Just Add Magic @severin-ealing
It was a cold, clear night. Stars twinkled overhead. A light dusting of snow covered the ground. Tempest had just finished stuffing some extra cushions behind the shelf pushed up against the hole in the wall. The extra stuffing and a muttered incantation kept the chilly air from seeping in. She was going to have to fix that one of these days, but food for the family was her first priority and merchandise for the store was the second.
Tempest glanced at the clock. There were four minutes left before it would strike the hour, and the shop would officially be closed for the night. That was two hundred and forty seconds of sitting in this room, alone, waiting for some last minute customer. Tempest walked to the front of the store, and slid into one of the cozy armchairs to wait. Titania would have locked the door, and said a few minutes would hardly make a difference. Perhaps that was exactly the reason why Tempest refused to budge.
Three minutes to go. Tempest examined the beds of her fingernails. Two minutes. She thought about whether she might make something warm to drink and read for a bit, or go straight to bed. One minute. She stood and wandered over to the front window. She peered out into the night. She didn’t see hide nor hair of that blasted raccoon that kept squeezing in through the hole. Hopefully it had found somewhere else to sleep tonight.
Her clock chimed. Tempest flipped the sign in the window from ‘open’ to ‘closed’. She marched to the door, and quickly turned the lock. She turned to walk back to the counter when there was a sharp knock on the door. She glanced at the clock, and thought of that warm drink and her book. Warm drinks weren’t going to fix that hole, though. With a heavy sigh, she turned right around. She flipped the lock, and pulled the door open.
“Hello! Is there something I can help you find?”
