Curse breaking was a misnomer. It was curse killing. It needed complete eradication or else it just kept coming, spreading, growing. A few months in this space, surrounded by this many things? The potential for spreading was huge.
While the entire building needed a complete cleansing, the first thing was to remove the mirror. It was the mother root, it anchored the whole system. Removing it wouldn’t solve the entire problem, but it would help to stop it spreading, and hopefully mitigate the worst of the curse.
She wasn’t sure the best way to transport that thing. She hadn’t woken up this morning expecting to transport evil magical items. It’s not like she kept an iron box in her backpack, although maybe it wasn’t the worst idea to keep one in her car. Not for the first time, she wished for her sister’s affinity with objects. Cleo thought of the wood bowl in Rude New Neighbor’s murder shed, and thought maybe she was better off than she realized.
“Can I look around at any wooden boxes you may have so I can move it?” Cleo asked.
Opal tilted her head thoughtfully. “I’ve got some cigar boxes that may work, maybe? Or a small jewelry box, perhaps?”
Cleo agreed. Opal pointed out the section of the warehouse (because Cleo refused to think of it as ‘the back’ anymore, it was a warehouse) that housed those types of knick knacks. Moving away from the shadowed area near the mirror was a relief, but the odd feeling in the building was definitely coming from that mirror. It hung over everything.
Finding the right object for transport was dusty work. She needed something that had been loved, something that was cared for, and loved enough to counteract that vile mirror. Since this wasn’t her natural affinity, though, she had to pick up each box and breathe, center herself to see what would work.
She was kneeling under a frail-looking table, trying to reach a promising looking hinged box on the floor behind it, when a deep voice startled her, making her hit her head.
“Oof!” she exclaimed. A dull ache started to spread. She’d hit the table hard enough to rattle her damn teeth.
Then the words sank in.
She tried to crawl out gracefully, but it’s hard to back out from under a table, butt-first, and retain a semblance of dignity. She knelt and ignored his offered hand. She was at cock level, she wasn’t going to touch him. She stood on her own.
“Excuse me,” she said. She aimed for ‘coolly,’ but definitely hit ‘irked.’
It was, of course, him.
“Does Opal know you’re here?” Rude New Neighbor asked again.
Cleo brushed something off her forehead, hoping it was an errant hair rather than the cobweb she suspected. Does Opal know you’re here. She wasn’t sure what to address first: the flare of irritated lust at the sight of him or the implicit accusation in his words.
He looked great, of course. Angry as hell, but great. Like something out of “Beefy Woodworkers Journal,” which, on second thought, sounded like the title of a porno. She would be interested in that, she thought, eyeing those crossed forearms.
He cleared his throat. Cleo had definitely waited too long to answer.
He broke the silence first. “Look, I’m sorry. There’s just such a weird vibe back here. Of course Opal knows you’re here. She knows where everything is in this disaster. I didn’t introduce myself the other day in my shop. I’m Ian.”
He stuck out his hand.
Cleo, slightly bewildered at the sudden change in tone, shook his hand.
“Cleo,” she replied. “I offered to help out Opal with a little issue she’s been having.” His hand was strong and dry. Calloused in potentially interesting ways. She realized they had moved past ‘handshake territory’ into ‘hand-holding territory’ at some point and let go. Her hand tingled. Was she in junior high? Men do not make hands tingle, she told herself sternly. They make problems. Men are painful.
“Do you want me to move that table for you?” Ian asked, nodding towards the one she’d just climbed from under. Cleo wanted to say yes, if only to watch those back muscles flex against his thin t-shirt. She really wanted to say yes.
“Nah, I got it,” she replied.
Opal’s voice rang out from the nearby maze of bookshelves. “I hear Ian! Meet me by the loading door in a few minutes. I’ll open it up for you then.”
The question Cleo wanted to ask must’ve shown on her face.
“I work with Opal. She sells some of my furniture,” Ian shrugged. He called back to Opal, letting her know he’d be there shortly.
He waited for Cleo’s response. Right. Normal people respond to other people in conversations.
“Super,” Cleo said. Super. She sounded like an asshole. Or an idiot. Either way, not good.
“I mean, Opal seems… really nice. So it’s super that you can… sell furniture. Wait, are you the other owner of the store? The one who makes furniture?” Cleo was still not achieving Normal Person Conversational Standards.
Ian must’ve taken pity on her. His eyes gentled. “Opal’s great. If we were a big fancy business, she’d be the CEO. I’d be the CFO, I guess.”
“Chief Financial Officer?” Cleo guessed at the term.
Ian snorted a little. It was an endearingly nerdy laugh. “That, and Chief Furniture Officer. What was the issue you’re helping Opal with?”
Cleo, predictably, responded with verbal acuity and aplomb. Or not at all, rather.
“Cursed objects,” she said. Because that was a thing that makes sense. Why give context? But she wasn’t sure how else to put it, and somehow she wanted to be honest with this man. She really needed to think up an elevator pitch. And a business plan. She’d be the first coven with a business plan.
“As in, you put curses on objects?” he said slowly.
Cleo smiled before she could quash it. “I take curses off objects.”
Ian paused. Cleo shifted her weight to the balls of her
