by J. J. Neeson
“What about items you don’t think will sell?”
“Even the unlovables need a home.”
Reigh smiled inwardly. “And what if you have too much stock for the shelves? I know Broken Ridge is a small town, but from what I can tell, you’re the only thrift store around.”
“If the day comes, I’ll build more shelves. Or rather, I’ll buy you a hammer and nails and let you do the rest. You know your way around a box of power tools.” It wasn’t a question.
“I was raised by a single mother who had to be both mom and dad to me. She taught me how to take care of myself.”
“And where is your mother now?”
“Don’t you already know?”
Mrs. Florence frowned. “Don’t be smart. I don’t know everything. And I don’t need no sass for what I do know.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it as an insult. My mom is traveling the world as a hippy. She took off not long after my high school graduation, after I started working,” Reigh recited as she dusted down a set of rose-patterned plates. “Freak’n hell, I can’t believe that was over a decade ago. I haven’t seen her since, but she calls and sends postcards. In the last postcard I received, she was couch surfing her way across Malaysia.”
It hit her then that she had no way of giving her mom her new address. She would have to call the post office in Vegas and have her mail forwarded.
“And your father?”
“I haven’t a clue. He disappeared before I was born.”
“A man like that doesn’t deserve to be called a father,” Mrs. Florence huffed.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Reigh said, venom in her thoughts. Suddenly, the smell of smoke filled the room. “What’s that?” she asked.
“What?”
“The smoke.” She stopped dusting and looked around. She couldn’t see the smoke, only smell it. It was like having thick ash in her nose.
“There’s nothing here, child.”
As quickly as it came, the smell disappeared. “Never mind,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m imagining things.”
“Doubtful,” Mrs. Florence mused.
The bell on the door chimed and a tall grey-haired woman walked into the store. She was beautiful, even in her golden years, with full lips, milky white skin, and high cheekbones. Her light brown eyes were heavy and almond-shaped, and completely intolerant.
The woman briefly looked her over. “I see you finally found yourself some help,” she said to Mrs. Florence in a Southern accent that sounded like it came straight from the Civil War era—a little French, a little country.
“More like the help found me. Blanchet, this is Reigh.”
“I know who she is,” the woman said, pouting. “She’s the one who brought the storm.”
“And only the storm,” Mrs. Florence said firmly. “Nothing else.”
“We’ll see,” Blanchet scuffed, refusing to greet Reigh. “You know why I’m here. The pottery circle is meeting tonight. We need the special candles. The ones you got from Verona. They’re the most powerful.”
Reigh stopped dusting. “I’ll be at the pottery circle,” she announced. “Lu invited me.”
Blanchet wasn’t happy at the news. “Of course she did. Don’t hold us back, girl, because we have important things to do tonight. The threat is out there, and it hunts us.”
Reigh had no clue what threat she was talking about, but the atmosphere in the store turned somber. Neither the sun pouring in through the front window, reflecting prisms off the crystals that hung from the ceiling, nor the sprightly rumba on the radio playing in the background could improve its mood.
“Maybe I’ll stay home tonight then.”
“That might be best.”
Mrs. Florence was not having it. “No. Reigh was invited. She comes.”
“Fine,” Blanchet said. “But I’ve also summoned Jessa-Marie from Brockwell. I want to discuss with her the possibility of Olivia—”
“No,” Mrs. Florence stated firmly, cutting her off. “Olivia stays where she’s at. You know she must. It’s not yet time.”
“That girl has been up in those mountains for far too long. I don’t like it.”
“It would be too great a risk to bring her down. Jessa-Marie is her cousin. She’ll agree. She wants what’s best for Olivia… and everyone else. The threat we face now is immense, but not enough to draw Olivia away from her confinement.”
“Say what you will, Jessa-Marie is still coming to the circle,” Blanchet insisted. “So bring the candles.” Then she stormed out of the store. This time, when the bell on the door chimed, it didn’t sound so sweet.
Reigh watched Blanchet go, wondering what the hell the two women had been talking about. There was a threat in Broken Ridge?
“I’ll be in the backroom,” Mrs. Florence declared, agitated. She gathered a leather-bound book from behind the front counter and took it with her to the back.
There was nothing Reigh could do, so she returned to her work, the unusual conversation lingering on her mind. Maybe I should have kept on driving, she thought. If it weren’t for my date with Calder, and the fact that I’m dead broke, I would do just that. Drive until I was in a place where no threat could not follow.
In need of a distraction, she went to the radio on the front counter and switched the station to classic rock, humming to Sweet Child of Mine by Guns and Roses on her way back to where she was cleaning the home wares. Before she reached where she’d left the dust rag, the radio switched back to the rumba music, though there was no one else in the room.
Surrendering to the whim of the radio gods, Reigh picked up a ceramic statue of a white wolf lying on its paws. The detailing was fine and incredibly realistic, particularly the way the wolf looked up pleadingly, a torment about the creature.
“He wants you to take him home,” Mrs. Florence said, returning from the backroom. “You can have it.”
“Do you know its history?” she asked, intrigued.
“Yes, but you’ll have to find out for yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s more fun that way.” Mrs. Florence told her, laughing loudly. “Life is nothing without a bit of fun.”
Abruptly, the woman fell silent and tucked her head to the side, listening. “You can wrap the statue up later. We have to go.” She hurried to the front counter and picked up her keys.
“Where are we going?” Reigh asked, following.
“To the rice mill. You’ll understand when we get there.”
***
Sitting in the passenger’s seat of Mrs. Florence’s cramped green Volkswagen Rabbit, Reigh didn’t have to wait for them to reach the rice mill to understand what was happening. She could see the flames rising into the air from several miles away. A cloud of black smoke gathered above the flames and spread across the sky.
When they arrived, Lu greeted them near the curb where Mrs. Florence parked, dressed in her blue coverall from the garage. “According to the manager on duty, the mill just lit up,” she informed them.
In front of Lu stood dozens of others, all watching as firefighters loosened a giant hose from the back of their truck. Amongst acres of rice fields that stretched far into the landscape was a single building—the mill. From what Reigh could decipher through the flames, the mill was old, probably no more than a few stories tall, and built of stone aged by the centuries. That stone was now turning to black ash as the fire had its way. The firefighters worked fast, but it would be too late. The building was gone.
“Was anyone hurt?” Mrs. Florence asked. “I can’t tell. The energy here is blocked.”
“Not badly,” Lu reported. “Most of the employees were out in the fields; the few inside when the fire started were able to escape, but the manager does have minor burns across the left side of his face. He rushed everyone out before he left and was struck by a falling beam as he ran for the door.”
Mrs. Florence was tense. Reigh could feel a static energy building around her. It worried her. “Doe
s anyone have any idea as to how the fire may have started?” she asked.
Lu glanced uncertainly at Mrs. Florence before answering, “Possibly, but it’s too early to say for sure.”
“I have no doubt what happened,” Mrs. Florence claimed, “but this is nether the place nor the time to discuss it. There are pressing matters to deal with.”
Closing her eyes, she grabbed Reigh’s hand tight. The woman may be in her sixties, but her grip was unbearably strong, hurting her. “I need to borrow your ancestors for a moment,” she said then began to chant in an unknown language.
Reigh felt a tingle go up her spine, and she shivered. The air around her went cold, even as the sun continued to blaze around them, as forceful as the flames just beyond. As Mrs. Florence chanted, the black smoke above the flames grew dense, like a cloud.
And then the rain fell, crashing away from the cloud of smoke and onto the mill, drenching the flames from above as the firefighters worked the hose below. It didn’t take long before the fire was out, its only sign of life the glowing embers within the burnt-out hollow of the mill.
“The mill is gone,” Mrs. Florence pronounced sadly, dropping Reigh’s hand. “Two hundred years of history destroyed.”
“Along with half the town’s economy,” Lu sobbed, her eyes red.
“No need for tears, child. The flames did not reach the fields. We can still harvest our rice, and another mill will be constructed. It just won’t be the same as the last.” She glanced down in remorse, causing Reigh to wonder if perhaps Mrs. Florence had a personal connection to the mill.
“This has to stop,” Lu professed. “We can’t let this carry on.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Mrs. Florence asserted. “At the pottery circle tonight, we’ll devise a much more aggressive approach to handling the threat.” She turned to Reigh. “Make sure you’re there tonight. We need you. If we’re going to be threatened by fire, we’ll continue to make it rain.”
***
Reigh set the statue of the white wolf on the table next to her couch. It appeared settled in its place within her home, less pleading, but there was still a torment to the wolf that pulled at her heartstrings.
“You’ll be safe here,” she promised as Lu’s truck pulled up outside the shack, crunching the ground beneath its massive tires. “Gotta go.”
Pulling a black sweater over her head, she confronted the night, unsure of how the hours would treat her, of what they would reveal. Her hand bruised from Mrs. Florence’s grip, she did her best to open the door of the truck without wincing.
“Ready?” Lu asked, still dressed in her coverall.
Reigh hopped in. “Why do I get the feeling tonight has nothing to do with pottery?” she predicted, buckling her seatbelt as they drove off.
“It did, once, long ago, and it still kind of does. It’ll all make sense, in time.”
“I think I understand,” Reigh said, staring up at the night sky to the stars that gave light to the bayou. “The universe has its secrets.”
“Magic is no secret,” Lu told her.
There it was. Magic. Reigh didn’t immediately reject the concept, it explained everything happening around her, but it did leave her with questions she knew would not be answered anytime soon.
“But I’m very uncomfortable with that word,” Lu continued. “Magic. It sounds so fictional. What we have are natural abilities—abilities we can access and train, the same way someone chooses to learn how to play a violin then slowly perfects their mastery over the instrument throughout the years.”
“What about those who are tone deaf?”
“It happens,” Lu admitted. “Some people are stronger at magic than others. But just because you’re not good at something doesn’t mean you can’t try. The important thing to know is that everyone born of this universe has magical abilities. Even you.”
“I think I’m one of the tone deaf ones,” Reigh foretold.
“No. You’re not. Trust me.”
It was difficult to think of herself as someone capable of magic, and yet she knew there was truth in what Lu told her.
When she didn’t respond, Lu added, “There won’t be many at the circle tonight. One of our girls is a soldier stationed in the Middle East. Diya is in India disputing an arranged marriage. And Poppy is in the hospital.” Her mood faltered at the mention of her friend Poppy. “But we’ll have to make due with who’s around.”
“I met Blanchet earlier. She’s… abrupt.” There was another word Reigh wanted to use, but she didn’t want to offend Lu. Bitch.
Lu grinned. “Yes, she is, but she has good intentions. We actually call her Mama Blanchet, everyone except Mrs. Florence, seeing as the two are roughly the same age. It’s kind of a sign of respect, so you should probably address her the same from now on. As founder of the pottery circle, Mama Blanchet is the mother hen of the group. That abruptness is actually just a fierce protectiveness she feels for all her girls.”
“Girls? There are no men in the pottery circle?”
“Men are just as powerful as women, but Mama Blanchet has had far too many ex-husbands to allow any into our group. It’s a shame, really,” Lu said with disappointment. “I would love for Samuel to join us. I hate that he can’t be involved. I think he feels left out when I attend.”
“So your husband knows?”
“Of course. There’s nothing to hide. Magic, if it must be called that, is common in Broken Ridge. People practice magic openly. This town draws the talented and the curious in.”
“But it’s so quiet here,” Reigh observed. “Where are the news cameras? The video bloggers? Why doesn’t the whole world know about Broken Ridge?”
“Because magic doesn’t just exist in Broken Ridge. It exists everywhere. Most people just aren’t ready to accept it, and that’s okay. Think how long it took civilization to accept that the Earth wasn’t the center of the universe, as was widely believed. Humanity is relatively young. It’s still learning. That’s because nothing God does happens overnight. He has a process. There are videos out there showcasing miraculous feats, especially on YouTube—a car flipping over a person and yet that person walks away, beings of light caught on hospital cameras. It’s all out there, but people write it off as coincidence or special effects done with video editing. When people are ready to understand, they will.”
“Who’s Olivia?”
Lu tensed. “What makes you ask?”
“Mama Blanchet and Mrs. Florence were talking about her today, after Mama Blanchet revealed she had invited Jessa-Marie to the circle tonight.”
“Jessa-Marie is coming?”
“I guess so.”
Lu looked conflicted as she turned off the road onto a patch of grass. “I’m excited to see her, but if she’s here, that means the threat is worse than we realized.”
There was no time to explain more. They had arrived, the drive short. Lu parked the truck next to Mrs. Florence’s green Volkswagen Rabbit. They were still on the bayou, the swamp within sight. Nearby, Mrs. Florence passed out candles to a group of women—Mama Blanchet, Tallie from the library, and a stunning girl who looked to be in her mid-twenties with long dark hair, olive skin, and cat-like eyes. The unknown girl stood slightly ajar from the others, her reluctance to be there written within her folded arms and hard scowl.
“Do you know everyone here?” Lu asked as they stepped out of the truck.
“I know of them, except for the youngest.”
“That’s Nikki. She’s your neighbor.”
“The family of gypsies?”
“Yeah. I would have picked her up as well, but she prefers to travel by boat. All her family do. She’s a nice girl, but she’s hard to reach. Her guard is up higher than anyone else I know. She doesn’t really interact with us outside the circle. The only reason I know her as well as I do, and it’s not very well at all, is because, like Samuel, she’s a grad student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University. Samuel is steadily earning his
way to a PhD in astronomy. Nikki is studying astrophysics.”
“Astrophysics? Like the man with the awesome robot voice?”
“Yep.”
“Wow,” Reigh said. “Impressive. But isn’t Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge? It’s a bit far from here.”
“Samuel has put his thesis on hold until we can afford to hire employees at the garage. Nikki lives in Baton Rouge but is in town for an annual festival her people celebrate.”
The hum of a loud radio interrupted the quiet around them. A second truck swerved onto the grass and parked hazardously next to Lu’s. Rusted and old, the truck was in need of repair. And a good paint job. From it bounded a sprightly redhead who looked to be in her early forties with curls to her hair and a crook to her nose, which she somehow pulled off, and freckles across her rosy cheeks.
“Holla y’all! Jessa-Marie is here!” The woman approached her and Lu, stomping through the grass in cowgirl boots, skinny jeans, and a cotton peasant blouse. “Oh good, a new girl,” she said, eyeing Reigh. “The rest of you alls was starting to bore me. I’m Jessa-Marie. I’m a bit country cray, but don’t worry, you’ll love me.”
“I’m Reigh.”
“Like the sun or the singer?”
“Neither.”
“Alrighty then, Reighbow. I’m digging the cut-offs.” She turned to Lu. “And you, misses. Why haven’t I seen you yet down in Brockwell?”
Lu somehow smiled and frowned at the same time. “I’m sorry, Jessa-Marie. I’ve been busy with the garage and the kids. But I’ve missed you.”
“I’d believe that if I wasn’t less than an hour down the road,” Jessa-Marie said, but she hugged Lu as if she were family.
As a trio, they joined the others. Standing amongst the circle, Reigh was out of place. She did not fear the magic the women practiced, but she felt vulnerable next to them, similar to how she’d felt prowling the more elite casinos in Vegas with her girlfriends in search of rich men to buy them drinks, surrounded by a wealth she knew nothing of.
