Threads by Erin Latimer (book recommendations for teens TXT) 📖

that this might all be a strange dream, and maybe the best and simplest thing would be to play along.
“What are these floating, shiny strings?” she asked quietly.
Azura Grey looked pleased. “Ah, you can see the threads. Good. Ruby was right.”
“What does that mean?”
“You can see magic.” Azura tapped her pointed chin thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine how she knew just from watching you as a little girl. That woman never ceased to amaze me.”
“Those strings are magic?” Alice stared at them again. The strings were thick in the air, running around the shelves and displays in the shop, curling up bookcases and ceiling pillars and clinging to the roof. Some of the colors stood out brighter than others, in some places they were together in patterns. Here and there lights pulsed gently as some kind of energy ran up and down the patterns. When she looked carefully she could see the objects on the shelves had threads on them too. She approached the shelves cautiously, peering at the objects more closely. A straw basket of colourful scarves had blue and yellow threads woven into the wool. In a wooden box a collection of reading glasses had threads of pink and brown clinging to the frames. Alice spotted a box of reed flutes with a neon pink thread wrapped all the way up to the mouth piece. “These things are enchanted too?”
Azura looked proud. “You catch on fast. We sell all sorts of enchanted objects.”
“Oh.”
“You’re taking this all rather well,” Azura said, thoughtfully. “That is to say, you aren’t screaming or fainting.”
“I think…I think I’m dreaming.”
“Ah,” Azura responded, “I think you will find you are not.”
Alice shook her head like she was trying to get water out of her ears. It sort of felt like she was underwater, or that her head was stuffed with cotton, and nothing made sense. It was as if reality had cracked down the middle like a badly made clay pot, and all her assumptions of what was real and normal were leaking out the bottom. It had been several minutes now and the store was still the same; no vacuums suddenly appeared, the threads still floated in the air, refusing to vanish in the face of her denial. A thought snuck in past her defences. Maybe this is real.
“Okay,” Alice spoke, trying to gather her wits, “I inherited a magic shop, and I can see magic, and I’m not going crazy.” Maybe if she said it out loud everything would start to make sense.
“Also, you may want to start packing,” Azura added calmly.
“Packing?” Alice was struggling to keep up. “Why?”
“There’s a suite above the shop for you.”
She had to pause for a second to grasp this new information. “I inherited a suite too?”
“It comes with the store. It’s sort of necessary.”
“Necessary?”
Azura didn’t seem to mind that she kept repeating everything. “If you work here you need to live here, since you never know where it’s going to end up next.”
“I don’t understand,” Alice said faintly.
The older woman smiled sympathetically. “I know this is hard to take in. Let’s have a seat by the fire, you look like your knees might buckle.”
Come to think of it, her knees did feel watery. Alice followed the woman into the next room, looking around as she went. The cat was in its spot again, and it lifted its head to blink sleepily at Alice. The fireplace was small and made of bricks. It was a real fire, not the gas kind and the heat it gave off was comforting to Alice as she sat in one of the old brown armchairs beside it.
“You see,” Azura continued, “the shop never stays in one place for long. It moves from city to city.”
“A traveling magical shop?” Alice rubbed at the beginnings of a head ache behind her eyes.
Azura chuckled. “You’re starting to look a little less shell shocked. That’s good.”
“I guess.” She was beginning to accept that this might not be a dream, which, in itself scared her.
“Hot Chocolate?”
Alice was surprised at how much she wanted a hot drink right now, something normal to grasp on to, to reassure herself that she wasn’t going nuts. “Yes, please.”
Azura got up and moved behind some bookcases, Alice heard a door open and the woman’s voice floated out from the back. “Several hundred years ago people believed in magic. They also feared it. Witches and Wizards were hunted down and killed; anything that had been enchanted was destroyed. That is why the shop moved, to avoid the hunters and protect itself. Ruby left it that way when she bought it, I suspect because it adds an air of mystery.” Azura came back around the bookcases holding two red mugs, she handed one to Alice.
“Plus it’s cheap.”
“Thank you. How do you mean cheap?” She inhaled the smell of peppermint.
“When the shop arrives in town it simply chooses the first available place. Sometimes it’s a vacant lot, sometimes an empty store front that hasn’t been rented out yet. Either way, the owner of that place always conveniently forgets he owns that plot of land for the time we’re there. No one has ever come around asking for rent.”
“So…” Alice dragged out the word, trying to think. “Aunt Ruby wanted me to inherit the shop, live above it and travel from town to town selling magic…stuff?”
“That’s the gist of it.”
“Well,” she said, weakly, “It sure beats the hell out of being an English Teacher.”
Azura’s smile lit up her face. “You’ll do it?”
“I guess I will.” Alice shrugged, feeling like she was on the verge of a hysterical laugh. She shut her mouth firmly.
“I know it will take getting used to.”
“I’ll say, I’m just starting to believe this actually might be real.” Alice paused for a desperate sip of her drink, as if the hot chocolate might ground her in reality. “So, what if I tell my parents this and they think I’m nuts?”
“They will,” Azura said firmly.
“I can’t tell my parents?” She felt vaguely panicked. How was she supposed to keep this a secret?
The woman raised a steel coloured eyebrow. “Would they believe you?”
“I could show them.”
“They haven’t got any magic,” Azura said, “So all they would see is over-priced vacuum cleaners and grey walls.”
“Oh.” Alice felt deflated.
“Sorry, but it’s a limited amount of people that have enough magic to see through the spell.”
Alice was twisting her hair again. She made herself stop, taking a deep, calming breaths.
“I don’t know if I can take this.”
“I know it’s a lot in one go,” Azura said sympathetically. “You must have more questions.”
She thought about this. “About a million. What happens if we move on to another town and Mom and Dad come down to visit me at the shop? Will they find it gone? That would be sort of hard to explain.”
“I’m sure they will be visiting a few times to begin with, so we won’t move the shop for a little while. After that, should they think about going to visit you at the shop, they’ll remember that they already went to visit you several hours ago and that it would be silly to go back. Should it be some type of emergency, however, the shop can be back in this space in under three seconds.”
“Aunt Ruby put a spell on them too?” Alice felt slightly horrified at the idea of this crazy Great Aunt casting spells willy-nilly over her entire family. “Mom said the last time she saw us I was only seven.”
“Ruby never did things last minute.” Azura smiled fondly. “I believe she knew you would be getting the shop since the moment she met you.”
“Wow.” Alice warmed her hands on the mug. “That’s crazy.” She added to herself, and a little bit scary.
“I suppose.” Azura shrugged and tapped her chin again. “Hmm…I believe I should tell you a few things before I open the shop.”
Alice hadn’t looked at the front until now. The door was made of dark wood, with a glass pane in the top half. There was a sign on the glass with the “We Are Open, Please Come In” part facing inwards. Large rectangular windows were set on either side of the door, and she could see a pair of wrought iron lamps through the panes. The end of a dark green awning peeked through the top of the window. She couldn’t help the thrill of excitement that went through her. “Wow, the store is just so...so…”
“Enchanted looking?”
“That’s the word.”
Azura smiled. “You should see the looks on some of the regular children’s faces when the shop chooses to let them in.”
“Regular children?” Alice repeated blankly.
“Regulars - the slang term being “Regs”, I believe.” Azura leaned down to place her mug on the corner of the rug by the fireplace. Alice did the same. Her hot chocolate had been cold for a while now and she’d been clinging to it simply for the sake of holding onto something.
“Oops,” she squeaked in horror as the cup tipped over, dark liquid splashing out over the rug. “Oh no I’m so sorry!” She stared at the spreading chocolate stain in horror. The rug was dark red with a complicated pattern around the edges. It was probably Persian and about a million years old, and she’d just spilled peppermint hot chocolate all over it.
“Keep watching.” Azura’s eyes twinkled as Alice’s mouth dropped open and she stared as the rug seemed to suck the stain in. It didn’t simply soak it up like regular fabric, it sucked it in and she could have sworn she heard a little slurping noise. She stared in shock. The place where the chocolate had been was suddenly spotless.
“Oh! That was magic?”
“It was. Feast your eyes on our “Self Cleaning Carpet”.” Azura chuckled. “Oh, the look on your face.”
“I thought I’d ruined it.” Alice let out a breath of relief. “That’s amazing!”
Azura laughed again. “You won’t be as easy to impress in the next couple weeks; you’ll get used to it.”
“I can’t imagine getting used to all this.” She continued to stare at the rug in astonishment, wondering if it would do anything else. Maybe leap up and fly around the room.
“It takes time,” Azura said. “Now what was I saying?”
“Regular children,” Alice mumbled, still watching the rug.
“Ah yes. Occasionally the shop takes pity on an un-magical child from a bad home or school situation. Usually the poor child finds an item, a magic bouncy ball or something that just happens to cost the exact amount of change in his or her pocket. Of course, the store is gone the next time they come back, but they treasure the experience and the magic object for the rest of their lives.”
Alice remembered the strange dream she’d had last night. She fingered the silver bracelet around her wrist, running her fingers over the carved surface of the charms. She inhaled, smelling the wood burning in the fireplace and that faint spice that lingered in the air. It brought the dream back sharply.
“Or at least it usually goes like that.” Azure glanced down at the charm bracelet on Alice’s wrist. “There was one incident where a young boy got turned into a Werewolf, but…” Alice’s mouth dropped in alarm, and Azura hastily continued. “But regardless, our normal customers are usually Wizards, Witches, Mages, Sorcerers, Elves, and so on…” Azura trailed off. “Alice?”
She had gone very pale. Her breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. “Werewolves?”
The older