MC Bookstore Episode Two Hundred and Thirty-Six: Tear a hole in the sky
Episode Two Hundred and Thirty-Six: Tear a hole in the sky
His mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything, eventually closing his mouth before he swallowed hard. His form stretched out a little, making him shorter than before.“Ask him what spell he used,” said the Cat, as he leaped to the table in the center of the room. “We need to know what type of magic we’re trying to fix.”
“We need to know what magic you used. The spell, that sort of thing…” I mumbled, as I started sorting objects on the table, pulling out ones that had glimmered, or had threads leading back to the elemental.
“Just a transportation spell…” he said, then mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
“What was that?” I asked, turning to look directly at him.
His eyes went wide at my look. “Okay! It was a spell to create a portal. I shouldn’t have tried to use it. Now I need to fix it.”
The Cat literally growled. “That’s forbidden magic for a reason! He tore a hole in the sky to a different world. We can’t fix this…”
The elemental jerked back. “Don’t react like that. I changed it, to begin with, to not actually create a portal, just a touchcloud. It shouldn’t have torn anything…”
I didn’t know anything about portals between places, but this sounded like a massive problem. One that the Cat didn’t think we could solve.
The Cat leaped from the table in the center of the room up to the balcony. I’d never seen anything like it before. He hurried out of sight.
I lost concentration on my magic at the action, and had to focus on my magic to start again. The golden wave confirmed which items I needed to pull out of the mess. Plus, one of the bins glowed a soft golden color against the far shelf.
“It isn’t catastrophic,” said the Cat, as his head appeared between the railing. “We need a thimble… I have one somewhere.”
The counter rippled and a silver thimble appeared in the center of the counter.
I picked my findings up and dumped the pile on the counter next to the thimble.
The elemental hovered awkwardly in the room near the table. “Can you help me?”
“Probably,” I said, as I tried to figure out what we needed to use the thimble for.
“We need moonlight thread, and a needle,” said the Cat, as he leaped onto the counter. “There should be moonlight collected on those shelves.”
The Elemental flew over to the shelves and opened basket after backset until they pulled a bright white bottle out from one of them.
The Cat nudged several of the objects before plucking a broken fishing hook off a fake fish with his teeth.
“We can make a needle out of the hook. He will need to stitch the tear closed.”
“Can you sew?” I asked the elemental, with a frown.
The Cat touched the hook again as a wave of green magic washed over the object. When it vanished, a small needle dropped to the counter.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“I can try,” he said, with a brighter look than before as he stepped closer to both of us.
“Pull the moonlight out, just a pinch,” said the Cat.
I popped the cork off the glowing bottle and tried to pinch it. The cool texture felt like a taffy, and it stretched out into a thin strand.
The Cat somehow blew on it. A small gust of wind came out of his nose as I pulled.
Then it cut off, and the strand snapped. I re-corked the bottle, and the thread glowed a bright white before it almost turned see-through.
My fingers tingled, as I used my magic yet again. This time, all three objects were surrounded with a soft, golden glow, and a thread reached out to the elemental.
“This will work,” I said, with a little awe in my voice.
“It will as long as he can stitch it closed,” grumbled the Cat, as he slumped to the counter. His eyes appeared dimmer than usual.
I wound the thread along a wood dowel that appeared near my hand. It didn’t feel like much, but it kept going. Hopefully, it’d be enough to close whatever tear the wayward elemental had created.
I touched the register, and brought up how much it would all cost.
“You can’t help me out of the goodness…” his voice trailed off as I glared at him. “How much will it be?”
“The touchstone,” I said, reading off the words and not understanding them.
“You wouldn’t believe what I had to do to get my–”
The Cat growled again, and the elemental’s voice just stopped.
“Fine.” He pulled a small fluffy stone out of his hat and set it on the counter. Then he picked the thimble up, along with the needle and thread. “Good doing business with you.”
He turned and fled the shop.
The door slammed shut behind him, thankfully, as more of the water tried to enter as soon as it opened.
“Dumb…” mumbled the Cat. “Just dumb… Doesn’t he know how much damage he could have done if he tore an actual hole through the leylines?”
“What happened?” I asked.
The Cat flopped on his side. “He used magic to make two points touch one another. Unfortunately, the water world and the touchcloud reacted poorly. The tear is actually in a cloud. Once it's stitched closed, the cloud will heal.”
I sat down and thought about it a little. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“Dumb use of magic when he could just use a portal,” said the Cat.
“No, I meant working together to solve the problem,” I said, with a little bit of a chuckle.
“Oh, yeah…” He wouldn’t look at me.
“Do you mind if I dig through some of this stuff?” I asked, motioning around us. “Maybe you could tell me what some of it is?”
He sighed. “Fine.”
I jumped up and pointed at a broken lamp made out of one leg with a shade. “What is that?”
“No idea, just some junk that I found.”
This time I sighed and pointed at the tiny watering can that had glimmered with magic. “This?”
“That is an elemental watering can,” He said with a yawn. “It never runs out of water.”
“Oh, my brother would love it, if it wasn’t so small…” It fit into the palm of my hand, almost like a solstice tree decoration.
I picked up a small metal guitar pick. “This?”
“Got it from a bard who said it brings good luck,” said the Cat, as he eyes fluttered closed.
I paused and watched him for a moment as a soft snore came from him.
Slowly, so as not to wake him, I picked him up, hoping all that magic hadn’t hurt him. I held him close as I slowly walked up the stairs. It was still early, since we just had lunch, but he obviously needed some sleep.
Another snore escaped him as I entered the living room, only glancing back once at all of the stuff I hadn’t had a chance to go through. Once he woke, I’d get to ask all of my questions about the stuff. Hopefully.
A wild thought came to mind as I pushed another wave of my magic out and around the Cat. The golden wave of magic touched his fur, and threads branched off him in all directions. A maze of connections going every which way.
Yet, one stood out from the others. It was thick, and bright, and it connected the two of us.