Divine's Emporium

by Michelle L. Levigne

  But she wanted to help him. He had been her hero since she moved to Neighborlee, when she had never hoped to meet him. He did something that mattered in the world.

  Someone wanted to stop him from doing something good.

  "They know you can blow them out of the water," she said.

  "What?"

  "The blackmailers know you were getting proof against Allegiance that particular night. Why else would they choose that specific date for their blackmail against Meggie? Maybe they were hoping you would speak up and ruin things and reveal what you were doing that specific night, especially if you couldn't get into Divine's and take the book. This is the only way they can stop you. Maybe they were counting on whatever protects Divine's to stop you or destroy you or whatever." She shuddered. "I always wondered why nobody ever steals from Angela."

  "Easy to get in, but not get out?" Troy's expression didn't change, but she noticed he'd clenched his fists.

  "My fault. I shouldn't have tackled you like that."

  He offered a lopsided smile that tugged at her heart. "You ever play football with your brothers?"

  "They prefer cutthroat sports. Like swallowing up the competition." She shivered as a detail she had been trying to ignore leaped to the front of her thoughts.

  Several of her relatives held the reins for Allegiance. Had they given the order to stop Troy Richards? She still heard from some of those relatives at Christmas, her birthday, and when something drastic happened to the stock market or they wanted her to vote on a particular issue during stockholder meetings.

  What could she do to influence her relatives, to try to help Troy?

  More important: What would Troy do or say if he found out her relatives had threatened his sister?

  Diane nearly stumbled again when she realized where her thoughts were leading. Falling through an enchanted picture together wasn't exactly a recommendation for friendship. But she thought she knew Troy Richards well enough, just by reputation, to want to be good friends with him and have him think well of her.

  She wanted to help him. If she could. She was tired of being useless and helpless. She wanted to work with Troy, but if he knew who her relatives were, would he allow her?

  Sunset caught up with them on a long plateau filled with fruit trees. She knew she and Troy hadn't bumped and bounced through these trees on their way down.

  Maybe the landscape changed without notice.

  Moss and ferns near the stream made comfortable beds that smelled heavenly. The water was clean and sweet and they had apples and peaches they had gathered along the way for dinner, along with two cereal bars she found in her purse.

  Troy made her laugh as he praised her for being prepared for their hike. "What I wouldn't give for a lighter," he muttered through a mouthful of fruit, as darkness enclosed them.

  "Lighter?"

  "For a fire."

  "It's plenty warm without it."

  "And if there are any nasties out there, we don't want to draw them to us." He sighed and the ferns rustled as he lay down in his fragrant pile of bedding. "I'd like to cook those fish I saw in the stream. But a fire would be useless, I guess, since I don't know the first thing about fishing."

  Diane thought about that until she fell asleep, and then while they continued walking up the stair of plateaus the next morning. When they weren't talking about books and movies and sports teams, they speculated together about what people would think or do when they discovered Troy and Diane had vanished. Or if anyone would even realize they had vanished. If their watches had stopped, then maybe no time at all was passing back in the world outside the painting.

  But what if they never got out of the painting? What did that mean for the real world?

  When they stopped to rest and eat some of the apples Troy carried in his coat pockets, Diane dug in her purse for the pocketknife that had slid into the lining through a hole in the zipper pocket. With it she cut branches off a nearby tree, and sharpened the tips.

  "That purse is like Mary Poppins' carpetbag," Troy said with another chuckle that made her insides flutter. "What are the sticks for?"

  "Spear fishing. If we find a stream with fish tonight."

  "You think we'll be here that long?" He didn't sound as depressed as he could have. When she turned to look at him, he smiled at her.

  Diane knew better than to hope her company made this magical exile...well, magical for him. "Who knows?"

  "Got a lighter in that purse so we can make a fire?"

  "You spear the fish and leave the fire to me."

  "Baby, you can light my fire any time you want," he said, twisting his voice into a lazy drawl.

  Diane laughed with him. Even knowing he was joking, she felt a funny twinge of longing deep inside. It hurt, but in a strangely pleasant way.

  While they walked, she occasionally paused to test the rocks that emerged from under the thin layer of soil or moss carpeting their stair-step pathway up the mountainside. Troy assured her she wasn't mistaken when she found what she thought was flint.

  That night in camp, she scraped the flint with the nail file extension of her pocketknife, producing sparks. Her fire had burned down to usable coals by the time Troy had speared and seriously mauled five fish. They burned their fingers and got bones in their tongues, but Diane had never tasted anything so wonderful in years of gourmet meals.

  Troy's voice kept her warm through the fire-lit darkness. He told her about the bits of wilderness his organization had helped to save, until she fell asleep. The next day, she shared with him the pieces of her childhood she had actually enjoyed as they walked. For dinner that night, their third inside the painting, they ate apples and wild potatoes Troy had found, which they roasted in the coals of Diane's second successful fire. He mesmerized her as he told about working his way through college. They talked about Meggie, too, and what she could study if she attended Willis-Brooks.

  Troy seriously wanted her opinion. Diane liked the feeling of being useful.

  They climbed higher, talking and walking and working together, to live off the land for two more days. Troy's admiration for her woodsman skills was intoxicating, so she actually admitted she had learned to live off the land to spite her ultra-elegant mother. Somehow all the sordid details of her childhood and her sophisticated, never-satisfied family came out. Troy just nodded and made encouraging sounds.

  He listened, and she sensed he actually heard what she wanted him to hear. He was nothing like the guys she had dated, who only wanted her family connections.

  She told him about the time her cousins almost succeeded in selling her into marriage, at age sixteen, for the sake of a business merger. When Troy called her "Poor little rich girl," she knew he wasn't teasing, but he understood. He didn't mock the guilt she felt for her easy childhood, or her helplessness at figuring out what to do with her life.

  "The thing you gotta do is find out what pulls at your heart. What makes you happy and angry? Follow your passion," he said.

  "What if it's something I'm no good at?"

  She wasn't about to admit that she felt passionate about learning how he did what he did, and how to become strong and brave like him. All right, so she had faced a thief in Divine's, but stopping petty burglary wasn't the same as saving the world. Or was it?

  "Then you learn. You need any help, just come to me."

  What she wanted, Diane decided as she drifted off to sleep that night, was to work side-by-side with Troy and save the world. How could she do that, when she couldn't even save herself?

  On their sixth morning inside the picture, the frame looked as far away as it had the previous mornings. Diane waited for Troy to finish washing in the little stream that spilled down the face of the mountainside, and realized she didn't care how long it took to get back to Divine's. And not just because her watch said no time had passed. She liked being with Troy. Except for a change of clothes and a long, hot soak in the old-fashioned, claw-foot tub in the house she rented, she couldn't think of anythi
ng better than spending the day with him. For the rest of her life.

  "All set?" He bowed, pretending to sweep a hat off his head, and offered her his bent arm.

  Diane laughed, slipped her arm through his, and started forward.

  They hadn't walked more than fifty yards before the angle of the light and shadows spun around them like a movie time-lapse of a sundial. Diane watched the shadows turn, and shivered as crimson and gold streaks of sunset spilled across the meadow.

  "We made it," Troy whispered, and stopped short.

  Diane saw the frame above them. She could see other paintings leaning against the opposite wall, facing the one they had fallen into.

  "Problem," she said.

  The painting frame, the way back to Divine's Emporium and Neighborlee, Ohio, hung ten feet off the ground.

  "No problem." Troy grabbed hold of her waist.

  Diane tried not to scream as he lifted her up over his head and settled her on his shoulders. She clutched for a handhold before she fell, and yanked on his hair.

  He grunted.

  "Sorry, but what are you doing?"

  "Didn't you ever climb on your brothers' shoulders to get through a window?"

  "They only climb over their enemies' bodies."

  "You missed out on a lot of fun, let me tell you." He patted her leg, which sent those funny tingles through her body. "Stand up on my shoulders. You ought to be tall enough to chin yourself up over the frame."

  "What about you?"

  "There has to be rope or a ladder at Divine's. Angela has everything, right? You'll come back for me. I trust you to save me, just like you've been doing all along."

  His shrug wasn't quite so effective with her sitting on his shoulders. The sensation was disturbing, to say the least.

  "Ah... Right. No problem." Diane couldn't think of what to say, or any other plan to offer, so she struggled to kneel and then stand on his shoulders.

  He helped her balance, gripping her legs, until she managed to grab the frame and pull herself up until she hung across it, just at the bottom of her ribs. She shrieked when he grabbed the bottoms of her feet and shoved her upwards.

  She went up and over, hit the floor and rolled. She fought the overwhelming need to just curl up, close her eyes, and hope that when she opened her eyes, everything would turn out to be just a bad dream. Troy was waiting, and that meant she couldn't waste time. She got up and turned back to look at the painting.

  Troy stood still, a part of the painting, frozen in time. That scared her.

  She ran to look for a rope. Why didn't Angela have rope up here? If she had people-eating paintings, wouldn't it make sense to have a rope handy to pull them out? Diane ran down the stairs, nearly falling three times before she reached the back door. If there wasn't rope here, then she would check the shed where Angela kept her gardening supplies.

  "Forget your coat again?" Angela said, framed in the doorway of the ground floor storage room. She flipped on the lights, the keys jangling in her hand. She must have just returned from the Star Trek meeting. If time hadn't moved on, here in the real world. But who could be certain of anything?

  "What's wrong, Di?"

  "Do we have a rope ladder around here?"

  A few minutes later, Diane explained as she climbed the stairs with the Army-surplus chain ladder tucked under her arm.

  Angela didn't seem at all surprised by anything she said. This was probably old hat for the proprietress of Divine's Emporium.

  Why, if things like this happened regularly, had she missed seeing or noticing anything unusual?

  The worst part came when they reached the attic and stepped into the painting room. She bent to catch the hooks of the ladder on the frame and throw it down to Troy and got stopped by the canvas. Diane shrieked, terrified for one paralyzing moment that she would tear the canvas. But it held firm, stubborn and more resilient than sheet metal.

  Angela laughed, pressing the fingertips of one hand over her mouth to muffle the sound.

  "How am I going to get him out of there?" Diane wailed. She dropped to her knees, clutching the bundle of ladder. Now was not the time to fall apart. Troy needed her!

  Or did he? She could have sworn he was still in the same position she'd left him in. What was wrong with time? Shouldn't it have sped by at twenty times the speed of light, on Troy's side of the frame?

  "What day is it?" she demanded, and nearly reached to grab hold of Angela and shake the answer out of her.

  "Friday night. Considering that you probably came straight from school to get your coat, and how long it must have taken to get up here the first time, then back downstairs to look for the ladder..." Angela half-closed her eyes and tipped her head to one side, visibly calculating. "Less than fifteen minutes since you fell into the painting."

  "So is Troy going to be stuck there forever? Can he see us? How come time flew by while we were in there, but now he's frozen? It doesn't make sense!"

  Despite the tone of her voice, Diane thought she was taking this all rather calmly, considering the fact she hadn't really believed in magic, despite all the wonderful things that happened at Divine's Emporium, up until tonight.

  "How did he get in there?" Angela said, ignoring all her questions. She stood back and studied the painting calmly, arms crossed.

  "I told you. And I am not going to bump and slide all the way to the bottom of the mountain again, and take six more days to climb up."

  "Well, if the ladder was anchored to something and you held onto it when you jumped through the frame..." That sly, teasing little smile of Angela's banished all the shadows.

  Diane knew if she thought about it, she would lose her nerve. She hooked the end of the ladder over the frame of the painting hanging on the opposite wall and made sure it was secure. Then she looped her arm through the bottom rung, and dove into the frame.

  Troy caught her, and that made the leap and the risk more than worth it. He hugged her hard and close before putting her on her feet.

  Diane clung to him, feeling giddy.

  * * * *

  "I'm sorry. I don't know how many times I can say that." Troy put down his cup and leaned back in the creaky old chair at Angela's kitchen table.

  Angela had led them downstairs to her living quarters on the second floor. She'd made an enormous pot of spiced tea with plenty of cream and honey, and brought out shortbread. They had drained the entire pot and left nothing but crumbs on the plate by the time Troy and Diane finished telling their story.

  "I think you learned an important lesson," Angela said slowly. That cat-in-the-cream smile spread across her face. "Maybe you should teach your enemies a lesson, too."

  "How?" Diane said. "Short of giving them the wrong book without them finding out, I mean."

  "That's an idea. That cover comes off. It's only there to protect the journal inside." Angela stood up and left them alone for a few moments.

  Diane listened to the soft footsteps going up the stairs to the fourth floor, and heard the creak as a door she hadn't even known existed before this night opened. She shivered. The next moment she blushed when Troy caught her hand between both of his.

  "It's going to be all right," he said, rubbing her hand.

  "Yeah, Di, don't you worry about it." A little man with obnoxiously sparkly wings swooped down from Angela's china hutch and landed on the table. He picked up a big crumb of shortbread cookie and took a bite. "If you survived that trip you two took--" He froze a moment, before looking back and forth between her and Troy. "Umm, you two are acting like you can see me."

  "Can you see him?" Troy's voice cracked.

  "Uh huh." Diane swallowed hard.

  "Oh, maaaan," the little man groaned. He sank down on the lid of the sugar bowl and stuffed the rest of the shortbread crumb into his mouth.

  All three studied one another while he chewed and swallowed. "Okay, here's my theory. You two got thoroughly soaked in magic, all that time you spent in the painting. That makes you sensitive to magic wo
rking. Don't know how long it lasts, but it means you can see and hear lots of things you normally couldn't." He looked past them. "Hey, Angie-baby, how long do you think the change will last?"

  "I should think as long as they want it to last." Angela came back into the room. "I see you two have met Maurice. Let me assure you, he is not normally five inches tall and does not normally have wings. He was a very...mischievous Fae, and his punishment is to spend two years here, assisting me, and looking--"

  "Looking like an escapee from a Disney cartoon." Maurice grinned cheekily, and then his grin faded. "Look, guys, I'm really sorry. It's my fault. Well, half my fault. Troy shoved you into the painting, and I got so pissed when you fell, I pushed him in after you."

  "You pushed me?" Troy let go of Diane's hand and reached back to rub his shoulder. "I thought something felt odd, but with all the banging and rolling we did..." He sighed. "It's okay. I wouldn't have wanted Diane alone in there, anyway. You were protecting her."

  "Didn't do much of a job of it." He scooped up a few more cookie crumbs. "Sorry, Di. Really." He brightened, his left cheek bulging with cookie. "But hey, we can talk to each other, now. That's a plus. Poor Angela was stuck being the only person who can hear me."

  "How long have you been here?" Diane scrambled back through her memories for times when she had suspected someone was watching her or talking to her, when she worked in the shop. There were too many times to count, and she suspected she had forgotten most of them.

  "Since just before Christmas." Angela sat down and showed them the sour-smelling, hand-written journal she had brought downstairs with her. "Back to business." She took the journal Troy had stolen, removed the cover, and slipped the cover over the new book.

  "Is it full of magic spells?" Troy said quietly.