Chapter 4 Dove
DOVE
In the past, the jingling bell above the door of Margaret’s Mystique used to excite me.
I could feel it resonate inside my chest, gearing me up for whatever might come next.
Today, however, had been a day, and if that bell jingled one more time, I was going to start hurling amethyst crystals at people’s heads.
Ida glanced up from her pile of receipts, peering over her half-moon spectacles, silver curls bouncing as she looked from the customer to me.
“Just browsing, I bet,” she murmured, licking her thumb and forefinger before returning to her stack of receipts. A pleasant smile spread across her face as she hummed softly.
I frowned—mostly at myself and my mood—glancing from the customer to Ida again.
I had no idea how she did it. She was like Margaret 2.
0, with the patience of a saint, even on a bad day.
Not that she knew today was a bad day. I hadn’t exactly told Ida why I was feeling off, but still, I couldn’t understand how she remained so serene.
I could hardly fake a smile today, let alone talk someone through their star sign or chat about whether their birthstone necklace had been properly charged.
Then again, Ida wasn’t the type of person who lived in her emotions—and if she did, she never showed it in front of anyone. She just got up and carried on, and while I knew that losing Margaret had punched a gaping hole in her chest, she wouldn’t appreciate me poking at her feelings.
“We’ll need more coffee soon,” Ida murmured, setting the receipts in a neat pile and clipping them together. “We also need to go a little more digital, I think, dear.”
“Agreed,” I muttered, rubbing my face. “I’m also thinking of expanding and opening up an online store. People are really starting to engage with my TikTok’s and I think we could get those views to translate into purchases.”
“A grand idea,” she said firmly. “My horrible daughter shops online all the time.”
A smile slipped onto my face despite myself, and I shook my head a little.
I closed my eyes for a moment, breathing in the lavender, sandalwood, and the faintest hint of frankincense, the scent wrapping around me like a memory, taking me back to the first day I’d been dropped off at the shop by my work-obsessed mother.
It was the scent of comfort, of childhood, of warm hands whispering secret truths in a candlelit room.
My eyes fluttered open, and I tried to ignore the burning behind them.
I looked toward the display window, lined with crystals in every shape and imaginable color.
Rose quartz, tiger’s eye, amethyst, and labradorite.
Each one had been carefully placed to catch the light.
When the sun hit just right in the afternoons, rainbow fragments would spill across the old wooden floorboards, beautiful prisms dancing across the shelves.
Those very shelves were freshly restocked, packed tightly with tarot decks, beautiful crystal bracelets, rune stones, and dried herbs in elegantly labeled glass jars—thanks to Ida’s impeccable handwriting—and a small selection of delicately arranged spell books, grimoires, and astrology guides.
A hand-painted sign Margaret had made years ago still hung above the shelf, slightly crooked, bearing her favorite quote:
There’s no such thing as coincidence. Only magic in disguise.
I looked down at the counter, the front of it cluttered, but still somehow organized, thanks to Ida.
A small jewelry display sat proudly off to the side, patrons often swiping something from it to add to their purchases with a small grin.
A chipped mug I had nearly broken years ago sat in its usual spot, pens and crystal points spilling out of it.
“You know,” Ida murmured, breaking through my thoughts, “you could look into an online booking system as well. For readings.”
“Yes, I was thinking about that,” I said, rubbing my temple as I felt a headache beginning to build.
I pulled my iPad toward me and flipped open the screen protector, yawning as I entered my PIN. The Yelp review page stared back at me, further souring my mood.
“Look,” I muttered grimly to Ida, turning the screen so she could see.
Margaret’s used to be a magical place. I used to hear from my dead mother there. Now the girl working there doesn’t do contact with spirits. So disappointed.
“I apologized and everything,” I said with a heavy sigh, remembering the grim-faced woman who had stood at the counter, yelling that she’d driven three hours for her annual check-in.
“I offered to do her cards. She lost it and left. Also, I said you would be back the following day. It’s not my fault I’m not a medium. ”
Ida tsked under her breath. “Margaret would’ve hexed the bitch,” she said knowingly, then tapped her lip. “Gently, of course.”
“Of course,” I echoed, cracking a small smile as I navigated away from Yelp. “I just don’t want to pretend, you know? But I also don’t want any more one-star reviews. Margaret never had a one-star review. Ever.”
“Dear, if I had a dollar for every time someone came in here asking your grandmother to conjure their dead pigeon, I could’ve bought all those crystals in the window.”
I groaned and rubbed my face.
“She bent the truth every now and then, you know,” Ida said in a lower voice. “Like with the dead pets. Some people just needed closure, and she gave it to them. She just didn’t take their money when it wasn’t real.”
“I’m a bad liar, Ida,” I said with a sigh.
“Hmm,” she murmured, picking up a pile of silk scarves and beginning to fold them. “You positive you don’t have the gift? Maybe it’s just dormant. You need a good haunting to wake it up. Go sit in a cemetery on a full moon.”
“Hard pass,” I said firmly, flipping open my design app to continue working on my deck of cards.
Ida chuckled lowly before waving a hand. “It can be infuriating connecting with the spirits sometimes. My god damn ex-husband tries to haunt me from beyond. Either way, I ignored him when he was alive, and I’ll ignore him now.”
I raised an interested brow. “You connect with your dead husband?”
“When I’m doing the laundry,” she said, her expression serious as she paused folding the scarves. “It tracks, really. The bastard never helped me with it when he was alive, of course he watches me do it when he’s dead.”
I snorted a laugh, gently moving my stylus across the screen. “You might have a tumor, Ida.”
“I very well could,” she said with a grin, entirely unbothered as she went back to folding scarves. “Either I have a gift, or a curse, for seeing my dead husband, or I have six months to live. Let’s roll the dice on it.”
I laughed just as my iPad dinged, a notification flag popping up with a new email from my mother. My stylus stilled mid-stroke before I tapped into it, breath held.
From: Georgia Marley
Subject: Ashes
The ashes have been picked up by your uncle—he has them at his house. I suggest you go over and apologize at some point for the scene you caused.
Mom
I read the message at least three times, each one landing like a punch straight to the stomach.
“You all right?” Ida asked, now boxing up the scarves for a large order. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, which should make you happy, considering your current predicament.”
I handed her the iPad with a shake of my head. “My mother emailed. My uncle picked up Margaret’s ashes. Now she’s telling me to apologize.”
Ida’s face darkened as she set the device down. “For what exactly, hmm? For reminding that moron that Margaret wanted to be fireworks over the Pacific, not a dust bunny in some dark cabinet?”
I barked a laugh and blinked back tears. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Ah, kid,” Ida sighed heavily, shaking her head. “Life sucks, then you die, get locked in a tin, and shoved into a cupboard next to a half-drunk bottle of scotch and a DVD collection from 2007.” She patted my shoulder gently. “Something to look forward to.”
“Can’t wait,” I muttered, shaking my head.
At this point, I’d be lucky to end up in anyone’s cabinet.
I was single. I had zero friends my own age.
And my family wasn’t exactly close. I’d tried making friends with the girl who owned the overpriced succulent shop next door, but when I’d guffawed at the price of a tiny succulent in a two-inch pot—fifty dollars—she stopped waving at me through the window when I walked past.
“I’m going to put these in the back for shipping,” Ida told me as she scooped up a few of the boxes. “Then I’m going to make some tea. I’ll be back.”
I nodded and picked up my stylus once more, opening the design app on my iPad.
I paused at the sight of my half-finished tarot card illustration—The Star—sitting untouched on the screen.
My hand hovered, trembling slightly. I hadn’t worked on it in weeks.
Not since Margaret died. It felt as if every creative part of me had dried up.
The familiar jingle of the bell above the door signaled another customer. I glanced up at the browser who’d entered earlier, now slowly pulling things off the shelves and placing them in one of the brown wicker carry baskets we provided. Then my eyes shifted to the woman who had just walked in.
She wore a sharp blazer over an expensive-looking white blouse. Her heels clicked harshly against the old, weathered wood as she approached the counter, and I resisted the urge to wince.
As she came closer, I noticed her brown eyes, red-rimmed and glassy, as if she’d either been crying for days or holding it in for too long.
Ida returned from depositing the scarves and making tea, setting a cup down for each of us on the counter with a small smile.
“Are you doing readings today?” the woman asked, her voice hoarse. She cleared her throat, adjusting the buttons at the neck of her blouse.
My pulse skipped a beat at the severity in her tone. She looked like someone about to enter a confessional. My gaze caught on the gold crucifix around her neck, hanging from a delicate chain.
Interesting.