Divine's Emporium

by Michelle L. Levigne

  Troy didn't look around, but staggered through the room, heading for the stairs. Maurice debated following him first or reporting to Angela. A moment later he slapped his forehead--she needed time to get home. Better to have her on her way before something bad happened.

  "Pager, pager, pager," Maurice muttered, searching the counter. He was positive he had seen it before he made dinner. "There you are!" He pounced on it, slamming the power button with both hands. He looked at the readout screen. "Okay, how the heck do I tell Angela what's going on?"

  * * * *

  Diane had left her winter coat at Divine's. She had been able to get by on just her sweater and a light jacket, but the forecast was for another freak snowfall tonight. She knew she would regret it in the morning if she didn't get her coat tonight. Would she always suffer from personal irresponsibility, thanks to a pampered childhood?

  "Talk about being useless and helpless," she muttered, as she unlocked the back door of Divine's Emporium. Inside, the smells of scented candles, chocolate, dusty old books and penny candy surrounded her. The crackling tension that had been building up in her all evening oozed away and she smiled.

  A thud came from the attic. She ignored it. Divine's always made strange noises. She reached for her coat, hanging on the eagle-headed hook. Just then she heard a man swear in the attic.

  Angela had said she was going out tonight, so that meant the shop wasn't open and that definitely wasn't a customer in the attic. Diane grabbed the black rubber-encased flashlight-cum-nightstick and started up the steps. What use were all those kickboxing and gymnastic lessons at Eden II if she didn't use them to defend her friends and their property?

  Divine's Emporium and Neighborlee were more home to her than the family mansion. The friends she had made in this sleepy college town meant more to her than her snooty relatives; most of whom hadn't spoken to her in eight years. Angela was mother figure, playmate and employer, even if Diane didn't need the money she earned as a part-time clerk.

  She knew where to put her feet so three flights of switchback stairs didn't creak and betray her. Outside the attic door she paused to catch her breath and plan her attack. She hefted the flashlight and imagined swinging it like a Major League slugger getting a grand slam. Biting her lip, she silently scolded herself to either get a grip or slide downstairs and call the police.

  Diane paused with her hand on the doorknob. Angela had asked her never to go into the attic. Priceless antiques were stored here, mostly books obtained for special customers. Even more reason to get the intruder out. She took a deep breath, turned the doorknob, and pushed the door open.

  The lights were on, the shades down. Troy Richards, her hero and hopeless heartthrob, stood by the floor-to-ceiling shelves in the corner.

  "What are you doing here?" She lowered the flashlight.

  Troy tucked the ragged, leather-covered book under his arm like a football and dove at her as if going for a touchdown.

  Diane squawked and flattened herself against the wall. Instead of making like a batter, she stuck her foot out.

  Troy's foot caught on it. He let out a yelp and pitched headfirst out the door. He curled himself around the book and protected his head with his arms. He turned a partial somersault and uncurled when his back hit the newel post, before she could get through the door with the flashlight in her upraised hand. He staggered to his feet and stumbled backwards against the door of the next storage room. It opened and he fell through.

  Angela stored paintings and vintage clothing in that room. "Don't go in there!" She charged after him.

  Silence met her when she slammed up against the doorframe. Diane peered into the gloom and heard cloth rustling off to the right. For a second, she thought she heard a high-pitched voice shrieking at her, and flickering lights seemed to swarm in front of her eyes. She waved them away. She had seen and heard and sensed a lot of strange things in Divine's Emporium over the years, and half-believed when Angela spun tales of other beings and worlds. However, now was not the time to wish for faeries to show up and save the day. She was here, so it was up to her to defend her friend's home and business.

  The stairway lights shone behind her, putting her at a disadvantage. Time to level the playing field. She reached inside the room to the right of the doorway and hit the light switch.

  Troy stepped out from behind a stack of crates that created a wall in the middle of the room, where paintings leaned against it on both sides. He covered his eyes with one hand, while still clutching that ragged old book to his chest. "Don't you know better than to come here after dark?" he snarled.

  "I work here. You're the crook!" Diane lunged at him.

  Troy's shoulders hit the frame of an enormous landscape painting, full of bloody sunsets, cliffs and waterfalls. He twisted and heaved her over his head.

  Diane shrieked, imagining her shoulder going into that painting and breaking the antique canvas.

  Nothing happened. Or rather, nothing stopped her. She kept turning. Her knees hit the frame. Her head went down. For an eternal heartbeat, she hung over the landscape, but now it swam before her eyes, turned to three dimensions, and she could smell the grass and water and the mineral tang of bare stone, warmed by the sun.

  The frame shifted under her legs and she fell, headfirst, down toward those cliffs and the water and the grass.

  Diane shrieked.

  * * * *

  "Diane!" Maurice stared, aghast, as Diane became part of the painting, her arms and legs spread in helpless, twisting flight. She hung there, wide-eyed in shock.

  For a moment he had the distinct impression she could see him. "Here, grab my hand!" He lunged at the painting, intending to go through it and help her--but he bounced off the canvas and banged against the opposite wall.

  Now was not the time for the rules governing his exile to snap into effect. He wasn't trying to escape. He was trying to help Diane. Didn't that count for anything?

  Troy groaned as he twisted around to get back onto his feet. He braced himself against the frame of the painting. His mouth dropped open when he saw Diane in the painting, inches from his nose.

  "You scum-sucking dog!" Maurice launched himself at Troy, gathering up all the magic he could summon. He hit Troy's shoulder and the inimical magic flared. This time Maurice could see the source, outlined against the flash, like an x-ray--a talisman tucked into Troy's jeans pocket. He smelled the burned-hair stink of the smoke from his wings as he slammed backwards against the wall.

  For a long moment he couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

  Then he hit the frame of a painting on the floor below him. He could only stare as Troy tumbled headfirst into the painting that held Diane. There was a flash as the painting's magic battled with the talisman in Troy's pocket. Then the intruder magic was swallowed up and so was Troy, sucked into the painting.

  "I am so dead," Maurice moaned. The smart thing was to go downstairs and page Angela again. Unfortunately, smart had no influence over the fact that he felt like he had broken every bone in his body and whatever passed for bones in his wings. He barely had the energy to breathe, let alone move.

  * * * *

  Diane waved her arms, a futile effort to fly. She took a breath to shriek again, and something big and warm and heavy slammed into her from behind, sending her tumbling toes over nose through the air. It grabbed her.

  "Get off me!" she snarled, even before she twisted around enough to see Troy, wide-eyed and his mouth a silent 'O' of terrified astonishment.

  Then the trees snatched them out of mid-air. For three heart-stopping seconds, Diane clung to Troy, and he held her arms tight enough to threaten her bones as the trees played a crazy game of catch. Or maybe it was keep-away? Were they playing against the ground, or were the trees and ground playing against the sky?

  Diane closed her eyes as branches and leaves slapped at her face and the ground spun around her and Troy wrapped his arms and legs around her.

  Then the ground won t
he game, hitting her first and bouncing her up against Troy. They wrestled without even trying as the ground bounced them up and down. Diane felt the hard flatness of the stolen book pressed between her ribs and Troy's, but she didn't dare let go of him long enough to try to take it back. Grass rustled and branches snapped and Diane prayed those popping and snapping and rattling sounds weren't her bones.

  With a jolt, they came to a stop. Diane lay atop him, her nose pressed into Troy's washboard chest. His Cleveland Browns sweatshirt and scuffed brown leather jacket smelled faintly of English Leather Lime. She took one more deep breath, then scrambled backwards, and landed on her rear and kept going, for a few more steps. She stared at the forest in front of her. She turned to look back at the stair-step cliffs she and Troy had tumbled down. They couldn't have fallen that far could they? Not without some serious damage.

  Troy groaned and sat up. The first thing he did was check the book, which stuck out from his partially unzipped leather jacket. He tipped his head back to study the landscape behind and before them. "Baby, we aren't in Kansas anymore."

  "What happened?"

  "You work at Divine's and you don't know what that place can do?"

  "I stay downstairs," she snarled.

  He met her glare with a roll of the eyes and a lopsided grin.

  They sat in silence until she gave in with a sigh, and crossed her legs to get comfortable in case it was a long story. "What about Divine's?"

  "It's...bigger inside than it is outside. Magic isn't the right word. Quantum physics?" He shrugged. "I was warned not to touch anything. Like Aladdin in the treasure cave, y'know? Get what you're sent for and get out. As fast as you can."

  "So you're telling me you didn't steal that book for yourself? Somebody sent you?" The relief she felt was overwhelming.

  Troy Richards was the proverbial self-made man. He had developed four patented processes for handling hazardous material and he served on the board of a non-profit that reclaimed wilderness and protected endangered species. He was a hero in Neighborlee, even though he lived just over the border in Darbyville. The thought of him as a thief made her ill. Then again, comparing her dilettante's existence to his worthwhile life made her ill.

  He lowered the book to rest on his lap. His lip curled as if he tasted something foul. "I only know I have to get this book, or Meggie's life is ruined."

  "Meggie?"

  "My kid sister."

  "What'd she do?"

  "Nothing!" His glare devolved to weariness. "I'm a pain in the butt for some big-time industrial polluters. She got framed for a bunch of bad things she didn't do, but these people have the power--in more ways than one--to make lies appear to be truth. They have evidence I can't fight. They told me if I got this book, they'd give me the evidence and will leave us both alone. And Meggie won't end up in Juvenile Hall until she's twenty-one."

  "Why didn't you go to the police? You have the kind of reputation that they'd have to believe you, despite whatever the manufactured evidence is. Or they'd at least help you get evidence against these guys,"

  "Do you believe in magic?"

  Diane was about to say no, of course not. And then she looked around at the totally unbelievable place where they had landed. Just fifteen minutes ago, if her sense of time was still accurate, she had been climbing the stairs to the attic to face down an intruder.

  She had always believed there was more to Divine's Emporium than what she saw on the surface. The sensation that anything might happen, that Angela could do things and knew things that ordinary Humans couldn't, just made the sense of wonder and adventure stronger.

  Time to face reality, to shrug off the blinders of being an adult.

  "I guess I have to."

  "Well, these guys blackmailing Meggie and me, they have magic. And there's magic wrapped around Divine's, and it doesn't like the blackmailers' magic. They can't get in, so they sent me." Troy shuddered. "They demonstrated their magic. It's...not like they show you in the movies. Let's just leave it at that, okay?"

  "Okay." Her stomach twisted with nausea at the momentary bleakness in his eyes. "Really strong, nasty magic, but they can't stand up to Angela's. That makes sense, I guess. So they made you come steal something, because you can go where they can't. And if you fought them, tried to get the police on them... Even if you could refute the evidence against your sister, they'd still have the magic to do nasty things to punish you?"

  "That's the simple way of putting it." He rubbed at his face. With a deep breath, he squared his shoulders, and looked around. He pointed to a glimmer of light at the top of the cliffs. "Is that the painting frame up there?"

  "Like a window into our world," Diane murmured.

  "We are taking this way too calmly."

  "I panic after the dust settles." She offered him a grin. Something fluttered in her chest when he grinned back. "I guess we both read the right books when we were kids."

  "Aslan isn't safe, but he's good." Troy nodded and stood up. He tucked the book inside his jacket. "The only way we'll get home is to climb. You coming?"

  She stood, surprised to find she could move easily despite all the banging she'd taken. Somehow her catch-all purse had landed with her. She hooked the strap over her chest like a bandolier and followed him. That glimmer of light above them had to be the painting frame, or she was sunk.

  The first fifty yards or so were relatively easy to climb. Then the steps got higher, and she had to use her arms to get up to the next level. Troy reached down and took her hand. A buzz, like she'd touched a live wire, raced through her.

  "So, what do these creeps say your sister did?" She wanted to re-direct her thoughts before she got into trouble.

  "You know that raid at Slamming Joe's in the Flats?"

  "They said she was there?" Diane shuddered. If only half the stories were true, high school girls had been drugged and 'sold' for a night of really kinky sport. "They say she went along willingly with all that dirt going on? I bet they have pictures suitable for framing."

  "Worse. They have proof she lured the girls there. Date-stamped photos, audio tapes, the works." Troy glared at the slope ahead.

  "She wasn't there, but you can't prove it?"

  "She was with me, getting evidence against Royal Deutsch Allegiance. If I show my evidence that she was with me that night, then I destroy months of work by the Feds. I can protect my kid sister, but doing so will warn some major polluters who export illegal firearms. They'll be able to shut down their operations before all the evidence is gathered and charges are filed. Or, I can keep quiet until the Feds wrap up the case. I don't produce the evidence to prove Meggie is innocent, and I let her go to prison. I don't like either choice. I'd rather risk my neck, facing down magic that I didn't even know existed until a week ago, and protect Meggie and the Feds' case."

  "What would Meggie say?" Diane thought of her own sister. Alexandra would immediately put her own safety first, no matter who suffered. Somehow, she was sure Meggie Richards, whom she had never met, would sacrifice herself for the greater good. With a brother like Troy, how could she be any other way?

  "I didn't tell her about the blackmail."

  "So she doesn't have a chance to tell you to sacrifice her?" She smiled when he had the grace to color and look away.

  Stop! She mentally slapped herself. Troy Richards was Mr. Wonderful, but she had no business falling for him. Once they got back to Divine's--and she got that book back--they would never see each other again. He saved the world and she was a perpetual student. They didn't run in the same circles. This trip through the picture frame was all the adventure she could handle.

  How long would it take until it was over, anyway? Then she got a new thought. Diane stopped and stared at her wristwatch. "Oh, heck."

  "What's wrong?" Troy grabbed her arm. "Are you hurt?"

  "How long have we been climbing?"

  "Maybe half an hour."

  "My watch hasn't changed." The glowing blue LCD numbers still read eight twenty
-five. The colon pulsed, but when Diane silently counted to sixty, then another sixty, then another, the numbers didn't change. "Magic?" she whispered.

  "What I could do with some magic of my own," Troy muttered.

  "To deal with the blackmailers." Her heart gave a funny little leap when she knew she had guessed his thoughts.

  Troy shrugged and tipped his head back to look up toward their goal. The tiny blot of light from Divine's seemed just as far away.

  After a moment, they continued upward.

  "Why do they want the book?" she said, after they'd put another hundred yards behind them. "Is it magic?"

  "Heck if I know. There are no words in it."

  "How do you know you got the right one?"

  "They sent me drawings, symbols and signs to look for."

  "Why did they pick you, in particular? I mean, couldn't they have just grabbed anyone off the street and magicked them to come in and try to steal? Why you, in particular?"

  "All I know of magic is what I've seen in movies." His chuckle warmed her. "But I've been doing a lot of heavy-duty thinking since those creeps contacted me. If there's magic, then there are rules. Angela has protective magic. This was upstairs in a room I couldn't even find until the coin they gave me showed me how to find it. Maybe the book can only be taken by someone who really wants to find it, but doesn't want it for himself."

  "Or who wants it for a good purpose, instead of a selfish one." She offered a smile when Troy glanced at her. "Protecting your sister is a good reason."

  "Looks rough up ahead." He hooked his arm through hers.

  Diane stumbled, her knees turned to mush by his touch. She knew Troy wasn't being nice to her in particular, that was just his way. He would help anyone who needed it. Even her, the runaway misfit of a rich, powerful, cold family. Maybe his easy trust in her showed just how great a guy he was. After all, their current situation was mostly her fault. If she hadn't tackled him, they wouldn't have fallen into the picture.

  She turned her mind to Troy's problem to block out the funny things his touch did to her skin, her breath, her pulse. She divided her attention between climbing and gnawing at Troy's situation, applying all the sleuthing acumen she had gained in hundreds of hours reading Grafton, Peters, Robb, and Christie. Not that she had much faith in her ability. She couldn't solve her own personal my-purpose-in-life problem, so how could she help him with something that was probably far more serious?