Chapter 3 #2
Shop at the Orion Mercantile, a restored hotel that has been turned into a boutique shopping center, with cafés and a salon
Spend a spa day at the Artemis Spa he would definitely be using this.
Most of the activities sounded interesting, and he was especially interested in visiting the dunes, which he had read about on the plane.
Orion was situated just south of Turtle Dunes National Lakeshore, where the large sand dunes on the coast of Lake Michigan formed a shape that, according to Odawa legend, resembled a mother turtle building a nest. They were, according to the sites Drew had read, a great place to hike and provided a stunning view of the Lake.
The clothes he’d picked for the day weren’t appropriate for hiking, so he decided he would go into town.
He wasn’t hungry, not yet, but the last item on the list caught his attention.
A ghost tour? When Estelle had sent him, two days ago, a website about Orion, Michigan, he had seen something about hauntings, but he had mostly ignored them.
Now, though, the idea of a ghost tour intrigued him, in a campy sort of way.
He didn’t necessarily believe in ghosts, but he enjoyed a good horror movie.
Maybe a ghost tour would be exactly the distraction he needed to stop thinking about the horror story that was his personal life.
—
Orion, Michigan, was an ideal little beach town.
It looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, with well-built old structures painted in strong colors lining the wide streets, painted wood signs advertising businesses, and plenty of people sitting under awnings outside of cafés or coffee shops, enjoying the pleasant Michigan summer.
Rather than driving into town, Drew decided to walk. It was only a fifteen-minute stroll from his rented house to the town square, where there was a solid old white courthouse, with a bronze statue of a Native American chief in front of it.
He stopped at a coffee shop called Dune Grass Roasters, where he ordered an iced vanilla latte from a barista with blue hair and a nose ring.
He discreetly slid a hundred-dollar bill into the tip jar.
He had more money than he would ever need, and he liked doing little things like that.
A hundred bucks wasn’t anything to him, but it would make someone else’s day.
When his coffee was ready, he took it and smiled at the barista. “Excuse me,” he said, “would you mind telling me where to find the ghost tour?”
The barista grinned at him. “Tourist?” they said.
“That obvious?” Drew said sheepishly.
They shrugged. “A little. Not many locals want to go on the ghost tour.” They pointed out the windows of the coffee shop.
“If you want to take the commercial ghost tour, take a left and find the Society of Hauntings. They’ll take your money and take you for a spin around the town.
” Then the barista’s smile deepened. “But if you want a tour from someone who actually respects the spiritual world, go around the courthouse, and you’ll see Our Mother’s Apothecary and Crystal shop. They’ll give you a good tour.”
“Thank you. Do you believe in the ghost stories, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Another shrug from the barista. “I think there’s a lot of shit in the world we don’t understand. Could there be ghosts? Sure. But do I also think capitalism is fucking up the truth and trying to make a dime off of some stories that were probably really tragic? That too.”
When Drew left, he slipped another hundred into the tip jar. He’d just found his new favorite coffee shop.
It was a beautiful day. The weather was in the mid-seventies, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and a pleasant breeze kept the humidity away.
Drew enjoyed the weather while he crossed the town square, went around the courthouse, and found Our Mother’s Apothecary and Crystal Shop.
He wasn’t interested in a fake ghost tour that just wanted his money.
If there was something supernatural about this town, he wanted someone who smelled like patchouli and knew the difference between the Major and Minor Arcana to explain it to him.
The store’s exterior was painted wine red. There were window boxes full of flowers, and the windows themselves were crowded with interior displays of tchotchkes, Tarot decks, crystals, and herbs. The sign on the door said they were open, so he entered. Wind chimes signaled his entrance.
The store was dimly lit with lamps and smelled of frankincense, thyme, and marijuana.
The shop was crowded with shelves and tables displaying everything from journals to Tarot decks to palm reading guides to boxes of tea to trays of crystals to cookbooks to Zodiac guides to jewelry to stickers to T-shirts to incense.
There was a large counter at the back of the store where a woman with thick gray-blonde hair was staring at her phone and frowning. She wore a shapeless linen tunic and had an impressive amount of chunky jewelry on her wrists and neck.
She looked up at the sound of the wind chimes. “Welcome in,” she called. “Let me know if you need help finding anything.”
Drew thought about asking her if she knew where to find any of that sweet-smelling marijuana she had undoubtedly just been smoking, but decided against it for now.
“Thank you,” he said. “I will!”
He browsed for a second, though he’d never been too interested in the mystical world, and understood less than half of what he was looking at.
He eventually made his way towards the back of the store, where he got the woman’s attention.
“Actually, the barista at Dune Grass Roasters sent me here when I asked them about the local ghost tour. They said I’d get a better experience if I asked about it here, instead of going for the official tour. ”
The woman nodded sagely and then coughed loudly into her elbow. “Excuse me,” she said. “Marijuana lungs.”
Drew hid a smile.
“Well,” she said. “I’m the wrong person to ask. But one of my clerks should be able to help you.”
“Irma, did you call me a clerk again?” shouted a voice from somewhere in the back of a shop, behind a beaded curtain. It was a young man’s voice. “You’d have to pay me to call me a clerk!” he continued.
Irma rolled her eyes. “One of my volunteers can help you,” she said loudly for the benefit of the hidden young man.
The beaded curtain parted like water, and a young man, the one who had been shouting at Irma from the back, stepped through.
Drew didn’t consider himself someone whose breath got taken away easily. He was, for the most part, a levelheaded guy who didn’t let feelings or desire get the best of him. He’d let that happen too recently, and he’d been badly hurt.
The young man who stepped through the curtain took Drew’s breath away.
He was tall and lean, with tan skin and muscles and thick brown hair that was bleached blonde in parts by the sun.
He wore an oversized T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, exposing his sculpted shoulders, and black running shorts, and dirty white Converse sneakers.
He was probably twenty-five, maybe a little younger.
He kissed Irma on the top of the head. “What are you volunteering my services for?” he asked. His eyes skated over Drew, and Drew shivered internally.
Irma nodded at Drew. “He wants to know about the hauntings. But not the commercial version, the real story.”
Her volunteer immediately lit up. “Really? That’s great. I’d love to show you around.”
“I mean, if you’re just volunteering,” Drew said, “you don’t have to. Or, I can pay you.”
The volunteer waved a hand. “I volunteer because I like to do it. You don’t have to pay. My name is Gabriel, by the way.”
“I’m Drew.”
For a moment, it looked like the volunteer might recognize him.
Drew wondered if it was possible. He was an NHL star, a professional athlete, but not the sort of recognizable face of certain other professional athletes.
Hockey players’ faces were usually masked by their helmets, and it was usually only the die-hard fans in Boston who might recognize him on the streets.
The odds that this random guy in a small town in Orion recognized him were low.
“Well, Drew, do you want a tour of the supernatural in Orion?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes,” Drew said. “I think I do.”
When they were outside, Gabriel pointed at Drew’s half-drunk iced latte. “Did Fox send you?”
“Are they the barista at Dune Grass Roasters?”
“Yep,” Gabriel said. “A good friend of mine. We grew up together.”
“So, you’re from here?” Drew asked. Gabriel led the way as they began to walk around the square.
“Born and raised. Moved away for college, but came back after I graduated.”
Drew wanted to ask why Gabriel had come back, but that seemed like a personal question, so he refrained.
Instead, he asked, “Do you think the town is haunted?”
“I think everywhere is haunted,” Gabriel replied. “If, by haunted, you mean connected to the spiritual world. I think the spiritual and natural worlds are intertwined, and there are some places where the barriers between them are thinner. Orion is one of those places.”
“Are there ghosts here?” Drew asked, though he thought he could guess what Gabriel would say.
He was right. “There are ghosts everywhere,” Gabriel said decisively. “If you just know where to look.”
“Interesting.”
“Do you not believe in ghosts?” Gabriel cast him a shrewd look.
“I haven’t thought about it that much.”
“I’m guessing you don’t. It won’t offend me if that’s true.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
“I’ll change your mind by the end of the tour,” Gabriel said confidently.
“You sound very sure of that.”