This Is a Bad Idea
An Inkling of Magic - Chapter 40
The street lamps flickered as if they knew how questionable it was for Elspeth to be sitting in a car driving down Main Street in the middle of the night. Key or no key, if caught, it would raise more than a few eyebrows as to why they were there and what they were doing. Thankfully, to the average eye, the streets of Hydendale were virtually lifeless when Farren’s newly repaired car pulled up in front of Grimm and Barrett. There was an all-hours convenience store across the street that still had a few late-night shoppers, but otherwise the darkened streets were mostly deserted.
“This is a bad idea,” her brother muttered yet put the car into park anyway. “What even is this place anyway? I thought we were going to that bookstore you love so much,” Farren asked, staring out the window at the building in front of them, “and I still don’t understand why I can’t remember it though I know you’ve told me I’ve been there.”
Her eyes dimmed as she took in the neglected store. It was hard to believe it had been several days since she’d been inside when it had been such a staple part of her routine for years. Without Mr. Grimmlich though, the heart of the store, it hurt too much to be there for long.
“This is the store,” Elspeth said, unclicking her seat belt, “and you can blame the pixies for the memory loss.”
“Pixies?”
His incredulity made her laugh. For all of his acceptance that this was indeed real, his continual surprise at anything new made her smile. It was nice not being the one who knew the least anymore even if her own knowledge was still very limited itself.
“Yup,” she replied making the ‘p’ pop, “pixies. Derek says it’s some sort of protective charm that alters your perception and memory of the place. Now come on, we’re wasting moonlight here.”
A shadow of hesitancy passed over his face and she could see the objection rising up again for the umpteenth time since they’d gotten in the car.
“If you don’t want to do this, it’s okay,” Elspeth said before he could get the words out, “you can wait here.” The cool night air hit her in the face as she opened the car door and she heard him sigh in relief.
“Thank y–”
She cut him off with an impish grin. “I can just call Derek to help me instead.”
The look on Farren’s face was priceless and she closed the door before he could recover enough before he could finds the words to respond. One… two… three… her grin widened when she the sound of another car door slamming shut echoed in the dark followed by muttering and footsteps running to catch up with her.
He wordlessly fell into step beside her, but she could feel the tension rolling off of him in waves. Oddly, Elspeth didn’t feel anxious at all even if she was about to break probably multiple laws. She paused when they reached the entrance of the store and looked around to make sure they were still more or less alone. Not that she was particularly worried about getting caught, but it would be incredibly awkward and she’d much rather avoid messy explanations. Okay, she was worried just less worried than about what she was going to do if it wasn’t there.
Feeling that itch of tension beginning to grow, she closed her eyes and took a breath. It’ll be there. It has to be. The moment tension passed, Elspeth opened her eyes and resumed her survey.
The cars she’d seen when they pulled up were still parked across the street at the convenience store and there were no signs that they were going to be moving anytime soon. They weren’t the only nightlife around, but they were the only ones she was concerned about. Well, save for her elusive feline stalker. She hadn’t even sensed the mngwa lately which was oddly concerning.
She wanted to role her eyes at that. It shouldn’t be, Elspeth scolded herself. It’s not like I enjoy being stalked by a killer cat. Still, there was something unsettling about it all.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this, Els!” Farren hissed anxiously breaking into her musings. He was as antsy as wild rabbit waiting for the farmer to show up with a pellet gun and looking this way and that in case someone was watching. “What if someone sees us?!”
“Then I’ll just tell them that Mr. Grimmlich asked me to mind the place while he’s gone,” Elsepth said as she fished the key from around her neck, “Besides, we’ve already been seen, but they’re not going to say anything. Not to the police anyway.”
Farren spluttered at that, but she ignored him in favour of slipping the key into the lock. She smiled when she heard the click as she turned it. “Oh, quit your fussing or you’ll attract someone we do have to worry about.”
Her hand was on the door knob when she finally heard intelligible words falling from her brother’s mouth like a hailstorm.
“What do you mean we’ve already been seen?!” he whisper yelled, “I haven’t seen anyone.”
A huff escaped her but still she turned to face him with a dry look. “Farren,” she said drawing out his name longer than was necessary, “just because you haven’t seen them, doesn’t mean that I haven’t.”
Elspeth watched the comical range of expressions her brother’s face achieved contorting through different levels of confusion while she patiently waited for the penny to drop. When his eyes blew wide and his head jerked around uselessly looking for what he couldn’t see, she knew his mind had finally caught up with her words.
“They’re already gone.”
“You mean –”
“Mhmm,” she cut him off, “not too many, but there were a few of them when we pulled up. It was mostly gargoyles tonight, but I did spot a couple of hobgoblins and a kobold too.”
“A what?”
She snickered. In all her love of fantasy and acceptance of what once would have had her in a nervous breakdown, she’d forgotten that Farren was even more a newcomer to all this than she being more into scifi and mysteries than fantasy. “I’ll show you later.”
A cold shiver ran up her spine when she turned the knob, but, when she looked back, nothing was there. It may have been just the wind, she told herself, swallowing her sudden sense of unease. The coldness may have gone, but her spine was stiff with tension and it was that that had her reach out and grab her brother’s hand to drag him along behind her. “Now lets get this over with so we can go home and go to bed.”
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Everything was so much eerier in the dark – every sound was magnified, every shape and shadow a threat. It didn’t matter that Elspeth had been in the bookstore a thousand times and frequently left while it was dark outside as it had very rarely been as completely unlit as it was right then.
Creeping through the erratic maze of bookshelves, Elspeth was navigating more by memory and feel than by sight. With her brother’s hand was still clasped in hers, having not dropped for even a second since they crossed the threshold, she held out her other hand and let her finger tips graze along the books and shelves letting them tell her when she needed to turn rather than trusting that her eyes were adjusted enough to the darkness around them. She could have turned on a light, but prudence held her back.
“What was that?” Farren asked when they turned yet another corner.
Elspeth winced at his tightened grip around her fingers. Any tighter and she feared they might break. “What was what?”
“I could have sworn I heard something.”
“Well, I didn’t.” This time, she added silently. He didn’t need to know about Derek’s theory regarding a certain venom-spitting creature that may or may not be lurking somewhere abouts, at least not yet anyway.
“Els,” he pleaded, keeping his voice low “I’m telling you we aren’t alone in here.”
“Just a little longer, Farren, I promise we’re almost there.” She’d never admit it to him, but the immense relief Elspeth felt when caught the shady outline of Mr. Grimmlich’s office was almost palpable. “See, I told you we were nearly there.”
With his office now within sight, she picked up her pace as she made a beeline for the door and pulled her brother along behind her.
“Good,” Farren said with a shudder and lengthening his stride to keep up with her, “because this place is seriously giving me the creeps. It was eerie enough last time and that was with the lights on.”
That brought her to a halt nearly making him run into the back of her.
“It was what?” she asked, dropping his hand to whirl around to face him.
Even in the dark she could still make out the way his face knotted together with confusion.
“Farren!” Elspeth prodded him, “it was what last time?” How do you remember last time?
“What last time?” Farren mumbled as if in a daze, “this is my first time in here.”
Her eyes widened at that and her heart skipped a beat. “No, Farren. It isn’t. We talked about this already remember?”
Despite her attempts to jog his memory, her brother looked just as lost as before and like he wasn’t even sure where it was they were. With alarm growing, she reached out to take his hand. “Farren –”
He gasped when her hand touched his making her pull it back.
“No!”
His hand shot out to grab hers before it could completely withdraw. His eyes were wide and wild and he was breathing hard when he spoke. “Whatever you do, don’t let go. I…” he swallowed hard, “I don’t know how, but I think your touch is holding back that pixie voodoo you mentioned before.”
Though she didn’t feel anything, Elspeth’s eyes shot down to the hand that was holding her brother’s. She closed her eyes and let out the breath she was holding. Nothing. It looked exactly as one would expect it to look. And why shouldn’t it? This is your brother, Els, not Derek. There isn’t a magical bone in his body. Opening them again, her breath hitched when she caught the faint flash of pearlescence ripple beneath her skin, but it vanished just as quickly as it appeared.
“Els?”
She jumped at her brother’s voice.
“You okay, Els?” he asked when she tore her eyes away from their linked hands to look at him. She didn’t need any light to know how his face was pinched with concern.
Elspeth swallowed the lump in her throat and plastered a shaky smile on her face. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s… let’s just finish what we came here to do.”
It was clear from the intense way he was studying her that he didn’t believe her, but he nodded anyway.
~...~...~...~...~...~
“Are you sure it’s in here?” Farren asked, shading his eyes from the desk lamp she’d turned on. He watched her rummage one handed through the piles of papers on Mr. Grimmlich’s desk. “He disappeared last month. He wouldn’t have been here to pick up his mail.”
She flipped through another stack of loose papers checking for anything that might have gotten caught in between them. “Did you see any mail on the ground when we came in or wall-mounted mail box outside?”
“Well, no.”
“Then it’s here,” Elspeth replied, “Mrs. Hythe has probably been picking it up when she checks on Evangeline and, when Derek and I watched her and the director searching everything the other day, I know I saw a pile of envelopes that weren’t here before when I searched through everything. So it’s got to be here somewhe… Aha!”
Straightening up, Elspeth turned away from the desk and, with a great flourish and a triumphant grin, held up her hand to display the long, windowed envelope sandwiched between her fingers. “Got it! One phone bill for last month for Mr. Edwyn Grimmlich with our mystery caller’s number sure to be somewhere inside.”
Her heart singing, Elspeth wasted little time in folding the envelope and stuffed it into her pocket. “Okay, time to go.”
She made it a couple of steps before there was a pull on her arm. Looking back, she found Farren firmly rooted in place by the desk.
“What are you doing?!” Farren yelled, struggling to keep his voice down. “I thought we were just here to get that phone number?”
“We are.”
“By stealing his mail?” he challenged.
Why not? We’re going to be guilty of mail tampering anyway, she thought, biting back the words. Instead, Elspeth raised a brow and stared at him with as much sass as her racing heart could muster. She could feel that antsy feeling creeping back up her spine. They needed to get out and quickly. “You really expect me to open it here?” she answered. “The longer we’re here, the more likely we are to get caught.”
“But –”
The sound of creaking wood cut off his argument at the same time an icy blast shot through Elspeth’s veins. For a second, neither spoke or breathed.
“Did you hear that this time?” Farren whispered, a tremble fighting for dominance over his words.
Elspeth nodded furiously, not trusting her voice.
Her eyes shot to the open office door when there was another creak. She could have sworn she also heard the soft, telltale padding of paws.
This time when she pulled her brother towards the door there was no resistance. She didn’t know what they were going to do, but, what she did know, was that it wouldn’t do to be cornered in a tiny office space with no way out. They needed to move, but they needed to move carefully.
Inching their way out the door, Elspeth’s wide and fearful gaze was pulled this way and that. Nothing. However, though she could see nothing, she could feel plenty and it was taking everything in her to keep from bolting as fast as her legs could take her.
Hot breath hit her ears when a new sound pierced the dark. “That wasn’t paws,” Farren hissed.
Elspeth’s heart rate spiked as her stomach dropped like a piano in a cartoon. No, no it wasn’t, but she had heard that scritching and scraping sound before and more than once. The memories of glowing goo that ate through anything it touched – anything but the, evidently, charmed architecture of the store that was – and a scaled tail disappearing around a bookshelf played in stereo in her mind.
The hairs prickled at the back of her neck as they stood on end. Well, Derek, guess we’re going to find out if that theory of yours is right or not.