“Did you find anything interesting? Every time I tried to look, I ended up on some website that wanted my credit card information in exchange for a 90 second reading from the world’s best psychic medium. After the fourth one making that claim, I gave up.”
“You lasted longer than me,” Raina said. She walked arm in arm with Camille still, huddled close to her girlfriend for warmth. “After the second one that played new age elevator music on full blast, I let Cami handle it.”
“You just have to know where to look. I’ll send you some links,” Camille said with an easy shrug. “I don’t know if any of the people claiming to be psychic are telling the truth or not, but most of them said the same thing.”
“Meditate?” I guessed, trying not to groan. I’d seen some variation of that advice on nearly every website I’d checked out. Yoga was another popular one, usually followed by a ‘buy a subscription to my yoga instructional videos for only fifty bucks a month’.
“No, which is probably a good thing for you,” she teased, giving me a playful nudge. “They say that the first thing you need to do is accept your gift.”
“What does that even mean?” I frowned, glancing over at her. “I know that I can do this. It’s not like I’m pretending it’s not real. I’ve accepted it.”
“No, you haven’t. You’ve resigned yourself to it.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, so suddenly that the girls walked a few more feet before realizing I wasn’t with them. Camille’s simple words had more power than a gut punch and she’d knocked the breath right out of me.
“Alex? Are you alright?” Raina asked. They came back to me and I found myself in the middle now, protected on both sides by my friends.
“Sorry, your girlfriend just kind of blew my mind.” I managed a weak laugh, shaking my head. “You’re right, Camille. I never thought of it that way before, but you’re right.”
“Alex…” Camille hugged me, resting her head on my shoulder.
“I hate what I can do, but I do it anyway because I have to. I thought that meant I’d accepted this stupid ability.”
“I don’t blame you for feeling like that,” she said softly. “I think anyone in your position would. If you truly hate it, though, I think it will be difficult to ever gain any control, because you’ll be too busy resenting that you have to.”
I peeked over at Raina. “You just had to go and fall in love with the smartest woman in the state, didn’t you?”
“Yep!” Pride shone in the smile she gave Camille, along with the kind of deep, abiding love that made my eyes well up. I adored these two.
“Okay, so accepting is the first step,” I said and Camille released me so we could keep walking. Lowery’s Crossing was small enough that we were already almost there. “Anything else I should know?”
“Well, there are some crystals that are supposed to help you focus, and several people recommended meditating.” Camille winked at me, unimpressed by the dry look I shot her. “What? It could be worse. Quite a few of the recommendations involved certain substances that will help you ‘see into the beyond’.” Her attempt at a faux-mystical voice fell apart when she started giggling, drawing Raina in and leaving me shaking my head.
“I’m not going to start popping 'shrooms to help me see dead people,” I said, which just set off another round of laughing. “You guys are lucky I love you too much to call you crazy.”
“Please, our crazy is why you love us,” Raina scoffed. “Come on, there’s the shop. Let’s get in out of the cold and see what we can find.”
Trepidation slowed my steps, but Raina and Camille bustled me inside before I could change my mind.
The front section of Esoteric Oddities looked much the same as the windows. Plants hung from the walls and roof, while shelves along the wall held all manner of items. To the left was a variety of incense and all the paraphernalia to go with it. To the right were crystals of every size, shape, and color imaginable. They sat in boxes, in mesh bags, some stood alone, some in clusters. Further back were more shelves, some holding books, others with things I couldn’t even begin to identify.
I was immediately overwhelmed.
“Camille. It’s been awhile.”
The warm voice caught my attention before I could spiral too far, and I focused on it. In the rear of the shop, against the wall on the right, a small counter jutted out and behind it sat someone who could only be Ori Castellos.
Even perched on a tall stool, I got the impression that they were shorter than me. Dark hair fell well past their shoulders, held away from their face with jeweled clips. I couldn’t say for sure, but I would guess they had some Filipino heritage. Tattoos swirled up their arms, disappearing beneath a loose short-sleeved shirt, and expertly applied rainbow polish glittered on their nails.
No matter where they went, Ori would stand out in a crowd, and yet I knew for a fact that I had never seen them before in my life.
“Hi, Ori.” Camille herded Raina and me over to the counter, her smile warm and relaxed. “I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I stopped in. We’ve been pretty busy lately.”
“I’ve seen the lines at the bakery. Congratulations,” Ori replied. They had a faint accent, but nothing that sounded familiar to me. “Raina, it’s a pleasure to see you. And you’re Alex Copeland.” They turned to me, dark eyes taking me in from head to toe.
“Um… yes?” I coughed, clearing my throat. “I-I mean yes. I am. Alex. That’s me.” I pressed my lips together, stopping the nervous flow of words before I could make an even bigger fool of myself.
Thankfully, Ori just smiled. “I visited your bookstore awhile back. I’m glad to see it stayed in the family, after Lizzie passed.”
