Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

P aige's brows knitted, and her heart skipped a beat. More trouble? What else could they possibly be facing?

"That's the theme of the year," Drucinda answered. "What sort of trouble?"

"An asset retrieval. Red alert," Ronnie said.

Drucinda batted her eyelashes, sticking her hands on her hips. "That's it? Give it to London, we have other issues to deal with."

Rochelle shook her head. "If only it were that easy."

"What's the problem?" Paige asked.

"Special request for Paige and Dewey to tackle this one." Ronnie fished the ticker tape from her pocket and passed it over to them.

Dewey snatched it from her hands, reading through it. "It doesn't say the asset. Contact for information? What is this?"

"Could it be fake?" Drucinda asked.

"No. We verified it with Central," Rochelle said. "It's real."

"Then Crandall's involved in this. He'd be the one making the request. "

Ronnie shook her head. "Request came from an unidentified informant. They're tracking it down now, but we have no information."

Drucinda screwed up her face. "Unidentified informant? Who knows of Paige? This stinks of conspiracy with Crandall right at the center."

"According to Crandall, no one at Central knows anything about how this request came through, but they did verify that it was input from a legitimate source."

Drucinda shook her head. "They have to be able to track the account."

"They are doing that now," Ronnie answered, "but the problem remains we need to respond to the request. We told Crandall you were doing research in the field which bought us some time, but we need an official story to go back to them with."

"We didn't feel it was a good idea to let them know anything was…wrong with Paige," Rochelle added.

"Well, I certainly can't go on a mission like this!" Paige flung her hands out before she swung her leg over Dewey's back and leapt onto the table below.

"I'll handle the asset retrieval."

"We offered that," Rochelle answered, "they didn't bite. Said it was Paige or no one. What we need to determine is how to explain Paige's lack of availability."

Dewey rubbed his chin. "Or work out a way for her to be available."

"What way? Unless you're going to concoct a potion to restore me in the next few minutes, we're sunk." Paige paced across the tabletop.

"That's not going to happen. I do have some ideas, but I'm not certain they'll work. I could try to whip something together in the next few hours–"

"No, no. I'm not going to take an untested potion that you ‘ whipped together.' I've already been flattened, turned purple, poisoned, and everything else. I don't need to be on a mission and develop some weird affliction, thanks."

Dewey wrinkled his nose at her. "Sorry, Paige. I'm doing my best."

"It's fine. I just…don't think we should risk it."

"What about a temporary solution?" Dewey said.

Ronnie shrugged. "Like what?"

"Growth spaghetti? It could work. And we'd know pretty quickly. It's temporary, but should do the job until we can figure this out."

"That's a great idea, little man. We have that in our archive. Let's give it a go and see what happens. If it works, they go on the mission. If not, we need to concoct a story. But no one outside of this room should know what's going on with Paige at the moment."

"I wonder if this is a way to determine if we're back from the little adventure Higgins sent us on," Dewey said.

Ronnie nodded. "Those are my thoughts, too."

"Wouldn't it be better to act like we're not?" Paige asked.

"Not if you want to get to the bottom of this. I'll grab the spaghetti." Drucinda stalked toward the door and used her keycard to leave the secured area.

Paige swallowed hard as she stalked to and fro on the tabletop.

"You okay, Paige?" Ronnie questioned.

She heaved a sigh and nodded. "Yeah. Just nervous. This is all coming at me at once. My mom, the time traveling, the dead end at the house, and now this odd request."

Rochelle narrowed her eyes at Paige's tiny form. "If you aren't up to it, we can try to create an identity clone with Drucinda and let her track the object."

Paige whipped around to face her. "Identity clone?"

Ronnie bobbed her head up and down. "We'll make her look as close to you as we can. There will be differences, of course. The magic isn't perfect. But it may do in a pinch."

Paige drummed her fingers against her arm. Should she send Drucinda in her place? Maybe she should. Maybe she wasn't up to the task. Drucinda could probably handle anything the mysterious request would throw at her.

With a flick of her gaze to Ronnie and Rochelle, she shook her head. "No, this is my problem. I'll handle it."

Ronnie offered her a reassuring smile. "Paige, with everything going on, it's completely understandable if you want–"

"I want to do this. I want to do my job. The job I was hired to do. That's asset retrieval. And if it leads to more information about whatever is going on that took my mom away from me all those years ago, good."

"I'm with you, Paige," Dewey said with a nod before he rose into the air. "Except I have something I need to do while we're waiting for the spaghetti to take effect. Hey, Ronnie, that handkerchief I came back with…is it where I left it?"

"As far as I know. Why?"

"Oh, uh, it's from Liam McKellan. I wanted to…put it somewhere safe. It's a keepsake, you know."

Ronnie nodded at him with a smile. "Yeah, it's still where you left it."

"Thanks." Dewey buzzed past her and smacked into the door. He jiggled the handle a few times before he clicked his tongue. "Can someone let me out of here?"

Rochelle stalked across the room and used her keycard to unlock the door.

"He's really over the moon that he met Liam McKellan," Ronnie said as he disappeared.

Paige collapsed to sit, dangling her legs over the side of the table. "Yeah. He really admires him. Although the thing with the handkerchief is kind of weird. "

She flicked her gaze to the stone monster next to her. "Who's going to question him? He doesn't like Drucinda."

"I will," Rochelle answered, "and we have a team of experts who can help. I'm certain Dru will want to be part of it, though."

Paige pressed her lips together as she studied him. "I can't believe there is no way to effectively communicate with them."

"Until you, there was no way to effectively control them," Rochelle said. "This is a breakthrough. I'm certain if you write it up, you'd have your top choice at any of the magical journals publishing it."

Paige climbed to her feet and crossed her arms, staring at the stone monster. He offered her a soft bleat. "I know. You just want to communicate, and you can't. There has to be a way."

She crinkled her brow. "Living Goo can recognize another Living Goo inside someone else, right?"

"Huh?" Ronnie asked.

"Living Goo. They can manifest inside a brain and project an image to the host. But they can also see other Living Goos inside other hosts." Paige snapped her fingers together. "How fast can we access things from our library?"

Rochelle shrugged. "We can ask for an interlibrary magical transfer."

"Otis can handle that. He's already taking care of Dickens, by the way."

Paige heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes. "Yes, because Henry is here, being annoying."

"And arguing with Devon constantly," Rochelle answered. "We really need him to go back to cat care. I'll arrange the transfer, though I'm not certain I understand what your plan is."

"Simple," Paige said. "We have two Living Goos at the Shadow Harbor Archive. Sebastian and Eudora. If we send one into his brain and one into mine, maybe we can communicate."

A grin crossed Ronnie's face. "That's brilliant, Paige. That's the kind of thing that'll get us best library team again."

"It may not work," Paige answered, "but it's worth a shot. Especially while we're waiting for me to grow into a real girl again."

Ronnie dug her phone from her pocket. "I'll call Otis."

"I'll arrange things on our end," Rochelle said. "Sit tight. It won't be long."

Rochelle disappeared from the room as Ronnie spoke with Otis. "Right. Just go to the BookTron and–"

"I know the reference number," Paige whispered.

"Hold tight, Otis, I'm putting you on speaker. Paige knows where this is."

"Hi Otis," Paige said as Ronnie held out the phone.

"Hey, Paige. Good to hear your voice. We sure do miss you around here."

"Thanks for taking care of Dickens. I'm sorry Henry left you to do it on your own."

"I don't mind. We get along great. Now, where can I find this magical item? And how careful do I need to be?"

"Whatever you do, don't open the box. Otherwise, they'll come flying out and go right up your nose."

"Uhhh…okay."

"Okay, I don't have the exact number, but I know where it is. If you're standing with the BookTron behind you, go straight forward, hang a right at the first break between the shelves, go five shelves forward to where there's a giant box labeled DO NOT TOUCH EVER, swing down that aisle, and at the far end, you should see a gold box. That's the one you want."

"Got it. And I won't open it. "

"Once you have it, Otis," Ronnie said, "just take it to the magical shipment machine and input the code for Paris, then press the green Send button."

"Okay, I've got the code you sent me punched, and I'm sending it now," Otis reported.

"Thank you," Ronnie answered.

"And thanks for taking care of Dickens!" Paige shouted before Ronnie ended the call.

"Alright, let's hope your plan works," Ronnie said as Drucinda came back through the door.

"What plan?"

Ronnie slipped her phone into her pocket. "Paige had an idea to use Living Goo to communicate with the Golem. We're having it magical messengered here from Shadow Harbor."

"I see. Well, in the meantime, you can eat your growth spaghetti, and we'll see if this has any effect on your situation." Drucinda peeled open a packet of freeze-dried noodles and meatballs and dumped it on a plate.

Paige grimaced. "I have to eat ALL of that?"

"Just a moment, I have to look at the portion size for what we wish to achieve. We don't want you growing into a giant."

She studied the packet. "What is your normal height?"

"I'm about 5'6"."

"Of course, you'd use feet and inches." Drucinda heaved a sigh as she squeezed her eyes closed to do the mental calculation to meters.

"Hey, shouldn't you use a calculator?"

Drucinda snapped her eyes open and glared at Paige. "I am perfectly capable of performing simple math calculations in my head."

"Yeah, Dewey says the same, but I've been flattened, turned purple, high, and now shrunk. "

Drucinda arched an eyebrow in an unimpressed stare at her.

"Sorry. I'm sure you're not going to make a mistake."

"Alright, so we need you to be about eleven times the size you are now."

Paige wrinkled her nose. "Eleven times? That doesn't seem right."

Drucinda frowned at her.

"Well, I don't want to end up the size of a football field."

"Honestly. You Americans will measure in anything but metric. Let me explain it to you. I'll go slowly. You are about six inches tall. But we want you to be sixty-six inches tall. How can we get from six to sixty-six?" Drucinda tapped a finger against her chin in mock thought.

Paige half-closed her eyes, her features pinching in annoyance. "Multiply by eleven."

"Yes. So, we would like to make you eleven times–another word for multiply–larger than you are now."

"Fine. Eleven times. How much of this do I have to eat?"

Drucinda read from the package. "To double growth, consume one ounce of the pouches' contents. To triple, consume two ounces, etcetera."

"Okay, so one ounce for every multiplier. I need to eat ten ounces."

"Well done, Paige. You know basic maths. Now, this package contains twenty-five ounces, so you'll need to eat a bit less than half." Drucinda divvied out the portion, scraping the rest back into the package. "I'll put this away for later in case you need it whilst you retrieve your asset."

Paige stared down at the plate with a forlorn expression. "That's still so much."

"Your stomach will get bigger as you eat," Ronnie said. "That'll make it easier. "

"Right. Okay." She puffed out a breath as she stared at the meatball that was half her size. "I guess I'll start with this."

She took a tiny bite out of the meatball and chewed.

"How's it taste?"

"Wow, surprisingly good. I'm impressed." She took another bite before slurping up a long noodle. "How long does this normally take?"

"A few hours for full growth to occur, but you'll see some of it in about thirty minutes." Drucinda pulled a measuring tape from her pocket and stretched it out to measure her.

Paige sat down and pulled another noodle from the mix as Rochelle strode in carrying a gold box.

"Oh, yay, the cavalry is here," Paige cheered as she took another bite of her meatball.

"From what I understand, Living Goo needs a host," Rochelle said as she set the box on the table. "Once I open this box, both of them will seek one, right?"

"Right," Drucinda said. "I prefer not to be involved, though Paige has proved a sufficient host for them in the past."

"I can't have both of those things up my nose now. They won't even be able to fit in my brain."

"She has a point," Ronnie said. "We don't know the effect this may have on her small size."

"We should wait until she's grown," Drucinda answered. "That will also give us a chance to assess the longevity of the spaghetti. We don't know if it will last as long as it should given her predicament. We should monitor when she begins to shrink again so she isn't taken by surprise in the field. Assuming this works." She measured Paige again, tugging back one corner of her lips.

Ronnie nodded. "Good idea. "Alright, we'll wait."

Paige consumed more of the meal with a sigh. "I hate waiting. "

"Well, I have something to entertain you while you do," Dewey said as he fluttered into the room. "And it's pretty darn surprising."