by Les Goodrich
Her apartment was located in what had been a decorative watchtower of the old hotel. As such, the upper balustrades had been capped with walls to enclose the space and a steep staircase ascended into the room through the floor. The stairway and floor pass-through were open and the only door was at the base of the stairs on a landing that was accessed from the end of the building’s third story hallway.
Legend has told us that at some point in the late eighteen hundreds when the hotel was a poplar destination for wealthy Northern socialites, a fair maiden did arrive at the hotel to await her fiancé who was sailing from England. She spent her days in the hotel and waited patiently as, it was rumored, storms delayed the ship’s passage. Then the ship ran afoul of a reef within sight of land off the central Florida coast and the young woman’s fiancé was one of those who perished in the shipwreck. Distraught with grief and despair the girl pitched herself from this high tower to join her beloved eternally in death. It was said ghosts of not only the girl, but her never-to-be husband as well, did haunt the hotel and most frequently the corridors and stairwells of the tower itself.
Stories persisted of guests seeing a forlorn female apparition or a ghostly couple in the hallways and some claimed that after such sightings they would enter through the door to their room only to find themselves in some other part of the hotel. The young man who previously occupied Brit’s apartment scoffed at the tales and indeed at any idea of hauntings and went about his business boasting that he lived in the haunted apartment. It was said that he used to taunt the storied ghosts by inviting them to have a drink with him whenever he was within earshot of friends as he made his way up to the landing to climb into his room.
One spring day the young man was seen loading his belongings into a moving van and the only thing his friends ever found out was the registrar secretary found him sleeping on the registration building steps when she arrived to work that morning. He followed her into the building, requested his transcripts be sent to UCF, and left the school without another word.
Brit was much more respectful when she moved into the apartment even going so far as to perform an elaborate wedding ceremony after researching the story of the maiden and her fiancé. In her ceremony she named every relative of the two she could discover through her exhaustive research, then welcomed them all amid glowing candles that lit one hundred white tulips where they bowed serenely in their many improvised vases. (Brit had read that the girl had a fondness for white tulips since they reminded her of her mother’s garden.) In her ceremony Brit pronounced the couple man and wife and afterwards she was never troubled by any ghostly mischief in her apartment. Occasionally she would even come home to clean dishes where she had left dirty ones and if there was ever a presence in her room it seemed a friendly, helpful one.
***
On that fall morning after the full inventory count, neither Brit nor Jordan could wait to be sleeping in their respective apartments, haunted or not, but they both found themselves still waiting at ten minutes past nine in the morning and Tanner was ten minutes late. That ten minutes felt like two hours but Brit, as always, was cheerful at least on the outside.
“I wonder when Tanner will be in?” she chirped.
Jordan, however, was not taking it as lightly.
“I’ll hex that little son-of-a-bitch if he ever gets here,” she said.
Five long minutes later Tanner opened the door and stood, still holding the doorknob, with a smile.
“Good morning ladies,” he said cautiously through the cracked door before actually entering.
Jordan was starring flatly at Tanner, arms crossed, and Brit wondered if she was really hexing him. She was not and she finally spoke.
“You do know we’ve been here all night counting inventory don’t you?”
“Yeah. I’m on time,” Tanner claimed as he actually entered.
Jordan just laughed one big, “Ha!” then said, “Yeah, Pagan Standard Time: fifteen minutes late!”
The other two laughed and Jordan said she was still mad at him but that he could make it up if he worked for her on Sunday but he never said yes or no. He did say he was surprised they had never come up with an inventory spell and there was some discussion about Carol being against trying one for some reason. The girls agreed it was probably because Carol had them to count it.
Jordan showed Tanner where the inventory count pages were in the file cabinet and asked him three times to be certain that Carol saw their note. Then Jordan and Brit shuffled happily around and began to go while Tanner signed-on to the cash register.
“Visitor Spell is up. You’re Welcome,” Jordan said to Tanner and pointed to a round black mirror in an ornate bronze frame propped vertically on a shelf above the back counter. Tanner looked up to the mirror. Solid black glass. He lifted the corner of his mouth and both eyebrows, unimpressed.
The two girls gathered up their few belongings (backpacks, sunglasses, phones) and headed toward the door.
“Tribe,” Jordan said as she passed Tanner at the register. He counted money and didn’t look up.
“Tribe,” said Brit right behind her and the girls left.
“Yeah-yeah-tribe,” mumbled Tanner still counting cash.
Then Brit yelled, “Sell something today!” into the store just as she pulled the door closed. Tanner looked to the gap in the mostly closed purple bay window curtains. Neither girl looked to the window, but when Tanner looked out, Jordan casually flipped a bird his way as she and Brit walked by.
“Witches,” Tanner said, and closed the cash drawer with a chime.
Chapter 2
Visitor Spell
Brit and Jordan were both asleep in dark cool beds by the time Carol opened the door to the shop and caught Tanner reading The Poetic Edda and two girls shopping along the back wall bookshelf.
“Good Morning,” Carol said as she turned her back to close the door and allow Tanner a chance to put the book away. She turned to find he had done so and that made her smile. “How is Tanner today?”
“I’m well, Madam. How are you?”
“Amaaazing,” Carol said with sincerity, “it’s a gorgeous day out there.”
Carol was slim and strong for her fifty years and she had waves of grey and brunette-hinted hair that fell just over her shoulders and grew more tightly curled in the winter. On that day she wore an aqua and purple silk dress over black leggings and a black cardigan sweater buttoned up. A wide black lycra headband pushed her silver and black hair back and she carried her soft-sided black leather briefcase and a big satchel purse of matching black leather. She hefted the purse to hold it from the bottom and spoke as she paused to survey the store.
“I walked along the waterfront on the way here and there were quite a few people out and about already. Have we sold anything?”
“Actually, yes. I sold two boxes of incense and a candle to a lady who came in just after Brit and Jordan left.”
“And these girls in the back?” Carol whispered leaning in and Tanner answered quietly.
“Students I think. I asked them if they needed any help and they said no.”
“Of course they said no because that’s the kind of question people say no to.”
“Right,” Tanner said with his head down a notch.
“And can we think of a better question for students looking at books?”
“Um. What are you studying? Are you writing a paper? What’s the best book you’ve read lately?”
“So go ask them your favorite one of those questions on your way back to turn on the music, okay Hon?” Carol smiled.
“Oh right. Music,” and Tanner moved around the counter as Carol put her bags below and asked him if the girls had finished the inventory.
Tanner showed Carol the note from Jordan and Brit, then Carol said, “Very good,” and proceeded to retrieve the inventory count from the file cabinet as Tanner approached the customers on his way to the back room.
“Are you girls writing a paper for school or just looking
for something good to read?”
The girls looked up from where they knelt at the bottom shelf and both began to speak at once. Then one smiled and the other said they were looking for a book about meditation for a group project in their psychology class.
“The theme is alternatives to traditional psychotherapy,” the girl added.
Tanner pointed out two books. One of the books, he mentioned, was written by a clinical psychologist and was said to document many successful meditation therapy cases. He also told them that, “Brit who works here is a real expert on meditation so you might like to talk to her someday.”
The girls thanked him and when he came back from turning on the music they were buying the book. Ambient music filled the store and as the girls readied to leave Carol pulled back the purple velvet front curtains and tied them at the waist with silver ropes that ran through silver hooks on each side of the decorated bay window. Daylight filled the storefront and Tanner cut just in front of the two students, as they left, on his way to light another stick of incense outside. The girl who had spoken inside said that she loved that smell and Tanner glanced back through the window pretending to see if Carol was watching. He then pulled two sticks of incense from his shirt pocket and handed them to the girls, one for each of them. One girl took the two sticks, smiled, and both girls walked off as happily as could be into the sunny day with Tanner smiling and watching them go.
When Tanner came back inside Carol said, “That was perfectly done, Tanner,” and she meant it.
“Thank you,” he said and felt much better having recovered her approval with the book sale and his little incense ploy.
“Little touches like that keep them coming back and you, my dear, are the master.”
“Thank you.”
“Yes. But let’s not give the store away to every tourist.”
“I don’t.”
“I know you don’t dear, but it’s my job to say things like that,” Carol reassured with a quick smile as she looked up from the inventory papers across the tops of her glasses.
At that instant Carol noticed a reflection in the center divination mirror on the shelf above her left shoulder and she moved to get a straight look at it pushing her glasses back up her nose with one slim finger. In the black glass, as clear as day, was the figure of a curvy but fit woman in a blue flowered sundress and matching thin gauzy shawl walking along the sidewalk and swatting what was probably a lovebug or two away from her face. She hitched her blue flowered canvas bag higher on her shoulder and tapped along with a closed blue flowered umbrella that she held in the manner of a cane or walking stick. Carol smiled.
“That would be Brenna coming to get her dragonsblood resin. Jordan got the Visitor Spell up and running, I see. And quite nicely I might add.”
She turned to regard Tanner but he wasn’t looking.
“I can’t see it,” he said.
“Oh you just have to look with your—”
“Look with my mind, yes, I know but I still can’t see shit in that mirror.”
“Now don’t get snappy about it. I’ll show you just how to do it as soon as Brenna leaves if you want.”
Brenna bustled through the door looking precisely as she had in the glass, umbrella and all, still huffing and waving her hand in her face and saying, “Damn lovebugs. At this time of year?”
“Hello Brenna,” welcomed Carol and the two began to chat and Tanner made his way to dust or straighten books or generally move away from the conversation.
“Hello Dear,” Brenna acknowledged and calmed down a bit. She leaned her closed white umbrella in the corner behind the door and puled her gauzy shawl up and tied the loose ends in a knot so she could walk about the store without it over her arms. She adjusted but did not remove her ever-present white frame sunglasses up and moved around a small arched display case filled with twinkling crystals, gems, and minerals. She studied a bookcase behind the crystal display and as she ducked closer, warm scents of mingled resins, sawdust of exotic trees, and musk oil perfumes filled her senses. The bookcase was stacked with boxes of stick incense. On the case top were jars of incense resin and a small wooden three-tiered box. On each tier of the box were parchment envelopes arranged in vertical files and each envelope bore the stamped name of its contents.
“Ah-ha,” Brenna exhaled and began to flip through the waxed envelopes.
Sandalwood. Frankincense. Copal. White Pine. Dragonsblood.
“Here we are,” Brenna said.
“Dragonsblood resin?” Carol asked from the front as Brenna withdrew the envelope.
“Yes. How’d you know?”
“Full moon Friday. I thought you might be up for working outside since it’s been cooler.”
“Well, yes,” Brenna said smelling the incense through the envelope. “I still have a half-box of the dragonsblood sticks left from last month, and they do smell exactly the same like you said. But they don’t pack quite the same—punch. Know what I mean?”
“I do. They are good for inside though.”
“Yes. Better actually.”
“But you’re right. The resin has a bit more, directness.”
“Well yes,” Brenna agreed, and she looked to be sure there was no one else in the shop besides Tanner, who was in the back corner dusting a shelf filled with pillar candles arranged by color and hearing the chat but not really listening. She confirmed that no other customers were in the shop with another glance around toward the two chairs under the rune cabinet as she walked back toward the counter where Carol stood. Brenna lowered her voice nonetheless. “And I never burn dragonsblood at all unless I’m doing Magick. That’s just an old habit from my coven days back up north. Don’t know if it makes much difference, but it does put me in the mindset. For spellwork I mean.”
“Working on anything special?” Carol asked. She would never ask most witches about magick or spells with much the same courtesy that one does not ask people about money or relationships. But Carol knew that Brenna was a solitary these days and that she loved to chat to other witches about the craft and she also knew her to be curt at times, so if she would rather not discuss it, she would have simply said no. She did not say no.
“Oh nothing heavy. My nephew just applied to Florida State. Jenny asked him if it would be all right for us to do a little Go Noles spell for him and he said it was.”
Brenna was one of those people who would throw out names at random, as if everyone knew every person she did.
“Is Jenny a witch too?” Carol asked, wondering if she had ever seen her in the store.
“Well no. Jenny’s his mom. My sister. But she’s worried about his SAT scores and she doesn’t want to take any chances.”
The two ladies laughed and Carol said, “Exactly,” and Brenna nodded.
“It’s just some positive energy I want to send his way. Not like we’re crashing Harvard.”
“Anything else today dear?” Carol asked.
“I do need a green candle if you have one. For an abundance spell that a young lady at the office needs.”
“Yes,” Carol gestured and Brenna walked to the candle shelf and Tanner made his way back to the front of the shop.
Brenna scanned the colors and pulled out a forrest-green pillar candle. She looked at the bottom.
“Fourteen dollars?” she said out loud and Carol just grinned but said nothing and Brenna put the candle back.
“I’ll just get one at Wal-Mart,” Brenna said on her way to the register.
She paid for her incense and headed back out saying, “Good day,” to the store and the door closed behind her.
The morning passed with no other customers until ten minutes before noon when the door opened and two teenage girls entered ahead of what were likely their mothers. One mother and a friend. An aunt.
“Oh my God!” exclaimed one of the girls and she hooked her arm around her friend’s and added, “I Love this store!”
Her friend said, “Oh my God me too!” and they struck off arm-in
-arm to explore every shelf and treasure in the shop. Their mothers perused the shelves near the front of the store with friendly curiosity and Carol smiled and said, “Hello.”
“My name is Tanner so just let me know if I can help you,” Tanner said to the girls then added, “or if you have any questions,” to the women.
“Thank you,” the women said and the girls sat in the chairs and looked through a stack of books they had pulled from the shelf and placed on a small table between them.
Their mothers bought boxes of nag champa incense and one of them bought a set of blank greeting cards each with a different faerie on the outside. They called for the girls and the four of them left the store.
In the afternoon Tanner found himself on the register when Carol returned from lunch and the two began to talk.
“Any sales?” Carol asked.
“Yes. I sold a CD to a lady. And two sarongs to ladies from the school. Teachers I think.”
“We’ll take that, but I thought it would be busier. The full moon coming up. Still, we have tomorrow and the week before then I guess.”
“Yeah. Carol, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Can you show me how to see people coming in the scrying mirror. The Visitor Spell. You know?”
“Oh yes that’s right. Okay. Come right here,” Carol said and she moved to a spot under the shelf. She guided Tanner by his shoulders and positioned him. “Now don’t look right at it. Kind of move to the side until you see it reflecting something else in the room.”
“Okay. I can see the top of the crystal cabinet.”
“Okay, perfect. Now move back some until that reflection angles away. Do you remember how that reflection looked? The color. The images?”