nancy werlock's diary s01 - episodes 1-7

by Julie Ann Dawson

  “This is Nancy,” say Nadine. “She’s an exorcist.”

  “Um, not really,” I say. “I’m just filling in for my mom.” Jason raises an eyebrow at me. “She’s dead so she couldn’t be here.” Brilliant, I think. Way to make a first impression.

  “I see,” he says. “Honey, can we talk for a minute? Would you excuse us Ms—”

  “Warlock…Werlock. Nancy Werlock.”

  “Riiiigght.” Jason leads his wife into the kitchen.

  I sit on the loveseat and curse my good hearing. Jason isn’t exactly yelling at her. Not in an abusive husband sort of way (I am very familiar with that type of yelling in my line of work.) Nadine isn’t crying, but I can tell by the way her voice rises and falls that she wanted to cry. This is a couple with serious communication problems.

  “You know what, Nadine. Do what you want,” says Jason as he storms through the living room. “I gotta get to the office to finish up the reports and then I’m going straight to the airport.”

  “You’re not coming home for dinner?” she says as she followed after him.

  “Just...go.” He waves his hands toward me. “Do whatever it is you two are doing.”

  As soon as he closes the front door, I jump out of my seat. “Nadine, wait here.” I follow Jason outside and run up to the car door before he closes it. “Mr. Porter, can I just have a minute before you go?”

  He looks up at me and huffs. “Look, Ms. Warlock—”

  “Werlock.”

  “Whatever your name is. I don’t know how much my wife is paying you for this sham. And I don’t even care. But my house is not haunted. There are no demons. There are no ghosts.”

  “I know,” I interrupt him. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Funny, my wife thinks you’re here to do an exorcism or some crap.” He tries to close the car door, but I put my hand in the way. The last time I did that, the husband slammed the door anyway and I ended up with two broken fingers. One of the hazards of being in the counseling profession with poor reflexes. Jason, however, opens the door wider and turns to face me instead.

  “Mr. Porter, you are a very attractive man,” I say. He turns bright red and looked toward the steering wheel to avoid eye contact. “You’re an attractive man who spends far too much time on the road away from his wife.”

  “You think I’m cheating on my wife?”

  “No, cheaters don’t tend to get embarrassed when a woman calls them attractive.”

  He takes a deep breath and sits back in his seat. “Nadine’s been acting strange ever since the kids moved out last year. I told her she should get a hobby. Volunteer somewhere. Maybe take a class or something at the community college.”

  “Has she ever worked outside the home?”

  “She worked while I got my Master’s degree. Then after things took off with my career she stayed home to raise the girls.”

  “Mr. Porter, you’re wife’s going through menopause. Or is about to.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “She didn’t have to. She’s eating chocolate cereal with soy milk. My mom did the same thing when she went through the change-of-life.”

  Actually, mom didn’t do quite the same thing. For her, it was milkshakes made with Kahlua and Soy Delicious Chocolate Obsession ice cream. But I didn’t want Jason to think my mom was some sort of post-menopausal alcoholic demon hunter.

  “So all of this haunting or possession stuff? It’s in her head?”

  “More like misinterpretation. The rooms aren’t getting hotter or colder. She’s getting hot flashes. She’s having trouble sleeping and she’s lonely, so her brain is hearing the normal house-settling sounds and making them out to be something else. Things aren’t being moved on her. She’s having brain farts from stress. Her handsome husband is off for days or weeks at a time doing gods-know-what and she’s home feeling frumpy and unattractive.”

  “My wife is a beautiful woman, Ms. Werlock. There is no reason for her to feel that way.”

  “When was the last time you told her that?”

  Jason rubs his temples. “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “How about you call the office and see if someone else can do those pressing reports for you, and you can spend an hour helping us cleanse the spirits?”

  “But you just admitted there are no ghosts in the house.”

  “And what do you think your wife wants to hear? ‘I’m sorry, Nadine, but your just going through menopause so deal with it?’ or ‘See, your husband loves you so much he wants to help chase away the bad spirits bothering you?’”

  Jason gets out of the car and pulls his cell phone out of his pocket. “You should be a marriage counselor, you know that?”

  I pull a business card out of my purse and hand it to him. “Actually, I am. The shop was Mom’s thing. I’m just—”

  “Filling in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, are you charging the exorcism rate or the counseling rate for this house call?”

  “Neither,” I say. “This one’s on Mom.”

  The “exorcism” went well. Nadine said she could feel the demon leave the house. Jason played along and said he felt something as well. As I was leaving, I caught him out of the corner of my eye as he kissed his wife on the cheek and whispered something to her. I got the distinct impression someone was going to be rescheduling his flight.

  I go back to the shop after my last appointment of the day. I still have boxes of paperwork to go through. There is an entire folder of receipts from various dollar stores and flea markets that just say Item, Taxable and Item, Non-Taxable but no actual description of what the items were.

  I go to the junk drawer and pull out the keychain. I sit on the floor behind the register and hold it between my hands while speaking the Through the Veil incantation. It’s not that I don’t know better. You’re not supposed to bother the dead for the first few months or so. Not until they have had time to acclimate to their new condition and all. But Mom is strong-willed and if she is in the middle of something she just wouldn’t answer. Like when she would check the Caller ID and not answer the phone because the finals of American Idol were on or something like that.

  A breeze sneaks into the room, carrying the familiar scent of lavender.

  “You set me up,” I say.

  “Hello to you too, Ms. Sassy,” says Mom. “I’m dead one week and already you’ve lost your manners?”

  “Sorry.”

  “So what am I being blamed for this time?”

  I tell Mom about Nadine and how I found the keychain.

  “Werlocks are demonologists. Not psychics. I had no idea that woman would be coming in. It’s your own guilty conscience talking.”

  “I miss you.”

  “I know, honey.”

  “Everything OK? You settling in alright and all that?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. Your grandmother is helping me get comfortable.” Mom paused for a moment. “Oh, Nana says ‘Hello,’ honey.”

  “Hey, Nana,” I answer back as a hint of honeysuckles drifted across the room. “Miss you, too.”

  “You know you’re not supposed to call so soon,” says Mom. “And you didn’t call me to talk about the Porters…And Nana says that was nice of you to help them like that. It was very sweet.”

  “Thanks, Nana.” I pull my knees up to my chest. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “No worries, Honey. Not like I’m going to get in any trouble for talking the call.”

  “No, I don’t mean calling you. I should have been here.” I’m trying hard not to start crying. It’s dangerous to release strong emotions while the Veil is open. Not everyone on the other side is content to be there, and some spirits can ride an emotion back to the material world. But they have to get pass both Mom AND Nana, first. So I just start bawling.

  “Oh, Honey. It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes it is! If I had stayed then you might not have been at that intersection. And you’d still be here. And—”

/>   “Nancy Clarice Werlock! I’m as much for guilting my children into listening as the next mother, but you cannot blame yourself for this. You can’t know whether or not this would have happened otherwise. That man was going to get drunk regardless of whether you were a demonologist or a therapist or an acrobat or anything else. Kohl’s was going to have that sale regardless of whether you were here at the shop or in your office in Philly.” Mom paused again. “I know I should have just got it at Target but I wanted to comparison shop. It was 50% off all appliances.”

  It takes me a minute to realize that last part was directed at Nana.

  “I don’t know what to do, Mom. I’m sitting here packing up all of your stuff and it just hit me that…that it’s all going to be gone and there won’t be anything left.”

  “Have you talked to your brother? I talked to him a couple of days before the accident and he told me Megan saw a pixie at school. She’s developing the Sight. Maybe—”

  “It wasn’t a pixie, Mom. I talked to Scott the other day. It turned out to be a dragonfly. She caught it and brought it home.”

  “Now how do you mistake a dragonfly for a pixie? She’s seen dragonflies before!”

  “She’s only six, Mom. And it was a Flame Skimmer. You know, they aren’t a native species in Jersey.”

  “Oh, well, there goes that idea.”

  “I’m sorry!”

  “Honey, I’m not mad at you!...We have to go.”

  “Already?”

  “I’m afraid so. We’ve got eavesdroppers and you’re attracting attention.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Nancy, stop apologizing. Your life is your own. Not mine. If it’s one thing I realize now more than ever, it’s that you need to live your life for you. You have a good heart. Follow it. You’ll be fine.”

  Mom cuts off the connection. I sit there behind the register for what fells like an eternity. I decide that unless I intend to sleep on the floor that I should get up and go home. I walk around the shop several times first. I guess trying to work up the courage to leave. I had forgotten how comfortable it is here. How safe I always felt.

  I can’t let the shop go. I know that now. But I can’t exactly close my private practice and leave all of my clients hanging, either. And I certainly can’t be in two places at the same time. Bilocation just isn’t a talent Werlocks possessed. I look at the keychain in my hand. There is only one alternative left.

  I’m going to need to find an apprentice.

  The Apprentice

  April 28th

  Ever since I left the family business to pursue my own career, I have lived under the deluded belief that the reason Mom never found another apprentice was that she was hoping I would eventually change my mind. I realize now that was not the case. The real reason, I now surmise, is that young witches today are…well…how do I explain?

  Anastasia, whose birth name is Margaret but insists on being called by her Spiritual Name, is actually one of Mom’s regular customers. She’s sixteen years old. Everything Anastasia knows about magic she learned from watching reruns of Charmed and reading Silver Ravenwolf books. Most of her purchases over the last year have been crystals and jewelry making materials. She wears what she makes. Often all of it at the same time.

  “My mom said I should try to find a summer job for the summer,” says Anastasia while browsing the collection of semi-precious and simulated gemstones during her weekly after-school visit. “Because I’ll be able to get my learner’s permit soon and I’ll need gas money.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” I reply while ringing up a female customer’s purchase of jasmine, vanilla, and sandalwood essential oils and a pair of diffusers. “I hope he appreciates it,” I say to the woman.

  The woman blushes. “He damn well better,” she whispers and then giggles.

  “Two parts jasmine to each one part vanilla and sandalwood,” I say as I tap her hand. “Do you have any grape seed oil?”

  “No, why?”

  “Makes an amazing carrier for massage oil.” The woman’s face lights up so I give her a free sample I have behind the counter. “Make sure to come back and tell me how it works out.”

  Anastasia walked over to the counter with a small pewter unicorn figure in her hand. “What was that all about?” she asked as the door closed behind the woman.

  “Get that smirk off your face. She’s planning a romantic evening with her husband.”

  “Oh my God, how did you know that? Did you read her mind?”

  “I read her purchase.”

  “Oh, I didn’t see what she bought! Which oils did she buy? Is it for a love potion?”

  “Not your business. And no. Just oils to set the mood. Is that all your getting?” I pointed at her hand.

  Anastasia nodded and placed the figure on the counter. “So you knew she was planning on getting freaky just by her purchase?”

  I shook my head. “$4.29, Anastasia.” She handed me a $5 bill. “And she stopped at Victoria’s Secret before she came here.”

  “How did you know that!?”

  “You didn’t see the Victoria’s Secret bag she was carrying?” I handed her the change.

  “Oh, no,” she laughed. I wrapped the figure in tissue paper before putting it in the bag. As I handed her the bag, she gave me an impish grin.

  “So, how do you know it’s her husband?”

  “She was wearing a wedding ring.”

  “Yeah, but how do you know she isn’t planning a romantic evening with her boyfriend on the side.”

  I shake my head. “Because she was still wearing her wedding ring.”

  Anastasia shrugs and puts her figurine in her purse. “So, are you going to hire anyone to help with the shop? Because, I’m, like, here all the time so I know where everything is already.”

  “I’m not looking for summer help. I need someone full time.”

  “But I could help out until you found someone!”

  Keeping Three Wishes open, even on a reduced schedule, while also trying to maintain my clients has proven to be a burden. If it had been any other normal shop, I would have hired Anastasia for the summer. Stocking shelves and running a register is easy enough for a teenager. But there is an inventory of items that can only be handled by me or someone I could trust. How exactly would I explain to a sixteen-year-old why a customer needed a vial of goat’s semen? Hell, I still don’t exactly understand why a customer would need a vial of goat’s semen, but Mom’s supplier actually was promoting it in last month’s sales catalog as one of the “Hot Buys” of the season.

  And considering how Anastasia carried on about something as simple as essential oils, I don’t think I want her handling orders for goat’s semen.

  I chase Anastasia out of the shop and close up for the day. I have an evening session with the Breyers’ and still need to check my Help Wanted listing on WitchNet.

  You won’t find WitchNet with a Google search for witches or magic or occult or stuff the average person would associate with the Craft. It doesn’t hotlink with other occult sites. In fact, the domain isn’t even WitchNet or anything close to that. The domain name is deliberately long and complicated to prevent people from accidentally stumbling across it. It is invitation only, with various levels of technological and mystical security protocols in place to protect the site.

  You might wonder why all of the secrecy when witchcraft is so out in the open and accepted. The thing is, the Craft isn’t accepted. A watered-down illusion of the Craft is what people accept. The Craft is shielded under the combined ruses of religious freedom and pseudo-science. We don’t brew potions. It’s holistic healing or homeopathy. We don’t cast spells or rituals. We practice anthroposophical medicine. Most people think of witches as New Age hippie environmentalists. And we’re totally cool with that. Because if they actually understood the truth, it could get ugly.

  See, the Inquisition didn’t finally end because mankind suddenly became enlightened. It ended because people stopped believing t
he supernatural was real. There is a scene in the original Men in Black when Kay says to Jay, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.” This pretty much sums up the situation with the supernatural.

  Can you imagine the panic if people realized that I could summon a Class Three Succubus? Not that I have any reason to. But I could. Or what if they knew that zombies were real? Granted, we aren’t talking Walking Dead zombies. Technically, those are ghouls, not zombies. Zombies are actually harmless. But that isn’t really the point. The point is, if the general population had any understanding of what was really going on around them, things would get very scary very quickly.

  So I log on to WitchNet to find another seventeen applications for the apprenticeship. This brings the total count up to over seventy applications in just under a week. You’d think that out of that many applications I should be able to narrow it down to three or four of the best candidates and start interviewing. But the fact is there isn’t a single decent candidate in the whole bunch.

  The first problem is that nobody read the requirements. I specified that this was an independent apprenticeship. Meaning it was for an adult student already educated in the Craft who was looking to specialize. Over half of the applications are parents trying to place their pre-teens in a residential apprenticeship. I didn’t officially become Mom’s apprentice until I was fourteen, and even then it was only because I had been raised with a demonological education so I already knew most of the risks. Most of these kids wouldn’t know a boggart from a pooka. More importantly, they are kids. I don’t want to raise someone else’s kids. I’m not running Hogwarts. I’m running a business.

  About a third of the applications are what I like to refer to as Fairy Princesses. Your typical Fairy Princess is a witch between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four who spent most of her formative years studying enchantment or illusion. Kind of like Anastasia, only they actually know some incantations. The problem with Fairy Princesses is that they tend to be rather sheltered. They’ve never confronted anything truly dangerous. They have a romanticized notion of the Craft, which gets reinforced by their liberal use of mind-altering magic to make men fawn over them. Most Fairy Princesses don’t live pass the age of thirty, however, because eventually they try those stunts with some other witch’s husband or, worse, some shapeshifter, vampire, or incubus-possessed skin puppet.