“You do that a lot with us,” Molly smiled, pouring the white flakes into the bag. “Are we special? Or do you do that with everyone?”
He considered his answer. “Yes.”
“Go ahead.”
“This is not how I expected magic to work.”
“How so?”
“We’re in a store, buying materials out of plastic bins and putting them into plastic bags.”
“How else did you think we got our materials?”
“I dunno, I just figured it was more labor intensive than this. I figured you had to go out into the world and gather stuff by hand or something. What? Don’t look at me like that. Obviously I don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s what I’m saying. I only know magic from fiction, and that’s not a reliable source. I just figured you had to, I dunno… gather your stuff yourself instead of buying it all in a store?”
“Who says this wasn’t gathered properly?” Molly grinned. “You think we’re shopping at McMagic’s?” She took the bag from him and sealed it shut with an ordinary twist-tie, then wrote a bin number on it with a marker as she spoke. “Half of learning to practice magic is simply learning to believe. After a while you get the hang of identifying other believers and separating them out from the pretenders and the dreamers and the quacks. And the scammers.”
Alex glanced up at the woman behind the counter. She wore a black apron over her faded sweatshirt and busily typed away at her iPad. Onyx stood nearby, providing a visual contrast as she focused her attention on a display case of jewelry. Though Onyx carried a cell phone, drove a car and went to college, Alex hadn’t had the slightest hesitation in believing the Gothy girl he’d always seen in black silk and lace was a witch. The woman behind the counter, however, might as well have been working at a hardware store. “So is she a believer?”
“Who, Cheryl? No. But she’s open-minded, and that’s enough. For most of her customers, this is all just aromatherapy and meditation aids. It has perfectly ordinary uses. That’s how she thinks of it. But she also knows it has religious uses. She’s not the sort who thinks that the five major faiths are the only legit ones.”
“This is religion for you?”
Molly nodded. “Practicing magic means understanding the nature of the world and how to live in it. You learn it to make sense out of life. What else is religion but that?”
“Makes sense,” Alex conceded. He followed Molly and helped her gather more bits of powders and crystals from the bins.
“We call ourselves witches ‘cause that’s the closest term, but we’re not true wiccans. We do stuff differently. We’re pagans, and not fluffy-bunny pagans, either. They’re who I meant when I mentioned pretenders and dreamers.
“We don’t go to church on Sundays, or any house of worship on a specific day of the week. We don’t have idols. We hardly ever do what you’d call praying. But we have our ethics and our taboos. We have a strong sense of spirituality.” She paused, considering her words carefully. “We have a belief as to what happens to us when we die.”
His eyes had wandered down to a rack of merchandise as she spoke, but they came up to meet hers again. Molly had vibrant green eyes. “Do I fit in with that?”
“You’re kind of walking proof, actually,” she said. “Most people would freak out over meeting an angel or a demon, ‘cause it’d kind of confirm things they always believed but knew they’d never see proven, right? Didn’t freak us out one bit. You, though…” Molly shook her head. “It’s one thing to meditate or cast a spell to try to get in touch with a past life. You’re a whole ‘nother level.
“Our Practice holds that souls can come back, at least sometimes. That’s part of why we think we can help you. But we’re not a hundred percent on that. The spells we want to use… they’re not designed for your specific problem. We’re gonna have to tweak them a little.”
“So my issue isn’t common enough that someone already made a spell for it?”
Molly shook her head. “Like I said, we’ll have to tweak what we know. On the bright side, you’re already a believer. Accepting that magic is real is critical. You don’t have to follow our Practice or any other. Magic works fine on non-believers, but it’s much easier and more effective on believers. You’ve already had more than enough experiences to overcome your doubts.”
“I know the magic is real,” Alex nodded. “I’m just not sure I can accept that there’s a spell to just make all the problems in my head disappear. Seems too easy.”
“Wait for it,” Molly smiled, and not without sympathy.
“Okay, we need eleven hundred bucks,” said Onyx as she rejoined them.
“Huh?” blinked Alex.
“Eleven hundred. That’s how much the jewelry’s gonna cost.”
“Jewelry for what?”
“The ceremony. We need silver. The kind you eat off of won’t make the grade.”
“What, are we melting them down to make bullets or something? I thought we were gonna work on getting my head straight.”
“We are. We need a bunch of small, pure bits of silver,” Onyx explained patiently. “And we gotta throw it all away when this is done.”
“You were saying about this being too easy?” Molly asked. He pulled out his wallet with nothing more than a rueful smile as she poked him. “Anyway, Lorelei will cover it. It’s her money, right?” Then she saw him grimace. “What?”
“Not sure I want to talk about it,” he mumbled.
“Alex,” Onyx said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Full disclosure. You’ve gotta trust us with absolutely everything if we’re gonna do this. We have to bring down every barrier we can. You’ve gotta be ready to bare your soul here.”
“That’s a two-way street, though, right?” he asked. “We keep talking about me and my issues. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because the fact that you two are even trying is a lifesaver here. I was just kinda hoping the first time we got to hang out wouldn’t be the All About Me Show.”
She tilted her head curiously. “What do you want to know?”
“Lots,” he shrugged. “Molly just told me that this is religion for you. What is it that you believe? How did you two get together? All of it.”
Molly looked at Onyx and didn’t even need to see a nod to read the consent in her eyes. “Playing ‘Twenty Questions’ is fine, but it’s not exactly the way to build the sort of connection we need.”
“I’m not sure we can take shortcuts now, though,” Molly replied.
“No, but at the same time… I mean, y’know?”
Alex had looked from one to the other as they spoke. “I don’t know. Whatever it is that you two know, I don’t.” He watched Molly turn her head this way and that, taking in the whole shop with her vision. So did Onyx. That had him doing it, too. Farther back in the store were a couple of customers, but none within a direct line of sight. The store manager, several rows of merchandise away, seemed completely disinterested in them. “What’s going on?”
“The thing is, Alex,” Molly began, “if you hadn’t backed off on us, we probably would have already built the sort of intimacy we need. We’re not afraid of sharing anything with you. It’s just that right now, things really kinda are all about you. We know how to open up. We need you to be able to do it, too, at least to us.”
“Okay?” he asked. Like Onyx, his eyes kept sweeping the store. He heard Molly fumble with something.
“Gimme your hand,” she said softly, stepping closer to him. “Hold it open.” She took his right hand in hers, and guided it down. He felt the fabric of her shirt at first-and then her belly, and the satin of her panties, and the soft hair and warm, tender flesh beneath them.
Easily aroused as always, Alex felt his body come alive at this sudden turn of their conversation. Molly met his surprised look with a naughty smile. Onyx seemed not the least bit bothered; the grin on her face indicated that she found this amusing, but beyond that she didn’t look their way. She kept watch to enable this.