As the day grew te, two girls burst into the magic shop’s front door, shaking snow off their cloaks and onto the creaky wooden floor. Evelyn, the younger of the two, stood at half the height of the her teen-aged counterpart, with a headband barely containing her frizzled, fiery red hair that’s defeated every brush that tried to tame it. Her green eyes sparkled in awe as she looked at me like a bird eager to add a shiny new collectible to her nest. “It’s pretty... can I have it now?”
“Still no luck?” asked Janine, the taller girl with braided blonde hair and a soft voice. The more reserved of the two, Janine usually observed her mother’s experiments from afar while Tobias more often than not needed to keep Evelyn from climbing atop Nadia’s workbench. The way Janine looked at me with her kind brown eyes felt different from everyone else, like she saw something different than the others, but she always kept her distance as Tobias warned her and Evelyn to do.
Nadia dipped me in some water and dried me off with a towel. I hoped the next tests involved cleaning me with different kinds of fuzzy cloth, but as, Nadia was already mixing up a new bowl of toxic sludge. “It’s a work in progress.” She looked at the clumps of melting snow on the ground as the girls hung up their cloaks and removed their boots. “Make sure you wipe all that up before you run off.”
Evelyn grabbed a wand; Janine picked up a mop. Nadia frowned as she watched her daughter use such a mundane, non-enchanted tool to clean up her mess, especially when her red-haired pipsqueak of a cousin collected all the melting snow she’d tracked in with barely any effort, floating it into a bucket with a flick of her wand.
“Well, I think you should let them rest,” Janine said, wiping the mop back and forth. “They don’t seem very happy.”
They? Who’s ‘they’? Did she mean me? How could she tell whether I was happy? Her words surprised Nadia and me alike, but Janine seemed so certain of what she said. Nadia furrowed her brow, examining me closer and seeing nothing different. “What do you mean, sweetie?”
“Don’t you feel it?” Janine put the mop back in the bucket and walked to the counter, peering down at me and seeing something more than everyone else. “There’s this energy, or... something. Usually it’s just kind of, I don’t know, sitting there, but it swirls around a lot while you’re testing it, like little whirlwinds.”
Nadia adjusted her gsses as she listened. I could see disappointment give way to intrigue in the magician’s eyes as the opportunity to discuss enchantments with her daughter—who usually showed no interest in anything within the walls of the magic shop—opened up a new avenue of study. Hope blossomed within me, maybe one of the Denholms really would unlock my potential! Just not the one anyone expected.
“I don’t see or feel anything like that,” Nadia said, picking me up by the chain to get a closer look, before holding me out to Janine as an idea formed within her. “It might be resonating with you in a unique way. You should try it on.”
“Nadia—” Tobias, holding a squirming Evelyn in his arms, tried to voice his concerns before Nadia rose a finger to silence him. I could appreciate his caution, I’d be of the same mind in his situation, but I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt any of them, even after all the silly experiments—which were only ever mild irritants anyway. Even though I knew I wouldn’t stay in a magic shop window forever, I still had fond memories of watching Evelyn and Janine py in the snow, or of Tobias and Nadia milling about the bookcases as they chatted with customers. This shop was my home, the Denholms were like my family.
The shopkeeper set me in Janine’s palms, waiting to see if her daughter could do anything more with me. Janine gnced down at the mysterious object in her hands, taking a deep breath as she put my chain around her neck.
I could sense something... what was it? I couldn’t expin this fuzzy, almost magnetic sensation within me once Janine csped the neckce chain together, but I knew it meant something. I had to follow this instinct!
Everyone’s eyes widened as I glowed slightly brighter, sparking to life like a fme catching in tinder. I’m still not sure how I managed it in the moment, at least I made my message clear.
“Well, this opens up some opportunities,” Nadia said as her grin grew with each passing moment. “Janine, how would you like to help me with my tests? I’ll give you the neckce for a couple hours each day, and you can try to make it respond even more. Maybe you could try using a little magic on it, too?”
Janine shrugged before she removed me, handing me back to Nadia for the night. “I can wear it, but I think I’ll try my own tests instead.”
“I suppose,” Nadia said with a defeated sigh. “We can start tomorrow, then.”
