“Yeah, it’s not like him to stay over for so long,” one of the Muffler twins said as she paused between gulping down the last bit of melted ice cream.
“True, but we shouldn’t worry…yet,” Agnes said.
“That’s comforting,” Lois answered.
Salem came back. He had heard the conversation, and was glad to help Lois and the Silver Griffins. If there was one thing he’d learned in his many years on Earth, it was not to get on the Griffins’ bad side.
He turned to the Muffler twins. “I know you two don’t want to leave here, on account of I won’t be around to put a cap on your ice cream consumption.” Salem stroked his long beard. “So,” he said softly as he dug a hand into the pocket of his tweed trousers and pulled out a key ring, “there’s a chance I won’t be here to open the store. Two moons forbid that’s the case, but it’s possible. Would you mind opening up for me around ten?”
The Muffler twins nodded, sly grins on their ice cream-covered faces.
“Thank you kindly,” Salem said. “Knew I could count on you. Please, don’t—I repeat, do not—eat all of my inventory.”
“No worries,” they said simultaneously.
“Thank you, and try not to make a big mess, either. I got an image to uphold.”
“Yeah, of the old wizard who gives away free ice cream,” Agnes said, laughing.
Salem rolled his eyes and put his arm around Agnes. “Ready?” he asked Lois.
“Want the truth?” Lois replied. “I’m not. I’m kind of fearing the worst.”
“Don’t worry,” Salem said, reaching a hand out and putting it on Lois’s forearm. “Whatever’s wrong, we can fix. That’s what friends are for.”
And they all knew Salem was right.
No less than fifteen minutes later, they pulled into Ignatius’s driveway. Lois found it hard to catch her breath. She was nervous—dead and missing members of the Order, Arachnids, music boxes, and the world in between… could it get much worse?
The house seemed still and empty.
Salem walked right up to the front windows and peered in.
“TV’s on,” he said. “Someone’s here.”
Lois’s hand hovered over her 3-D printed, government-issued wand.
“Should we knock?”
“No need, I have a key,” Salem answered.
Agnes shook her head at Lois, and mouthed, ‘He doesn’t’.
Instead of a key, Salem took out his own wand and tapped the doorknob. Light flashed in the hazy morning, illuminating the brass. With a click, the lock undid itself, and the door creaked open.
He pushed his way in, Agnes and Lois following right behind him.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Lois was thinking. Her glasses were slipping off the end of her nose, but she didn’t have the time or the urge to fix them. No, she grabbed her wand instead, ready for a fight.
The TV wasn’t playing any program at all—just static and that awful fzzt noise that comes with a dead channel. And even though the sun was coming up, it was still quite dark inside of Ignatius’s living room; this was, unsurprisingly to Lois, as quirky as she had expected it to be for a wizard of Ignatius’s personality.
“We split up,” Agnes said, taking control of the situation from Salem. Lois felt a little better as she did. Witches and magical females, in her experience, were meant to lead. They stayed calm when shit hit the fan. Take Leira Berens of Austin, for example. Half-Light Elf and new to the hidden magical world, at that, and Lois had never met someone with such resolve in all of her years.
Agnes directed Salem toward the stairs and pointed up, then she motioned Lois to the living room, where the dead TV played its dead channel. She herself went to the left, toward the kitchen and another hallway that smelled like dog.
They went, each tiptoeing over the hardwood, not making a sound.
As Lois passed the couch, she stared at the TV. It was hypnotizing in its own way, and she hadn’t noticed the two covered lumps on the living room floor. Her shoe drove into one, and both Lois and the person under the covers cried out. Lois went stumbling into the opposite wall, catching her balance enough to direct herself into a ratty E-Z chair, while the other lump shifted underneath the covers and screamed.
“Ouch!” Claire said. “Tab, what the hell did you do that for?” Her eyes were bleary, hardly opened.
“Do what?” the other lump answered, which must’ve been Tab.
“Kick me in the ribs. Not cool.”
“What? I didn’t… I’m right here, Claire,” Tab said.
“Huh?”
Lois watched this exchange with strange fascination.
Claire turned toward the figure in the chair, thinking it must be Maria or her grandfather—who else would be up at this ungodly hour? She rubbed her eyes, wiping the sleep away from them. Suddenly, she stopped, and her eyes opened as wide as two full moons.
Lois looked at the Claire. “Don’t worry, I am an ally,” she said, raising her hand.
“What are you doing in here? Get out!” Tabby demanded from the floor.
“This isn’t your house. Get out, or we’ll call the police!” Claire echoed.
Thankfully, Agnes and Salem rushed into the living room then, and recognition registered in the eyes of both young women.
“What is going on?” Claire asked, getting up, but still backing against the wall with Tab right next to her.
“We’re looking for Ignatius,” Agnes said, smiling. “Has he not come back yet?”
Everyone seemed to have calmed down a bit, though Claire rubbed at her ribs where Lois accidentally kicked her.
The girls shook their heads. “I, uh… geez, what time is it?” Claire asked, stifling a yawn. “Way too early to get kicked in the ribs.”
“Sorry about that,” Lois said. “It was an accident. Didn’t see you on the floor. I was coming over to unplug that TV. Damn thing was giving me the heebie-jeebies.”
They turned to look at the fuzzy station. Claire nodded. “Makes sense.” Then she turned it
