Chapter Sixteen: A Key, Or the Lack Thereof
"What's wrong?"
I realize that is something of a cliché, but then, when a twenty-year-old triplet with four different hair colors at once is waving at you to come with her, there's really precious little else one can think to say.
"It's…you have to see it. It's too good!"
That made me worry a little less. If Jessie had met with some mishap and it was funny, the odds were great that she wasn't greatly harmed. But then again, the twins had considered the time Ron hexed Percy's undershorts to shrink 'too good,' so the scale of harmless to not could be a little skewed.
I shouldn't have worried. It really was fairly choice, as embarrassing incidents tend to go.
Just to take a moment before relating the events, however, I must point out two seemingly unimportant but fairly relevant little facts. Point the first: I am six feet and an inch or so tall, to Jessie's five feet and a half. Point the second: when Jessie speaks deprecatingly about the fact that her hands are fairly large, I make no attempt to disagree with anything other than the idea that such a trait is a bad thing. She does have unusually superlative hands. They're quite graceful, extremely adept, and I've seen her do things with them that I couldn't dream of attempting. But she is right; they are kind of big –at least, for a girl, that is. Mine are about the same size.
Anyway, it was to my great surprise and relief that my brothers and I encountered a very ruffled, very red-faced little clocksmith, perched on a four-legged stool with her arms crossed. A pair of very large and very shiny handcuffs were locked around her wrists, and she did not look happy.
"Anyone know a decent unlocking spell?" a Redfern, I think Samantha, asked, giggling.
Jessie muttered something that sounded vaguely horrible. The phrase 'wicked hags' was all I could understand.
"What happened?" George asked, trying to be a gentleman by covering his grin with his hand. Fred was simply biting his fist to keep from chortling, which did not improve the ballpoint-ink beard look he had going on.
Jessie mumbled something incomprehensible and probably improper, given how she blushed even redder upon the utterance. Another Redfern –I think Melanie, laughed:
"We got a pair of dodgy old handcuffs in, and Jessie had just fixed the lock on the one side, so to test it, she put it on-"
"On herself…" Kendra looked a bit sheepish. "And then it wouldn't undo, so she locked the first one on, to compare, and then once she realized she was…well…"
"Stuck," Samantha looked politely apologetic, though the smile remained. "I'm really sorry, Jessie, but I didn't know where your tools were, and they were in there, and they all jus' sorta followed me…"
It seemed that my ladylike little clocksmith really did have a good grasp of how to swear. George looked impressed.
"That's a Quidditch profanity, Jess!"
"Yes, Forge, it is. Could someone kindly get me the number six and nine picks from the second drawer of my upstairs work-desk and the size five locking pliers from the basement?" She said this as if it were perfectly obvious.
"You can pick locks?" I asked.
"Yes, of course I can pick locks! What kind of a wretchedly crap clocksmith do you take me –owk!" Her body suddenly went rigid and thrashed slightly, the way you do when you sneeze hard, with eyes shut tight and teeth locked like –well, the locking pliers. The twins panicked, but the Redferns just held her on the stool.
"It's okay! She did that before, just go get the tools!" Kendra commanded. George took off with Fred close behind. I started for the door, then turned, then went to touch Jessie's arm. She had stopped shaking.
"You alright?" I asked. What a dumb question.
"Yes. Fine. Good. Don't. Touch. Yet. –G'ow!" The shaky thing happened again and I pulled my hand away. I noticed the Redferns were only hanging onto her by her clothes.
"Best not to touch skin, Weasley," Mel observed. "Soon as we get the cuffs off of her, she'll be fine. A little tired, but fine."
"Is it…Jessie, do you have seizures?"
"Um –yes! The –the Curse!" Samantha gestured expansively. "The –Tickes …family twitching curse…acted up a few times when we were in school." She smiled knowingly.
"It has to do with her cuffs!" Kendra added. "The hands, see, if the …the veins get tight, or, uh, restricted in any way, it can cause the shakes."
"We could always tell when poor Jess was due for new shirts, the cuffs'd tighten and twitch-twitch-twitch…" Melanie shook her hands in the air. "Twitching Tickes. Might be why she never mentioned it, poor kid." She set a hand on Jessie's shoulder and for the weirdest reason, the clocksmith attempted –and not too badly, to bite the triplet's wrist.
"Got your tools, Jess!" George announced, running in with the bag she took on house calls. "I wasn't sure which one was the thingy-ga-whatsit, so I just grabbed the whole lot. …Jessie, are you okay?"
"Just almost fell off the stool, is all," Sam explained. George blinked, but unrolled the tool-bag. Fred appeared at that moment with a batch of brownies. Everyone stared at him.
"…Okay, maybe they won't help you out of those, but tell me you couldn't use one now!" Jessie grinned and he held a small one out for her to bite. The twitching abruptly stopped and the clocksmith let out a long sigh, perfectly content. A moment of chewing later, she plucked a couple of picks from the tool-bag and freed herself within five seconds, easily.
"Thanks, guys," she sighed. "Um…Sam? I'll take the cuffs."
"But you just got-"
"Yesh, I got shtuck. And knowing what they're like, I think they're safer with me than anyone else present." She pointed at me, or, rather, just past my right shoulder. "Including you. Oh, and the footy-ones as well." Sam shrugged and picked up an ancient-looking pair of leg shackles, the same mechanical make as the wrist pair, but in a darker, almost rusty finish.
"I'll shine these up, so they match. Fifteen Galleons each pair?"
"That works." Jessie reached into a little bag and took some money out, pressing it into Sam's hand without so much as counting it. I realized the bag wasn't even half empty afterward, and it was kind of nice to see the twins didn't care. Sam pointed her wand at the cuffs and used a spell so they shone –evidently one of the failed attempts to get Jessie free had had otherwise positive effects. Jessie stopped suddenly and looked at the bag. "Dammit, now I don't want to cook. Gred an' Forge, you want to go buy some feast?"
"Huh?"
"Here," Jessie wobbled over to George and handed him the bag. "Go get food with this. The cooked kind. Something with a side of cooked vegetables, the green sort." She appeared to think and nearly fell down. "I know! Broccolis. Little tree vegetables, very nice. And dessert for cake, I am fond of it." She patted the twins on the shoulders and headed for the door. "I have forgotten the handcuffsh…oh, darn it, I'm spinning…"
I caught her. I really like doing that.
"Here, Jessie, they're in this box," Mel handed a little white parcel to me. "Can you take her home?"
"Yes! Charlie should take her home!" Sam agreed.
"Jessie, are you alright?" I asked. She gazed at me dizzily and nodded.
"Yesh, Charry, I am jush very tired. Methinksh I require party the firsht to engage in transportational conduct aforementioned party the shecond, hereinafter known ash myshelf, to someplace within myshelf's domicile, place the second." She gestured towards the door, then thought some more. "Someplace with pillows. Flat."
"Is she alright?" I asked the Redferns.
"Charlie," Sam sighed, whispering in exasperation, "take the nice neurotic clock girl to bed. Tuck her in and make sure she's still making some sort of sense. Then open the box and read the handcuffs. There's really no such thing as the Twitching Curse."
At that moment, Jessie's knees chose to knock together and she nearly fell down again. I dropped the box and picked her up, only to have a Redfern set the box on top of her stomach.
"That's right, just take her home."
"Party the second wishes to point out she is not intockshicated. I just don't feel myself."
"Yes, Jessie. Party the second will be alright once she gets used to it," Ken remarked. Mel nodded.
"Just go with the nice aforementioned first party."
"…'Kay." Jessie's head leaned against my shoulder as either Mel or Kendra opened the door for us. A shiver ran down my spine. "Bye, Redferns!"
"Later, Jess!"
"Oooh, they left the brownies!"
"Just eat them! We've got more!"
"Thanks, Charlie!"
Behind us, the door closed. I had just reached the bottom of the steps when I heard the unmistakeable sound of triplettish laughter from within. Jessie sighed against my shirt.
"They can be such witches."
At least, I think that was what she said.
"Why did you have the handcuffs on, anyway?"
"I was testing them. They should know better than to put mechanical things where I can…okay, maybe it's my fault, too. But they still stock some very, very mischievous things in there!"
"Oh? Like what?" I was enjoying this new, tiredly frank Jessie.
"You didn't know? They have a…a naughty gift shop on the one floor."
"How do you mean, naughty?"
"…Charlie, I'm dating you, I think, so I'm going to be fairly blunt."
"No such thing as the Twitching Tickes?" I smiled.
"Only if you give my big brother a case of Muggle espresso drink. No, the handcuffs were just part of their mischievous inventory. And I, stupidly, didn't read the maker's mark 'fore I tried them on myself. Idiot!"
"What, were they Terrible Twitching Cuffs?" We had reached the back door of Jas.W. Tickes and Sons, which opened when Jessie mumbled a ward password. She then looked over my shoulder to make sure the door was shut, then did a cursory room check -for the mischievous twins, no doubt.
"You might want to put me down."
"Samantha said to put you in bed." I started up the stairs.
"That'll do…you keep trying to put me there. A girl could get strange ideas."
"I'm not being mischievous…just…sort of worried. You didn't look well back there."
"Oh, I was well enough."
I set Jessie on her bed and she slowly sat up. "Let's put it this way. You remember Grandfather's Colorful History of Diagon Alley?"
"Yes."
"Well…I expect these cuffs are therefore an historical artifact." She pulled a knife from her pocket, snapped it open and cut the string holding the parcel shut. "Observe," she remarked, lifting the handcuffs out with the knife's blade. "Lady Morrigan's Mistress Cuffs, patent pending A.D.1855." Jessie set them back down, this time on the bedspread. "See this different link in the middle, that's so they can be installed. You'd put a bolt through there and secure the whole shebang with a nut. Same for the footy cuffs." Jessie's obliviously clever look had returned. "Really, they're in grand condition for such an old set. The engraving's in splendid shape."
"They do seem nice," I agreed.
"Yes, and I assure you, the spells still work." With a kind of rueful glance to the metal cuffs, Jessie stood up and headed for the bedroom door. "I should set the table, doesn't take the boys long to bring home food."
"Spells? What are Lady Morrigan's…"
I can be very dense sometimes. Suffice it to say, by the
time Jessie reached the door, I had understood. "Oh.
"Yes, I felt you might feel that way," Jessie examined her right wrist thoughtfully. "Interesting things, they are."
"But…but why would you want to own them?"
A deliciously wry smirk crept onto Jessie's face as she looked back at me.
"…Wouldn't everyone?"
And with that, she headed downstairs.
I sighed and glanced at the cuffs, then sighed again until I realized I was actually panting. Not only had I clearly underestimated the bespectacled belle of the winding and ticking world, I was in for a wild year.