"Ah... If you'll come inside, maybe we can get started?" she managed to say in a reasonable tone of voice. Somehow, Glori slid her hand free of his grip and took a step backwards. She pulled the gate open and gestured for him to walk down the yellow brick walkway to the front door.
"Are you free for dinner, ma'am?"
"Mr. Knight--"
"Call me Lance." He offered up a grin that showed off nice, white teeth and a dimple in his left cheek.
"You might not be free. The bugs could keep you very busy." She turned her back on him in desperation. If she looked into his big cobalt blue eyes for a few seconds longer, they both might be frozen there until morning. That wouldn't look good for her business, would it?
"No bug ever kept me that busy," he mumbled, behind her.
Glori closed her eyes as she gripped the door and spelled the lock open. She took a deep breath and braced herself to bolster the magic, altering it just enough to let them in without letting the bugs out. The door swung open. Every surface in the main room was...moving.
How could this have happened to her? It had never happened before, in all the years since she bought the building. How could so many bugs have showed up in just one weekend? It wasn't as if her children were messy. No more messy than any ordinary children. Just a few buckets of paint and modeling clay, two spilled glasses of juice, maybe a cup of cookie crumbs spread over a playroom thirty feet by thirty feet. Glori thought about it again, even knowing that considering her problem would create another headache--and she was totally out of chocolate.
No, the only explanation she could come up with was that her magic had decided to take a vacation without warning. And whatever "temporary" magic had come to take its place was working totally backwards!
Lance took one look, braced his arms on the doorframe, and went pale.
"We're gonna need a bigger boat."
The music whispering through the back of his mind, in time with his racing heart, didn't sound like the theme music from Jaws. But it came close. |
