Robin Owens - Enchanted Again

The dogs were drooling on his feet and he didn’t seem to notice.

Tiro clapped his hands. “Done!” He vanished, and the pups looked at the dark square of the hallway beyond her open door. Then their heads swiveled back to their baskets on the floor and her comforter on the bed. Baxt plopped onto his rump and scratched his ear, then hopped back onto the bed. Zor circled around where Tiro had stood, sniffing deeply. He ambled to the door, sniffed again, then joined Baxt on the bed. They stared at Amber with big brown eyes and thwapped their tails on the bed and her chest loosened. Tiro was not the new object of adoration.

Settling back into bed and turning the light off, she considered the information she’d gleaned. Jenni Weavers’s real name was Jindesfarne Mistweaver. Sounded magical to Amber.

The brownies that Amber had met that morning were now called “Mistweaver” brownies. Were they bound to Jenni like the unhappy Tiro was to Amber? So many questions.

But with every conversation Amber learned a little more. Jenni was an elemental energy balancer and Tiro wanted a room closest to Jenni’s house. Amber could draw deductions from that. The old elements—earth, air, fire, water—Jenni could equalize, which, in turn, probably made the magic better somehow. Amber had always liked the feel of Mystic Circle and Jenni’s magic might be the reason why.

As Amber let her eyelids drift shut, she listened for sounds. Nothing more than the dogs’ breathing, the hum of the furnace turning on. Nothing from Tiro. Was he a dream? Perhaps. Dream or not, would he still be here in the morning?

She didn’t know. She snuggled deeper into the pillow-top on her mattress. She’d learn more about magic from him, she was sure. A smile curved her lips.

Meanwhile he was moving all her bookcases and books and maps and charts and the huge desk and credenzas up to the second-story room at the end of the hall. She’d known after she’d furnished the office downstairs that she’d made a mistake and should have used the upstairs room that got more sunlight during the year. Now that was being fixed.

Perfect.

When sun glistened on the faint coating of mist on her windows, Amber woke again—a little late as the puppies weren’t bouncing around on her bed. She figured the brownie was taking care of them as she heard playful barks from the backyard. Stretching languorously, she wondered at her changed circumstances.

Brownies in her garden, then a very grumpy one in her house. Just how nasty could he be? He wasn’t happy to be here, that was for sure, but if he’d moved her office, she’d cut him a break until he went on his way.

She slid from bed and noticed her door was shut. She liked the wiggling warmth of the puppies’ bodies, but waking to dog breath wasn’t always great. And if the brownie decided to stay—and she’d surmised that the brownies at Jenni’s house were responsible for a lot of the changes next door in the past couple of months—she’d prefer nominal privacy from him. She considered herself an outgoing and laid-back person but Tiro had been sour.

After showering and dressing, she went to the door at the back of the house that had been an exercise room.

Tiro appeared before the closed door, now painted a rich vanilla color. Apparently what she’d thought was a part of his head was a skull cap…and he was twisting it in his hands.

He was nervous. Good. She’d need to keep the upper hand in this relationship.

Stepping by him, she turned the knob, swung the door open, entered the room…and stood in shock. It was no longer the drab gray that she’d been meaning to paint. It was creamy beige like her office. She hadn’t meant… But other than the fact that the room was slightly smaller than the one below, everything looked precisely as she’d left it. She stared for a good minute at the shelves against the walls, the U-shaped desk facing the windows, the credenzas stacked with her current open files.

Amazing. But it wouldn’t do to be approving. She went to a bookshelf and lifted a cracked maroon mug that held pencils. Sure enough, her lucky penny was there. Slowly she walked into the U of her desk. A few pages of paper were on her desk, covered with notes on the Smart-Gortel job. She picked up the pen angled on the paper. It was blue.

She didn’t think she’d used a blue pen yesterday. She glanced at her engagement calendar/journal to her left. The ink noting her progress yesterday—a few hours of work, she’d have to step it up—was green.

Were brownies color-blind? Was Tiro?

She picked up the pen, turned to look at Tiro, who stood in the doorway. “This is wrong,” she said as coolly as she could. Her wits were still scattered from the amount of work he’d done—the magic that had happened when she’d slept.

His small shoulders tensed. She rolled one of her own, let her gaze scan the rest of the room.... “I’m sure there are other flaws. But the job is…acceptable.... You may stay in the downstairs room that was an office. Where did you put the exercise equipment?”

“In the basement. I painted the ceiling here.”

She glanced up. It was a wonderful trompe l’oeil, three-dimensional paint job, and it seemed like she was looking up into the round blue dome of the sky…with clouds.

“You like?”

Amber looked back at the brownie. She didn’t doubt that his disposition was grumpy, but there was a vulnerability in his eyes that softened her and she couldn’t crush his spirits. “Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”

He plunked his cap back on his head, turned and thumped from the room down the hallway and the stairs. “I’m going to my room. If I must stay here…” His grumbling tapered off.

So far, so good. Somehow she’d convince Tiro to help her, and if not him, the Mistweaver brownies. She’d figure out how to make the curse breaking work without such a huge downside. There must be a way.

Rafe got up early and ran the streets of Cherry Creek for exercise. He’d looked in on Conrad and found the man sweaty and moaning in his bed. Guy wasn’t going to have much good sleep again. They’d heard nothing from the private investigative firm that was supposed to be tracking and finding Marta and Dougie.

Ace Investigations had reported on Amber Sarga. There was no evidence that she practiced as a psychic. She had a sole-proprietorship genealogical firm called Heritage that she marketed to expectant parents in upscale neighborhoods. She was a model citizen except for one speeding ticket on the elevated bridge on Speer Boulevard. That item made Rafe smile. The one anomaly was that although Rafe thought she was in her early thirties, her birth certificate said she was twenty-six.

Three years younger than Rafe’s brother, Gabe. Rafe had called Gabe.

His brother had been impatient when Rafe had called. A pang had gone through him. He’d once been the adored older brother. Not anymore, not for several years. He’d “played” and left Gabe to work at the family businesses. More, Rafe barely made time to see his family at holidays…what little family he had. Gabe was twenty-nine and hadn’t married, so there was only him and Uncle Richard. Rafe missed the closeness he’d had with Gabe, but they had little in common anymore. Rafe got the idea that his brother was counting the days until Rafe’s thirty-third birthday.

Just as he had been trying to ignore the image of an hourglass with sand zooming from a small amount at the top to a large pile in the bottom.

As his feet hit the sidewalk and force pounded through his legs and body, his thoughts segued to his curse, much as he didn’t want to think about it. How could he believe in something like that?

He’d asked Gabe, and his brother had replied the same as Conrad had. How could he afford not to?