Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
GWENNA
The Oracular Curio is a cramped, labyrinthine shop packed floor to ceiling with glass jars, dried herbs, and books with titles like Fung-Tastic: The Curative Power of Mushrooms and Moon Sisters: Awakening the Wild Woman Within.
I feel perplexed, intrigued, and unsure where to look first. And a little nauseated from the overwhelming blend of smells.
But Morgan seems, well…right at home.
“Ugh, finally,” she sighs and steps inside with the confidence and direction of a doomsday prepper walking into a Costco. “I need everything .”
I glance at what appears to be a small, gold-plated bird skull on top of one of the bookcases.
Hopefully not everything , I think.
Sarrasford’s pretty small and humble as towns go, but it has all the necessities—a coffee shop, a dive bar or two, a pizza joint, and even a few quaint little New England-y shops along the main street, of which the Oracular Curio is one: an “alternative art gallery and home goods store.”
When Morgan asked what I was doing on Sunday, I had to admit that I had no plans, and I wasn’t about to spend the entire day loafing in Camlann House, not after the match on Friday and especially not after my study session with Kingston.
So when she subsequently asked if I wanted to hop a ride to town with her for some shopping, I said yes before even thinking through what I was agreeing to.
And now, even though we’re in what is quite possibly the most bizarre shop on the entire Main Street, I feel…
oddly relaxed. Peaceful. Like a normal college student in a normal, charming college town.
The sky is clear and blue despite the few flurries of yesterday, the air is crisp and smells like pine sap and woodsmoke, and I’m bundled into a thick cable-knit sweater (black, of course) and knee-length peacoat that have me feeling like Rory Gilmore’s long-lost goth twin. In a good way.
“All right, let’s see,” Morgan says as she produces a shopping basket from out of nowhere and starts dropping things in from what seems like random shelves—little shards of crystals, piney-smelling sticky globs of resin, a few spray bottles with labels I can’t quite make out.
It’s such a strange assortment of stuff contrasted to her low-cut, cream-colored sweater and heatless curls, clean girl meets evil sorceress.
“Good to see you again, my dear,” says the woman behind the counter, who could be forty, sixty, or a hundred, with dyed red hair the color of a stop sign and what looks like three individual shawls draped over her shoulders.
“You too,” Morgan yells back as she drops candles into her basket: one, two, three, four. “God, I know I’m going overboard, but I’m literally starting from scratch. Don’t judge me.”
“Not judging,” I say. “Is your room nice, at least?”
She shrugs. “Imagine our old room, but just with me in it, and you basically get the idea. Stuck on a hall with a bunch of third years, but they’ll just have to get used to me. ”
“I did,” I say. “Wasn’t even that hard.”
“See,” Morgan says, laughing, “I’m a fucking delight.” She slides her eyes in my direction. “How’s yours?”
I pick up a geode with a sparkling blue center that makes me think of hard candy and examine it, tilting it this way and that.
“It’s…different,” I say. If I’m being honest, I don’t want to think too hard about it—the proximity of all of them, the considerable upgrade to my living space, the catered meals and entire wardrobe of replacement clothes. Like if I stare at it too closely, it’ll vanish.
Fortunately, Morgan doesn’t push. I squint into the glimmering hollow of the geode and change the subject. “Should I get this for my room?”
She, too, squints at it. “Depends. Does it meet the Camlann House rules? Can’t be bringing bad vibes around the perfect swordsmen.” She laughs.
I replace the geode on the shelf, letting my fingers linger on its bumpy surface. There really is something about this place—the Oracular Curio in particular, with its jewel-green walls and moody vibes, but Sarrasford in general, and certainly Caliburn—that’s…unusual.
“Is it just me, or is everyone around here kind of obsessed with, like, relics and rituals and magical shit?”
Morgan doesn’t turn around from wherever she’s rummaging. “Are they?”
“ Aren’t they?” I glance up at the pressed-tin ceiling, which has a series of suncatchers in the shape of the evil eye dangling from tiny hooks.
Morgan just shrugs, still fixed intently on a vial of essential oils. “Who knows? Academically intense schools attract nerds.”
“Yeah,” I agree. Although, this stuff, and to be honest, a lot of the stuff at Camlann House, goes beyond sheer geeking out .
Besides, I wouldn’t really call Morgan a nerd. Or Kingston. Or any of them for that matter.
“You really think you’re a nerd?” I say, eyeing her up and down, “let alone, like, Kingston or Kai?”
Morgan sighs. “Yeah, well, they’re a special case.
Luther’s obsessed with excellence, so I guess an ordinary Ivy League wasn’t going to cut it.
That plus the whole fencing legacy thing.
” She rolls her eyes. “I mean, he wasn’t satisfied with one kid being a prodigy.
He had to literally go acquire one to, I don’t know, double his odds or something. ”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Kai,” she says. “You didn’t know?”
I shake my head.
“He was straight-up a foster kid. Luther was doing some kind of charity fencing clinic and saw this kid with a terrible attitude and a wicked talent for swords—or so I’ve been told.
I was off at the South Salem School for Girls by then.
” She shrugs again. “From then on it was a fast track to the Pendragon townhouse and all training all the time.”
“Oh,” I say. That certainly explains more of it. Certainly why he and Kingston look and act absolutely nothing alike. “So Kai was just naturally good at fencing and…just like that, he’s adopted into one of the most wealthy and powerful families on the East Coast, if not the country?”
“Yep,” Morgan says. “Some of us snuck under the velvet rope with our gold-digging mothers, and others just had dumb luck, I guess.”
I laugh, even though it still doesn’t quite add up to me. I mean, good to be talented at fencing, I guess, but so much so that you actually recruit someone to be in your own family? No wonder Kai’s not so crazy about Kingston or the rest of them.
“Okay,” Morgan chirps, “stop me now or else I’ll max out my entire credit line. ”
I blink and look down at her basket, which is suddenly filled to the brim and visibly dragging her arm away from her body. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I whisper. “Is there anything you didn’t buy?”
“Like I said, I’m starting from scratch.” She moves it to the counter, not without some difficulty, and the red-haired woman starts gingerly taking it out piece by piece and punching the prices into an adding machine. Old-school here too, I see.
“And with these, Morgan dear?” She holds up a black candle with a black wick. “Do be careful that?—”
“I know, I know,” Morgan says, cutting her off—a bit harshly, I think. “You don’t need to lecture me about fire safety , Lucinda.”
The heaviness in the last two words must be some kind of hint for the woman to back off, which she does. I’m silently grateful for it.
She produces a black credit card with a flourish and hands it to the woman, who painstakingly transcribes the card number by hand.
“Thank you, stepfather,” Morgan whispers, pressing two fingers to her lips and blowing a kiss to an invisible Luther before taking the card back. “And thank you , Lucinda.”
“Anytime,” the woman burbles. “Oh, and this is a lovely choice,” she adds, holding up a small rectangular box—a tarot deck, I realize. “The last one we had, too.”
Now it’s Morgan’s turn to frown. “I do not remember putting that in there,” she says. “And God knows I have plenty. You can just put that back.”
But the woman shakes her head, waggling a finger in the air. “Ah, ah, ah, my dear, you know the rules. If a deck finds you, then you desperately need it.” She pops it into the tote bag with the rest of Morgan’s loot. “No charge.”
Morgan opens her mouth as if to protest, then snaps it shut. “Fine, fine,” she sighs. “What’s another to add to the collection? ”
“You know how to read tarot?” I say. I’m impressed, although not surprised.
Morgan scoffs. “Oh, it’s not that hard.”
“Don’t be falsely modest,” chides Lucinda. “Morgan’s got a great talent for the cards.”
“Yeah?” I say, kind of intrigued now. Having grown up largely friendless, I’d never gotten into the whole Ouija board, MASH, light-as-a-feather-stiff-as-a-board kind of slumber party stuff that a lot of other girls did. I’d certainly never had my fortune told. “Can you do me?”
“Oh yes!” Lucinda insists, giving a happy little clap of her hands. “Go on now.”
“Sure.” Morgan cracks open the box with the tips of her long lavender nails and expertly snaps the cards, sending them arcing from one hand to another like she’s a Vegas dealer.
My eyes go wide. “Holy shit, Morgan. When do you find time to practice that?”
She shrugs, shuffling deftly. “Like I said, just a little hobby. Now focus your mind on a question you want an answer to.”
“Okay,” I say.
Where do I start? I think, but I close my eyes and focus and try to let something come to me. Lucinda, meanwhile, clears a little space on the counter, looking on with intrigue.
“We’ll do just a quickie mini-cross spread,” Morgan says, flipping the cards out into a kind of compass formation: north, south, east, west, and then one in the center.
Morgan frowns. “That’s…I don’t know what that is.” She looks at Lucinda. “Have you ever seen that?”
Lucinda shakes her head, earrings swinging wildly. “Very curious.”
“What?” I say, my heart lurching. “What is it?”