The ABCs of Spellcraft #13
If a man’s home is his castle…then his stash is his treasure.
When a traveling comic book auctioneer comes to town, Dixon is thrilled to hear his father’s beloved basement stash might contain something valuable after all: a mint condition copy of the rare Eel Man #1.
But when they unearth the comic book, Yuri ends up finding a lot more than he bargained for. Now he’s no longer sure if Dixon is really the product of a loving, happy home…or if Spellcraft the only thing holding his family together.
To make matters worse, the comic book has a major “issue” of its own.
The quest to restore the comic takes Dixon and Yuri from one wonky end of Pinyin Bay to the other. Can they salvage their big find and save a marriage—or is their copy of Eel Man #1 worth nothing more the paper it’s printed on?
The ABCs of Spellcraft is a series filled with bad jokes and good magic, where M/M romance meets paranormal cozy. A perky hero, a brooding love interest, and delightfully twisty-turny stories that never end up quite where you’d expect.
I hate to hear that this series is nearly over and there is only one new ABCs of Spellcraft yet to come . . . how can it nearly be done? So unfair. Oh well, sometimes the characters just stop talking to an author, if Dixon and Yuri want to keep their further adventures to themselves then that's what must be. I'll love ABCs right to the end, oh who am I kidding? I'll love and cherish them every step of the way and beyond in rereads & re-listens, the adrenaline rush may not be quite the same but the enjoyment factor will always be topnotch.
So on to Comic Sans.
With a title like that you just know comic books will factor into the trouble Dixon undoubtedly finds himself facing. Sure enough, a rare, mint condition Eel Man #1 could fetch a pretty penny and where does Dixon's dad thinks he seen one last? In his never-ending always-growing pile of stash of what-nots and doo-dads. Once the men are told of a flaw in the comic, Dixon hatches a scheme to recondition said comic . . . and that's where the true fun begins.
That's the end of the plot I'll give away but just know that there are plenty of hi-jinks that only Dixon and Yuri can discover on their path to mint condition. What fun it is. We see Pinyin Bay characters that we've met before, we see plenty of Penn family time as well. Truthfully, I'm not sure if I'd say this is the most we've seen of Dixon's parents yet but their chemistry, their banter, their unique look at things is an absolute treat and I think it gives us plenty of insight into how and why Dixon is the way he is: delightful blend of quirky, charming, loving and all around instantly likeable. Yuri is more stoic, I think anyway, than Dixon's mom but I can't help but think when you look at Johnny and Florica Penn you're actually getting a glimpse into what Dixon and Yuri's future years will be like.
The series may be nearly over and yet after 13 novellas, The ABCs of Spellcraft just keeps getting better and better.
1
DIXON
Sunday dinners at my parents’ house were always such a treat! Mom put the leaf in the table and greeted us with big, squishy hugs, Dad wore his favorite vest and regaled us with stories, and Yuri and I got the chance to not only avail ourselves of some delightful, non-take-and-bake-pizza home cooking…but to break bread with the very best parents in the whole world. Though maybe Yuri shouldn’t have broken the bread so forcefully.
There were crumbs everywhere.
Mom eyed the crusty fragments with a sigh and said, “Told you we should’ve just taken a cheese grater to the black parts instead of trying to power through them. It’s like trimming a callus off your toe with lots of small passes—eventually you get down to the soft part. More mashed potatoes, Yuri?”
Yuri looked oddly full as he shook his head, even though he’d hardly touched his plate. I’d warned him not to pre-eat before we came, but he’d scarfed down a stray piece of cold pizza anyway, and now he’d ruined his dinner. No doubt he was just being polite and making sure there was enough for everybody.
So considerate.
And it did leave plenty more for me.
The potatoes were my favorite—the box kind, made with plenty of margarine—and Yuri’s loss was my gain. I was reaching for the potato scooper when something zipped across the tabletop, grabbed a crumb of bread, rappelled down the tablecloth on the opposite side, and disappeared under the china cabinet.
“Was that…a mouse?” I asked.
Mom rolled her eyes. “You should know—you brought it home from Precious Greetings.”
To be fair, I’d brought home lots of critters from Precious Greetings back when we’d cost Emery Flint his business. I couldn’t be expected to remember each and every one.
“I thought you shooed it out the door,” Dad said.
“Apparently it came back,” Mom retorted. “Must’ve known which side its bread was buttered on.”
Yuri made a small noise of agreement, and Dad said, “We can’t just have a rodent running around loose. Mice attract other mice—and they’re notorious for getting into Seens and nibbling on the paper. Once we lost an entire week of Rufus Clahd’s work that way.” He stood from the table and brushed crumbs from his lap. “I’ll dig out the mousetraps.”
“But, Dad!” I said. “This is no stranger-mouse. You can’t just squish it. Maybe you should round up all the Spellcraft in the house and leave it at the office until we can trap the little guy and put him in a new (and more secure) home.”
Mom scoffed. “If you took all the Craftings out of this house it would probably fall down around our ears!”
Dad agreed. “And we’ve been here so long, adding to the collection over the years, I doubt we’d even be able to find them all. But what if…?” His eyes flicked side to side as he stroked his lustrous five-o’clock shadow in thought.
“Johnny...” Mom said in a don’t-you-dare tone of voice.
A tone that Dad totally ignored. “I can build a better mousetrap!”
“Aaand here we go,” Mom said.
Yuri narrowed his eyes. “What is problem?”
“Johnny is always full of beans whenever inspiration strikes, but mark my words. Before it’s even halfway done, he’ll get bored with the whole thing and just end up wasting a bunch of time, energy and money.”
“We’ll never strike it rich with that attitude,” my father said. “How about this? Not only will I make the best darned mousetrap anyone’s ever seen—but I’ll prototype the invention using nothing but repurposed materials from my stash.”
“Fine.” Mom thrust her hand across the table to shake on it. “And if you actually finish this prototype of yours, I’ll be the first to congratulate you.”
Dad waggled his eyebrows. “In your lacy red brassiere.”
“Wow, would you look at the time?” I said. “We almost missed the Pinyin Minute.” I scrambled for the remote control and started clicking furiously, hoping for something—anything—to interrupt the conversation before I heard anything more about my mother in sexy undergarments. After umpteen clicks, I finally managed to angle the beam around Dad’s recliner and power on the TV.
Pinyin Minute is a news spot that historically featured puff pieces of local interest, from store openings to road closures. But since my friend Charlotte started reporting the news, it had become a heck of a lot more interesting…though not necessarily more reliable. I’ll say one thing for her conspiracy theories: they made the news way more fun to watch.
I clicked to the right station and upped the volume to cover any more potential underwear talk.
—murder rates continue to spiral out of control. Stay tuned for your local news after this message.
“Oh good,” I said, “we’re just in time!”
All talk of unmentionables ceased as we all hummed along with the jingle for a nearby dry cleaner, right down to the very last note. Then, as we watched expectantly, the video quality shifted to something square, grainy, and generally oversaturated. A flesh-colored blur filled the screen, accompanied by the whispered admonishment, “Just because she’s your grandmother, Harold, doesn’t mean she can’t also be a spy. Wait, why didn’t you tell me we were—? Ahem.”
The blurry figure backed up and resolved itself into none other than my old pal from the Barge of the Bay, looking intense and vaguely frazzled. In other words, like she always did.
“While most folks these days consume their entertainment on various screens—and don’t get me started on what all that blue light is doing to your brain—the latest buzz on the street is surrounding something a lot less high-tech: comic books.
“It may be hard to imagine, but in the golden days of comics, you could purchase an issue for as little as one thin dime.
“But those ten-cent comics are huge collector’s items now. In fact, one particular comic—Eel Man #1—is worth a whopping ten thousand dollars. If you’re lucky enough to have a mint condition copy in your possession, that is.”
The image of Charlotte talking cut to a still shot of a cheesy comic book featuring a guy in a cape beating up a bank robber. Did bank robbers really all dress like that back in the fifties? Frankly, I thought he looked more like a Beatnik. Though maybe that was part of his plan all along….
“Hold on,” my dad said. “I’ve seen that comic before.”
The camera switched back to Charlotte. “Eel Man was a short-lived comic that fizzled out in less than a year, but its original creator hailed from our very own Pinyin Bay.
“According to a recent press release by an anonymous traveling comic auctioneer, Eel Man was not a particularly well-drawn comic. The storyline is a pastiche of several more successful comics of the day. But the comic book factory was lost to a freak lightning strike, leaving very few mint condition Eel Man comics in circulation. He estimates there are no more than a handful of Eel Man #1 comics left. And in all likelihood, if those issues will turn up anywhere, that anywhere is Pinyin Bay.
“Anyone wishing to auction off their copy of Eel Man #1 should bring it to the Pinyin Bay Journal office by the end of the day Friday.”
“And don’t be late,” an off-camera voice added. A vaguely familiar voice. “Once I leave a town, I don’t come back!”
Dad clicked off the TV, insisting, “I know I’ve seen that comic. It was in the bottom of a box of flyers I ordered back when Practical Penn first opened. The printer was using them as filler.”
“I remember those flyers.” Mom gave Dad the side-eye. “We couldn’t use them, thanks to a typo in the word public. I thought you said you threw them out.”
“And so I did. Erm…say that, I mean.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “What? The backs of the flyers make for perfectly usable scratch paper!”
Dad always gets a certain look about him when he’s getting ready to dive into his stash. His eyes light up with anticipation. His stance develops a pointedly forward slant. And his fingers twitch like they simply can’t wait to paw through all his dubious treasures.
Mom, on the other hand, is not a big fan of the stash. While she appreciates that its sifting, sorting and overall curation brings my father no end of pleasure, she worries that someday we’ll find him buried under a collapsing pile of knicknacks, gewgaws and general detritus.
I patted Mom’s shoulder in consolation. “Look at it this way.
At least now Dad can stop worrying about that mousetrap.” At the top of the basement stairs, Dad turned back and snapped his fingers. “Thanks for the reminder—while we’re looking for Eel Man we can keep an eye out for likely mousetrap parts!”
Mom whacked me ineffectively across the butt with a kitchen towel. “You had to go and bring up that darn mousetrap!”
Whoops. “We’ll just head downstairs and make sure he doesn’t get buried. Come on, Yuri, let’s go!”
2
YURI
I would have thought it impossible for the stash to have grown since the last time I took its measure. Indeed, unless they started digging to expand the foundation, there was only so much space for Johnny’s collection to grow, and the mass already scraped the floorboards of the rooms above.
But while the volume might be much the same, the stash appeared to have grown in density.
On the rack at the foot of the stairs, clothes hung within other clothes, bulging three outfits deep. The stack of boxes by the far wall had begun to collapse, allowing an additional layer of boxes to be stacked on top. And the gaps between the stray toys, gadgets and small appliances had been stuffed with wads of garishly colored fabric tighter than a newly tuckpointed chimney.
I said, “We need to clear some space before we can start shifting things.”
“Do they have Tetris in Russia?” Dixon asked. “You seem like you’d be really good at it.”
I quelled a sigh. “I will bring the larger boxes upstairs to make some room.”
While there was enough space in the lounge to displace a few cubic meters of the stash, Florica was none too happy. “I’d have you haul those boxes right out to the trash—but they’d only end up back inside before the day was out.”
“Your husband takes a great deal of pleasure in his collecting,” I said. “Why are you discouraging him from finding that comic book?”
“It’s not about the book, Yuri—though even if he does manage to unearth the thing, there’s no chance it’ll be in any condition to sell. And even if it were—he probably won’t want to part with it.”
“There is no harm in looking.” Unless someone got squashed by a falling pile of furniture and boxes. But from where I stood, everything had looked relatively stable.
Florica sighed. “If anyone should understand, it’s you—because Dixon managed to inherit so many of his father’s most difficult proclivities. Despite all my efforts to keep those two on the straight and narrow.”
True, Dixon did have a tendency to let the trash pile up in the hallway. He claimed it was because he liked watching my shoulders flex when I carried it downstairs…but was there some other reason—one which he might not be fully aware of?
Not to mention the fact that he had saved all of Fonzo’s furniture while renting out his home to earn money, even though it meant climbing over three dressers just to get to the wardrobe.
“Are those men charming?” Florica said. “Of course. Are they sympathetic? Beyond a doubt. But give a man like that an inch…and who knows where they’ll end up! Mark my words, Yuri. Sometimes you’ve gotta be the one to rein it in. For their own good.”
When I went back to the basement for another load, Dixon’s mother followed, though she would only come far enough down the stairs to peek into the fray. While she and I had been talking, Dixon and Johnny managed to shift a sizable heap of small appliances into the vacuum I’d created. Mostly vacuums. But it was the gap they had cleared that caught Florica’s eye. “Yoska Penn,” she snapped. “Is that our old couch? You swore up and down you hauled that darn thing to the dump years ago.”
“And I absolutely did,” Johnny said, somewhat chagrinned. “But when they wanted twenty dollars to dispose of it, I figured I’d be better off waiting for a chance to find someone who might get some use out of it and brought it back home. Say, do you boys need another couch?”
Before I could refuse, Dixon said, “It does look awfully comfy. How come you’ve stashed it in the stash?”
“One of the comfiest couches I’ve ever had the pleasure of sleeping on…though after a good eight hours, that vinyl really tends to stick. And not in places you’d see it yourself.”
Was this part of Florica’s “reining it in”? Forcing the man to sleep on the couch?
Johnny must have been used to it—he took it all in stride. “Guess I’d come to work covered in vinyl scraps one too many times and your mom finally put her foot down. But throw a nice sheet over it and you’ll be good to go. In fact, I think I’ve got just the sheet. Slightly irregular, but tuck the wonky part behind a throw pillow and you’ll be good as gold.”
“Dixon and Yuri do not want that horrible old couch,” Florica called from the stairs.
“Probably wouldn’t make it up that narrow stairway of theirs anyhow. Though if anyone needs to take a breather while we find that comic book, the couch is always available for a quick power-nap.”
For the next several hours, we shifted several precarious piles of junk. Actually, I did most of the shifting, while Dixon exclaimed over various strange objects and Johnny regaled us with stories of where he’d found them. Florica wanted no part of it. Once I had worked up a sweat—and was covered in the cobwebs and dust which then clung to my sticky exposed skin—I could hardly blame her for leaving us to our own devices.
And yet, even without her there to criticize the proceedings, the thought of her needing to “rein in” Dixon’s father still nagged at me.
My father did not need to rule our home with the proverbial iron fist. His regular fist was bad enough. I had always considered my relationship with Dixon to be that of two equals. Utterly different equals, perhaps. But neither having the upper hand.
I did not know what to make of his parents’ power dynamic…and I could not help but wonder if this was what we could eventually expect.
“Wow,” Johnny said, “would you look at those wallpaper rolls! Before you know it, I bet it’ll come back in style again!”
He seemed happy enough in his life.
Even content.
And if he was fine with the way things were, who was I to judge?
“Say, Dad,” Dixon said, “on that box over there, all the way up in the rafters…do I spy with my little eye the logo from the print shop?”
The box in question was wedged atop an ironing board on top of an upended laundry basket crammed onto a filing cabinet labeled misc - somewhat important. Johnny took stock of its position and said, “It’s in there good and tight—too tight to knock down with this old pool cue. But with a boost from Yuri, I’ll bet you can pry it loose.”
“We’re on it,” Dixon said cheerfully. As he approached me for his “boost,” he batted his eyelashes and murmured, “Just make sure you grab me in all the important places. Y’know. So I don’t fall down.”
As fetching as he might be, I was eager to find what we were looking for and be done with the whole affair. Did I think anything in Johnny’s stash was worth ten thousand dollars? Not at all. Frankly, there was nothing in this conglomeration of random objects that wasn’t soiled or warped or broken—and comic book collectors were notorious for demanding pristine condition. But finding the thing would at least allow Dixon’s father to confront reality and put the far-fetched hope behind him.
Dixon wriggled happily as I grabbed him around the thighs, shifted his rump to my shoulder and “boosted” him toward the ceiling. It was not terribly high. I only needed to take care not to bash his skull on the rafters.
“That’s great, Yuri! Now aim me a smidge toward the left—but watch out for that croquet set. You don’t appreciate how hard those wooden mallets are until they fall on you. Almost there—can you switch me to the opposite shoulder? No? I suppose we should’ve thought of that before. But maybe if you lean in a tad—I can ju-u-st about reach….”
I was leaning precariously when Dixon let go of my head to grab the box with both hands and pull. I could tell by the force he was using that it was stuck fast. Probably welded to the bottom of the floorboards above it by pressure, moisture, and time. “Hold on tight,” I told Dixon as I planted my feet…and jerked him backwards. There was resistance, and then movement.
The box did not simply come free.
It disintegrated.
And the paper inside did not just fall out of the burst box….
It rained down on the basement like a ticker tape parade. All around us, Practical Penn flyers declaring the store to be Open to the Pubic fluttered down. The paper was stained and crumpled, and the corners had been nibbled by mice. Judging by how old the damage was, a mouse from Precious Greetings was not responsible, either. Not unless American mice live significantly longer than those in Russia.
I closed my eyes against the onslaught of paper shreds and cardboard crumbles raining down. I held my breath too, until I heard the paper settle. Not only had I steeled myself against the avalanche, but I had also steeled myself for disappointment. Perhaps without realizing it, as disappointment had always been my gut reaction to most things. And so I was shocked when Dixon declared, “I’ve got it!” Followed by, “And it’s in perfect shape.”
I had to see this for myself. Surely there was no way a comic book could have come through its time in the stash unscathed. Dixon hopped down from my shoulder, landing on the old sofa—which let out an alarming creak, as well as a cloud of vinyl shreds. And when I blinked away the dust and paper crumbs, I plucked the issue from his hands and saw for myself.
In a pristine plastic holder was Eel Man #1.
In perfect condition.
Ten thousand dollars would mean a lot to this family. They could replace their aging car. Or pay down their mortgage. Or build a shed in the yard to house some of the stash. When I grasped that I was looking at the real thing, I immediately handed it off to Johnny, unwilling to risk so much as accidentally bending a corner.
“There, you see?” he crowed. “I told you we’d find it—and it’s just as good as I remembered. Just goes to show, your old man really knows his stash!”
Dixon bounced off the flaking vinyl sofa and gave my arm a squeeze. “Mom will be so excited! Let’s go show her.”
Perhaps this discovery was just what the family needed to get everyone on the same page. A way for Johnny to vindicate his stash—and to prove his own worth. And perhaps this was all part of the dynamic. An ebb and a flow in which both of Dixon’s parents took turns having the upper hand in the relationship.
I was considering all this when I realized one of the flyers was still stuck to the perspiration on the back of my head. But when I plucked off the errant paper, I realized it felt nothing at all like a cheap printed flyer, and more like thick, hot-pressed cotton rag.
Upstairs, Dixon was busy exclaiming, “Look, Mom! Look what we found!” But I lingered there in the basement for a moment to take stock of what I’d discovered.
The words were simple, if stilted: Always Unbroken. It is the way of Scriveners, at times, to phrase things differently from the way they might speak. Either for economy of words, or the ring of eloquence, or perhaps some random impulse of the volshebstvo. I would have presumed it fell out of some failure-prone contraption within the stash…if not for the Seen beneath the words.
A wedding band.
A Rufus Clahd wedding band—but even in his hand, a circle was still a circle.
The round circle, yellow-gold, hovered there on a swash of brown paint. Normally it would just seem silly and misshapen, but now, in context, I was bothered by more than just the dubious paint job.
Scriveners seldom married, not wanting to involve themselves in the social constructs of the Handless. Dixon’s parents were a rare exception. His mother claimed it was the easiest way to change the maiden name she’d always hated.
But was that the only reason?
I had always considered their relationship an example of how opposites can stay together. One jovial, imaginative, flighty—and one taciturn and hard—with compromise and understanding. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I wondered if this idealized relationship had existed only in my mind….
While the thing actually holding them together was nothing more than a scrap of bespelled paper.
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Author and artist Jordan Castillo Price is the owner of JCP Books LLC. Her paranormal thrillers are colored by her time in the midwest, from inner city Chicago, to small town Wisconsin, to liberal Madison.
Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who's plagued by ghostly visitations. Also check out her new series, Mnevermind, where memories are made...one client at a time.
With her education in fine arts and practical experience as a graphic designer, Jordan set out to create high quality ebooks with lavish cover art, quality editing and gripping content. The result is JCP Books, offering stories you'll want to read again and again.
