Page 2 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
My chipper must’ve been leaning closer to chipmunk if he thought my near-geriatric thirty-five-year-old selfyoung.
I cleared my throat and swiveled a bit in my chair. “My momlovedPippi Longstocking. The books, movies, the cartoons, everything. So it makes me happy when people get the reference.”
A little white lie never hurt anyone.
My mom had, indeed, adored Pippi Longstocking. And I’d seen every single edition—had basically grown up with pigtailPippi. But the references didn’t bring me any joy. There were too many bad memories there.
But I wasn’t about to unload my childhood traumas on Mr. Hollingdale. Because this stuffy old toadstool was the lead for one of my biggest clients—VitalTech Supplies—and I was about to tell him we’d screwed the whole dang pooch, and then left it out on a rainy day to rot.
“Pippi,” he formed my name around a wheezing laugh. “I love it. I’ve seen your emails before, but I always thought there was a typo in your signature, so I’ve been calling youPippain my head.”
DING!
My eyes dropped to my computer, focusing on the big block of text clunking up the message screen; the exchanges Andy—the actual project manager for the VitalTech account—and I had been swapping all day.
Andy: In short…we’re fucked. Thoroughly. And James Hollingdale has been punching my goddamn number every fifteen minutes like clockwork. I don’t even know how to explain this one. I sure as shit don’t know how to keep him from blowing his top.
Me: You want me to try and soften the blow?
Andy: Would you? Please?
Me: I can try! Hollingdale’s always been nice to me via email and seems the talkative type. Maybe if I chat him up first, it won’t be as bad?
Andy: Yes. Please. See what you can do.
Beneath that old stuff, Andy had snuck a new update in.
Andy: …Parts are backordered. Lead time up to sixteen weeks.
Oh. Fudge.
“It’s lovely to speak with you, Pippi,” Mr. Hollingdale half panted into my ear, “andmeetyou. Electronically, of course, but phone calls are always preferable to emailing.”
Said every middle-aged white man ever.
My skin crawled, berating me for the rude thought. And my heart dropped to my toes with the nextDINGfrom the message app.
Andy: The order is confirmed to be unsalvageable. We need to wait for the back-ordered parts.
“So, I’m not going to complain about hearing your lovely voice, Pippi,” Mr. Hollingdale continued, “but I was expectingAndrewto call. I’ve been trying to reach himall day.”
“Andy’s…busyat the moment.” I winced as a slew of angry and exhausted emojis exploded over my screen with Andy’s next chat. “And, well, there’s no easy way to serve this pill, Mr. Hollingdale. We’ve unfortunately run into some issues with your order.”
Someissues.
Sure.
You see, here at Sunstone Industry, we made circuit boards. But not justanycircuit boards; we used parts from Celesta and Elysium…and SorcerSoft, before they’d gone belly up. Companies run by Sorcerers that made parts slathered in runes and infused withmagic.
We built that magic into the circuit boards, then shipped them to places like VitalTech, who used them to make diagnostic machines so advanced, they could do full body scans of a roomful of people and pinpoint who had cancer, who was diabetic, who had hypertension, whose heart was about to fail, and much more.
Magic.
Life-savingmagic.
And Sunstoneboastedabout how we hiredprofessionals—using esteemed techs who were well-versed in magic and technology—and placed quality at the echelon of our business.
But somehow, we built an entire gosh-darn order of boardsthe wrong way.
