Chapter Two
A s I left Lalena’s, I decided that now was as good a time as any to buttonhole Ian. It was Sunday, my day off, and other than a trip to the P.O. Grocery to stock my refrigerator, the day was open.
I hadn’t said anything to Lalena, but I wondered how well she really knew Ian. He wouldn’t talk about his life before coming to Wilfred, and I wasn’t the only person who’d noticed his trick of changing the conversation when it ventured into his past.
I understood Lalena’s draw to him. When he smiled, his demeanor became almost childlike.
His eyes warmed from onyx black to tiger’s-eye brown, and friendly lines appeared.
His laughter was goofy, and he ordered glasses of milk at the tavern.
Orson, the bartender, kept a gallon of two percent at the ready for him.
I hadn’t always felt that way about Ian. His usual expression was impassive, unreadable. My magic came from books—they talked to me—and although most of the books Ian sold sang Gregorian chants and lectured on divination, a few had hissed and crackled in a way that sent prickles down my arms.
That is, if the books spoke at all. Something had been interfering with my magic lately. Instead of the books’ clear voices, their messages often came through with static. Sometimes I couldn’t even make them out. It worried me.
One thing I could do now, though, was to help Lalena.
Chances were good that if Ian was in town, he’d be at the This-N-That antiques mall.
Most of the other dealers stocked their booths after hours, but Ian kept a corner of his area free for a small desk where he filled internet orders and chatted with customers.
The bell at the This-N-That’s door chimed as I opened it. The ceiling fan rippled my hair.
“Welcome, Josie,” Thor said from his seat on the counter. He threw back the edge of the cape he habitually wore, even to elementary school.
“Where’s your eyepatch?” I asked. Despite having two working eyes, Thor wore his eyepatch everywhere.
“Buffy broke the elastic, and Grandma won’t buy me a new one.”
Thor’s younger sister Buffy popped from the other side of the counter, holding a collapsible fan in one hand and rubber bands in the other. “I’m making him another one.” A calculating look crossed her face. “It’s a warm day. Perhaps you’d like me to follow you around the store and fan you?”
“For a modest fee, of course,” I said. These kids were constantly on the prowl for money.
“Naturally. You would want to pay a poor little girl for her work, wouldn’t you?” Buffy actually batted her eyes.
“No, thank you. I’m fine. Is Ian in?”
Realizing she couldn’t turn a buck with me, Buffy retreated behind the counter. Thor picked up his comic book. “Nope.”
Ian’s stall was directly to the left of the cashier’s counter.
I was relieved to feel the books’ energy as they murmured hellos only I could hear.
I brushed fingers over a row of leather-bound spines with gold embossed titles and felt a tingle of magic rush through my palms as the books gasped and sighed.
A treatise on alchemy lectured with a German-inflected accent.
“Books,” I whispered, “where is Ian?”
Gone, dispar?, verschwunden, vanished , the books replied.
The books’ message wasn’t reassuring, but it was so good to hear their voices.
Besides the drop in my ability to siphon magical energy from books, other strange things had been happening.
Candles snuffed out by themselves. Mirrors refused to return my reflection for the span of a few blinks.
Flowers deadened in their vases overnight, and I periodically smelled wafts of sulfur.
And the crows—rivers of crows. They crowded the branches of the oak outside my bedroom window and cawed, even at night when they should be roosting.
Something—or someone—was stealing my magic, and I was unsure how to prevent it.
Rodney twisted around my ankles and rose to stand on his back legs so I could scratch his chin.
He was an honored citizen in Wilfred and let in just about everywhere except the café, which, because of county health regulations, banned animals.
That didn’t stop him from sneaking in from time to time to cadge a forkful of salmon.
“Josie, I was hoping I’d run into you. I just got back from an estate sale and have a few things that might interest you.”
Babe Hamilton stood outside Ian’s stall, holding a box.
Her stall was stocked with vintage textiles.
I’d already bought enough linen napkins to host dinner parties for twelve.
A stranger could see Babe’s style in her chic eyeglasses and simple but well-cut dresses on her comfortable frame.
I knew her taste from the amazing fabrics and old French torchon s she somehow harvested within a few hours’ drive of Wilfred.
“Let me take that box,” I said. Babe was hardly elderly—I pegged her as in her sixties, a bit older than my mother—but linens were heavy. Besides, I wanted to get first dibs on whatever the box held.
“Thank you.” Babe led the way to her lavender-scented shelves. “You can set it on the floor.”
I rested the box next to a table holding chenille bedspreads. “Have you seen Ian lately?”
She wrinkled her brow. “No, come to think of it. Not here or at home.” Babe lived in the mobile home behind Lalena’s at the Magnolia Rolling Estates. “Not for a few days.”
The This-N-That’s doorbell chimed again, and Buffy and Thor’s voices greeted the newcomer. “Hi, Wanda. Will you require our help?” Buffy asked. “We offer guided tours at a reasonable price.”
Where did Buffy get her patter? She sounded like a shopping network host, not a seven-year-old girl.
“No thanks, you little shysters. I can find my way around just fine.”
I didn’t know Wanda well, just that she was the new custodian at the retreat center and Duke’s sister. Duke, Wilfred’s jack-of-all-trades extraordinaire, was a town fixture, and all it had taken was his recommendation to secure his sister a job.
My upbeat mood faded when I saw Wanda’s face. She stepped back, as if startled. She smiled, but it was the kind of smile someone affects when the dentist asks if everything’s okay. She pointed at my feet. “I see you have a cat.”
“That’s Rodney,” I said. I looked down. Rodney had vanished. “At least, he was here a second ago.” Something in her tone of voice led me to add, “He’s friendly.”
Wanda’s smile labored on. “Is that so?”
“Have you by chance seen Ian Penclosa up by the retreat center?”
Wanda shook her head and ran a finger through scruffy, steel gray hair.
“We have a short-term visitor, a young lady, who came a few days ago. That’s it.
But about the cat. Does it run free?” Her voice was remarkably clear and loud.
Had she not gone into janitorial work, she might have had a career on the stage.
“Yes,” I said. What was she getting at? Babe shrugged and ducked back into her stall. “But like I said, he’s perfectly friendly.”
She made a sound I couldn’t quite read and backed for the door. Then she was gone. Whatever she’d come to the This-N-That for apparently could wait.
Very strange. Maybe she was allergic. I retreated to Ian’s stall to let the books soothe me with their murmurs of runes, ancient texts, and crystal balls.
Rodney reappeared and leapt to Ian’s corner desk.
He purred as I stroked his back and ran a finger up his tail.
“I think Wanda’s afraid of you, little guy. ”
Rodney flicked his tail, knocking one of Ian’s business cards from its holder, a plastic skull, to the floor. I picked it up. Ian. Where could he be?
“Buffy, Thor,” I said.
“Yes?” Thor slipped down from the counter and trotted around the corner to Ian’s stall. He now wore Buffy’s homemade eyepatch, which featured a heavily lashed eyeball crayoned on it.
“Would you like to earn some money?”
Buffy joined her brother. “How much?”
“Five big ones. Each,” I said.
Thor nodded vigorously, but Buffy replied, “Ten.”
“Seven fifty.”
Thor and Buffy looked at each other. Buffy said, “Okay. What do we have to do?”
“Find Ian and let me know where he is. I’ll be at the café for dinner at six, ready for your report.” Neither of the kids budged. “What are you waiting for?” Their grandmother Patty ran the cash register. It wasn’t as if they were needed.
“Cash, please,” Buffy said.
I took a five-dollar bill and change from my purse. “Part now, the rest later.”
“Ten-four,” Thor said, and made for the door.