(Continues from Descending into Trouble)

… from the case files of Detective Pagasmo …

Magic Town is one bizarre place and not one I relish visiting. But I’m here because a cloud-walking librarian dropped me off. And no, the dame gave me no choice about it. Since she also rescued me from a memory stealing creep, I’m letting her highhandedness slide.

Her Nefelibata Highness gave me the look when her cloudy conveyance hovered over a glade. So I scooted. The instant my loafers touched terra firma, I reconnected with Gaia and felt more like myself. My ride floated away, pulling a cumulonimbus thing as it lifted off taking the dame back to her epistemological center. Whatever that is. I never did receive a definition. I suppose it’s too late now to inquire, so I put the question aside. I had a feeling I’d see Ms. Nefelibata again.

Shaking my head, I surveyed my surroundings. Ropes suspended wooden boxes from the trees towering over my head. They spun in the wind gusting by, catching my eye. Each box is a door. Climb up, crawl in and off you go. Where you land, nobody knows. My curiosity

Well almost nobody. There were theories and then there were the crackpots who claimed they’d tumbled out of one of those boxes. My curiosity aroused as I watched the boxes sway in the breeze. Had I heard a voice sighing a name? Hanging out here messed with one’s sanity but my eyes stayed glued to those boxes. They were portals to another world, one where magic ruled instead of technology. Could I–no, I had a mystery to solve and a memory-stealing creep to jail. Though ending him to preserve the mental health of the human race seemed more likely given the guy’s M.O. And it sounded better.

And yet, what if I took a little vacation to a magical realm? Rumor had it you could end up in one of two worlds. I shook my head, but the thought of a side trip to a truly magical land rattled around in my skull. This was why I hated Magic Town. I’d stood here for under five minutes and already magic sounded better than tech. Must be something in the air here twisting my thoughts and bending them magic-wards.

I turned my back on the boxes, all fifty of them. Feeling eyes on me, I turned, but there were just wooden frames spinning lazily in the breeze. Their dark centers beckoned, whispering on a level just under my thoughts. But I pivoted, gave those magic boxes my back and hiked out to the cobbled street paralleling the greenway. As I left the park, I knew I’d return, and the knowledge chilled me.

A row of lows-lung buildings greeted me. I’d forgotten to grab my address book before my apartment exploded, so I had no address for any of my contacts here. Great, now I’d have to go door to door and hope none of my frenemies noticed.

To be continued.

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For  MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie

More Detective Pagasmo stories: Descending into Trouble, Epistemology, Novitiate, Lulled by Rhymes, News, Clues and Howitzers, Mixed Media, No Truth in Quotes, Haiku Hunt, Random Risks, Freeze Frame, The Mark of Destiny, Detective Pagasmo in Playing Dead, Detective Pagasmo.