Chapter Six Nora
Chapter Six
Nora
I release the past,
I embrace the road ahead,
I gather sisters for the journey,
I embrace the power in us,
Maiden, Mother, Crone,
Every part of me is magic,
I walk forward without fear,
And so it is.
—A spell for moving on
Nora pushed the door open and found herself enveloped by the quiet store, the only sound the bell above the door as she, Daisy, and Soraya walked into the dimly lit space.
“The bell is so you don’t bring any evil spirits in with you,” came the sweet, clear voice behind the counter.
The same woman from yesterday, who did not look surprised to see them at all.
“You’re back.” She beamed at them.
Daisy stepped forward, like they were back in school and she was answering a question. Nora was almost surprised she didn’t raise her hand.
“Yes. I’m a bookkeeper,” Daisy said. “Though I don’t have a job anymore, so I thought I would see if you still needed someone.”
“Strangely enough,” the older woman said, “no other bookkeepers have shown themselves to me since yesterday. What happened to your job?”
“She was doing the books for her ex-husband,” Nora said.
Daisy shot her a glance. “He’s not exactly my ex-husband yet. But we are separated.”
“I take it not happily,” the older woman said.
“I’m not the one who left.”
The older woman stared at Daisy for a long time. “I’m sorry.” Then she turned her attention to Soraya. “I thought you were afraid of my store.”
“I am.” Soraya’s honesty had annoyed Nora in high school. Not that it wasn’t a little annoying now, but she had to respect her owning up to being afraid like that.
“But you came back.”
“You said something about needing a baker. I bake all the time. I take orders for my bread, and I sell some from my house and some from stores. I’m very good in the kitchen.
I’ve never had a job before in my life, and I don’t know how to ask for one.
But I need help. I can’t ask the people I would normally ask because they don’t think I’m doing the right thing.
If they already don’t think I’m doing the right thing, then what’s the point of trying anymore? ”
“I do hope you keep trying. Especially if you’re going to bake bread and other sweet treats for me.”
Soraya cleared her throat and looked away. “I assume that running out of the store wasn’t the best way to impress you.”
“I was never asking to be impressed. Of course, men are welcome in my store, people of all genders and walks of life are welcome here, but I do have a particular desire to help women. You three walked in, and I knew you needed help.”
“I don’t have any special skills.” Nora could feel the angry, rejected foster kid inside her bristling, coming right to the front, and she had no idea why the hell that bitch was being so assertive. You know why. You feel rejected. “It’s been a while since I’ve worked retail.”
The older woman’s gaze was direct. “I have a feeling you have skill enough.”
A sense of calm came over Nora. A sense of comfort.
“I hope so,” Nora said.
“Can you start today?” the older woman asked.
“Yes,” said Nora. “But then I’m a childless cat lady.”
“You don’t have a cat, do you?” Daisy asked.
“Colloquially,” Nora said.
“My . . . Jonathan is picking my kids up today, so I can,” Daisy said. “But I have a lot of obligations. I’m working on a theater production right now three nights a week that my kids are in.”
“I think we can work with that.”
Soraya frowned. “I’m free. My kids are in high school. They’re not really speaking to me. So.”
The older woman slowly walked out from behind the counter and over to Soraya. She reached out and took her hand. Soraya flinched, but only for a moment. “I’m so sorry about your children,” the older woman said.
Soraya seemed confused and conflicted by the comfort she was receiving from this woman she’d been afraid of just yesterday.
“I’ll show you around. This counter over here”—she gestured to an area across from the main register—“is where there will be coffee and baked goods. I do have an oven here, but of course, my dear, if you want to bake at home and bring your treats in—”
“Doesn’t my kitchen need to be certified?”
“It will all work out either way. What’s your name?”
“Soraya.”
“I’m Aggie Green. I had a young lady come in and ask about a barista job. She’ll make most of the drinks. But you can help her. I’ll have you work here. Behind the main counter. You can help her.” She directed that at Nora. “Now I need names for the two of you.”
“Nora.” Nora gestured to herself first. “And Daisy.”
“Wonderful. Now that I have help, I can focus on my readings. Tea leaves, tarot, and, of course, a bit of spellwork.”
“Spellwork?” Nora asked.
“Yes. I have some pre-blessed spell bags. I find it most useful, though, to have someone come in and manifest the spell with me, so I can infuse their energy into it.”
“Oh.” Soraya looked a bit ill.
Nora had no issues with this kind of thing, but listening to someone talk about readings and spellwork so matter-of-factly was a little odd even to her.
“But I’ve been so busy with appointments that I have difficulty manning the counter.”
“Where did you come from?” Nora asked.
Aggie waved her hand. “Here and there. I imagine that’s where I will continue to be from. But for now, this is a good place to rest my bones. Are you all getting divorced?”
“No,” Nora said quickly, needing very much to clarify that even though she was with Soraya and Daisy, and supported them completely, her situation wasn’t exactly the same. “I’m separated from my husband. But it’s just while he figures out what he wants next.”
“Everyone has to do that from time to time, I suppose,” Aggie said.
“It’s reasonable.” Nora could hear the desperate justification in her own voice.
“Ah. I don’t have a training manual,” Aggie said as she rounded behind the counter, “but I would like it if you all spent some time with this.” She took a big leather-bound book from beneath the counter and set it on the glossy wood surface.
“It’s my grimoire, which I’ve spent years working on.
It has all of my tea blends and what they’re for.
Crystals, tarot. Oracle. I would ask that you know just enough to help any traveler who wanders in off the street looking for something.
Eventually, you’ll learn to recognize what they need before they tell you. ”
A shiver went down Nora’s spine, because she couldn’t help but wonder if that was what had happened with Aggie.
Had she looked at them and just known?
That she had mentioned needing a bookkeeper had seemed odd at the time, and even odder now. That she’d somehow known they might need work.
Miraculous in a way, though Nora had stopped believing in miracles a long time ago. She might not believe in this stuff like she had when she was a teenage girl, but she thought it was harmless, unlike Soraya, who appeared to be dying a thousand deaths in the corner.
Though, she hadn’t run away this time.
The bell jingled above the door, and two young women came in, probably in their early twenties, looking excited.
“Yeah,” one said. “We have an appointment for a reading.”
“Of course.” Aggie gestured to the corner, where there were fluffy floor pillows designed for sitting and a low, round table with cards at the center. “This is where I’ll be for most of the day. I trust that I’m leaving the running of the shop to your capable hands.”
She practically floated over to the reading area, and whatever she was saying to the girls was drowned out by the music playing over the speakers.
“We’re going to hell,” Soraya muttered.
“Promise?” Nora asked. “Because it sounds like a good party.”
Soraya wasn’t listening. “I’m going to hell. I’m going to hell. I’ve left my husband, and I’m dabbling in the occult.”
Nora sighed. “Soraya. If you thought this was going to send you to hell, you wouldn’t be here. You just don’t want anybody from church to see you.”
Soraya huffed, opened her mouth, closed it again, and then huffed one more time. “Well, that matters to me because if they saw me here, they would think I was falling away.”
Whatever Nora thought about that, it was important to Soraya, and there was no use telling her that something she cared about was dumb.
That realization was growth, Nora was pretty sure.
“Right, I get that. But they already think that’s true,” Nora said.
Soraya was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry.” She looked at Nora. “For what I said in high school. The time when your mother was supposed to come, and she didn’t. I didn’t understand then why you were so angry. I get it now.”
That was unexpected.
“Thank you.” Nora inclined her head.
“It was a little offensive what you said about God, though,” Soraya added.
“I’m resolutely not sorry about that,” Nora said.
“I’m trying to connect with you.” Soraya sounded petulant.
“Does God need me to say sorry? Because it seems to me God should be tough enough to handle what a surly teenager says about them.”
Soraya wrinkled her nose. “I guess that’s true.”
Daisy was slowly flipping through the grimoire pages from where she stood behind the counter. Soraya stayed glued to the back wall, and Nora couldn’t help but watch Aggie, who was turning cards over with certainty and speaking to both women with all her focus directed resolutely on them.
Did Aggie actually believe in this stuff?
Was she just good at reading people?
“You aren’t that much more comfortable with this than I am,” Soraya whispered.
Nora glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “It’s not the same. I’m trying to decide if this is a grift. You’re scared of it.”
Soraya huffed and looked away. Nora pushed off from the wall and went over to where Daisy was standing peering at the grimoire. “Spells?”
“I’m reading through the Witch’s Code of Conduct.”
Nora snorted. “Seriously? I would have thought the point of being a witch was that you didn’t have to obey the rules.”
“Oh no.” Daisy’s tone was grave. “You really have to obey the rules. Karma and all that.”