Glimmers of Glass (A Glimmers Novel #1: Cinderella)

Chapter 34

Tabitha returned to work on the last day of July. By that time, Elle's case was all wrapped up. The Oracle hadn't demanded the gold back, and it rested in a comfortable pile in the enchanted safe hidden under my bed. Things were back to normal at Wishes Enchanted.

Imogen and I spent the first Saturday in August at the Saturday Market. It was strange to think that it had only been a few months since I'd made the colossal misstep of introducing Elle to the charms booth, but I couldn't regret anything that had happened in those months. I had done an okay job on a case, made a few new friends, set Elle up with the guy of her nerdy dreams, and gotten to know a guy of my own, even if he wasn't exactly available.

"My dad's barely yelled at us since Elle's case wrapped," I said, gently squeezing some tomatoes in a vegetable stall to see if they were ripe. I could practically live on raw, fresh tomatoes in the summer. "I even told him Daniel's taken an interest in godparenting. Dad thinks he's shadowing me. He's in a performance every other week now.

"Aw," Imogen said, putting her hand on her heart and making a syrupy sweet face at me. "Lying for your little brother! Presh."

It was kind of sweet, Imogen's sarcasm aside. He'd actually invited me to one of his performances at a park and made eye contact with me after.

Imogen updated me on the latest from her sister's wedding while I paid for the tomatoes and followed her out from under the tent and back into the blazing sunlight. Sun felt weird on my shoulders after so many months of drizzly cold. My skin soaked it up, throwing an all-you-can-eat Vitamin D party like it would never get another chance.

"Apparently she has to move locations because she was supposed to have her wedding at some bird enclosure—I am not even kidding you right now—but they had to close it down because a bunch of weird accidents kept happening," Imogen said. She turned the simple gesture of rolling her eyes into an extravagant performance. "Some idiot kids were probably sneaking in at night but then a couple employees started saying it was 'haunted.' And then one of them got hit in the head by a shovel or something, and so now they've closed the whole thing down for 'Safety First Training,' which means Maia and the ornithologist stalker are having a cow trying to find a new place that 'represents them as a couple.'" I didn't think it was possible for more sarcasm to drip off someone's words.

But the sarcasm didn't hold my attention for more than a second.

"Haunted?" I said.

I'd forgotten in the thrill of Elle's Story and the relief that had come with Tabitha's return and summer, but now it all flooded back: Someone had been messing with Humdrum places all around town, making them seem haunted. Someone was trying to scare the Humdrums and the Faerie Queen and my dad combined hadn't been able to figure out how to stop them.

I couldn't imagine who would want to attack Humdrums in a place like this. They provided us with cover, and—much as some Glimmers didn't want to admit it—they also provided us with all kinds of services. They flipped our burgers, fixed our computers, unclogged our toilets, and got food from farms to our tables, just like they did for everyone else. Without Humdrums, the city wouldn't be half of what it was. We wouldn't be able to keep up the veneer of normal, and then it would be the disaster my dad always warned us about: a world of us versus them, scientists experimenting on us, Glimmers being forced to use their gifts on behalf of the military in all the wars we tried to avoid.

I was about to explain all of this to Imogen when I was distracted by the weirdest thing I'd seen all summer. Lorinda from Wishes Fulfilled was walking toward us, wearing faded blue jeans and carrying a bag of green onions and kale over her arm. I grabbed Imogen's arm.

"That is not even right," Imogen had time to say before Lorinda reached us.

"Hello, ladies!" she said. Her voice was friendly, but it took me a second to process that she was talking to us. Seeing her outside of Wishes Fulfilled was weirder than seeing a teacher outside of school.