The bell jingled above the door, and two young women came in, probably in their early twenties, looking excited.
“Yeah,” one said. “We have an appointment for a reading.”
“Of course.” Aggie gestured to the corner, where there were fluffy floor pillows designed for sitting and a low, round table with cards at the center. “This is where I’ll be for most of the day. I trust that I’m leaving the running of the shop to your capable hands.”
She practically floated over to the reading area, and whatever she was saying to the girls was drowned out by the music playing over the speakers.
“We’re going to hell,” Soraya muttered.
“Promise?” Nora asked. “Because it sounds like a good party.”
Soraya wasn’t listening. “I’mgoing to hell. I’mgoing to hell. I’ve left my husband, and I’m dabbling in the occult.”
Nora sighed. “Soraya.If you thought this was going to send you to hell, you wouldn’t be here. You just don’t want anybody from church to see you.”
Soraya huffed, opened her mouth, closed it again, and then huffed one more time. “Well, that matters to me because if they saw me here, they would think I was falling away.”
Whatever Nora thought about that, it was important to Soraya, and there was no use telling her that something she cared about was dumb.
That realization was growth, Nora was pretty sure.
“Right, I get that. But they already think that’s true,” Nora said.
Soraya was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry.” She looked at Nora. “For what I said in high school. The time when your mother was supposed to come, and she didn’t. I didn’t understand then why you were so angry. I get it now.”
Thatwas unexpected.
“Thank you.” Nora inclined her head.
“It was a little offensive what you said about God, though,” Soraya added.
“I’m resolutely not sorry about that,” Nora said.
“I’mtryingto connect with you.” Soraya sounded petulant.
“Does God need me to say sorry? Because it seems to me God should be tough enough to handle what a surly teenager says about them.”
Soraya wrinkled her nose. “I guess that’s true.”
Daisy was slowly flipping through the grimoire pages from where she stood behind the counter. Soraya stayed glued to the back wall, and Nora couldn’t help but watch Aggie, who was turning cards over with certainty and speaking to both women with all her focus directed resolutely on them.
Did Aggie actually believe in this stuff?
Was she just good at reading people?
“You aren’t that much more comfortable with this than I am,” Soraya whispered.
Nora glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “It’s not the same. I’m trying to decide if this is a grift. You’re scared of it.”
Soraya huffed and looked away. Nora pushed off from the wall and went over to where Daisy was standing peering at the grimoire. “Spells?”
“I’m reading through the Witch’s Code of Conduct.”
Nora snorted. “Seriously? I would have thought the point of being a witch was that you didn’t have to obey the rules.”
“Oh no.” Daisy’s tone was grave. “You really have to obey the rules. Karma and all that.”
They both looked at Soraya. She peeled herself off the wall and started to walk toward them. “I don’t consider it karma. But the golden rule, of course, is that you do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Bible also says ... what you sow, you will also reap. Which I think is a pretty similar concept.”
