The Magic Shop

A Matter of Time





Jason opened the attic door just a hair’s width, and peeked through the crack. Marcus assumed he was checking to make sure they weren’t being watched before they made their exit. He gave Ellie a confused look, though, as Jason suddenly pumped his fist as if something exciting had just happened.

“First time,” Jason said, pounding his chest, obviously proud of himself.

“First time for what?” Marcus asked.

Ellie walked over to the door and shoved it closed.

“No!” Jason exclaimed before turning to the nearest pile of boxes and kicking it over. “I had the stairwell on the first try.”

“Stairwell?” Ellie asked with one hand stiff on the attic door and the other outstretched in a warning gesture. “Wait, before we leave, we need to get Winston and the skull back. That’s the whole reason why we came here.”

“Now you’re going to go and change things up on me?” Jason shook his head. “No way. We need to get out of here fast before Sol regains his strength and destroys us. You think Faustino’s bad? That guy is not someone you mess with, and when he comes to, he won’t be happy.”

“You thought we were just going to leave the old man and the skull?” Marcus restacked the boxes that Jason had kicked over. “Jason, no way, man. Ellie’s right, we have to save Winston before they hurt him, and get the skull before they do anything to it. We’ll still get you out of here, but you are the only one who knows the way around this place.”

“For your information, I had a straight path to our exit until you closed that door.” Jason scrunched his nose at Ellie. “You may have just sealed our doom.” To Ellie’s confused look, he added, “Go ahead. Open the door.”

Just then, Marcus heard a low rumble from behind the door. It sounded like a low growl, followed by a scratching noise.

“What was that?” Ellie asked, looking from the door to Jason, and back again. “When were you going to tell us that there were monsters in this place waiting around to eat us?” He shrugged, confused.

Marcus took hold of his brim, drew in a deep breath, and darted for the door. He threw Ellie’s arm to one side and opened the door all in one motion. He gaped as he looked past the doorframe. There were no monsters, but where the stairwell had been, Marcus saw a long hallway full of doors. From underneath some doors flashing colors stretch across the floor, and from others faint trails of smoke dissipating.

“Am I going crazy,” Marcus asked, jerking a thumb at the door, “or does that look a whole lot different than when we came up here the first time around?”

“I guess you’re not crazy after all,” Ellie said. “I would’ve definitely remembered those doors.”

“Come on, you’ve seen worse than this,” Jason said. “It’s just a security measure for this holding room. Mirella has the door spelled to exit at different locations within The Magic Box every time it’s opened. Only the adults know how to get it to open up to the right place every time. By luck I just had it too before you went and closed it again.”

“So how are we supposed to find Winston?” Ellie asked.

Jason grabbed the door handle and closed the door with a thud. He paused and whispered a count to three, and then opened it again. Where the hallway had been just moments ago, Marcus now saw a direct entrance to a room that was empty except for one chair centered in the room, complete with manacled arm rests. “I know where they were keeping him before, and unless they moved him, he should still be there.”

Jason closed the door and opened it again several more times, each time exposing a different location in the shop. Marcus couldn’t help but think that as small as the shop looked like on the outside, it seemed to have rooms and hallways galore. Maybe that was magic, too. Finally, Jason opened the door, let out a relieved sigh, and stepped forward. Marcus thought he’d found the correct exit this time, but then Jason jumped back with a yelp. Marcus stepped around him to see what had happened.

There, at the foot of the door, was Tofu, sitting at the top of the stairwell they had come through originally.

“What the—?” Marcus said as he bent down to ruffle the dog’s fur. He half-wanted to touch him just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. He was still getting accustomed to the magic used on the door, after all. “Is that really you, Tofu?”

The dog scuffled forward and jumped into Marcus’s arms. “Hey friend,” Marcus couldn’t believe it; sure, he had his sister, but it felt good to have another friend in this dark hour.

“Give him here,” Ellie said, smiling brightly as she took him from Marcus, scratching the little guy behind the ears. “How did you find us, little buddy?”

“I don’t know,” Jason said sarcastically, “maybe he followed you here? Look folks, no one is taking pictures, so can we get going now?”

Marcus looked out the doorway again. “Why are we going this way?”

Jason clapped Marcus on the shoulder and said, “We can stand here opening and closing this door all day hoping that it will take us to the right place, or we can start with what I know. You decide. ”

Marcus considered him a moment, and then nodded. Ellie let out a loud sigh.

“If you plan on getting through this,” Jason said, stepping through the door, “you will have to start trusting me at some point.”

Ellie set Tofu on the floor. “Now you be a good dog and keep your yap shut, got it? We don’t need to draw any unwanted attention.” Tofu sneezed at her abruptly and ruffled his fur. Marcus thought it looked a little spiteful, like he didn’t like Ellie telling him what to do.

After following Jason down the spiral stairs they quietly entered the shop. Everything was quiet and still. The sole source of light entered the room through the front of the shop and passed the various window displays. The store’s magical items cast oddly-shaped shadows onto the floor. The swaying sign inside of the door read: “OPEN”.

“Something’s not right,” Marcus said. “It’s a little early to close shop, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Jason replied. “Between the private event earlier today and capturing you, I’m sure they didn’t want to be distracted with street customers.”

“It’s too quiet.” Ellie scanned the shop.

They crossed the shop cautiously, weaving in and out of aisles, hiding behind bookshelves and displays, and taking all the normal precautions to make sure they weren’t seen.

“Where are you taking us?” Marcus asked.

“There is a storage room behind the wall of the front desk,” Jason said, standing up from behind the aisle. “All we have to do is—”

“Get down,” Ellie grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“What are you doing?”

“Look,” she pointed toward the front desk.

Jason took in the room. After a moment Marcus saw a head peek out from behind the wall opposite the cash register and survey the shop. He recognized this as one of the men that had helped Faustino during the event earlier that day. Marcus hadn’t noticed this door before due to the room’s layout; the angles of the shop hid it well.

“I knew this seemed too easy,” Ellie said, throwing up her hands. “Now what?”

“The way I see it,” Marcus knelt to pet Tofu, “we have two choices. We can either go around the guy, or we can go through him.”

“How do we go around him?” Jason asked. “He’s blocking the door, and I don’t know of another way to get in that room.”

“We don’t.” Ellie smiled. “We draw him out, and then go around him, back to the door.” Marcus nodded. While he hated to admit it, Ellie was way smarter than he thought.

“The question is; how we are going to do that?” Jason wiped sweat from his forehead.

Marcus looked around. There had to be something they could use to draw the thug out. After all, they were in a magic shop, surrounded by aisles of mystical items. That’s it, he thought, they could use something from the shop.

“Jason, you work here,” he said, now excited, “what could we use off the shelves to distract this guy and draw him out?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Jason said, now examining the shelves. “Let’s see, the swords won’t do us any good.” He crawled down the aisle looking for something else, “neither will these performance gloves, love potions, or magic beans.” Then he sighed. “I don’t know.”

“What about those jars over there?” Marcus pointed to a shelf stocked with different colored glass jars, some with latch tops, others with seals. Some appeared to be full of a Jell-O-like substance, and others had odd things floating in them.

“And do what with them?” Jason asked. “Do you know what’s in those?”

“Of course I don’t know, but they look funky, and I figured we could throw some funk at that guy.”

“I don’t think you want to go throwing those around. The stuff in there is fairly explosive.”

“What about this?” Ellie asked, reaching into her pocket and removing the vial she had received from Mirella earlier that day. She handed it to Jason.

Taking the vial from her, Jason weighed it in his hand a moment; thinking: “Hm.”

“What’s in that vial anyway,” Ellie looked a little sheepish.

“I thought you already knew what was in it. Earlier you… Oh, never mind.”

“No, really,” Ellie said, “What’s in it?”

He took the bottle and swished it around, staring at the liquid-like substance in it. He stopped a moment and looked up at her. “Magic.”

Marcus asked, “You can bottle magic?”

Jason took a box off the shelf labeled “Bolivian Itching Powder” and removed the lid. Then he uncorked the vial. Carefully, he poured a single drop of the liquid into the box and quickly replaced the lid.

“You of all people should not ask that question, what with the brim you’re carrying and all.”

That made sense and Marcus felt a little embarrassed.

“Come on,” Jason said, “we really don’t have a lot of time.”

He crawled to the end of the aisle and positioned himself so that he had clear line of sight with the wall where they knew the thug was hiding.

He pushed the box hard and slid it across the floor. The man had obviously heard something because he poked his head out from behind the wall again, a little further this time, and looked hard around the shop.

“Who’s there?” he asked. Marcus heard a loud scratching sound, and the man must have as well for he looked down at the ground and his eyes seemed to grow as wide as saucers.

The box wiggled on the floor as if it imprisoned some little creature. The man stooped down to investigate, then they heard a popping sound, and the man shot back up.

After a moment of silence, the man bent over to look at the box again, and the lid suddenly blew off. Dust flew everywhere.

In a fit, the man danced around hysterically, as if he had rats crawling around inside his shirt and he couldn’t get them out.

“Help,” he said, and then gasped. “Help me, someone.” He fell to the ground, scratching and kicking out as he coughed and struggled. A thin layer of powder settled over him. Finally, the man rolled over unconscious.

Ellie asked, “Is he dead?”

Jason shook his head. “No,” he got up and made for the area the man had been guarding, “he’s just unconscious. Think of it as if he overheated, and he had to cool down. We don’t have long. Come on.”

“I’d hate to see what two drops of magic would have done.” Marcus smirked then stood and and followed Jason and Ellie.

“Careful,” Jason warned. “You wouldn’t want to get that powder on you, now would you?”

They stepped cautiously over the guard and approached the area that he had been watching. The passageway was shallow, and led to a solitary door. By the looks of it, Marcus suspected that this was no ordinary janitor’s closet.

Tall and intimidating, the door consisted of various panels made from different materials. Vertical slats alternated across the body of the door. Some were made of thick, dark wood and others of a bright, shiny metal. In the center metal panel was a circular disc that seemed to bear an engraved sun right in the middle.

Marcus grabbed the huge door handle and pulled as hard as he could, but the door wouldn’t budge. Of course, it was locked. Jason pushed him aside and tried the door with the same result.

“How do we get through,” Marcus asked, “more magic?”

“A key.” Jason stood on his toes and tried to reach the top of the doorframe. “There has to be a key. Bring me that chair.” He pointed to a small wooden chair that sat behind the cash register just around the wall. Ellie nodded and brought it back a moment later. Jason stood on the chair as he was the tallest, and groped around for a key on the top of the doorframe. He shook his head.

The other two looked for other standard hiding places-door mats or potted plants that might hide the key but found nothing.

“There has to be another way,” Marcus said.

“Wait a minute,” Ellie raised a finger. Marcus liked it when she came up with ideas. They were usually practical and quite useful. “If this guy was supposed to guard the door, doesn’t it make sense that he might have the key?”

The boys stood rigidly, and stared at each other for a moment. It was too logical; it made too much sense.

“If he does have the key,” Marcus clapped his sister on the back, “how are we going to get it without getting the magical itching powder all over us?”

Ellie raised a finger and then wandered over to the shop aisles. After rummaging around for some time, she finally returned holding a box. “Here.” She handed the box to Jason. “This should do the trick.”

He looked down at the box and read the label. “Performers’ gloves? Do people even use these anymore?”

“I thought I had remembered seeing them over there somewhere,” Ellie said. “And yes, people use them. Faustino wore some the night of the show.”

Jason opened the box and put the gloves on. With a sigh, he carefully approached the body. The man wore a gold watch, jeans, tennis shoes, and a sport coat. Jason patted down the man’s jean pockets but felt nothing unusual. He turned over a lapel and found an inside pocket to his jacket. He fished around in the pocket with his fingers. A moment later he pulled out a small, oddly-shaped device that looked like a disc with five prongs.

“What’s that?” he asked, confused.

“You mean this?” Jason held the disc up for everyone to see. “The key, of course.”

Marcus said, “that doesn’t look like a key.”

“Look at the door.”

Marcus walked over to the door and put his hand on the engraved center panel. “Wow,” he said as he felt the markings and looked back at the disk in Jason’s hand. Ellie joined him.

“Brilliant,” Ellie said. “So let’s plug it in and get going.”

“I’m afraid that it’s not that simple. We’ll have to figure out how to work it,” Jason said. “I saw some of what they did, but they didn’t show me how to work it. They just opened the door so I could restock the shelves.”

Marcus asked, “you mean it’s not just insert and turn?”

“It doesn’t work like a traditional key, you dolt. Haven’t you seen anything around here so far?”

“Here it goes.” Jason took the oddly-shaped key and set it into its proper place in the center of the door. He pressed the center of the key, rotated the disc, and waited.

Nothing happened.

“So,” Marcus said. “Do you know what you are doing, or not?”

“Give him a minute.” Ellie slugged her brother on the shoulder. “You can be insufferable sometimes, you know that, right?”

Jason ignored him and kept tinkering with the odd key. Then, a moment later, he paused for no apparent reason.

“Quit it, okay, Ellie?” Jason said from over his shoulder.

Ellie gave Marcus a confused look. “I was just defending you, thank you very much.” Then Jason slapped his shoulder suddenly, as if he was trying to catch someone’s hand.

“Lay off already.” Jason looked annoyed.

Marcus asked, “What are you talking about?”

Jason spun around with one hand on his back, scratching. Marcus could tell he was surprised by how far away he and Ellie were, like somehow he expected them to be closer.

“What’s going on?” Ellie asked.

“Itching.” Jason scratched his arms and his back feverishly. “I itch all over my back, no matter how hard I scratch.”

Jason walked over to the wall opposite where they stood. At the corner of the wall he rubbed his back up and down, and then side-to-side.

“Ellie, you help Jason,” Marcus approached the key and began spinning the dial. “I’ll figure this thing out.”

“Oh, it itches,” Jason rubbed up against the wall every which way he could. Ellie stood next to him, ready to help, but was afraid to touch him. “Over there on the shelves where we got the itching powder, Ellie,” Jason said, “look for the Omanian ointment.” Ellie nodded and ran to the shelves.

“I thought maybe it works like a combination lock,” Marcus said, ignoring Jason and Ellie, “and you have to spin it a certain way or something like that. What do you think, Jason?”

“A little occupied over here, man,” Jason said, now using a nearby sword to scratch his back.

Marcus concentrated on the door. He rotated the rods to the right, and then back to the left, hoping something would happen. If only he could get lucky and find some secret combination but nothing seemed to work. What was I thinking? He repeated this several times, and when he got no results, he slapped the dial and stepped back, holding his now stinging hand, frustrated.

“How long have we been at this?” he asked, letting out a big sigh. “There has to be some other way.”

When he didn’t get an answer, he turned to see Ellie lathering green cream on Jason’s arm. ”Thank you,” Jason said, the sound of some kind of relief evident in his voice.

“Can you put this on yourself? I don’t want to get the powder on me.”

“Once you get some of this ointment on your skin, the body absorbs it, and sends it throughout your whole system,” Jason said, breathing deeply now. “You should both put some on, just in case.” Ellie applied the ointment on herself, and put a dab on Tofu’s nose as well.

Then, Marcus heard a click from behind, and spun around. One of the prongs sprung out of place and even as he looked, it folded in on itself and disappeared into the center of the disc.

“What happened?” Jason stepped toward the door. “What did you do?”

“I don’t know, I just spun the dials around, thinking it might work like a combination lock, but nothing happened. Then I heard a click.”

“Whatever you did,” Jason clapped Marcus on the back, “do it again.”

Marcus spun the dial again as randomly as he had before. Ellie grabbed his free hand and lifted his arm, applying some of the anti-itching salve.

“Thanks,” he said, still fixating on the lock. He stuck his tongue out as he focused. He rotated the prongs again until he finally heard another click, resulting in another golden rod springing. Again, it folded in on itself and, for all intents and purposes, disappeared.

Marcus tried for some time to get the last two hands on the dial to fold in just as the others had, but he couldn’t. He figured that this was the last step to making the door open.

“Step back,” Jason said, looking at the dial with his faced screwed up. “Look at this.”

“But I’ve almost got it. I only need a few more minutes. There are only two hands left to go.”

“Time,” Jason looked pleadingly at Ellie, “We need to know the time, quickly.”

Marcus stepped back and stood next to Jason. He opened his mouth, gaping, and raised his eyebrows. He understood.

Ellie fumbled around in her pocket and finally pulled out her cell phone. She flipped the lid, and read out, “Four P.M., on the dot, why?”

“Four P.M.,” Marcus said, stepping forward. “Got it. Thanks.” He adjusted the final two hands on the dial to the twelve and four positions, like four o’clock on a traditional wall clock. He stepped back again next to Jason, and waited.

Nothing.

“What is this thing?” Ellie asked.

“Like I said, it’s a key,” Jason said. “But I think it’s a time key, to be more precise.”

“What?” Ellie asked.

“It’s four P.M., right?” Jason asked. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Ellie replied. “I know how to read a watch.”

“Maybe we did something wrong, then?” Jason thought out loud.

Marcus asked, “I thought you said you knew what you were doing?”

“Hold on, it’s not like turning a key, man. What time is it now?”

“4:01,” Ellie responded.

Jason stepped forward and made the slight adjustment to the disc, setting it to 4:01, but nothing happened.

“So, if you can get the hands to the right time, the door will open?” Ellie asked. She pushed Jason out of the way, not waiting for an answer, and rotated the disc slightly again.

Nothing.

Marcus leaned back against the wall and slid down to the floor, putting his face in his hands. “We have got to figure this out before they hurt Winston or use the skull. The old man was clear about it.”

While the two argued about how to proceed with the door, Marcus looked around the room. The dial was a beautiful gold color, and it shimmered despite the lack of light in the room.

Then, Marcus heard Tofu bark quietly. He stood on the chest of the guard they had defeated earlier. A flicker of light from the guard’s arm caught his eye for the first time.

“Hey,” Marcus shot to his feet and made his way to the guard on the ground, pushing Tofu out of the way, “look at this.”

Jason and Ellie stopped what they were doing and turned to Marcus, who had now taken hold of a sword and was stabbing it at the guard’s body.

“What are you doing, Marcus?” Ellie asked, sounding horrified. “The powder wasn’t enough?”

Marcus lifted the sword, which he had slid under a golden watch on the man’s hand and lifted his limp arm. “Look familiar?”

Ellie raised her eyebrows and swallowed a sound.

Jason scratched his head. “The gold looks like—”

Marcus smirked. “The dial key,” he said, nodding.

“What time does it say?” Ellie asked, bouncing in place.

“The eleventh hour,” Marcus said to himself. Then, realizing he was mumbling, he said louder. “Eleven, flat.”

Ellie adjusted the dial to the eleven and twelve positions. Suddenly a loud click was followed by the sound of metal grinding. The door sighed and cracked open, like it was loose on a hinge. “There you go,” Ellie smiled and even clapped her hands.

Marcus said, “Yeah, like you did all the heavy lifting.”

Jason pulled the door back when Marcus heard a loud popping sound. The disc key fell out of the door socket and just before it made contact with the ground, Tofu caught the disc in his mouth. It looked just as it had when he first put it in the door.

Behind the door, Marcus saw a large storage room with luminescent shelves of odd artifacts and strange treasures that lined the walls around aisles in the center of the room. A soft, red glow permeated the corners of the walls, and he realized that he was in The Magic Box’s equivalent to the blue room; only it was easily five times larger.

“Winston?” whispered Marcus as he crossed the door’s threshold cautiously.

“Don’t,” Winston said, his voice weak and faint. The voice came from the opposite side behind the aisles in the middle of the room. “It’s a trap.”