Chapter Three

Shop Life

            Her parents were ecstatic when she told them the news.

            “There’s a suite that comes with it?” her mother cried. ‘Wow! You really hit the jack pot, honey!”

            “It does seem like good timing.” Her father put his newspaper down on the kitchen table where they had gathered to hear the news. “I mean…considering what…well, you know…” he stumbled to a halt, eyeing her awkwardly.

            “It’s okay Dad, I know what you meant to say.” Alice smiled at him and he looked relieved. “It’s a perfect fresh start.”

Her mother suddenly grabbed her in a bear hug and Alice’s breath left her in a whoosh. “I’m so excited for you! You must be so happy!”

            “Ow…okay, thanks Mom.” She laughed as she tried to untangle herself from her mother’s enthusiastic embrace.

            “You do look rather….alive,” her father noted.  “I think this will be good for you.”

            “I hope you’re right. Help me pack?”

            “Okay,” he grumbled good-naturedly, heading for the stairs. “Let me go find those suitcases. I think they’re packed somewhere down in the basement…” His voice trailed off as he descended the stair case.

            “What does your suite look like?” her mother asked excitedly.

            “Oh,” Alice’s eyes widened, “I didn’t even ask to see it. Azura was showing me the store. I was so excited about that I didn’t even ask anything about the suite.”

             “The vacuums are pretty exciting, huh?”

            Alice couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, the…vacuums. Very exciting.”  If only her mother knew. It was strange that she couldn’t tell them. She was fairly bursting with excitement. For a split second she was tempted to disobey Azura’s instructions and tell her parents everything, but the impulse faded as quickly as it came. They would think she’d gone nuts.

            “I think you’ve just inherited the most boring store on earth, honey,” her mother teased.

            “Oh Mom, you have no idea.”  Her mother laughed again and Alice laughed with her because her mother really didn’t have any idea and it struck her as funny. And if her laugh had a slightly hysterical edge to it, well, her mother didn’t seem to notice.

            Her father’s head appeared over the top of the stair rail. “Found the suitcases. How many do you think you need?”

            “Um…about three,” Alice said. “I don’t have my desk anymore…”

            Her parents must have noticed the look on her face, because her mother started chirping away cheerily about her new “situation” and her father beat a hasty retreat down the stairs. Alice couldn’t help being angry that her desk was over at Jason’s house, since he had offered to paint it for her. It had been a putrid yellow-orange colour and he had joked that she couldn’t study to be an English teacher with a hideous desk. Now she had no desk at all; she wasn’t about to go over there and get it from him.  It didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t need it.  Alice went to retrieve the suitcases, trying to ignore her mother’s constant flow of excited chatter.

“I’m gonna go pack, Mom.”

            “Of course, want some help?”

            “You know, I don’t have much to pack.” Great, she walked down the hall to her old room, now I sound like I’m going to go have some kind of pity party on my own in here.

            The door of her room creaked open, and Alice surveyed the mess within.  The wallpaper was still there from when she was young - a parade of galloping horses that forever went around and around the top of her walls.  It had seemed like the coolest thing in the world to a horse-crazy nine-year-old, and even though that phase had only lasted about a year (after that she found them smelly and untrustworthy) she had never bothered to get rid of the wallpaper. The room was juvenile and dull, her old life.  Alice wheeled the suitcases in and began grabbing her things as fast as she could. She could hardly wait to get out of there.

            She peeked at her parents from the corner of her eye. They had offered to drop her off at Threads and bring her suitcases in, and now they were wandering around the shop.  Alice noticed their eyes looked glassy and they shuffled around like extras from a bad zombie movie.

What was wrong with them?

            “Goodness,” her mother murmured, “These must be very high end vacuums. They are very expensive.” 

            “Yes…they are,” Alice said, worried about her mother’s glazed expression.

              “You must be the Cunninghams.” The three of them looked up as Azura came out of the back room. She strode forward and shook both their hands firmly. “Nice to meet you, I’m Azura Grey.”

            “Hi.,” Her mother looked Azura over with interest. “Nice to make your acquaintance. The shop is nice.”

            Azura gave them a charming smile.

“About as nice as vacuum shops go,” she joked. They laughed, and Alice frowned at the fake cheery noise. She didn’t like seeing her parents in this weird trance-like state.  

“Thanks for helping me bring my stuff over,” Alice said.                                                   

            Her mother winked. “I get it. The boss doesn’t want us hanging around. Come on, let’s go, honey.” Alice hugged both her parents and waved as they left. When the door shut behind them she let out a breath.

“Wow, they both looked high or something. I mean, their eyes were all glazed over.”

            Azura hefted one of the suite cases. “It’s because they were seeing the spell. It tends to have that effect.”

            “Are they going be okay?”  She followed Azura to the back of the store, dragging her suit cases behind her. “I mean, it doesn’t affect them negatively or anything does it?”

            “Don’t worry.  There are no “after effects” of the spell.” Azura led her past the fire place and the sleeping cat, and Alice noticed for the first time that there was a heavy oak door in the back just past several tall shelves.

            “This is the back room where we enchant our products.”

            “You enchant all this stuff yourself?”

            “Most of it, yes.  We have a few things that come in pre-enchanted.”

            The backroom was brightly lit by a series of standing floor lamps.  Alice noticed right away that the shimmering threads of magic were thicker than ever here, vast amounts coated the walls and ceiling, and tangled groups floated in bunches above their heads. Dark oak shelves lined both walls on each side, and at the very back of the room a staircase ran up into darkness.      There was a large mahogany desk in the center of the room, one that she could picture fancy executives sitting at, dictating notes to their secretaries and buzzing for cups of black coffee. On top of the desk sat an assortment of objects. An old fashioned globe and several large, important looking books bound in leather. She stared in fascination at a red feather quill that sat in an ornament black ink pot.

“Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these before.”

            Azura pushed a few pieces of paper aside and grabbed a box off a nearby shelf.  “I’ll show you how to enchant something. Eventually you’ll learn how to do all sorts of enchantments. Your Aunt Ruby was very good at it. She’s the one who taught me.”

            “So Aunt Ruby was a….what, a Witch? A Sorceress?”

            “Ruby was a Witch by definition, as am I.” Azura pulled a pair of socks out of the cardboard box and frowned at them. “Hm…not great, but it will do.”

            “What do those do?”

            “Right now they’re just socks.”

            “Oh.” That wasn’t exciting at all. “So, what’s the difference between a Witch and a Sorceress anyway?”

            “Different sort of magic,” Azura said. “Witches can touch the threads of magic, manipulate them to a certain point, cast spells.  Wizards are similar, though some of those have a hard time touching the threads and will use a wand. Sorceresses and Mages are a whole different breed; they have far more access to the threads. Some of the most powerful eventually learn to gain total control, learning to touch the entire network, though that’s rare and rather dangerous. They can weave the most complex patterns and some can even draw the threads into themselves and hold the magic inside.”

            “What? For later or something?” asked Alice, curiously.

            Azura nodded. “Essentially.  Some parts have less magic then others. The shop has lots, but when magic is scarce in certain parts, the ability to retain it within you is very useful.”

            “Can you do that?”

            “Sadly, no. I’ve only ever met one person who could. It’s a rare trait.”

            “What did you mean by the ‘Network’? What’s that?”

            “It means all the threads together and their potential for patterns. The network is infinite and limitless.  Some claim it is organized chaos, a giant pattern woven over the world.”

            “Do you know anyone who can touch it all at once?”

            “Heavens, no. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Several Mages and Sorceresses have been driven mad by it in the past.”

            Alice shivered, feeling goose bumps creep up her arms. “That’s scary. It sounds horrible.”

            “I imagine it is, but there is no need for you to worry. Your magical training will be one or two threads at a time, at the most.”