Enchantment Emporium полностью

Returning to the store after taking the dishes upstairs, she paused by the back door and peered out into the courtyard, frowning slightly at the path beaten into the scruffy grass. “Joe, what’s on the other side of the courtyard?”

“Garage.”

“Gran had a car?”

“How would I know?”

Given that Gran had a garage, Allie figured it only made sense to see what she had in it. Or if she’d been left in it, tucked under a bench of half-empty paint cans and covered in an oily tarp.

All alone in Calgary, Gran hadn’t used the open earth for even basic ritual. Yet, given that the only windows overlooking the courtyard were from her own apartment, Allie didn’t see why she couldn’t. Except that she was also alone in Calgary. She poked at trio of scraggly bushes as she passed, wondering if Gran had used them to access the Wood. Even if she hadn’t, Charlie could and would probably appreciate having an entrance right outside their back door.

“You sound like you’re thinking of staying,” she muttered, searching the ring for the key to the padlock on the garage door. “Get a grip.”

Up on the roof, a trio of pigeons made noises that sounded like agreement.

Gran’s body had not been left under the bench of half-empty paint cans.

And she very definitely had a car.

A 1976, lime-green, convertible Super Beetle, restored to mint condition. It was a car that blended into traffic with all the subtlety Allie had come to expect of her grandmother. The registration and insurance were in the glove box and the name on the ownership remained Catherine Amanda Gale.

“Translation,” Allie told the silence as she carefully closed the door and went around to the front of the car. “It’s not mine. There’s a key so I can drive it, but I’m not to be surprised if she shows up to reclaim it.”

Even given the half dozen charms she could see without actually searching, it didn’t seem like a particularly practical car for a Calgary winter—or occasionally a Calgary July, Allie amended, if the stories she’d heard were true.

That put a check in the Gran’s just buggered off column.

Unless she’d been ripped to pieces and stuffed into the trunk when she came out to change the ownership.

Allie paused, fingers around the high, chromed trunk handle, thumb on the release.

Unlikely. But possible.

The chrome warmed under her grip. It was the potential for pieces that stopped her cold, exposing a previously unsuspected squeamishness.

“On three.” Deep breath. “One, two… three.”

The trunk contained a leather glove, a collapsible shovel, and a bag of kitty litter.

Against one end wall of the garage, a flight of stairs rose up to a small landing and an unlocked door that led into a second-floor loft. Bales of insulation, some two by fours, and a stack of drywall had been left in the middle of the floor and, at the far end, plumbing had been roughed in for a small bathroom and a kitchen sink. Someone had clearly started to turn the space into a studio apartment. Given the housing crunch in the province, that wasn’t a bad idea. Gran as a landlord, however, slid significantly past bad idea into moving to Vancouver so as not to freeze to death while sleeping under a bridge is a much better idea territory.

Heading back to the store, Allie paused in front of the mirror to make sure she’d got all the cobwebs out of her hair and found herself actually looking at her reflection.

Fully clothed.

Standing in the back hall.

Weird.

Joe was putting one of the ledgers away when she reached the counter. He glanced up at her and grinned, obviously pleased with himself. “I sold a yoyo while you were gone. One of the glow-in-the-dark ones.”

The sidewalk outside the store was empty although traffic had begun to pick up as evening rush hour approached.

Joe turned to see what she was looking at and shrugged. “They’re gone now.”

“They?”

“Yeah, couple of kids.” He grinned. “Customers.”

“I knew we had to have them.”

Pale cheeks flushed at being included. “I thought about what you said. About a job.”

“And?” He needed it. She needed him. But he wasn’t family, and besides, she didn’t think she could force the issue on one of the Fey no matter how Human he wanted to be.

“And okay, I’ll work here. Flexible hours, though.” He might have thought he sounded tough, but the fine veneer of bravado barely covered an emotion too complex to be merely called relief. “I’ll come in first thing tomorrow, but I have to go now. I have to get…” He couldn’t say home. It was the next word, Allie could almost hear it, but he couldn’t say it. “You should maybe think about closing early,” he added as she pulled three twenties out of the cashbox and handed them over. “There’s a storm coming.”

Allie took another look out the window. What little she could see of the sky was clear.