I wasn’t quite finished with the story I was telling by the time 2025 ended and so decided to continue it until it reached an ending point. Then I will start a new one. Besides, I kind of want to see where Penelope ends up. And so we have…
Day 193: The paper still had a curl to the edges but it was easier to read now.
The paper still had a curl to the edges, but it was easier to read now. Penelope tried to smooth it down one-handed, not wanting to move her injured arm any more than she had to. The paper had a date on it and a brief notation below it. Half of the date was smudged. She could make out March and what looked like the 22nd or maybe the 23rd but not the year. The ink on the notation was smudged as well as though it was folded before the ink was dry. She could make out enough of the words to make sense of it though.
Won in a poker game from Sinclair. Don’t like the look and feel of it, taking it to Tate to inspect.
Penelope frowned. The sentence matched what Michaelson told her about Peter Sinclair and the charm he was searching for. “I wonder who Tate is.”
Given the short timeline of Peter trying to get the charm back and killing Jerome, Penelope wondered if Tate ever had a chance to weigh in on the charm. Penelope decided that the note would be better wrapped back around the charm and back in the hidden space of the box. “I may not know much about charms but if someone who knows more than me thought it didn’t look or feel right, keeping it hidden seems like the smartest bet.”
Penelope took the note into the bedroom where she stashed the box with its hidden compartment and managed to get the charm back out again. She wrapped it up in the paper, the words disappearing in the folds. The paper seemed happier to be wrapped around the charm than it did trying to flatten out. Penelope almost felt like apologizing to it for torturing it with heavy books.
She slipped the rewrapped charm back into its hidden slot and put the otherwise empty box in the back of the closet. Her arm was still throbbing, but the pains from landing on it earlier were fading. She stood in the entryway to her bathroom debating medication. If she took the massive doctor prescribed pain pill she would be useless for the rest of the day. Her only activity would be pulling up amusing videos on her phone between naps. She tried to decide if the pain was manageable with just the over-the-counter stuff.
“I think I need just a little something to take the edge off,” she decided. Instead of reaching for the pain pills, she went for the over-the-counter bottle. She took her chosen pills back to the kitchen, eying the mystery packages as she went. She wanted to go through them more than she wanted the numbing of the pills. She filled a glass of water from the tap and then swallowed the pills.
Deciding that having a place to put things as she untangled them was probably a good idea, She took a damp cloth and wiped down the jewelry box she picked out from the assortment in the shop. Since most of the charms were on some sort of chain, whether bracelet or necklace, she chose the one that had the most hooks for chains in its arrangement.
She couldn’t recall thinking anything else at the time. ‘But I suppose the luck charm was active,’ Penelope thought.
As she wiped it down, she realized the wood was much better than she thought it was. The details on it looked hand carved and it was clearly worth more than the few dollars she paid for it. She opened the little doors in the front and blinked as she felt the tingle of magic in her fingertips.
Ten til Midnight 