Chapter Ten
Sometime the following morning, before the sun had fully risen and the world was in the first stages of waking, Alora had a dream.
She stood in the room, behind Door Twenty-five, as the walls bled.
Each time the walls settled on a color, they liquified, running in thick rivulets down the panels only for another to take its place.
The room filled steadily, with paint and paper, chaises and sofas, and beds with chains.
Windows would appear and wink out again, leaving holes from which poured in black smoke, and then those would change shape and disappear only for the entire room to change shape too.
Alora could make no sense of it, her imagination struggling to get just one thing to stick and hold still.
It was as if the room itself didn't exist and so she didn’t either, stuck inside it as she was.
When she woke up, she was doused in sweat and her bedroom walls were coated in eight different shades of clashing paints.
***
“Have you tried Potions and…Potions and—” strained Mr. Pottenbaum when Alora had lost only the tiniest bit of patience after his partner, also Mr. Pottenbaum, spent an entire hour choosing between cerulean and periwinkle curtains.
Alora had only mentioned between mildly clenched teeth how she was struggling in her focus on the particular task.
She could have been more forthright, she supposed, but that would have certainly cost her the job.
Mr. Pottenbaum’s indecision was the problem, and not her manifesting nightmares.
“Peculiarities?” she offered, cringing inside.
“That’s it! Dingy place, but excellent brews.”
“More like the excellent jawline of that proprietor. Talk him into some periwinkle curtains.”
And so here she stood, outside of Potions and Peculiarities, and noted two things which were very different than before.
For one, there was a Closed sign hanging crooked and crude in the door.
Secondly, there was a yellow flower potted amongst the weeds of the window box.
Alora crept up to it and dipped her finger in, surprised to find the soil damp.
A cared for flower even. Though that didn’t help her problem, not that she quite knew what her problem was.
Focus, maybe? Sleep? Memory? Stomach upset?
The thought of discussing any of her personal ailments with the shopkeeper went against her very morals, but still, she couldn’t go on like this.
She had a few days over two weeks with which to complete the job, and at this rate, it’d take her two months.
Which was why, when she heard a voice coming from around the back of the shop, she ceased plucking the weeds from the box and followed it.
The alleyway was slim and devoid of all things green.
In fact, it was devoid of all colors at all unless those colors were gray and black.
The black walls of the shop faded to the muted gray stones she walked on only to rise up on her opposite side in another black-walled building.
It was a little bit like walking between some charred remains of fire, but then she thought of William and pushed that description firmly out of her head.
At the back of the shop, she saw a wagon first, larger than hers, and definitely not considered a cart.
It was attached to a mule, much sturdier in the chest than her donkey and with a fouler attitude.
He glared at her in reproach. Last, she saw him, the rude proprietor, and though she’d fixed her lipstick for the occasion, and checked her hair twice, she still dreaded the sight of him.
He wore a variation of his usual attire: black trousers, a black vest with silver stitching, though his shirt today boasted shorter sleeves.
Sleeves that’d been folded tight over the swell of his upper arms, made more so by the crates he heaved from the wagon to stack by the back door.
Because he didn’t notice her, she decided to watch instead. It would be impolite to interrupt, she thought.
With the final crate in his arms, he swung his gaze to hers. “And here you’ve proven you can be quiet. I’ve lost a bet with myself.” At Alora’s parted lips, he added, “I sold the barshet, if that’s what you wished to know.”
“It wasn’t, though I’m glad of it,” said Alora, and she wasn’t lying. She hadn’t wanted to step foot inside knowing that creature still wished for her voice.
When she said nothing more, he glanced her over, brushing his hands free of travel dust. “We’re closed.”
“I saw the sign.” Why had she come? Awkwardness pulsed through her. The last time she’d seen the man she’d told him to piss off, for heaven’s sake. “And the Zanigold.”
“Purchased from a local nursery. Someone there seemed enamored over it, so I thought I’d see if it was worth the attention. So far, it’s like any other yellow flower, but maybe it’ll reveal some sort of magic soon.”
His eyes were like moss over trees, but right now, catching the sun, they seemed to lighten enough to rival the hillsides of her childhood home.
It was unbearably attractive. So much so, she realized she’d begun biting at her thumb as he talked.
She dropped it from her mouth, scowling.
“Alora Pennigrim,” she said, hardening her tone.
“I’m in need of a potion. I’m told this is the place to go. ”
The shopkeeper stared at her outstretched hand as if he didn’t know what to do with it. Finally, he placed his within, and it was calloused and warm.
“Bash,” he said. “What is it you need?”
Alora didn’t like he’d not given her his full name. She wasn’t used to those she encountered being so secretive. Her fingers twitched where he held them, a current traveling to all corners of her body. She didn’t like that either. Not at all.
She pulled her hand free. “I need something for focus. Or to improve memory. My usual aids haven’t been working.”
Bash crossed his arms over his chest as she spoke, causing Alora to forcibly avert her eyes from the pull of cloth against his skin. “Which aids?”
“Herbal tea. Sleep. A balanced diet.”
“And you are prone to distraction?”
Alora, offended, met his gaze. “No. I’ve told you before, I’m usually very observant.”
“Hmm,” he said, with an undercurrent of disbelief. He turned toward the door and proceeded to unlock it. “What I have is likely too much for you. I suggest you seek out the town apothecary for some root or weed.”
“Please,” said Alora, her feet planted. “It is getting worse.” She thought of the nightmares, the changes to her home. Of her notebook and how her eyes seemed to slip from the page.
Bash glanced over his shoulder, probably at the thread of panic unwittingly woven into her words. His eyes assessed her quickly before he turned back.
She exhaled in relief when he said, “All right. Come with me.”
The back of Potions and Peculiarities didn’t surprise Alora at first. There were boxes and crates, shelves lined with assortments of bottles and decanters, and on the countertops were items in various states of unpacking.
But then she spotted a crystal skull with eyes made of rubies. She immediately paused to study it.
“Don’t look in that.” Bash pressed his shoulder between them, forcing a rod to one ruby eye and shoving it away. “Didn’t you say you weren’t easily distracted?”
“How was I to know you keep so many dangerous artifacts? I was only curious.”
“And so nearly became entranced.”
“Is that what it does?” Alora couldn’t help it. She leaned toward the skull.
“Yes. You’d be entirely at my mercy.”
She swung around to him, but he’d moved away, standing before a smaller door and unlocking that one, too. “And I suppose you’d make me accomplish diabolical things for you?” She paused at his back while she waited, unsure why she baited him. Why she couldn’t seem to help it.
Because he starts it, she decided.
“I would,” he answered. “Beginning with watering my Dirededron.”
Alora scoffed, following him through. “Is that all?”
“Would you like there to be more?” A match lit between them, rising, to the lantern hung beside his head.
He watched her as the light grew, the shadows changing shapes across his features, highlighting the edge of his jaw.
She thought at once of Mr. Pottenbaum and his, admittedly well-placed, admirations.
Bash made her uncomfortable, she couldn’t deny. And he was uncomfortably handsome, which was worse.
“Of course not.”
“I didn’t think so.”
When he turned away, she forcibly swallowed, mouth dry. She took in the room. Small, with a stove and several burners, a sink and rows of pots. From the cupboard, he pulled out three vials and a well-worn book.
“It’s so dark in here.” There wasn’t a window, the only light from the dim lantern he’d not removed from its hook.
“You dislike the dark?”
“Depends what else is in it with me,” said Alora, standing on her toes to better see the shelves. She found some sort of stick there, smooth and thick, and lifted it.
Bash filled a pot with water before setting it atop the stove. “I can make you something to sharpen your memory, though it won’t help with the old ones. Anything from the moment you drink and on, so long as you take a little every day.”
“So things won’t just—” Alora made a motion of water running from her temple.
“Is that what you feel is happening?” He observed her with a frown.
“Sometimes,” said Alora, bothered that he was bothered. Her worry deepened. “Why? Have you heard something like it?”
“Maybe,” he said, the expression slow to ease from his face. But then his eyes widened, and he lunged toward her. “Fuck. Where did you find that?”
Alora froze as the stick was wrenched from her hands. “On the shelf?” She couldn’t help but laugh at his obvious distress, which only seemed to fuel it further.
“This baton is one of the most dangerous items in this shop. You’re lucky. Keep your hands to yourself from now on, or I’ll force you to wait out with the mule, who bites.”
Alora’s brow dipped. “That little weapon? Why?”
He didn’t answer but rather eased the baton into the belt of his trousers, which she observed closer than necessary.
“What did you say you do in Enver?”
“I haven’t said.” Or had she? “I’m a designer. A decorator. Of buildings, not cakes.”
“Not cakes,” he echoed, and Alora thought he might have smiled. “And you’ve suffered from a focus ailment for how long?”
“I should tell you it’s being perpetrated by one thing, I think. So you needn’t attempt to diagnose me with any ailments. I’m hopeful it will be resolved once it’s over.”
“Once what is over?”
“My project.”
His hands stilled over his brew. “This project brings you distress?”
“No, not really. It brings me hope.”
A sound suspiciously similar to a scoff left him. “That is distressing.”
She shrugged behind his back. “Maybe. But isn’t anything worth having a bit of a torment at some point?”
Alora caught his glance this time, the crease is his brow more thoughtful than disturbed over her question. “And what is it? This thing that is worth all your tormented hope.”
“You really care to know?”
“I don’t ask questions otherwise.” He’d taken up stirring again, but when she didn’t immediately answer, he turned fully toward her, his expression open and waiting. “You’re embarrassed,” he finally said.
Her mouth parted in annoyance. “Hardly.”
“Shy?”
“No.”
“Is it immoral? Are you a secret reprobate?”
Alora felt her cheeks flush at his nettling. She stepped toward him. “A shop of my own, you villain! With walls of my work, samples and storage.”
His mouth quirked. “An answer at last. Was it so difficult?”
“You’re insufferable.”
The concoction on the stove began to whine, stealing the shopkeeper’s attention.
“It is a good dream.” Three vials were funneled with warm, orange liquid.
Bash corked each one before placing them in a purse.
He added a dropper, a little handwritten note, before he pulled tight the strings.
When he handed them to her, she took the bag, reaching into her own larger one for coins.
“Do you have one?”
“One what?” asked Bash. He waited as she counted in her palm. “Ten will do.”
“Only?” But she didn’t argue. She was comfortable, not flush with money. She held the coins out. “And a dream.”
“No.”
She watched him turn slightly, tossing the coins into an open vase, where they clinked against others.
If he lied, she didn’t know him enough to realize; his answer seemed serious enough to her.
Maybe he only meant he lived it now, his dream already grasped.
Yet the words were out of her mouth before she could help them.
“You don't strike me as a potion-master.”
He leaned his hips against the counter, a tight-lipped smile forming. “Not a shopkeeper, not a potion-master. What do I strike you as now? Please don’t shame me with the pickpocket title again.”
Before Alora could think of a reply, because she didn't really know what, a muffled shuffling sounded from somewhere up above. She tipped her face to the ceiling. “Is something up there?”
“Something?”
“Someone?”
Alora focused on Bash, to his smile—curling with something like satisfaction, a wicked gleam in his eyes.
“I’ve no idea.”