Chapter 5
“Oh no,” Sabrina cried out. “What happened? Did I do that? I only touched the bird’s tail!” The smoke increased and picked up speed, pouring out of the music box like nothing she’d ever seen. She glanced at Gideon, who looked positively horrified. “Can you stop it?”
She could not afford to pay for something like this. It would ruin her. She’d have to sell her car, but even that wouldn’t amount to ten grand.
Gideon was still staring at the music box and hadn’t said a thing. Actually, he was staring past the music box.
“Do something,” she urged. “Please.”
“I don’t think we need to.” He tipped his head at something beyond the music box.
She turned to look. The smoke had coalesced into a form. It was mostly human. Except it had wings, and while it looked adult, it was closer to the size of a Barbie doll than a grown person.
“What is that?” Sabrina breathed out.
“I have no idea,” Gideon answered.
She went to stand beside him. She briefly considered grabbing his hand, but he already didn’t seem to like her much.
The form absorbed the smoke. Then the form waved at them. “Hello there, you beautiful humans! It is so good to be out of that box.”
The form was male, and he was floating, no, hovering in the air, his iridescent gossamer wings vibrating with movement.
He did a quick twirl, lifting higher off the ground, then came back to his original position.
His clothing was a ragged pair of short pants and an equally ragged linen shirt.
His hair was shaggy and dark, but his face was as unlined as a teenager.
“Are you a …” Sabrina didn’t think he was a genie. “What are you? A fairy?”
“You might say I’m a minor fae. I’m a sprite,” the creature answered. He stretched his arms over his head. “Wow, it’s good to be able to move again without bumping into walls.”
Amelia’s words suddenly came back to Sabrina, and this time, they made sense. She muttered them under her breath. “Don’t touch the magic in the box.”
“What?” Gideon looked at her.
Her heart was thumping, and her stomach was in knots.
“The owner of the box. She told me not to touch the magic in it. I didn’t know what she meant, but I do now.
” She put her hand on her throat. “This is not good. This is pretty much the opposite of good.” A tiny whimper escaped her, but she was powerless to stop it.
Gideon shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh as he took a step forward. “Listen, sprite, we need you to get back in the box.”
Sabrina nodded. “Yes, please.”
The sprite laughed. “Oh, heck no. I haven’t been out of that thing in …” He glanced around, spotted a calendar on the wall, and pointed at it. “Is that thing right?”
“Yes,” Gideon answered sharply.
The sprite counted something out on his fingers, then whistled. “It’s been nearly eighty-five years.”
“That’s a long time,” Sabrina said.
“You can say that again.” The sprite laughed and did a twirl.
At least he was good-natured.
He flew over to the calendar, clearly no longer interested in the music box.
This was going to be a problem. If Sabrina or Gideon couldn’t get him back into the box, Amelia wasn’t going to be happy. Sabrina might still end up paying for it, and a magical music box was undoubtedly worth a lot more than one that wasn’t. And this was already a rare antique.
She was done for unless she could get him back in that box.
Maybe she could befriend him and get on his good side. “I’m Sabrina, by the way. And this is Gideon. We’re going to repair the music box and make it beautiful again. And Gideon’s going to fix the little bird so it sings and moves.”
That got the sprite’s attention. He frowned at the music box. “That would be nice. I miss Twilly’s song.”
“Twilly is the bird’s name? What’s yours?” she asked.
“Korrin,” he told her. “Korrin Spindlequill. Where am I?”
“In a shop called The Clockwork Owl. In a town called Shadowvale.”
Korrin’s brows lifted. “Is it a good town? With nice people? Things to see? Things to do? Music to listen to? I love music. What about animals? Is there actually an owl here?” He looked around. “I like animals very much. And plants. Flowers, trees, all sorts of—”
“Yes, all of that,” Gideon said. “There’s even an enchanted forest. Would you go back into the box now?”
Korrin laughed. “Oh no, no, no. I want to see the town and listen to music and talk to people and pet some animals and—”
“Korrin?” Sabrina took a few steps toward him.
“Here’s the thing. We were not supposed to let you out of that box.
And now that you are, I’m going to get into a lot of trouble.
Trouble that I can’t afford. If we—actually, I should do it because Gideon was only helping me out—anyway, if I take you into town and show you around, will you please go back into the box then? ”
Korrin seemed to consider that. “Maybe. But it has to be both of you. I’m tired of being alone. And we have to do everything on my list. And there can’t be any tricks. If there are any tricks, I’ll get very angry.”
“No tricks,” Sabrina said quickly. Then she held out her hand. “Give me your list, and I’ll tell you what’s possible and what’s not. I can’t blindly agree to do everything when I don’t know what everything is.”
Korrin frowned. “It’s in my head. I’ve been making it for eighty-five years.”
She glanced at Gideon. “Can you give him pen and paper so he can write it out?”
“Yeah, sure.” He rushed to a drawer and got a notebook and a pen, then brought them back to the worktable and set them next to the music box. “There you go.”
Korrin eyed them suspiciously, then flew over and picked up the pen. Magic shimmered in the air, and the pen shrunk in his grip to something more his size. “You’re really going to do this?”
“Of course,” Sabrina said. “Then you’re going to go back into the box, right? You promise?”
He came to rest on the worktable. “If you fulfill all of the things on my list, then yes, I will return to the box.” His smile was smug as he stuck out his hand.
She shook her head. “As much as I want to shake your hand, I can’t agree to anything until I see that list. You might ask for something we can’t make happen. Write the list and we’ll look at it.”
He frowned. “It might take me all night. It’s a long list.”
Gideon growled. “This is a game, isn’t it? You don’t mean to go back in that box at all, do you?”
“I will,” Korrin said. “But I want to live a little first. No telling how long I’ll be stuck in there again.”
Sabrina put her hand on Gideon’s arm. “Let him write up his list so we can have a look at it. Then we can negotiate some more.”
Gideon seemed unable to look away from where she was touching him, then managed to make eye contact. “What, uh, what about the music box?”
“It still needs to be fixed and refurbished.” She glanced at it. “Can you take the mechanics out so that I can work on painting and gilding the box itself?”
“I should be able to. I need to have a better look at it.” His gaze shifted to the worktable where Korrin was now standing over the notebook, staring at it.
“Okay,” Sabrina said, motioning toward the music box. “Do it.”
Gideon moved toward the table, his expression pained. After a few minutes of inspection, he collected a few tools, a tiny screwdriver being one of them.
He worked in silence. Korrin was busy writing. Sabrina had nothing to do but stand and wait. She wanted to see what Korrin was putting down but didn’t want to risk upsetting him.
Gideon extracted five tiny screws, then four half-size ones, and finally, lifted the mechanics of the box out. “There.” He set it aside. “I’ll take it apart tomorrow and see what I can find.”
“Best-case scenario?” And also what she imagined would be the cheapest.
“All it needs is a good cleaning and lubricating.”
She nodded. “That would be great.”
“You realize with something this old, that’s probably not going to be what it needs.”
She sighed. “Please tell me how much this is going to cost.”
“I can’t. Not until I know what I’m dealing with. I’ll assess it in the morning. It’ll be on the top of my list.” He hesitated. “How much did you quote to repair this?”
“I didn’t. I’m supposed to be figuring that out right now.”
“Why did you say you could fix it if you can’t?”
She wasn’t about to explain her curse to him, so she went with the second most compelling truth. “Because I need the money and the job. I’m hoping it brings my shop more business.”
Maybe he hadn’t been expecting her to be honest, but the answer seemed to deflate him. “Oh.”
“Whatever you tell me, I’ll just factor it in. You’ll get paid, I promise. Just … not until I do.” She sighed. This had become so much more than she’d thought it was going to be. So much more complicated. So much more involved. Just so much more.
But then, who took on a repair job expecting one of the requirements to be fulfilling a rebellious sprite’s bucket list?