Chapter Seven
Hazel
The shop had been open for a little over a week. It took us time and Clover’s money to get bottles and jars and herbs and oils delivered, but we got it in. I kept a tally in my journal of what I owed Clover, but it was incomplete, since she hid most of the receipts from me.
Alice flowed in and out like the scent of autumn encroaching. Sometimes she encouraged someone gently, or not so gently, to buy an oil or a spray.
Drying herbs hung in bunches from the ceiling. Goldie’s idea. It gave the place ambience while serving a purpose. That was her in a nutshell. Whimsical to the point of defying practicality but never crossing the line.
Alice brought in some decorations to help us. The cutest baskets for customers to use to shop. She even came into the back room one night to watch me hand press incense. She asked questions but when I suggested she try it on her own, she claimed to be busy.
At three in the afternoon, on the dot, she would come in with coffee and a variation of muffin or scone. She had become like a godmother to all of us—the closest thing I had to a real mother.
On one particular day, a woman walked up to the counter. Dark circles under her downcast and slumped shoulders told me a story she might not be able to. But how else would I help her?
Customers came in for all sorts of things. Incense for romance and luck. Candles for ambience, scent, or purification. Some asked if we were witches. Nothing wrong with those who were, but we were not.
“Can I help you?” I asked with a soft voice. The woman looked as though one harsh word might be the end of her.
She swallowed and scanned the place before meeting my gaze. “I haven’t slept well in many moons. So many that I can’t remember a good night’s sleep at all. Alice said you might have a bath sachet or…I don’t remember exactly what…”
I could’ve done a lucrative business off sleep scents exclusively. People didn’t value sleep enough to invest in it, until they had no choice. Then, they would spend anything to fix it.
“Come with me.” I showed Laura, the sleepless widow, all kinds of things, and she decided on an herbal bath and magnesium lavender lotion.
I gifted her all of it. The sweet, gentle woman missed her husband, missed having someone warm in bed with her.
I pulled her aside and suggested a heating pad on the low setting and some other things in addition to what I gave her.
She tried to pay.
I told her to come back and let me know if she’d slept. That would be payment enough.
Clover winked at me as the woman walked out. “You have such a way with people. I bet she sleeps tonight like never before.”
“You almost said like the dead,” I joked.
“I did, but I thought it was inappropriate considering her situation. Thanks for making it weird.”
“You can always count on me for weird.”
The customer traffic died down midway through the afternoon, and that could only mean one thing.
“It’s almost time,” Goldie said from the back room. She had set up our daily snack table with a deep-plum tablecloth and matching cloth napkins she’d bought from the thrift store after Alice called our tiny table bare and wiped at it with her fingers.
Alice’s opinion mattered to all of us.
Augustine had straightened everything on the shelves so many times, I was surprised her fingertips and hands weren’t worn raw.
“She’s late,” Augustine said, coming to the back where she wrung her hands together.
She and Goldie had discussions in depth about Alice’s afternoon tea and coffee and snacks.
Augustine was a coffee connoisseur, in her own words, and Goldie had baked since she was small and got one of those toy ovens for Christmas.
“I am never late or early. You know better, Stine.”
Alice had started calling Augustine “Stine,” and it stuck. She threatened that if we called her that, she would strangle us, so we decided to call her that all the time, naturally.
“I do,” Stine said and took her seat at the table. The smell of fresh blueberry and almond scones filled the air, along with that of apple-spice tea. The tea and sugar were more than welcome. We’d worked hard on this place and I couldn’t have done it alone.
“I ran into Laura on the way here. Gave her a scone, and she had a Velvet Vial bag in her hands.” Augustine poured us all tea and placed the basket of warm scones in the middle of the table.
I could make all the good-smelling tinctures and incense in the world, but none of them would top freshly baked goodies. “I hope she gets some sleep tonight,” I said, not wanting to betray Laura’s privacy, but any stranger could see the woman was tired, down to her marrow.
“Speaking of sleep, Divina has been pesky lately.”
The cat stepped in via the back door, which we kept ajar, specifically for her. She slapped at the back of Clover’s legs, proving Alice’s point.
“I wonder why,” I said, stroking her back and earning a hiss. The cat goddess was not happy.
“Who knows. She was sitting in the window all night and bumping the glass. It looked like she was staring at the street, but when I went to see, there was nothing and no one there.”
Stine scoffed. “Maybe she was hissing at shadows. They are all over this place. Even during daylight.”
All movement stopped. Augustine was cut and dry. Didn’t even watch a ghost show or entertain a single vampire novel.
She believed in what she could see and touch.
“Perhaps,” Alice quipped. “The Belladonna Woods have all kinds of juicy secrets.