Category: The Magic Quill

Spanky’s tale continued…

“I kept a close guard on the Niblet estate after my little tiff with Shmedly. I still had no idea why someone with Romanian connections would want to do Sir Lionel in, or what they would want from his property. The RMB sent a few junior agents to reinforce my watch. Everything seemed quiet and in order, but I sensed the danger had not passed.

“I spent most of the morning replanting the broom tree,” Spanky continued while, except for the sound of Sadie scraping out the bowl of her pipe, his friends listened in silence.

The group of thinly disguised witches and wizards muttered to each other around the dingy parlor table. Once again, their leader was missing.

“I went by The Drains this morning,” said Joe Albuquerque, who was disguised as a Japanese tourist. “The doorman hasn’t seen him since Christmas. I tried to peek through the windows, but they were on screensaver mode.”

Please bear with the Quill and me as we take one week away from the Hog’s Head storyline. A couple weeks ago I asked you readers how long The Magic Quill should continue. Let me count the future installments…

The silence that awaited the end of Merlin’s story was so complete, it hardly seemed that anyone could be breathing. It didn’t last long. After squeezing Endora’s hand and taking a sip of firewhisky, Merlin carried on:

Merlin paused to drain a smoking goblet before continuing with his tale. The others in the small parlor waited restlessly: one wearing a veil, one a fake mustache and glasses, another’s face concealed by the hood of his cloak, still another’s by a handkerchief, and the last disguised as a shapely young woman, though a shadow of a beard was starting to show on his face.

“So we went back downstream again. We had to find a way through that wall; that was our best chance. But after trying quite a few ideas that didn’t work, and having many arguments, each worse than the last, it began to look as if our group would break up and go separate ways. It was Rigel who finally saved us. We had landed him on one of the side-tunnels, where he had toddled off by himself…”

Harvey was lifting the steaming beaker of Essence of Merlin to his lips when the doorbell rang, playing the chorus of Hebrew slaves from Nabucco in full harmony.

“Blast,” Harvey muttered. “Who could be calling at this hour? From Italy, no less?”

Miles O’Roughage scratched his head. He still could not help but wonder what Harvey’s mysterious experiment had been about. Whatever potion he had poured on the roots of that old alder tree dying in the back of his greenhouse, it had made a world of difference.