“And so will I,” said Chase.
Anne’s eyes darted from scowling face to scowling face until she reached her husband’s again. They stared at each other for one long, agonizing minute.
Chase didn’t know what silent message passed between the two of them, but finally, Anne’s shoulders slumped and tears filled her eyes. Without saying another word, she swiveled on her heel and walked stiffly from the room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Chasing Magic
Chase shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and slouched down the busy sidewalk. He hated shopping almost as much as he hated math. And to top it off, what had started out as a sunny morning was now turning into a miserable, drizzly afternoon. Swiping raindrops off his nose, he yanked up the hood of his jacket. Maybe slipping into another one of the warm, brightly-lit shops lining the Seattle city streets wasn’t such a bad idea at the moment. In fact, they should also look for a place that served hot chocolate and cookies. Even though they’d just eaten lunch, those would sure hit the spot right about now.
“What can we get for her?” asked Andy impatiently as he dodged a woman pushing a baby stroller. “Don’t you have any ideas?”
“It has to be something special,” said Chase. “I’m tired of her being mad at us. She’s barely said anything to me for days. Any great ideas, Persephone?” He peeked around the edge of his hood at her.
“I’ve already suggested a few, but you keep shooting them down,” Persephone said.
“I’m not shopping for ladies’ clothes!” exclaimed Chase, horrified.
“When’s her birthday again?” asked Andy.
“October 18th. Only a few days away,” said Chase. “So we have to get her something today.”
He paused in front of a long window displaying books and candles and assorted knick-knacks. The space was also decorated with orange and white twinkling lights, jack-o-lanterns, and big, plastic spiders sitting in stringy webs. THE ONE-STOP MAGIC SHOP it said on the window, in large black and gold lettering.
“I don’t think this store sells real magic stuff,” said Andy. He stopped next to Chase and pressed his face against the window. “Most people don’t believe in the real thing.”
“Yeah, but they like to pretend,” Chase answered. “Ah, come on, it looks interesting. Let’s check it out.”
“It looks a little sketchy to me,” said Persephone. “I think—”
Chase didn’t give her a chance to finish as he pushed open the door and slipped inside. Both Andy and Persephone heaved deep sighs and hurried in after him. The sweet scents of cinnamon and pumpkin swirled around them as the door swung shut. Whoever owned the shop was certainly in the holiday spirit, because not only the window but the whole store was decked out in Halloween décor.
“But we have our own magic,” whispered Andy as he goggled at a towering Frankenstein monster standing next to the door.
“Yeah, but maybe we can find something that will convince Mom how awesome it is,” answered Chase, a hopeful expression on his face.
Persephone snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“You want to buy something for Mom here?” said Andy.
Chase pushed off his hood. “I just want to be done with shopping.”
Persephone picked up a witch’s long, warty nose from a bin and slipped it on. “How do I look?”
It was Chase’s turn to snort. “Too hot for words,” he teased.
Persephone grinned and dropped the nose back into the bin. “Since we’re here, I guess we can see what they have. Why don’t we wander around by ourselves and if anyone sees anything interesting, let the others know and we’ll give our opinions.”
Chase and Andy nodded in agreement before setting off in opposite directions. Chase cringed as he ducked to avoid getting caught in the creepy, ghostly-looking fabric, thick spider webs, and purple lights draped across the aisles.
As he wandered along, hoping to find something fantastic and perfect, a shiny object on one of the cluttered shelves caught his eye. It was a glowing, emerald-green box trimmed in silver. The color of it made him think of Persephone’s eyes. When opened, the box played a haunting, tinkling song he didn’t recognize. Mom might like this, he thought. Or maybe he’d get it for Persephone for Christmas, since it reminded Chase of her. If he did, he sure hoped Persephone would like it better than her birthday present. He sighed. If they made it home safely from Blackshire, that is.
He set the box down, thinking he’d come back for it later, and headed toward the back of the store. Through a tall, arched doorway he saw another room. A customer, who was leaving, smiled at him as he wandered in. Hundreds of new and old books were crammed into the room, from the floor to the ceiling. Glancing at some of the titles, he saw that almost all of them had magical people and creatures drawn on their covers. He had no idea so many books had been written about the supernatural world.
Running his finger along some of the spines, Chase rounded a corner and lurched to a stop. A girl around his age stood at the end of the aisle. She was medium-height and slender, while her beautiful face was framed by chin-length smooth black hair with straight, blunt-cut bangs across her forehead. He wasn’t sure why, but something about her seemed oddly familiar to him, even though she didn’t look like anyone he knew.
He was pretty sure she hadn’t noticed his presence when she pulled a book from a shelf and moved as if to hide it. Chase craned his neck to see what she was doing. He studied her profile. Was she a shoplifter? Was she planning on slipping the book beneath her jacket? He wasn’t sure what he’d do or say if she actually did it. He knew from experience how much it sucked and how humiliating it was to get caught stealing. He’d promised himself he would never do that again.
But then, he saw her flip the book open and close her eyes. He stepped forward and opened his mouth to say something to her, but at that moment, the most astounding thing happened.
The pages started to glow as if a light had been switched on inside the book. Then the golden, sparkling light poured from it and into the palm of her hand. His eyes practically the size of golf balls, Chase leaned closer. No. It wasn’t just light. It was the words. She was replicating the words and turning them into shimmering light, and then letting them flow into her.
“Holy cow!” he blurted out. “You’re magical!”
The girl’s eyes flew open. She swung around. Her frightened eyes met Chase’s stunned ones. Dropping the book, she darted toward him. He jumped in front of her and stuck out his arms, hoping to keep her from slipping past. He had to talk to her. She slammed her shoulder into his chest and shoved him with all her might. Losing his balance, he smashed into some shelves, which caused a bunch of books to crash down around him.
“Who—” he choked out.
She sprinted from the room.
Pushing himself away from the shelves, he hopped over the fallen books and took off after her. He dashed down an aisle and out into the main entry. The front door was just closing. Chase flung it open and bolted out onto the sidewalk. He scanned the area until he saw a pink jacket across the road. The girl swooped and zigzagged around startled pedestrians.
“Hey, you in pink! Wait up!” he yelled, though it was no use in getting her to slow down.
Without stopping to think, Chase rushed out into the street. Hooooonk! He swung around. A large car was so close he could see the driver’s wide-eyed look of fear. “LIQUIFY!” Chase shouted at the top of his lungs. The car swished through him. “Invisible!” He vanished. Chase silently said thanks that, for once, his mind hadn’t acted as if it had been switched with a bowl of mashed potatoes.
The car screeched to a halt. Two seconds later, a man and a woman tumbled out.
“Didn’t I say you were driving too fast, Harold? Didn’t I?” screeched the woman as several cars slowed and then swerved around them. “But would you listen? No! Now you’ve gone and killed someone!”
“He—he came out of nowhere!” sputtered the man.
Totally unseen by anyone, Chase staggered to the sidewalk and plopped down onto the curb. He clutched his chest and winced. He knew he’d thought about this once before, but was thirteen too young to have a heart attack? Because if not, he was surely having one right now.
“We have to call 9-1-1 before he bleeds to death!” The woman dug frantically through her purse while her husband searched all around and under the car.
“But—but where is he?” asked the man, scratching his head. “No one’s here.”
“He must have run away,” said the woman, looking puzzled as she glanced up and down the street. “Although, I don’t see how after…”
“Or we’re both having crazy hallucinations,” added the man. “But I would swear…” He shook his head, rubbed his round stomach and belched. “Well, no more jalapeño peppers and onions for lunch after this, that’s for dang sure.”
The dazed woman nodded in agreement as they climbed back into their car and drove slowly away.
Chase dropped his head between his knees and took several deep, calming breaths as he waited for his heartbeat to slow down. Thanks, Aunt Clair, he thought. Your power just saved my life. He’d never take his magical abilities for granted, that was for certain. And besides almost being killed, he’d lost the magic girl. Who was she? Where had she come from? He’d never seen anyone other than Tinkers and Marlowes do any sort of magic, but he knew what he’d seen hadn’t been his imagination.
He jerked his head up when he heard Persephone’s voice behind him. “Are you positive you saw him come outside?”
“Yeah. I called after him, but he was in too big a hurry to hear me,” answered Andy. “Why would he run out like that?”
Persephone shrugged one shoulder. “Beats me. He has been acting kind of crazy lately, don’t you think?”
“It’s because I have a lot on my mind,” Chase’s voice whispered in her ear.
Persephone jumped sideways. “Aahh! Chase?” She propped her hands on her hips. “Okay, quit messing around and tell us what’s going on. Why the heck are you invisible? Is this to get back at us for—hey!”
Grasping their arms, Chase dragged them into a nearby doorway nook. “Visible.” He instantly reappeared. “You’re never going to believe what I saw,” he began, excitement filling his voice. “I can hardly believe it!”
“What?” asked Persephone and Andy in unison.
“Some girl doing real, honest-to-goodness magic,” he answered, grinning.
“You’re kidding!” Andy and Persephone exclaimed together again.
Chase shook his head. “No lie. I chased her outside and almost got hit by a car trying to catch up to her. She looked like she was about our age,” he continued, looking at Persephone.
Persephone craned her neck as she checked up and down the street and sidewalk. “So where’d she go?”
“I lost her in the crowd. But at the time I was also kind of busy trying not to be roadkill.” He rubbed his chest and winced again.
“Wow!” said Andy, his eyes round. “What sort of magic did she do?”
Chase quickly told them what had happened in the back room, leaving out the part where the girl had slammed him into the bookshelves. Being beaten up by a girl wasn’t something a guy wanted spread around. “As soon as she saw me watching her, she was gone.” He blew out a big puff of air. “We have to find her.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t some kind of trick?” asked Persephone, looking skeptical. “After all, this store does sell that sort of thing.”
Chase shook his head again. “No way. It was the real deal. You would think the same as me if you’d seen it.”
“Maybe she was a witch,” said Andy. “Did she have a magic wand?”
“Nope. And she sure didn’t look like any witch I’ve ever seen.”
“And how many witches have you seen in real life?” said Persephone with a grin.
Chase grinned back sheepishly. “Uh…none?”
“So what should we do now?” asked Andy.
“I guess we can search all around the area until maybe we spot a dark-haired girl in a pink jacket,” answered Chase. “Crap! I wish I hadn’t lost her.”
“What kind of book was she sucking the words out of?” asked Andy.
“Beats me,” said Chase as they headed to the corner and pushed the walk button on the traffic-light pole. “But she wasn’t actually sucking the words from it. I think she was like, absorbing the knowledge. That’s the best way I can describe it. The book was probably about the magical world, too. I never knew so many books were written about supernatural stuff.”
“Then you haven’t paid any attention to the ones in Grandfather’s library, have you?” said Persephone, rolling her eyes. “Why am I not surprised? Come on, the light’s changed.”
“All those books are about magic?” Chase asked. He carefully checked up and down the street twice before stepping off the curb.
“Not all, but a whole bunch are,” she said. “Maybe you should read a few. You might learn something new. I wouldn’t bother reading any from that store, though. They’re probably all fiction.”
Reaching the other side, they hopped onto the sidewalk and started off in the direction Chase had seen the girl heading.
“Too bad I don’t have my enchanted sunglasses,” said Chase. “Seeing through the walls would really come in handy right now.”
Several blocks later, they were waiting for another light to change when Andy caught sight of something. “Hey, you guys! Look over there!” He pointed down the street that intersected with the one they were on, to a bright spot of pink. “Do you think that’s her?”
“It must be!” said Chase, his eyes lighting up. “Let’s go!”
The kids dashed off, trying their best to avoid bumping into people, parking meters, or anything else blocking their way, but still keeping their eyes on the jacket.
“Look! She went into that doorway,” said Persephone.
They skidded to a stop in front of a tall building. It had a green awning over the steps and black lettering across the glass door that read “Uptown Apartments.” A red and white “Apartments for Rent” sign was taped to a side window.
They pushed open the door and entered a large lobby with several dimly lit lamps dangling from the ceiling, scuffed linoleum on the floor, and a bunch of dingy brass mailboxes covering one of the walls. Two elevators were opposite the boxes, while a shabby-carpeted staircase led to the upper floors.
No one was in sight.
They wrinkled their noses at the sickening smell of old cigarette smoke and stale food odors that wafted around them.
Andy tugged on the bill of his baseball cap and heaved a sigh of frustration. “What do we do now?”
“One thing we can’t do is knock on every apartment door asking for her,” said Persephone. She wandered over to the bank of mailboxes and studied the names and numbers on them. “We’d probably get the cops called on us.”
“Why don’t we pretend we want to rent one?” said Andy.
“Like they’ll rent to a bunch of kids,” said Chase with a grimace.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.”
“We’ll have to wait to see if she comes back down,” said Chase. “She can’t stay up there forever.”
“We can’t stay here forever, either,” said Persephone.
“But we have to get to the bottom of this.”
“What if it wasn’t even her?” Andy asked.
“It had to be,” answered Chase. He chewed on the inside of his bottom lip for a moment. “The thing is, if she sees me, she might remember me and run away again...hmm…maybe…”
Andy crossed his arms and frowned. “So why don’t we use some magic on her or set a magical booby trap?”
“Because you know we can’t chance anyone else getting caught in it. We just need to get her to talk to us, without doing too much magic.”
“So what are you thinking?” asked Persephone.
“Since we all have a way to
become invisible, I think we should stakeout this lobby for a while. Then when she comes down again, which hopefully she will, we’ll pop out and confront her before she gets away. And let’s hope she’s alone. But if not, we’ll follow her until she is.”
“Hey, excellent plan,” said Persephone, looking impressed.
Chase gave her a lopsided smile. “I guess I do have them every now and then. Okay, let’s take our positions.”
They each picked a corner, nodded at each other, and vanished.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Finding Truths
Chase shifted from his left foot to his right. He scratched his ear. He stuck his hands into his pockets, then pulled them out again. Were Andy and Persephone getting as antsy as he was? He didn’t want to ask because, with his luck, someone would come in and wonder why disembodied voices were coming from the corners. It was hard to believe Andy had stayed quiet for this long. How long had it been, anyway? A couple hours now? At least a dozen people had already come and gone; except the one person he wanted to see.
He heaved a deep sigh. What had started out as a fun trip to the city had now turned into a boring stakeout for someone who might not even be the same girl Chase had seen doing magic. If she wasn’t, he had no idea how they’d ever find her again.
He thought about how she’d knocked him around, like he was nothing but a big fluffy marshmallow. Maybe he should have told Andy and Persephone about how tricky she was. Nah. It had to have been only luck on her part.
He crossed his arms and was thinking about sitting down and resting his legs when the elevator dinged. The doors slid open, and out stepped the girl they were waiting for. Chase was so excited to have something to do other than hang out in a corner, he darted across the room. He was in such a hurry to get to the girl, he was completely unaware that one of his sneakers had come untied. Just as he reached her, he stepped on the end of the shoelace, tripped over his own foot, and tumbled to the floor in front of her. “Ooph!” Chase hit the floor hard, squishing the air out of his lungs. He was so dazed by the fall, he wasn’t able to scramble out of her way.
Chase Tinker and the House of Secrets Page 14