Just a Tuesday - 4. Tuesday, March 25, 2025 – The Teddy Bear

~The Cursebreaker~

Nathan was nervous. Excitedly nervous, I would say, but since I had only just met him, I wasn't sure. He ran his hand over the shiny paintwork of my Rover and grinned as if he suddenly had plans for his own car.

As we left the parking lot, he took an audible breath. “What's this case about?” he wanted to know.

“Well, Detective Reynolds didn't put it quite so precisely,” was my first response. “Something about a boy who put cats in trash cans because of a talking teddy bear, if I understood him correctly.” Reynolds had admittedly sounded quite confused himself, but according to the parents and his own humble opinion, the teddy bear was cursed.

Nathan made a puzzled sound, then asked, “A talking teddy bear in the sense of magically made to talk, or in the sense of a Talking Teddy?”

Confused, I blinked at the red light and then glanced at my passenger before realizing that he meant a brand name. “What's a Talking Teddy?”

"Basically, just a stuffed animal with buttons on its paws and belly that trigger a few specific phrases when you press them. There are lots of them. But Talking Teddy was one of the first and became a big brand, marketed as a companion for small children and all that. New editions or variants come out regularly, some with glowing eyes or a heart in the belly as a night light and different speech modes," Nathan explained.

“Ah.”

“As a child, I always wanted one too, until my younger cousin got one. My envy quickly subsided, I can tell you, because these things babble certain phrases even without pressing a button until they go into automatic sleep mode.”

“Sounds annoying,” I remarked skeptically, and he made a sound of agreement. “But to answer your initial question: I have no idea what kind of teddy bear it is.”

“Okay.”

 

 

Officer Stark was on duty at the reception desk and nodded to his right as we approached. “Reynolds and Byrd are waiting in the vault.”

“Thanks.” I nodded back, and when Nathan simply followed me without having to sign in, I looked at him questioningly. “They already know you that good?”

He grimaced. “I’m working on a case for Reynolds and Byrd right now. A bunch of rich kids stole cars and organized illegal races, and almost all of their parents hired Upfield & Partners. As a real Upfield, I have the honor of defending the leader of the little group.”

Pushing open the door to the stairwell, I remarked dryly over my shoulder, “You seem really excited.”

“I hate teenagers.”

His tone gave me goose bumps, even though it was obvious that he was speaking out of trauma. “You were one once too,” I replied, trying to sound casual, but before I could add it was something we shouldn’t forget, he said frostily:

“But not one like that.”

With a brief nod, I dropped the subject and instead introduced him to the vault a little later. Locking away cell phones and the like, bracing ourselves against the protective magic that felt uncomfortable, and all that.

When we entered the main part of the vault, Detective Stanley Byrd was already waiting for us. Somewhere in his fifties, gaunt, his hair already more white than blond, and always with a grim look on his narrow face, he nodded to us. “The teddy is in there,” he said somberly, pointing to one of the secured rooms. “He babbles happily even without batteries. Creepy shit, I tell you.” At that moment, it was quite obvious that Byrd was not a big fan of magic.

With a nod, I wanted to know, “What's the rest of the situation?”

Before answering, he looked at Nathan with an assessing gaze.

“The Pollards are in the waiting room with Rick.” A nod to his left. “The boy is a nonverbal autistic and not really a boy anymore, but okay. He can handle yes/no questions, so we got it out of him that the teddy bear told him to put the cats in the trash.”

“How cruel,” Nathan muttered, voicing my thoughts. I don't really like cats, but animal cruelty is unacceptable.

Byrd grunted and shrugged. “I went through all our reports, but there are none of animal cruelty or suspicious dead cats; Mrs. Pollard says she hasn't heard of any dead cats in the neighborhood either.”

I sighed and nodded. “Well then...”

Byrd nodded back, knocked on the waiting room door, and poked his head through. “Percival is here.” Then he stepped back and motioned for us to enter, remaining outside himself.

I complied with the request, and Nathan, whose presence no one had yet questioned, followed me. “Detective.” I nodded to Reynolds, then to the Pollards, who were sitting pale and stiff on the couch. “Mr. and Mrs. Pollard.”

“Cursebreaker Percival,” they both murmured, and Mr. Pollard made a move to stand up, but then decided against it. He looked quite a bit older than his wife, whom I would have guessed to be in her early fifties, but worry and stress might have played a role in that.

The boy was lying on the floor next to the couch, rolling back and forth on his back, giggling softly. As Byrd had noted, he wasn't really a boy anymore, but rather in his mid-twenties. Patchy dark stubble covered his cheeks, and his thick sweater—light green, printed with Lego figurines—was not only dirty from contact with the floor, but also certainly a few sizes too small.

Mrs. Pollard, who had probably followed my gaze, said quietly, "Austin has trouble coping with change and letting go of stress. " She took a breath as if she wanted to say more, but then remained silent.

Austin the autistic. I don't want to have to endure that ridicule.

I gave her a smile. "I'm not here to judge, ma'am. Before we begin, this is Nathan Upfield. He's a lawyer and can offer you legal advice and assistance if you need it“ — the couple exchanged glances and then shook their heads in unison — ”otherwise, he's here as my student, if that's okay with you."

“Of course.” Mrs. Pollard nodded hastily.

“We all started small once,” Mr. Pollard muttered.

Reynolds gave Nathan and me puzzled glances and his eyes dropped to Nathan's gloved fingers, but kept his mouth shut and instead said, “Please tell us again what happened. What makes you think it's a curse? And why it affects the teddy and not Austin?”

Opposite the couch where the couple was sitting stood two chairs, and I took the second one next to Reynolds. That left the armchair for Nathan, but he preferred to stand behind me.

“Austin got his first Talking Teddy from my parents on his second birthday,” Mr. Pollard began, sounding strangely tired. “The babbling goes in here and out there.” He pointed first to his left ear, then to his right.

“Austin loves his teddies to death, if you can say that,” Mrs. Pollard continued. “And his little brothers have... out of envy and jealousy and all that” — her voice trembled and her eyes glistened with tears — “broken the teddies often enough. We've had to replace the teddy every year. He takes it everywhere with him, even when it has to stay in his backpack at school.” She sniffed. “And my husband is right, we don't even hear the teddy's chatter anymore. That's why we only noticed something was wrong when Austin became more and more restless.”

Just then, Austin rolled around particularly energetically, bumped into the couch, and giggled even louder.

I was about to ask a question when Nathan's perspective overlapped with mine—Austin was surrounded by a fine web of curse magic.

“He's allowed to play in the garden, but he usually sits in the playhouse and reads. Apparently, he snuck out and... turned to the cats,” Mrs. Pollard continued while I analyzed the curse.

“He's allergic to cats,” Mr. Pollard grumbled. “We told him from an early age to stay away from them because they make him sick.”

The couple was a well-coordinated team, because Mrs. Pollard took over again and talked about allergy pills and visits to the neighbors, and I tried to wait for a pause so as not to interrupt either of them.

“Austin is under a curse.”

Mrs. Pollard closed her mouth again, her husband frowned, and Reynolds next to me let out a barely audible sigh.

“You say his brothers are always jealous and envious because he gets more attention and such, right?”

Double nod.

"Well, the magic comes from close blood relatives. Without having seen the teddy I can't say whether the curse rubbed off from Austin onto the teddy or vice versa, but—"

Mrs. Pollard interrupted me, pressing a hand to her heart: “The boys would never hurt Austin, Cursebreaker.”

“They deliberately destroyed his teddy, ma’am,” Reynolds interjected, surprisingly dryly.

“They were still children! They’ve both moved out now and are attending college in Ashmill and Harding. Austin has had the current teddy for almost four years and—”

“Ma'am,” this time I had to interrupt, "every little ‘go to hell’ is a curse, whether it's directed at the teddy or the brother. Depending on relationships, intensity of feelings, and frequency, the curse magic can accumulate and solidify.“ I let that sink in for a moment. ”You may not hear the teddy anymore, but Austin’s brothers were certainly much more annoyed by it; it disturbed them while studying and the like. They may love their brother, but that doesn’t have to extend to a toy.” And to be honest, I was pretty sure that the younger brothers had actually taken out their frustration on the chattering stuffed animal.

Mrs. Pollard stared at me in shock.

“You say you used to have to replace the teddy once a year?” I continued gently, and she nodded. “Then you probably threw away the curses along with it. This teddy is almost four years old, right? Then it probably carries a nice layer of curse magic with it.”

“But Brian moved out three years ago and Carver in the fall,” whispered Mrs. Pollard. “They only visit us once a month.”

I could only shrug to that. “Curse magic is very unstable if it’s just a momentary ‘go to hell’ or something like that. But as I said, it can stabilize.”

There was a moment of silence, then Nathan cleared his throat. “Detective Byrd said the teddy says creepy things. Haven't you noticed his words?”

I was relieved by the interjection and nodded encouragingly to the parents.

“Like I said...” Mr. Pollard pointed to his ears. “We actually only really noticed it the day before yesterday.”

“After we had sat down together and talked about Austin's changed behavior,” Mrs. Pollard interjected.

Her husband grimaced. “But on Sunday, a neighbor came to us and showed us a video from his security camera of Austin grabbing his cat and stuffing it into the trash can. We were shocked, we apologized...”

“The neighbor threatened to report us!” sobbed Mrs. Pollard.

“But the cat is fine.” Mr. Pollard rolled his eyes. "We were sitting in the living room talking and Austin was playing. We watched him for a moment and then the teddy said something like ‘Let's play something exciting,’ but with an emphasis that meant something completely different, you know? "

“The teddy doesn't usually say things like that. We know all the phrases,” Mrs. Pollard interjected again.

I simply nodded. “I'll remove the curse magic from Austin and then I'll take a look at the teddy, okay?”

There was murmured agreement, and the parents held hands.

I blinked into the magical vision and mentally nudged Nathan to watch. Once again, I checked the magic around Austin's body, how it sluggishly wound around him, like a snake in cold temperatures. I reached out with my magic and the curse crumbled immediately — he had definitely only absorbed parts of the original curse.

Austin suddenly lay still. His manic giggling and rolling around stopped. Instead, he folded his hands on his stomach, sighed with relief, and put on a dreamy smile before he began humming a melody that seemed vaguely familiar to me.

Mrs. Pollard also sighed with relief.

When Reynolds stood up, the parents flinched, but he put on a smile. “I'll show the cursebreaker where we put the teddy and get the documents to finish the matter. It'll only take a few minutes.”

So Nathan and I followed him out into the hallway, where Byrd was leaning against the wall, half bored, half annoyed.

“With all due respect, Cursebreaker, why can't you just remove the curses and don't do all the talking?” Reynolds sighed as soon as the door closed behind us.

“That's just how I work,” I replied calmly, as I always did when someone made a comment like that.

Byrd snorted.

Since the two of them rarely got assigned cases involving magic due to Byrd's aversion to it, we didn't have much to do with each other, but I had still had enough opportunity to develop my own aversion to the detective. And accordingly, my next words were somewhere between flippant and biting: “You're looking for the perpetrator and motive too, aren't you? Giving lectures and explanations about what was wrong and why? No? Yes? Well, laws can be read, they apply to everyone, but magic is difficult for non-mages to understand. You do your job, detective, I'll do mine.”

Byrd snorted again, this time clearly pissed off, but Reynolds made a small gesture toward his partner and then said to me:

“I meant that more as a rhetorical question, but never mind. Take care of the teddy and then let's wrap this up.”

I nodded curtly and marched past Byrd to the secured room Reynolds was pointing to. When Nathan stepped over the threshold after me, he let out a soft sound of discomfort as the magical protective measures glided over him. “Unpleasant, huh?” I asked him with a sideways glance and saw him shudder.

“Yes. Why is the teddy looking away from us?”

I had asked myself the same question, but it was Byrd who replied sourly:

“Because the thing is creepy, I told you. The Pollards took the batteries out, but it's still babbling.”

As if to confirm this, the teddy bear asked in its high-pitched child's voice, “Don't you want to play something?” And as Mr. Pollard had mentioned, the emphasis on “play” was more reminiscent of horror movies than children's shows.

“I'll get the documents,” I heard Reynolds say. Byrd muttered a reply, then:

“I'll leave you to your work, Cursebreaker.”

Before I could protest, the door closed, the click echoing slightly in the bare room, for there was nothing in here except the bolted table on which the teddy bear sat and two matching bolted chairs.

Nathan shuddered again. “Toys shouldn't be creepy.”

“I completely agree with you,” I muttered back and took a step closer to the table because I felt a little stupid standing halfway in the doorway like frightened teenagers.

“I'm hungry for something special!” sang the teddy, again with completely wrong-sounding intonations.

Goosebumps ran down my arms. The Velcro fastener on the back of the teddy, which normally concealed the battery compartment, was open. The white plastic was half hidden in the filling, but it was still clear that the batteries were missing. I had seen many cursed objects before, and even though a cursed stuffed animal was a completely different ball game than, say, the tank, it had a way creepier and more dangerous undertone to it.

 

~The Lawyer~

The teddy hummed a tune I recognized as the theme song from a children's cartoon, even though I couldn't remember the name of it.

Dust took a second step and paused. “Why do I have this vague feeling the teddy is about to turn around and face us?”

“You watch too many horror movies,” I muttered, but to be honest, I had the same thought.

“I hate horror movies.”

“Me too.”

He gave me a crooked grin over his shoulder.

“Throw away what makes you sick and live healthy!” the teddy bear cooed.

“Well, if Austin was constantly told to stay away from cats because they make him sick, the request probably fell on fertile ground,” Dust said quietly.

“But how can the teddy say things like that? Its speech memory is limited. It can’t possibly have all the words it needs to make new sentences,” I wanted to know, shuddering slightly as the teddy giggled strangely.

“Magic.” Dust’s answer was more of a sigh than a word. “Magic can do the strangest things. And anyway, magic and technology don't marry well unless they're really attuned to each other. The chances of the teddy still working when I'm done aren't good."

The explanation wasn't very satisfying, but then again, scientists had been trying to explain magic for millennia and still hadn't come up with any real answers. So I refrained from commenting and stepped next to Dust while the teddy giggled again.

“You said you broke objects?” Dust suddenly began, and I ducked my head under his questioning gaze.

“Yes. Why?”

“Broken in what sense?”

“Um... most of them exploded when I touched them.”

“Not nice.”

“Somewhat.”

He nodded. “All right.”

Anticipating further explanations about what he was about to do, I blinked into the magical vision and was still thrilled I was so good at it now that I knew how it really worked and what it was supposed to look like.

The teddy's dark brown fur and red sweater disappeared under a thick layer of dirty green curse magic, nicely marbled with black streaks. The latter moved across the teddy as if in thick liquid, much faster than on the pale web around Austin.

Dust was once again immersed in the green-black dominated kaleidoscope, and it looked really strange as he raised his left hand and reached out slightly toward the teddy.

I expected something like a thread or beam of visible magic, but in the gray-on-gray of the magicless world, only the air rippled, a little like the shimmering above hot asphalt.

“Do you really want to touch me like that?” the teddy bear purred seductively.

We both flinched at the same time and I lost my concentration, blinking frantically and then looking at Dust.

He had grimaced and withdrawn his hand as if the teddy had snapped at it. “If the teddy has absorbed and implemented his parents' comments about cats, that really gives me pause.”

“Because the teddy might have seen or heard something that wasn't meant for him?”

“That, or Austin isn't as... different... as his parents might think.”

Frowning, I looked from Dust to the teddy and back again. "He may be a non-verbal autistic with behavioral issues, but he still has hormones. There are plenty of people out there who don't understand sex—can't understand it—and still act on their urges. Not always with the consent of others, admittedly, but if Austin only has his teddy as a witness or uses it for, um, things, at least that's not so bad."

Dust grimaced a little more. “I meant it more in the context that torturing cats was perhaps the lesser evil if the teddy was saying things like that.”

“Ah. Sure.” Embarrassed because, despite my objection, I hadn't thought it through as thoroughly as he had, and a little disgusted because, from that point of view, animal cruelty was perhaps really the lesser evil, I rolled my shoulders.

Fittingly, the teddy made another comment that sounded completely wrong coming from the voice of a small child.

“Ew,” Dust said, then, “Okay, let's silence the teddy. Are you in?”

I blinked into the magical vision again, but this time it took me two tries before I succeeded. “Okay.”

“Visualization is an important point when working with magic. Dealing with invisible things is generally a bit difficult,” he began, and something about the way he said it made me smile. “Breaking curses is not far from breaking magic; the principle is the same. I'm just the niche expert in that regard, so to speak.”

This time I really chuckled a little, and under the colorful kaleidoscope I saw his smile.

“You can think of your own magic as a cleaning rag that you use to wipe away the disruptive magic,” he continued. “Or you can shock-freeze and shatter it.”

“That's… a huge difference,” I remarked cautiously, and got a purple-yellow grin turning black as he replied:

“Don't ask me why I work like this, maybe because I hate cleaning. Maybe I saw something back then, some Arctic documentary or something. At the age when you learn to master magic, you're usually still very impressionable."

“Okay...” Amused, I gestured for him to continue.

“Behold and marvel...”

I watched spellbound. The flickering and rippling enveloped the teddy bear, and the sluggish swirling of the curse magic stopped. And then, with a strange crackling and ratcheting sound, the dirty green crumbled.

Some flakes fell onto the table and dissolved, others swirled into the air and decomposed there, and others disappeared immediately. After blinking three times, only tiny remnants remained.

“Ah, I knew it,” Dust muttered a little frustrated, and before I could ask what he meant, the smell of singed plastic hit my nose.

I undid the magic vision. Small plastic splinters from the battery compartment lay on the table and a seam on the teddy's head had burst open, the white filling spilling out like bleached brains. “I guess after an incident like this, the parents might be glad not to have this particular teddy back at home,” I said slowly.

“Quite possible.” Dust sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “I hope for Austin's sake they have an explanation for why his teddy isn't coming with them when they leave.”

I hummed in agreement.

 

 

It didn't take long after that before we were able to leave the vault. Byrd muttered a rude remark about how the whole circus could have been avoided by simply throwing the teddy bear into the trash compactor, but fortunately no one responded, and Reynolds was content when Dust promised to send a report as soon as possible.

As we climbed the stairs, I checked my cell phone. Four missed calls from Millie made me grimace. It didn't matter who had given her my number, I simply ignored her calls and didn't call back, and since she didn't text me, I wasn't in the awkward position of having to reply.

“Missed something important?” Dust asked, looking at me from the side.

“Important? Nope.” I shoved my phone into my coat pocket. “Do you happen to know Sharing Hearts?”

“Oh God, don't start with that.” He rolled his eyes. “They harassed my uncle for years, even after he got married – because supposedly a marriage between two men isn't real. They only stopped when he threatened to press charges.”

“Oh great,” I blurted out in horror.

Dust nodded. “They only left me alone when I threatened to report them too. Are they bothering you as well?

“M-hm.” I grimaced. “But I can’t really threaten to report them.”

“Why not?”

“Millie, one of the co-chairs and the one who keeps calling, is my grandmother's goddaughter.”

“You lucky thing.” With a pitying smile, Dust patted me on the shoulder.

The touch was muted by several layers of fabric, but it still felt good. Most people were put off by my gloves, even though they had no idea why I was wearing them, or were magicless and therefore in no danger whatsoever. A quick handshake “because that's what you do” was all that was possible. I was definitely touch-starved, but who could I honestly explain that to?

In the lobby, a group of young officers stood together, bent over a tablet, discussing something; the officer at the reception desk watched them a little morosely. One of the officers was Ingram, and when he smiled at a comment from a colleague, my stomach bubbled and I wished the smile was for me.

Next to me, Dust sighed, his eyes on his cell phone.

I refrained from asking if everything was okay and instead closed my coat. With one of the middle buttons between my fingers, I flinched when someone called out loudly to Dust.

Detective DeLaney. She rushed over, phone in hand, her dark hair spilling out of her ponytail.

“Vee...” Dust was as surprised as he was concerned. “What's going on?”

“Shit, do you remember the water stains in my apartment?”

“Yes...?”

“This morning there was an inspection because of the damage. The result: the walls are full of water, the house is at risk and needs to be checked for stability urgently, all tenants out, immediately.” She buried one hand in her hair, loosening her ponytail even further; it wouldn't be long before the elastic band fell to the floor on its own.

“You can have one of our guest rooms,” Dust offered with an unimpressed shrug, most likely what she had wanted to ask him. “We don't have room for your furniture if it has to go too, but that can be arranged.”

It might be rude to just butt in, but then again, it was impolite of DeLaney to ignore me, even though we already knew each other. “What are the chances you’ll be able to move back into the apartment after such water damage?” I asked in a neutral tone, and she snorted.

“Slim.”

Dust grimaced sympathetically. “And the housing situation around here is terrible.”

“Right.” DeLaney almost growled and tugged at her hair.

“If that's a problem, I might have an idea,” I said cautiously. The intense attention she suddenly gave me was uncomfortable. “Our neighbor has converted his upper floor into a separate apartment he rents out. But only to decent people.” I emphasized the word with quotation marks in the air. “The man is a veteran, and a detective should hopefully meet his standards.”

For a moment, DeLaney looked at me strangely, then nodded a little frantically. “Sounds fantastic.”

 

 

We exchanged numbers, I gave her our neighbor's number and promised to give him a heads-up tonight. After a hurried goodbye, Dust drove me back to the hospital, where my car was ultimately parked, but after he stopped, he looked at me strangely, and my words of thanks and farewell stuck in my throat.

“Reynolds and Byrd may not have said anything, but you can be sure that word will get around. I didn't think about that before, I'm sorry,” he said slowly but emphatically.

My first response was to shake my head. “It's okay.” My smile wasn't very big, but at least it was genuine and honest. “Being considered your student and thus seen as a cursebreaker is clearly better than having a dozen speculations hanging over my head all the time.”

He seemed to want to protest at first, but then gave a half nod. “You're probably right. Still.”

I shook my head again, but my smile disappeared. “Don't worry. Someone will always have a problem with me. Lawyers are only popular when you need them, the anti-magic group is big enough, and we don't need to talk about homophobia...”

I got a mixture of a frown and half-raised corners of his mouth in return, and my fingers itched to stroke his forehead and wipe away his doubts. The comforting feeling that someone cared about me kept the excited squeaking of my hyper-romantic side at bay, which I was extremely glad about.

“I know,” he finally said with a sigh. “I just wanted to say it.”

“Thank you.” I nodded, my lips curving into a smile, and when he returned it, warm and gentle, the groupie with the heart-shaped eyes inside me still squealed. “For… for the whole package.” I made a somewhat helpless gesture and he snorted a little laugh.

“Of course.” The matter-of-factness of his answer knocked me over in a positive way.

“Thanks,” I said again, and suddenly whatever self-confidence I had was gone. I felt small and helpless and dependent on his answer, whether he really wanted to be my mentor or not. So I nodded to him and got out of the Rover.

“We'll sleep on it, okay? And I want to read up on a few things,” he called after me before I could close the door.

“Okay, sure,” I called back. We both waved goodbye, then he drove off.

I stared after him, at the Rover, its paintwork glistening in the weak sunlight, and stood in the parking lot like a lost idiot, but it took me a moment—a very long moment—before I was completely in control of myself.

Even if Dust came to the conclusion that there was no real point in trying to teach me, he wouldn't just push me aside. He wasn't that kind of person. The realization that I had found a friend came slowly, but it gave me hope.

After ten years of torment, I deserved that, didn't I?