Book of Shadows

CHAPTER 6 Practical Magick

I am not psychic. Life is packed with weird little coincidences. I'll just keep telling myself that until I believe it.

"Where are we going?" I asked. I had changed out of my Sunday dress into jeans and a sweatshirt. My headache was gone, and I felt fine.

"An occult bookstore," Bree said, adjusting her rearview mirror. "Cal told me about it last night, and it sounded great."

"Hey, speaking of occult, you know something weird?" I asked. "Today in church I knew the numbers for the hymns before I saw them on the board. Isn't that bizarre?"

"What do you mean, you knew them?" Bree asked, heading out of town on Westwood.

"These numbers just popped into my head for no reason, and then when we got into church, they were up on the board. They were our hymn numbers," I said.

"That is weird." said Bree, smiling. "Maybe you heard your mom mention them or something."

My mom is on the women's guild at church and sometimes changes the hymn numbers or polishes candlesticks or arranges the alter flowers.

I frowned, thinking back. "Maybe."

Within minutes we were in Red Kill, the next town to our north. When I was little, I had been afraid of going to Red Kill. The name itself seemed to be a warning of something awful that had happened there or would happen there. But actually, a lot of towns in the Hudson River Valley have the work kill in them—it's an old Dutch word meaning "river." Red Kill simply means "red river"-probably because the water was tinted from iron in the soil.

"I didn't know Red Kill had an occult bookstore. Do you think they'll have stuff about Wicca?" I asked.

"Yeah, Cal said they have a pretty good selection," Bree answered. "I just wanted to check it out. After last night I'm really curious about Wicca. I felt so great afterward, like I just did yoga or had a massage or something."

"It was really intense," I agreed. "But didn't you feel yucky this morning?"

"No." Bree looked at me. "You must be coming down with something. You looked awful on the way home from the circle last night."

"Thanks, how comforting" I said flatly.

Bree pushed my elbow playfully. "You know what I mean."

We sat in silence for a couple of minutes.

"Hey, do you have plans tonight?" I asked her. "My aunt Eileen's coming over for dinner."

"Yeah? With her new girlfriend?"

"I think so."

Bree and I wiggled our eyebrows at each other. My aunt Eileen, my mom's younger sister, is gay. She and her longtime partner had broken up two years ago, so we were all happy she was finally dating again.

"In that case, I can definitely make dinner," said Bree. "Look, here we are." She parked Breezy at an angle against the curb, and we got out, walking past the Sit 'n' Knit, Meyer's Pharmacy, Goodstall's Children's Shoes, and a Baskin-Robbins. At the end row of stores, Bree looked up and said, "This must be the place." She pushed against a heavy double-glass door.

Glancing down, I saw a five-pointed star within a circle painted on the sidewalk in purple—just like Cal's silver pendant. Gold lettering on the glass door said Practical Magick, Supplies for Life. I wondered about the odd spelling of the word magic.

I felt a bit like Alice about to go down the rabbit hole, knowing that simply entering this store would somehow start me on a journey whose ending I couldn't predict. And I found that idea irresistible. I took a deep breath and followed Bree inside.

The store was small and dim. Bree moved ahead, looking at things on the shelves while I hovered by the door and gave myself time to adjust after the bright autumn sunlight outside. The air was heavy with an unfamiliar incense, and I imagined that I could almost feel the coiling smoke brushing against me and winding around my legs.

After blinking a few times, I saw that the shop was long and narrow, with a very high ceiling. Wooden shelves that looked homemade lined the walls and divided the store into halves. The half I could see down was floor-to-ceiling books: old, leather-bound volumes, bright-covered modern paperbacks, cheesy pamphlets that looked like they had been photocopied at Kinko's and stapled by hand. I read some of the hand-lettered category signs: Magick, Tarot, History, Womancraft, Healing, Herbs, Rituals, Scrying… and within each category there were subcategories. It was all very orderly, though it didn't give that impression at first.

Just looking at the books' spines, I felt that my mind was blooming like a flower. I hadn't known books like this existed—ancient volumes describing magic and rituals. I was seeing a whole new world.

Bree wasn't in sight, so I walked down the aisle and headed for the other side of the store. She was looking at candles. One large shelf unit was like candle mania. There were huge pillar candles; tiny little birthday-style candles; candles in the shape of people, men and, women; nice dining-table tapers; star-shaped votives: You name it, this store had it.

"Oh my god." I pointed to a candle in the shape of a life-size penis. At least I assumed it was life-size. I hadn't seen one up close since Robbie had flashed my class in first grade.

Bree giggled. "Let's get a bunch of these for tonight. They would make dinner really festive."

I laughed. "My mom would keel over."

Most of the other candles were pretty, hand dipped in graduating shades of colr, some in earth tones, some in rainbow colors. A little rhyme came into my head: Firelight, my soul is bright. I didn't know where it came from—probably some Mother Goose book I had when I was younger. It reminded me of how I had felt the night before, looking into the fire at the circle.

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" I asked. Bree had moved to examine shelves of glass jars, each filled with herbs or powders. One section was called essential oils, with row after row of tiny dark brown glass vials. The air was heavy with scent there: jasmine, orange, patchouli, clove, cinnamon, rose.

"Not really," Bree said, reading jar labels. "Just checking it out."

"I think we should maybe get a book on the history of Wicca," I suggested. "For starters, anyway."

Bree looked at me."You're getting into this, huh?"

I nodded self-consciously. "I think it's cool. I'm curious to learn more about it."

Bree smiled at me. "You're sure it's not just a crush on Cal?"

Before I could answer, she was studying a small bottle and opening it. The scent of roses after a summer rain filled the air.

I was about to say that wasn't it at all. Instead I stood there, staring at my clogs. I did have a crush on Cal. Though I knew better than anybody he was out of my league, I was drawn to him. What a pair we would make: Cal, the most beautiful person in the world, and Morgan, the girl who had never been on a date.

I stood still and silent in the aisle of Practical Magick, overwhelmed by a strange sense of longing. I longed for Cal, and I longed for… this. These books and these smells and these things. New emotions—passion; yearning; gnawing, inexplicable curiosity—were waking up inside me, and it was thrilling and threatening at the same time. One part of me wished they would go back to sleep.

I looked up to try to explain some of it to Bree, but now she was bent intently over the jewelry case, and I had no idea how to put my feelings into words.

As I was gazing blankly at the labels on the packets of incense, I felt a slight prickling on the back of my neck. I looked up and was startled by the intent gaze the store clerk had fastened on me.

The clerk was an older guy, maybe in his early thirties, but with short gray hair that made him appear older than he probably was. And he was looking at me with a focused, un-moving stare, as if I were a new kind of reptile, something incredibly interesting.

Most guys don't look at me that way. For one thing, I'm usually with either Bree or Mary K. Bree is straight-up gorgeous, and Mary K. is totally cute. I'd heard that a guy in my class, Bakker Blackburn, was thinking about asking her out. Already Mom and Dad had started instituting rules about dating and going steady and all that stuff—rules they hadn't needed to worry about with me.

I turned my back to the clerk. Had he mistaken me for someone he knew? Finally Bree came up and tapped me on the shoulder.

"Find anything interesting?"

"Yeah, this," I said, pointing to a package of incense called Love Me Tonight.

Bree smiled."Ooh, baby."

Laughing, we headed for the bookshelves and started readying titles. There was a whole shelf of books labeled Books of Shadows. One by one I opened them, and they were all completely blank, like journals. Some were like cheap notebooks; some were fancier, with marbled endpapers and deckle-edged leaves; and some were bound in gold-stamped leather, oversized and heavy. I felt sudden distaste for the girlish, pink vinyl-covered journal I'd been keeping since ninth grade.

Fifteen minutes later Bree had chosen a couple of Wiccan reference books, and I had settled on one about a woman who had suddenly discovered Wicca when she was in her thirties and how it had changed her life. It seemed to explain Wicca in a personal way. The books were kind of expensive, and I don't have Bree's access to parental credit, so I was was getting only one.

We headed to the counter.

"This it for you?" the store clerk asked Bree.

"Uh-huh." Bree dug in her purse for her wallet "We can swap books when we're finished," she said to me.

"Good idea," I said.

"Do you have everything you need for Samhain?" the clerk asked.

"Samhain?" Bree looked up.

"One of the biggest Wiccan festivals," the clerk said and pointed to a poster tacked to the wall with rusty thumbtacks. It depicted a large purple wheel. At the top it said The Witches' Sabbats. At eight points around the wheel were the names of Wiccan celebrations and their dates. Mabon appeared at nine o'clock on the wheel. At about ten-thirty was the word Samhain, October 31. My eyes scanned the wheel, fascinated. Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lammas, Mabon, Samhain. The very words were strange and also somehow familiar and poetic sounding to me.

Tapping it with his finger, the clerk said, "Get your black and orange candles now."

"Oh, right," Bree said, nodding.

"If you need more information, there are a couple of great books about our festivals, sabbats, and esbats," said the clerk. He was speaking to Bree but looking at me. I was dying for the books but didn't have enough money with me.

"Hang on—let me get them." Bree followed him back to the bookshelves to get the ones he recommended.

I heard a lightbulb flickering overhead and felt the spiral of incense smoke rising above its little stand. As I stood there, it seemed as if everything around me was actually vibrating, almost as if it was full of energy, like a beehive. I blinked and shook my head. My hair suddenly felt heavy. I wished Cal were there.

The clerk returned while Bree continued browsing. He stared at me. The silence was so awkward I broke it. "Why is magic spelled with a K here?" I heard myself asking him.

"To distinguish it from illusionary magic," he responded, as though it was very strange of me not to know this.

He went right back to his silent stare. "What's your name?" he finally asked me in a soft voice.

I looked at him."Um, Morgan. Why?"

"I mean, who are you?" Though soft, the soft voice was quietly insistent.

Who am I? I frowned at him. What did he want me to say? "I'm a junior at Widow's Vale," I offered awkwardly.

The clerk looked puzzled, as if he were asking me a question in English and I was insisting on answering in Spanish.

Bree came back, holding a book called Sabbats: Past and Present, by Sarah Morningstar.

"I'll get this, too," she said, sliding it onto the counter. The clerk silently rang it up.

Then, as Bree took her paper bag, he said to me, "You might be interested in one of our history books." He reached for it beneath the worn wooden counter.

It's black, I thought, and he pulled out a black-covered paperback. Its title was The Seven Great Clans: Origins of Witchcraft Examined.

I stared at the book, tempted to blurt out, "That's mine!" But of course it wasn't mine—I had never seen it before. I wondered why it seemed so familiar.

"It's practically required reading," the clerk said, looking at me. "It's important to know about blood witches," he went on. "You never know when you might meet one."

I nodded quickly. "I'll take it," I said, and fished out my wallet. Buying it cleaned me out entirely.

When I had bought my books, we took our bags and stepped again into the sunny day. Bree slipped on her sunglasses and instantly looked like a celebrity going incognito.

"What a cool place, huh?"

"Very cool," I said, though for me that didn't express even a tiny part of the emotions storming in my chest.