Substitute Familiar Short Story - Fifteenth

(In case you've read Subfami 1 & 1.5, here's a little stand-alone snippet to pass the time before Subfami 2. <3)

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Penelope opened the door, letting her younger sister in. Or at least, she tried to; the rattling of metal and glass quickly told her that Penny Pots was still locked. She grumbled through the stuttered ringing of the bell at the top of the frame. Bleary-eyed, she properly turned the bolt and waved Amanda in.

“Good morning Penny!” the witch-in-training said as she entered the potion store with a spring in her step.

“Mm.” Her older sister closed the front door, locking it.

“Gosh, this place looks more homey every time I…” Amanda turned to look at Penelope, then the lock. “Do you really think people are going to try to come in? This early before opening?”

“People don’t read, Mandy. Especially not people who need magic you can drink.”

“I read,” Amanda replied.

“Mm.”

On account of the various fixtures that overlapped the windows, barely any sunlight made it inside—as little as there was today. But Penelope knew her way around even in the dark. It’s how she liked it. She expertly made her way behind the counter and slid a box out from under it, glass clinking against glass as the contents shifted. She flipped through the small handwritten tags, feeling out their shape, until she found the pair of bottles she was looking for and put them up on the counter.

Amanda was turning one of the potions over in her hands by the time her sister rose to her feet again. Penelope reached over to a set of switches, running her fingers along the underside of them in a satisfying succession of clacks. The countless shelves and display cabinets, all showing clear signs of the owner’s war of attrition against dust, became bathed in light.

“Oh, thank you,” Amanda said, looking at the shifting colors of the liquid through the glass. She lifted her head, and instantly her whole face perked up. “Whoa!” She quickly set the potion bottle down on the counter next to the other. “I love what you’ve done with your hair!”

Penelope gave her sister a quizzical look. She returned her attention to the tall dark bottle in her hand and the pair of shot glasses she was pouring the contents into. “Thanks, I guess?” There was a pause. Then, a moment of realization. She looked again.

Amanda had styled her hair to be longer on one side. And made it a different color.

“Ohh, I get it, I get it.” Penelope said as she brought the drinks over to the counter, sliding one over. Her sister’s new look positively sparkled under the light of the ceiling lamps. “Love what you’ve done with your hair. So you went with the pink after all.” She could’ve called it by its full name—Magical Miracle Pink—but she figured there was no sense rubbing it today.

Amanda grinned. “Yeah! And my date went with the blue. It worked just like you said!” She  flicked her hair back dramatically.

“Mm hm.” Penelope raised the shot glass in front of her; Amanda quickly reached for her own and did the same.

Clink!

“EW!” Amanda immediately blurted out after taking a sip, her face scrunched up in a mix of pain and disgust. “Penny?! What was that?”

“Coffee liqueur,” Penelope replied, taken aback. She put her own half-empty glass down.

“That’s… that’s for cocktails, right? You’re not supposed to just drink it!”

The older sister looked at the pair of mismatched bottles on her back shelf, then turned back to Amanda. “Then why’d you drink it?”

“You offered it to me! I thought it was coffee.”

“Oh. No. I mean I have a pot and everything, but I haven’t gotten it started yet.”

Amanda craned her neck, looking left and right behind her sister.

“It’s in my lab.”

“Oh.”

“You got here earlier than I expected. It’d take a little bit of time, it’s a fancy one.”

“Oh.” Amanda furrowed her brow. “Can’t you just magic it? You know, poof, coffee.”

“That’s not how coffee works, I can’t make it brew faster. Didn’t they teach you that yet?”

“Ugh, no! We’re still just reading and talking. I’m swimming in books.”

“Yeah, that sounds like the first year.” Penelope gave her sister a long look. She sighed, taking the shot glass back. “Sorry about that. You want… Hm.” She walked over to the small fridge under one of the side shelves and cracked it open. “You want milk?”

“Yes please,” Amanda replied, the sour look having not completely left her face.

Penelope returned with a glassful. “So how’s magic school treating you? Teachers nice?”

“Ahh, thank you,” the pink-haired student replied after taking a big sip. “Yeah! Everyone’s really nice. Well, not everyone, but the ones still in my class are all nice.”

“Yeah, sounds about right for the first couple of years. The weak-willed get weeded out. Along with the jerks.”

“Wait, couple? I thought they’d teach us actual magic next year!”

“I mean, they’ll try, sure. Don’t rush it. This kind of stuff takes time, you know? Listen to your teachers.”

“I guess.” Amanda took a deep breath. “Yeah, you’re right.” She nodded in earnest. “I’m looking forward to it!”

“Heh. That’s the spirit.” Penelope stepped out from behind the counter, getting started on her morning rounds. She checked the counter displays, then moved on to the large side room. She still wasn’t sure what to do with the extra store space that the council had saddled her with when she negotiated for this place. “Maybe I should just get rid of these tables. Put another set of shelves, and use the middle for storage.”

“What? No!” Amanda said, running over to sit in one of the chairs in protest. “This is nice! It’s very… cozy. Social.”

“Social?” Penelope tilted her head. “Who’d want to hang out here?”

“People! You still have a reputation at school, you know. This place is pretty popular. You’re pretty popular.” She motioned to her big sister with a goofy grin. “I mean, clearly!”

Penelope shook her head, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “No. I don’t—can we please talk about anything else. Like… wait.” Penelope suddenly clapped both hands onto the table, leaning forward. “You said your date went with the blue hair potion. You went on a date? An actual date?” Her eyes narrowed, her words becoming carefully measured. “How did they treat you?”

“Oh she was super nice, haha! Don’t worry, don’t worry! She was a perfect gentlem—uhh… what’s the, uh, word… Uh. She was nice!”

“Mm hm.”

“Seriously! We walked around, she showed me her favorite murals, she took me to a diner, got me fancy chocolates… it was fun!”

Penelope stood back up. She gently wiped the dust off her palms. “That’s good,” she finally said. “I’m glad. Glad you had a good time.”

“I did! It was a very nice Valentine’s Day.” Amanda looked to the side and smiled. “Probably my best one yet. It was… it was really nice to not feel like I had to take the lead. Like I was in good hands. You know?”

Penelope looked at her younger sister for a long moment. “Yeah.” She ruffled Amanda’s hair and walked back toward the counter. “I’m glad to hear that. You deserve good things.”

“How about you?” the magic student asked with a big smile, hurrying back to her sister. “What did you do to mark the occasion?”

“Hah, me? What makes you think I did anything?” She quickly rang up the two potions and took out a paper bag. “I’ll just put these on your tab, don’t worry about it.” Anything to change the subject, she thought. It was still way too early.

“It’s okay, I brought a tote!”

“Oh. Nice. Wish more customers would do that.”

“You could sell them at the counter! Penny Pots tote bags! Free advertising!”

Penelope chuckled as she ushered her sister to the door and unlocked it. “Let’s not get too carried away, alright?”

“Alright, alright.” Amanda stopped right before the door, taking one last look at her sister. She grinned, then leaned in with a big hug.

“Oof!”

A second passed, then another.

Penelope returned the hug. “Love you too, sis.”

Amanda opened the door and stepped outside, her smile as bright as the sun. “Have a great day, Penny!”

“You too Mandy,” Penelope said as she waved. “Take care.”

There was still time, she reasoned as she glanced at the clock on her way back to the counter. She went into the side room and ducked into the stairs, going up to the second floor before opening hours confined her downstairs for the rest of the day.

Penelope wiped her hand on the side of her pants as she let go of the stairwell guard rail. Truly nothing escaped the layer of dust that returned day after day, despite her best efforts. One day she’d do a proper clean of this place, once she had the energy.

But any willpower she had left crumbled by the time she got back to her bedroom. With the flick of a switch, she turned the lights on.

“What a mess,” she said to no one in particular. She sighed loudly, more for catharsis than anything else, and got to work.

“How is this fair?” she asked as she roughly shoved everything off the bed and kicked it into a pile. She walked over to the closet and got some fresh linens out. “It’s my place and I still end up cleaning.”

Penelope circled the bed in a practiced ritual, securing each corner of the fitted sheet around the mattress before throwing the top sheet over. She bent down to tuck one side in when a single drop of crimson fell on the stark white fabric.

She inhaled sharply in surprise, then blinked.

A rose petal.

“Where did…?” she began to say, gently picking it up. She threw it onto the pile of gathered debris next to the bed, where it joined the others. “Huh.”

She contemplated this situation for a moment, looking from the pile to the bed and back to the pile, when her eyes caught onto the reflection in the mirror across the room.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh no,” she added, stepping closer.

There, against the darker red of her hair, intertwined in her messy locks, were a handful more rose petals. Maybe even two handfuls, in fact.

She sat upright at the end of her bed, memories quickly flashing before her eyes. The night before, the hurried morning—her sister’s fascinated stare, her unusually cheerful smile. “The whole time,” Penelope said, shaking her head.

She buried her face in her hands. “God dammit.”