Page 9 of Enduring Magic

Looking both ways down the hallway and pretending horror when she caught another passenger’s panicked eye, Summer stepped backward into her room and gestured for the furry beasties to join her.

“Hurry up,” she hissed.

Mice, like people, came in all shapes and sizes. And like everyday humans, they all had differing personalities, from hyper to lackadaisical. One particularly chubby mouse was eyeing the service tray outside the door of the adjoining room.

“Psst!”

He barely spared her a glance.

“Psst!Hey, buddy!”

Glancing left and right, he looked at her in question over his shoulder.

“Get a move on, or you’re going to be caught and thrown to the fishes.”

It didn’t escape her notice that she sounded remarkably like her familiar, Saul, with his Godfather attitude. The little dude must be rubbing off on her. But if he were here, he’d definitely have these mice in line.

“Yancy, shake a freaking leg,” came a gravelly voice next to her bare foot.

Yancy grabbed what he could of the remaining English muffin and hauled butt into her room. Summer closed the door in the face of a guy whose eye she happened to catch in the hallway. And she was certain he’d noticed her floor was littered with furry, chattering creatures, both big and small.

“Goddess, help me,” she muttered.

Turning to look down at the expectant faces of her miniature visitors, she grimaced. “Okay, I’m going to need you to separate into groups. Starting with the southern states to the right and the northern states to the left. Those of you from the islands, you stay in the center.”

Someone pounded on the door.

“Quickly,” she urged on a whisper. Raising her voice, she called out, “One second!”

It took less than one minute of chaos, but the mice were grouped by region, then state or province. The door pounding continued as, one by one, she tapped into the mental picture the individual mouse gave her to send him home. When everyone was gone but Yancy and Clancy—that’s what her grumbly assistant assured her his name was as she stared at him in disbelief—she shooed them into the bathroom and told them to hide under the towel she’d dumped on the floor.

After fluffing her hair and smoothing down her peasant top, she opened the door to see her annoying, bug-eyed fellow passenger.

He didn’t bother to speak but charged into the room as if looking for evidence of her involvement in the mice-capades. The guy wouldn’t bewrong, per se, but Summer liked to think she was getting the hang of cover-ups by now.

Hands behind her to keep the door propped open, she rocked back on her heels and surveyed the room with a keen eye for detail. She noticed some crumbs off to one side of the bed—thanks to Yancy—but wasn’t too worried. Anyone would assume she was a slob, same with the towel on the bathroom floor. She just hoped this guy didn’t feel the need to stomp over and pick it up in his quest for rodents.

“May I help you?”

“What did you do with them?”

Yep, he hadn’t failed to notice the migration of mice into her stateroom. Heaving an internal sigh, she touched the tanzanite bracelet on her arm and mentally called her father. Ten seconds later, as she was still trying to come up with a legitimate excuse for what he’d seen, the lights in the hall flickered and the air grew heavy. Her father appeared and entered the fray.

“May I help you?” Alastair’s sharp tone brought the passenger’s head around.

“This chick is hiding a shit-load of mice here in her stateroom.”

Dark-blond brows shot skyward, and a forbidding expression settled on Alastair’s visage. “Chick?Don’t you meanlovely young woman?”

Summer’s not-so-bright visitor shook his head. “There’s mice, man. Bunches of them! If my wife sees them, she’s going to want to fly home when we dock in Barbados. Do you know how much a flight from Barbados to Michigan is?”

“Mice?” Alastair’s tone dripped disbelief, and Summer was reminded what a consummate actor the man was. Hollywood had nothing on him, and her father had definitely missed his calling. “How many mice?” Alastair asked.

“Hundreds, man! Hundreds!” the guy practically shouted, arms wildly flailing about. He was charging for the bathroom when Summer stepped in his path.

“Look, Mr.…” She waited for him to fill in the blank, and when he didn’t, she shrugged. “Look, sir, I don’t know what youthinkyou saw, but there’s no way I’d be able to get that many rodents on board the ship without someone discovering them.” Taking a page from her father’s script, Summer mock shuddered. “And why would I want to?”

For a brief instant, the man looked uncertain, then firm resolve settled on his features, and he shook his head. “I saw them!”

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