The Enchanted Toolbox

The whirr of a lift permeated my immaculate shop as I lifted a silver Maserati for inspection. Of all the luxury and exotic cars I specialized in, Maserati’s were undoubtedly the worst. Just looking the wrong way at one of these overpriced beasts would cause 30% of the electrical systems in the car to malfunction. Sure, British cars have even worse electrical systems, but at least they have the courtesy to show you the problem by starting electrical fires when they malfunction. No, Maserati’s want you to search endlessly—and right when you find the issue… BAM! It fixes itself until you put it back together..

“So, can you fix her up again, Tom?” The owner of the Maserati asked me and punctuated his question with a slap on my shoulder.

“Of course,” I reassured him, “I’m pretty sure I know what’s causing your problem. I’ve seen it before. I’ll give you a call when it’s ready, probably next week.” With a quick handshake, he went on his way.

All of my employees were out of the shop for the holidays. They deserved the time off, for sure. In just five years, they helped build my crazy idea into one of the foremost non-dealer exotic car repair shops in the southern US. I built the shop after I got my hands on a totaled Lamborghini I wanted to restore. I quickly realized two things about exotic cars.

1. The dealer-approved parts are costly. For example, a single headlight for that Lambo was $6k.

2. Nearly every mechanical and electrical part of exotic cars comes from cheap import cars. For example, the Nissan 300ZX headlights are the exact same as the Lambo’s lights but only $300 for a pair.

I realized I had a business opportunity once I realized all of this. As they say, the rest is history.

After placing an international order for parts from Peugeot for the seat mechanism, I decided to close the shop early. There really wasn’t much left I could do at the shop alone that day.

I was about to walk to my car and head home, but on a whim, I turned and walked down the block. A new antique store had opened up in a decrepit old mossy bricked building not far from my shop.

My wife was probably ready for me to be home—no doubt she would scold and berate me for working over the holidays. Truth be told, though, I had to get out of the house and away from her icy, judgmental gaze. Lillian and I had been married for five years, but we started too young. It’s incredible how much people can change in their early 20s.

Lillian was so sweet so eager to please when we had started dating. Though a tale as old as time, things slowly changed when we married. Her borderline subservience and that spark of joy that once filled her eyes faded. Things have especially gotten bad since she quit her job. Sure, I made enough money to support her, but I had expected she’d take extra weight off my shoulders and take care of more at home. I was wrong. If anything, the list of honey-do’s grew exponentially. To make things even worse, She… well, to be honest, WE both gained some weight and lost some of our youthful charms.

Divorce was likely inevitable at this point. I knew my pretty, half-Irish wife was probably the best-looking girl I’d ever get with. But I also knew she was no longer attracted to me in the least. “When lust dies,” I whispered dejectedly under my breath, “love is soon to follow.”

My feet had found their way to the front entrance of the antique and curios. A gold leaf decal adorned the cracked glass front door and spelled out the name Auras & Antiquities. The windows on the crumbling old building were still boarded up, and I could see the outline of decayed adhesive where a “condemned building” decree had once been displayed.

A cold chill ran up my spine as I grasped the rusted door handle and **** my feet to step across the threshold. Dust flew from the walls as the door slammed home behind me. I could feel adrenaline beginning to course through my veins. Fight or flight began to replace my conscious thoughts. But, suddenly, a wave of contentment fell upon me like a warm blanket. A girl beyond all my imaginings stepped forth from behind a dusty bookshelf.

“Welcome to my shop, Tom,” she said with a steady, confident voice. “I’m certain you will find something you desire. Please don’t hesitate to ask for my assistance.”

The shopkeeper didn’t look a day over 18 years old, but her calm, collectedness belonged to someone much, much older. My eyes were obviously deceiving me. Her style was unusual; I half wondered if she was cosplaying some mythical creature. She had long, deep, magenta-dyed hair styled so that it looked like little horn nubs were trying to peek out above her temples. Her sleek, slim body was adorned with foreign tattoos of runes or some other ideographs and covered with a thin black leather dress. One word pinged into my mind to describe her: bewitching.

By the time my mind had rewound enough to ask how she knew my name, she had already disappeared into a room behind the counter. “She must have walked into my shop while I was busy or something,” I thought, “one of my employees must have pointed me out.”

I began to traverse the various booths in the crowded, dark building. This was no typical antique store. Many of the items seemed far older than I was accustomed to seeing. Some items were adorned with tarnished precious metals; some were carved from the hardest of stones.

My hands reached out for a tiny golden bow and arrow beside a cracked silver egg. Like a shock, my hands flew back to my sides. “Not for me!” My mind screamed seemingly on its own. I continued browsing. My eyes were drawn to an ornate pen, a corked bottle with a pink, almost glowing liquid, and a golden timepiece with a silver spiral behind the hands. Each item seemed to pull me in and then throw me back until I found something that somehow tugged at my very soul.

It was simply a toolbox, but I’d never seen anything quite like it. It was made of pure pewter with silver Art Deco flourishes on all surfaces. I could feel the heft of the lead-based metal in my hands as I unclasped the nickel-plated latch and unveiled the black velvet lining within. The box was empty. I felt an almost fanatical urge to fill it with my favorite tools. “I have to take you home with me,” I whispered.

In a haze, my legs steered me to the cashier’s desk. I found it hard to pull my eyes away from my find and look into the violet eyes of the cashier I had found so alluring only moments ago.

“Ah! I expected that this one would call to you!” She explained with a grin. I idly noticed her teeth looked a bit sharper than most people’s. “You must be quite a mechanic… there’s almost no limit to what a man like you can accomplish with the right tool.”

I felt uneasy under the intensity of her gaze. I just wanted to get away and take my toolbox home. “H-how much?” I stuttered. “There’s no price tag?”

The mysterious girl replied, “It doesn’t work like that… No, the toolbox has already paid its penance and served its time upon the shelf. You are the closest thing to life it will ever feel again, do you understand? If you really want to pay, though… I could grant you a sliver of vision into its workings. You’ll find things much more pleasurable that way.”

My mind felt buried beneath buckets of thick mud. The box and the girl’s violet eyes were too much to process. I weakly nodded that I would pay.

She typed quickly into her vintage cash register. “That will be $667.77!” She growled.

The price knocked a few layers of mud from my mind. I didn’t expect to spend a small fortune on a handheld toolbox, but I knew I would. “I’m not sure if I have that kind of cash on me. Is credit ok?” I asked shakily.

“Oh, Tom, I think you’ll find you have enough. I do take credit, though, but my policies are a little different than most shops. This room is filled with the artifacts of formerly unpaid credit. I don’t feel that is your destiny, though.” She spoke cryptically as I sorted through my wallet.

“Here’s 6-hundreds, 2-twenties, 1-ten, 2-fives, 7-ones, 3-quarters…. And I’ll be damned… exactly 2-pennies. How the hell did you know that?”

Instead of answering, she just grinned, showing her slightly too sharp teeth, and opened the register with a deafening DING!!! When I opened my eyes again, the shopkeeper was gone, but every item in the store, including my new toolbox, glowed with pale auras. I glanced at my toolbox, and words slammed into my mind. “Toolbox of enchantment.”

I knew I’d get more info once I placed a few tools in it. I didn’t want to stick around to find out more, though. With the shopkeep gone, the fog from my mind cleared, and I wanted nothing more than to run away as fast as I could. I sprinted out the door and straight back to my car. I only stopped to put a seatbelt around my new toolbox.