Touch of Shadow

by April Aasheim

  I tapped the window with my fingertip. “Kela, can you tell if that’s Dave?” They were headed into The Mean Bean, the coffee house next door that catered mostly to college students.

  Kela squinted and pressed her face to the window, re-fogging the glass. “Yep, that’s Dave all right. Who’s the tramp with him?”

  “That’s not a nice thing to say about another woman, Kela,” I said, as my eyes followed Dave. The woman had strawberry hair and eyelashes that could be seen from space. “But I do appreciate the support.”

  Kela nudged me away from the window and drew the curtains shut. “No way I’m letting you get all freaky-deaky on my watch. You waited too long to make your move on Dave, and now he’s moved on. You should, too.”

  “But we do have a history. And it’s only been a few weeks since he asked me out.”

  “You did have a history, and a few weeks in the digital age is like a few years from your era. You’ve gotta be quick.” She snapped her fingers twice. “There are many other fish in the sea, even in Reed Hollow. Trust me, I’ve thrown more than my share back. But we need to work quickly before the good ones are all snapped up, like Dave for instance. When you hit the big 3-0, the pond gets much smaller. Are you willing to go older or younger?”

  I was alarmed at either prospect, mostly because of the tone of Kela’s voice. I didn’t want to feel like an old lady, but I didn’t want to feel like a nursemaid, either.

  “C’mon,” Kela said, leaving the attic. I obediently followed her down the stairs to the second floor. She marched past her bedroom and headed straight for mine at the end of the hall. Without waiting for my permission, she pushed open the door and proceeded to my closet.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded, as she rifled through my clothes.

  “I’m getting you out of your funk before you can settle into it. Frowning is not good for wrinkles.” She lifted out a champagne-colored silk scarf and teetered her head like a Bollywood film actress, as if deciding whether it was hideous. “Dave’s just one guy. Do you really want a guy who carries a purse, anyway?”

  “It’s a camera bag! He’s a photographer. And it is Italian leather.”

  “You are such a Libra – always defending the other side.” Frustrated with the pickings in my closet, she slammed the door and regarded me, exasperated. “Do you have anything in your entire wardrobe that is rated PG-13 or above?”

  “What?”

  “Flirty. Sexy. Daring. Bold. You know…eye candy.”

  “Oh!”

  I did have a collection of sexy accessories, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to show them to Kela. I’d only been daring enough to wear them for Ryan on a few occasions. Still, it might be good to get a fresh perspective, and perhaps even find the courage to wear them again.

  “Wait here,” I said.

  Kela waited breathlessly while I wrestled with one of the two suitcases sitting in the corner of my bedroom. I hadn’t opened them since moving back home. I knew Alex worried they were an anchor to my previous life – packed bags ready to leave at a moment’s notice. But really, I hadn’t opened them because I was embarrassed about the contents inside.

  “You must not tell anyone,” I warned her as I worked the combination lock. “Promise?”

  Kela crouched beside me. “Baylee Scott, I didn’t know you had a wild side. I’m so curious I could pee! I promise not to tell a soul.”

  I pressed my lips together as the case unlocked, flipping open the lid. Kela’s eyes widened as she marveled at my treasure trove.

  “What the hell?” she said, reaching into the suitcase and running her hands through the contents. “There’s gotta be something buried beneath all these…these…”

  “Gloves!” I revealed, lifting out a pair of white satin darlings, replete with bows on the back. “Two hundred pairs, to be exact. In every color, fabric, texture and decade that I could find.” I showed her a pair of lace fingerless gloves I had purchased in Paris but never dared to wear. “Too risky for Reed Hollow, I know.”

  “No!” She yanked the glove from my hand and threw it back into the suitcase, slamming it shut, even as I held tightly to its companion.

  “Baylee, honey, we need to have an intervention. Gloves can be sexy, but not if the rest of you resembles an extra from Mary Poppins. This can’t be your entire bad-girl wardrobe.”

  “I may have a corset or two around here, as well.”

  “You’re allowed to keep the lace gloves, but that’s it, and only while we figure out what to do with the rest of you.”

  Kela took my hand, once again pulling me along behind her. We went down another set of stairs to the main floor, where our family businesses – the antique shop and the tea house – were located.

  We moved swiftly through the tea house café, where my brother stood behind the coffee counter, staring at a recipe book. “Morning Alex,” I called out as I passed by. He grunted something as he sipped from his mug, his brows knit in stern concentration. Alex didn’t come by baking naturally, but what he lacked in talent he tried to make up for in determination. Tried being the operative word.

  “You seen Mr. B?” he called as I was ushered through the open double doors and into the adjoining antique shop. Mr. B was short for Mr. Bites, a name too soft for his feral disposition, in my opinion.

  “Your cat’s upstairs in the attic. I keep telling him it’s my room now, but he won’t listen.”

  Alex nodded, revealing a weary smile. “He won’t be caged, Baylee. That’s what I admire about him.”

  Kela closed the doors behind us. We stood in the quaint antique shop I had volunteered to run after my parents passed away last year. It had once been a boisterous room, with odds and ends and whatnots all mingled together, everything clamoring for attention. But I had since turned this little part of the Colonial farmhouse into a cozy retreat, and I smiled as the scents of old books and leather greeted me. The dark paneling on the walls was dated in an unfashionable way, and I vowed to strip it back in the spring, or at least paint it a lighter color to make the shop appear larger.

  Kela made her way to my desk and slipped into the chair. She began typing away at my computer before I could stop her.

  “It’s password protected,” I said as I stared over her shoulder at the monitor. She looked back at me and winked. “I’ve hacked a few computers in my time.” Her fingers danced across the keyboard, as effortlessly as she walked. In a few moments, she pulled up a bubblegum pink website playing something called K-pop music. The site was called Switch. Two attractive people in their early twenties filled the screen, grinning knowingly at one another.

  “This may be more your speed,” Kela said, pleased with herself.

  “A dating site?” I asked, reading the megalithic words scrolling across the screen. Lonely? Miserable? Eating Alone? Don’t Moan - Switch! There’s always someone waiting for you. Always!

  “Well, isn’t that an inspiring tagline,” I said. “I don’t eat alone. I eat with Alex.”

  “That is not a convincing argument,” Kela said, reclaiming her position as captain of my keyboard. “If I can’t find you an interesting date by your birthday, I’ll eat one of Alex’s cranberry scones.”

  My brother’s cranberry scones were as bitter as they were brittle. Eating one was like biting into a tart rock, only to have the rock dissolve into even tarter dust on your tongue before you could swallow. If my cousin was willing to go that far, she was serious. “Deal,” I said. At best, I’d meet someone interesting; at worst, it would be amusing to watch her choke down one of his scones.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got to choose from,” Kela said. Soon, the page was populated with dozens of photos, all depicting Reed Hollow’s most eligible bachelors. A lot of them looked familiar, and some were even café customers.

  Kela scrolled through the images as I dismissed each one quickly for one reason or another. We came to a screeching halt, horrified to see a smirking photo of my brother staring back at us from the monitor.
He was lounging on his bed, petting his cat and wearing only plaid pajama bottoms. His caption read “Laaaaaadies!”

  I grabbed the mouse and minimized the window. “Thank you very much, Kela,” I said. “Now I’m going to have to burn those pajama bottoms the next time I see them in the dryer.”

  “It just goes to show that everyone is a little lonely,” she said, opening the page up again. “Now let me do my work. I promise not to set you up with your brother, or anyone who looks like he might be related. You never know in these small towns. Now, let’s find you a profile pic.”

  After another few keyboard strokes, a dozen photos of me at various ages and in different shapes emerged. “Don’t you have anything recent?” she asked.

  “Who would take one of me?”

  “Haven’t you heard of a selfie? Oh look, this one is not too terrible.”

  I leaned in. It was a picture I had nearly forgotten about, taken several years ago. My fine blonde hair was longer and lighter, with waves cascading well past my shoulders. My waist was smaller, by at least a size, lending me a defined hourglass figure that had since softened and blurred. I was wearing a red leather skirt, black boots that hit just above my knee, and a fitted blouse with a daring neckline. I had on the jade earrings my mother had picked up on her honeymoon in Mexico – earrings I had borrowed and forgotten to return.

  “No. Absolutely not. You may not use that photo.”

  Kela spun the chair around, beaming up at me. Her long lashes nearly reached her brows. She purred as she spoke. “Why not? It’s perfect. So…femme fatale. A few filters and we’ll have to fight the boys off with an electric egg beater. We’ll darken the background and add a bit more blue to those eyes. See? Now this is modern magick.”

  The photo was now a close up version of me, with all my better attributes embellished. My hair had reddish highlights and I had cheekbones where I didn’t have any before. My skin looked baby smooth. “I do look nice, but it’s cheating. Any man will be able to tell I fudged a little when he meets me.”

  “Honey, we all fudge a little. It’s expected. As long as we don’t go overboard, no one will care.”

  I felt my eye tick as I pondered her words. “Even so, you can’t use that photo.”

  “Give me one good reason and I won’t, but if you can’t, I’m posting it.” She held a finger over the right mouse button, ready to detonate unless I could properly convince her.

  My chest constricted and I found it hard to breath. I was, by nature, a private person. Confessing intimate details of my life was not something I was comfortable doing. “Ryan took that picture. We were in New York for a weekend getaway. It was the night of our wedding anniversary. Our last wedding anniversary.”

  “Oh!” Without further argument, she quickly started searching for another photo. She eventually found one of me staring out a window, wearing a lilac beret. “This one will work. So, are you willing to travel more than five miles for a date? Is it okay if a man has kids? Is a misdemeanor a deal-breaker?”

  I absently answered the questions as I roamed the shop, dusting objects with the tips of my gloved-fingers, all the while trying to suppress the voice in my head chiding me for moving on from Ryan.

  “What’s this?” I asked, as I came to a large hefty bag near the shop entrance. This door was rarely used, as most people entered through the café. I pried open the bag, careful not to disturb the contents. Peering in, I saw it was filled with clothes. I sifted through the sack until a lone leather glove caught my attention.

  “Someone must have dropped it off earlier today,” Kela said from the computer. “We really need a Goodwill in this town.”

  Residents often treated our business like a thrift store rather than an antique shop. Some even had the nerve to ask for a donation tax receipt. I pushed the bag away with my foot, promising myself to look through it later. At first glance, many of the donations appeared worthless, but every once in a while, I found a real treasure, generally something left in a purse or pocket.

  As Kela continued her line of questioning, I heard the café door blow open, slamming hard into the wall and rattling the windows. I stepped out into the tea house and waved to the tiny woman with long silver hair who was fighting through the wind and the door. It was my friend, and now mentor, Ella. The old woman ran The Little Tea Pot, a competing business in the heart of downtown. She was also the town’s oldest witch, and had coached my own mother in the ways of magick.

  “Haloo!” Ella hollered into her cupped hands. “Anyone here but ghosts?” she asked. Her stiff shoes clacked across the hardwood floor. Alex had apparently left the counter.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told Kela. I realized I was leaving my cousin alone with my profile, but she would create it exactly as she wanted anyway, whether I was there or not. I might as well let her do her thing, and then delete it later.

  “Hello, Ella,” I called, greeting her warmly. She was pulling leaves from her scarf and thick ivory braid. Mr. B appeared, rubbing up against her leg. “I think he misses you. Are you sure you don’t want him back?”

  Ella inspected me from behind her wire spectacles “Nope. The little turd impregnated my tabby once already. I’m not about to let him loose on her again. Men!” She clucked her tongue and the sound echoed through the café, just as her shoes had.

  Ella shivered and I walked her out to a small table in the adjoining solarium. It was the warmest area of the house, gathering heat from the early morning sun that lingered well into the afternoon.

  “Alex, please bring Ella some mint tea,” I called to my brother, who was coming in from the garden. He grunted but nodded as we sat down across from one another. If Ella was here, it was for a reason. It felt worthy of ceremony, even if it was just tea.

  The old woman looked uncharacteristically nervous, fiddling with sugar packets and commenting on the squirrels scurrying outside the large windows. Ella wasn’t the type to watch squirrels.

  “I can’t believe October is nearly half over,” I said, hoping the small talk would spur her into a confession.

  “Hmm? Oh, yes. Time goes fast when you’re older, they say. And memories are… harder to make.”

  This was a reminder I didn’t need at the moment. I imagined myself at her age, telling stories of the good old days. Only, what stories would I have to tell?

  Ella nodded a thank you to Alex as he dropped off the small blue kettle and a plate of scones. As soon as he was gone she curled her nose and pushed the plate my way. “No offense to your brother, but I’ve stayed away from the taste of ash since I quit smoking thirty years ago.”

  “Ella, what’s wrong? You’re not one for pleasantries. What brings you here?”

  She swilled down a long sip of tea, nodding her approval. “It’s the veil,” she said, smoothing her cloth napkin across her lap. “It begins cracking open every October, continuing throughout the month until it becomes so thin that anyone – or anything – might cross over. But this year is different – the pace is accelerating. Can you smell it?”

  Ella sniffed at the air with her button nose, drawing in the scent that only she could detect, holding it tight inside her chest. When she finally released it, I expected to smell the foul odor of rot and decay, but her breath was mint.

  “What do you mean, Ella?”

  She turned slowly toward the window, her face unreadable except for the deep lines around her set jaw and piercing eyes. The tea cup quivered in her shaking hand. It was unnerving to watch this woman of steel appear so frightened. Her eyes flitted downward as she swirled the drink in her hand. Then she let out a guttural laugh as she looked up, showing me the inside of her cup.

  “I can read it in the tea leaves,” she said. “The veil wasn’t just cracked open – it was split clean apart.”

  She put down her cup and sighed. “I wasn’t sure at first, but now that I’ve seen the leaves, I’m certain. One person has already fallen to the darkness, and others will follow. Protect yourself, if you are able.”


  “Fallen? Ella, who has fallen?”

  When she turned to me, her face was stoic, as if she’d processed the news she was about to reveal many times and there was nothing left to register. She smoothed down the wiry wisps framing her face. The lines around her eyes softened as her mouth formed the words.

  “The mayor died yesterday, suddenly and unexpectedly. The spirits – and now the tea leaves – tell me that his death is a bad omen, and a harbinger of darker things to come.

  Two

  I stared past Ella for what must’ve been an uncomfortable amount of time, until I realized she was snapping her fingers in front of my face. “You still with me?” she asked.

  The mayor had died? That couldn’t be true. He was here in our café just a few days ago, complaining about his order and flirting with Kela. True, he was advancing in years, but he looked perfectly healthy. It seemed so cruel that death could come so unexpectedly.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized, pouring myself a cup of tea. My fingers trembled as I lifted it to my lips. Then I blinked my eyes, remembering the rest of what she had said. Something about the veil…and bad omens.

  “You don’t know about the veil?” Ella said, unfastening the top button on her long wool coat.

  I pressed the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger, a habit I had picked up as a middle-schooler when we were given pop quizzes in class. “The Samhain veil, correct? I’ve read that it lifts on All Hollow’s Eve, allowing spirits to pass between worlds. But doesn’t the veil only open on Halloween?”

  Ella pulled a black umbrella from her oversized bag. She shook it at me like a teacher brandishing a ruler. I was almost ready to turn my palms over up so she could administer punishment.

  “Bah! This generation! You think because you look up everything on your hocus-pocus computing machines that you know the facts, but you don’t! Here’s a tip, and I’ll give it to you for free – You learn far more through experience than by reading about it.” She lowered her umbrella and laid it on the table. “The veil begins to thin on the first day of October, and continues opening throughout the month, peaking on Halloween. But this year the fracture is much wider and we’re only halfway through the month. Who knows what madness has already been unleashed, or what is yet to come?”