“The Magical Art of Letting Go”flash fiction from the world of the Flicker series

by Kaye Thornbrugh

Copyright © Kaye Thornbrugh

“You know,” Lee said, feeling one-handed for whatever remained on the shelf. The

cardboard box at her feet held a jumble of items she’d already pulled down: a blue

velvet pouch labeled Luck Dust, a bundle of pale roots that glowed at her touch,

and most surprisingly, a stack of pulp paperbacks, the covers illustrated in lurid

color. “This would go a lot faster if you’d stop breathing down my neck.”

“Why, so you can gut the place?” Filo asked, as he thumbed through one of

the paperbacks. He looked faintly disturbed, but Lee wasn’t sure if that was

because of her or because of something in the book. “If I left you to it, you’d get

rid of the stuff I need.”

“Stuff you need,” Lee muttered. She blew her bangs out of her eyes and

surveyed the shop. Blue-gray rain drummed against the glass storefront, a late

November storm. A carousel dragon in desperate need of repainting crouched in

front of the window, teeth bared in a terrible grin. The rest of the space was

dominated by low tables and display cases crammed with oddities, none of it in

any discernible order. “Yeah, right.”

Filo dealt in magic: bottled potions and prepackaged spells, charms for luck

and protection made to order, and just about anything else, if the price was right.

His regular clientele included faeries, shapeshifters and werecreatures, as well as

humans beleaguered by magical problems. He did business in this shop, called

Flicker, and he used to live alone in the apartment upstairs, until Lee moved in

three weeks ago.

She’d been living with him for almost a month before that, actually, much to

their mutual dismay, but they only recently made the arrangement official. Lee

thought of it as the day she had decided to stay permanently as his roommate and

sort-of business partner; Filo insisted it was the day he had graciously decided to

let her stay, and to teach her magic, besides. In the end, they agreed to disagree.

Except for a touch of magical ability, Lee considered herself to be a pretty

ordinary human. Filo, on the other hand, was a changeling—stolen by faeries as a

child and raised by them. In light of that, Lee forgave most of his peculiarities. She

probably would’ve turned out a little weird and abrasive, too, if she’d grown up the

way he had. Because she used so much of her patience in putting up with his

prickliness, though, she had none left for the disaster that was his shop.

All day, she had systematically worked through heaps of junk—some of it

magical, some of it mundane—and sorted it into categories: keep, sell, and toss.

Filo wasn’t much help. He claimed to be supervising, but mostly, he just skulked

around in her way and complained.

Lee slid a big glass jar off the shelf, gently wiping the dust away with a rag.

Inside, a cloven hoof floated in thick, cloudy liquid. Silky white fur covered the

delicate ankle joint.

“Huh,” she said aloud—and here she thought she’d unearthed all the truly

weird stuff already. She raised the jar so he could see. “Um, Filo… what’s this?”

His blue eyes snapped wide. “Be careful with that! It’s a unicorn hoof, and it

was expensive!”

“Wait, what?” She almost dropped the jar in surprise. “Someone cut this off

an actual unicorn? That’s awful!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Filo said, as he pitched the paperback onto a nearby

table. He tried to take the jar from her, but she clung to it, which made him huff out

a breath. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find unicorn parts? I was lucky to

get a hoof. In a year, that’s the only one I’ve seen. And I’m keeping it, by the

way.”

“Actually…” She frowned at the hoof, which bobbed gently from side to

side. “You said it was expensive. Maybe we could sell it instead—”

“What?” He looked scandalized. “No way! I’ve been saving that!”

“You’ve had it for a year and haven’t done anything with it,” Lee pointed

out. “What could you possibly need it for?”

“I’m saving it,” he repeated, irritably, “for a special project that hasn’t come

up yet.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then remembered that it was pointless to

argue with Filo. Instead, she slammed the jar back onto the shelf. “Fine. We’ll put

it in the ‘keep’ pile—along with practically everything else.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Take a guess.” Lee gestured wildly, encompassing the whole shop, which

was still woefully cluttered. So far, he had been willing to part with some

crumbling old spell books, a few bone-handled knives, and an assortment of

trinkets that he said had been in the shop longer than he’d lived above it—which

was most of his life. He’d let her throw out some items that were obviously broken

or ruined. But most of the boxes she’d labeled TOSS and SELL were empty.

“We’ve been at this all day, and you won’t let me get rid of anything!”

“Because you have no concept of the value of any of this,” Filo snapped,

stepping closer to her. “You’re totally new to the game. You can’t tell what’s

important from what’s not.”

“And you think it’s all important,” Lee fired back. She jabbed a finger

toward his chest. “Filo, you are such a hoarder—”

He made a disgusted sound. “I am not—”

“I don’t know how you find any of the stuff you actually need in this mess,

nothing’s even labeled—”

“I have a system, which you’re wrecking—”

“You can’t expect me to live like this—”

“Nobody’s forcing you to stay—”

Throwing up her hands, she shouted, “It’s just junk, Filo! It doesn’t matter!

Why can’t you let anything go?”

He recoiled, like she’d slapped him. For a second, he didn’t say anything,

just looked away from her, shoulders braced. Then he mumbled, “I don’t just

throw things away because they’re not useful to me right this second. That’s all.”

When he still wouldn’t meet her eyes, she realized that she’d struck a nerve

without meaning to. She felt uncomfortable, suddenly, and a little sorry. Filo, she

knew, had been abandoned by almost everyone who had ever been close to him, at

one time or another. He counted on people to leave; he didn’t count on them

coming back. Maybe that was why he tended to hang onto things longer than he

needed to, longer than he probably should.

She wondered what else he was holding onto, down inside himself. He was

still so strange to her, this changeling boy.

“Listen,” Lee said at last, tapping the jar with one finger. “If you let me sell

this, then I’ll let you veto something else that I want to junk. How does that

sound?”

He glanced at her, suspicious. In this light, his eyes were the dark blue of

bottle glass. “Anything?”

“Any one thing.”

“No arguments?”

“Not a peep.”

He seemed to wrestle with the choice for a moment. Then, reluctantly, he

nodded. “Fine,” he groused. “Sell it.”

“Thank you, Filo,” Lee said sweetly, knowing she would regret this deal

later, when he demanded to keep something ridiculous. She turned to him, a hand

on her hip. “Now, are you going to help me reach the stuff on the top, or do I have

to climb on a chair?”

Filo glowered at her in response, but she knew he was just keeping up

appearances: A moment later, he heaved a long-suffering sigh and reached for the

top shelf. Lee had to bite down on a triumphant grin. Maybe they’d get something

done today, after all.