I’m a terrible shopper. I get gift anxiety whenever I have to pick out a special something for a special someone. I can never find the thing that is just special enough. A unique expression of my particular affection for the certain someone—something no one else would have thought of. Meaningful, and useful, and sincere. And then there is the matter of price—too much is as awkward as too little. Finding the right statement at the right price is an art. I hate shopping. Inevitably I take too long, wait too late, spend too much, and come home with just the wrong thing.
So, I’d wandered the whole market, and looked in at a few artisans’ shops and even thought about alternatives like charitable giving, or a special holiday outing, and still I couldn’t find the right something for my old mum-in-law, who was celebrating her 60th birthday, Thursday-next.
And when I’d just about given up hope of finding a gift anywhere in the city, I spotted a door I had never noticed before.
There was a jingling noise, so I knew I’d probably stepped into a shop of some sort, rather than someone’s basement. But it looked for all the world like a storage room for someone who hadn’t thrown anything out in a very, very long time. There were books, and birdcages, and puzzles, figurines and a harpoon. There was a cheerfully painted wooden donkey pulling a toy cart,, a hippo shaped candle holder, a samovar and a spittoon. Innumerable knick knacks and doodads, and wooden masks and stone gargoyles on the walls staring down, assorted cutlery and weaponry and heaven only knows what else.
In the middle of all the boxes and barrels and shelves full of this and that, sat an old guy eating a herring roll at a small folding table. He looked up at the jingle of the bell with a half a herring hanging out of his mouth, and mayonnaise in his mustache. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and made a noise that probably meant “May I help you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I need a ...” and I looked around the room, trying to figure out what it was that I needed.
“Cup of tea?” he said.
“Well, ok,” I said, still uncertain of what kind of establishment this was. It seemed a bit cluttered for a tea shop.
“So, sit,” he gestured vaguely towards a low wicker chair that was covered in way too many little throw pillows. Looking up from another bite of his sandwich, he seemed to realize for the first time that the chair was inaccessibly piled, and he got up and swept the whole pile of cushions onto the floor. The pile made a few muffled mews and squawks as they hit the floor, but if there were kittens in the pile, they were invisible ones. I sat.
“Welcome to the Curiosity Shoppe. Sugar?”
“Yes, please.”
He pulled a dented and tarnished silver sugar bowl from one of the cupboards and put it on the table. One of the filigreed legs was missing altogether, and the sad little pot listed. It looked like something heavy had fallen on it hard, and I wondered why he hadn’t had it repaired, or melted down for scrap. With a silver tongs shaped like two gripping claws, he pulled out a large lump of sugar and held it out over the teacup that had appeared in front of me. He scowled for a moment, thoughtfully. The teacup leapt suddenly into the air, flipped itself inside out, and snapped its saucer over its rim, trapping the sugar lump inside. Crunching happily, it sprouted legs and danced off the table making gleeful squeaks as he swatted at it. “Little monster,” he grumbled fondly.
It appeared this sort of thing happened frequently. The dented sugar bowl made more sense. The teacup burrowed into the pile of pillows and vanished.
Without getting out of his chair he grabbed a green mug off of a shelf and plunked it on the table. The mug had a smiling frog face carved in it, with pretty pink kissy lips.
He reached out for a small tin painted with blue flowers, and then paused. He turned to look thoughtfully at the two identical tins sitting on the counter. He put his hand briefly on one and ran his thumb over it a few times, then patted it, and opened the other one. He took out a small flat disk and placed it on the table. He put the frog mug on top of it and then, very slowly and deliberately, lifted a red hot iron kettle over it, paused threateningly, and then slowly began pouring. The steaming liquid hit the cup—which did not react even slightly-- and a warm, sweet cinnamon smell crept into the room. "Keep the caramel wafer under the cup for a bit--they're better that way. The caramel melts, and by then, you're pretty sure it actually is a caramel wafer."
He threw a couple lumps of sugar in after the tea and peered around, looking for a clean spoon. After looking suspiciously at a wooden chest that appeared to be about the right size and shape for silverware, he instead unrolled a velvet pouch and shook out a thin black wand. “Close enough,” he mumbled, and gave the tea a few swirls.
“Now,” he said, “What can I do for you?”
“What was that?”
He looked at the wand for a moment. “Wand of Wonder, I think,” he said, “but it ran out of charges ago ago. Purely of interest as an antique, these days. Nice lacquer, hardly scratched. I could let you have it very reasonable.”
“Um. Did it run out of charges enchanting tea cups by any chance?”
He laughed. “Oh hardly. The teacups came that way. Well, not that way. They were a matched set of alabaster canopic jars at the time. Occupational hazard. Thought I was getting a bargain, but now I’m pretty sure I got taken. I think they’re actually a small variety of mimic. I don’t trade livestock, usually, so they’ve sort of made themselves at home.”
“Mimics. Aren’t those bloody dangerous?”
“These little ones seem only slightly carnivorous. Eat crickets mostly. And sweet things. They’ll spend the whole day standing around hopefully impersonating cut glass candy dishes if I fill ‘em up once in a while.”
“Candy dishes.”
“Or biscuit tins. They can do pretty much any container with a lid, which is why none of my chamber pots have 'em anymore. Cadeau's a special case--he can imagine a teacup as the "lid" on a saucer. Little glass walls preserve us from imaginative mimics."
He said that last part as if it were some sort of oath, or a prayer. I envisioned trying to trap one under a glass trophy dome, only to have the glass dome turn out to be its best friend.
“He sounds like a very talented specimen.”
“Oh he’s ‘gifted’ alright, that’s why I call him ‘Cadeau.’”
“I suppose you’re rather attached to them, by now.”
“Only 'cause I can't seem to shake 'em loose.” He whistled and called “Here Trinket!” and held out his hand. The other biscuit tin leapt off the shelf, perched precariously for a moment on his hand, and then melted into a quicksilver blob that resolved itself into a small blue gem encrusted locket with a long chain. “Stick,” he commanded it, and slapped it against my wrist. The locket stuck firmly to my arm, the long chain dangling down. I tugged on the chain, but the thing had a grip like sovereign glue.
“How do you get it off?”
“Sherry, usually, but she’ll let go for any sweet liquor. Alcohol usually does for mimic glue, you know, but I think she just lets her sweet tooth get the better of her and gives up.”
I considered this.
Actually, as a locket, she was rather attractive. She lazily curled her chain around my wrist, just as a prehensile-tailed creature might. She was slightly warm to the touch. She breathed softly, like someone drowsing.
I considered my mum-in-law. A very special person—did I mention that part?
“How much?”
“Not more than a teaspoonful—she’s barely as big as a shot glass herself, when she’s all balled up.”
“No, I meant, is she for sale?”
“Seriously?” He looked disbelieving.
“This is a curiosity shop, is it not? And she’s . . .curious.”
“I’d let her go for a song if she’ll willingly go with you, but with just one condition.”
“Yes?”
“Let me know how it works out.”
