Chapter 5
When Talula opened up the shop on Wednesday morning—three days after Sara set off to track down the hunters—her mysterious teacher was still a no-show.
She’d spent the in-between time chatting with Dahlia, attempting to improve her sorcery on her own (with zero results), stress cooking, and trying not to worry about her mom.
Talula sighed as she flicked on the lights in the café.
Though it was sometimes nice to have the house to herself, being alone reminded Talula of her nonexistent social life.
After spending four years at college—away from her so-called Magical Destiny—she’d felt that she needed to accomplish some magical mastery before she could devote time to friends and romance.
Now, after two years of being a certified magical dud, Talula’s scant social circle included her mom, her favorite farmers’ market vendors, and Muriel, the boss librarian who always texted when new romance novels or cookbooks came in. And nowadays, Dahlia.
A strange noise broke Talula out of her musings.
She glanced around. The noise—a scratching sound at the door—came again.
Louder. She peeked through the window and gasped.
Her visitor was a fluffy yet dignified dog.
He was one of those posh breeds that monarchs and animes liked, with a long body, short legs, and a white-and-tan coat.
Talula opened the front door. The dog trotted in, nose in the air.
“Why, come in, sir,” Talula joked with a mock bow.
The dog inspected the place with a few snobbish sniffs. Talula didn’t see a collar around his neck, but the animal seemed extremely tame. She poked her head outside. Although the Blue Moon was on the outskirts of town near the fairgrounds, people often walked their dogs on nearby forest trails.
“Did someone lose their dog?” she hollered. But Talula heard no response or panicked cries of “Here, boy!”
She turned to the dog. “Where did you come from?”
Ignoring her, the dog continued his inspection, nose poking under shelves and into nearby occult merchandise.
Talula smiled. “Wow, you’re adorable.”
At that, the dog paused, looked over his shoulder, and stared at Talula with disapproving eyes.
Talula laughed. “You don’t like being called adorable. Noted. How about I get you some water and food?”
The dog continued to stare at her. Then he resumed sniffing. Apparently, he found that acceptable.
“Don’t poop anywhere!”
She heard a distinct, doggy hrmph in response.
Talula headed through the Employees Only door to the café’s bare-bones kitchen setup in the back.
In addition to the Voltlette, the Blue Moon’s back area contained a sink, a prep table, an electric cooktop, a microwave, and a toaster oven.
Despite the minimal cooking tools, Talula did most of her recipe experiments here.
After a quick Google search (“people food that won’t kill a dog”), she pulled out a package of grass-fed ground beef from the Voltlette. She set a pan on the cooktop.
A few minutes later, the café was filled with the rich, fatty scent of browning meat. The Employees Only door creaked open—the dog had nosed through a gap in the doorway.
“Hrmph.” He waddled over to where Talula was cooking. He glared at her expectantly.
“Just a sec, you furry interloper.”
When the meat was browned, she spooned the food onto a plate, filled a bowl with water, and set it all on a red-checkered dish towel.
“Noosh-eh joon, pup! Bon appétit.”
The dog stared at Talula, then looked down at the food and water. Then again at Talula.
“I see. You’re a true gourmand.” Talula ducked into the Voltlette to pluck parsley from her herb drawer. She sprinkled it over the meat. “Ta-dah!”
The dog tipped his head back and blinked his eyes up slowly at the ceiling. Talula noticed that he had faint little black eyebrows over his piercing canine eyes.
Talula narrated her visitor’s expression: “Dog Lords above, give me patience to suffer through this pestiferous human and her abominable victuals.”
Talula responded to herself, “My victuals are not abominable, sir!”
The dog broke off his silent, exasperated prayer to squint at Talula. With a long-suffering sigh, the dog began to eat. Slowly at first, then enthusiastically.
Chuckling, Talula closed the Employees Only door behind her. She’d always wanted a dog. Or a pet. Or a familiar. Sara’s familiar, Atusa, a dignified imperial eagle, was on sabbatical at the moment, but she always came by for the holidays.
The bell above the café door chimed. Dahlia arrived, resplendent in leopard-print bell-bottoms and a sleek black turtleneck. “Multidimensional mermaid murder mystery.”
Smiling, Talula reached for the cocoa supplies. “What happened to the Wild West thing?”
“Eh, it wasn’t really speaking to me anymore.” Dahlia slid onto a counter stool, directly in front of Talula.
“You’ve got to go where the muse takes you.”
“Seems like she’s always taking me here.” Dahlia blinked up at Talula, her eyes alight. “Can’t complain.”
“You’re the Blue Moon’s official writer-in-residence,” Talula replied. Now that she knew the why behind Dahlia’s writing, Talula was more eager than ever to be her cocoa supplier/creative cheerleader. “What’s the plot?”
“It’s a work in progress.” Dahlia flung her arms around dramatically. “But it’ll have romance, murder, maybe samurais! And…a corgi?”
“I can’t wait to hear their names,” Talula joked as she whisked.
“No, I mean there’s a corgi here.” Dahlia pointed to Talula’s left. Sure enough, the dog—a corgi, apparently—had emerged from the back room, scrutinizing the young women. There was a bit of parsley stuck in one of his indignant eyebrows. Dahlia scooted off her chair and knelt in front of the dog.
“Meet our new hire.” Talula kept her face deadpan. “He’s the bouncer for our secret underground rabbit sex café.”
Dahlia tipped back her head and let loose a cascading laugh that reverberated through the café. Half of her face was one big, gorgeous grin, her freckled cheeks scrunched up around her eyes. Talula’s heart somersaulted in her chest. The dog, however, was more alarmed than amused.
“You’re spectacular.” Dahlia chuckled. (Talula couldn’t tell if Dahlia was referring to her or the dog. She didn’t dare clarify.) Dahlia put out a hand for the dog to sniff. The dog gave her an offended look. “Where’d he come from?”
“No idea.” Talula placed the finished cocoa on the countertop. “He just showed up this morning, and I fed him some ground beef.”
“What’s this green stuff in his eyebrows?” Dahlia pointed to a leafy bit in the dog’s fur.
“Garnish,” Talula replied abashedly.
Dahlia gave another marvelous laugh. For a moment, Talula thought about going home and downloading the moment off the café’s magically protected security camera, just so she could have undeniable proof that she’d been responsible for that laugh twice in the same morning.
“You’re a lucky dog, aren’t you, Max?” Dahlia cooed. “Or Walter? Or Biscuit? God, I want to pet you so much.”
The dog walked to the middle of the café, then lay down on a sunlit patch of rug, his snout on his paws, back legs splayed out. “Hrmph.”
“Understood, Untitled Dog. We do not have permission to pet you.” Dahlia put her hands up in mock surrender. She turned to Talula. “Do you have any stuff for him? Leashes? Kibble?”
“Nothing.”
“My parents used to foster shelter dogs,” Dahlia said, getting to her feet. “There’s probably some supplies in the garage. I’ll be right back. Take pics if he does something cute!”
Talula crossed her heart dramatically. “I will!”
Dahlia gave her a thumbs-up, then rushed out, sending the entry bell into a frenzy.
The dog—still splayed out on the rug—rolled his eyes back to give Talula a weighty look.
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,” Talula muttered, tidying her cocoa-making implements. “You’re pretty judgy for a freeloading dog.”
“Hrmph,” said the freeloader.
Talula grinned. Despite his attitude and lack of friendliness, she couldn’t help but like this dog. He had a very high opinion of himself and wasn’t afraid to show it. Talula respected that.
“I’m going to call you Simon,” Talula said in a Dahlia-like declaration.
The Untitled Dog—who was, at least for now, Simon—did not express an opinion.
She started to Google “ways to make a dog like you” when the café bell chimed.
A breathless man in a brown uniform poked his head in. He was hauling a large old-fashioned travel trunk on a dolly. “I have a delivery?”
“I can sign for it.” Talula leapt up.
With a grunt, the delivery man carefully offloaded the trunk on the occult side of the café. It made a dense thunk as it landed. He handed Talula a clipboard and a pen. She glanced at the clipboard. “No return address?”
He shook his head, and Talula scribbled a signature.
When he’d left the café, she approached the trunk cautiously.
It was held shut by a large bronze padlock.
Even more intriguing, words from an ancient language had been carved into the metal.
Talula recognized the script from one of her mother’s oldest books…
though she felt as if she’d seen the text more recently.
Much more recently. She studied the words.
“Ancient Aramaic? Sort of?” Talula wondered out loud. She turned to glance at the dog. “Simon, do you know anything about this?”