Geri, Mei, and Fifi went to Esmerelda's lair with bubble wrap and a few gym bags to collect all the knickknacks. Fifi spent the whole time cleaning. They were surprised there was electricity in the apartment.

Mei tracked down the superintendent, Mr. Woloski. “Sir, what can you tell me about the tenant in the apartment below the stairs?”

“There's no apartment below the stairs,” he said. “The city condemned that space years ago.”

“Really? It looks like an apartment.”

“Are you trolling me? The place has been boarded up for decades.” He followed her out of the building, down the stairs, and to the partially ajar apartment door. “See, it's boarded up.”

“No, it isn't,” she said as she opened the door and pulled him inside.

“How did you--? What is going on?”

Mei continued, “There was a woman living here for some time apparently. We were hoping you could tell us about her.”

“Well, obviously I can't. I never met her.” Geri handed him a photograph of Esmerelda and he blanched. “Oh, her. I thought she moved out. Creepy old woman. Now I remember. She left around the time my wife went missing. She was actually here the whole time?”

“Yes, she was.”

“Well, I'm going upstairs and writing an eviction notice because she hasn't paid in years.” He opened the door and walked out.

“Wait, Mr. Woloski.” Geri said following after him.

He was just standing outside the apartment. “Why did I come down here?”

Geri watched him from the doorway. He turned toward the door and shrugged before walking away. Geri closed the door. He would not be back.

“I suppose we don't have to worry about any interference from Mr. Woloski. Remind me, once we've cleaned this place out to do something about the enchantments that are here.”

Each knickknack was dusted, cleaned, and the wrapped in bubblewrap. Mei wrote down a description of the knickknack. A tag was added to the bubblewrap, numbering them. The sun was setting and they had only wrapped half of the lost souls and packed them into the gym bags. They had listed 87 of them by the time they left for the day.

Back at the apartment, Geri scanned the list. “I guess I should start with number one.” She retrieved the “Small clay pot, no soil” from the gym bag and set on the ground in front of her. Words of magic were spoken and soon the pot transformed into a woman in her fifties wearing overalls, a dark blouse, and a smock. She had a name tag on from “Wilma's Florist” saying she was named “Joyce”.

“What are...? Stay back,” the frightened woman warned. “Oh, who are you?”

“Hello, Joyce. I'm Geri. I'm sorry for what happened to you.”

“What? I was in my shop. How did I get here?”

“What do you remember before appearing here?”

“I was in my shop and a woman came in. She asked for a Catherine-Wheel Pincushion, a rare and beautiful bush. I told her I didn't have any buds from the bush nor any bushes. She became annoyed immediately and asked when I could get one. I told her the plant is endangered and it might take weeks or months to even find someone who could send a clipping or a bud. She muttered something and then I was here.”

“What day was this?”

“It was a Tuesday. Isn't today Tuesday?”

After some more gentle interrogation, they found out Joyce had been transformed about five years ago. She did not believe it until they gave her a phone and she called her husband. Darren was shocked to hear from her after all this time. He showed up within twenty minutes of being called along with her sister Mallory. Both of them hugged Joyce for a long time. Joyce was having trouble understanding what the big deal was until she noticed both Darren and Mallory looked older than the last time she had seen them. The three of them left the apartment in joyous tears. Mallory said she would pay Geri back, disregarding her pleas that it was not necessary.

Next on the list was a ceramic ice cream cone. It grew into a man in his early forties who use to drive an ice cream truck. He was missing for over ten years and his wife had remarried and had a new family with two kids.

“Where am I going to go?” he asked. “My sister's phone is disconnected.

* * *

Geri restored two more people. As the last one left, she was unsteady on her feet. Miranda dragged Geri into the bedroom for a talk. Geri picked up the necklace that allowed her to talk to her cat familiar.

“That took a lot of energy out of you. You must stop doing this for today. Especially after a long day at Esmerelda's apartment. You need to recharge,” the cat said.

“I'm fine. I'm going...” she stumbled and fell down.

The cat batted her cheek.

“What?”

“You just fell down. Get in bed. Call Mei in here. Have her make you something to eat right now.”

“I thought I was the one in charge.”

“Except when you overexert yourself. Then we're here to protect you from yourself.”

* * *

They returned two days later to Esmerelda's lair, skipping a day at Mei's insistence. They packed up the rest of the smaller items. “There's still the two lamps, an end table, and the toaster and blender in the kitchen. I suppose we can wrap the two appliances. But, the three pieces of furniture are too big for us to carry.”

“You can restore them here,” Mei said. “But, that means no restorations at home. This is the last time you will do more than two in single day.”

“I can handle it.”

“No, you can't. If you hurt yourself, these 143 souls are lost forever.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Don't be snarky with me.”

Geri sensed she should restore the two lamps at the same time. They had been lovers who had been aware that they were turned into lamps and forced to stare at one another so close yet so far away. They immediately kissed on another and thanked Geri for restoring them. “It must have been years,” the man said.

“Decades,” said the woman. She was right. They had been lamps for over twenty years.

When Mei offered to call someone they knew, they were unaware that smart phones existed. The woman's formerly younger sister arranged a place for them to stay. Mei assisted them with getting a taxi. The price per mile amazed them. “Who can afford things these days?”

Geri was eating a packaged lunch snack between restorations.

“That's not food,” Mei said.

“It's protein.”

The end table was a more recent change. In fact, after interrogating the young man who had offended Esmerelda by delivering a pizza that was not hot enough, they found out that he had been transformed only a day before Esmerelda had come to George's apartment nearly two years ago. His mother was so glad he was coming home.

* * *

For months, it was the same basic story. Someone, generally in the service industry, found themselves turned into an inanimate knickknack after slightly offending a woman. Usually, the woman was an old woman but sometimes she was not. Some of the victims had been trapped in Esmerelda's lair for decades.

Geri took a few days off the first time she failed to restore someone. The soul released from the knickknack and rose into the air and vanished leaving the now empty knickknack behind.

A man who could not remember his own name had been a watchmaker and had been turned into a cuckoo clock. He demanded that Geri return him to being a clock. Reluctantly, she did.

He was not the only one who liked what they had become. He was also not the only one to be restored and immediately be belligerent toward Geri. Geri often thought some of those victims were not so innocent.

Sometimes she needed more than a day to restore someone to being a fully functional person. The victim might be restored in body. But their mind was unreachable for a few hours, sometimes a few days. Once it was over a week. The man sat on Geri's sofa for most of the week never saying a word, fed soup daily by Mei.

After the first month, she was no longer wiped out after doing two restorations and the subsequent work to find the poor soul's somewhere to go. She started seeing Beth again. Beth was so glad Geri was no longer too tired to see her. She had an inkling of what Geri was up to. She only discovered the full horror of it after she was able to visit again.

On the thirty-seventh day, she restored Mrs. Woloski. When Mr. Woloski came to pick her up, he did not remember who Geri was. Mrs. Woloski was disappointed her husband was now at least ten years old than she was.

By the time Geri reached that last few knickknacks, she probably could have restored four of them in a day. But, for Mei's peace of mind, she stayed on the twice a day schedule.

After she restored the last knickknack, as the woman was picked up by her husband, standing at the door was Prudence.

“May I come in?”

“Now you show up,” Geri said. “Sure, come in. You can help me rearrange the furniture now that I no longer have a pile of boxes occupying half the room.”

Prudence entered and sat down in a chair. Fifi was collecting the last remnants of the boxes the knickknacks were stored in away. She left the room as the two witches sat down.

“To what do I owe the pleasure,” Geri said.

“I wanted to thank you personally for cleaning up Esmerelda's mess.”

“You're welcome.”

“I know it was a daunting task. As I've said before, witches cannot interfere in one another's business, especially their lairs. I'm sorry you had to be exposed to the worst of witchdom.”

“I've always known Esmerelda was not a good person,” Geri said, pointing at the figurine of her.

“Esmerelda's fate is of her own making.”

“Is that a prediction?”

“Yes.”

“And that's all you'll say.”

“Yes.”

“I don't know why I entertained the thought there might be more.”

“You'll be an amazing witch some day. Probably have my job when I retire.”

“I hope that isn't soon.”

“Oh, no, several decades from now. I'm only 148.”

“Really?”

“No lie. Look at yourself. Do you look your age?”

“Amusing.”

“I had once thought Esmerelda would be my successor. But, I knew that would be wrong. When you took up the craft, I was relieved.”

“Even though I was a guy.”

“No, not until you revealed how powerful you were by resisting Esmerelda's spell. She knew you would be competition for my job. She bet she could take you out before you reached your full power. She lost that bet. In the past months, your power has only increased. The essence released by all those transformations was absorbed by you.”

“I benefited from restoring all those people?”

“Yes, but that is not a form of payment you needed to refuse. That is just how magic works.”

“What has this increase in power done for me?”

“It has made you the witch you were meant to be.”

“I keep expecting you to say I'm destined to do something and I need the power for that.”

She laughed. “No, sorry. I have no prophecies of men turning into little girls and saving the world. Maybe you could write a story about it.”

“I doubt it.”