And It Harm None

by Isobel Bird

  They walked down the street, looking in the shop windows. They were standing in front of an Old Navy, admiring the endless array of eight-dollar T-shirts displayed in the window, when Annie heard someone call out her name. She turned and saw Kate, Cooper, Jane, and Sasha walking toward them.

  “Hey,” she said. “What are you guys up to?”

  “It’s Friday night,” Sasha answered. “We thought we’d hit a movie and scope out guys. Well, most of us would scope out guys,” she added, glancing at Jane and grinning wickedly. Then she looked at Annie’s aunt and made a face suggesting that she’d said the wrong thing. “I mean we thought we’d hit a movie,” she amended.

  “Please,” Aunt Sarah said. “I’m not that old. And for your information, I know a thing or two about scoping out guys.”

  Annie’s friends laughed.

  “Do you want to come with us?” Kate asked Annie and her aunt. She turned to Aunt Sarah. “We could always use some guy-scoping hints.”

  “You go,” Aunt Sarah said to Annie. “With Meg out of the house, I can enjoy a few hours on my own.”

  “Are you sure?” Annie asked. She really wanted to join her friends, but she didn’t want to just dump her aunt like a bad date.

  “I’m sure,” Aunt Sarah said reassuringly. “Have a good time.”

  “Okay, then,” Annie said. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “Take your time,” her aunt said. “It’s not often I get the place to myself.” She waved good-bye and left the girls standing on the sidewalk.

  “So, you were going to stand us up for something better, huh?” Cooper teased Annie.

  “Yeah,” Kate added. “We called your house to see if you wanted to come and there was no answer. Now we know why.”

  “It’s a long story,” Annie said. “I’ll fill you in later.”

  It took a good twenty minutes of arguing before they settled on something they could all watch, but eventually they got into the movie and settled down. When they emerged ninety minutes later, some of them saying how great the movie was and the rest saying how bad it was, they stood outside debating what to do next.

  “How about getting something to eat?” Cooper suggested. “Those licorice twists just didn’t do it for me.”

  “I’m in,” Kate said, and was immediately seconded by Jane and Annie.

  “Sasha?” Cooper asked.

  “Oh, um, I can’t,” said Sasha. “I told my mom I’d be home before eleven.” She checked her watch. “I should go.”

  “Do you want a ride home?” Cooper asked her.

  Sasha shook her head. “No,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, right?” she added. “At the bookstore?”

  The others nodded. They had agreed to meet on Saturday morning at Crones’ Circle, which was holding a one-day workshop on drumming. They were all looking forward to it.

  “Okay,” Sasha said. “’Bye.”

  She turned and walked away quickly. The others watched her for a minute. Then Cooper said, “She seemed like she was in an awful hurry, didn’t she?”

  “Just a little,” agreed Jane. “What was that about?”

  “Maybe she has a hot date,” said Kate.

  The others shot her looks.

  “Well, maybe she does,” said Kate. “You never know.”

  “Please,” Annie said. “If Sasha had a hot date the whole world would know about it. Whatever it is, I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. Now, let’s go eat, my stomach is demanding an apology for all of the Mc-junk I ate earlier.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The broken glass that littered the floor was not the worst of it. That could be swept away—was, in fact, being swept away by Archer when the girls arrived at Crones’ Circle the next morning for the workshop. Already most of it was in a pile, ready to be thrown into the waiting trash can.

  “What happened?” Annie asked as she, Cooper, and Kate stood in the open doorway, looking around.

  The store was a mess. Books had been thrown onto the floor. Shelves had been ransacked. Candles of all colors were scattered on the floor, and the jars of incense had been overturned, their multicolored powders blending together in a fragrant stain. Sophia stood by the cash register, looking at smashed cases that had once held jewelry—pentacles and Goddess pendants andsilver rings—and at the open cash drawer in which nothing but a few loose coins remained.

  “Somebody broke in last night,” she said.

  The girls entered the store, stepping over the broken glass and the spilled incense. Simeon, the big gray cat who called Crones’ Circle his home, came out from beneath a bookcase and began rubbing against Cooper’s leg.

  “At least they didn’t hurt Simi,” said Sophia.

  “Do you have any idea who did this?” asked Kate.

  Sophia shook her head. “No,” she said unhappily. “We left here at around ten o’clock last night and everything was fine. When Archer came in this morning to set up for the workshop, this is what she found.”

  “What about the alarm?” Cooper asked. “Why didn’t it go off?”

  “We’re having a new one installed,” answered Sophia. “The old one wasn’t working.” She surveyed her store, taking in the mess. “At least no one was hurt,” she said, obviously trying to make the best of a bad situation. “That’s the important thing.”

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  The girls turned to see Sasha coming in. She was carrying a cup of coffee from the shop around the corner, and she was wearing sunglasses. When she saw the condition of the store she removed her glasses and let out a low whistle. “It must have been some party,” she said.

  “We’ll help you clean up,” said Annie to Sophia.

  The girls all pitched in, returning books to the shelves, straightening up what could be straightened, and throwing out what couldn’t be salvaged. Within a short time the store looked a lot better, but it was still a bruised and battered version of its old self.

  “It looks like they only took what they thought they could sell,” remarked Cooper as they worked. “There are no books missing, just stuff like jewelry and cash.”

  “Whoever did it must have known the alarm wasn’t working,” Archer said. “No one would try to break into a store with an alarm system. They’d have to be nuts.”

  “Who knew about the alarm?” asked Annie.

  “Just the repair guy and everyone who works here,” answered Archer.

  “That’s a pretty short list,” Cooper said. “Why would any of those people want to steal from the store?”

  “That’s what makes this so weird,” remarked Sophia. “No one who works here would steal from the store. We all own it together. If someone steals, she’s really only stealing from herself.”

  “Maybe someone was watching the place and noticed that you weren’t setting an alarm when you left at night,” suggested Sasha as she restacked a table of books.

  “Maybe,” Sophia said. “It doesn’t really matter, though. What’s done is done. All we can do is go forward.”

  “You have insurance though, right?” asked Sasha. “I mean, this is all covered?”

  Sophia shook her head. “Our policy doesn’t cover theft,” she said. “We save money by having a very basic policy. So this all comes out of our pockets.”

  Sasha frowned. “Oh,” she said quietly, and went back to cleaning up.

  “I just can’t believe someone would do something like this,” Kate said. “It makes me so angry. I wish we could do a spell or something to teach the person a lesson.”

  Archer put an arm around Kate as she walked past carrying the broom. “Didn’t you learn your lesson about putting spells on people the hard way?” she joked.

  Kate blushed. “You know what I mean,” she said. “I just hate to see whoever did this get away with it.”

  “You never really get away with anything,” said Sophia. “Remember what the Law of Three says: whatever energy you put out comes back to
you three times as strong. I imagine that whoever broke into the store is really hurting.” She looked around the store. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to tell that person a thing or two.”

  “You missed some great pizza last night after you left,” said Kate, turning to Sasha. “We talked Cooper into trying the White Russian at Pie in the Sky. Tons of cheese.”

  “Yeah, and thanks to all of that cheese I had the worst dreams last night,” remarked Cooper testily.

  “Oh, it couldn’t possibly be all of the calamari you had first, could it?” Annie teased. “You were eating so much squid you looked like a shark in a feeding frenzy.”

  Cooper shot Annie an evil look. “I wouldn’t talk if I were you, Miss Mozzarella Fingers,” she said. She held up her hand and wiggled her fingers at Annie menacingly.

  “Okay, everything looks a million times better,” said Sophia, sounding a little less stressed out than she had half an hour before. “People should be arriving for the workshop any minute. Why don’t you all help Archer set up the back room?”

  “You mean you’re still going to hold the workshop?” Kate asked.

  Sophia nodded. “We can’t let a little thing like this shut us down,” she said. “We’ll get something to cover the broken glass in the door and keep out the cold, but otherwise we are open for business.” She stressed the final three words as though making an official declaration.

  The girls joined Archer in the rear of the store and helped her set cushions all around the room. A few minutes later the workshop leader—a tall, thin African American woman—came in carrying her hand drum in a padded case slung across her back.

  “Toni!” Archer exclaimed, giving the woman a big hug. “It’s great to see you again.”

  “Same here,” said the woman, whose hair was a mass of dreadlocks and whose arms rippled with muscle as she set her drum down. “How long has it been?”

  “Since last year’s Wise Woman festival,” Archer said. “Remember, it rained all weekend and we finally decided we’d had enough of being in the lodge so we did the spiral dance in the middle of a thunderstorm?”

  Toni laughed. “Right,” she said. “And if I recall, you were the one who suggested that everyone cover themselves in mud and jump in the lake afterward.”

  “It was very primal,” Archer said to the girls, who were listening raptly.

  “What happened here?” asked Toni. “It looks like someone played hardball with your front door.”

  “We had a little intrusion last night,” explained Archer.

  Toni shook her head. “It’s a sad day when someone will rob a little bookstore like this when there’s a great big chain bookstore filled with cash sitting right across the street,” she said. Then she looked at the others. “I’m just kidding, of course,” she added seriously.

  Everybody laughed at her joke. Toni nodded appreciatively. “Keep it up,” she said. “I like a crowd that thinks I’m funny.”

  “What are we going to do today?” Annie asked her.

  “Have you ever drummed before?” Toni inquired.

  Annie shook her head. “I’ve always wanted to, though,” she said.

  “Here’s your chance,” said Toni, handing her the drum she’d just removed from its case. “Play me something.”

  Annie turned red. “I can’t,” she said. “I don’t know how. Cooper is the musician.”

  “Cooper?” Toni said, cocking her head. “Which one of you is Cooper?”

  “That would be me,” Cooper said, raising her hand. “But I play guitar, not drums.”

  Toni squinted her eyes at them. “I think you’re all just a little shy,” she said. “Okay, then, I’ll start.”

  She picked up the drum and began slapping her palms against it, making all kinds of different sounds. It really sounded as if the drum was talking to them, and they all stood, transfixed, as she played for a couple of minutes.

  “That’s what you’ll be able to do when I’m through with you all,” she said, grinning.

  The others looked at her doubtfully, but there was no time to argue as the other workshop participants began to file in and take their places. The girls took theirs as well and waited expectantly until everyone was there and Toni began the class. After a few welcoming remarks she launched into her presentation.

  “The Goddess loves to dance,” she told her audience as she began to play a gentle rhythm. “And she especially likes to dance to a good beat.” She changed her hand movements, resulting in strong tapping that sounded like a proud woman stepping confidently. “When you play the drums, try to imagine your favorite goddess dancing to it. Imagine her swinging her skirts and throwing her head back.”

  Toni played for a while as the class participants nodded their heads and clapped their hands along with her. Then she stopped and looked at allof them. “And now it’s time for you to play,” she said. She nodded to a number of drums that Archerhad set up on one side of the room. “Each of you pick a drum,” she said. “There are enough to go around.”

  They all stood up and walked to the drums, looking them over and choosing the one that appealed to them most. Then they returned to their places and sat with the drums in their laps.

  “The first thing you need to learn is that your drum is not a baby,” Toni said. “Don’t be afraid of hurting it. You’re all holding on to those things like they’re newborn infants.”

  People laughed as Toni showed them the correct way to hold their drums. Then she began by teaching them basic hand movements, which they copied until she was satisfied that they were all doing them more or less correctly. Fairly quickly they were all playing easy rhythms.

  “See,” said Toni. “I told you all that you could do it.”

  The whole time they were playing, Kate noticed that Sasha kept looking at her watch. “Do you need to be somewhere?” she asked her friend.

  Sasha shook her head. “Just checking the time,” she said. “I was hoping lunch was coming up.”

  As if that were a cue, Toni told them they could stop playing. “We’ll break for lunch now,” she said, putting her drum down. “Eat up, because when we come back we’re going to jam.”

  The girls set their drums carefully to the side and gathered in the middle of the room to decide where to go for lunch.

  “No pizza,” Cooper said automatically.

  “How about sandwiches at the deli down the street?” suggested Kate.

  That idea met with everyone’s approval, and the girls left the store and headed for the deli. Once there, they stood in line and debated what to have. Sasha approached the counter first.

  “Give me a roast beef and cheese on sourdough,” she said. “With the works. And also give me a turkey breast on whole wheat with honey mustard, Swiss, and tomato. Hold the lettuce. Oh, and two bottled waters.”

  “Wow,” Cooper said. “I guess you really worked up an appetite doing all that drumming.”

  “Yeah,” Sasha answered. “I guess I did.”

  When her sandwiches came, Sasha took the bag and turned to the others. “I’ll meet you back at the store in a little while,” she said. “I have some errands I have to run for Thea. You know, pick-up-stuff-at-the-drugstore kinds of things.”

  “What about your lunch?” asked Annie, who was paying for her ham and cheese on rye. “You have to eat.”

  “Oh, I will,” Sasha assured her. “I can eat and walk at the same time. See ya.”

  She left the store—and her friends—and headed down the street. Cooper looked at the others, raising one eyebrow. “Am I the only one who thinks that girl is up to something?” she asked.

  “No,” Annie said. “You’re not.”

  “Am I the only one who thinks we should follow her and see where she’s going?” Cooper tried.

  Kate and Annie looked at one another. They were holding their bags of lunch in their hands.

  “No,” Kate said. “You’re not.”

  “Let’s go,” Cooper declared, heading for the door.


  They walked in the direction Sasha had gone. They could see her about half a block ahead of them, moving fast and dodging around anyone who got in her way.

  “Wherever she’s going, she’s definitely in a hurry,” Annie said.

  “Well, there are no drugstores up this way that I can remember,” said Cooper as they headed away from the main shopping area. “In fact, there’s not much up here at all.”

  They followed Sasha as she made her way to the park that sat at the edge of the shopping district. In the summer the park was filled with people walking, playing, and enjoying the weather. In the February chill it was deserted. But Sasha walked right into it as if there was something she needed to see, and right away.

  Kate, Annie, and Cooper hung back, not wanting Sasha to spot them if she turned around. But she seemed completely focused on moving forward, never looking back to see if she was being followed or watched. She walked straight through the park to the area where, in nicer weather, a huge fountain splashed into the air, filling a large surrounding pool with water. Now, with the water turned off, the fountain was filled mainly with dead leaves and garbage.

  Sasha stopped at the fountain and looked around. Her friends hid behind a large tree and peered around it at her, waiting to see what she was doing. Sasha paced uneasily, checking her watch frequently and scanning the surrounding area.

  “What is she doing?” Annie whispered.

  “Whatever it is, I have a feeling it’s not good,” Cooper answered.

  “Do you think she’s buying drugs?” suggested Kate. “I mean, this area is kind of known for that.”

  No one said anything. The truth was, they didn’t know a lot about Sasha’s past. She was a runaway, and they knew she’d had a pretty tough life on the streets. While none of them thought their friend would do anything like take drugs, the fact was they weren’t totally sure she wouldn’t. But none of them wanted to say so, and so they stood silently and watched.

  “There,” Annie said a minute later. “Look.”

  Cooper and Kate looked where Annie was pointing and saw someone walking toward Sasha. It was a girl. She seemed nervous, looking around a lot and constantly playing with the sunglasses she wore even though it was a cloudy day.