by T. S. Bishop
“Guess I am. Now, here are some things I am willing to sell—“
“I can tell already, you’ve brought me a pile of garbage again—“
“Let’s save the posturing for after you’ve taken a real look, all right Jer?”
I emptied the contents of my backpack onto his grimy counter. Pendants, rings, amulets, old dolls, all of them glowing with some level of power and magical energy fell in a heap in front of Jeremiah’s skeptical eyes. He picked up a ring, rubbed it with his thumb and squinted at it.
We were standing over the rickety table in the dusty backroom of his shop, which was where we always did business. The table was covered with implements—calipers, an eyeglass, several bits of wire and semi-precious gems that would react in different ways to the presence of magic, all standard tools of the trade.
A single, flickering bulb swayed above us, hanging by a wire, its feeble light throwing up strange shadows. The walls had rows of shelves, each filled with an amazing assortment of items, mostly junk but a few really valuable things. It was a tiny room, the size of a shoebox, and even with just Jeremiah and I in there, I felt quite claustrophobic. Not to mention the weird funk of old magic, old cat and old—Jeremiah, I guess.
“Looks like some kind of old family crest,” I said, forestalling his question, “Green aura, so I’m guessing some kind of protection, but Level 2 at the most. It won’t stop a full-fledged demon, but it’ll stop a hex or two no problem.”
“And I’m just supposed to believe you, am I? With no proof? Jeremiah wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”
“Yeah, you were born at a time when it was still all right to talk in the third person,” I said, stifling a yawn. Okay, here we go. Let the haggling begin.
It was a fine dance between us, honed over the months and years: I would bring some rare and valuable magical artifacts to ‘Jeremiah’s Oddities and Peculiarities—procuring magical objects of Significance since 1934!’ and sell them to the man himself for the lowest amount he thought he could get away with.
Jeremiah was everything you’d expect an illegal magical wares hawker to be: he was old, older than anyone else I had ever seen. It wasn’t his face, which was wrinkled like an old raisin, or his flyaway white hair that gave away his age. It was in his eyes—they were crafty and bright, still holding guile and cunning, but the sheer weight of his gaze told you that he’d seen dozens of hedge witches like you in his life and would see dozens more before he called it quits.
I didn’t know how he was still alive and running the shop, to be honest. Sellers of rare magical items weren’t known for their longevity in a business where it was routine to shake off shadows and trick jinxes and imp attacks while sleeping. If I had to guess, I would say that he managed to keep himself alive through a combination of extreme paranoia, excellent warding spells and sheer damn spite.
Anyway, after committing daylight robbery on me he would then proceed to sell the items to gullible customers for twenty times the price, but hey, none of my business. I didn’t want or need to make millions from my wares, just enough to scrape together for rent and food.
“Ah, here’s a warding amulet. Always popular, those. This looks to be a bit faded, but you can always leave it in the light of a full moon and let it recharge—“
“Those went out of fashion years ago,” sniffed Jeremiah. “Nobody wants a big honking amulet dangling about their necks where any Willa Witch could steal it! No, no, people just want tattoos now. Good and permanent. Well,” he touched his cheek absently, where a portion of his tattooed face was mottled with burns, “Mostly permanent, any rate. But this,” he said, eyes brightening as he spotted a coin, “This looks more promising.”
“Another version of the Trickster’s Coin,” I recited dutifully, “When rubbed three times it appears to multiply. Of course the new coins are—“
“Just illusions,” Jeremiah finished, his eyes lighting up with greedy interest.
“A favorite with gamblers and con-men,” I said pointedly, as he made the coin disappear into his sleeve with a casual flick of his wrist.
“I’ll give you a good price for that one,” Jeremiah said, “And don’t you go telling people what you sold to old Jeremiah. I run a respectable business here.”
“Sure you do,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Still trying to pass off that old kerosene lamp as a genie’s bottle? Oh, and here’s something I know for a fact you’ll love.”
I tapped on the counter to draw his attention to where a small, dented object sat. It must once have been golden and gleaming, perfectly circular in shape and a comfortable size to hold in the palm of your hand.
Now, though, it was rusted in places and tarnished, with scratches and dents from rough handling. But there was still no mistaking what it had once been: a pocket watch.
“Where’d you find it?” Jeremiah asked keenly. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves—always a smart thing to do when handling a magical object of unknown provenance—and lifted it up.
“Huh,” he said, with soft surprise.
“Heavy, is it?” I asked. He ignored me, busy turning it over in his hands.
“Origin?” he snapped at me after a moment.
“Unknown,” I said. He sighed, unsurprised.
He never asked where I got the items I brought to him, and I never volunteered that information. Some of my exploits weren’t strictly legal, and it was best for both of us that he maintain a façade of plausible deniability.
“I think the inscription says ‘JMR, May 24th, 1923’,” he said after a moment of studying it under a magnifying a lens.
“There’s an inscription? Oh, I thought it was just—squiggles.”
“I think it might be safe,” he said, and to my surprise, snapped of his gloves and took the compass boldly in his bare right hand.
I squeaked in an undignified way and launched myself under the nearest table.
There was a moment of silence, when the only sounds I could hear were the thundering of my pulse and my heavy breathing, loud in my ears. I was crouching on the dirty floorboards, hugging myself tight, expecting any moment to hear an explosion…
Any.
Minute.
Now.
“Well,” I said, trying for a measure of dignity as I got up and dusted myself off, “Guess it doesn’t do anything after all.”
“Guess not,” Jeremiah agreed, “Checking under the tables, were you?”
“Looking for loose change,” I joked feebly. “Let’s see what’s inside then.”
He pushed a little lever that I hadn’t noticed before, and it went in with a rusty scrape, popping the top open.
“Huh,” he said, sounding disappointed.
I pulled it over and examined the inside curiously.
The lower half was a timepiece, as expected. It wasn’t working right though, according to it the time was nine forty pm, which wasn’t right. The top half though, was more interesting. It had a tiny key, the length of one of my knuckle bones, taped to it over a piece of paper. The tape was stiff with age and I managed to wiggle a nail under it and get it unstuck.
They key was small and unremarkable looking. It could have opened any one of the older, small locks that you would see from fifty years or more ago, except that its design looked subtly different. Instead of having the usual pattern of cuts that you’d expect to see, it had little ripples on the lip instead, and I’d never seen its type before.
I prided myself on being something of an amateur lock pick. It was an essential part of my skill set, since not all magical artifacts are going to conveniently be lying around, ready to be picked up. And I’d seen a fair few locks in my life, though I kept a low profile and didn’t ever try to open anything that was very well guarded.
I sold trivial items, not things that would be immediately missed by their owners. I was very careful about not attracting the wrong kind of attention.
So I could assume that this didn’t open an ordinary type of lock, then.
“
That’s odd,” I said aloud, and set it aside.
I picked up the paper, which was neatly folded into a tiny square. Jeremiah wordlessly handed me a letter opener, which I used to carefully prise apart the layers. I had to do it very gently and slowly, so the folds wouldn’t tear, since the paper was so brittle.
I unfolded the last lengthwise fold, and caught a whiff of a familiar scent.
“What’s that?” I wondered, sniffing the paper intently.
“Smells like perfume,” Jeremiah said doubtfully.
“It’s a letter,” I said, peering down at the paper. “But I can’t make out the words.”
Time had worn down the ink so it was faded in some places.
“Ah, who cares,” Jeremiah said with a sniff, “It’s no use to me with no magic. You keep it.”
“All right,” I said, without protest. I was too curious about the letter myself to be sorry that I wasn’t getting paid for it.
I liked little mysteries, and solving this one would pass the time. Maybe it was a letter from someone’s lover, or their wife or their brother. Maybe I would be able to return it to their family, if they had any left in Chicago.
I slipped the pocket watch into the inner lining of my jacket, and promptly forgot about it.
Chapter 2
A few moments later, pocket plump with Jeremiah’s money, I was stepping out of the gloomy confines of Jer’s shop and into the busy, sunshine-filled street.
Seriously, eff my life. It was one of those very warm days in the height of the Chicago summer, which meant sweat-damp hair and cursing my decision to wear pants. It was the kind of weather that had families flocking to the Lake, and everyone resorting to wearing as little clothing as possible—tiny shorts and tank tops were the norm, which was why I got a few curious looks on the street, dressed as I was in black pants and a blank tank under a light forest green jacket.
I always thought it was ironic that I was getting the funny looks, when there were demons and imps and spirits right there, doing mischief and wreaking havoc in people’s lives. Most people just couldn’t see them.
But I could. I’d always been able to.
I could see the imp that was gnawing on the curly hair of the woman in front of me, the wraith that always haunted the fire hydrant opposite the arcade, the cambion that was playing with a group of other children. It stopped and stayed eerily, inhumanly still as I passed it, head turning to follow my movements, it eyes were dark and it seemed to swallow the light. I shuddered and didn’t let myself look back.
I didn’t talk about being able to see them anymore, I didn’t try to tell people if they were being haunted by spirits or if their child was really a cambion waiting to suck their souls out of their eyes.
Believe me, I’d tried. I had spent the first twelve years of my life talking about these horrors that only I could see, to anyone who would listen.
And all they’d done was put me on a bunch of antipsychotic medications and put me in an in-patient unit until I pretended I’d been lying about all the demons for attention.
Needless to say, that didn’t make me popular with my foster families.
I decided to stop by one of my favorite coffee shops. It was on the way to my apartment, and an iced latte was exactly what I needed to celebrate a successful sale, and being able to pay my rent for the month.
It was called Heavenly Grounds, and it was one of those hipster places that had uncomfortable industrial chairs and exposed ceilings, giving you the impression that you’d just walked into a factory. But the smell of freshly ground coffee beans was incomparable, and I drew in a deep breath as I pushed the door open and went in.
As I scanned the menu, thinking ‘damn, this place is overpriced,’ a guy walked up next to me. He was apparently reading the menu too. I could see him from the corner of my eye, and I registered a feeling of mild surprise.
He definitely didn’t fit the profile of Heavenly Grounds’s usual clientele.
On any given afternoon in a regular coffee shop, you could expect to find a wide variety of people, from harassed looking suits to business school majors to work from home types and friends getting coffee.
Heavenly Grounds was slightly different. It was located in a run-down part of Logan Square, so yuppies didn’t usually make it there, and people were usually limited to locals who were in the know, like me.
This guy stood out. He looked like he’d just stepped out of the pages of ‘WASP Monthly!’ if there was such a thing. His thick, dark hair was parted to one side like he was going to meet his grandparents for lunch, which was admittedly cute. He was wearing a dark double-breasted pea coat, of a thick lush material that made you want to run your hands over it, so already you knew that this guy wasn’t messing around. Under his coat he had a burgundy sweater vest over a white shirt and tie, and dark jeans that went down the length of his very long legs. He was a long, tall drink of water.
The guy looked like an Ivy League douche, and that was without even getting into the issue of his face. He looked like he was born to play a young Kennedy in the next Hollywood biopic, or star in the remake of Dead Poets Society.
Well, it was none of my business. He could drink as much Chemex as his heart could stand, I was just going to get my iced latte and people watch for an hour or two before going back to my gross apartment.
I finished paying five dollars (!) and change for my coffee and went to sit by the front window.
Unfortunately, I had chosen to sit at one of the communal tables where the chairs were all way too close together and the table was really narrow, so if anyone sat either next to you or directly across from you, you were in trouble.
That choice bit me in the butt a minute later, when Tall, Dark and Privileged sat down across from me. He tried to dazzle me with his smile. I was a little dazzled, but not for long.
The thing with good looking people and me was that I tended to get very surly and tight-lipped, even hostile around them. It was because I fundamentally didn’t trust them. It always seemed to me that incredibly attractive people had it easy in the world, and expected to have things handed to them.
Not to mention that I always got tongue-tied and incoherent, so me and good looking people just tended not to mix.
So when the guy flashed his white, even teeth at me (displaying some enviably excellent dental work), I smiled at him in a cold, close-mouthed way. That didn’t deter him, because of the natural confidence he had from having movie star looks and wearing designer clothes, I guess.
Could you tell that I didn’t have a lot of social interaction in my life?
“I’m Adrian,” he said.
“That’s nice,” I said, and immediately cringed. I was ninety percent sure that was the wrong answer. “I’m…pleased to meet you?”
“I think you generally also say your own name as well,” Adrian said, grinning at me, but not in a malicious way. More like he thought we were both in on the joke. That made me relax slightly.
“I’m Katie,” I said, fiddling with my cup. It was hard to be the object of his undivided attention, especially for someone like me who didn’t have a lot of experience with flirting to fall back on.
That was what was happening here, right? Flirting? Oh god, I groaned to myself, I was truly hopeless if I couldn’t even figure out when a hot guy was trying to flirt with me.
“You come here a lot, Katie?”
“Only when I can afford five dollars for a goddamn coffee,” I said, and then flushed. I probably should have said something more graceful. But then he laughed, scrunching his eyes up, and it turned him into something less like a gorgeous statue and more like a…normal person. It made him less untouchable.
He ran his hand through his hair, mussing it attractively, and I noticed a smudge of ink on his forearm. He followed my gaze and instead of covering it up, pushed his sleeve up so I could get a better look at his tattoo.
“Sorry,” I said awkwardly, “It’s really none of my business.”
“It�
�s fine, I get questions about it all the time,” he said warmly. His eyes always seemed to be slightly crinkled around the edges, like he was perpetually amused by the world.
I looked down and the swirls of ink looked back at me defiantly. They were intricate lines and swirls and symbols in a language I didn’t recognize. I got the feeling that the symbols meant something, that they weren’t just chosen on a whim during a night out with his buddies at the frat house.
And I had the oddest feeling that I’d seen it before.
“It’s lovely,” I said, “What exactly…is it? Does it mean something?”
His lovely mouth quirked up at the corner.
“Funny you should ask,” he said, “Actually, my mother’s a witch. These symbols are all part of their language. This one means ‘bird that flies in the dead of night’.”
I waited for the punchline. And waited. Then I realized the guy was serious.
“Oh,” I said weakly. How did people react to such announcements usually? “That’s…lovely?”
“You don’t believe me,” he said, not looking offended.
“It’s not something you hear every day. From complete strangers. Or anyone else.”
“I would have thought that you, of all people, would believe me.”
“What do you mean, me of all people?” I said, feeling the edges of panic bleed into my tone. I kept still, watching him for any sudden movements. He stayed perfectly relaxed, slouched in his seat with boneless elegant.
But his eyes had lost their look of careless mischief. They were watchful now.
“You saw the cambion in the street, and the gargoyles in the shadow of the buildings. You see the hauntings and the spirits and the things that nobody else can see. Because you’re a witch too.”
“No,” I said, scrambling up. My hand trembled on the handle of my coffee cup, spilling a little in my hurry. “Listen, I don’t know who you are or why you’re talking to me, but I suggest you get some help—“
“Like you did, you mean?”
I stared at him.
“William and Alice Ritter,” he recited, cupping the back of his hand with his palms, “A nice couple. Lived on a cul de sac. They were in their forties when they took in Sophia Landry, a thirteen year old foster kid with a history of visual and auditory hallucinations. They sent her to psychiatrists and neurologists, but it just didn’t take. The meds weren’t helping, and she kept saying that she saw things that frightened the other kids at school. Finally, after years of failed treatments, she ran away and nobody’s seen Sophia since.”
