Chapter 9
Nine
Islipped out the front door. The rain had finally eased up to a light sprinkle now and the entire town was blanketed in a thick mist. I’d woken up to a text from Lori telling me to come by her shop whenever I got up.
While I didn’t much care for sleeping in, she took the term “early riser” to another level. She’d sent the text at four in the morning.
I sucked in a breath, savoring the chilly, rain drenched air. I’d been dying to get out. There was only so much drawing I could do in that living room.
I was a hermit by nature. A loner, if you will.
Maybe it was my artistic tendencies but I’d always preferred the company of my art supplies over actual people.
I found comfort in silence. For some reason or another, people always put me on edge.
I was slow to trust. Always had been. How could I determine a person’s genuineness just by talking to them?
I didn’t trust my ability to tell if someone was being real with me or not. It had always made me a touch anxious.
I hadn’t always lived alone. In fact, by the very nature of my sad, sad bank account I typically had roommates.
But I’d had a bad situation with the last ones—other artists I’d met through a festival a few years back.
It was a bit of a wannabe co-op situation.
They would talk behind my back. I knew because one day I heard them in the living room when they thought I wasn’t home.
They were harshly critiquing a piece I’d done the night before.
I believe the terms “talentless” and “derivative” were thrown out.
On top of that, they didn’t respect boundaries, and would go through my things without asking.
I couldn’t take it.
So I moved out and rented the shittiest apartment I still couldn’t afford to finally get some solace in being alone. Solace that had lasted approximately seven months.
The rain that had been slowly steadily hitting my forehead and cheeks suddenly stopped. I looked up to find the same dark clouds that had been shifting in and out all morning. In front of me, small droplets still fell. It was then that I noticed a looming figure directly next to me.
“Theo!” I screeched, jumping forward and clutching my chest. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
He was dressed in all black even down to his boots, staring down at me. His weird little invisible umbrella blanketed us both from the lightly sprinkling sky.
“I only just caught up,” he said quietly.
I sighed and shook my head, resuming my walk into town. “Going to keep following me around, huh?” I muttered.
“Does that bother you?” He fell into step next to me.
I let out a breath. “I like to keep to myself,” I tried to explain without offending him, still slightly worried I’d hurt his feelings the previous night. Although, to be fair, he didn’t seem like the type to be easily offended.
“We don’t have to talk.” His low words almost got caught in the wind.
I snorted. As if he ever talked more than was necessary. “I realize that.”
The next few steps we took in silence. The trees that surrounded the trail into town were tall and grand. Most of them had turned a burnt orange and wet leaves littered the ground.
“Why did you follow me?” I found myself asking as he walked parallel to me. “Are you bored?”
“No.”
“Headed to Lori’s shop?”
“I was going to head in later but…”
“But what?” I asked when it was clear he wasn’t continuing.
“You left without an umbrella.” He said it matter-of-factly. Like his only option was to, of course, follow me to ensure I wasn’t getting soaked on my walk in.
“It’s barely drizzling.” I pointed to the sky as our boots sloshed on the muddy trail.
He shrugged. “Still…it can get cold.”
My resolve toward him softened. Sure I still found the whole witch thing bizarre. And he definitely wasn’t the most forthcoming man I’d ever met. But under his tough-looking exterior, he was somewhat of a softie.
Or was that me being too trusting? Granted, a word no one would ever use to describe me, but still. I had to be careful.
“You know, typically people find talking while taking a walk together quite the enjoyable activity. I hear they pair well together.”
The faintest hint of a smile crept across his mouth.
“Do they?”
“They do.”
“Is there something you want to discuss, Josie?” My name out of his mouth sent shivers down my arms.
“Let’s see.” I tapped my chin. “What if we finally circled back to why you’re here.”
“I told you?—”
“Nope!” I interrupted his excuse, holding up a finger. “You told me you took something and that you needed to hide out. The rest has been mysteriously vague. Well, it’s been nearly a week of knowing each other and I think it’s time to share.”
He watched me and I met his gaze, unwavering.
Finally he sighed. “I stole a journal.”
I froze, halted in my tracks for a second.
“A journal?” I repeated. “Like bound pieces of paper? That’s the big secret?”
“Not just a journal.” He let out a loud huff, making it clear he was sharing this reluctantly.
“My grandfather’s journal. It was the last thing he was working on before he died.
It had all of his thoughts, ideas, theories…
” He dragged a hand along his jaw. “He worked for an institute back in our realm. When he…” he paused, staring at me.
“When he passed away, it was taken for display purposes. It was the last thing I had of him so I took it.”
“Stole it,” I corrected.
“He would have wanted me to have it.”
“So you’re a thief.”
He winced. “I’ve never stolen anything in my life. This was purely a gut decision.”
“So you’re a bad thief.”
He shook his head, ignoring me. “I replaced it with a replica which I’ve designed to mysteriously catch fire at some point while I’m gone. Hence, me being here.”
“You’re here for an alibi?”
“My friend back home is helping me. Everything should be in the clear come next full moon, but he’ll come to tell me otherwise if that isn’t the case.”
“Huh,” I said, staring down at my feet, watching as they left fresh footprints in the wet dirt.
“Not the dangerous life of crime you envisioned?” he asked.
I smiled because it was almost a joke.
“Not quite,” I admitted, although the more I’d come to be around him, the less I could imagine him hurting a soul.
“This is it.” He reached into the inside of his coat pocket and pulled out a small leather bound journal. He flipped it over in his hands, running a thumb along the spine.
“Wow,” I said. “Was something so tiny worth disrupting your whole life over?”
I’d said it to try and lighten the mood, but I inwardly cringed at how apathetic I sounded. This belonged to his grandfather. Clearly it was important to him.
“I didn’t have much of a life to disrupt,” he admitted.
“I know what you mean.” We glanced at each other before staring straight ahead.
The rest of the short walk passed in silence.
When we stepped off the path and onto the sidewalk of the small main street, I turned in the direction of Lori’s shop.
After crossing the street, I stopped into the café next door.
It probably wasn’t financially smart, but I had a chill that only a tea could fix.
If five dollars broke me, I deserved it at this point.
Before I could grab the handle of the door, it moved inward of its own accord. I glanced up to see Theo behind me, stretching to reach his hand over my head and meet the already ajar door.
“You should really be more careful,” I whispered. “People tend to be a bit wary of doors opening on their own.”
“People are surprisingly unobservant.” We took our place in the short line for the cashier.
“Still…” I tsked in a playful way.
“If you let me walk next to you or waited half a second, I’d be able to open it with my hands instead.”
I giggled softly. He seemed genuinely frustrated. “Is chivalry so important to all warlocks? Because if you’d really spent much time amongst us humans, you’d know it’s dead over here.”
The café must have been new, since this building had been boarded up the last time I was here.
It had, like the rest of the town, leaned into the paranormal theme.
But in a classy way, I thought. There were worn wood floors, leather arm chairs, posters on the walls of potion recipes and spell books in the bookshelves.
Who could blame them for embracing the magical vibes?
It had to be the primary revenue generator in Mystic.
“Morning,” I said when I got to the front, still scanning the menu.
“Hi there,” the woman said cheerily. “What are you having?” I didn’t miss the way her eyes lingered on Theo.
“I’ll do a green tea.” I started fishing around in my bag for my wallet. “Actually make that two.”
“Lori has been liking the cinnamon tea lately,” Theo said.
“How do you know it’s for Lori?” I sighed and shook my head before relenting. “Actually, one green and one cinnamon. Anything for you?” I looked up at Theo who shook his head.
“Oh, are you Lori’s granddaughter by chance?” the cashier asked. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she mentioned you were coming to town last I saw her. She comes in a lot. You’re an artist right?”
“Yep,” I said, smiling and biting my tongue to avoid the self-deprecation that usually naturally oozed out of me. “I’m Josie.”
“Margarette,” she said, sticking the hand she was using to write the order on the cup out. “Your grandmother brags about you all the time. You know, if you’re interested in bringing by some pieces, we like to hang them around the café.”
I scanned the walls, noticing there were a few photographs right now with little plaques underneath them.
“We sell them to customers and send the payment along to you,” she said.
“I can’t really afford a finder’s fee right now.”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that. We like to support local artists and it’s a great way for us to decorate our walls. We don’t take a cut.”
“That seems too good to be true,” I joked, thinking about the last collaborative gallery show I’d done where I’d had to pay the studio fifty percent of any sales.
“I hope you’ll consider it. Just let me know, I’m basically always here.”
“Thanks, I’ll think about it.”
Before I could tap my credit card to pay, cash once again appeared on the counter in front of me.
“You don’t have to keep doing that,” I said to Theo as we moved down the counter to the order pickup section. He kept his eyes trained above my head.
Fine. If he wanted to pay for my tea and the occasional grocery run, so be it.
I was in no financial position to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Maybe his realm was all backwards and women couldn’t provide for themselves and men had to put bread on the table and all that crap.
I was a feminist, don’t get me wrong, but the sad reality was that I couldn’t actually provide for myself right now.
It had nothing to do with my gender and everything to do with the fact that I’d chosen the least stable career path in the history of capitalism.
I collected the teas and this time when we exited the shop, Theo took a long stride to get ahead of me and opened the door without any magical intervention.
“Why thank you, sir.”
He glanced down at me before training his gaze ahead.
Man, for someone so determined to constantly follow me around, he was a tough one to get through to.
No matter. Someone who barely acknowledged me was actually my preference when it came to acquaintanceships.
We walked together one door down to Lori’s shop. Energy Healing and Crystals, read the wooden sign above a very old door. There was so much going on in the window display, you could barely see inside the place.
Theo held the door for me as I stepped inside. Goosebumps pricked my skin at his constant close proximity. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to it.
A bell dinged signaling our entry.
“Kids, welcome!” Lori called from the back of the shop. The small, narrow space was cramped tight with shelves spilling with crystals and books and other knickknacks. In the back sat a few chairs and an old leather chaise where she conducted her sessions.
Another woman sat with her.
“Sorry,” I said. “We didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You two are perfectly fine,” Lori said. “We finished the session ages ago and have been catching up.”
The other woman gave us a warm smile and a nod in greeting.
“Theo!” she exclaimed. The warm, familiar way she said his name surprised me.
I looked up to see him give a small nod in acknowledgement.
“I wanted to tell you, my husband has never felt better. He’s always refused to come with me to these, but your quiet, no nonsense attitude finally got him to give it a chance. ”
“I’m glad,” Theo said, his voice gentle despite the deep timbre.
“Is that for me?” Lori asked. I tore my gaze away from Theo to see her eyeing the paper cup in my left hand. I gave it to her.
“And who is this lovely young lady?” Lori’s client asked.
“My granddaughter, Josie.” Lori beamed and I flushed. She said my name like I was someone to brag about which couldn’t be further from the truth. I was a nobody. Nothing special. I found my eyes meeting Theo’s self consciously before jerking them away. He watched me curiously.
“Oh, is she the artist?” she asked as she and Lori both turned to a giant piece in the back.
My heart thumped. I hadn’t noticed it at first. It was a painting I’d done over the summer when I was staying here.
I’d spent hours outside working on it. In a way, it was a landscape loosely drawn from Lori’s property.
But I’d wanted to bring pieces of her into it.
With crystals dancing in the sky and unnatural colors weaving into the branches.
I’d given it to her when I’d left, I hadn’t realized she’d display it so proudly.
“The one and only,” Lori said.
“You know, there’s a fall market this weekend. Do you have more paintings? You’d make a killing out there.”
“A fall market?” I asked skeptically. I’d done my fair share of festivals and events in the city. Usually I had to pay a small fortune to be there and I was lucky to break even. But that was New York. Something told me Mystic would have a different vibe.
“Yes. Vendors from all over. People drive in for it.”
I pursed my lips and tilted my head, considering the suggestion. “I have a few paintings.” Understatement. I had years worth of unsold paintings that I’d brought with me, currently collecting dust in my room.
“I’m on the board. I can get you added if you like.”
“All right.” What other opportunities had I been handed lately? What did I have to lose?