"If you're a bill collector, all the money we have is in
the cash box under the counter. If you take it all, you'll
be taking food from the mouths of babes," a musically
feminine voice called from behind the long glass counter.
Startled, Axell waited for his eyes to adjust to the murky
interior of the New Age gift shop. The chiming bells of
the door behind him silenced, and in their place the
haunting aria from Man of La Mancha: "To dream the
impossible dream ... To fight the unbeatable foe ..."
swelled to a crescendo.
Intrigued despite himself, he wondered if he'd entered
some netherworld far from the ordinariness of the Carolina
sunshine outside. "Shall I leave the change?" he inquired
dryly, searching the narrow shop for the source of the
voice. A display case counter stretched along one long
wall. Crammed with items too intricate and numerous to
identify, it claimed his interest first. The layer of dust
and fingerprints on the glass could be the reason most of
the objects were unidentifiable. Fastidiously, he dusted a
corner over a bumper sticker reading, very funny, scotty,
now beam down my clothes.
"You can have the Canadian pennies and McDonald's tokens,"
the voice called cheerfully.
"Miss Alyssum?" he inquired, bending to look over the
glass for the shop proprietor but captured instead by what
appeared to be a crystal ball beneath the spot he'd wiped
clean. He ignored the overflowing shelves of commonplace
gnomes, dragons, crystals, cards, and dangling beads on
the other wall, but the shimmering rainbows of color
beneath the glass deserved further examination.
"Still there? Be with you in aminute. Once I'm down here,
it's a struggle to get back up."
Intrigued by a telescope on a tripod, Axell used his
handkerchief to dust it off, adjusted it to face the dirty
shop window, and peeked through the eyeglass. A
kaleidoscopic whirl of colors materialized before his
eyes, sparkling like jewels through the sunshine, gliding
and transforming from the fires of the sun to the tides of
the sea in vivid blues and greens.
"Haven't seen one of these in years. They've improved."
He'd come in here with a definite purpose, but it slipped
his mind as he looked up and fell into eyes the same shade
of sea blue and green he'd just admired in the
kaleidoscope.
Startled by the unexpected intimacy of her gaze, Axell
stepped back. He'd thought that silly nonsense about a man
drowning in a woman's eyes a lot of sentimental claptrap.
Maybe the air of the shop contained hallucinogenic smoke.
Wryly noting the dusty handkerchief in his hand, she
brought him back from his cloud. "Let me guess, Virgo,
right? I don't suppose you've come to make order of my
universe, by any chance?" She threw her own dusty rag onto
the counter. "It's murder cleaning all this junk. Cleo's
ideas were always bigger than her ability to carry them
out."
Grounded again, Axell blinked and tried to sort out the
various impressions conveyed by the extraordinary
apparition behind the counter. Once he disentangled
himself from the crystal turquoise of long-lashed eyes, he
encountered a fiery explosion of dark red wiry curls
streaked with--purple? He'd had some interesting clientele
in his bar before, but none could equal this eccentricity.
This wouldn't do. He'd come here for a reason. He couldn't
allow himself to be distracted--his gaze drifted back to
that purple streak. It almost made sense against the blue-
green of those eyes.
Taking a deep breath, he gathered his wits again. "Miss
Alyssum?"
She nodded, and the curls bobbed vigorously. "Right the
first time. And you are ...?"
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