Tara
The first time she had walked through the doors of the Cat & Crow earlier that year, tucked between two larger businesses on a busy street not far from her apartment, Tara knew she had found her spiritual home, a place where she could be recognized for what she truly was—awitch.
It was nothing at all like the botánicas she had visited with her grandmother as a child. Nothing about those shops had ever struck her as particularly witchy — brightly colored saint candles and statues, packets of dried herbs, always in a strip mall, sandwiched between the laundromat and the Spanish grocery, as unmystical as anything she could possibly conceive.
Nothing at all like the Cat & Crow. Tara felt her chakras open as she crossed the threshold, her chi center itself, her third eye flutter to life, honest-to-god magical essence flowing through her as she looked around the space, taking in the dusty old tomes and creepy bric-a-brac lining the shelves. It was all waiting to go home with her and imbue her apartment withjustthe right amount of the macabre.
Then the door had swung shut behind her and she’d nearly gagged on the overpowering incense smoking from a decorative cauldron in the corner, forcing her to admit that the sensation of her chakras opening may have, in fact, been a gust of wind from the street, blowing up her skirt.
Still, once she’d gotten her bearings, there had been no denying the woman behind the register was the genuine article. Tall and willowy, her eyes heavily lined in black and her hair done up in a crown of braids with thick dreadlocks hanging over her shoulders, she was a perfect specimen of witchiness. Arabeth, Mistress of Crows was what she called herself, in a smoky voice, heavy with what could only be magical power, and Tara had nearly swooned from the excitement of it all.
She’d gone home that day with a claw-footed brass bowl, “perfect for making offerings on your altar,” the shop witch had explained, along with several curiosity items for the shelf beside the television, her first step in legitimizing her existence. Having the right aesthetic was ninety percent of the craft, she was sure of it. It wasn’t enough to simply buy out the highly coveted Halloween stock from the big box craft store each year—even though she did that too. No, she needed to haveauthenticartifacts and spooky objets d’art to be taken seriously as a practitioner of the craft.
She’d lost track of how much money she’d spent in the crowded little shop since then. Incense holders and geode clusters for her shelves, crystal points for harnessing various energies and dried bundles of herbs to be burnt for purification. Pretty things that made her feel connected to something bigger than herself, at least for a little while. The hollow feeling in her chest always returned though, sending her back up the block and around the corner, seeking out the temporary fullness the curious ephemera provided, which it always reliably did.
The day she’d purchased the candle had started horribly, as Mondays were wont to do.
A traffic jam had her arriving at school late, setting back her appointments with recalcitrant students and earning the further ire of the Vice Principal who already seemed to dislike her. It was forecasting season, the most miserable time of year in the junior high guidance office, and Tara felt as though she were drowning in a sea of forms that needed teacher signatures for approval before she could submit the rosters. She had too many students from homes where the parents seemed to care little, too many teachers who were quick to sign whatever was placed before them with almost no regard for the student’s aptitude, and sorting out the mess would eat up the rest of the school year.
Arabeth had not been not been present that Monday as Tara had trudged over the Cat & Crow’s threshold seeking retail therapy, feeling the weight of the world shackled around her ankle. Instead, the sight of the gimlet-eyed man behind the shop’s counter—the only other employee she’d ever encountered, apart from the sleek black cat who sometimes moved through the rows, acting as if it were keeping an eye on the inventory whenever she was in shopping—had been the cherry on top of her Shit Sundae Monday. The shop witch was nowhere in sight and Tara felt her shoulders slump.Worst. Day. Ever.
The man made her inexplicably nervous.
His pale skin possessed an olive undertone that made appear sharp and gaunt, with thick, jet-black hair and a sneering attitude. Tara might have found him handsome if he hadn’t been so spikey in demeanor. He’d come out of the backroom the day of her very first visit, putting out the incense burning in the cauldron in a huff and propping open the front door, sucking the acrid smell out to the street. She’d been grateful, breathing in a lungful of the fresh air as the witch glared at the man, but everyother encounter she’d experienced in his presence had left her feeling discomfited.
There was something about him that made her breath stutter and the back of her neck prickle; something that activated a tiny emergency button in her brain, accompanied by a voice, screaming at her toget away!She had always pushed the creepy sensation aside.It’s probably something in his cologne, some fragrance note you’re allergic to.It was a logical explanation, one she clung to, despite the man not smelling like anything in particular. He’d been there for many of her subsequent visits as well, always scrutinizing her purchases and eyeing her warily, watching her interactions with the Mistress of Crows with a wrinkled nose and disdainful expression.
Tara didn’t know if it was her mood or the sense of futility that had progressively begun to envelope her each day, but nothing she examined on the crowded shelves had caught her interest as she’d plodded through the shop. She’d just replaced a headless doll upon the shelf she was bent before when the voice of the dark-haired man made her jump.
“Finding what you’re seeking?”
He had popped up out of nowhere to appear before her at the top of the aisle, making her swallow hard, casting her eyes around in vain for someone—anyone!—else to rescue her.Not even the goddamned cat is around today.There was something odd in his question, and as always, the hairs on the back of her neck raised at his sudden proximity.
“I-I don’t know what I’m looking for . . . just, um, just browsing, I guess.”Why are you stammering, you didn’t do anything wrong.You’re allowed to just browse!
He’d hummed, straightening items on the shelves as he neared.
“You know, therearegroups with whom you can study. The craft is more than pretty trinkets and eyeliner, despite what myco-worker might have led you to believe. There’s a very talented witch, a gifted herbalist, in the next town over. I believe she’ll soon be gathering a coven of beginners. I can give you her card.”
Her fascination with witchcraft had first started, as all bad ideas usually do, in junior high school, leading her down a road of garish eye makeup and monochromatic clothing for more than a decade. Undergrad winged eyeliner and coffin-shaped purses had graduated to Stevie Nicks-style shawls in grad school, and then once she’d landed her first counselor’s job, professional separates in black and grey. Her grandmother had always admonished that black was for mourning, that it washed her out and made her look sickly, and it wasn’t until she had met this spiky, unfriendly man in his head-to-toe black clothing — his sallow-tinged skin making the dark circles under his eyes appear bruise-like — that she understood what her grandmother had meant.
Anyway, it didn’t matter what he said. Tara already attempted to embrace the lifestyle, but drum circles and picnics in the park, potlucks in someone’s basement with half a dozen children running amok held little appeal. She had no interest in driving to the next town to beat on drums and discuss the miraculous uses of hemp oil with the other wannabe witches there.
“I was never very good at chemistry,” she’d said lightly, ignoring his eyes. “But I’d like tobuya magic potion to make life easier. I’m fairly certain you don’t sell that though.”
“Of course I do,” he shot back, lip curling to reveal overly-sharp canines she’d not noticed before. “But who’s going to brew it?You? With no skill or training?” He let out a sardonic chuckle, utterly devoid of humor. “Ah, but I understand. Pre-made, ready-to-pour. Concentrated, just add water.That’swhat you want. Cheap. Disposable. On sale to anyone willing to pay. Forgive me if I take offense to the commodification of my craft by people like you.”
“I was under the impression this was astore,” she managed to choke out in a shaky voice.
He grinned at her words, his citrine green eyes seeming to glow.
“That it is. Ritual tools, potion ingredients, magical aides forrealwitches. The rest is just garbage for cluttering up one’s shelves, and that’s fine. Whatever makes the Halloween store goths happy. It’s rare that we get repeat customers who fall in the middle.” One of his thick eyebrows raised, taking her in. “Youare not someone who merely collects headless dolls for your own amusement.Youwant to be the real thing, and you think that’s something for sale.”
He had come to a standstill in the middle of the aisle, effectively blocking her way. His voice had a strange, hypnotic quality that made her breath catch in her throat and the shelves narrow around her as if he were slowly absorbing all of the energy in the room, and Tara felt herself shrink before him.
“Real magic cannot be obtained without sacrifice and skill. Practice and dedication. One is not simply born into this world. It is up to the witch to follow her calling . . . or be just another accessory.”
He raised a hand as he trailed off, gesturing to the ephemera filling the shelves, and tears burned at the back of her eyes, that empty hole within her widening, threatening to swallow her up. She didn’t want to be as disposable as the seasonal decorations she bought every year to goth-up her apartment, didn’t want to matter less than the broken bell on the shelf beside her.
