And speaking of family…
“Sabrina!” I looked down the street and knew that my mother’s shop was only a ten-minute drive away. ‘The Littlest Witching Hour’ was my mom’s baby and was named this because, admittedly, we were all short.
So, after hailing down a cab and giving the grumpy bald guy an address, ten minutes later, I was freaking out with an audience.
“What am I going to do? The meeting is in an hour and look at me!” I cried dramatically, without the tears, as the last thing I wanted to do was add a sad, crying face to the mess that was my dress.
My sister gave me a sympathetic look, one that made her look even younger than her twenty years. She currently had her hair in two messy bunches on top of her head, giving her a cute Mickey Mouse vibe. A vibe made bright and colorful, thanks to this month’s choice of hair color being cosmic blues, purples, and turquoise.
This matched her bright makeup framed above the eye with lines of gold, and painted stars at the corners of her aqua eyes. Her usual punk gothic attire consisted of her black denim shorts over fishnet tights. She also wore bright pink knee-high socks and a striped pink-and-black sleeved sweater that was frayed at the edges. Let’s just say that Sabrina had most definitely adopted our mother’s affinity for everything supernatural. Hence why she worked with Agnes at her store for the weird and wonderful.
As for me, well, I had gone down a different path. Not so much denying all I was brought up to believe in, but not exactly embracing it, either. Although Agnes didn’t mind because she believed everyone had their own path to follow. Hence why she was currently in New Orleans, visiting another Coven and running a course on Herbology for them.
Goddess, but how I missed my mom as she would have known exactly what to do and what to say in this moment to calm me down. Although Sabrina was definitely a close second.
“Calm down, Lily-pad, I am sure we can find you something… In fact, we had this new shipment in of dresses, let me just go get them from the back… not to worry, we will haveyou sorted in no time,” she said in her usual chipper, ‘the world can’t get me down’ tone. One that, unfortunately, didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, especially not when I scanned the shop and saw the section of clothing that only had one style in mind…Gothic.
That aside, the use of my family nickname helped soothe me, and one born for obvious reasons, as I loved the flower. That, and the way I believed each one was special enough that they needed their own island in the pond to grow on when I was a kid. Or next to, but hey, my version sounded way better.
But getting back to the alternative clothing at ‘The Littlest Witching Hour’, I knew finding something suitable to wear was going to be tricky, even though there was certainly a lot to choose from. Because my mom knew that the only way to keep this precious shop going was to offer items that would sell. And well, bunches of sage and crystal pendulums wasn’t it. Which was why the shop was sectioned the way it was. With clothing and gothic apparel at the back, witchy paraphernalia at the front, and a shit load of candles in between. These were another bestseller, especially the black pillar candles that bled crimson and were aptly named A Vampire’s Tears.
As for the rest of the shop, it was as you would have imagined a witch’s shop to look like. Tapestries covered most of the free wall space. These depicted everything from the Triple Goddess, cycles of the moon, giant pentagrams, and the Tree of Life. All of which you could purchase, of course, just like everything else my mom kept on display. Glass cases filled with stunning crystals, elaborate goblets, and a collection of fantasy figurines of dragons and other mythological creatures I had always been fascinated with as a kid.
The clothing part of the shop was the only section that lacked any real color. The walls were painted black and decorated with moon-shaped mirrors, coffin-shaped shelving, and 3D batssurrounding the frame where two curtained changing rooms were. Oh, and let’s not forget the rails of black clothes that were constantly being restocked.
Which meant I was not surprised when my sister brought out an armful of black fabric, and I mentally prayed that there was something suitable among the folds. However, it turned out that, no matter how hard I prayed to all the deities I knew, nothing would save me from walking into that meeting looking like I had lost my mind. That, or I had suddenly decided to become a goth overnight.
“What about this one?”
“I am not sure skulls and coffins are gonna help when making a pitch to a health food company advertising their new protein shake or the forever young skin cream campaign I’m also working on. Or say, the need to buy diamonds when you're dead, which is what my first pitch is for.”
My sister chuckled before agreeing.
“Yeah, I see your point… okay, so what about this one? It’s not all black, but it just has these cute runes and symbols all over it… and hey, isn’t that what Louis Vuitton does?”
I had to laugh at this before informing her,
“I’m not sure a print of LV and flowers constitutes as being demonic in nature… despite how much they charge for their bags,” I grumbled knowing all I would ever be able to afford was the knock off ones I got from some dodgy guy on the street.
“Did you know that the four-petal flower symbolizes joy and was designed by Georges-Louis Vuitton in 1896?”
I yelped in surprise when Nate spoke from seemingly out of nowhere. He was a tall, gangly guy who was the very last person you expected to find working in a witch’s shop. He was wearing a tweed suit, for one, and with it, he had thought a yellow shirt and little red bow-tie would match the green suit. He was also fabulously gay, dressed in impeccable suits five days of the week,and had more dresses in his closet for the weekend than my sister and I did combined. Of course, his name also changed to Natalie Bighorn, and he was often seen singing his lungs out to Dolly Parton at the Rainbow Bridge nightclub every Saturday night.
He was also utterly fabulous in every way.
Which was no doubt why he knew everything there was to know about fashion, so the information he just gave me wasn’t what had surprised me. No, it was him suddenly appearing right behind me from where I was leaning against the front counter.
“Goddess, Nate, you scared the shit out of me!” I complained, making him give me one of his best bitchy wry looks before pushing a pair of glasses he didn’t need, but wore for fashion purposes, up his nose. I swear the guy could have played a part in The Devil Wears Prada and given Meryl Streep a run for her money!
“You look like you have been shit on,” was his dry response.
“Hence the obvious wardrobe emergency,” I said, waving a frantic hand down my body.
“Well, office chic isn’t what we are exactly known for, sweetie, so I suggest taking the Sumerian nights dress, as it's your best option.”
“Only option, more like,”I muttered as I took the dress off my sister’s arm with a grimace, one that made her giggle.
Which meant that two minutes later, and I was walking from the black velvet curtain looking like a gothic version of myself.
