Dorothy nodded, ducking her head like a bird that had just spotted something small and wriggling. She turned to go, heading for the car park. She only paused long enough to say something over her shoulder.

  “Make sure you bring her.”

  And then she was gone.

  I guess she’d decided against the play after all.

  There was a heartbeat of silence, and then Lorcan said, quietly but vehemently, “Bollocks.”

  “So, she seems nice.”

  Lorcan gave me the look my comment deserved. “She’s a terrifying harridan with the personality of a starving vulture.”

  “I just said that.” Honestly, without the fangs and the dietary restrictions, she might have slid right in comfortably beside some of the elderly witches I’d met. Of course, both sides would scream bloody murder if I’d made that comparison out loud.

  Lorcan turned to face me fully, taking both of my hands in his. He studied my face for a long second. “Are you alright?”

  I realized with some surprise that, yes, I was alright. It hadn’t been a pleasant interaction, but no one had died, so it wasn’t the worst. “I’m good.”

  “And you still want to see the play? We can just go home if you don’t.”

  I glared at him, tightening my hands enough that my nails dug into his palms. “Lorcan Rowe, do you have any idea the amount of time and effort it takes to look this utterly fabulous? We are going to the play, we are going to have a good time, and everyone is going to get to see my glorious dress.” It wasn’t a promise, it was a threat.

  Lorcan grinned, squeezing my hands far more gently. “Alright, then.”

  I nodded, satisfied, and we set off up the path.

  We made it three steps before Lorcan opened his big mouth. “So… do you still think I have designs on this mysterious vampire in town.”

  I glared. “Shut it, Rowe.”

  He didn’t shut it. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to an older woman. She just seems a bit predatory for me. And for a vampire, that’s really saying something. I’m just not sure it would work out between the two of us.”

  It was a struggle not to laugh, and I refused to give him that satisfaction, so I poked him repeatedly in the ribs, hard enough that a human would have bruised. He finally relented, chuckling like an idiot.

  Of course, I wasn’t about to admit that I’d been jealous or worried out loud. But that meant I also couldn’t call him out for forgetting to mention that the woman looked like she’d been vacuum sealed and was older physically than a lot of bridges in the area. The jerk.

  It did make me wonder what the spell was up with Darla’s eyesight. But then, maybe when she was acting in her official capacity as right-hand vamp, Dorothy was more likely to dress up a bit, and the pant suits were for her personal time. And I hadn’t exactly asked Darla to describe the way the woman looked—like if she was old enough to have witnessed cavemen first discovering fire.

  When we finally stepped inside the Black Lily, it was like the rest of the world fell away. The interior was dim, full of velvety shadows, with the only illumination coming from a few electric wall sconces and some twinkling lights up near the ceiling that looked like the night sky. It made even the open foyer feel private and a bit hushed.

  The carpet on the floor, dark with patterns of smoke and pewter woven into it, was plush enough that the heels of my shoes left little marks like stab wounds when I walked. I liked that more than was probably healthy. But then, I’d always liked seeing that I made an impact.

  There was a reception desk done in a black lacquer so shiny that it acted like a blurry mirror on the far side of the lobby, just before the doors. That close to curtain call, I was surprised it was empty, other than one theater employee in a dark shirt and a gray and silver vest patterned with a stylized lily. Though, the Black Lily didn’t strike me as the kind of place you bought tickets on a whim at the last second, so they were probably just there in case guests needed help getting to their seats.

  We passed a poster set out in a silver Art Deco frame, and I frowned as I read the title of the play we were about to sit through.

  “Toil and Trouble?” I frowned. “Lorcan, please tell me this isn’t just Macbeth with a new skin. The witch propaganda in that play had always gotten up my nose.”

  “I think it’s bad luck to say the name in a theater. You’re supposed to call it ‘the Scottish play’. But, no. Not quite, anyway.” Lorcan passed me the program he had picked up, a glossy little magazine with a picture of three women on the cover.

  I grumpily flipped through it, only to realize that, yes, it was a Macbeth reskin as I’d feared. But this play was actually a retelling from the perspective of the witches. Hmm.

  I laughed, I couldn’t help it. Suddenly, I was very much looking forward to the evening.

  “Alright, Lorcan. You got me. Lead on.”

  He didn’t head for the main hallway to the theater doors, though. Instead, he took a smaller door to the left that led up a short flight of stairs. I almost complained, since my shoes were doing terrible things to my feet, but then he opened the door at the top and ushered me into a private balcony, and I forgot all about my poor mangled toes.

  The box seat had only two chairs, both upholstered in midnight velvet, as lush and soft as a dream. There were little black lacquer tables on either side, perfect to rest a drink or a snack. It was like our own private little world, with an exceptional view of the stage down below.

  I settled in, pleased when the chair almost molded to me with a small sigh. “Okay. This is pretty great.”

  Though, with all the excitement of getting here, and dealing with Dorothy, part of me wished we’d stopped for dinner first. I was going to be struggling not to let my stomach drown out the second act at the rate things were going. I was just shaking out my skirts when I heard the crinkle of a bag, and I glanced up, suspicious.

  Lorcan was holding a package of flaming hot cheese puffs, a snack I adored but would never admit out loud on pain of death. Of course, Lorcan had noticed, even though I always tried to hide it. He could probably smell the spicy cheese powder on me, even after I washed my hands.

  “Where in the world were you hiding those?”

  He waggled his eyebrows at me. “A gentleman has to have some secrets, Sweetling.”

  The seats were arranged in such a way that, with the arm rests up, it was actually more like a small couch. It meant that I could curl my legs up and snuggle into Lorcan’s side with his arm around me while I nibbled on snacks and tried not to get hot cheese powder on my gorgeous dress.

  We settled in to watch the play about three amazing, powerful women setting up an arrogant man for his own downfall, and I was determined to enjoy every minute of it.

  Whatever troubles might drop on our doorstep, there would be plenty of time to worry about them later.

  Tonight, was just for us.

  ~~~~

  The End

  Return to Haven Hollow in:

  Enchanted Emporium

  ~~~~~

  Return to the Table of Contents

  ENCHANTED EMPORIUM

  Haven Hollow #33

  (Occult Oddities)

  by

  J.R. RAIN

  &

  H.P. MALLORY

  Enchanted Emporium

  Published by Rain Press

  Copyright © 2023 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Enchanted Emporium

  Chapter One

  “Perfect,” I seethed. “Just perfect. This is just what I needed.”

  It wasn’t enough to have Rodney dragging the divorce out a little longer. It wasn’t enough that a witch had come into my shop and blown herself up. No, now half my stock had to be destroyed before the big move! Gah!

  I threw up my hands in frustration, knocking the antique desk lamp over in my fit of pique. It was an antique passed down from my great-grandmother, made almost entirely from brass. The damn thing had enough heft to act as a club if necessary, so I wasn’t particularly fazed when it toppled over, landing on the shop floor with a clang. I was pretty sure it could weather a small nuclear arms exchange and come out the other side only slightly tarnished. It did skew my light though, sending the beam I was using to sort through the stacks of books toward the far corner of the room. I reached down and righted it again with a curse. The shop was in shambles enough without me adding to the mess.

  I was sitting on the floor of my shop, Mystic Moon, surrounded by boxes. My waterlogged shelves bulged outward, warped by the downpour they’d underwent in my absence. The smell of mildew permeated the entire shop, a disappointing potpourri that had completely scoured away the familiar scents of my business. Before Indigo walked into my life and literally blew it sky high, my store smelled like vanilla-scented candles, leather books, and whatever occult oddities had found their way in. Oh, and not to forget the famous mocha blend I kept on tap for my customers.

  “I didn’t blow up,” Indigo sniffed from the back of my mind. “I was violently and involuntarily discorporealized. And I most certainly didn’t do it to myself.”

  “Corporealize,” I mused aloud. “I’ve got a dictionary around here somewhere, and if the pages weren’t completely stuck together, I’d crack it open and show you the definition.”

  “The definition?” She demanded, in her snooty voice she used whenever I pointed out she was wrong about something.

  “It means to give something a body. The prefix ‘dis’ means ‘asunder or away’. So...”

  “What does any of this matter?” Indigo responded.

  “It matters because you need to know what a word means if you use it.” I took a breath—sometimes she was just a lot to deal with. Not to mention that having her as a constant voice in the back of my mind was... difficult, to say the least.

  “So, what’s your point?”

  “My point is that ever since you exploded and I almost got locked up in county jail, my life has been nothing but crap. That’s my point. Now shut up, Indie, I really don’t have time to argue with you. The moving trucks are going to be here bright and early tomorrow morning.” In an attempt to streamline the move, I’d already given the movers keys to this shop and keys to the new shop where we were moving—something Indie had lectured me about because she was beyond paranoid.

  “I despise that nickname,” she snapped.

  I knew that, which was exactly why I kept using it. Indigo Hallewell was a snooty, self-righteous piece of work who didn’t care to look past the end of her nose, let alone give a rat’s ass about other people. And I had the misfortune to be conjoined at the soul with her, due to an unfortunate magical accident (the aforementioned ‘explosion’). The stuffy name ‘Indigo’ that came attached to her was a daily reminder of my new and crappy life, so I’d re-christened her ‘Indie’. I could have done much worse than nicknaming her after a male action hero. She was getting off light, considering.

  “I scrubbed your guts off my checkout counter,” I answered her out loud. “After that, I get to call you what I like.”

  Indie lapsed into an unhappy sulk somewhere at the back of my brain. It was a disconcerting feeling, having someone else in your head, able to read your thoughts like a book and comment rudely on them. It certainly didn’t make living with one another any easier. The adjustment would have taken forever, even if she hadn’t wrecked my store. Which she had.

  I glanced around my shop and sighed. Who knew that one exploding witch could cause so much damage? I could probably have repaired or replaced the furniture in the blast radius. The hole in the ceiling would have been a harder fix, but I could have gotten a handyman in to patch it the same day if I was determined enough. I knew people in this town. Someone would have stepped up and helped out. But the police hadn’t taken the fleshy detonation lightly. Before you could snap your fingers and mutter ‘abra cadabra,’ they’d shown up at my door and hauled me in for questioning. By the time they’d determined I wasn’t a serial bomber or the target thereof, the elements had seeped through the hole in my roof, dousing my entire stock in tepid rainwater. I had half a mind to sue the department for lost revenue.

  Or I would have, if Indie hadn’t shown up in my head in all her irritating glory, insisting we pick up and move immediately.

  “Why do we have to move again?” I asked, tugging a stack of books closer in order to inspect them. “And why to this Hellish Hollow place in particular?”

  “Haven Hollow,” Indie corrected me primly. I could just picture her sliding a pair of spectacles up her nose, her mouth turned down in distaste. “And the reasons why aren’t any of your business, Dee.”

  She put sneering emphasis on the last word. I grimaced. Rodney used to call me ‘Dee’. When we’d been dating, I’d found the nickname cute. But like everything to do with Rodney, it had lost all its charm. But with regard to Indie, I supposed turnabout was fair play since I refused to call her anything else but ‘Indie’.

  “The reasons why are absolutely my business,” I responded archly. “If they could get me... what did you call it... decorporealized? Forgive me for not wanting to resemble last week’s chili just because I’m stuck with you.”

  “Last week’s chili?!”

  “You had to have royally pissed someone or something off for them to have taken you out like they did. Why else would a witch like you have wandered into a shop like mine? Were you looking for something that could save your life?”

  “It was a mistake,” Indie grumbled. “I ought to have known better than to step into the sub-par occult store owned by a fraudulent gypsy.”

  “Traveler,” I corrected her. “We’re called Travelers and I’m not a fraud... well, not a complete one, anyway. I have a little talent.”

  Very little talent. In all honesty, I could barely charge a crystal with good vibes and any seances I used to perform in the back room were the result of great cold reading skills and a spooky atmosphere. Since I had magic in my blood, I could technically see and talk to ghosts, but it was rare for a spook to attach itself to a person and follow them around. Most were tethered to locations if they were aware enough to communicate at all. So, yes, even though I was of gypsy Traveler blood, my abilities weren’t very impressive. I was basically a sensitive human who could sometimes see ghosts (I’d seen a whopping three in my life), and I was slightly empathic which meant I could read people’s feelings and emotions, sometimes even absorbing them into myself.

  Indie’s sense of urgency compelled me to flip through the stack of books a little faster. Half of them would have to be tossed, or at least marked down. You could sell damaged books, but mold and mildew will spread from book to book like a virus. Best not to chance it. So here I was, going through every single one of them the night before the big move. Le sigh.

  “Best you stop arguing with her, Lydia,” Checkers said from his perch at the window. “She’s as stubborn as a mule when she’s set her mind to something.”

  The red velvet curtains that shielded my windows twitched once, and then a round, furry face popped through the gap. It belonged to a truly enormous ginger cat. If not for his color, I would have assumed I’d inherited Indie’s pet bobcat, not her decades-old familiar. He’d lost four lives over the years, and I had to assume that high cholesterol had been to blame for at least two of his supposed deaths. Not only did he stand at a whopping twenty-three inches high, he was also around sixty pounds of fat and kitty fluff.

  “That’s an insult to mules,” I shot back, though there wasn’t much venom in my tone. I liked Checkers. He was the only tolerable part about having a witch in my head.

  More of his pudgy body appeared just before he leaped to the floor, landing like a furry bombshell in the midst of the book stacks. The top book on the nearest one trembled and threatened to tip over on top of the cat. He stretched languidly, unconcerned about the merchandise, before sliding over to me, rubbing his flank along my arm.

  “Whatcha reading?” he asked.

  I glanced down at the book open on my lap. “I’m not reading it, I’m checking for mold and missing pages.”

  “Oh. Find any?”

  “Not so far.”

  “That’s good.” He peeked over the top edge of the book. “What’s it called?”

  “I thought you could read.”

  Which had boggled my mind when Indie first mentioned it. A reading cat? I’d known about the existence of witches, even if I hadn’t believed in them as ardently as the rest of my family. Ironically, the more I’d looked into the occult, the less I believed in it. I’d dabbed myself with potions sent by my great-uncles simply to humor them, but I’d never imagined they’d actually work. Then Indie showed up, latched right onto my soul, and flipped my world upside down. I’d very quickly learned that not only were witches and their talking familiars real, but apparently a whole host of other things were real too. Vampires, ghouls, goblins, you name it and, yep, it existed. If it was creepy and crawly, it was out there somewhere.

  “I read English, not German,” Checkers responded. “I was bred in New Jersey, not Hamburg.”

  I checked the spine. “It’s a translation of Gaspar Schott’s Physica Curiosa.”

  His whiskers twitched approvingly. “Sounds like fun.”

  “Oh, loads.”

  It was actually among the most bizarre things I’d ever had the misfortune of reading, but luckily for me, I didn’t have to read the whole thing. Just scan for graffiti and running ink. There was nothing much wrong with this one. The pages had gone yellow, but some people liked that; it made the book feel more authentic, like it was older than it really was. So, I tossed it into the box I’d labeled ‘fine’ with a black Sharpie. There was another box next to it with ‘NOT FINE’ written in red Sharpie, in all caps, with three exclamation points. And it was underlined. Those books were damaged beyond repair and had an urgent date with the dumpster out back. What a shame.