Milk & Croakies

by Sam Cheever

  I watched him walk away and sighed. “Gobbledygook.

  Walt laughed, drawing a smile from me.

  “What about the other Seers?” I asked. “Did they really run away?”

  The family shared a smile. “They’re in hiding here in Wilshire Plex. Most of them, anyway.” She frowned.

  Grampa Mong gave her a hug. “We lost a couple in the beginning before we started to recognize the signs.”

  “Signs?” Sebille asked.

  “Yes,” Walt said. He looked at me. “That fruit you ate? It’s a magical artifact. When it’s eaten, it portends if someone is in mortal danger from dark magic. We created the fruit so we’d know when one of us had been targeted. The Wizard, or what we thought was the Wizard, was the most likely source of dark magic in Plex.”

  “We never told the Seers at the gate what we were giving them when we brought the weekly portion of fruit. They just believed they were getting a treat,” Mama Mong said. “But if the portent showed up in Gus’ workings, we knew that person was in danger and we quickly moved them into hiding,” she finished.

  At least I finally understood why Walt had panicked when he saw that I’d eaten the fruit. “But it’s just right out there.” I objected. “Anybody could eat it.”

  Walt laughed. “Not anybody, Keeper. Only someone who knows it’s there. Or someone who controls artifacts.

  There was a moment of silence, during which the Mongs just grinned at each other. Then Grandpa Mong voiced some of the relief I think they were all feeling. “I can’t believe the Mage is finally subdued,” he said.

  Walt grinned. “We can finally take our real names back.”

  Then it hit me. “Montague a.k.a. Mong.”

  They nodded.

  “Something’s bothering me,” Sebille said. “Why didn’t you recognize Diandra as Wilshire?”

  “She was under deep glamour,” Walt explained. “And she was one of the weakest Seers at the gate. Of course, that should have been a clue. But we didn’t realize who she was until she brought you through the portal. She shouldn’t have known about the portal. Unless she knew how to cast a spell to find it.” He eyed me. “A spell that is very volatile.”

  Another piece of the puzzle slipped into place. “The explosion that burned her.”

  “Yes. It was genius, really. With her so badly hurt, we all just assumed the Wizard had interfered with her workings that night. But when she heard what happened to you in the caves,” Walt began.

  “She put two and two together and realized the caves had been protected with a repelling spell. Which meant someone was hiding something in there,” Sebille said.

  Walt nodded. “With her level of magical ability, it didn’t take her long to figure out what we were hiding. And my presence there ensured the portal would open when she focused her magics on opening it.”

  “But it’s all done now,” Walt’s mother said, giving him a hug. “The Seers can return to the gate, and we can begin training in truth so our children can someday take their places as Seers.”

  They all looked so pleased that, for a moment, I felt good too. Then I remembered we were trapped in Plex. Maybe forever. I sent Sebille a terrified look. “We totally blew our twenty-four-hour deadline.”

  Sebille glanced at Walt.

  “I think Gus just took care of that,” he said. “You should have plenty of time to use the book.”

  Sebille expelled a relieved sigh. Though I suspected she might have had extra time built into the Book’s timetable. Just because she’s Sebille.

  We stood just outside the hut as the suns climbed the horizon, turning the sky gorgeous shades of pink, purple, and, strangely, green. Sebille and I gave Walt a hug, extracting a promise from him that he’d come visit us at Croakies sometime soon, and then gathered everyone together for the trip through the book.

  I stared at the dragon standing nearby, a hopeful look on her face, and felt a niggle of worry. “We’d better not head to the bookstore,” I told Sebille. “I don’t want to have to repair the ceiling again.”

  She looked at Kanish and understanding lit her face. “How about the artifact library?”

  That was a good idea. That way the dragon could stay with us until she figured out how to shift back and forth from her two entities and got used to our world. “That works.”

  Hobs handed Slimy to me.

  I looked into the little green squish’s face, feeling fear creeping up my spine. What if he stopped talking when we went home again? I’d really gotten used to conversing with the opinionated little guy.

  I’d miss his snotty little comments.

  Surprising me, the frog plucked the worry from my mind.

  “I can only be what I can be,” he told me, sounding like Gus the Seer.

  “Yeah, thanks for that.” I gave him a sly smile. “I’m thinking I can only provide the good crickets if I can provide them.”

  “Har.” He twisted his lips unhappily, but I felt a spark of humor in his mind.

  Wait…in his mind?

  “Is everybody ready?” Sebille asked.

  I waved at Walt. “See you soon?”

  He nodded, taking a step back as if afraid he’d be pulled into the book with us.

  I looked at Sebille. “I’m ready.”

  “Everybody needs to be touching.”

  I clutched Slimy. Wicked jumped into Sebille’s arms. She twitched in surprise and glared down at him. He responded by rubbing his head on her chin, making her grimace.

  I hid a smile. Things were already getting back to normal.

  I reached out and clasped Hobs’ hand and he touched Adelaide. We all shifted sideways so Sebille could touch Kanish with one hand.

  I opened the book with my mind and pictured the artifact library that was our destination.

  The pages started flipping. Flipping. Flipping.

  I frowned.

  Flipping.

  “Sebille?”

  Flipping.

  Flipping.

  The pages finally stopped, and I looked down at a picture of the Croakies artifact library, relief spreading calm through my system. I tucked Slimy into the pocket of my borrowed fleece jacket. Reaching toward the book, I placed my palm over the picture and waited.

  The magic grabbed us, yanking us hard before it twisted us like a wet rag and wrung all of our awareness out, ripping the world of Plex away and plunging us into the gray void of the in-between. A heartbeat later, we landed in a tangle of bodies, everyone mashed together and then falling apart as our feet hit the concrete floor of my beloved artifact library.

  My ears rang from the journey, my system zinged, and Hobs ripped his hand from mine as soon as we came to awareness. The dragon landed with an “umph!” and skidded across the floor, smacking hard into Hobs.

  The little hobgoblin shot into the air from the impact and hit the metal supporting pole in the center of the room with a resounding clang.

  He slipped bonelessly down the pole, landing in a puddle wrapped around the pole like a pole-dancing fireman.

  We all waited.

  Anticipation built.

  Then worry niggled.

  Hobs’ head came up. He seemed to shake himself off. And he shot to his feet and screamed, “Again!”

  It was really good to be home.

  Until the clanging started. Continuous and insistent. And I had no idea what it meant.

  Oh well, back to work!

  The End

  Read More Enchanting Inquiries

  If you enjoyed Milk & Croakies, you might want to check out the next book in the series. Please enjoy Chapter One of Croakies Monster, Book 7 of the Enchanted Inquiries Paranormal Mysteries as my gift to you!

  Ancient Chinese proverb says, give cat mouse and give frog fly, they'll soothe your monsters so you won't die.

  Okay, maybe I just made that up. But I'll try anything at this point.

  Something's hiding at Croakies. Something really big. Whatever it is, it’s good at hiding because not even
Mr. Wicked and Hobs can find it. I’m pretty sure it’s tied to the ancient Chinese gong I just took into the artifact library. But I have no way to prove it, and I don’t have a clue what the thing is doing. All I know is that, for now at least, it doesn’t seem to want to be found. And that makes me wonder why.

  Which doesn’t help with the list of questions keeping me up at night.

  Are we in danger?

  Why is it here?

  Why is there ice all over the floor?

  How did all that long, silver hair get into my shower drain?

  Gulp…

  The frog and the cat? Yeah, they’re really pretty useless on this one. But at least they’re living the good life thanks to my tireless efforts to feed, house, and clean up after them and their naughty friend Hobs.

  Yay me.

  This magic wrangling gig is for the birds. And the frogs. And the cats. And the hobgoblins. And, apparently, for the Monster hiding at Croakies.

  Croakies Monster

  Clang, clang, clanggggggggg…

  I rubbed my forehead trying to soothe the perpetual headache caused by the nearly constant clanging of new orders popping up, and reached out a hand to catch the sheet of paper drifting downward from thin air.

  I caught the page without looking at it and shoved it to the bottom of the growing pile on top of Shakespeare’s desk.

  Sebille walked past behind me, stuffing another thin stack of orders beneath the one I’d just received.

  I sighed wearily.

  Clanggggggggg…

  Thank goodness Lea had found a way to mute the sound of new orders arriving, or I’d have gone totally batty from the almost unending barrage. It seemed that whatever we’d done during our recent trek to the dimensional buffer Plex, had realigned something in the Universe and a backlog of artifact collection orders I hadn’t even known existed had come unclogged and were burying me in work.

  Clanggggggggg…

  I made notes on the order I was currently reviewing and added it to a folder of ten that I planned to attempt as soon as I had my breakfast.

  Sebille would leave Croakies with another ten orders. With any luck, we’d each get through half of the planned orders for the day.

  Then we’d get a few hours of sleep and start all over again.

  Clanggggggggg…

  I fought despair, feeling as if I was going to die buried under a pile of magical artifact orders.

  My head shot up at a high-pitched screech, surprising a small yelp out of me. Hobs slid past, feet spread and arms akimbo as if he were skiing down a mountainside. His blue eyes were wide and alight with pure joy as he slid past me, my cat Mr. Wicked hot on his trail.

  I turned in my chair and watched as Hobs lost his balance and, feet sliding around underneath him, toppled sideways and landed hard in Casanova’s perverted chair. A beat later he flinched, flew into the air, and landed in the chair again with another shriek of joy. “Again!”

  Turning away, I shook my head. I picked up the folder I’d been filling with orders and stood, stretching my aching muscles. I’d been working almost non-stop, twenty-hour days, trying to get caught up on the backlog of orders. My vision was blurry and my bones were tired and I had a brand-new array of bumps, bruises and scratches from my efforts.

  My gaze slid to the pile of new magical artifacts across the library. Sebille and I had started out organizing them carefully on top of a thirty-foot-long special wooden artifact table that usually stood mostly empty. But as we’d become overwhelmed, we’d quickly fallen into the “smile and pile” method and the table was looking pretty chaotic at the moment.

  “Again!” Hobs yelled as the chair pinched his narrow bottom and he leaped into the air with a delighted shriek.

  Wicked was tucked into a prim sitting position at the bottom of the chair, feet neatly arranged near his fuzzy bottom and tail wrapped tidily around them. His head lifted and lowered each time Hobs made the trip from chair to air and back down again.

  I bit down on the desire to scream at the boisterous hobgoblin. It wasn’t his fault I was tired and cranky. He was just having a little fun.

  I took a step toward the stairs leading to my apartment above Croakies, my mind already on the retrieval jobs ahead. My foot slipped out from under me.

  I gave my own little shriek as my feet slid apart, and I went down, arms flying up and papers sailing out of the folder to fall around me like giant, rectangular snowflakes.

  I lay there with my legs splayed in painful splits and groaned as I took stock.

  Headache: blazing, back: aching, legs: screaming, arms: shaking.

  Yep, all body parts accounted for.

  I rolled over and tried to push myself off the ground. My hand slipped over a patch of…ice?

  “What in the name of the goddess’s Sunday best…?”

  I looked up at the sound of clomping footsteps and found Sebille frowning down at me.

  “Why are you sprawled all over the floor, Naida?”

  Compassion thy name is not Sebille.

  “I fell. Slipped actually. On this patch of ice.”

  Sebille narrowed her iridescent green gaze. “What ice?”

  “This ice right here…” I ran my hand over the spot where the ice had been and it was gone. “I swear, it was here a minute ago.”

  Sebille scoffed. “Sure it was. Somebody needs to get more sleep, I think.”

  She wasn’t wrong. I was dead tired.

  Shaking my head, I pushed upright. “I’m going to go take a shower and have a really strong cup or three of tea. We should get going early today, that Groundhog Day alarm clock artifact is set to go off at nine AM.” I gathered up the orders I’d dropped. “Some poor derf is about to relive Groundhog Day for about the fiftieth time.” I felt his or her pain. I was starting to feel as if my life at Croakies was its own version of Groundhog Day.

  Croakies Day.

  Magical Cluster Day.

  Clanggggggggg…

  Clanging Croakies Cluster Day.

  I sighed, and headed for the showers. It was only the first quarter in the great football game that was my life. But I’d been playing the whole quarter in the mud and I was covered in the stuff. I couldn’t control much of my life, but I could turn on a very hot shower and scrape off some of the detritus of my third yard tackle wherein I fumbled the ball and gave the game to the other team.

  There was still a lot of time on the board. I could get the lead back. But I was pretty sure I was playing under a season-destroying handicap.

  As metaphors went, it was pretty bad.

  But then, I’d never really cared for football anyway. And I was really starting not to like the Clanging Croakies Cluster Day either.

  Clanggggggggg…

  I didn’t even turn around as another order appeared from thin air and sifted downward. I’d pick up the pile of orders that came in later, when I got back.

  Jingle…

  I stopped dead, realizing that had been a different type of ringing noise than the one I’d been hearing for the last several days. Or the ringing inside my head.

  “Can you get that, Sebille?”

  Silence.

  “Sebille?”

  Nothing.

  I sighed, turning to head back downstairs. “I’ll get it. Don’t worry about me. I’ll just do everything around here,” I murmured crankily.

  Stomping through the door dividing the library from the store, I took my bad mood across the bookstore and peered through the window to the person who was standing on my doorstep. The street light behind him cast my visitor in an orb of white light that pushed the dark of a too-early morning to the background.

  My pulse picked up and my eyes went wide.

  The man on the other side gazed back at me for a beat and then lifted his dark brows as I continued to stare without opening the door.

  I shook off my shock and unlocked the deadbolts, sending my keeper energy into the magical deadbolt that backed up all the physical ones, and pulled th
e door open just enough to stick my face through the crack.

  Detective Wise Grym looked at me, his jaw tight as he noted my lack of manners. My heart pity-patted as I took in the broad shoulders, rock-like square jaw, and thick mass of mahogany brown hair over a well-shaped head.

  “Hey,” I said to the too-handsome detective, a.k.a. gargoyle.

  “Hey,” he said back. “Can I come inside?”

  I might have grimaced at the request because I saw him flinch, his caramel gaze tightening with irritation. “It’s business,” he clarified.

  Like that would make me feel better. Grym and I had been friends. Good friends. Moving toward more than friends. But then I’d discovered that he’d turned me into the Société of Dire Magic, a regulating and monitoring body for the magical community, not once, but several times, when I’d temporarily lost control of a few magical artifacts.

  As a magic-using member of the Enchanted Police Department, it had been his job to fill out those reports.

  As my friend and someone who’d fought beside me when powers stronger than either one of us threatened our friends and Enchanted, he should have found a way around writing those reports.

  That was my opinion. Wrong or right. I was having trouble getting past it to forgive him. I reluctantly stepped back and let him come inside Croakies.

  He looked around, his gaze going soft as if he were remembering the last time he’d been there. Christmas at Croakies. When we’d all fallen victim to a pair of skinwalkers. It had been a wild ride, but in the end it had turned into one of the best Christmases I’d ever had.

  Which wasn’t saying all that much since I generally hated the entire last three months of the year. Magically speaking that is. When one deals in rogue magical artifacts, the holidays are generally chaotic and dangerous and exhausting.

  “What’s up?” I asked, shoving my hands into the pockets of my fuzzy robe.

  He scanned a look over my robe and slippers and grinned.

  Sebille had given me the slippers for Christmas. They were gray kittens, with perky ears, long whiskers and orange eyes, representing my favorite cat. I grinned down at them. “My Christmas gift from the Sprite.”