Conrad has a special talent—one for overthinking even the simplest of decisions. As a tinker’s apprentice, he should have mastered at least some magichanics by now. Unfortunately, he hasn’t even picked out his starting tool. It’s not a choice to be taken lightly, though, and Conrad is certain that all he needs is a little more time to weigh the pros and cons.
But when a new Magimart comes to town, it threatens to wipe out all the mom-and-pop magic shops in Three Corners, including the one where he works. The pressure doesn’t help. A glimpse of an intriguing young man at the auxiliar shop makes him wonder if maybe a magical mascot can help him level up—but how would he ever pick the right one?
Conrad has never considered teaming up before—but if Magimart does drive all the small shops out of business, this might be his last chance. Or maybe it’s all an excuse to flirt with the man with the secret smile.
Can Conrad settle on a magical assistant, or should he just grab a random tool and hope for the best? Either way…it’s now or never.
A delightfully fun, creative, and unique novella that made me smile. The Tinker's Apprentice is a contemporary setting of a world openly filled with magic that has a steampunky-like quality about it. I've not read many but enough steampunk to know the Victorian era is key so no Tinker is not steampunk but the magichanicals(hope I got that right) remind me a bit of that genre. Made me think that perhaps this is where the world would be if a steampunk timeline were to naturally progress into present day.
As for the concept of Auxiliars, I was reminded of what familiars are to witches, and was fascinated how the author highlighted how they make things easier but they aren't there to do everything for you. A concept that we should apply to many new-fangled contraptions in the real world today😉.
Conrad and Rune are adorable, together and individually. I want to wrap Conrad up in bubblewrap for protection one minute and smack him the next screaming "make a decision!" Some might label Conrad as "wishy washy" but me? I think of him more as needing that one thing to jumpstart his focus. As for Rune, well he's just all kinds of lovely and when introduced to You Tube(and other websites) to brush up on a few things that loveliness is taken up a notch or two. Together they seem to be the other half of each other.
No ideas if the author plans to do more with these characters and the magicanichal world she's created but I know I'd be ready to follow along with the adventures. Some might be a bit confused as there's a lot of world building for this fantasy short but for me The Tinker's Apprentice is simply put: delightful, smile-inducing fun.
1
Conrad
Back when Sputnik first launched and Chubby Checker was doing the Twist, household items stopped rolling off the assembly line at Apex Magichanical Parts and Fittings, and their factory doors closed for good.
No one knows what happened to the Apex founders, and the blueprints have been lost to time. Fortunately, there are shops that specialize in repairing magichanical goods.
Shops like Arti-fix.
The smell of dubious bacon and overcooked egg tickled my senses as my hand hovered above the breakfast biscuits. They stood on the cart in an orderly row wrapped in wax paper, waiting to be snatched up by someone indiscriminate in taste and short on time.
And I’d been standing there so long, unable to decide, the crowd had changed over three times as annoyed commuters grabbed around me.
Ham. Sausage. Egg. Cheese. It wasn’t as if there were all that many options.
And yet, I already knew that whichever sandwich I picked, I’d end up disappointed.
My friend Jeff had chosen our breakfast spot today–the food cart at the edge of Three Corners (come on, Conrad, it’s not so bad)–and of course he’d picked the one cart where the sandwiches were either rubbery around the edges from the microwave or vaguely moist from a steam tray. Why? Because the cashier was a pretty girl with tattoos on her fingers and a violet streak in her hair…the type of girl who wouldn’t in a million years give Jeff the time of day. In other words, the type of girl he couldn’t resist.
Despite the fact that we’ve never once had a good sandwich from that particular cart, when Jeff had challenged me to pick somewhere else instead, I’d caved right in and agreed.
“Did you hear the latest rumor about the new building project on the edge of the city?” Jeff said. I hadn’t, but of course he wasn’t talking to me. Not with that flirtatious lilt. The girl with the finger tattoos answered with a bored shrug as she made change for her current customer. Unlike me, Jeff was undeterred by a show of disinterest, and he only took her non-answer as a challenge. “I hear a new Magimart is coming to town,” he said dramatically.
That did pique the cool girl’s interest. She deigned to raise a thin, penciled eyebrow. But I wasn’t so sure how I felt about this new development. Sure, their selection was amazing and their prices were low, but… “If a Magimart opens up here, what will that mean for Three Corners?”
“What it always means,” Jeff declared. “No more status quo. Survival of the fittest. All the mom-and-pop magic shops will either have to find a way to stay relevant…or close their doors.”
Given that both Jeff and I worked for mom-and-pop magic shops, you’d think he wouldn’t be quite so blasé about the whole thing. But I guess he didn’t want to look fretful in front of his favorite cashier.
I settled on a sausage and cheese biscuit while Jeff speculated about all the wonderful things he’d heard you could buy at Magimart. Pens that wrote in any color, even ones you couldn’t quite name. Electric toothbrushes people actually wanted to use. Candles that smelled like rainy mornings, or playing hooky, or days at the beach—and never burned down. “Affordable, too,” he said. “So cheap that even Conrad could shop there.”
I rolled my eyes, pulled out a crumpled five, and handed it to the girl. At least…I tried to. But before tattooed fingers could close around the bill, a scaly creature the size of a pineapple waddled out from behind a coffee urn and snatched it from my hand.
I winced. The cashier’s auxiliar made me phenomenally uncomfortable—mainly because I could never quite tell exactly what it was supposed to be.
Auxiliars don’t have a “true” form of their own. In terms of appearance, they ran the gamut from naturalistic animals to completely fantastic creatures. The way they appeared to human eyes all depended on the preference of their owners…and apparently this owner wanted an auxiliar that looked like a cross between a giant bat and a constipated pug. Jeff thought it was supposed to be a gargoyle, but every time I saw that squashed-in face, I couldn’t help but think of the local dog park.
Unsettling as I might find the thing, I didn’t want to be rude. I kept my face perfectly neutral as the gargoyle pug made change. The coins looked like Frisbees in its miniature human-like hands, but it counted them out quickly enough and handed them over. I made sure to angle my body so it couldn’t see me wiping the coins on my pant leg before I pocketed my change.
I turned away from the food cart, doing my best not to wonder if the auxiliar was involved in making more than just change. Regardless of whether or not my food was prepared by its creepy little hands, I felt buyer’s remorse the moment I peeled back the wax paper wrapper. The cheese had slid all to one side and congealed into the paper, while a big hunk of stale biscuit crumbled off and rolled down my jacket, only to be snatched up by an aggressive pigeon whose pinfeathers nearly took out my eye. The sausage, now exposed, gleamed grayly beneath a sheen of grease. It smelled like the bottom of an old Tupperware.
I’d forced down most of my bad sandwich by the time Jeff finally strode away from the food cart. Once we were out of earshot, he shot me a smug grin and whispered, “And you predicted she wouldn’t say more than three words to me.”
“Are you gonna buy that? doesn’t count.”
“It’s only a matter of time before I wear her down.”
I have no idea where Jeff gets his confidence. Not only is he pudgy and pale with incredibly thick glasses, but because he works at an ephemeral agents apothecary, odd smells tend to waft off him at inopportune times.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Jeff went on. “When was the last time you strode up to someone and gave them your phone number?”
“How is this suddenly about me?”
“You should really capitalize on the fact that you dig sausage. I’d always thought it would be more straightforward if I was into that kind of thing. More insight into the thought process of the potential hook-up.” Belatedly, I realized we were no longer talking about breakfast. “If I were you, I’d be out playing the field, hitting up guys left and right.”
That was the thing, though. I didn’t want “guys.” I wanted someone special. It just so happened that I hadn’t met that someone…yet.
We crossed the street and found ourselves approaching a jumble of small, colorful storefronts and oddball bits of statuary and signage affectionately known as Three Corners.
The Y-shaped intersection was one-third parking lot. But a hodgepodge of old businesses lined the stem of the Y, storefronts that smelled like dried flowers and old paper with the occasional whiff of vinegar and paraffin. Its businesses catered to very specific clientele: the sorts of folks willing to spend lots of time and energy on a magical hobby that was mercurial, at best. Simply put, old magic was expensive, and not everyone was willing to scrimp and save, sift and study, for the ability to change the color of an old pair of socks or predict where the closest parking spot might be. Not nowadays, when science and technology had much quicker solutions.
As we passed the Tome Repository, the vintage manuals in the window display beckoned seductively with their yellowed pages. But Jeff and I passed them every day, and we knew better than to get looped into reading a primer on magically inking your mimeograph machine. Any book you might pick up in Three Corners would be more of a curiosity than a tool. Entertaining, maybe. But not particularly relevant, not anymore. Not when you could just whip out your phone and Google anything you might need to know.
A page fluttered plaintively…or maybe I was just projecting. Because the Tome Repository had no way of making itself “relevant.” And if Magimart really did set up shop in town, those books might as well be waving goodbye.
I was feeling nostalgic for the old neighborhood already, but Jeff was far more pragmatic. “It’s time to update our résumés.”
“What?” I stopped dead in my tracks in front of the auxiliar store. The repair shop where I worked, Arti-fix, was just across the street. Not that I was worried it could hear us. At least, I hoped it couldn’t.
“Think about it, Conrad. You’ve been slaving away in that dusty old tinker shop for how long–months?” Actually, we were coming up on a year…but I could tell it wasn’t to my advantage to point that out. “How many floors have you swept?”
“Just the one.”
“And how many ephemeral agents have you restocked? How many shelves have you dusted? And how many sorry, thankless customers have you dealt with, day in, day out, with their broken doodads and ding dongs?”
“People get touchy when their magichanical stuff breaks down. It’s not like you can just toss it out and buy a new one.” Even as I said it, though, I had to wonder. Apex products were marvels of magical technology, back in the day. But even the ones we managed to repair still showed their age. There just wasn’t as much call for a pipe-cleaner cleaner or a bouffant fluffer. Not like there was in 1955. But something new like a magichanical keyboard or cell phone case or GPS? People would go nuts for things like that, and not just the folks who liked magichanics for magic’s sake. I eyed the Arti-fix storefront cautiously, wondering how it might be possible to stay relevant after all if enchanted household items started rolling off the assembly line again.
The store’s prospects did not look good.
Jeff said, “Why the long face? It’s not as if you actually enjoy working there.”
“Hey, that’s pretty harsh.”
“Is it? I thought the whole reason you even applied was that you were hoping to get your hands dirty. Crack open some of those dusty old relics and see how they tick.”
Not gonna lie. The mere thought of opening up an old Apex salad refresher, weightless bowling bag or silent radio had me itching to scuttle inside the shop and get to work. Unfortunately....
“Ol’ Hester still hasn’t let you touch anything,” Jeff said, as if he could read my mind. “Nothing important, anyhow. Has she?”
I knew it was small of me to let Hester bear the blame for my lack of advancement, but it wasn’t as if she’d care what Jeff thought of her. I just wasn’t up for the razzing I’d get if he found out that in all this time, I wasn’t able to begin my formal training because I hadn’t picked out my primary tool.
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.
