It was like whiplash. How could he say something like that? Like they would see each other and everything would be normal, after he said that.
“I have to go. We’re about to sit down to lunch.”
“Yeah. Sure.” God. What was wrong with her? She didnotgo quietly into any good night, and here she was, letting his comment defeat her.
She felt like a zombie all the way to the apothecary, and when she got there, Daisy was telling Aggie about the spells, with a solemn-looking Soraya standing there. The spells hadn’t done anything for Nora. She felt more than humiliated. She felt stupid. She had really been taking the separation as something that was about Ben and his need to find himself. There were things about her that made connection hard, andit had hurt that he’d said that. But he hadn’t said their relationship was the problem.
“Theyworked,” Daisy said.
“I’m completely unsurprised,” said Aggie. “I told you. Everyone has magic. But some have a little bit more than others.”
“How do you know?” Daisy asked. “Who has more or what will work or ... anything?”
Aggie smiled. “Intuition.”
Intuition. Did Nora have any of that? A pet rock probably had more intuition than she did.
The day ticked by slowly. Nora sold ten smudge sticks, several herb spell bundles, four tarot decks, and three tarot journals. Soraya stayed busy on the baking side, while Daisy talked to a few women who came in asking for advice on spells. Nora watched as Daisy flipped through them and grew more confident. Was it real? It felt like it sometimes, but then everything else around her seemed distinctly not magic. Her life felt like the furthest thing from a manifested dream, so how could it be?
Just another Ouija board. Her wanting to feel hope in something and being an idiot.
When they closed for the night, Nora could see that Aggie had something on her mind. “Daisy said you had success with your spells,” Aggie said to Nora.
“I don’t know if that’s true.”
“Don’t you?”
It really wasn’t fair. The baseball game had been like a comedy of errors. If there had been a single cloud in the sky, it would’ve gone directly over David’s head and rained buckets on him alone. She’d asked for a sign, and now she felt reluctant to take it. But if there was a divine plan in the world, why was her life such a shit show from childhood to now? That didn’t make sense to her.
“What’s wrong?” Aggie asked.
“Nothing.” She was silent for a long moment. “I always wanted to believe in magic. But when you’re a kid with no hope for anythingbetter, you can’t. There’s nothing out there in the universe big enough, or powerful enough, to come down and save you. If there is, that’s almost worse, because nothing did. The idea I could have fixed my situation by putting herbs into a bundle or praying harder or turning in a circle three times while chanting in Latin just kills me.”
Aggie shifted closer to her. “Magic doesn’t take the darkness out of the world, Nora.”
Nora laughed, almost hysterically, certainly not with humor. “Is this where you tell me we need darkness to see the stars or some shit?”
Aggie shook her head. “No. The darkness isn’t there to help the stars shine. The stars shine to spite the darkness.” She put her hand on Nora’s. “The magic lives inside you in spite of it all.”
Her words touched a hidden, bruised place in Nora, and she didn’t want them to. She was tired of all this. Of living without a guarantee of anything. Of having to shine through the darkness while the darkness got thicker, heavier.
“I talked to Ben earlier. It’s just ...” She stared down at her hands. “He said our relationship is part of why he’s unhappy. And he doesn’t think we should talk while he’s gone. Not on the phone.”
“Oh.” Soraya pressed her hand to her chest, like Nora’s pain hurt her.
“I’m sorry,” Aggie said.
“It’s just a rough patch,” Nora said. And she despised that she said that. She wasn’t an optimist. She wasn’t naive. But this marriage had made her want to be. It made her want to believe in a love she never had.
Was she the stars? Shining in spite of it all?
It didn’t feel quite as glorious as that. She didn’t feel like stars. She felt like what she was: a thirty-five-year-old woman who’d been hoping—secretly, shamefully, for so long—and now had that hope crushed.
“Come. Sit down.” Aggie beckoned Nora over to a low table at the center of the room. Daisy and Soraya followed, though as Nora, Daisy, and Aggie sat down, Soraya stayed back. A small pouch, rose petals, and crystals were spread out on the table.
“When I feel hopeless, I do a spell. We can’t control everything, or everyone. But we can make our intentions into actions. It’s better than sitting in sadness, I find.”
“Do you have any love spells?” Nora asked, trying to laugh again. Trying not to seem as sad and hopeful as she was. That was the really sad part. She wanted the hope to be drained from her, beaten out of her by all the shit that had happened to her, but it just never was. It kept on, relentless and painful, a new opportunity to be devastated every single day.
