Sammy Oakley and the Jewel of Amureki
Laurell K. Hamilton
She walked into my office all proper and prim, and lovely as the first violets of spring after a hard winter. She was a little petite for my taste; I usually preferred my females taller, longer, leaner, but her hair was brown like acorns in the autumn when they’re ripe and ready to pick. What was a little shortness compared to the triangular beauty of her face, and those big dark eyes, that dainty nose?
“Mr. Oakley, did you hear a word I just said?” the tiny vision asked in an annoyed tone.
I blinked, smiled and meant to sound suave and debonair, but think I failed. “Of course, I always give the utmost attention to every detail a client tells me.”
“Then repeat back to me what I just told you,” she said, tiny arms crossing in front of her on the front of her floral apron dress.
Of course, I couldn’t, which was embarrassing, but I’d done worse and convinced a pretty tail or two that it was all part of the game called love.
“I think this was a mistake,” she said, and stood up on her hind legs, spine utterly straight, little clawed hands clasped around her tiny, carpeted bag. It looked like it had been made from a single rose off a human-sized carpet.
“Now, dollface, please sit back down.”
“My name is not dollface,” she said, spine going even straighter, hands clutching her bag like she was thinking about throwing it at me.
“Are you really going to be upset with me because I think you’re beautiful?”
She looked down the black button of her nose at me, those deep, warm eyes suddenly going so cold I had to fight off an urge to shiver. “Mister Oakley”—and you could hear every syllable, chilly and precise—“I do not care what you think of me; and my beauty, or lack of it, have absolutely no bearing on the subject at hand. I was told that Sammy Oakley could find anything, that he had a gift for finding lost objects.”
“I have a knack for finding things,” I said, voice careful. I did remember her now, we’d never met, but how many enchanted chipmunks can there be? Grey squirrels had been living near humans for centuries, so more of us had been enchanted, either on purpose or by accident. But as far as I had ever heard, it was just Esme, and her uncle, for chipmunks; though I wasn’t sure I believed the stories about her uncle. Whoever heard of a chipmunk tough enough to be a pirate? Miss Esme the housekeeper worked for a human wizard, though; that made her dangerous.
“We’ve searched in all the normal ways, Mr. Oakley. We—I need extraordinary measures, and I was told that you could do that.”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, Miss Esme, but I’m just a squirrel like a hundred other squirrels in the forest. We notice things and we gossip about what we notice; it’s what we do.”
She twisted her delicate little claws in her rose purse and finally looked nervous, that calm exterior cracking a little. I wondered what she’d be like if all that control went away, and I was there when it happened. The thought distracted me, and I missed what she said next.
“I’m sorry, Esme, could you repeat that?”
“It’s Miss Esme to you, Mr. Oakley, and what I said was, I’m told your abilities to locate lost objects borders on the miraculous.”
“I’m no miracle worker, Miss Esme.”
“Magical then,” she said, voice soft, so that an animal with less acute hearing might have heard only a high-pitched murmur. She was being careful, which was good, but not good enough.
“Now, Miss Esme, you work for a wizard. Some stories say you’re her familiar, some that you’re her servant, but either way, as part of her household you could display certain extraordinary talents and be safe under the Enchanted Animal Act. But as an independent being living on my own I am not able to have wizard-like qualities without a human wizard involved.” I stood up, so that I towered over her at twice her height. She never flinched. Instead, she studied my face as if she was going to memorize me down to my last whisker.
“I am Mistress Winifred’s housekeeper. I have no mystical abilities of my own other than my intelligence and speech. I wouldn’t even have that if my mother hadn’t put her nest underneath my mistress’s laboratory so that some of the magic leaked down on me as a baby.”
“I’m very glad that happened, Miss Esme. I don’t see many of our kind magically uplifted.”
“I am not your kind, Mr. Oakley. I am a chipmunk, and you are a squirrel. We are very different.”
“I’m a grey squirrel, please don’t confuse me with my red-headed cousins. They’re pretty, but not the fighters that we greys are.”
She gave a little sniff. “Is that a threat?” If she actually believed that, it didn’t show.
“No, of course not, I would never threaten you, Esme, I mean Miss Esme.” I couldn’t keep my voice from softening. There was just something about her. Maybe it was that we were close enough to be together in a way that most accidentally enchanted animals weren’t. “We’re both squirrels, you’re just a ground squirrel and I’m a tree squirrel, but we’re kin.”
“I am not your kin,” she said, voice icy.
I sighed. “If we can’t be friends, then let me say this: I have no wish to be killed over some rumor that I might be a little more mystical than your normal enchanted animal.”
“My mistress would never kill someone for knowing magic.”
“Then she’s the exception, because most human wizards feel that magic is a human-only game; no one else is invited to the table.”
“Brisbane, who is waiting for me below your tree, comes from a long line of magical dogs that have been familiars and nursemaids for important wizarding families.”
“Yes, but the humans bred him to be magical. The best he and his pups can hope for is to be some human wizard’s familiar, but if he was good enough to be a wizard on his own, they’d destroy him.”
“I don’t believe that is true of his master or my mistress.”
“Then they are the exception to the rule.”
“They are,” she said.
“If both your masters are who I think they are, they are powerful wizards on their own. Why can’t they use real magic to help recover this lost object that you’ve been so careful not to reveal to me?”
“They are on their honeymoon, and we do not wish to call them back early, even if we could.”
“But you can’t, can you? You don’t have any magic of your own so you can’t call for them except by a letter, and that’s going to be too slow.”
“Yes,” she said at last, and her shoulders slumped a little. She looked worried. I was always a sucker for a lady in distress, because that’s what she was, a lady. I’d had my share of dames and trollops, but never a lady.
I sat back down. “If I had any abilities that might be able to help you locate this whatsit, just hypothetically, what would I be searching for?”
She sat down then, her shoulders rolling forward even more as if she was tired. “The Amulet of Amureki.”
My heart started beating faster and since a squirrel’s natural heartbeat is over two hundred fifty beats per minute, that was pretty fast. She had to be joking, but I knew she wasn’t. “The, as in the real Amulet of Amureki?”
She looked at me with those big dark eyes, big enough to drown in, but now it wasn’t just about me facing possible death or imprisonment. Now it was worse. “Yes, I’m afraid it was the real artifact.”
“It’s a cataclysmic artifact if it falls into the wrong hands, or if anyone realizes that the ruler of the kingdom of Amunra doesn’t have their greatest weapon to protect their borders,” I said.
“I know that. Don’t you think that we all know that?”
“Who’s all?”
“Brisbane, and a few others of our household. We have not told the mice that lost it what they have done.”
“Mice, how did mice get the amulet?”
“I set them to emptying the trash out of all the rooms. It’s one of their household duties.”
“Are you seriously telling me that your mice helpers, your rodent charwomen, dumped a legendary magical talisman in the trash?”
“It was taken apart for our master and mistress to recharge it. They were to finish the spell when they returned from their honeymoon, because the moon and planets won’t be right for the finish until then. They timed their entire trip around reenchanting the amulet. It looked like just another piece of debris that is everywhere in a wizard’s workroom.”
“They can be messy.”
“Yes, and the mice are not like you and me. No matter what Mistress Winifred did to enchant them, they are still very much mice. It’s one of the reasons she stopped using them as subjects for her experiments, because she could not figure out how to truly infuse them with magic.”
“Why didn’t she destroy them?” I asked.
“They are living beings and it was her magic that changed them.”
“It’s been my experience that wizards get rid of their mistakes as quickly and thoroughly as possible.”
“Then you are meeting the wrong wizards; neither Mistress Winifred nor Master Bert would do something so cruel.”
“I hope your faith in your master and mistress is never shaken, Esme.”
“It will not be,” she said with the absolute faith that I usually only heard from domestic animals. She had it bad for her wizarding masters.
“So, the mice tidied up the room and accidently threw away a major artifact?” I said, because I didn’t want to discuss the ethics of wizards anymore. She believed too strongly, and I had no faith in the goodness of wizards.
“Oh, I should never have trusted them to tidy up in the workrooms while my mistress and new master were gone, but there was just so much to do, combining the two households into the new house. No, that sounded like an excuse. I am the housekeeper, and it was my orders that put the silly mice where they could throw away…Oh, I would undo it if I could, but I cannot, so we must find it before any human knows it’s missing.”
“I know you checked the trash in the house before you came here, so I won’t ask. You checked the dump next, and…”
“And it was gone,” she said, and she almost wrung her paws, but then regained control of herself and smoothed them down the soft velvet of her purse.
“Who knew that your master and mistress had the amulet?”
“No one.”
I looked at her, doing the best I could to visibly raise an eyebrow in amongst my fur. “Someone took it, Esme, so someone knew.”
“It was an accident, not a planned theft,” she said.
“Are you sure of that?”
“Yes, I mean…” She stopped and really thought about what I’d asked. I liked that she thought about it before brushing the idea off. Open-mindedness was a wonderful quality in a female. She looked up at me, eyes even wider so they seemed like two black lakes with the full moon shining across them. “Are you saying the mice did it on purpose and a confederate was waiting at the dump?”
“It’s a possibility,” I said.
She frowned, narrowing her eyes. “The mice aren’t smart enough for that, or dumb enough to be tricked.”
“None of them are smart enough?” I asked.
Again, she thought about it. “Well, there’s one white mouse that came from another wizarding household. All the rest are household mice, enchanted by my mistress or descended from ones she enchanted. Bianca is smarter than the other mice.”
“Can she speak, human speech?”
“A little, but she can read and write and none of the others can do that.”
I gave a high-pitched whistle. “I know a lot of talking animals that can’t do that. I think we need to talk to Bianca.”
“Then you will help us?” she said, giving me the full force of her big, dark eyes again. I felt like if I gazed into them long enough I’d see my soul looking back, or maybe my heart.
“Yes, but if Bianca is involved then she could be long gone by the time we get back to your place.”
“No, I had the mice involved confined until my return.”
“Are they being guarded?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t trust them either,” I said.
“No, it isn’t that, or not in the way you mean. I didn’t suspect them of duplicity. I just wanted them available for further questioning; mice can be a bit scattered, and they frighten easily. I didn’t want them to wander away and make us lose our chance to find out that one of them remembered some of the debris falling out of the cart, or visiting another dump site, or a dozen other things that they didn’t think to mention yet.”
“Very practical,” I said.
“You will find I am very practical, Mr. Oakley. It is just common sense that since the kingdom of Amureki borders our country, they could go to war against us for this loss.”
“They don’t dare,” I said, “that would be admitting that the amulet, their greatest magical protection, is gone.”
“I think if we cannot find the amulet, then the secret will not last. One way or another Amureki will be involved in a war. That war could engulf all the known kingdoms, including ours. It would be war the likes of which hasn’t been seen in many human lifetimes.”
I was impressed that she’d grasped the politics so quickly. “That is a worry, but what worries me more is that a wizard could have stolen it on purpose to use it.”
“It would have to be someone capable of re-enchanting it, recharging it. It will take both my mistress and master to do it and they are both powerful wizards. I don’t believe one wizard could do it alone.”
“How often does the amulet need recharging?”
“About every hundred to five hundred years, depending on how much it is used.”
“Is it commonly known that its magic fades with use?” I asked.
“No, it is one of the deepest secrets of Amureki’s royal and wizarding houses.”
“First, we talk to the white mouse, Bianca. Can you and your dog come up with a list of wizards that might be powerful enough to re-enchant the amulet?”
“Brisbane is not my pet; he is my friend and has been the head butler in a household for a number of years.” Her eyes sparkled with anger; even her fur was standing up a little, as if her very skin was reacting to the anger.
“I’m sorry that I assumed just because he’s a dog that he was a pet, and not an independent being. Please forget I said it, and let’s get back to trying to save the kingdom.”
She umphed at me and nodded, but her fur didn’t smooth down immediately, which meant she was working with me but hadn’t gotten over the slight to her friend. I refused to believe he could be anything more than a friend, but I’d lost females over friends before. It had taken me years to realize that friendship is a type of love and shouldn’t be underestimated.
“Is there anyone political enough to steal the amulet so that Amureki would be without its greatest weapon? Maybe whoever stole it, or had it stolen, doesn’t care if it works, they just want it out of the way for their own conquest of the kingdom.”
“Oh dear, I hadn’t thought about that.” Her fur slicked back down as the last of her anger was lost to the new idea. She looked suddenly uncertain, and as delicate as her body seemed. She was like some tiny, beautiful flower. Why did she keep making me think of violets?
I forgot myself for a minute, and treated her like she was just another damsel in distress. I gave her the look that many a lady squirrel had said was smoldering. “That’s why you came to me, dollface.”
“Do not call me that. I am not a child’s toy.” Her tone was icy enough to kill any heat in my smoldering look.
“I’m sorry, you’re quite right, Esme,” I said.
“Miss Esme to you, Mr. Oakley,” she said, her voice chilly again. I’d thought I was winning her over, but maybe I’d been wrong.
“Please call me Sammy.”
“This is a business arrangement, using our first names would be inappropriate.”
She was definitely not happy with me. “Fine, Miss Esme, if it’s a business arrangement let’s talk about my fee.” I expected her to protest that I was going to charge for saving the kingdom, but she didn’t.
“Yes, of course.” She opened the rose bag, and then looked at me. I realized she was waiting for me to name a fee, so I did.
She widened her eyes and said, “I do not have time to dicker with you, but you know that is a goodly sum.”
“Chances are strong that in hunting this missing amulet of yours, I will have to do the one thing that could get me executed. For that kind of risk I want a goodly sum.”
She sniffed. “Fine. You know that I could not possibly have that much in my purse, but Brisbane has half that much in the bags he carries.”
“Half isn’t good enough, doll…Miss Esme.”
“Half up front and half when you succeed, Mr. Oakley.”
I sighed. “If I don’t succeed I guess I won’t need the rest of my money anyway.”
“If you don’t succeed, then none of us may need anything ever again.”
With that grim prediction I grabbed my hat, designed so that my ears fit jauntily up through the brim; normally I’d have put it on and aimed another smoldering look at a female client, but I didn’t bother with Esme. I was going to have to pick my battles with this one. I rode back to their house on the dog’s back, holding onto his collar with my feet, so I could prop my arms up on his big domed skull where Esme was sitting. She rode comfortably, as if she’d done it a thousand times before. I could have moved faster through the trees that shaded the road, but then I wouldn’t have been able to question each of them further about who took the rubbish to the dump and was it the people who usually go. Also, after my thinking he was her pet, I thought refusing to ride on him might be an insult. It’s so hard to tell with domesticated animals, and I was beginning to include the chipmunk in the domesticated part.
We arrived at their house, which was either a small castle or a large manor house, or some unhappy mix in between. If it had been my tree, I’d have been hunting up the architect to complain, but I wasn’t there to critique the house, I was there to find the lost goods, save the kingdom, and get back to my happy bachelor life.
A young human girl came running from the house as if she’d been watching from the windows for us. “Oh miss, miss, we were watching the mice like you said, but one of them slipped away. I’m ever so sorry, I was chopping vegetables and just turned away for a moment…”
“Calm down, Alice,” Esme said, standing up on top of the dog’s head so she’d be taller, though, like me, she’d need to climb on top of something taller than a Newfoundland to be on eye level with a human. But the girl, Alice, wrung her hands in her apron and stared down at Esme as if she was truly afraid of her disapproval, which since the chipmunk wasn’t much bigger than the girl’s hand, seemed ridiculous, but somehow as Esme calmed the girl down it didn’t seem ridiculous. In that moment it wasn’t about size, it was about authority; and as Esme questioned the girl, she had that in spades.
It turned out that Bianca the white mouse was missing, and none of the other mice knew when she’d left the group that had been helping with the meal preparations, or where’d she gone.
“Someone as small as a mouse could be anywhere in the house, or out of it by now,” Brisbane said, his voice rumbling up through my feet as if I was a furry tuning fork.
Then we heard yelling in the distance. “That’s Young Appleton,” Esme said.
“And Old Appleton,” Brisbane said.
“And the raccoons,” Alice said, which must have been the hissing and screeching I was hearing.
Then something roared loud enough to make my fur stand on end. “What is that?”
“It’s Horatio,” Esme said.
“What’s a Horatio?” I asked.
“A Barley Dragon,” Brisbane said.
“You have a dragon?”
The dog started to run towards the sounds of fighting with Esme clinging to the fur of his domed head and me holding on tight to his collar. “I signed up to find a missing object, not fight a dragon!”
“Then jump off and hide,” Esme replied. She never even looked at me as she said it, as if it didn’t matter if I fought at their side or not. I began to suspect that the chipmunk was braver than I was, which is why I clung tighter to Brisbane’s collar and didn’t jump to safety. If I wasn’t careful, this female was going to get me killed. Drool flew back from the dog’s mouth as he ran faster, and I got a face full of it, so as we rounded the house I was scraping it off my face and missed the first glimpse of the fight.
All I could see at first were two men, one old and one young, holding a pitchfork and a spear respectively, with a half circle of raccoons, also armed with farm implements and wearing clothes like the two men. The dragon wasn’t much bigger than the dog we rode on, so I didn’t see him until we got closer and then all I saw were the iridescent spikes flaring out around a long snout, and upright down the spine, shaking with fury that shattered the sunlight like multicolored jewels flashing in the light. It was so impressive that it took a second for me to see the greenish-brown body that looked more like an oversized lizard than a dragon. He roared again; it blew Brisbane’s fur back like a field of black wheat and Esme had to flatten herself to the dog’s head holding on with all four paws or be blown away. I had to wrap myself around the dog’s collar, and almost lost my hat. It was as if the dragon had a storm wind inside him.
Something small and white tumbled past us. I launched myself into the air, riding the wind of the dragon’s breath before I’d finished thinking, It’s a white mouse. I spread my legs and arms wide to try and fly fast enough to catch Bianca the mouse before she blew away. Only a lifetime of leaping from tree to tree and trusting myself to the air let me catch the mouse and roll her up against my body so that my extra weight helped slow her down; and even with both of us, I kept rolling until I came up against the base of a tree and found a lower limb to grab onto with one hand while I held the mouse tight with the other.
I heard one of the men yelling, “Horatio! Horatio, stop bellowing!”
I was able to get my feet under me, but kept the white mouse tucked in my arm like a baby. I wasn’t sure if she was hurt, or just stunned. She’d taken quite a tumble for such a little animal. A rat wearing leather jerkin and trousers came running towards us shouting, “Bianca, are you hurt?”
She stirred in my arms, the sunlight passing through the white of her ear, so the pink insides glowed. Her ear looked like a seashell, as she opened her eyes and blinked up at me. With how pale the rest of her was, I’d expected her eyes to be red like rubies but they were black like a normal mouse. But being set in all that white fur made them seem darker and more lustrous, like black diamonds.
I was thinking she was the most beautiful mouse I’d ever seen when I felt something hard and metallic pressed under my arm where one hard thrust would find my heart. “Beautiful and dangerous, too bad you’re not a squirrel, you’re just my type,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes, frowning at me. Her voice was low and melodic, as if she’d sing well. “I will kill you, if I must.”
“I believe you,” I said.
“Then why aren’t you afraid?”
I don’t know what I would have answered, because the rat reached us, and the raccoons were right behind him. I had enough time to say, “I’ll keep you from being crushed if you don’t kill me.”
“Deal,” she said, and the tiny sharp point withdrew. I bent my body over her and gave my back to the rat and the raccoons just before they piled on top of us, and the world went black and very furry.
* * *
When I came to, I was lying on a cushion in what looked like a parlor, staring up at a circle of worried-looking raccoons. One of them said, “Oh good, you’re alive!”
“Esme and Brisbane were ever so cross at us for nearly smashing you,” a second raccoon said.
“Where’s the mouse? Where’s Bianca, and the rat? Did they get away?” I asked, sitting up too fast, so the summer sunshine swirled around me. I lowered my head into my hands, carefully waiting for it to pass. I wasn’t dead, but I was something.
“We have them, Mr. Oakley. Our apologies for almost crushing you,” Esme said from somewhere behind the raccoons. She sounded more disgusted than sorry, but I think the disgust was aimed at the raccoons. They stepped aside like a chunky, furred curtain made of embarrassed giants to reveal the delicate shape of the chipmunk. But there was nothing delicate about the expression on her face or her front legs crossed over the front of her lacy apron. She was so angry that her tail was moving in quick jerks from side to side.
“We’re really sorry, Esme,” the smallest raccoon said.
Her tail bristled out stiff behind her, twitching jerkily. “I need all of you to stop blundering around instead of being sorry after the damage is done, Jeffery.”
“Yes, Esme.” He looked flustered, tugging at the yellow vest he was wearing like he was trying to wring it like a rag. It must have been a favorite nervous gesture because the hem of the vest was terribly wrinkled.
She walked between the towering shapes of the raccoons. It made her look even tinier, but they all flinched as she passed, as if she was bigger than any of them. There was more to Esme the chipmunk than met the eye, but then, I’d known that the moment she walked into my office.
“Are you well enough to help question the thieves, Mr. Oakley?”
“I wish you would call me Sammy.”
“If you do the job I have paid you for, Mr. Oakley, we will not know each other long enough for such familiarities.”
I sighed, flashing her my best soulful expression. It had melted many a female rodent’s heart, but the one in front of me wasn’t so easily thawed. She gave me a look that let me know she was not only unimpressed but clearly losing patience with me. I shrugged and stood up slowly this time, no dizziness, which was great since there was still a crime to solve.
Esme led me down a short hallway to another smaller room. There were two more raccoons in this room. They were frowning at the floor in front of them. Bianca sat near his feet, tied with a brightly colored ribbon that looked very fetching against her white fur, like she was a present that I would have loved to unwrap.
“Mr. Oakley, are you going to help us question the prisoners or just gawk at them?”
I turned to look at the lovely chipmunk at my side and flashed my best rakish smile. Esme gave me a look so cold and unmoved, that I found myself saying, “I’m sorry.”
“If you’re sorry that you are wasting precious time when we have no time to waste, I will accept your apology.”
“Thank you, it won’t happen again.”
“It best not; now show me that your reputation isn’t just tall tales.”
Properly chastised, I turned back to our prisoners. Yes, prisoners, because the black rat was in a cage on the ground next to the bound Bianca. It looked like an old bird cage and while its bars gave plenty of room for the mouse to have wiggled through them, the much larger rat wasn’t going to be able to squeeze out. The rat had an earring in one ear; it looked like real gold. The last time I’d seen Midnight Jack it had been a silver earring.
“Oakley,” the rat said, not like he was happy to see me.
“Jack,” I said, “gold in your ear this time, you’re doing well.”
“I do all right.”
“The two of you know each other?” asked Esme.
“This is Midnight Jack, one of the finest thieves in all of animal kind,” I said.
“Don’t insult me, Oakley. I’m one of the finest thieves, period; that includes those stuck-up humans.”
“That’s true; after all, the humans can’t squeeze into the spaces that a rat can, or a mouse,” I said, nodding at his captive partner.
“What’s your part in this, Oakley?” Midnight Jack asked.
“Finding things you steal, like usual.”
An expression passed over the rat’s face, bitter, angry, frustrated. “I didn’t steal anything this time, Oakley.”
“Bold-faced lies will not save you,” Esme said, her fur bristling on her back, tail twitching angrily.
Midnight Jack looked at her, from the tip of her delicate toes to the lovely curve of her ears. “Oh aye, I can be bold, but I’m not lying about the thieving, or that you are the loveliest chipmunk I have ever seen.”
Bianca said, “Jack!” The one word let me know she was Midnight Jack’s latest piece of fluff. Not that I blamed him; she was a looker.
“Now, Bianca, my dear, a man has a right to look.”
“You can look without complimenting other females,” she said, voice high and squeaking.
“Compliments from thieves do not impress me,” Esme said, bringing herself up to her full height, fur slicked back so she was ready to fight, or run. If she’d been bluffing her fur would have fluffed out to look bigger; a sleek chipmunk was a fighting chipmunk. They were small, but those front incisors could still pierce a paw or limb. Underestimating chipmunks could get you crippled, so even if you won the fight, you lost. I looked at Esme as something other than lovely or a payday for the first time. Underestimating her would be a mistake, but she really was lovely, and it had been a while since I’d found another enhanced female close enough to my species to court. Court, court, I wasn’t courting anyone. I was a love ’em and leave ’em kind of squirrel, not the courting, dating kind.
Bianca’s shrill yelling brought me back to the present, with Midnight Jack trying to sooth her with a deep voice full of compliments and lies. A loud bark cut across the squabbling, and in the sudden silence Esme said, “Enough of this nonsense!”
Brisbane the Newfoundland towered above her, having come in through the door behind them. I hadn’t noticed him coming in; if he’d been a villain he could have eaten me in one gulp. The chipmunk was a cute piece of fluff, that was all. I couldn’t afford to be distracted like this; it would get me killed.
“Where’s the jewel?” I asked in a voice that held all the anger at myself for missing a dog bigger than an elephant to a human.
Midnight Jack looked at me through the cage bars. He responded to the anger with a sneer of his own. Rage wouldn’t get me anything from the rat, it would just make him more determined not to talk. I was making things worse, and I was being paid handsomely to solve problems, not create new ones.
“Jewel? What jewel would that be?” Midnight Jack replied in a mild voice, as if I was the one being unreasonable. He wasn’t wrong.
Esme had known I wouldn’t talk in front of her humans, but how much could I trust the two raccoons? I started to ask, but the chipmunk read my face so well she just answered, “Marge and her husband, Benjamin, can be trusted, Mr. Oakley.”
The taller raccoon wearing only a kerchief around his neck, Benjamin I assumed, held out a leather backpack that looked rat-sized. His slightly shorter wife in a blue-and-white-checked dress said, “The jewel that goes into the setting inside this backpack. Bianca had the other mice tie the pieces in a neat bundle so her fellow blackguard could find all the pieces more easily.”
“Wait, you have the metal the jewel was held in?” I asked.
“We do. Marge is right, Bianca tied the pieces up neatly so they would be easily retrieved,” Esme said, but she was studying me. The intelligence in her face was palpable, and she’d read my reaction when I thought I was hiding it well. She would never be a bit of fluff, she would always be so much more; a dangerous kind of more. I needed to finish this job and get back to the forest where I was a free-swinging squirrel.
“Bring the backpack, and let’s get some privacy from the prisoners,” I said.
“It’s just metal, Oakley, what good is it to you?” the rat asked.
“You were always a narrow thinker, Jack,” I said.
“If I could do magic, I’d have a broader view.”
He gave me a searching look that reminded me of Esme. Midnight Jack was a worthy opponent—did that mean that Esme would be, too? I didn’t know and I didn’t like thinking of her that way. I just needed to do my job and then I’d never have to see her again.
“It’s illegal for an animal to be able to do magic, Jack, you know that.”
“So why hasn’t some wizard hunted you down and killed you yet?”
“You’re a magically enhanced animal that uses his gifts for criminal activities, why haven’t they hunted you down yet?”
“We don’t have time for grandstanding, gentlemen,” Esme said.
“There’s a bounty on my head no matter what I do,” said Midnight Jack “might as well be a villain if they’re going to treat me like one.”
We looked at each other.
“It’s not too late, Sammy; you and me together could make ’em pay for what they did to us.”
“I earn my keep, Midnight. I’m not interested in stealing it.”
“What do you mean, you and him?” Bianca squeaked, her pretty voice going high and very unpleasant.
“We do not have time to stroll down memory lane,” Esme said. “You have a job to complete, Mr. Oakley.”
I looked at the chipmunk with her paws folded in front of her all proper. Did her voice ever go strident and unpleasant? Somehow, I doubted it. She seemed like a well of calm in a world with precious little of it.
Esme met my gaze, then a little frown line formed at the top of the bridge of her nose. “Are you able and willing to do the job we paid you for, Mr. Oakley?”
“I am,” I said.
“Good,” she said, “Bring the backpack, Brisbane. We need to show Mr. Oakley the workroom where they stole it from.” She marched out without a backward glance assuming everyone would follow her. Brisbane did. I hesitated, not liking to follow anyone like that, but in the end I went.
“You always did get henpecked fast, Sammy.” Midnight’s laughter followed me out the door.
The witch’s or wizard’s workroom was dusty and full of the usual debris that all wizards seemed to accumulate, though this one had more sticks, stones, and crystals than most, but then the wizard Winifred was one that worked with nature, so that’s what lined her shelves along with apparatus for distilling potions: all expensive curving glass and vials. The glass alone was rare and costly; it shone with extra magic here and there where someone had strengthened it with magic. I hadn’t been inside a room like this in years, because thanks to the magic that created me I could potentially live for a human lifetime, which meant I could learn more skills and the true meaning of regret.
We’d transferred the metal bits to a loose bag that a human would have used to carry small items on their belt. I needed to see the movement of the jewelry setting and the thick leather backpack wouldn’t allow that.
“What do you mean, the movement of the metal?” Esme asked.
“Things that have been together for a long time want to be together again, so the metal would simply fly to the jewel if we allowed it, but it would be too fast for us to follow. In the bag it will lead us to the jewel, but we’ll hold onto it so it doesn’t get away.”
She looked dubious. I’d asked for privacy for the spell, so there would be no witnesses later and my magic would just be a rumor, but Esme wouldn’t leave me alone in her mistress’s workroom. “You know the thief, Mr. Oakley. In fact, you seem to have a long history with each other. I would be a fool if I left you alone in here, and I am not a fool.”
So it was just her and me in the room when I put the metal in the bag she’d found for me. Brisbane, two of the raccoons, and the Barley Dragon, Horatio, were just outside the door in case Esme yelled for help. It was as private as I was going to get. I opened the bag and prepared to put my life in the hands of the lovely, frowning Esme. The fact that I wanted to run my fingers delicately over her furrowed nose until it smoothed and she relaxed into my arms was a thought best kept to myself.
I didn’t have to cast a magic circle to contain the magic so it wouldn’t be sensed by a passing wizard, because the room was warded so solidly no one was going to sense anything I did in here. It was also strengthened so that if a spell did get away from the caster, the rest of the house would be unharmed. I’d complimented the workmanship of the room, and that was the only thing that pleased Esme; for the rest, she waited for me to prove myself.
I didn’t need a ritual to draw magic down or up, I didn’t need anything but willpower and my own innate abilities. I wasn’t just the only squirrel who was a fully trained wizard, I was also one of the rarer types of wizard: I was a Will Seeker. I owed nothing to any God or Goddess, or even Mother Earth. If I had been allowed to be a real wizard at the university, I would have taught others how to not burn themselves up or out, using instant magic. I called magic in a yellow-and-white swirl of power that raised the fur on my body like a lightning strike too near my tree. But this power was warm and gentle and felt so good to use; you could become addicted to magic, but only a Will Seeker could literally burn themselves up like a drug addict. I turned all that raw power into a spell of sympathy and channeled it down my hands into the metal inside the bag. There was a second of hesitation like the world took a breath and then the metal began to dance in the bag. I drew the drawstring tight so it wouldn’t fly out and then the metal pulled so hard towards the door that it pulled me with it. I held on as the metal trapped in the bag banged against the stout wood door and its magic safety precautions.
“You’re a true wizard,” Esme said, and her voice was breathy.
I glanced a look over my shoulder as I held onto the bag. Esme’s fur was standing on end, her big dark eyes blinking too fast. “Are you hurt? I thought as a wizard’s familiar you’d be okay.”
“I am her housekeeper, not her familiar, but I am not hurt, just surprised to find you a fully trained Will Seeker wizard. They are rare even among the big folk.”
“If you tell anyone, I’m dead. The human wizards will never tolerate an animal with this kind of power.”
“It’s an extraordinary gift,” she said.
“The wizard created me to help him cast bigger spells. He didn’t trust others of his kind, so he wanted to create the perfect helper; because once he trained me up, he knew I’d be at his mercy.”
“As his familiar, you’d be safe sharing in his magic,” she said.
I nodded, then stumbled as the bag tried to fly up towards the door handle.
“What went wrong?” she asked.
“Of all the animals he tried to train, I was the only one that was a Will Seeker like him.” The bag dragged me off my feet and Esme jumped and caught my foot, using our combined weight to keep me from being airborne.
“We need more weight to hold it,” she said as she wrapped herself around my legs. I wished her apron wasn’t in the way as she clutched me. I’d have liked to feel fur on fur.
“We can tie me to Brisbane’s collar, if he’s okay with the idea?” I added the second part quickly so she didn’t accuse me of treating him like a pet again.
“He’ll be fine with it,” she said through gritted teeth as we bobbed and wove in the air inches above the floor.
“How do we open the door? I can’t do a spell of opening and hold the sympathy spell.”
“Before I open the door, why did you leave your wizard master? You were everything he could have hoped for.” She changed her grip on my legs as we rose higher than the doorknob, then back down.
“I was more powerful than he was,” I said, bringing my legs up around the bag, which put her on top of it so we were eye to eye over the bobbing sack, both of us using our full curled weight to try and force it to the ground.
“A good person would have treasured you all the more,” she said. The sympathy on her face almost undid me, then the bag took us to the ceiling, and we called for heavier help.
I tied the bag loops around my arm, and then a rope attached me to Brisbane’s collar before we dared go outside the house. The metal inside the bag was struggling harder the longer I fought to keep it away from its other half. Sympathy magic was based on the idea that things that have been together want to be together: part of a jewelry set, a family member, anything that thought of itself as a single unit and was now parted from the rest, though if it was a lost child, the family member didn’t fly through the air, they just knew where to go.
Esme sat behind me holding tight to my waist, which was nice, but it would have been nicer if the bag wasn’t trying to jerk my arm out of its socket. We finally had to stop and let the raccoons, Marge and her husband Ben, hold me in place while we transferred the rope from my arm to my waist along with the rope that held me to the dog’s collar. We’d left their children and the humans in charge of the prisoners.
“It pulls fiercely,” Brisbane said, voice a little strained from the bag tugging at his collar.
“Is it hurting you?” Esme asked. She wasn’t holding tight to my waist anymore, but she was still close behind me, as if waiting to grab me just in case.
“Not really, just uncomfortable.”
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“It must hurt you far worse than me,” Brisbane said.
“Just uncomfortable.”
He gave a barking laugh.
“Where is the bag trying to lead us, Mr. Oakley?” Esme asked.
I tried to still my mind to listen, but the constant pulling of the bag wouldn’t allow it. “Up,” I finally said, “I think it wants to go up?”
“Would it carry you to another kingdom?” she asked.
“What else is up?” I asked as the bag tried to pull me off Brisbane’s back again.
“Trees,” Ben suggested.
The bag tried to pull me off so hard that I grabbed onto Brisbane’s collar to keep the bag from trying to dislocate my back. “We have to be close to the jewel or it wouldn’t be this wild to get away,” I said, trying to keep my voice even as the bag continued to act like an aggressive bird.
“We’re in the middle of the forest,” Esme said, “we’ve even left the dump behind; there’s no dwelling nearby.”
“Then who has the jewel?” Marge asked.
The bag tugged harder than ever before, and suddenly, I was airborne. I grabbed for the dog’s collar, and found it soaring free with me. Esme jumped and grabbed my legs trying to add her weight to mine, but it wasn’t enough. Brisbane tried to grab us, but he hesitated, afraid he’d bite us, I think. Marge leapt and missed us, but Ben caught us in his hands. Esme squeaked with the pressure of his desperate grip, but I didn’t have air left to even do that. The bag flew straight and fast with all three of us clinging to it.
Esme cried out, “You’re crushing us!”
Ben let go, and fell into the tree branches below us; the next moment the bag had leapt into a huge nest at the top of the tree. Esme and I lay there panting and trying to catch our breath. The bag had stopped flying and was just wiggling among the twigs and branches that made up the nest. It was the biggest nest I’d ever seen up close, and I didn’t want to see the bird that matched the huge open bowl of the nest we were lying in. Esme grabbed my hand and tried to pull us closer to the edge. I agreed to trying to hide, but though the bag had stopped flying, it was still so strong that we were trapped beside it in the open center of the nest.
Esme was on her feet, pulling at my hand. “We look like food lying here; we must hide!”
“Tell that to the bag,” I said, as it tried to pull me in half by the rope around my waist.
She looked at the bag, then started pulling me in the direction the bag was trying to go. She was right, it didn’t matter what edge we used to hide. “Smart girl,” I said, as I helped her get us to the spot the bag seemed determined to go. We huddled beside the curved edge of the nest, while the bag nuzzled into the sticks like a dog on a scent.
Esme was pawing at my waist, and I had a second of confused hope, then realized she was trying to undo the rope from around me. “If we let go of the bag we could lose our only chance to find the jewel,” I said.
“It’s here in the nest or the bag wouldn’t be searching for it here, but it will drag you to your death before we find the jewel.”
I stopped arguing with her logic and helped her undo the knot around my waist. I was already aching; if I survived I’d be sore tomorrow. We pushed ourselves against the slightly curved side of the nest closest to the bag that was still struggling to bury itself in the debris piled around. The entire nest was studded with items, and they all gleamed with magic, shining just behind my eyes; there was a small doll pushed into the sticks near us, and a tiny bottle on the other side.
“Stop staring at nothing, Oakley,” she said, grabbing my shoulder and shaking me. “Do you see the black feathers? This is a crow’s nest. We must be gone before it returns or we are dead.”
“Climb down, Esme. I’ll wait here until the metal finds its jewel half, then bring it to you.”
“Stop being gallant and let us help the bag dig to its goal, so we can both flee.” She didn’t wait for me to change my mind, simply started digging next to the wiggling bag. I didn’t argue with her, just joined her on the other side of the bag.
“All the stolen items in this nest are magical,” I said as I tried to break a stick that was in the bag’s way.
“There’s something smooth; I can just touch it with my claws,” Esme said, voice strained with her reaching. The stick broke and the bag snaked its way through the hole I’d made for it. The bag’s rear end with the ties and rope was all that I could see when Esme said, “It’s pushing at my hand; this must be the jewel.”
“The metal won’t stop until it touches the jewel’s surface,” I said, then I heard the flapping of wings. “Trap the jewel in the bag; when it stops moving, take it and run.” I didn’t turn to see if she did what I asked. I faced the crow as it blocked out the sunlight with its huge black wings.
There was no time to put up a protective circle as I threw a bolt of yellow light at the crow. It blotted out everything, there was no way I could miss—then the crow wasn’t there. It didn’t fly away, it didn’t dodge, it was just gone. My energy was lost against the blue sky, hurting nothing.
“Behind you!” Esme yelled.
I spun around calling magic as I moved, and again I shot energy at the huge crow, but it vanished only to appear a few inches away on the edge of the nest. It squawked at me, huge black beak striking like a spear toward me, then it vanished, only to reappear on the other side of the nest. It stabbed into the nest nowhere near me. What was happening?
“Why are they here? What do they want?” the crow said in a perfect human-sounding voice.
“I have the jewel,” Esme said.
The crow turned toward the sound of her voice. I waved my arms and called, “Here, I’m here! Take the jewel and go, Esme!”
“Wizard!” it cawed.
“You’ve seen a wizard before, haven’t you, crow,” I said.
The bird turned its head one way and then the other as it looked at me. “Need more magic,” it said.
“You need magic to help you,” I said.
It hopped toward me, and vanished again to reappear in midair where it flapped frantically not to fall. It cawed again, then landed clumsily on the edge of the nest. “Need magic to be safe from you!” It flung itself at me and I’d been too busy trying to figure out what magical malady it was suffering from. I threw myself to one side; the black-dagger beak stabbed right next to me. I kicked its huge black eye and scrambled up the side of the nest trying to get free of the umbrella of its dark wings. I had grabbed the nest edge and was almost over when it grabbed my tail. I yelled in pain as I turned to try a new spell to save myself. I saw a huge shadow over both of us when the raccoon landed on the crow and me.
I came to with Ben the raccoon peering down at me. “Sorry, Mr. Oakley.”
I struggled to sit up as I said, “You raccoons are going to be the death of me.” I realized that I was on the ground underneath the tree. “How did I get down here?”
“The crow vanished with us hanging onto it, then we were down here.”
“What did you see when we vanished?” I asked.
“I passed out, woke up here.”
“Where’s the crow? Where’s Esme?”
“I’m here, Mr. Oakley,” she said just behind us.
I turned too quickly and was dizzy again. “I swear these raccoons are going to kill me.”
Ben steadied me with his big paw. “I said I was sorry.”
“Ben saved you from the crow.”
“Where is it? Do you have the jewel?”
Brisbane came into view with the bag in his mouth.
“We have it safe and sound; the crow has flown away, and no one was hurt,” Esme said, “You’ve earned the second half of your fee.”
“The crow was experimented on by a wizard.”
“How do you know that, Mr. Oakley?”
“He’s not trying to vanish on purpose, it’s a side effect of the new spell the wizard was trying to create.”
“You’re guessing then,” she said.
“But I’m a very good guesser.”
“We will tell our master and mistress about the crow when they return from their honeymoon. They will help him if they can.”
“Are you so certain that they are that different from the wizard who hurt the crow?” I asked.
Esme gave me a look, like I should know better.
“I felt the same way about my wizard master once, Esme. I’ve earned my cynicism.”
Her expression softened. “Perhaps you have, Mr. Oakley.”
I realized she hadn’t corrected me on using her first name. “Please, call me Sammy.”
She almost smiled, before she fought it off. “Very well, since you have proven yourself a stalwart companion, Sammy.”
I smiled, and for once it was just a smile with no attempt to flirt. Esme had earned it.
“Let’s get back to the house so we can finish paying you, Mr. Oakley,” Brisbane said; he’d dropped the bag at his feet. I wasn’t as good at reading large-dog expressions, but I think he wanted to be rid of me. For the second time, I wondered if there was a romance between him and Esme. Physically, it wouldn’t work; but among enchanted animals sometimes our unnaturalness leads us to unnatural places. I glanced at Esme and then back to the protective figure of the giant dog. Just friends on her part, I thought, but I was leaving with my money in hand, so it was none of my business.
When we got back to the wizarding household, we found Bianca and Midnight Jack gone. She’d cut her way free of the ribbon and he’d picked the cage lock. The younger raccoons and Horatio the Barley Dragon had managed to let them escape. Jack had even picked up his leather backpack to take with them, but no one had seen a thing. Midnight Jack was the best thief I knew for a reason.
Esme handed me the second half of my money. “You are as good as your reputation, Sammy.”
“Thank you, Esme. I’m so glad I didn’t disappoint you.”
“As am I, Sammy.”
We stood there in her neat parlor, and I wanted to take her paw in mine, to rub my furred cheek against hers, but her hands were clasped in front of her, so ladylike. Even a dashing squirrel like me knows when he’s in the presence of a lady, and that you can’t court a lady like you do a floozy.
She held out her delicate paw to me. “I feel richer for having met you, Sammy.”
I took her hand in mine and knew I was smiling like an idiot, because she had wanted to touch my hand as much as I wanted to touch hers. She was a lady, but maybe down deep in that delicate body there was just a tiny bit of flooze waiting for the right squirrel to find it.