Star Dust (A Paladin Adventure)

Truth comes out

The next morning at the meeting, it was determined that the cleanup was at the point where it was too dangerous for amateurs to be mucking around due to the possibility of shifting debris piles that could trap us, so we were released to do other things. The dogs had elected to stay home today with the little dogs, and I missed their company. Not having team assignments, I went to my store. I was glad to see that that part of town that wasn't heavily damaged, and the building had come through unscathed. I locked the door behind me and smiled as I looked around, letting the serenity of the place soothe me. Out of habit, I checked the safes. Both appeared to have been untouched. I hoped Selina was ok. I got to work, finishing up my next design for Catwoman and a few pieces that had gone unfinished in the hubbub before the attack, then got to work on a new idea. I took small diameter silver tubing, cut it into segments, and capped one end and polished the other. Then I cut silver bar stock into small lengths, sharpened one end, and soldered it to a small silver disk, then carefully cut a small cork and affixed this after spearing it with the needle. I checked to be sure it was watertight, then finished three with a mirror polish and three with a sandblasted texture. I soldered on little loops so a chain could be passed through, and I had some little blood-testing kits.

I paused for a lunch, then went back up and began stringing pearls. The knots between each one were fiddly things. I looked up at a knock on the door. A middle-aged man brightened when he saw me. He said he was Christmas shopping, and I was startled to find out how close it was. I let him in, then decided just to open and see if anybody else came by. Since I wasn't set up, I asked for some guidelines for what he was looking for before bringing out trays of things that fit the description. He was recently remarried and wanted this first Christmas with his new wife and her daughter to be special. It was nice just to be able to spend time with a single customer rather than keeping track of several. He bought a bracelet with pretty enameled links for his stepdaughter and earrings shaped like fuschias, with red and pink gemstone beads at the ends of the stamens. As he made his selection, he said that his stepdaughter hadn't been that enthused that her mother was remarrying, but she'd come around, especially after her dad had bailed before a father-daughter deal at their church and he'd stepped in. The fuschias reminded him of gardens they'd seen in Europe on their honeymoon; there'd been a beautiful blue variety he'd liked. I boxed up the pieces for him and threw in one of the new testers for being my first customer after the attack. When I explained that the vial could be filled with alcohol to sterilize the needle, he bought two more. There had been articles in the papers about the incident outside the tower with the Skrull yesterday.

After the man left, I shook my head in disgust. I hadn't made any preparations for Christmas; I'd planned to get nice wrapping paper for the holiday but had forgotten. And I had no idea what to get anybody for Christmas.

I had a couple more customers before I left for the afternoon meeting. One of them had a little girl with him who recognized me from the TV. She was very excited to meet me and very sweet, so I excused myself for a moment on impulse and glued a silver loop into the half-drilled hole of a pearl, then returned and gave it to the little girl, who was fascinated. Her father tried to pay me for it, but I refused. The pearl wasn't symmetrical enough to use with others and it was a freshwater pearl, not expensive but still pretty.

"You're going to go bankrupt if you give everything away." I looked up in surprise and saw Loki. I hurried over for a hug, which was returned with interest. We chatted as I cleared everything back to the safes (changing the combination for the one Selina cracked just for fun.)

"I have a solution for your problem," he said quietly as he helped, and flashed me a smile. "And you don't even have to go to Asgard to get it." He gave me a cabochon star sapphire set very simply into a silver setting. "The enchantment will take eight days to fully take effect and it will give the illusion that the places in your brain are shrinking and some scar tissue is forming, although of course it won't actually affect your abilities. It will start working as soon as you put it on.  This should help your physician come to the conclusion that the concussion medication has most likely had this effect and the scar tissue will indicate the unlikeliness that they will return. For any interested parties who want to know. The enchantment will continue once it fully takes effect, but you won't have to wear the pendant afterward to get the effect on your imaging equipment."