Enchantment Emporium

If you’re reading this, Alysha Catherine, I’m dead. Don’t make a fuss—it’s a state we all come to in the end. Except possibly for Jane who may be too mean to die. Now that it’s happened, I need you to do me a favor. I have a small business in Calgary that’s become crucial to the local community, and I want you to take it over. There’s an apartment upstairs. I’ve left the keys with Kenny in the coffee shop next door. He’ll hand them over when you settle my tab. Don’t dawdle.

“She lies.” Auntie Jane unplugged the kettle and filled the old brown teapot with boiling water. “She’s always lied when it suited her.”

When warm fingers closed around hers and squeezed gently, Allie turned her attention back to her mother—whose expression seemed caught halfway between comforting and exasperated. “If she was dead, sweetie, the aunties would know.”

“But she didn’t make it home this weekend.” If she could have come home, she would have. Allie knew that. They all knew that. Rituals brought the wild ones home, even if they never stayed.

“We’re not saying she isn’t up to something,” Auntie Jane pointed out, setting the teapot on the table. “We’re just saying she isn’t dead.”

“Who isn’t dead?” Auntie Ruby asked, shuffling into the kitchen and lowering herself carefully into one of the chairs.

“Catherine.”

“Has she been buried?”

“Of course not, you old fool.”

“Then what difference does it make? Pour my tea now, Jane dear. Off the top. You know I can’t drink it when it turns to tar.”

“Hey, Allie-cat! What’s new?” Michael sounded just like he always did—happy to hear from her.

She clutched the phone a little tighter and concentrated on breathing. Her reaction was always more intense when she hadn’t spoken to him for a few days.

“It’s like the little mermaid,” she’d told Charlie once, lying curled on her bed and emphatically not listening to Michael and his date through the suddenly too thin walls of their student apartment. “Only instead of walking on razor blades, it’s like they’re filling my chest.”

“She gave up her tail for feet.” On the other end of the phone, Charlie sounded merely curious. “What did you give up?”

“Michael.”

“You didn’t so much give him up as you never had him and, if you’ll recall, no one forced you to share an apartment with him.”

“He’s my best friend. I love living with him.”

“Have I told you lately that you’re an idiot?”

“Allie?”

“Sorry. Got distracted.” She never let it show in her voice; that wouldn’t be fair to him. And his stupid perfect relationship. “It seems Gran’s left me a business in Calgary.”

“Left you? What do you mean, left you? She died?” He knew the family well enough to delay his reaction, but Allie could hear shock and grief waiting to emerge. Michael adored Gran, and she felt the same way about him. Of course, everyone felt the same way about him.

“The aunties don’t think so.”

His relief was palpable. “The aunties are usually right.”

She felt almost sorry for those few seconds he’d believed the worst. Almost. She’d had to live through them, too. “Suck up.”

“Hey, sucking up gets me pie. Auntie Jane has mad skills with blueberries.” Memory provided a perfect shot of dimples flashing as he leaned back and stretched out long legs. “So, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. They want me to go out there and figure out what she’s up to.”

“Calgary’s a lot closer to Vancouver. Makes it easier for us to see each other.”

She’d thought of that. “So I should go all the way out to Calgary just on the chance I’d see you more often?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Oh, crap. Allie, I’ve got to go. I’ve got an outside elevation I have to finish before the client arrives, and he just walked in.”

“You’re still at work?”

“You can rearrange the world for your convenience, and you can’t remember a three-hour time difference?”

“I can’t rearrange the whole world.”

“So you say. Let me know what you decide. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” But she was talking to a dial tone.

“What did Michael say?”

“How do you know I called Michael first?”

On the other end of the phone, Charlie made a rude noise. “You always call Michael first, Allie.”