I sigh and nod. “If his boss is making him do it then I’ve been where Leo is and it feels awful.”
“It always does when you carry out someone else’s plan,” Jaak says and puts a hand on my shoulder. “But that isn’t in the cards for us. Not anymore. Now, why don’t we investigate another business on that list Leo gave us. What’s next on the list?”
“Yeah, okay. Investigating is a better plan than throwing candy at Leo. He wasn’t lying about the last business owner, so I think we can trust the list.” I look down at the business names scrawled on my notepad. “It says the owner of the floral shopand the toy store should be here. Which one do you want to visit first?”
Jaak looks thoughtful and considers both. The floral shop is across the street from us and the toy shop is further down the street in the direction the kids ran. I hear a high-pitched shriek that sounds like a war cry and suspiciously like the kid Jaak gave the candy to. I make sure not to look that way in case they’re committing candy-fueled crimes. “The floral shop,” he says, “the toy store has…an aura I don’t like about it.”
The toy shop is…cute. That’s the only way I can describe it. It’s a cute little brick building with purple trim around the windows and a sign proclaimingTimeless Toys ‘n Things.There’s a display for building blocks and a few kites suspended in the air like they’re flying. By the door the puppets used for the puppet show sway in the wind.
“It doesn’t look like it has bad vibes,” I say. “It’s cute. Like, really cute.”
“Cute is camouflage. You will learn this in time. Besides,” Jaak points at the puppets, “do you think those are cute? I think not. They’re soulless. No good can come of a puppet.”
The second Jaak points out the puppets, one of them, a clown, gets blown in the wind and its head turns my way. Its eyes lock right on me and I swallow hard. Totally not cute.
“Okay, maybe now I’m seeing the bad aura,” I nudge him toward the floral shop. “Come on, let’s get inside and away from that puppet.”
Jaak offers me his arm to cross the street. It’s when we’re almost to the other side of the road that I notice something. “There’s no cars.”
“What’s a car?”
“Four wheels, big, metal, fun to do doughnuts with in the snow.” I only know the last part because I’d snuck out Roy’s car one time when he really ticked me off. I wasn’t allowed to havea car, and Buffy didn’t have one because of how bad she drove. That didn’t stop us from stealing Roy’s car and doing doughnuts at midnight in the parking lot behind the school. Most of them had been accidental because truth be told, I wasn’t great at driving either but once you got them down, they were easy enough to keep doing.
Jaak rubs his chin and looks back towardsPancakes and More. “Hmmm, a snow doughnut. That sounds intriguing. Do you think the diner has them?”
I grin and grab his arm. “Not those kinds of doughnuts. A car is like, ummm, a chariot? Do you know what that is? Like something you drive to get from one place to another really fast.”
He closes his eyes and thinks for a second before he opens them. “The cult members that I mind-walked in didn’t know much about them, but I think I understand what it is. If there are any cars here they didn’t use them.”
Jaak opens the flower shop door for me and we duck inside. Instantly the temperature drops and things are dimmer. After the chaos of the candy shoppe and the fact that we ate way too much sugar, it’s nice.
“It’s calm in here,” I say, looking around. There’s a lot of flowers, so many that I don’t recognize them all. There’s even plants. Some are hanging and others are on the floor so big that the pots are large enough for me to sit inside comfortably.
I walk close to a long-stemmed flower. It’s purple with white blossoms in the middle. “This is beautiful.” I run my finger along the purple buds and almost jerk my hand back. It doesn’t feel like a flower at all, it feels like paper. I step closer and see there’s white buds in each long-stemmed purple bundle. “I’ve never seen this before,” I tell Jaak, leaning forward to see if it has any smell but there’s nothing. I pick up a bloom for a better look. “I wonder what it is.”
“Purple Statice,” a woman says as she pops out from behind the purple flowers and I throw the flower I’m holding at her.
“Where did you come from?”
She catches the flower easily and calmly places it back in the barrel it was in. “I’m the florist, darling. I come from everywhere and nowhere.” She winks at me with a toothy smile. She's older, short, just barely to my shoulder. Silver-haired and wiry in the kind of way that makes me completely unsure how old she really is. The lines in her face tell me she’s in her seventies but the way she moves around the flower display to come towards us suggests otherwise. There’s a sureness in her steps that looks like she’s my age. She tosses her long, silver braid over her shoulder and holds out her hand to us.
“How do you do? I’m Eleanor.”
There’s what looks like a dozen silver rings on her hand, some with gemstones and some without. When I take her hand the silver is cool against my skin. “I’m Meadow.”
“Pleased to meet you, Meadow.” She leans to the side and looks Jaak up and down. “And who might this tall drink of water be? A boyfriend of yours?”
“No,” I shake my head and I hear Jaak start to protest but he stops the second I say, “he’s my husband.”
“I am Jaak, husband of Meadow,” he says, holding out his hand to take Eleanor’s.
The woman cackles and shakes his hand. “You sure are. That’s quite a promotion from boyfriend, isn’t it?”
I don’t think Jaak gets her joke when he says. “Indeed. I work very hard.”
“You really do. There’s no better husband in the land,” I tell him and watch as the big demon preens under my praise. It’s an interesting thing watching the Lord of Chaos and War blush when you compliment him.
“Well now, you two are very newly married, aren’t you?” Eleanor asks and taps the bucket of Purple Statice by her side. “This is the perfect flower for you two then.”
