, right?” She was married, wasn't she?
She made to glance at Helen, but the woman was already standing beside her. Andy blinked. Spooky as fuck.
“Yes, that's me, but you can call me Helen. Pleased to meet you, again.”
Helen held out her hand, and Andy shook it, now focusing her attention entirely on the woman. There was no way she was appearing like that again. Too weird. “Pleased to meet you, too.”
Helen glanced out the windows. “Now how can I help you? Did you need something for the Black Estate or was there something else I can do for you?”
“Well,” Andy glanced out the window, but when she turned back, Helen was standing by the desk again, leaning on it. It was gonna take some magic of her own to keep her attention on this one goddam lady. “I've been working on a bit of a problem and I was hoping for someone more expert in it than me.”
Helen was nodding enthusiastically. This was probably just about the extent of the poor woman's magical interactions that didn't involve candles. “Yes, yes, of course. Go on.”
Andy swallowed. “Well, Gen thinks there's something or someone causing her family members to go wacko in the playroom. I thought she was nuts, cause, well, you know, but I picked up a... a something when I was in there. I don't actually know...” How the fuck do you explain to someone the buzzing sensation? It was nothing anyone else had ever felt, so far as she could tell, and there was no telling what it had been. Fuck, how do you explain the whole situation?
But still, Helen was nodding excitedly. “Yes, I'm aware of your unusual gift.”
Pft. Gift indeed.
“Could you describe this... something?”
Andy shrugged. “It just felt like some kind of energy.” Jesus, she sounded like some hippie lady talking about her last acid trip. “I dunno.”
Helen's eyes were focused right on Andy, like she was trying to read into her soul or some creepy shit. “Hmmmm, interesting.” She squinted a little, still not breaking eye contact or blinking. “Well, what do you mean by 'wacko'? What happened to the other family members?”
Andy shifted uncomfortably. “Chrissy had a few seizures, Alington had one of his episodes, and Tony broke his arm. But those are all pretty standard. The only unusual thing was in the playroom.”
Helen nodded, hmmm-ing a little more. “Well, dear, I have very little background in this, but have you considered a curse of some kind?”
Andy crossed her arms, looking down. “Not really. To be honest, I'm not a hundred percent sure any one thing could do this.”
Helen nodded again. “Well, I've heard of cases in the past where curses of some kind cause people to do things they wouldn't usually do, or take to the extreme things they would do. I must admit, I'm no expert in these kinds of things, I usually learn about most of this through my son, though he's out of town right now.”
Goddamn it. One expert and they aren't even around. “Is there anyone else I could contact about this?”
The woman shrugged. “You might try the Black Anchor. They usually have a pretty good idea of who's in town who knows about things.”
Andy frowned. “You mean the Blue Anchor? The restaurant?” Was Helen actually crazy?
Helen smiled and shook her head. “No, no, the Black Anchor. I forgot you're from out of town. If you just go into the Blue Anchor and tell them you would like to sit in the coal room, they'll help you out.”
Andy nodded, but slowly. “I see.” She glanced around the room again, but had to blink when the flaming dancers traded candles. Too much happening in one room.
“Perhaps if you were considering solving this issue by yourself I could offer you some of my son's books,” suggested Helen, who had teleported again and was now behind the desk, rummaging through a drawer. “I'm sure he wouldn't mind you taking a few for something like this.”
Andy bit her lip. Borrow some random dude's stuff? No thanks. “That's okay, I think I'll get it. Somehow. Probably.” Never.
But Helen was admiring a key she had pulled out of the drawer. “Ah, yes, this is the one.” Then to Andy, “My dear, I insist. It would be shameful if you came all this way for nothing.” Her eyes sparkled, “And besides, perhaps it will spice things up in that big empty house.”
Andy wasn't sure that anything could 'spice up' the Black Estate without a paintball gun and some vibrant ammo, but she followed Helen anyways to a door at the back of the shop.
Ducking under a rainbow of scarves that hung over the back wall, Helen opened a plain wooden door. As she passed through, she glanced over her shoulder at the front of the shop. A loud click reverberated from the door and half the candles extinguished, as though there had never been anything so ridiculous as a wooden shop full of lit candles.
Andy gulped as the room went dim, or at least more dim than before, and followed the witch lady out of the room.
The eccentricities of the place didn't hit her at first. What was truly amazing about the next room was the wall of normal-ness that hit Andy full on after the previous fifteen minutes of sorcery show-and-tell. The couch didn't run around the room. The end tables on each side looked stolen from a hotel. The walls were blue. The few bright colors that decorated the place were, dare it be, tasteful, and was that a cordless phone?
“They should be right over here,” Helen was saying, cutting across the room to a door on the left that looked as perfectly ordinary as if it were pulled straight from the home of a suburban couple. Plugging the key into the lock, she turned it to the right. Then to the left. Then quickly to both directions. As Andy approached, stepping gingerly across the uncomfortably spacious room, Helen spun the key in the lock three times to the right and it clicked, allowing the door to swing open.
In the room beyond, the décor once again blew her mind. They were jumping to a castle, a lot like the Black Estate, with stone floors covered in thick carpets and expensively furnished space. Unlike the Black Estate, this one had none of the modern flair Gen had placed around with the polished floors and Renaissance decoration. In fact, this was sparsely decorated with the exception of the few pieces of furniture positioned around the roaring fire.
Andy looked around slowly as she stepped through the door, wondering if this was some kind of joke. Helen could definitely be the type to play this. Two sitting rooms and two themes? Seriously?
The throbbing in her head had picked up intensity now, beating away at the inside of her skull like a demolition team had taken up residence behind her eyes.
Pausing to shake her head and squeeze her eyes shut for a moment, Andy hoped it would pass. It was spreading to her stomach at this point, making it twinge slightly as though she'd been chugging bleach. This was getting really annoying. Kellington had been able to set it off, for sure, but nothing like this. Whoever this son was, Andy hoped that she'd never have to see him face to face. The guy probably burned holes in the ground wherever he stepped to be able to leave magical residue behind like dog hair.
“Are you alright, Andy?”
Helen had paused, standing before a huge, rounded, solid wood door set into the wall on the left.
Andy shook her head again to clear it then nodded. “Fantastic.”
A flicker caught the corner of her eye, and Andy looked to a tall window on the back wall above a staircase that lead up above them. Outside it was dark. Wasn't it daytime when she walked into the shop, like, just a few minutes ago?
“Where are we?”
Helen was just turning back to the door she had been working on, but she paused, following Alex’s gaze to the window.
“Oh, yes, hmmmm.” She scratched her head, running the fingers through her hair to smooth it back down. “To be honest, I'm not quite sure. This is my son's home, he gave me that door for my birthday -” she pointed to the door back to the normal sitting room “- but I couldn't tell you where this place stands.” She shrugged, looking around. “He's never told me. All the same, the library is right through here.”
Pushing through one last door, Helen led the way into an expansive room that can only be described as the Library of Congress for the magical world. Tall bookstacks soared to a ceiling three stories above their heads, surrounded by enough balconies to make the Black Estate jealous. Everywhere, colorful candles, clearly brought in from Waxing and Waning burned in sconces on the walls and on the ends of the bookcases, illuminating the room in a flickering dim light that made it look like a scene out of a haunted mansion movie. Hollywood would literally kill to get film time in this place. Edgy teenagers would sneak in if they knew it existed. Andy would love to get some time to look around if it didn't make her head hurt so much. Basically, it was a pretty sweet library.
Helen practically floated over to a statue standing near the door, smiling up at it like a girl scout on a cookie fan's doorstep. “Excuse me, I'm looking for books that have information on both cursed objects and anti-magic, please. Or, better yet, A Sage's Guide to Mysterious Mystical Phenomena, that one is excellent. Please.”
The statue was grotesque, like a gargoyle, except easily eight feet tall and disturbingly lifelike in comparison. It's massive head stood with it's mouth half open, large enough that he could fit Hannibal's entire body within it like a squirmy potato chip. What an image.
At the sound of Helen's words, the edges of the stonework flickered a little with a pale light, shivering before the two women. Andy fought the impulse to step back as a ghostly eight-foot-tall man stepped from the statue, gliding between them with the ease of an ice skater on a lake.
Shivering, Andy turned to follow, feeling a cold breeze pour off of the man like it did off a frozen corpse. So much cooler than the library search engines at the community college. Literally.
Making eye contact with Helen, the witch lady gestured for Andy to go ahead, turning herself to join the line heading away into the library.
The heavy carpeting swallowed their footsteps as they followed him, first along the sides of the stacks, and then into the heart of the room. In the darkness between the books, Gargoyle Man lit the way with a shimmering blue aura, just faint enough for Andy to question whether it was actually there, but strong enough that she couldn't quite dismiss it. It gave him a faint outline, just enough that he could lose anyone who happened to forget their glasses that morning, but could easily be followed by the two women as he sailed along. Glancing down at his feet, she took note that he didn't actually touch the floor either. Maybe he was trying to make up for a lack of height in life, but as it was, he floated a good inch or two above the ground, making no sound at all as he wafted through the place like a plastic bag on a main street. Andy shivered, glancing away and almost walking headfirst into a bookcase as she veered off course. At the last second before she collided, the light increased just enough from the end of the row that she caught herself, stumbling slightly, then righting herself to follow Gargoyle Man a little more closely.
Silence descended almost completely as they emerged from the stacks, entering the center of the library, where a few tables had been placed in the middle of the skyscrapers of books. A few had been left on one of the tables, one of them open to a picture of a pentagram with some caption underneath that Andy couldn't make out; some kind of chicken scratches that some calligrapher probably tried to bury out of humiliation. Shame they failed.
Passing the tables, the trio disappeared back into the darkness. Andy looked around as they wandered back into the books. Not ten steps in, however, Gargoyle Man stopped abruptly. Andy caught herself just in time the edges of that cold breeze to avoid walking right through him. Fucking hard to walk in here. She let out a breath, relaxing after the sudden surprise and looked up at Gargoyle Man to see what the problem was.
He was looking at the bookcase to their left where a whole bunch of books that were probably bound before people walked on two legs were standing, titles obscured by the darkness.
Andy glanced at Helen, who had stopped beside her, but the woman just raised her eyebrows and smiled excitedly.
“How do we...see...”
But Andy was interrupted when the light behind her grew. Whipping her head around, she looked at Gargoyle Man, who was now glowing bright blue in the darkness – enough, she now realized, that they could read the titles as clearly as if he were a real lamp. Did they sell these at IKEA?
“Here it is! A Sage's Guide to Mysterious Mystical Phenomena.”
Helen ran a finger down the spine of a really fat book, brushing off some of the dust that had collected over the gold lettering. Fancy.
Pulling it off the shelf, she handed it to Andy. The younger woman braced herself, expecting to be pulled over with the weight of the thing, but as it landed in her arms, she was pleasantly surprised. The thing weighed less than her bag when she'd done work for Kellington, and that was really saying something.
She looked at it curiously. The cover was black and plain, simple gold lettering that matched the spine illuminating the title on the front, but no author or company. Interesting. What kind of a person doesn't advertise it when they write a book longer than fifty pages? Magicians, sorcerers, sages – such freaky weird people.
“And I just thought, there's another excellent book here somewhere... Would you take us to the Archival Encyclopedia of the Arcane?”
The light dimmed and Gargoyle Man turned to face them. Instead of walking through them, however, he walked into the bookcase, straight through the books, shoulder poking out above Alex’s head, and around to the other side of the two women.
Helen turned to follow, but in the dim light, Andy glanced back once more at the shelf where the Guide had come from. Of the titles she made out, they were all about curses – just what Helen had asked for. Convenient.
Gargoyle Man led them back the way they'd come, out into the main entrance of the library once more, then over a few cases and back in, where he stopped once again, this time facing right.
“Right there,” purred Helen, pulling the book off the shelf before the ghostly man could even clap on.
She nodded to him as she pulled it off the shelf. “Thank you.”
He dipped his head and vanished, leaving behind only a puff of vaguely blue smoke that shimmered as it dissipated. Andy blinked. What a guy.
A sudden heavy weight was added to the book she held as Helen dropped the Encyclopedia on top of the Guide. Andy almost dropped the two straight away. While the Guide had been light as a feather, the Encyclopedia was like carrying a two-year-old dragon in her arms. It sat like a pound of lead on top of the lighter book, threatening to pull her over before she got a good hold.
“Well, those ought to set you on your way then.”
Helen beamed, facing Andy once more.
“The Archival Encyclopedia of the Arcane will give you access to what is essentially the entire library here. Most of the information collected here can be found within those pages if you are polite. As for the Sage's guide to Mysterious Mystical Phenomena, you'll find it more useful when dealing with strange, normally unexplained phenomena.”
She patted the books, and Andy had to look down as she pitched forward a bit. She hugged them closer, but her arms complained at the corners of the bindings where they dug into pressure points.
When she raised her head not half a second later, Helen was already striding through the door. Goddamn magical people.
Trotting along after the hippie lady, Andy followed out of the library, glancing suspiciously at the massive gargoyle that had been their guide. The question stood as to whether or not he had ever been a real person. Perhaps more importantly, how he screwed up enough to get stuck showing people around a library for a sorcerer for the rest of eternity.
The thought reminded her of the throbbing behind her eyes, and she sighed slightly.
“I will tell you, my dear, a nice thing about that Sage's Guide is that if you find your question isn't answered in either book, if you write it down and stick it within those pages, you'll find it answered on that paper within a day or two.” Helen shrugged, closing the library door behind them. “It's probably more convenient in an emergency to contact Kade directly, and he should be able to help you, but it's essentially the same thing.”
Andy glanced at Helen as she stepped gingerly across the stone floor, trying not to upset her headache too much.
“Kade?”
Helen nodded, opening the next door with the same odd key pattern as the last time.
“Yes, my son.”
Alex’s jaw dropped. It all made sense. Kade Jackson. Duh. Kellington knew the guy – the son of Weston Evstern and apparently Helen Jackson. No freakin' kidding.
Back when she'd been a kid, Evstern had come to their house frequently to work with Kellington. The guy had been powerful, even for a sorcerer, and she'd always hid on the floor of her room, hugging her roiling stomach and pressing her pounding head to the cool floor.
“That's okay.” Anything but that. “I should be able to figure most of this out on my own, thanks. The books will be helpful, though. Probably. I think.” Fuckin' hell.
Both women fell silent as they passed through the living room of Helen's home and back out into the shop where the candles were burning and doors were open as though they'd never left. Goddamn Kade Jackson. How'd she get mixed up in this again? Oh, right. Gen. Gen and her stupid lack of help with solving her stupid goddamn problems that didn't even exist. What if there was actually just nothing. What if she was taking this headache and pain and bullshit for nothing?
Making a bee-line for the door as best as she could, Andy tried her best not to imagine what was going to happen when Jackson came home and realized some seriously powerful books were missing from his collection.
“Good luck, dear, and come back soon!”
Andy nodded to Helen as she wove between tables and drooping scarves, working towards the exit and the freedom. Maybe it wasn't too late to just hit the road in her bug. She could just ditch these books with the Leistings and never come back. Maybe make a living off of solving people's magical problems. You know, something like that. Magical people would fork over the cash to get their problems fixed. At least, better than Gen and Jeromy would. But that's a given.
“Thanks Helen. I'll have these back to you soon.” Like hell she was coming back soon. What she really needed was a big mug of tea and a cuddly little demon. Cat? Beast? Whatever he was.
What actually made Andy open the books was curiosity, plain and simple. It's like people who are dieting. If you tell yourself that you can't have a cookie, but there's a plate of them sitting on the table, what are the chances that you're really not going to eat those? It's basically zero, so you might as well give up and eat the whole plate.
This was a similar concept. The books tingled in her fingers when she locked them up in a cabinet in the attic before going for her cup of tea. Help or no help, she had told herself she wasn't going to use them if they belonged to that guy. Likely he'd be coming for her head any second. Guys who collect books like that are protective of them and someone like Andy, with no magical ability of her own, was not about to win in a fight with some crazed magician. Maybe it was time to invest in anti-magic charms.
Anyways, Andy dropped the demon books in the cabinet, grabbed a chai tea from Agnes, who took a moment to tell Andy about her new gardening project at home, then sat with the steaming cup outside the playroom. The buzzing was only slight out here; just strong enough to put her on edge, but also strangely motivational. With her limited knowledge of curses, however, the curiosity became dangerous. Within the hour she was back up in the attic, ripping open the cabinet doors once again. Fuckin' hell. Standing there for a moment, she closed her eyes, feeling the energy emanating off the books. She could see the look on Kellington's face the first time she'd mentioned she could feel magic like her phone vibrating in a coat pocket. That was when she knew one of his work partners was visiting before he said a word.
The books weren't nearly strong enough to begin scrambling her brain just yet. It was like going through glasses of wine ‘till you feel the buzz but not the stagger. There was a vibration in the energy around them, like fairy glitter or some other freaky thing.
Shaking her head, Andy opened her eyes and looked at them. They looked like books. Like fat books that you'd buy at a used book sale in a downtown hole-in-the-wall kind of store then leave on your bookshelf forever to make you look smart. Whatever. She grabbed them, hugging them close to her body ‘till a warm sensation spread into her gut. This was probably what hugging a radioactive box felt like. Destructive, but oddly comforting.
If she was going to be hunted down and killed by Kade Jackson for stealing his books, she might as well get some use out of them first.
Kicking the cabinet shut as she turned to leave, Andy scrambled back down the ladder.
Back outside the playroom, Andy dropped the books on the hall floor, hitting the deck in front of them. Beginning with the Encyclopedia, she flipped through the pages a bit. There was a title page with the words “Archival Encyclopedia of the Arcane,” in bold, plain font, and below, “Ask nicely and you shall know.”
“Wow, you are sassy,” muttered Andy.
She flipped thumbed through the next few pages carefully, glancing at the tops of the pages for reference. This thing would have to have thousands upon thousands of pages in order to have all the information in the library, but it didn't look quite long enough for that. The tops of the pages had guide words and page numbers and entries that looked static and unchanging, but there was no way. It had to be magical to get all that info. So you have to ask. Nicely.
“Now how do I ask you...”
On page 477, the guide words were “magic” and “genius.”
Andy rolled her eyes. “Now, that's not in alphabetical order.”
She snapped the book shut, patting the cover affectionately - was that the way? - and thinking about curses. She then tipped it, and, opening to a random page, glanced at the guide words. On the right, they were “finally” and “idiot.” On the left, however, they were “curses” and “detection.”
Andy breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thanks.” What was the most convenient way to put this through a paper shredder when she was done?
“Only kidding.”
Skimming the detection section, it was easy to find what she needed.
“Normally, curse detection is done by trained individuals who know what they're looking for. The general symptoms are fairly obvious, depending on the curse, but if you are not the victim of the curse, curses are detected in two ways. One, if they are on specific people or a group of people, the energy can be seen by unusual interactions with the world: magnets that follow them, lights that flicker. This is why it's normally left to trained individuals who can sense it. On cursed objects, the object will be giving off powerful energy. There are many other types of curses, but I believe these will suffice for you for now.”
Andy put the Encyclopedia on top of the Guide and stood up, wandering into the playroom. Giving off powerful energy, huh? That should be easy enough. Encyclopedia was right. That really was all she probably needed for now. What a sassy book, but helpful. Sort of.
Immediately, entering the room, the buzzing intensified, scrambling her lengthier thoughts. It had been near the fireplace, that's for sure. The kids toys. It had to be one of them. She hadn't been thinking about it before, which was utterly stupid because how stereotypical is that?
Chrissy's toys were on the ground near the fireplace, scattered around a little where she had left them the last time she played. And yet, there they were, the doll was still against the brickwork; the trains were still set up in a corner; the pictures on the table hadn't been disturbed by so much as a breeze. At this point, it had been hours. Where was the automatic house cleaning? Was that dust on the mantle?
Andy brushed her fingers over one picture on the mantle, inspecting the state of cleanliness of the house. No way. The Black Estate didn't gather dust. That wasn't a thing on this floor. Sometimes on the top floors, but definitely not in a room that got used this much. The automatic cleaning charms were amazingly effective for a house with so much child-instigated chaos. Could a cursed toy fuck it up like that? Also, who wants to curse one of Chrissy's toys? The kid wasn't even able to wash her hair effectively, let alone do magic. At least, so far as they could tell.
Andy dropped to her knees in the sea of toys, holding her hands over the toys there. Her appetite was definitely gone for the day. Her stomach lurched as her knee hit the floor and she found herself regretting the tea for once in her life, feeling like she'd eaten too much today. Had she even eaten today?
There was a stronger tingle in the fingers of her right hand, like it had lost blood flow and was falling asleep. A dead giveaway.
Turning to her right, Andy held her hands over the toys there. Now it was stronger in both hands, but it was running up her left arm. Scowling, she moved the hand back and forth, roving like a poor man with a metal detector. “Where are you, you little bastard?” Who knew this trick would ever really be useful?
There. For a moment, the intensity of the irritation increased, then, like flipping a switch, it began to decrease. Looking down where her hand had been, Andy spotted a necklace of fake, plastic beads cheaply made to look like pink pearls. Passing her hand over top of it again, she felt the same increase then decrease in the energy. That had to be it, right? There was nothing else there.
Andy took a deep breath, hovering her hand over the beads. Curses weren't like bacteria, right? Not transmitted through physical contact? Only one way to tell.
Lowering her hand, Andy held her breath. Her fingers were just over the pink beads. Gritting her teeth, she hovered for a moment, deciding whether or not this was, actually, a good idea. Probably not. Oh, fuck it. She dropped her hand onto it, closing her fingers around the strings.
Immediately, a shock ran up her arm like sticking her hand on an electric stove, burning her hand and smashing through her bones. Andy pitched sideways, flinging the beads into the fireplace and landing on her back, going rigid for a moment. The breath was shoved from her lungs, like she had fallen 6 feet onto her back.
For a moment, she laid there, gasping for breath and struggling to comprehend what the hell that was. Do curses normally do that? She couldn't remember any. But then again, curses weren't really what Kellington dealt in. What the hell did Gen do to get her family mixed up in this kind of shit? More importantly, was this a trick to try to kill her fake niece or something? It was amazing that nobody had been seriously injured yet with that kind of effect.
“Encyclopedia, I need you,” she muttered, rolling onto her side. Looking over at where the beads looked back at her so innocently, Andy scowled. Time to die, bitch.
She crawled back to the hall, laying on the floor for a moment, hands resting on the Encyclopedia. Did it see this coming? The cool cover felt nice on her hand. Maybe she'd burned it. Dammit. Pulling the huge book over to her face, she flipped a few pages back and forth. “Disposing of Cursed Objects.” Yeah, that sounds about right.
“Home Remedies for Disposing of Cursed Objects: drop four Mintra-blessed winterleaves into a pot and bring to a boil, stirring with the bone of a dragon. Once thickened, sprinkle in dried witchbane...”
Andy stopped. What?
Doing a quick scan of the page, the instructions went on and on. And onto the next page. Goddammit. None of this stuff was in the kitchen, that was for sure. Flipping the page, she found the end of the recipe where it began describing some kind of complicated magic alternative that she couldn't make heads or tails of. It was like reading ancient Greek written in Chinese characters. Fuck.
Grabbing the Guide, Andy flipped through, searching for a table of contents. Was there some other way to get rid of curses? Like, didn't you just have to know what it did and reverse that or something? What the hell?
The table of contents was at the beginning, but it was all strange stuff she hadn't heard of. Werewolves who got better. Unexplained miracles. Crazy stuff. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.
Scrambling through her pockets, Andy pulled out a receipt. Where was a pen when you needed one? Dragging herself up into a sitting position, she looked around. There was a study around here somewhere. It was bound to have pens. The question was could she get to it.
Leaning back on her arms, she took a deep breath. Yeah, she could probably stand. But she paused.
Grandma used to know some herbalist lady, right? Some old woman who lived down on the coast in a hut and was, like, a hundred sixty something years old. Or thereabouts. Why use the books when she could find that woman? But in the meantime, that necklace couldn't stay out there. It was clearly dangerous, and needed disposal.
Fuck fuck fuck...
Leaning forward, Andy shut both books, instead pulling out her cell phone. Though Grandma Jo had never truly gotten the hang of the “cellular telephone,” she could be counted on to answer her house phone most days.
Scrolling through her contacts, she pulled up the number. Hitting talk, she put the phone to her ear, scooting back to lean on the wall and pulling herself together to sound perfectly alright. Grandma knew some of the stuff Alex’d gotten into, but Kellington, she knew, had made a point of not telling the old woman when things went horribly wrong. Which happened. A lot. From the woman's perspective, their lives probably sounded like one long fairytale travel vacation.
As usual, the line rang about fifty times before anyone answered.
“Hello?”
“Grandma! Hi, it's Andy.”
“Oh, Andy! Hello dear, how are you?”
Andy leaned her head back against the wall.
“Oh, I'm doing well. We're still on for next Saturday, right?”
There was a pause.
“Oh yes, that's right. Thank you for reminding me to put that down in my calendar. You're at Jeromy and Geneveive's, isn't that right?”
Andy cringed.
“Yeah, that's right. I actually have a question for you about something I came across here.”
“Ah ha?”
“Yeah. You told me once about an herbalist you knew somewhere out on the coast, right?”
“That's right dear. She died about twelve years ago. Terrible tragedy. She had a stroke and never recovered.”
Andy closed her eyes. Fuck everything. Opening one eye, she looked suspiciously at the books where they lay in front of her.
“Darn. I was hoping to get some advice on something. Do you know anyone else who would be able to help me? You're a lot more in the loop than I am.”
“Hmmmm...” She could hear the woman shuffling around a little. “I don't suppose Gen is willing to help you. Let me see...”
More shuffling followed.
“What are you working on? Is there some reason you need to be this 'in the loop,' as you call it?”
Andy shrugged before realizing that wouldn't carry over the phone. “Ah, just a little project Gen put me up to.” It wasn't a lie.
“Hmmmm. I see.” A pause. “Oh, here it is. Yes, my good friend on the coast passed away, but her great granddaughter is trying to take over her work. I have her number here. Are you ready?”
Goddamn it. Another need for a pen. Time to get up.
“Um, no. Hold on for just a second.”
Pulling the phone away from her ear, Andy pushed herself up the wall, stifling the grunting from slightly stiff joints. Little kid jewelery was stupid anyways.
“Lemme just grab a pen...”
Stumbling into one of the rooms off the main hall, Andy slammed her hand down on a desk to support herself, looking around wildly for a pen. Nothing on the desk. In the desk? Huzzah!
Pulling out a crappy old ballpoint with something sticky on it, she scribbled a few circles on one hand to get the ink flowing.
“Okay, ready.”
Grandma read off a few numbers and Andy scribbled them down on her hand.
“Okay great. I have to go because I need to get this done today, but I'll see you on Saturday.”
“Okay hon, good luck! Thanks for the call!”
“No, thank you!”
“Bye bye!”
“Bye!”
Immediately, she sank into the desk chair, sighing slightly. Holy crap was it good to sit down.
For a moment, she just looked around the room. It was a bedroom, not a study, but that didn't really matter. It looked like one of those that never really got used because it was next to the playroom and let's be honest, who wants to stay where there's screaming kids?
That was off topic. Focus.
Looking at the number written in borderline unreadable pen, Andy dialed her cell, praying to whatever kind of god may or may not exist that somebody who knew their stuff would answer.
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Do you know Josephine Leisting?”
“Um, yes? Who is this?”
The woman's voice sounded fairly elderly already, with the kind of edge to it that happens after people hit, like, sixty.
“This is Andy, her granddaughter.”
“Oh, why hello!”
Andy chewed her lip.
“Er, yes, hello! Um, I have a bit of an herbalist question for you.”
“Yes, yes, go ahead.”
“Um, yeah, so, would you, perchance, know anything about lifting curses or transporting cursed objects?”
There was a silence on the other end of the phone.
“Um...”
Andy closed her eyes. Please say yes.
“Well, my dear, I'm not quite the woman you're looking for with this one. I don't deal in dark magic.”
“That's perfectly fine, but I have a recipe that I don't understand that tells me how to do it, but it has all sorts of plants and things I've never heard of or worked with and I was hoping you could help me.”
Another silence. Come on.
“Andy, dear, those use different plants than I may have access to. And besides, you would need to know a little more about the curse before you could dispel it with that kind of a recipe. You need specifics. Your best bet would be to take it to someone who works with regular magic and ask them to take care of it.”
The Jacksons. Goddamn the Jacksons.
“I see.” She shut her eyes. “Are you sure about that?”
“Positive, darling.”
“I see. And how would one transport that?”
“Do you have salt and soap?”
Andy frowned and looked at the wall across from her.
“Yes...?”
“Good. Can you remember this?”
“I certainly hope so,” Andy said, scrambling for that pen back and an old sticky note someone had used to leave a note on the desk - orderly enough to avoid the automatic cleaning.
“Okay. So what you're going to want to do is grate the soap and add some salt to it – more than you think you'll need.”
“Okay.”
“Then, pat that down inside a bowl to line. You can sprinkle water on it and rub it in to make the particles stick together and stay in place if you like. Then you just scoop it up with your bowl and you can transport it. But make sure it's touching only the soap. It works as a magical insulator, so as long as it's only touching soap, you won't be hurt by it.”
“Okay, got it. Thanks.”
“Anytime, dear.”
The woman paused.
“Though this is for very powerful curses. What exactly do you plan to do?”
Andy shrugged, then almost kicked herself for doing it again. Nobody can see you shrug on the phone, idiot.
“I've got a vague plan. I'll let you know when it's over.”
“Al-alright then.”
She sounded hesitant.
“Well, good luck! And do stop by sometime! It would be lovely to meet you!”
“Yeah, okay I'll do it.”
“Good bye.”
“Thanks. And goodbye.”
Both women hung up the phone.
Soap. Soap and salt. Why salt? Whatever.
Pushing to her feet, Andy tried to ignore the aches and pains shooting through her body. Soap was in the supply cabinet. Salt was in the kitchen. Agnes was going to think she was super weird.
Within the hour, she had a soap-salt bowl made in one of Agnes' big mixing bowls and a little fluffy Hannibal following on her heels after a delicious afternoon snack that he managed to beg off of his true love while she stood in the kitchen grating soap like a freak.
Now he trotted behind her, wondering where they were going off to adventure today.
When they reached the playroom, she shooed him back, shutting the door.
Giving an agitated squeak, he tried to push his head through the opening as she shut the door, but Andy stuck her foot out to make him back up.
“I'll be right back,” she muttered. “Hang out with Encyclopedia and Guide.”
As soon as the door shut, she could hear his little annoyed mews and frantic claws on the outside of the door, but she ignored them. Why a cat?
She shook her head. He could wait.
It was exactly where she'd left it. Way back in the corner of the fireplace, the stupid little pink necklace was laying in a bunched up pile where it had been thrown after attacking Andy. Attacking Andy? Could she officially say she'd been attacked by children's jewelry now?
Scowling, she crawled up to it, the buzzing louder than ever. Who cared?
Andy opened up the grate that stood in front of it that the necklace had somehow sailed over, and, using an extra soap bar, she pulled it out of the corner, dragging it's stupid little beads through ancient soot and ash. Take that. Putting the edge of the bowl that she'd covered in soap on the ground, she scraped the necklace closer until it was up against the edge, sandwiched between soap and filthy stone. Pushing hard, she managed to pop one of the beads into the bowl. Then, dragging the rest in, she carefully tilted it back, sliding the rest into the center of the soap.
Was it really that easy?
Probably not. There was no way of knowing where this came from. They weren't gonna let her move out of the Leistings until they knew that. But at least people wouldn't be going wacko while she was here. Well, they would, but in a different way.
Getting this somewhere in her car was going to feel a little weird. A little scary, she would almost say. Yet, as she walked out of the room, thoughts buzzing around her head with proximity to the little piece of shit, a better plan had begun to form. A twist of fate. A perfect use for this thing. This little… gift.
“I was hoping to return these to you.”
Several days after the last of the beads left her possession, Andy held up the Encyclopedia and the Guide in her arms before dropping them on the counter of Waxing and Waning.
Helen smiled, looking down at them affectionately and stoking the spine of the one on the top.
“It's good to see you again. Should I assume, from what I've heard of certain gifts a Mr. Kellington received, that these served you well?”
Andy smiled, trying to picture the look on the man's face when he'd received her box a few days ago.
“Yes. They were helpful.”
Helen pushed them toward Andy.
“I've been told that you need to keep these books for now. Gen sounded less than enthused with the outcome and so I would guess you'll still be needing them eventually.”
Andy shrugged.
“Maybe. I'm hoping not.”
“You have a flair for humor.”
Helen chuckled softly, a gentle sound.
“Kade and I were both amused to hear about Kellington's present.”
Andy bowed slightly.
“It was my pleasure. Really. I'm glad someone else enjoyed it.”
“Yes.”
Helen glanced around the shop. Empty, as usual it seemed.
“Would you like a cup of tea? I want to hear about what happened.”
Andy shrugged.
“Yeah, sure. Why not?”
This was a similar concept. The books tingled in her fingers when she locked them up in a cabinet in the attic before going for her cup of tea. Help or no help, she had told herself she wasn't going to use them if they belonged to that guy. Likely he'd be coming for her head any second. Guys who collect books like that are protective of them and someone like Andy, with no magical ability of her own, was not about to win in a fight with some crazed magician. Maybe it was time to invest in anti-magic charms.
Anyways, Andy dropped the demon books in the cabinet, grabbed a chai tea from Agnes, who took a moment to tell Andy about her new gardening project at home, then sat with the steaming cup outside the playroom. The buzzing was only slight out here; just strong enough to put her on edge, but also strangely motivational. With her limited knowledge of curses, however, the curiosity became dangerous. Within the hour she was back up in the attic, ripping open the cabinet doors once again. Fuckin' hell. Standing there for a moment, she closed her eyes, feeling the energy emanating off the books. She could see the look on Kellington's face the first time she'd mentioned she could feel magic like her phone vibrating in a coat pocket. That was when she knew one of his work partners was visiting before he said a word.
The books weren't nearly strong enough to begin scrambling her brain just yet. It was like going through glasses of wine ‘till you feel the buzz but not the stagger. There was a vibration in the energy around them, like fairy glitter or some other freaky thing.
Shaking her head, Andy opened her eyes and looked at them. They looked like books. Like fat books that you'd buy at a used book sale in a downtown hole-in-the-wall kind of store then leave on your bookshelf forever to make you look smart. Whatever. She grabbed them, hugging them close to her body ‘till a warm sensation spread into her gut. This was probably what hugging a radioactive box felt like. Destructive, but oddly comforting.
If she was going to be hunted down and killed by Kade Jackson for stealing his books, she might as well get some use out of them first.
Kicking the cabinet shut as she turned to leave, Andy scrambled back down the ladder.
Back outside the playroom, Andy dropped the books on the hall floor, hitting the deck in front of them. Beginning with the Encyclopedia, she flipped through the pages a bit. There was a title page with the words “Archival Encyclopedia of the Arcane,” in bold, plain font, and below, “Ask nicely and you shall know.”
“Wow, you are sassy,” muttered Andy.
She flipped thumbed through the next few pages carefully, glancing at the tops of the pages for reference. This thing would have to have thousands upon thousands of pages in order to have all the information in the library, but it didn't look quite long enough for that. The tops of the pages had guide words and page numbers and entries that looked static and unchanging, but there was no way. It had to be magical to get all that info. So you have to ask. Nicely.
“Now how do I ask you...”
On page 477, the guide words were “magic” and “genius.”
Andy rolled her eyes. “Now, that's not in alphabetical order.”
She snapped the book shut, patting the cover affectionately - was that the way? - and thinking about curses. She then tipped it, and, opening to a random page, glanced at the guide words. On the right, they were “finally” and “idiot.” On the left, however, they were “curses” and “detection.”
Andy breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thanks.” What was the most convenient way to put this through a paper shredder when she was done?
“Only kidding.”
Skimming the detection section, it was easy to find what she needed.
“Normally, curse detection is done by trained individuals who know what they're looking for. The general symptoms are fairly obvious, depending on the curse, but if you are not the victim of the curse, curses are detected in two ways. One, if they are on specific people or a group of people, the energy can be seen by unusual interactions with the world: magnets that follow them, lights that flicker. This is why it's normally left to trained individuals who can sense it. On cursed objects, the object will be giving off powerful energy. There are many other types of curses, but I believe these will suffice for you for now.”
Andy put the Encyclopedia on top of the Guide and stood up, wandering into the playroom. Giving off powerful energy, huh? That should be easy enough. Encyclopedia was right. That really was all she probably needed for now. What a sassy book, but helpful. Sort of.
Immediately, entering the room, the buzzing intensified, scrambling her lengthier thoughts. It had been near the fireplace, that's for sure. The kids toys. It had to be one of them. She hadn't been thinking about it before, which was utterly stupid because how stereotypical is that?
Chrissy's toys were on the ground near the fireplace, scattered around a little where she had left them the last time she played. And yet, there they were, the doll was still against the brickwork; the trains were still set up in a corner; the pictures on the table hadn't been disturbed by so much as a breeze. At this point, it had been hours. Where was the automatic house cleaning? Was that dust on the mantle?
Andy brushed her fingers over one picture on the mantle, inspecting the state of cleanliness of the house. No way. The Black Estate didn't gather dust. That wasn't a thing on this floor. Sometimes on the top floors, but definitely not in a room that got used this much. The automatic cleaning charms were amazingly effective for a house with so much child-instigated chaos. Could a cursed toy fuck it up like that? Also, who wants to curse one of Chrissy's toys? The kid wasn't even able to wash her hair effectively, let alone do magic. At least, so far as they could tell.
Andy dropped to her knees in the sea of toys, holding her hands over the toys there. Her appetite was definitely gone for the day. Her stomach lurched as her knee hit the floor and she found herself regretting the tea for once in her life, feeling like she'd eaten too much today. Had she even eaten today?
There was a stronger tingle in the fingers of her right hand, like it had lost blood flow and was falling asleep. A dead giveaway.
Turning to her right, Andy held her hands over the toys there. Now it was stronger in both hands, but it was running up her left arm. Scowling, she moved the hand back and forth, roving like a poor man with a metal detector. “Where are you, you little bastard?” Who knew this trick would ever really be useful?
There. For a moment, the intensity of the irritation increased, then, like flipping a switch, it began to decrease. Looking down where her hand had been, Andy spotted a necklace of fake, plastic beads cheaply made to look like pink pearls. Passing her hand over top of it again, she felt the same increase then decrease in the energy. That had to be it, right? There was nothing else there.
Andy took a deep breath, hovering her hand over the beads. Curses weren't like bacteria, right? Not transmitted through physical contact? Only one way to tell.
Lowering her hand, Andy held her breath. Her fingers were just over the pink beads. Gritting her teeth, she hovered for a moment, deciding whether or not this was, actually, a good idea. Probably not. Oh, fuck it. She dropped her hand onto it, closing her fingers around the strings.
Immediately, a shock ran up her arm like sticking her hand on an electric stove, burning her hand and smashing through her bones. Andy pitched sideways, flinging the beads into the fireplace and landing on her back, going rigid for a moment. The breath was shoved from her lungs, like she had fallen 6 feet onto her back.
For a moment, she laid there, gasping for breath and struggling to comprehend what the hell that was. Do curses normally do that? She couldn't remember any. But then again, curses weren't really what Kellington dealt in. What the hell did Gen do to get her family mixed up in this kind of shit? More importantly, was this a trick to try to kill her fake niece or something? It was amazing that nobody had been seriously injured yet with that kind of effect.
“Encyclopedia, I need you,” she muttered, rolling onto her side. Looking over at where the beads looked back at her so innocently, Andy scowled. Time to die, bitch.
She crawled back to the hall, laying on the floor for a moment, hands resting on the Encyclopedia. Did it see this coming? The cool cover felt nice on her hand. Maybe she'd burned it. Dammit. Pulling the huge book over to her face, she flipped a few pages back and forth. “Disposing of Cursed Objects.” Yeah, that sounds about right.
“Home Remedies for Disposing of Cursed Objects: drop four Mintra-blessed winterleaves into a pot and bring to a boil, stirring with the bone of a dragon. Once thickened, sprinkle in dried witchbane...”
Andy stopped. What?
Doing a quick scan of the page, the instructions went on and on. And onto the next page. Goddammit. None of this stuff was in the kitchen, that was for sure. Flipping the page, she found the end of the recipe where it began describing some kind of complicated magic alternative that she couldn't make heads or tails of. It was like reading ancient Greek written in Chinese characters. Fuck.
Grabbing the Guide, Andy flipped through, searching for a table of contents. Was there some other way to get rid of curses? Like, didn't you just have to know what it did and reverse that or something? What the hell?
The table of contents was at the beginning, but it was all strange stuff she hadn't heard of. Werewolves who got better. Unexplained miracles. Crazy stuff. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.
Scrambling through her pockets, Andy pulled out a receipt. Where was a pen when you needed one? Dragging herself up into a sitting position, she looked around. There was a study around here somewhere. It was bound to have pens. The question was could she get to it.
Leaning back on her arms, she took a deep breath. Yeah, she could probably stand. But she paused.
Grandma used to know some herbalist lady, right? Some old woman who lived down on the coast in a hut and was, like, a hundred sixty something years old. Or thereabouts. Why use the books when she could find that woman? But in the meantime, that necklace couldn't stay out there. It was clearly dangerous, and needed disposal.
Fuck fuck fuck...
Leaning forward, Andy shut both books, instead pulling out her cell phone. Though Grandma Jo had never truly gotten the hang of the “cellular telephone,” she could be counted on to answer her house phone most days.
Scrolling through her contacts, she pulled up the number. Hitting talk, she put the phone to her ear, scooting back to lean on the wall and pulling herself together to sound perfectly alright. Grandma knew some of the stuff Alex’d gotten into, but Kellington, she knew, had made a point of not telling the old woman when things went horribly wrong. Which happened. A lot. From the woman's perspective, their lives probably sounded like one long fairytale travel vacation.
As usual, the line rang about fifty times before anyone answered.
“Hello?”
“Grandma! Hi, it's Andy.”
“Oh, Andy! Hello dear, how are you?”
Andy leaned her head back against the wall.
“Oh, I'm doing well. We're still on for next Saturday, right?”
There was a pause.
“Oh yes, that's right. Thank you for reminding me to put that down in my calendar. You're at Jeromy and Geneveive's, isn't that right?”
Andy cringed.
“Yeah, that's right. I actually have a question for you about something I came across here.”
“Ah ha?”
“Yeah. You told me once about an herbalist you knew somewhere out on the coast, right?”
“That's right dear. She died about twelve years ago. Terrible tragedy. She had a stroke and never recovered.”
Andy closed her eyes. Fuck everything. Opening one eye, she looked suspiciously at the books where they lay in front of her.
“Darn. I was hoping to get some advice on something. Do you know anyone else who would be able to help me? You're a lot more in the loop than I am.”
“Hmmmm...” She could hear the woman shuffling around a little. “I don't suppose Gen is willing to help you. Let me see...”
More shuffling followed.
“What are you working on? Is there some reason you need to be this 'in the loop,' as you call it?”
Andy shrugged before realizing that wouldn't carry over the phone. “Ah, just a little project Gen put me up to.” It wasn't a lie.
“Hmmmm. I see.” A pause. “Oh, here it is. Yes, my good friend on the coast passed away, but her great granddaughter is trying to take over her work. I have her number here. Are you ready?”
Goddamn it. Another need for a pen. Time to get up.
“Um, no. Hold on for just a second.”
Pulling the phone away from her ear, Andy pushed herself up the wall, stifling the grunting from slightly stiff joints. Little kid jewelery was stupid anyways.
“Lemme just grab a pen...”
Stumbling into one of the rooms off the main hall, Andy slammed her hand down on a desk to support herself, looking around wildly for a pen. Nothing on the desk. In the desk? Huzzah!
Pulling out a crappy old ballpoint with something sticky on it, she scribbled a few circles on one hand to get the ink flowing.
“Okay, ready.”
Grandma read off a few numbers and Andy scribbled them down on her hand.
“Okay great. I have to go because I need to get this done today, but I'll see you on Saturday.”
“Okay hon, good luck! Thanks for the call!”
“No, thank you!”
“Bye bye!”
“Bye!”
Immediately, she sank into the desk chair, sighing slightly. Holy crap was it good to sit down.
For a moment, she just looked around the room. It was a bedroom, not a study, but that didn't really matter. It looked like one of those that never really got used because it was next to the playroom and let's be honest, who wants to stay where there's screaming kids?
That was off topic. Focus.
Looking at the number written in borderline unreadable pen, Andy dialed her cell, praying to whatever kind of god may or may not exist that somebody who knew their stuff would answer.
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Do you know Josephine Leisting?”
“Um, yes? Who is this?”
The woman's voice sounded fairly elderly already, with the kind of edge to it that happens after people hit, like, sixty.
“This is Andy, her granddaughter.”
“Oh, why hello!”
Andy chewed her lip.
“Er, yes, hello! Um, I have a bit of an herbalist question for you.”
“Yes, yes, go ahead.”
“Um, yeah, so, would you, perchance, know anything about lifting curses or transporting cursed objects?”
There was a silence on the other end of the phone.
“Um...”
Andy closed her eyes. Please say yes.
“Well, my dear, I'm not quite the woman you're looking for with this one. I don't deal in dark magic.”
“That's perfectly fine, but I have a recipe that I don't understand that tells me how to do it, but it has all sorts of plants and things I've never heard of or worked with and I was hoping you could help me.”
Another silence. Come on.
“Andy, dear, those use different plants than I may have access to. And besides, you would need to know a little more about the curse before you could dispel it with that kind of a recipe. You need specifics. Your best bet would be to take it to someone who works with regular magic and ask them to take care of it.”
The Jacksons. Goddamn the Jacksons.
“I see.” She shut her eyes. “Are you sure about that?”
“Positive, darling.”
“I see. And how would one transport that?”
“Do you have salt and soap?”
Andy frowned and looked at the wall across from her.
“Yes...?”
“Good. Can you remember this?”
“I certainly hope so,” Andy said, scrambling for that pen back and an old sticky note someone had used to leave a note on the desk - orderly enough to avoid the automatic cleaning.
“Okay. So what you're going to want to do is grate the soap and add some salt to it – more than you think you'll need.”
“Okay.”
“Then, pat that down inside a bowl to line. You can sprinkle water on it and rub it in to make the particles stick together and stay in place if you like. Then you just scoop it up with your bowl and you can transport it. But make sure it's touching only the soap. It works as a magical insulator, so as long as it's only touching soap, you won't be hurt by it.”
“Okay, got it. Thanks.”
“Anytime, dear.”
The woman paused.
“Though this is for very powerful curses. What exactly do you plan to do?”
Andy shrugged, then almost kicked herself for doing it again. Nobody can see you shrug on the phone, idiot.
“I've got a vague plan. I'll let you know when it's over.”
“Al-alright then.”
She sounded hesitant.
“Well, good luck! And do stop by sometime! It would be lovely to meet you!”
“Yeah, okay I'll do it.”
“Good bye.”
“Thanks. And goodbye.”
Both women hung up the phone.
Soap. Soap and salt. Why salt? Whatever.
Pushing to her feet, Andy tried to ignore the aches and pains shooting through her body. Soap was in the supply cabinet. Salt was in the kitchen. Agnes was going to think she was super weird.
Within the hour, she had a soap-salt bowl made in one of Agnes' big mixing bowls and a little fluffy Hannibal following on her heels after a delicious afternoon snack that he managed to beg off of his true love while she stood in the kitchen grating soap like a freak.
Now he trotted behind her, wondering where they were going off to adventure today.
When they reached the playroom, she shooed him back, shutting the door.
Giving an agitated squeak, he tried to push his head through the opening as she shut the door, but Andy stuck her foot out to make him back up.
“I'll be right back,” she muttered. “Hang out with Encyclopedia and Guide.”
As soon as the door shut, she could hear his little annoyed mews and frantic claws on the outside of the door, but she ignored them. Why a cat?
She shook her head. He could wait.
It was exactly where she'd left it. Way back in the corner of the fireplace, the stupid little pink necklace was laying in a bunched up pile where it had been thrown after attacking Andy. Attacking Andy? Could she officially say she'd been attacked by children's jewelry now?
Scowling, she crawled up to it, the buzzing louder than ever. Who cared?
Andy opened up the grate that stood in front of it that the necklace had somehow sailed over, and, using an extra soap bar, she pulled it out of the corner, dragging it's stupid little beads through ancient soot and ash. Take that. Putting the edge of the bowl that she'd covered in soap on the ground, she scraped the necklace closer until it was up against the edge, sandwiched between soap and filthy stone. Pushing hard, she managed to pop one of the beads into the bowl. Then, dragging the rest in, she carefully tilted it back, sliding the rest into the center of the soap.
Was it really that easy?
Probably not. There was no way of knowing where this came from. They weren't gonna let her move out of the Leistings until they knew that. But at least people wouldn't be going wacko while she was here. Well, they would, but in a different way.
Getting this somewhere in her car was going to feel a little weird. A little scary, she would almost say. Yet, as she walked out of the room, thoughts buzzing around her head with proximity to the little piece of shit, a better plan had begun to form. A twist of fate. A perfect use for this thing. This little… gift.
“I was hoping to return these to you.”
Several days after the last of the beads left her possession, Andy held up the Encyclopedia and the Guide in her arms before dropping them on the counter of Waxing and Waning.
Helen smiled, looking down at them affectionately and stoking the spine of the one on the top.
“It's good to see you again. Should I assume, from what I've heard of certain gifts a Mr. Kellington received, that these served you well?”
Andy smiled, trying to picture the look on the man's face when he'd received her box a few days ago.
“Yes. They were helpful.”
Helen pushed them toward Andy.
“I've been told that you need to keep these books for now. Gen sounded less than enthused with the outcome and so I would guess you'll still be needing them eventually.”
Andy shrugged.
“Maybe. I'm hoping not.”
“You have a flair for humor.”
Helen chuckled softly, a gentle sound.
“Kade and I were both amused to hear about Kellington's present.”
Andy bowed slightly.
“It was my pleasure. Really. I'm glad someone else enjoyed it.”
“Yes.”
Helen glanced around the shop. Empty, as usual it seemed.
“Would you like a cup of tea? I want to hear about what happened.”
Andy shrugged.
“Yeah, sure. Why not?”