The Price Guide to the Occult(5)
“Would you mind putting these out for your customers?” Nor asked. She stopped and handed each woman a stack of flyers she pulled out of her bag. “I promised they’d be on every countertop of every business on the street.”
“Madge is going all out this Halloween, isn’t she?” Bliss mused, examining the flyer.
“A lantern-lit midnight tour of the island cemetery. A séance and palm reading. Any chance she’ll convince our own young Blackburn to join the festivities this year?”
“Not if I can help it,” Nor said with a smile.
“But what if Rona Blackburn shows this year?” Vitória Oliveira teased. “Madge has been making that promise for years.”
“All the more reason for me to stay at home,” Nor said. “I’m going to turn out the lights and eat all of the candy Apothia buys for trick-or-treaters.”
Bliss laughed. “No interest in meeting your infamous matriarch?”
“Not in the least.”
Despite her being a Blackburn, no one on Anathema had ever treated Nor any differently from anyone else. Eclectic characters were just a part of island life. This, after all, was a place where street names were reminiscent of fairy tales, with names like Red Poppy Road and Stars-in-Their-Eyes Lane. It was a place where bohemians came to retire, to spend their free hours creating sculptures out of recycled electronics or painting large graphic nudes of one another that they proudly displayed at the weekly street fair. It was where Harper Forgette — who, genealogically speaking, was Nor’s sixth cousin — and her girlfriend, Kaleema, ran an alpaca farm on the Forgette family land. It was where clients looked forward to a taste of Vitória Oliveira’s lavender jam just as much as they did to her lavender-infused pedicures, and where Theo Dawson, the island’s sole mechanic, had been known to accept payment in croque monsieurs.
Heckel Abernathy, the owner of Willowbark General Store, on the other hand, insisted to all who would listen that the Blackburn family was very special indeed. To him, they were the living embodiment of a good luck charm or a talisman, and the cause of the island’s good fortune. It was understandable why he might think so. The link between the Blackburn daughters and the island was so strong Nor often imagined that the veins that ran underneath her skin and the tree roots that ran under her feet were one and the same.
The island itself was rich with relics of Blackburn family lore. A plaque sat in front of every building constructed by Astrid Blackburn, the fifth daughter, designating it a historical landmark. A statue of Astrid’s mother, Scarlet, stood in front of the library she’d rescued books from when a fire surged through the island in 1928. The island cemetery boasted headstones of all five departed Blackburn daughters, as well as Rona Blackburn herself. It was said that leaving a white lily on the grave of Mara, the third daughter, would ensure safe passage into the afterlife for departed loved ones.
And though there were many stories about why these extraordinarily gifted women could do the extraordinarily gifted things they did, thankfully for Nor, those who truly believed it was because they were witches were few and far between.
Nor left the bakery and continued up the staircase, careful not to slip on the wet blanket of red and orange leaves covering the steps. The second-floor porch had been decorated for the season with cornstalks and pots of Chinese-lantern flowers. A hand-painted sign in the window read:
GUIDED WALKING TOURS OF ANATHEMA ISLAND’S
WITCH-RELEVANT LANDMARKS AND LEGENDS.
AVAILABLE THRICE DAILY.
FOR TIMES AND PRICES, INQUIRE WITHIN.
Nor stomped her wet boots, entered the shop, and was greeted by the tiny clang of bells and a thick haze of incense. Walking into the Witching Hour always felt to Nor like she was walking into a secret. The dark purple walls and velvet curtains gave the room an air of mystery. A black-painted pentacle covered the wooden floor. Short, fat candles flickered from the windowsills. Grimacing gargoyles and death masks hung from the walls alongside dried herbs and shelves of apothecary bottles filled with all kinds of nefarious contents: graveyard dirt, dried scorpions, bat’s blood. There were broomsticks that smelled faintly of cinnamon, and tall, pointed hats crafted by a local milliner. The shop even had its own familiar, a skittish black feline by the name of Kikimora.
It was a shame really. If any of the Blackburn daughters had been gifted with a talent for spell work, the Witching Hour would have had everything they could ever need. But the art of casting spells had died with Rona, it seemed. And good riddance to it, Nor thought.
As Nor hung up her jacket, a woman she’d only ever known as Wintersweet bounced into the room, a black-hooded cloak hanging from her shoulders.
“Tonic?” she squeaked, offering Nor a mug. “Just brewed it this morning.”
Nor took the mug, trying to avoid the woman’s gaze as she waited, expectantly, for Nor to take a sip. When she did, Wintersweet clapped her hands gleefully and skipped back into the adjoining room. Nor put the mug down. The contents tasted too vile for her to drink.
Nor took her place behind the cash register as the participants of the morning’s tour began to trickle steadily into the small shop, rain jackets and umbrellas dripping. The Witching Hour’s owner, Madge Shimizu, appeared in the back doorway.
“You forgot this,” Madge teased Nor, then plopped a tall, black, pointed hat onto Nor’s head. Nor grimaced, and Madge laughed. “If you get a chance,” Madge said, “there are some boxes in the back that need to be stocked.” She pulled up the hood of her own black cloak and welcomed the small crowd. Once she and Wintersweet had led the group out into the rain, Nor plucked the hat from her head and tossed it to the floor.