Not really, of course. But only because she wasn’t musically inclined and couldn’t recreate the Star-Spangled Banner if her life depended on it.
“Ugh!” I said, hoping she could interpret that single non-word as “Please try to be quieter. My head is killing me.”
Bang! “Oh say…” Crash “…can you see…” Clang “by the dawn’s early light…”
“Sebille!”
She jerked to a halt as I sat bolt upright in my bed, my blue eyes flying open with outrage. I immediately regretted the decision to move, my brain pulsing unhappily inside my head and the soldiers with pickle forks breaking into a rowdy rendition of the Irish Chicken Dance. “You’re killing me.”
True to form, my non-serious friend simply rolled her almost iridescent green eyes. “Drama much?”
I put my head into my hands and groaned. “Why do I bother?”
A steaming mug appeared in front of my face. The sweet, floral scent undulated toward my nostrils in a siren song I could not resist. Taking the mug, I sniffed first, letting the sweet deliciousness infuse my sinuses.
The headache eased a bit just from that sniff, and by the time I’d drained the mug a few minutes later, the pain was gone.
I sighed. “Are you sure you’re not a witch? Tea never works this well when I make it.”
Sebille dropped onto the edge of my bed. “You know I’m not a witch. I’m just tea-talented.”
I would have sighed but the extra air rushing through my system probably would have enraged the soldiers with pickle forks. “Thank you. I was working up the courage to make myself some when you assaulted my door.”
Sebille shook her head. “You always exaggerate so.”
I glowered at her. “And you have zero compassion.”
Shrugging, she tugged a strand of her bright red hair before tucking it behind a pointed ear. “That is unfortunately true.”
No remorse. Which, BTW, perfectly matched her lack of compassion.
“Did you get a read on the wave?” I asked.
My assistant uncrossed a long, bony leg and tucked it underneath her, the other leg dangling over the edge of the bed. She wore her customary green and white striped socks and slightly pointed red shoes, making her look like the Wicked Witch of the West. Well, from the knees down, anyway. “No. But, I did get a sense it was important to Croakies.”
Croakies was the name of my shop. Before you ask me why a magical artifact shop would be named Croakies, don’t. I couldn’t possibly tell you. That was the name of the store when I bought the place from the previous Keeper of the Artifacts. She’d been kind of scattered, seeming more interested in moving onto her next great adventure than preparing me for mine. I hadn’t gotten around to asking her where the name had come from. It had been all I could manage getting her to tell me how to flush the magical toilet in my apartment.
I mean, jiggling the handle as I sang, Make me a Magic Muffin Mister, wasn’t just gross. It was also not at all intuitive.
I’m just sayin’.
Rather than trying to wrangle the information from the previous keeper, I silently promised myself that I’d change the name of the shop as soon as the paperwork was signed.
Best laid plans and all.
I’d tried to make the change. Multiple times. But the new sign I’d hung to replace the weather-worn wooden one bearing an ugly spotted frog and the name, Croakies, disappeared within hours and the old sign magically reappeared.
I’d tried burning the old sign once. It resurrected itself right back onto the front of my store.
I hadn’t even been successful changing the name on paper. No matter how many times I filed a new name with the city. The old name simply reappeared on the paperwork in its place.
I gave up after the third try.
Croakies it was.
I had no idea why. But who was I to question the ways of the magical universe?
Sebille untangled her bony limbs and stood. “Do you want me to consult the mirror?”
I nodded. “Would you mind?”
She shrugged. “I’ll be in the back room if you need me.”
The “back room” of Croakies was the special area where all the magical artifacts lived. The front room was a bookstore. Though not your average bookstore. Even there, magic and supernormal reality dominated. But Croakies Books was available to everyone, which meant I got a lot of little old ladies looking for talking cat cozy mysteries and more than my share of ghost-busting wannabes.
As a city Sprite, Sebille made liberal use of the mirrors to gain access to magical news and happenings. Her family used streams and lakes and lived in toadstool houses. Sebille would disintegrate into a puddle of pique and rage if she had to live in a toadstool. That’s why I’d dubbed her a city Sprite, though there really was no such thing. By contrast, her very large family found toadstool homes to be the height of comfort.
Part of my odd assistant’s issue with the whole “live in the woods in a toadstool” thing was that it required she maintain her traditional size of one and a half inches tall. Sebille had discovered she enjoyed being the size of the rest of the world, which enabled her to do all the stuff that was key to her existence. Such as drinking half-caff, mocha latte grande made with steamed almond milk and coconut sugar, and hanging out at the Vape bar with perfect strangers who told her everything about their lives and then wondered why they had.
Yeah, that was her other superpower.
Sebille lived in a one-room apartment over the vapery across the street. She said she loved the atmosphere of the place and had even created her own vape flavor with magical herbs. I’d tried it once when she was in the testing stage and I’m pretty sure I entered a separate dimension for twenty very long
