The Price Guide to the Occult(6)
Despite the best efforts of a well-meaning guidance counselor, Nor had dropped out of high school after her junior year. In their last required meeting, the counselor had declared that Nor lacked, to use her words, “the intrinsic motivation to do anything of importance or relevance with this life.”
This wasn’t exactly a surprising revelation. Teachers had been saying roughly the same thing about Nor for as long as she could remember. Nor’s report cards were typically littered with phrases like “lacks initiative” and “is easily discouraged.” She did, at her grandmother’s insistence, take the exams required to earn her General Education Diploma — which, it turned out, wasn’t actually a diploma, but a certificate that Nor was supposed to print off the Internet herself.
Nor had never had the heart to tell anyone that all she wanted was to make the slightest mark as humanly possible on the world; she was too preoccupied with proving to herself that she was nothing like her mother to be focused on anything else. Which was exactly why the link to that GED certificate was sitting unopened in Nor’s inbox, and she was still working the same delightfully dull part-time job at the Witching Hour, stocking the shop’s sagging shelves with tarot cards and spell kits, selling faux love potions to tourists, and attempting to stay awake through slow afternoons.
Nor had unpacked half of the new merchandise, restocked the apothecary section with mandrake root and sumac berry, and added a fresh pile of the Witching Hour bumper stickers — I’d Rather Be Riding My Broom — to the front counter by the time Savvy entered the shop a few hours later. She was carrying two tall blended coffees from the Sweet and Savory Bakery, which Nor eyed greedily.
Savvy, Nor’s best friend, was a petite beam of sunshine in scuffed-up combat boots and ripped lace leggings. A punk rock Pollyanna, she was sweet and genuine and, in Nor’s opinion, extremely pretty with big brown eyes, ocher-brown skin, and wildly colored hair.
“So how was school?” Nor teased, gratefully taking the coffee.
Nor didn’t envy the load of books she could see in Savvy’s hot-pink backpack or the hours of homework she’d have to complete this weekend.
“Nothing but a shell of its former self since you left,” Savvy said. “They say no one in the history of the school made a greater impact there than you did.”
“Must have been all those clubs I didn’t join and all the classes I cut.”
“The dances you didn’t attend, the yearbook photos you never took.” Savvy shook her head. “I’ve never known anyone so devoted to anonymity.”
“Have I told you I don’t have a single social media account?”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Savvy stood on her tiptoes to swipe at the handwoven dream catchers hanging from the ceiling. “I tried messaging you about tonight before I remembered the only way to communicate with you is through carrier pigeon.”
“Or, you know, you could have texted me.”
“Semantics.”
“What’s happening tonight?” Nor asked. She felt something brush against her leg. She looked down. Kikimora meowed at her silently until Nor picked her up and placed her on the counter.
“A bunch of us are thinking about heading over to Halcyon Island,” Savvy said.
Some of the islands in the archipelago were so small that they were privately owned. Halcyon was one such island, named for the wealthy family who had purchased it in the 1940s. The novelty of owning an island in the Salish Sea was lost on the Halcyon heirs, and Halcyon Island was later sold. It had exchanged hands multiple times: the most recent owners — a pair of well-meaning mainlanders — had converted the Halcyon family mansion into a bed-and-breakfast. It had closed a few years ago, and the island had been empty ever since.
Nor made a face. “I don’t get why you like hanging out there. It gives me the creeps.”
“I thought we liked things that give us the creeps?” Savvy said.
“We do,” Nor said. “Just not that place. They found a body over there, Savvy.”
“It’s not there anymore!” Savvy retorted. “Plus, we live on an island. What the fuck else is there to do?”
“You could go to work,” Nor suggested jokingly. “Isn’t the Society supposed to be open now?”
For years, the barn behind Theo Dawson’s mechanic shop had been where islanders brought belongings they no longer needed or wanted. Though money never exchanged hands — the Society for the Protection of Discarded Things, as Savvy fondly called it, was more a take-what-you-need-and-leave-the-rest kind of place — Savvy still spent most of her free time behind the front counter. She was, to use her words, the Guardian of Unwanted Things.
“I could do a great many things, but that doesn’t mean I will” was Savvy’s reply.
Nor laughed and nudged Kikimora out of the way before she lifted another heavy box onto the counter. Most of the books and curios that Madge ordered for the shop came from places with names like Crystal Waves and the Enlightened Sorcerer. Nor found a publishing house called Crone Books particularly irritating because its logo was the silhouette of a stereotypical witch, complete with a long, pointed nose and a wart on her chin.
This particular box, however, was unmarked. The return address was from some obscure town in Maine that Nor had never even heard of. She ripped the box open. Savvy reached in and pulled out a book from the stack inside.