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The antique shop on Fourth Street was a jumbled window of broken toys, faded tears, and actual knick-knacks old enough to evoke nostalgia. No one ever went into it, though the Italian restaurant next door had a steady stream of garlic-loving customers that wandered past the glass with its faded gold markings, as did the sweet-seekers heading for the bakery to the left.

And yet — it remained a fixture, half-forgotten and overshadowed by red sauce and brightly frosted confections, and its sheer ability to survive without customers was what regularly perturbed Rita.

“I don’t get it,” she muttered, dodging an errant tray of breadsticks and pouring a refill. “How do they stay open?”

“So go visit,” yawned Staci. She snapped the gum she claimed would keep her from smoking and shuffled her tray of salads out the door.

Rita followed, a wine glass in each hand. “I know I talk about that place too much, but it’s not like either of us ever have energy after double shifts.”

Staci shrugged, balancing the tray’s movements with the ease of long practice. “If it bothers you so much, do something about it.”

And then I won’t have to hear about it anymore. The expression on the older woman’s face showed it more clearly than words would have.

Both pasted on identical bright smiles as they approached their adjoining tables. “Now, what can I get you?”

On double shift days, Rita treated herself to a cupcake, as long as the bakery was still open. They knew her well enough they’d let her in while the lights were on. It was a break from sweeping — and her cakes held only a hint of stale, just enough to give her a few cents off. Tonight, though, the lights clicked off just as she stepped into the alley.

“Blast.” She kicked a stray box that hadn’t made it into the dumpster and walked toward the street before she could smell any worse.

The darkened glass of the antique store gleamed in the streetlight. Within, she could barely see the glow of from the adjacent bulbs of a student lamp, and she realized she had made her way toward the door as if the dim illumination controlled her, mothlike.

Her hand moved of its own volition to rest upon the handle. With a surprisingly imperceptible squeal, the door opened into the darkness.

Fingers lightly drifting over dusty bric-a-brac, she worked her way toward the lights and met the glowing — glowing? surely, a trick of incandescence — eyes of a shadowed man.

“I’ve been wondering when you’d come in, Rita.”

Something sharp cut into her palm as her hand clenched in instinctive fear and revulsion. She stepped back. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“I knew your mother,” the man interjected. The shadow softened in what might have been a smile. “And I also appreciate Italian food.”

The item in her hand moved, and she held it in her palm to inspect the damage she’d done. “I’m afraid I’ve broken—”

The elephant in her palm raised his trunk high, reared, and trumpeted.

Her hand shook, and the elephant lowered his head with a gleam of tusks.

“Ah,” the shadowed man said. “He likes you, but he’s particular.”

***

This week, nother Mike prompted me with: The elephant raised its trunk high, reared, and trumpeted. My prompt went to AC Young: “You don’t want to face the consequences of getting in my way.”

Check more out at MOTE!

This short story has been removed by the author. Why? It will be published as part of the Professor Porter series of stories.

***

A snippet this week, inspired by nother Mike. Check out what AC Young explored with protective sea dragons over at MOTE!

“911, what’s your emergency?”

Hiz glanced up at the dispatch desk and swung booted feet off the desk. He unlocked the drawer and began buckling his gear as Callie murmured into the phone.

“Thank you for calling.” Callie hit a button on the console to disconnect the call and blew her bangs straight up. “They’re at it again.”

He grunted. “Not surprised. Annoyed, but surprised.”

She popped her gum and propped her pointed chin on one hand. “What is this, the fifth time this month, and we’re only five days in?”

Hiz glared at Callie and didn’t answer as he stomped out the door. The engine’s roar covered his grumbling during the short drive to the edge of the forest, but the crickets and snapping branches weren’t nearly loud enough enough to drown out his curses.

He could hear the taunting from half a mile away. Pixies and elves hated each other, but wouldn’t stay away from each other’s territory. And when riled, their voices had a quirk that made their voices carry for miles to human ears.

No matter that the largest of them were no more than four inches tall.

The clearing glowed with pink and yellow magic that shone through the forest greenery. Minuscule bodies swarmed the barrier he’d installed just. last. night.

“Enough!” Hiz snapped.

They ignored him.

An elf with pink hair swung from near the top of the chain link fence. Her blue boots bounced off a rung as she swung back and forth on gloves hands. “Tequila!” She howled, and the mob to Hiz’s right screamed agreement. “Bring back the tequila!”

From the ground, a stately pixie in a three piece suit and a gold pocketwatch managed to look down his nose at her. “Not until you bring back the rum you stole, young miss.”

Polite claps came from the group on the left, but Hiz wasn’t fooled. That pocketwatch was filled with poison dust, the walking canes concealed blades, and the suits were armored.

The screaming ratcheted up in intensity. Hiz buried his head in his hands and wondered if the town next door was hiring.

***

This week, Becky Jones prompted me with the pixies and elves going at it – again! My prompt went to Cedar Sanderson, about the titanium princess.

The security system let out a buzz, and the nearby phone flashed with an alert. Moll didn’t take her eyes off her primary screen. “You get it.”

“Bobcat’s back,” Finn said after a pause. “We’ll get one of those fancy drone-delivered pizzas if we have to for lunch.”

“Or we can make something,” Moll said dryly, with an awkward sideways nod toward the kitchen. “We have food.”

Finn let out a snort. “Like that’ll happen.”

They dove back into the code, desperate to work out the last of the bugs before going live. Grandma Eddy may have called it “perilous odd,” in her rocking chair grumblings, but Moll couldn’t imagine going into business with anyone but her twin brother. He was the best coder she knew, with an intuitive sense for getting ahead of trends.

And for those willing to pay for the privilege, their efforts would finally pay off in twenty three hours, fourteen minutes, and thirty-seven seconds.

It was going to be the best dating app ever. Finn had figured out how to use online behavioral tracking to determine what users really wanted, not what they thought they wanted. All the user had to do was install a plugin and answer a few initial questions.

The beta testers had loved it, except for that privacy fanatic. Moll was pretty sure he lived in a cave somewhere, but who was she to talk? Thanks to satellite internet, she lived in the middle of nowhere, too, and Finn just down the road. Enough space for real privacy, with the bluest lake she’d ever seen less than a mile from her back door, and the craggy dark stone of the mountains stretching up to the stars behind it.

And a porch that enjoyed the visits of creatures from porcupines to moose, keeping her trapped inside on occasion and armed when she wandered through the sharp-scented pines.

Another alert popped up. “Aw, you’ve got a whole herd starting.”

Moll froze on her way across the cabin for more caffeine. “What?” She twisted around, looking for her abandoned phone. She swiped for his and missed. “Let me see that.”

“They’re waiting on the porch for you,” Finn teased, holding it out of reach. “Like when were three, and you tried to adopt the entire pack of kittens.”

“How many are there?” Coffee was forgotten at this point. She could use the distraction while her brain percolated the problem into a solution. There’d be little bugs, but with luck, this was the last major one that threatened to break their app’s launch.

Finn glanced down, still hunched to protect his phone. His lower lip twisted to the left. “Uh, about that.”

“Oh, stop being a dork.” She marched over to the enormous picture window that normally let in the glorious mountain view that today was oh-too-distracting. Moll yanked the curtain back, her head twisted over her shoulder. “As if I can’t just look outside.”

“Uh, maybe you should.”

A thump hit then, and Moll stumbled backward. The pawprint left on the glass was enormous, nearly the size of her head. The face staring back at her with gleaming matcha-colored eyes was definitely larger than her head, no matter how much her wayward hair might resemble Medusa in the mornings.

“Or maybe not,” Finn amended, still clutching his phone.

She coughed. “That’s a mountain lion, not a bobcat.”

“Then they’re all mountain lions.” Finn stayed behind her as he peered out the window. “Wild. I counted eight on the security cams. What do you call a pack, anyway?”

“I think it’s a chorus,” she said, and resisted the temptation to rest her hand against the paw still pressed against the window. “Aren’t they usually solitary?”

“It’s like they’re waiting for something,” Finn said. “Ha! Maybe they’re lovelorn, waiting on the app to go live.”

“Right.” She flipped him off without taking her gaze away. “You think they’ll break the glass?”

“Seriously freaky. They’re all watching you now. Is this guy the leader?”

Moll shivered. “I’m starting to get creeped out. Should we barricade and get the shotgun just in case?”

At her words, the mountain lion in the window blurred. Past the checkered curtains, a man appeared…a naked man, with the golden hair and gleaming matcha eyes that had been watching through the window for the past five minutes.

***

This week, Leigh Kimmel challenged me with “A chorus of lovelorn mountain lions.” My prompt went to Cedar Sanderson, “The house contained an unexpected cat.” Find these and more at MOTE!

Char lowered her head to the telescope’s lens and let out a huff. “I hate this thing.”

“You hate all technology that isn’t a weapon or a spaceship.” Butler reached out and gently tugged her away, then slipped into her place.

She plopped down in the lawn chair and propped her chin on one hand, ignoring the splendid greenery keeping their actions concealed from prying neighbors as she stared at his back. Her shoulder was cold where his hand had been, all too briefly. It made her broody and snappish. “Well?”

The pause was broken by a cough that sounded nothing like laughter. At least, not on the last planet where they’d been mission partners, all guttural wheezes and phlegm sounds. “We’re not observing the space station, Char.”

She squirmed, the outdoor chair’s woven strings rippling against her palms. “We should be.” The words sounded sulky even to her. “Someone’s got to be transiting to Algernon.”

Butler twisted his head around, too-long dark hair flopping into his eyes for a moment before brushing it away. “We have tech watching and trackers for that.” He fiddled with the lens and repositioned it. “Here. Take a look.”

She bolted upright so fast the chair clattered over, nearly spilling her along with it. Muttering, she kicked it free from her throbbing foot. “Blast it.”

Looking up, his hands were positioned to catch her. Probably just to save the ‘scope. She grunted an apology.

Fingertips lifted in acceptance. “Look, Char.”

The lens fogged from her breath, and she huddled with impatient twitches, shifting her weight from one boot to another. “Finally.”

The planet’s albedo had definitely changed over the past two months, with solar radiation reflecting less and less. They’d been in position on Algernon’s moon for nearly thirty days since the alert arrived, something so strange as to pull the Corporation’s two best spies from their respective missions.

“It’s down enough?” She scanned through her memory files, trying to find the percentage they were waiting to validate.

“Rapid terraforming,” Butler said, and wrapped an arm around her waist. “It’s got to be. Tomorrow, you shuttle us down and we get proof. It’s either stolen tech or tech gone wrong. Making our employers rich or killing us flunkies.”

She snagged the bottle of wine from the side table with a stretch and leaned back against his shoulder. “Last night on the moon, then. It’d be a shame to waste this open bottle.” She didn’t dare meet his eyes. “You know. If you’re not going to be busy prepping.”

“I think,” he began, and made an odd noise again that this time definitely wasn’t laughter. “I believe I’m already prepared and have plenty of free time.”

***

This week, Cedar Sanderson brought back Lady Death with her prompt challenge: The planet’s changing albedo indicated something strange.

My prompt went to Cedar in return: It was only halfway through the sixpack that Micah realized his beer granted him the newfound ability to see ghosts and Fae.

Check out the fun with More Odds Than Ends this week – and discover something special for next week!

I went to make some updates around the site and realized I can’t.

It’s definitely a lack of skill – I muddle through, at best, with a lot of how-to searches and videos – but the latest changes to WordPress apparently don’t work with this template.

Thanks, WordPress.

Anyway, don’t be alarmed if the site looks weird for a bit as slow tweaks happen. Good thing I don’t know what to do with that backup, right?

And my insane coworkers have decided to join me for – obviously – shenanigans.

Check out the new release here.