The Enchanted Writes Book One (2 page)

He had a wide, large face, and that was
about all that could be said for it. His features were nondescript.
He didn't have the kind of handsome face that would set him apart
from the crowd, in fact he didn't have any feature that was worth
noting at all. He looked normal. He had a nose, drab brown eyes,
and far too much stubble collecting over his chin and top lip.

He looked out of place, and he knew it. He
kept shooting nervous glances to his left and right, as if
expecting the tables to rise up and eat him.

It took ten seconds for the man to take
another hesitant step into the room, and it wasn't until he took a
breath, thumbing his nose and loosening his shoulders with a shake,
that he appeared to calm.

Henrietta yanked her hand back as the hot
water she was using to clean the coffee machine spilled out and
splashed over her.

It forced her to look down, and when she
looked up, using her apron to dry her hand, the guy wasn't there
anymore.

He hadn't disappeared in a flash of smoke or
anything so fantastic. He had wandered off to the bathroom.

He wandered back out again several minutes
later and then left.

Weird people walked off the street all the
time, but this guy caught her imagination, and she craned her neck
to watch him as he strode across the street outside.

“Henrietta, hello, Henrietta.”

She blinked, snapped her head forward, and
realized she was ignoring one of the customers. Except this wasn't
any old customer. This wasn't any ordinary man. It was Jimmy Field,
the hottest man in the whole city. He was strapping, he was
handsome, and he had the kind of body that looked fantastic when
covered in oil. He was always December when it came to the nude
calendar the fire station did each year for charity. Though by
nude, you never saw anything; there were hoses and fire hats in the
way. Still, Jimmy Field was Mr December. He was also dating Marcia.
Though Marcia was also dating about nine other men, Henrietta knew
her sister was proud of the fact she’d gotten the attention of Mr
December.

Jimmy turned around in his chair to check
where Henrietta had been staring off to.

She squeaked. “Oh, sorry, nothing, a bird
caught my eye.” A bird caught her eye? What kind of excuse was
that?

Jimmy nodded, as if birds caught his eye all
the time... which they did, but only if bird was being used as a
euphemism for women.

He grinned.

She knew what was coming next. As Jimmy
opened his mouth, she got there first. “She is fine. So is mum and
so is dad.”

Jimmy got the same confused look Patrick had
that morning. “How did you know what I was going to say?”

She shrugged and tried to look affable. It
was best not to tell him he was as predictable as one of Marcia’s
ridiculous romance novels.

“All right, what am I going to say next
then?” Jimmy waggled his eyebrows.

Henrietta paused and glanced around the
room, trying to look mystical. “Jimmy Field, you are about to say:
here, have a tip.”

He laughed, reached into his pocket, and
grabbed a piece of gum, offering it to her. “Here, Henrietta, have
a tip.”

She accepted the gum, but arched an eyebrow.
“Jimmy, this is not a Home Alone movie. In the real world, we use
money.”

He shrugged, his tan, muscular arms peeping
out from under his tight and sooty white t-shirt. “Sorry, Henny,
but I don't have any coins.”

She took the gum and put it into the pocket
of her apron then she watched as Jimmy brought out his mobile and
proceeded to call her sister, planning a date for the weekend.

Whilst Marcia would get to enjoy the hottest
fireman in town, Henrietta would spend her weekend cleaning out her
woodshed. Some things weren't fair. Especially where Henrietta was
concerned.

She didn't have long to mull over her bad
luck. It was then that she took a quick break to go to the
bathroom.

A funny thing happened while Henrietta was
in the bathroom. The door caught fire.

She patted down her skirt as she started to
smell smoke. It was slight at first, but became thick quick and
fast. With a shuddering blink, she turned towards the door and
noted the smoke now billowing into the bathroom from underneath it,
through the keyhole, even through the cracks in the side near the
hinges.

Her heart tripled its pace and she coughed
into her hand. She jerked back from the door, staring at it in
disbelief.

That would be when the wood started to
sizzle and crackle. A second later, it burst into flame.

She stumbled backwards until her legs jammed
up against the ceramic toilet, and she screamed. By god did she
scream.

Above the crackle and roar of the fire, she
heard people shout from outside and soon the piercing wail of a
firetruck.

Considering Sizzle Cafe was squeezed between
the police station and the fire station, help wasn’t far away. In
fact, the back wall of the toilet was shared with the fire station
itself.

Notwithstanding how close help was, she
still had a flaming door in front of her. She grabbed a hand towel
near the basin, covered it in water, and crammed it over her
mouth.

By now the whole door was covered in
bubbling, undulating flame.

... Yet it wasn’t hot.

She should have been boiling; she
wasn’t.

Fires don’t burn cold.

Something wasn’t right.

She didn't have long to entertain that
alarming thought; the thick smoke was still making her choke, and
she struggled for every breath.

She huddled against the cistern, crumpling
her face towards the wall.

Her elbow jostled into something and a small
package fell out from under the u-bend.

Even in the chaos and the smoke she noted
it; it caught her eye. It had Henrietta written across the top in a
scrawl. As she reached out a shaking hand to pick up the packet,
she heard the firemen kick into gear on the other side of the door.
There was a fantastic splashing and sizzling sound as the water
started to chase back the flames, and the wood shuddered under the
impact.

For a moment she paid no attention to it.
For a moment she forgot she was stuck in the bathroom behind a
flaming door.

All her attention focused on the
package.

She was attracted to it. The attraction was
electric, magnetic, impossible to ignore. As she stared at it,
smoke filling the room and billowing around her, sensations rushed
through her body. Cold snaps, tight shivers, exciting tingles.

Her distraction didn’t last. With an
adrenaline-fueled snap, she remembered where she was.

She crumpled her shoulders, digging her feet
into the ground as she pushed herself as close to the toilet as she
could.

Her hand clutched the packet, her knuckles
pale white with tension.

With a resounding shout from outside, the
door buckled, and the flames started to die.

Jimmy Field rushed in. Being the large
capable fireman he was, he found her huddling in the corner, lifted
her up, and carried her out of the room.

That was how Henrietta Gosling spent her
lunchtime. She spent the afternoon in emergency being treated for
smoke inhalation.

She spent a good chunk of the evening trying
to explain to her sister how it wasn't that embarrassing to be
caught in a flaming bathroom.

It wasn't until Henrietta got home to her
small sweet house that she realized the packet was still in her
hand. Somehow she’d held onto it all day long. From the hospital,
to Marcia’s, she hadn’t dropped it.

With an audible swallow and a shaking whine,
she realized how horrifying that was.

The worst was yet to come.

For five minutes she did nothing but stare
at the package. She placed it on her sideboard, stepped back,
crumpled her hands around her middle, and opened her eyes wide.

She brought up a sweaty, shaking hand and
pressed it against her mouth.

The package started to sizzle. Her
smoke-addled nostrils were too burnt and overworked, but she
noticed the smoke curling up from underneath the manila-colored
paper.

With a violent twitch, she swatted the
package, knocking it off her wooden dresser.

She jerked away as she stared at it on the
floor. It was no longer smoking, and somehow the dresser was
unmarked.

Her heart pounded like a hammer against
stone. Her breath was short and sharp, her chest punching out quick
and tight against her white work shirt.

The packet didn’t burst into flames, but she
still rushed to her kitchen and grabbed the fire extinguisher by
the cooker. She raced back into her hallway and stood over the
package with the nozzle of the fire extinguisher extended towards
it. When nothing happened, she slowly put the fire extinguisher
down.

Drawing in a breath and locking it in her
chest, she got down on her hands and knees and looked at the
packet.

Wincing, she jabbed a finger at it. It
didn’t burst into flame and it didn’t gobble her up. So she brought
out her hands and grabbed it.

She flinched, expecting the worst, but the
cardboard didn't burn her; it wasn't even warm to touch.

That was when Henrietta Gosling got the
courage to open it. She sat down, bringing her knees in, and then,
with the care of a surgeon pulling back flesh, she tore into the
manila packet.

Still shivering, she turned it over, giving
it a shake to dislodge whatever was inside.

A hairpin fell out. Yes, a hairpin.

She sat there on her bottom and stared at
it.

There was no note, no message, only a drab
brown hairpin.

What was going on here? Why had this packet
been tucked behind the u-bend at Sizzle Café? Why did it have her
name on it? What in God’s name was a dull hairpin doing inside?

These were questions she couldn’t answer,
and perhaps no one could. For all she knew, the envelope wasn’t
addressed to her at all. Perhaps it was intended for some other
Henrietta. A Henrietta who was desperately after a hairpin, and
didn't mind if she had to pick it up from a public bathroom.

Minutes ticked by, but she didn’t move. She
sat on the hallway runner, the bare skin of her legs scratching
against the carpet. She stared at the hairpin, and she wondered
what the hell it could mean.

After her bare legs started to chill and her
crumpled body began to fatigue, she drew herself up.

She gave the hairpin one last wary stare
before turning away. She walked several steps, then spun to check
on it once more.

Nothing.

Chewing a nail, she decided she needed a
shower.

She was going mad. That had to be it. Maybe
some hot water and some clean clothes would help her see
reason.

It was when she was shampooing her hair that
she smelt the smoke.

Yes, more smoke. It took her a while to
notice it; her nose was raw and cracked from her ordeal at
lunchtime.

When she caught a whiff of burning wood, her
body gave such a jolt she almost fell over her taps.

She flung the shower door open, jumped out,
and barreled out of the bathroom. She sprinted, wet feet catching
against her hallway runner, until she reached the hairpin. It was
smoldering. Thick wisps of smoke tracked along the carpet, curling
up and filling the hall.

The smoke alarm in her kitchen began to
blare like a klaxon.

She stood stock still.

She made no move to pluck up her fire
extinguisher.

Why?

Because there was something in her hallway.
To be precise, a man.

The same leather-jacket-wearing man who had
wandered into Sizzle Cafe at lunchtime.

She was naked, sopping wet, and her carpet
was smoking.

She was terrified.

“Get out, get out, get out!” she screamed
until her voice cracked with strain. Doubling back, she clutched
her hands around herself and ducked into an open doorway to her
side.

There was a whoosh, and her carpet caught
fire.

The man in the leather jacket didn’t move.
He was standing half a meter from the flames, but didn’t appear
bothered. With a slight frown, his brow crumpled with confusion,
but that was it.

“Get out!” She grabbed the first thing she
could reach, which happened to be a heavy book on Swedish verbs,
and threw it right at the man's head.

Her aim was poor, and rather than hit the
man, the book fell on top of the flaming rug.

“Excuse me,” the man said, as if Henrietta
had been quite rude.

“Get out,” she screamed, her voice a keening
cry. Not only did she have a home invader, but the fire was picking
up, burning with more ferocity as the wood underneath began to roar
and crackle.

“Why have you left your wand against wood
when I specifically told you not to?” He crossed his arms, the
leather of his jacket creaking like an old hinge.

Still hiding behind the doorway, she grabbed
up another book, this one on French architecture, and tried to
fling it at him again. Once again her aim was terrible, and she
managed to hit the fire extinguisher instead, toppling it over and
making it roll towards the flames.

If she kept throwing things at him, she
would end up taking the rest of the house with her.

Yet she wasn't going to stop, because there
was a creepy man in a creepy leather jacket standing in her hallway
talking about hairpins.

“I told you explicitly that if you put it
near wood, the wood will burn.” He had an authoritative, peeved
edge to his voice.

“I don't know what you're talking about!”
She grabbed another book.

“I clearly wrote on the inside of that
packet that if you leave your transformation wand near any type of
wood, eventually the wood will burst into magical flames. Look, you
have ignored me.” He shook his head and looked disappointed.