Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
When Morana opened her eyes, she thought it was still night, until she saw that she had five missed calls from Kim.
She threw back her covers, but not quite enough.
As she jumped out of bed, her foot tangled in the duvet and she fell straight on her face and landed with a huge thump that normally would have Mrs Danby hammering on her door.
She laughed and as she turned to try and get herself up, she noticed the corner of an envelope poking through a floorboard underneath the bed.
Curious, she reached out for it, but it would not budge. It was stuck under there.
On her hands and knees now, she pushed the metal bed frame out of the way and grimaced at the dust bunnies underneath it.
Yikes, cleaning was not her thing. She did the basics to keep on top, but who regularly cleaned underneath the bed?
Well clearly not her. Tugging at the envelope, it would not budge any further.
It was completely stuck. She tried to prise up the floorboard, but it wouldn’t move either.
She needed a Phillips screwdriver or a crowbar to prise it up and she had neither.
Getting dressed she forgot all about phoning Kim back, she didn’t even look at the time.
She was so focused on how she was going to lift the board to get to the damn envelope.
Morana decided to go ask Ethan at the shop if they had either of those things she could borrow.
Scooping her hair into a messy bun, she dressed in sweats and a hoody with the Blackcraft logo on and pushed her feet into her sneakers. Then ran down the stairs.
As she passed Mrs Danby’s door she noticed it was ajar. As much as she disliked the woman, anyone could help themselves to her stuff and that wouldn’t be fair on her family. She crossed towards it and knocked gently. ‘Hello, is anyone inside?’
There was no answer. She hesitated before pushing the door open enough that she could step inside.
‘Hey, is anyone home?’ The silence was too heavy.
The apartment was painted peach, every wall and ceiling a different shade of peach ranging from the palest which was really pretty to an almost tangerine colour.
Too nosy for her own good, she walked further in and looked around.
She had never been inside. It was bigger than hers and cluttered with statues and magazines.
The kind of statues that had been fashionable back in the seventies that you could pick up at the Salem Flea for thirty bucks.
As she walked further inside, she saw a stack of bills on the kitchen counter, a big stack of bills.
Just waiting there for someone to take. Morana looked at the cash then shook her head.
She wasn’t stealing cash from a seriously injured woman no matter how desperate she was.
Besides if she died, Mrs Danby would haunt her for the rest of her life.
She would probably do that anyway because she’d made her get hit by that truck.
If she took the broad’s money, it would a full-on possession.
She picked the money up and counted it, five hundred dollars exactly.
Enough to pay the crazy lady for the book and not leave herself without anything.
She put the money down, shaking her head.
You are not desperate enough to steal from this woman!
a voice whispered inside her head. Another voice, deeper, that definitely wasn’t her moral guide whispered, Yes, you should.
She is an old witch. It’s not as if she needs it now.
Morana gasped. Where did that come from?
The money would be handy though, wouldn’t it and hadn’t she done a spell last night wishing for money to come her way?
Before she could stop herself, she picked the cash up and stuffed it into her pocket then turned and walked out of the apartment, leaving the door exactly as she’d found it. Her heart racing a little, she left the building and crossed the road to Enchanted.
The door was closed and it was in darkness. She sighed.
‘Hey, you’re early, we don’t open until twelve today.’
Ethan was striding towards her with a coffee in one hand and the shop keys in the other.
‘Oh, hi.’
‘Desperate huh?’
She smiled at him and shook her head. ‘Desperate for a Phillips or a crowbar. Would you have one of those?’
‘Sure, probably not the crowbar. Hey, how are you today anyway, you know after yesterday? Did you sleep okay?’ He stared across at the dark stain still visible in the middle of the road.
‘Oh, yeah, erm I slept really well. Too well to be honest. I didn’t make it to work in time, and my boss is going to be so pissed with me.’
Ethan laughed. ‘Me too. You know I thought maybe I’d lie there for hours replaying that awful scene, but I didn’t.
And do you want to know why? Or at least why I think neither of us was affected too much?
’ Morana nodded. ‘Because she was a horrible woman. I mean speedy recovery and all of that jazz, but she really wasn’t a nice person and sometimes if you do bad stuff, it might not catch up to you at first, but eventually it does. I believe in Karma big time, do you?’
She shrugged. ‘I guess so, I’ve never really thought about it.’
He opened the door and she followed him inside. It smelled so good in here. A lot of Salem shops, especially the ones that sold all the witchy herbs, sage, Palo Santo sticks, candles and spell kits had the same kind of smell, and it was incredibly warm, inviting, witchy and very magical.
‘Hey, did you go back and sage yourself? I did the moment she’d left the shop, then I did the shop too because, you know, I didn’t want her bad vibes filling this place with negativity. Especially not after she, you know.’ He mimed swiping a hand across his throat.
‘No, I should have. To be honest, I was so shocked I ended up curled up in a ball in bed. She wasn’t a nice person though, was she?’
He shook his head. ‘Some people are just mean through and through. Their souls wallow in the darkness. Others start off nice but because of the crap life throws at them it wears them down and makes them mean, but there is always hope for those kinds of people. If they weren’t mean to begin with, they can turn it around and change things. ’
‘Do you really believe that?’
He nodded and went out the back. Morana looked around the store. She could quite happily buy one of everything in here and who knows, if that money spell worked maybe she would come back and buy everything she desired. Ethan appeared with a Phillips in one hand.
‘See, I knew we had one somewhere.’ He pressed it into her hand.
‘Thank you so much, I’ll bring it back as soon as I’ve finished with it.’
He grinned at her. ‘You better had, it’s not mine.’ He winked at her and she laughed.
She left him to open the store.
* * *
She felt a little bad for not phoning Kim back and as soon as she got into her apartment she texted her.
Sorry, just woke up. So sick, won’t be in the rest of the week.
Then she turned off her phone.
She knew that was a shitty thing to do, especially when the shop was so busy, but she couldn’t be there and focus when there was all this going on in her life.
Morana didn’t notice how dark the corners of her apartment were, how the blackness was seeping through the walls and blocking out the light because she didn’t care.
All she cared about was the book of black magic which was sitting proudly in the middle of her coffee table.
If this spell worked, her life would be changed forever and she could use the book to make it even better.
Kneeling down in her bedroom she began to unscrew the floorboards to try and get to the faded envelope that was peeping through the corner.