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“We can only hope.”
Dax’s desk phone rang, “Now what?”
It was Jack. Dax listened for a moment and then nodded. Rollo had already returned to his desk. Dax knew his mind had already returned to tracking Frederick, so he turned to one of the bear shifters, “Hey Clint, how about you come with me. Something’s up at Curiouser,” which was the popular abbreviation for the witches shop by the Four Corners.
Clint groaned as he stood up. “Seriously? I thought we were done with witches, at least for a little while.”
“We get to protect everybody, buddy. Come on,” Dax said as he got to his feet.
“Fine. Lead the way,” Clint replied, as they both headed for the door.
* * *
Nothing was too farfrom anything else in Fae Crossing, and in this case they had only to walk a few short blocks to the Four Corners.
“You ever been in here?” Clint asked?
“Sure, man. You know, on official business with the witches.”
“Um hum.”
As they walked up to the entrance, Dax noted the creative window display of a fortune teller mannequin seated at a table, with a spread of tarot cards before her. Assorted dreamcatchers, and prisms and little sculptures of wood nymphs and gnomes decorated the rest of the window.
As they opened the door, the smell of sandalwood filled his nose.
“Man, they love their incense,” Dax said.
“Yeah, they do,” Clint replied as he held the door for Dax.
Inside, the place was full from floor to ceiling with every manner of “spiritual” –or hippie– interest. There were cabinets full of crystals and pendants, and rows of leather bound books. From the ceiling hung all manner of chimes and mobiles. Fairy wings and masks adorned the walls, as well as skulls and skeletons and various oddities under little bell jars. Then as they came more fully into the space, he could see through a doorway into an adjacent room.
It was totally trashed. There were shredded books, and ripped up dresses everywhere. The first image that jumped into his head was that of his bathroom once, when he came home after leaving his cats alone all weekend. One of them had absolutely shredded a roll of toilet paper. The scenes were strangely similar.
He examined the room briefly before heading back toward the counter.
Jack stood there, half interviewing, and apparently half comforting the clerk. It was a young woman Dax had not met before. She must have been relatively new. The witches who owned the place, Etta, Lora, and Nan were nowhere to be seen. But obviously this girl was in the know if she worked here.
As they approached the checkout, the conversation came into earshot.
“Okay, okay, just calm down. Just run through it again, now that my associates are here…”
The girl was doing her best to take steady breaths as she tried to recount what she had seen. “So, this guy was just acting, well,… weird…He was really, really…I don’t know, friendly…but too much, if that makes sense… and then he, well, he just started jumping and darting around.”
“Jumping around?” Jack asked, as he took notes on a little pad.
“Yeah, jumping,” she said, looking a little unsure of herself.
“Like an animal. But not like an animal,” she continued. “I know it sounds crazy, but then one arm suddenly changed.” She was getting more anxious now.
“Changed?” Jack asked.
“Shifted! It became a furry leg and paw!”
Clint went around and told her to take it easy.
“Okay, so this guy started shifting here?”
“Well, yeah and no,” she began, almost looking to them for some clarity on the matter. “Well it wasn’t, like, clean, like he was going back and forth. It was freaky! And don’t shifters have some kind of code? Like it is only done in secret? And for good reason? Like you can’t just go freaking people out!”
