Chapter 18 #2
“Did you stumble on some kind of animal magic that we didn’t know about?
This is pretty damn cool. I could have, like, an underwater band if this is a new thing you’re doing.
Live my Little Mermaid dreams.” Rose does her best Ariel impression, and Posey gives me a long-suffering look only siblings cursed with a musical prodigy sister could understand.
One of the octopus slides its tentacle over Rose’s ankle and she goes still, her eyes huge, and I know the cephalopod is talking to her the same way it spoke to me in my mind.
“Yeah, um, come on down anytime,” Rose says out loud. “I would totally do a jam sesh with an octopus. You like the drums? Guitar? Cool.”
Her attention turns back to me, her eyes slightly wild.
Posey, however, has her arms crossed and is leaning against the wall, completely bemused.
“I mean, I could use an octopus to help. Can you imagine how cool it would be to get an octopus under the hood of a car? Oh man, that would really change things.”
Oatmeal pops out of her top pocket and chatters angrily. “You don’t need any help besides me.”
“I’m not saying that you’re not great,” Posey tells her. “But an octopus would be really handy for some of those tight situations, am I right?”
The ferret nods but doesn’t look pleased with having to admit the truth.
“I don’t know that you can just hire out octopuses,” I say.
“Octopi,” Caleb corrects.
“Hey, Caleb,” Rose says. “You’re adjusting to all of this pretty well.”
Caleb snorts. “Are you kidding? This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced. Well, besides being your sister’s boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend,” Rose repeats. “Wow. When’s the wedding?”
Posey steps forward and elbows her in the ribs.
“Oof,” Rose says.
“That was rude. You can’t just ask when people are getting married, especially not Caleb and Ivy.”
“It’ll be as soon as she’ll have me,” Caleb answers smoothly.
Staggered, I just look between the three of them and the horde of octopi cleaning my store, before I throw up my hands in dismay.
“Are y’all just gonna act like I’m not here? Are we all just gonna act like this is normal?”
“None of this is normal, Ivy,” Posey says. “Matter of fact — well, except for you and Caleb being back together. That’s probably the most normal thing that’s happened to you in about fifteen years.”
“You are so unbelievably rude,” I say.
“She’s right,” Caleb tells me.
“Oh, so you’re on their side now?” I say.
“Is this our first girlfriend-boyfriend fight?” Caleb asks me.
I can’t help laughing at the light in his expression.
“I’m too tired to fight,” I finally say, deflating. “There’s so much work to do.”
I look back at Posey and Rose.
“If you guys made any progress on the ward — how’s Hazel’s ankle?”
“Okay. She’s at home icing it,” Posey answers. “She hasn’t quite figured out what the ward is, but she’s been on the phone with Grandma.”
“Oh, you guys were able to get in touch with Grandma? That’s great. I called her earlier today and it said in her message she was on some kind of tech-free artist retreat.”
“Get a load of this,” Posey says slowly, in a way that tells me she has an excellent tidbit of information.
“Apparently Grandma has a secret TikTok burner account and is so addicted to TikTok that she took her cell phone with her into her tech-free artist retreat. And Hazel knows about the secret burner account, so she was able to get a hold of Grandma through TikTok.”
I burst out laughing because this is so typical of both Grandma and Hazel.
Of course Hazel has Grandma’s secret burner account. Can’t keep a secret from that girl no matter how hard we tried growing up. She knew everybody’s business all the time.
And Grandma thinking that her secret TikTok account wasn’t part of the tech-free stipulations of the artist retreat.
Well, that’s Grandma for you. She never met a rule she didn’t want to bend or break.
“So what did Grandma say? Did she figure out how to fix the ward? Did she tell us anything? Do we have anything to go on? Is she coming back?” I ask, relief and hope coursing through me.
“Ohh,” Posey says. “When we left they were still chatting about TikTok. Knowing Hazel they probably still are. But with any luck they’ve discussed it by now.”
“We stepped out so we could figure out how bad the damage was to Rose’s music shop and to see if you needed any help over here at Sugar & Salt. Then we heard from some people that they saw you out this morning and were in here, so we thought we’d stop in on it.”
“I guess we should just be grateful you guys didn’t have your clothes off and were banging in the back room or something,” Posey says.
“Oh, get a grip,” I say, flustered and frustrated — and glad that they have something to tease me about and that it’s Caleb. Because if it were anybody else right now, I’d want to melt into the earth and dissolve.
But with Caleb? It feels fine. It feels normal.
Weird that my sisters won’t shut up about it, but I’m not embarrassed, just annoyed.
I reach a hand out and Caleb grabs it easily without even having to make eye contact with me. He just knows that I want him to hold my hand.
And it’s nice, all right.
“We were thinking about going back to the house anyway so you can get out of your shack-up clothes,” Rose teases.
I glare at her.
“Yeah, and I need a shower,” I say. “I’ve been handling water-soaked cardboard for the last three hours.”
“We’re not going to help with cleanup?” Posey asks. “There’s a lot of people down closer to the shore that looked like they had a lot worse damage and we could definitely help out.”
I run my hand through my hair as I redo my ponytail into a tight bun on top of my head.
“I do want to help everybody out, but I think the best way we can do that is by getting that ward back up and running to prevent something like this happening again tonight or tomorrow or who knows how soon.”
“Are we not gonna talk about the octopi?” Rose says.
“There’s really not much to say,” I tell her. “They were here when we got here. Apparently the kraken I met with last night sent them. They said that we need to get the ward up and running again and that they’re here to make sure we can concentrate on that.”
“Do you think you can send a few to my shop?” Rose asks.
“Send them to her shop. It’s not good,” Fig echoes, and then turns her head to preen a wing.
I slap myself on the forehead, beyond annoyed at myself that I didn’t even have the decency to ask how Rose’s shop had fared in the storm.
“How bad is it, Rose?” I ask.
“It’s really not too terrible,” she says.
“For the most part there’s just some light water damage on the floor.
I think some of the wood will have to be popped up or whatever they do to fix it.
I keep the instruments up high enough that none of them were damaged, but Posey set up a dehumidifying spell on them just in case.
Some sheet music managed to get soaked through and ruined, but nothing that can’t be replaced.
We got lucky compared to some of the other people out here. ”
“I should have asked as soon as you walked in, Rose. I’m sorry.”
“To be fair, the whole octopus army you have going on here — that vibe sort of overrode anything that I had to say. Well that and you and Caleb’s looming marital bliss.
” She grins at me while I sputter, Caleb chuckling.
“That said, I wouldn’t mind if you could send some of these critters over my way. ”
“If I knew how to direct the Octopus Army, I would.”
No sooner have I said that than several of the octopi slither out a crack in the window that I hadn’t even noticed was there. It’s no wider than the palm of my hand, and all four of us stare at them as they somehow contort themselves out the window.
“You learn something new every day,” I say.
“Octopi are really clever creatures,” Caleb says. “They can fit into all kinds of small spaces.”
We all stare at him for a beat.
He shrugs.
“What? It’s common knowledge.”
“Okay,” Posey says.
I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Let’s go check on Hazel and see if Grandma and her have come up with any kind of solution.”
“How bad do you think it’s going to get, Ivy?” Posey asks. “Caleb gave us the broad strokes last night, but we’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
I look at Rose and Posey seriously.
“I don’t know, but I don’t have a good feeling about it if we can’t get the ward back up and running as soon as possible.” I shrug.
“So pretty bad.” Posey pets Oatmeal, and the ferret leans into the affection.
“Well,” Rose says, clapping her hands together and rubbing them like an evil villain, “I’ve always loved a challenge.”
“Oh, is that why you failed precal in high school and college algebra?” Posey asks innocently.
“There was absolutely NO reason for me to have to take math at those levels for music,” Rose snaps.
“College algebra is actually something you probably need all the time for your store,” Posey says, dusting off her sleeve.
“Stop it,” I tell them. “Just because Rose can’t count to eleven without sandals on isn’t any reason to be mean to her. Come on, let’s go see what Grandma and Hazel figured out.”
“That’s a good one,” Posey tells me as Rose scowls.
Caleb, for his part, simply continues to look thoroughly amused by the three of us.
Or maybe just by me.