without removing my jacket or setting my bag down.
“Rita,” Maggie said. “We received a shipment.”
“Go on,” I prompted.
“It contained a… thing,” Dolan corrected.
I looked at the piece on the table. The sculpted head of an unusual creature was supported by a thick rod that looked like rebar.
“What is it?” I said.
“It’s a hobknobbit. I think they’re extinct.”
The head was blue and wore a Turkish-style hat with gray and black spots. This representation of a hobknobbit had a short forehead, a nose so large it was a caricature, a small mouth, and eyebrows that seemed to be asking a question. It was hard to place whether the intention of the piece was to convey comedy or evil. It could have gone either way.
I set my bag down and pulled the lapels of my jacket back so that I could free my arms. “Were hobknobbits good or bad?” Maggie and Dolan looked at each other. “Well?” I said. “It’s not a hard question.”
“Aye. ‘Tis harder than ye may believe. We do no’ think in those terms.”
“No?” She shook her head. “So you’re saying that magic kind are amoral?”
“I’m no sayin’ anythin’ of the sort. I’ve no idea what amoral is.”
I huffed. “Dolan. Why do you think it’s a magic thing?”
He passed his palm through air a few inches above the hobknobbit. “I feel it. You could, too.”
With a smirk, I said, “Doubt it.”
“Try,” he challenged.
“This is going to be a waste of time.”
Maggie moved aside so that I could come to stand in front of the thing. I looked at Dolan. He nodded encouragement. So, my hand hovered over the odd-shaped head for a couple of seconds before I jerked back. I believed I’d felt something akin to static electricity.
“You planted that thought in my head,” I accused Dolan.
He looked at me with curiosity. “I can do that?”
I grunted. “How would I know?”
“You’re the magistrate,” he said coolly as if that explained the meaning of the universe.
“So you think that makes me all-knowing all of a sudden? I don’t think so.”
“Well, forgive me for saying so, but when it comes to the new pieces, you act like you’re ‘all-knowing’.”
“Wow. Dolan. You just called me a know-it-all.”
My tone and the hand on my hip must have conveyed that being a know-it-all is not a good thing because he said, “Is that bad?”
I couldn’t contain a smile. “Is this the most words you’ve ever spoken in a two-minute span in your entire life?”
I took it as confirmation when he said nothing, but slowly smiled.
Good enough.
“What needs to be done about this…?” I turned to Maggie for help, having already forgotten what to call the ugly thing.
“Hobknobbit.”
“Yes. I can’t imagine that anyone in their right mind would want to collect something so unattractive. Can’t we just, um, dispose of it?”
Maggie and Dolan both looked at the sculpture.
“Could be a titch difficult,” Maggie said. “Magic artifacts are near impossible to get rid of. Chances are that’s how it’s ended up here. As our problem.”
“You mean like hot potato?”
Maggie looked at Dolan, who simply shrugged, before saying, “We do no’ know hot potato.”
“Oh. Sorry. People, usually children gather in a circle and begin tossing something small, like a potato, to each other while music is playing. The person holding the potato when the music stops is eliminated.”
Maggie’s already pink, Irish face pinkened further in horror. “It’s a game to eliminate children?” I stared at her trying to imagine what she was seeing in her head. Hand going to her hip, she turned to Dolan. “And Mundies think we’re a dark and bloodthirsty lot!”
I took a deep breath. “No, Maggie. I didn’t mean eliminated as in killed. I mean their participation in the game is over. Not their lives.”
“Oh.”
“So, there are two possibilities. Someone may have just sent this to us like tossing the hot potato, which for all we know could’ve been going on for a very long time, or someone may have sent us this with mischief in mind? Or worse?”
“Crossed my mind,” Maggie said.
“Who’s on for lunch today?”
The question sounded like I was beginning to fit in with Hallow Hill culture by doing such things as abruptly changing subject with no segue. Since that wasn’t unusual, Maggie rushed over to the lunch clipboard without missing a beat. It now hung on the kitchenette wall next to the passage to my house.
“You’re havin’ Geoffrey, Esmerelda, Braden, Ivy, and of course, Olivia.”
“Ooh. Esmerelda. After lunch I’ll invite Esmerelda to linger for a look and opinion. What do