Summary:
Sounds like the start of a bad joke, but Dixon and Yuri are most definitely not laughing. Because this particular mime needs a Crafting deactivated—one that’s been helping an outsider buy up Pinyin Beach.
And it originated at his family’s shop.
While undoing Spellcraft is Dixon’s specialty, Yuri thinks they should determine who ordered the Spell first. It’s too awkward to ask Dixon’s parents. And the mime isn’t talking.
Going undercover on the South Dock Boardwalk to find out for themselves might not be the most direct way to tackle the problem, but it’s definitely the most enlightening. From whispered secrets to secret societies, the guys find out more about the underpinnings of Pinyin Bay than they ever imagined.
Hopefully, they can figure out what it all means before it’s bye bye, Boardwalk.
The ABCs of Spellcraft is a series filled with bad jokes and good magic, where MM 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.
And it originated at his family’s shop.
While undoing Spellcraft is Dixon’s specialty, Yuri thinks they should determine who ordered the Spell first. It’s too awkward to ask Dixon’s parents. And the mime isn’t talking.
Going undercover on the South Dock Boardwalk to find out for themselves might not be the most direct way to tackle the problem, but it’s definitely the most enlightening. From whispered secrets to secret societies, the guys find out more about the underpinnings of Pinyin Bay than they ever imagined.
Hopefully, they can figure out what it all means before it’s bye bye, Boardwalk.
The ABCs of Spellcraft is a series filled with bad jokes and good magic, where MM 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.
The whole series has had the perfect blend of romance and humor to label it romantic comedy, for me however it does seem odd to use that genre tag with an equal blend of paranormal and mystery but Jordan Castillo Price makes it work. Don't Rock the Boardwalk is no different. Dixon as a tour guide and Yuri as a street artist is absolutely divine. Let's face it, if you've been reading Dixon and Yuri's adventures you know by now that Dixon has the gift of gab so the tour guide disguise is pure genius, even if some of his facts are of his own creation or embellishment and when Yuri finds himself on the tour one day, I'll just say it may not have been Who's On First? but their timing was as spot on as many classic comedy routines are.
As for Dixon and Yuri on a personal level, they just continue to grow both in their individual crafts and their love for each other. I don't want to say they tackle this case different than others but as they do take on roles that don't work together I think they are apart more in Boardwalk than any other entry in the series. Which in one way is a bit of a disappointment because I love seeing them interact but on the other hand I think it shows just how much they've grown to be able to work apart and still get the job done and still find time for that Dixon/Yuri magic that ABCs of Spellcraft is known for.
If you are wondering about reading order, well The ABCs of Spellcraft needs to be experienced as written. There's a certain level of completion to each novella but there is an overall arc to boys' journey. So far Jordan Castillo Price has two story arcs in the series, #1-4 and #'s 5 & 6 and the upcoming 7: What the Frack?. Trust me, if you enjoy magic, mystery, romance, humor, and heat then Spellcraft is definitely a series for you.
1
DIXON
Practical Penn is not a fancy shop. It’s situated between a take-and-bake pizza place and a dollar store. The floors are linoleum (worn), the walls are paneling (fake wood), and the acoustic drop ceiling tiles are vaguely discolored. But Practical Penn is more than just a store in some seventies strip mall, it’s my family’s livelihood. And for that reason, it’s the best shop ever.
Unfortunately, businesses come with regulations.
While I did still have an office in the shop, it was just an out-of-the-way little closet of a room. To save on our liability insurance, my mother had taken me off books several years ago while I was trying out every youth hostel in Europe. That move turned out to be to everyone’s advantage. Because not being officially employed there meant I didn’t have to go to the annual Spellcraft rules and regulations training that was required of every Scrivener in a small-to-midsized shop. With me unofficially manning the helm at the store, Practical Penn could stay open while every other shop in the city had to shut its doors.
Win-win.
Technically, I didn’t need Yuri to come along and keep me company. Chances were, I’d just be sitting around all afternoon watching adorable chipmunk videos on my phone. But he insisted that if Rufus Clahd was the only one I had for backup, some intrepid robber would clean us out for sure. And so, he came along, parked himself at my cousin Sabina’s desk, and shot apprehensive looks at Rufus’s door when he thought no one was watching.
Poor Yuri. I think Rufus freaked him out because he’d never met another Seer before. And Seers tend to be… unusual. Whether it’s because they possess a talent that’s basically a genetic mutation, or because every Scrivener they meet treats them like the next Messiah? Hard to say.
As long as you don’t mess with his things, Rufus can be fairly easygoing. But though he’s got a normal-sized ego, he’s also got extremely large hair. My cousin and I have speculated over the years as to whether or not it’s a white-guy perm. She thinks it must be, whereas I’m not so sure. While some days it looks more tightly coiled than others, I think the discrepancy could be due to a change in shampoo, or humidity… or maybe the occasional trim.
I hadn’t yet determined what Yuri thought of the hair, but I’d wager he had an opinion. It was Yuri’s desire to keep an eye on everything that landed him front and center when the mime walked in.
I often ponder what Yuri’s nightmares must be like— no doubt, they’re in Russian. Yuri’s got a thing about clowns. And while a mime isn’t technically a clown… I guess it’s close enough. He stood up so fast, the office chair spun out behind him and crashed into the wood paneling with a giant clatter. It made enough noise to wake our Seer from his current nap. Rufus’s door cracked open just as I made it over to Yuri’s side to catch him in case he fainted. He’d probably squash me. But, heck, I was used to him squashing me. I might even kind of like it.
The mime walked up to the service counter and started swatting at a bug on the Formica surface. We keep the place well-fumigated, but I supposed it was possible that some of the feeder crickets had escaped their stinky little tank. The office was now home to a variety of nocturnal creatures— apparently, toads get really loud around one a.m. And crickets were a lot less icky to handle than mealworms. Still, those little suckers could really hop. I picked up an empty coffee mug and a pizza menu, and came over to rehome the poor cricket, who’d probably enjoy getting squashed a heck of a lot less than I did. But when I got up to the counter, there was no cricket. And the mime was still swatting away… at nothing. I picked up the edge of a phone directory to see if the little escape artist got away.
“Mime is ringing service bell,” Yuri supplied, from a safe distance away, with an accent gone thick.
Oh. Right. The mime brightened and nodded vigorously.
I could’ve sworn he was swatting a bug.
You wouldn’t think a little greasepaint would make all that big a difference, but I couldn’t really get a bead on the man behind the makeup. Was he older or younger than me? Dark or fair? And, most importantly, was he better-looking? Between the whiteface and the eyeliner, it was really hard to say. The only thing I knew for sure was that his drawn-on eyebrows made him look perpetually startled.
He gestured at the counter. I looked at it. Back in the day, when smoking was in vogue, a lit cigarette had fallen from an ashtray and left a nicotine-yellow burn on the surface. The mime shook his head and gestured for me to stop looking at the burn mark and pay attention to him instead.
He pinched his fingers together on both hands and raised them in an arc. “You’re typing,” I ventured. “You’re reading the newspaper. You’re folding laundry.”
At the sound of all my excited guesses, Rufus Clahd ambled out of his office. Practical Penn’s official Seer was my parents’ age, and he still dressed like it was 1979. He’d been working here for years… if you counted napping in his office as working. He joined in the guessing game, sounding half-asleep. “You’re eating corn on the cob. With lots of butter. And a sprinkle of Himalayan sea salt.”
Yuri snapped, “He is opening briefcase.”
The mime touched the tip of his nose, winked, and pointed at Yuri.
Yuri shuddered.
Rufus squinted at the mime. “You sure it’s not corn?”
The mime pointed at Yuri again.
“I’m really pretty good at charades,” I said. It wasn’t my fault this mime was so ambiguous.
Once the “briefcase” was open and all three of us Spellcrafters were watching, the mime pulled something out of the case. Except the thing wasn’t imaginary, like the purported briefcase. And it was really obvious he’d just pulled it out of his pocket.
And… it looked a heck of a lot like Spellcraft.
He placed it importantly on the counter and indicated it with both hands, then started making frantic little looping motions.
“You’re cranking a pepper grinder?” I guessed. “No? Crocheting an afghan. Wait, I know— you’re playing Yahtzee.”
Rufus shook his head. “No way, man, he’s definitely waving a sparkler on the Fourth of July, just after sundown, throwing white-hot sparks against the night sky.”
Huh. I’d really never figured Rufus was that imaginative. Then again, it made a lot of sense, given that the weird watercolor blobs he painted (the ones that never looked like anything to anybody) still managed to fix the Spellcraft mojo onto the paper.
Unfortunately, judging by the frustrated huff that came out of the mime, Rufus was also wrong.
Yuri matched it with a huff of his own, though he made no move to come any closer, as if mimeness might be catching. “He is drawing— from right to left and bottom to top. He wishes you to Uncraft spell.”
The mime made a really big deal out of gesturing toward Yuri. Yuri backed up another few steps, until the wood paneling creaked against his back.
Rufus and I both leaned in to get a better look.
I might not have figured out the pantomime for “Uncrafting a spell,” but the Spellcraft itself? That, I recognized right away… even though I really wished I hadn’t. Not because of the Seen— it wouldn’t be the first Rufus Clahd creation I’d unmade— but because of the Scrivening.
The mime waved his hands in a flurry of inexplicable gestures. Rufus scratched his chin and said, “You went for a swim, but the water was colder than you thought, so instead you focused on your Tai Chi.”
While even the mime looked befuddled over that guess, Yuri said from across the room, “He is disturbed by Crafting and hopes we can help him.”
Either Yuri had a better view from where he was standing way over there, pantomime was a flourishing art in Russia (which gave him an unfair advantage), or learning a second language had just made him pretty darn perceptive. The mime hopped up and down in excitement and gave Yuri an eager thumbs-up.
I took a better look at the Crafting. The Seen, predictably, was a messy blue-gray blob that could have been anything— but the Scrivening was pretty darn specific. Go-getters get their goal. I was big on rhyming, and Uncle Fonzo liked to Craft fortune-cookie type sayings. The alliteration, though?
It couldn’t have come from anyone but my father.
No one likes to be the source of a bum Crafting, so naturally, I considered claiming it must’ve come from some other shop. But before I could, Rufus said, “Oh, I remember that one.”
“Really?” I said. “Because it’s awfully, uh… abstract.”
“Nope. That’s Pinyin Bay. See the dip over here? That’s where the power plant sits. And the flat side over here is where they shored up the coastline, so the inmates at the county detention center couldn’t swim away anymore. And the tiny flecks of black inside the water— those are leeches.”
Well… now that he pointed out all those details, I supposed I could see it.
Yuri said to the mime, “I read article that said South Dock Boardwalk is threatened by developers. Is that where you have come from?”
The mime nodded with great purpose.
“The South Dock Boardwalk can’t be sold off,” I declared. “It’s a Pinyin Bay institution!”
Rufus agreed. “That’s where everyone loses their virginity on a full moon under the pier to the sound of off-key buskers yodeling in the distance.”
“Um… not everyone,” I said. “But it’s bad enough some out-of-state corporation bought up the rental cabins on Pinyin Beach. Are they gunning for the Boardwalk, too?”
The mime made an exaggerated frown and nodded.
Yuri said, “If same buyer also has Morticia Shirque’s estate as well as the cabins, when they take the Boardwalk, this entire coastline of the bay will be theirs.”
That couldn’t be. “All of Pinyin Beach?” Even as I said it, landmark after landmark cropped up in my mind’s eye as if I was cruising past on Old Bay Road. The trailer park. Pinyin Inn. The cabins. The Shirque Mansion. From the power plant on one side of the bay to the crumbling bluffs that separated Pinyin Bay city limits from the road to Strangeberg on the other, the only property that hadn’t recently changed hands was the Boardwalk.
The mime knuckled away a fake tear.
I snagged the Crafting by the corner and pulled it across the counter to get a better look at it, but as I did, Yuri caught me by the back of the collar and dragged me into my office. Since I hardly ever used it, tanks filled with toads and lizards and whatever else ate all those escaping crickets took up a lot of the meager real estate. But Yuri crowding me into a gap between my desk and a coatrack was something I could hardly complain about— even though I was pretty sure no kissing would be involved. Not this time, anyhow.
“You would Craft for mime?”
Obviously, Yuri was none too keen on the situation. Even if I didn’t know he had a thing about clowns, he’d been dropping articles left and right ever since the guy gestured his way across the threshold. “Listen, Yuri. Pinyin Beach means a lot to me. But even if it didn’t, that’s not just a Practical Penn Crafting out there… it’s my dad’s.”
Yuri understood. He answered with the sort of slow-blink he reserved for those moments when a long-suffering sigh simply wasn’t enough.
I patted him on the chest. And then added a few more pats for good measure. And then trailed a fingertip along his neck tattoo in a way that made him shiver. “Think about it this way, Yuri. Pinyin Bay is riddled with Spellcrafters. The mime could’ve brought this Crafting to any one of them. But, as luck would have it, we were the only shop open. It’s as if it was meant to be.”
“Nothing is ever a coincidence with the volshebstvo.” Yuri pulled me against him roughly, smoothed my hair back, and paused to cup my face in his palm. Gazing down into my eyes with exquisite tenderness, he said, “You are always taking on problems that are not yours to solve— so, how could I expect you to leave this Crafting to the wind? I know you must do it… but I do not have to like it. Especially when Uncrafting involves no Seen, and can only be done by you, and you alone.”
I brushed a kiss across his frowny lips. “I just knew I could count on your support! Now, let’s get back to the mime before any more Spellcraft shops open up and he can start comparison-shopping.”
We headed back out to the lobby, where Rufus was regaling the mime with a rambling tale about… well, frankly, it’s just as hard to follow Rufus’s stories as it is to figure out which end of his Seens is up. But whatever the narrative might be, it involved a trashcan, a used harmonica and some shaving cream. Just as Rufus wrapped it up by saying, “… and then all of us broke into a half-hearted rendition of Auld Lang Syne!” my cousin shouldered her way through the front door with a teetering stack of pizza boxes in her hands from the take-and-bake joint next door.
“Who holds a meeting in this day and age and doesn’t supply any donuts?” she demanded with all the vehemence with which she demands… well, everything. “I swear I could hardly hear the presenter over the groaning of all the empty Scrivener stomachs.”
Sabina had dressed “professionally” for the mandatory meeting— which was to say, she didn’t have any holes in her black jeans, her Doc Martens were polished, and her bra straps weren’t showing. Fortunately, Spellcraft is one of those professions that doesn’t require you to dress to the same standards as a banker or a politician or a high school principal.
I, myself, might be fond of sharp tailored suits and natty bowties, but Sabina balked at the notion of wearing anything even remotely conservative. My cousin has crammed herself into a pair of pantyhose exactly once in all her twenty-five years. And by the time she was done clawing them off again ten minutes later, everyone up and down the street knew exactly what she thought of them.
Yuri relieved her of the pizza boxes and steered them into the break room, where three toaster ovens we’d found at various garage sales and thrift stores awaited. And with no stack of boxes blocking his view, the mime did an exaggerated double-take at my cousin.
Sabina looked equally as startled— and knowing that she can be just a teensy bit acerbic if you rub her the wrong way, I quickly attempted to steer the mime’s attention back to the matter of the Uncrafting. I slid a contract from a pile of legalese, slapped it down in front of him, and said, “I’d be happy to see to the matter at hand. All I’ll need is your signature on the dotted line and five hundred dollars. We take all the major credit cards, but there’s a five percent discount if you pay cash.”
The mime pretended to be pulling down his pants.
Even if I were single, trading sexual favors for Spellcraft was a line I was simply not willing to cross. “I’ll have you know this is a respectable family business.”
Yuri said, “He is showing you his pockets are empty.”
“Oh. Fine. Well, there may be some wiggle-room.” We didn’t need a Seen painted, after all. “It’s a real stretch, but I can go down to $ 399.”
The mime repeated the gesture.
“Looks like he’s frying up some bacon and eggs,” Rufus observed. Was that a euphemism? Hard to say.
“$ 299?” I tried. No dice. “$ 250, and that’s really the best I can do.”
Unfortunately, it turned out that if I didn’t want my dad’s Crafting to fall into the hands of another Spellcraft shop, I’d have to settle for twenty bucks. I’m usually a lot better at negotiation, but frankly, it’s unsettling when the other party is constantly pretending to disrobe.
The mime handed over a crumpled bill, then pretended to sign the contract with his fingertip.
Sabina rolled her eyes and handed him an actual pen. He brightened and plucked a tiny paper flower from his sleeve, then offered it to her in return with a grand, courtly bow. Until Yuri swatted it out of his hand, anyhow. “Stop dawdling and sign. There is much work to do.”
The mime made a big deal of signing with a flourish. Spellcrafters always get a big kick out of what passes for a flourish among the Handless. But as I spun the contract around to face me, it wasn’t to critique his penmanship, but to figure out what in the heck I should call him. Because it hardly seemed fitting to keep referring to my new customer as “the mime.”
His signature was a vague squiggle.
“Look,” I said. “If we’re going to be working together, I need to know what to call you.”
The mime smiled, spread his arms wide as if to say get a load of this, then bent his knees and straightened them again.
“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Sabina demanded.
The smile went a bit pained. He repeated the motion.
“You’re jumping rope,” I said. “Are you a boxer? Is your name Muhammed Ali? Ooh, I know, it’s Rocky.”
The mime shook his head and did it again.
“A bunny hop,” I guessed. “A pogo stick.”
Rufus nodded sagely. “That’s exactly how the slow-motion dismount of a gymnast from a pommel horse would look. He’s trying to tell you his name is Trigger.”
Sabina was running out of patience. “How long have you guys been at this?”
“Too long,” Yuri said.
Dang it, I had to get something right. It was a matter of principle now. “You’re looking for something on a low bookshelf. You’re doing squats at the gym. Wait a minute— I know! You’re crouching.” The mime shook his head emphatically… but if he wasn’t willing to speak up for himself, it was his problem, not mine. “That settles it. Crouch it is.”
DIXON
Practical Penn is not a fancy shop. It’s situated between a take-and-bake pizza place and a dollar store. The floors are linoleum (worn), the walls are paneling (fake wood), and the acoustic drop ceiling tiles are vaguely discolored. But Practical Penn is more than just a store in some seventies strip mall, it’s my family’s livelihood. And for that reason, it’s the best shop ever.
Unfortunately, businesses come with regulations.
While I did still have an office in the shop, it was just an out-of-the-way little closet of a room. To save on our liability insurance, my mother had taken me off books several years ago while I was trying out every youth hostel in Europe. That move turned out to be to everyone’s advantage. Because not being officially employed there meant I didn’t have to go to the annual Spellcraft rules and regulations training that was required of every Scrivener in a small-to-midsized shop. With me unofficially manning the helm at the store, Practical Penn could stay open while every other shop in the city had to shut its doors.
Win-win.
Technically, I didn’t need Yuri to come along and keep me company. Chances were, I’d just be sitting around all afternoon watching adorable chipmunk videos on my phone. But he insisted that if Rufus Clahd was the only one I had for backup, some intrepid robber would clean us out for sure. And so, he came along, parked himself at my cousin Sabina’s desk, and shot apprehensive looks at Rufus’s door when he thought no one was watching.
Poor Yuri. I think Rufus freaked him out because he’d never met another Seer before. And Seers tend to be… unusual. Whether it’s because they possess a talent that’s basically a genetic mutation, or because every Scrivener they meet treats them like the next Messiah? Hard to say.
As long as you don’t mess with his things, Rufus can be fairly easygoing. But though he’s got a normal-sized ego, he’s also got extremely large hair. My cousin and I have speculated over the years as to whether or not it’s a white-guy perm. She thinks it must be, whereas I’m not so sure. While some days it looks more tightly coiled than others, I think the discrepancy could be due to a change in shampoo, or humidity… or maybe the occasional trim.
I hadn’t yet determined what Yuri thought of the hair, but I’d wager he had an opinion. It was Yuri’s desire to keep an eye on everything that landed him front and center when the mime walked in.
I often ponder what Yuri’s nightmares must be like— no doubt, they’re in Russian. Yuri’s got a thing about clowns. And while a mime isn’t technically a clown… I guess it’s close enough. He stood up so fast, the office chair spun out behind him and crashed into the wood paneling with a giant clatter. It made enough noise to wake our Seer from his current nap. Rufus’s door cracked open just as I made it over to Yuri’s side to catch him in case he fainted. He’d probably squash me. But, heck, I was used to him squashing me. I might even kind of like it.
The mime walked up to the service counter and started swatting at a bug on the Formica surface. We keep the place well-fumigated, but I supposed it was possible that some of the feeder crickets had escaped their stinky little tank. The office was now home to a variety of nocturnal creatures— apparently, toads get really loud around one a.m. And crickets were a lot less icky to handle than mealworms. Still, those little suckers could really hop. I picked up an empty coffee mug and a pizza menu, and came over to rehome the poor cricket, who’d probably enjoy getting squashed a heck of a lot less than I did. But when I got up to the counter, there was no cricket. And the mime was still swatting away… at nothing. I picked up the edge of a phone directory to see if the little escape artist got away.
“Mime is ringing service bell,” Yuri supplied, from a safe distance away, with an accent gone thick.
Oh. Right. The mime brightened and nodded vigorously.
I could’ve sworn he was swatting a bug.
You wouldn’t think a little greasepaint would make all that big a difference, but I couldn’t really get a bead on the man behind the makeup. Was he older or younger than me? Dark or fair? And, most importantly, was he better-looking? Between the whiteface and the eyeliner, it was really hard to say. The only thing I knew for sure was that his drawn-on eyebrows made him look perpetually startled.
He gestured at the counter. I looked at it. Back in the day, when smoking was in vogue, a lit cigarette had fallen from an ashtray and left a nicotine-yellow burn on the surface. The mime shook his head and gestured for me to stop looking at the burn mark and pay attention to him instead.
He pinched his fingers together on both hands and raised them in an arc. “You’re typing,” I ventured. “You’re reading the newspaper. You’re folding laundry.”
At the sound of all my excited guesses, Rufus Clahd ambled out of his office. Practical Penn’s official Seer was my parents’ age, and he still dressed like it was 1979. He’d been working here for years… if you counted napping in his office as working. He joined in the guessing game, sounding half-asleep. “You’re eating corn on the cob. With lots of butter. And a sprinkle of Himalayan sea salt.”
Yuri snapped, “He is opening briefcase.”
The mime touched the tip of his nose, winked, and pointed at Yuri.
Yuri shuddered.
Rufus squinted at the mime. “You sure it’s not corn?”
The mime pointed at Yuri again.
“I’m really pretty good at charades,” I said. It wasn’t my fault this mime was so ambiguous.
Once the “briefcase” was open and all three of us Spellcrafters were watching, the mime pulled something out of the case. Except the thing wasn’t imaginary, like the purported briefcase. And it was really obvious he’d just pulled it out of his pocket.
And… it looked a heck of a lot like Spellcraft.
He placed it importantly on the counter and indicated it with both hands, then started making frantic little looping motions.
“You’re cranking a pepper grinder?” I guessed. “No? Crocheting an afghan. Wait, I know— you’re playing Yahtzee.”
Rufus shook his head. “No way, man, he’s definitely waving a sparkler on the Fourth of July, just after sundown, throwing white-hot sparks against the night sky.”
Huh. I’d really never figured Rufus was that imaginative. Then again, it made a lot of sense, given that the weird watercolor blobs he painted (the ones that never looked like anything to anybody) still managed to fix the Spellcraft mojo onto the paper.
Unfortunately, judging by the frustrated huff that came out of the mime, Rufus was also wrong.
Yuri matched it with a huff of his own, though he made no move to come any closer, as if mimeness might be catching. “He is drawing— from right to left and bottom to top. He wishes you to Uncraft spell.”
The mime made a really big deal out of gesturing toward Yuri. Yuri backed up another few steps, until the wood paneling creaked against his back.
Rufus and I both leaned in to get a better look.
I might not have figured out the pantomime for “Uncrafting a spell,” but the Spellcraft itself? That, I recognized right away… even though I really wished I hadn’t. Not because of the Seen— it wouldn’t be the first Rufus Clahd creation I’d unmade— but because of the Scrivening.
The mime waved his hands in a flurry of inexplicable gestures. Rufus scratched his chin and said, “You went for a swim, but the water was colder than you thought, so instead you focused on your Tai Chi.”
While even the mime looked befuddled over that guess, Yuri said from across the room, “He is disturbed by Crafting and hopes we can help him.”
Either Yuri had a better view from where he was standing way over there, pantomime was a flourishing art in Russia (which gave him an unfair advantage), or learning a second language had just made him pretty darn perceptive. The mime hopped up and down in excitement and gave Yuri an eager thumbs-up.
I took a better look at the Crafting. The Seen, predictably, was a messy blue-gray blob that could have been anything— but the Scrivening was pretty darn specific. Go-getters get their goal. I was big on rhyming, and Uncle Fonzo liked to Craft fortune-cookie type sayings. The alliteration, though?
It couldn’t have come from anyone but my father.
No one likes to be the source of a bum Crafting, so naturally, I considered claiming it must’ve come from some other shop. But before I could, Rufus said, “Oh, I remember that one.”
“Really?” I said. “Because it’s awfully, uh… abstract.”
“Nope. That’s Pinyin Bay. See the dip over here? That’s where the power plant sits. And the flat side over here is where they shored up the coastline, so the inmates at the county detention center couldn’t swim away anymore. And the tiny flecks of black inside the water— those are leeches.”
Well… now that he pointed out all those details, I supposed I could see it.
Yuri said to the mime, “I read article that said South Dock Boardwalk is threatened by developers. Is that where you have come from?”
The mime nodded with great purpose.
“The South Dock Boardwalk can’t be sold off,” I declared. “It’s a Pinyin Bay institution!”
Rufus agreed. “That’s where everyone loses their virginity on a full moon under the pier to the sound of off-key buskers yodeling in the distance.”
“Um… not everyone,” I said. “But it’s bad enough some out-of-state corporation bought up the rental cabins on Pinyin Beach. Are they gunning for the Boardwalk, too?”
The mime made an exaggerated frown and nodded.
Yuri said, “If same buyer also has Morticia Shirque’s estate as well as the cabins, when they take the Boardwalk, this entire coastline of the bay will be theirs.”
That couldn’t be. “All of Pinyin Beach?” Even as I said it, landmark after landmark cropped up in my mind’s eye as if I was cruising past on Old Bay Road. The trailer park. Pinyin Inn. The cabins. The Shirque Mansion. From the power plant on one side of the bay to the crumbling bluffs that separated Pinyin Bay city limits from the road to Strangeberg on the other, the only property that hadn’t recently changed hands was the Boardwalk.
The mime knuckled away a fake tear.
I snagged the Crafting by the corner and pulled it across the counter to get a better look at it, but as I did, Yuri caught me by the back of the collar and dragged me into my office. Since I hardly ever used it, tanks filled with toads and lizards and whatever else ate all those escaping crickets took up a lot of the meager real estate. But Yuri crowding me into a gap between my desk and a coatrack was something I could hardly complain about— even though I was pretty sure no kissing would be involved. Not this time, anyhow.
“You would Craft for mime?”
Obviously, Yuri was none too keen on the situation. Even if I didn’t know he had a thing about clowns, he’d been dropping articles left and right ever since the guy gestured his way across the threshold. “Listen, Yuri. Pinyin Beach means a lot to me. But even if it didn’t, that’s not just a Practical Penn Crafting out there… it’s my dad’s.”
Yuri understood. He answered with the sort of slow-blink he reserved for those moments when a long-suffering sigh simply wasn’t enough.
I patted him on the chest. And then added a few more pats for good measure. And then trailed a fingertip along his neck tattoo in a way that made him shiver. “Think about it this way, Yuri. Pinyin Bay is riddled with Spellcrafters. The mime could’ve brought this Crafting to any one of them. But, as luck would have it, we were the only shop open. It’s as if it was meant to be.”
“Nothing is ever a coincidence with the volshebstvo.” Yuri pulled me against him roughly, smoothed my hair back, and paused to cup my face in his palm. Gazing down into my eyes with exquisite tenderness, he said, “You are always taking on problems that are not yours to solve— so, how could I expect you to leave this Crafting to the wind? I know you must do it… but I do not have to like it. Especially when Uncrafting involves no Seen, and can only be done by you, and you alone.”
I brushed a kiss across his frowny lips. “I just knew I could count on your support! Now, let’s get back to the mime before any more Spellcraft shops open up and he can start comparison-shopping.”
We headed back out to the lobby, where Rufus was regaling the mime with a rambling tale about… well, frankly, it’s just as hard to follow Rufus’s stories as it is to figure out which end of his Seens is up. But whatever the narrative might be, it involved a trashcan, a used harmonica and some shaving cream. Just as Rufus wrapped it up by saying, “… and then all of us broke into a half-hearted rendition of Auld Lang Syne!” my cousin shouldered her way through the front door with a teetering stack of pizza boxes in her hands from the take-and-bake joint next door.
“Who holds a meeting in this day and age and doesn’t supply any donuts?” she demanded with all the vehemence with which she demands… well, everything. “I swear I could hardly hear the presenter over the groaning of all the empty Scrivener stomachs.”
Sabina had dressed “professionally” for the mandatory meeting— which was to say, she didn’t have any holes in her black jeans, her Doc Martens were polished, and her bra straps weren’t showing. Fortunately, Spellcraft is one of those professions that doesn’t require you to dress to the same standards as a banker or a politician or a high school principal.
I, myself, might be fond of sharp tailored suits and natty bowties, but Sabina balked at the notion of wearing anything even remotely conservative. My cousin has crammed herself into a pair of pantyhose exactly once in all her twenty-five years. And by the time she was done clawing them off again ten minutes later, everyone up and down the street knew exactly what she thought of them.
Yuri relieved her of the pizza boxes and steered them into the break room, where three toaster ovens we’d found at various garage sales and thrift stores awaited. And with no stack of boxes blocking his view, the mime did an exaggerated double-take at my cousin.
Sabina looked equally as startled— and knowing that she can be just a teensy bit acerbic if you rub her the wrong way, I quickly attempted to steer the mime’s attention back to the matter of the Uncrafting. I slid a contract from a pile of legalese, slapped it down in front of him, and said, “I’d be happy to see to the matter at hand. All I’ll need is your signature on the dotted line and five hundred dollars. We take all the major credit cards, but there’s a five percent discount if you pay cash.”
The mime pretended to be pulling down his pants.
Even if I were single, trading sexual favors for Spellcraft was a line I was simply not willing to cross. “I’ll have you know this is a respectable family business.”
Yuri said, “He is showing you his pockets are empty.”
“Oh. Fine. Well, there may be some wiggle-room.” We didn’t need a Seen painted, after all. “It’s a real stretch, but I can go down to $ 399.”
The mime repeated the gesture.
“Looks like he’s frying up some bacon and eggs,” Rufus observed. Was that a euphemism? Hard to say.
“$ 299?” I tried. No dice. “$ 250, and that’s really the best I can do.”
Unfortunately, it turned out that if I didn’t want my dad’s Crafting to fall into the hands of another Spellcraft shop, I’d have to settle for twenty bucks. I’m usually a lot better at negotiation, but frankly, it’s unsettling when the other party is constantly pretending to disrobe.
The mime handed over a crumpled bill, then pretended to sign the contract with his fingertip.
Sabina rolled her eyes and handed him an actual pen. He brightened and plucked a tiny paper flower from his sleeve, then offered it to her in return with a grand, courtly bow. Until Yuri swatted it out of his hand, anyhow. “Stop dawdling and sign. There is much work to do.”
The mime made a big deal of signing with a flourish. Spellcrafters always get a big kick out of what passes for a flourish among the Handless. But as I spun the contract around to face me, it wasn’t to critique his penmanship, but to figure out what in the heck I should call him. Because it hardly seemed fitting to keep referring to my new customer as “the mime.”
His signature was a vague squiggle.
“Look,” I said. “If we’re going to be working together, I need to know what to call you.”
The mime smiled, spread his arms wide as if to say get a load of this, then bent his knees and straightened them again.
“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Sabina demanded.
The smile went a bit pained. He repeated the motion.
“You’re jumping rope,” I said. “Are you a boxer? Is your name Muhammed Ali? Ooh, I know, it’s Rocky.”
The mime shook his head and did it again.
“A bunny hop,” I guessed. “A pogo stick.”
Rufus nodded sagely. “That’s exactly how the slow-motion dismount of a gymnast from a pommel horse would look. He’s trying to tell you his name is Trigger.”
Sabina was running out of patience. “How long have you guys been at this?”
“Too long,” Yuri said.
Dang it, I had to get something right. It was a matter of principle now. “You’re looking for something on a low bookshelf. You’re doing squats at the gym. Wait a minute— I know! You’re crouching.” The mime shook his head emphatically… but if he wasn’t willing to speak up for himself, it was his problem, not mine. “That settles it. Crouch it is.”
Author Bio:
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.
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Don't Rock the Boardwalk #6
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