Come Hell or High Magick

         “A week until Samhain,” Christiane sighed to herself as she unlocked the back door to her shop and punched tiredly at the security panel to shut off the alarm.  “One more week of insanity and then we may sleep as the dead.” 

         She’d extended the store’s hours to accomodate Halloween shoppers and the early rising didn’t agree with her much.  But tourists who came to visit the Camberwell Manor Resort needed somewhere to shop for trinkets when they weren’t exploring the hallways of the haunted hotel with their K-2 meters and digital voice recorders. 

         Christi dropped her bag and jacket at her desk and made her way to the niche just to one side of her cash register where she kept the store’s altar.  She dusted off the ashes of the previous day’s incense, replaced a burned out candle, lit fresh incense and the candles, then grounded and centered for the day’s work.  As she breathed deeply she inhaled the scent of nag champa and beeswax.  Tingles rushed across her body, stretching outwards.  With her eyes closed she could feel the wards and shields on her small shop as if they were part of herself.  Another sensation brushed against her leg, but it wasn’t on the astral.  It was a large orange and white cat rubbing up against her black velvet skirt leaving a trail of white fur behind.

         “Good Morning, Nimue.”  Heading back into the office Christi topped off Nimue’s food dish from the plastic bin she kept under the desk.  She stayed in place in the shadows as she heard the front door handle rattle.  Counting to ten, she wondered why she bothered to post store hours on the door where it seemed no one would read them.  When the rattling didn’t stop Christi headed back into the store and flicked on the lights.  A woman with Very Big Hair wrapped in a scarf and sporting huge black sunglasses pulled on the door while staring up at the large bell she could see through the glass.  She smiled widely when she saw Christi approach and unlock the door. 

         “Good morning, Christiane!” Norma Lynn said as Christi stepped aside to allow her into the shop.  “I know you weren’t planning to open for another half an hour but I just can’t waste any time today.  So busy you know with the festivities!  I wanted to see if you’d gotten those candles I ordered.  The seance isn’t until tomorrow night but I have so much to do I wanted to come and get them today.” 

         “I unpacked them late last night, Norma, and I was about to call you this morning.”  Norma’s too bright and too loud voice grated across the serenity Christi had been cultivating this morning.  It followed her behind the counter as she retrieved the box and sat it next to the register.

         “Now I know you declined to run our entertainment tomorrow night, but you’re still coming, right?  A seance just isn’t a seance without The Witch of Camberwell Heights present.” 

         “I’m not a medium and I don’t have a talent for speaking with the dead, even for entertainment purposes.  I’m a witch, but I won’t pretend to be something I’m not.”  Christi held up one of the black candles she’d ordered for Norma.  It was black on the outside but the melting wax would reveal red on the inside.  “And yes, I will be there.  Can I ask who you did find to perform your seance?  You never did tell me.”

         Norma ooohed at the candle as she turned it over in her hand.  “I called the Network you sent me to but they said everyone was booked.  Then yesterday they said they had a young man who would come in for us.  He doesn’t have much experience yet but three days before the event I’m willing to take what I can get.  You know these will look spectacular in the Gothic parlor in the black iron candelabras I was able to pick up at that auction over in Ogilvie.“

         The mention of an unexperienced medium speaking with the dead at the haunted hotel sent a frission of unease against Christi’s nerves.  Not good.

         “I’ll be there with bells on, Norma.”  Christi smiled - she hoped - as brightly as Norma. 



         It was just after 9pm when Christi left the shop she had named The Eternal Flame.  She was exhausted after selling to tourists and curiosity seekers all day.  She had one break where Titus, one of the local pagans, came in for last minute supplies for the holiday.  He was a highly talented young man - she had half a mind to hire him to help in the store.  But so far as she knew he wasn’t out of the broom closet yet and she wouldn’t out him by offering him a job in her shop. 

         The walk to her cottage wasn’t a long one but tonight it was daunting to contemplate in the spike heeled boots she wore with her black velvet skirt and lacy black top.  She would much rather be in her regular jeans and boots but she was trying to stay “in character” for her customers.  Sighing to the fingernail moon above she turned off Camber Main Street and headed home.  The walk would give her time to think.

         Camberwell Manor had once been the genteel country home of a coal baron.  It had a fairly quiet history until the 1920’s when the Camberwell heir began hosting massive weekend parties.  Geraint Camberwell kept his guests well inebriated with bootleg liquor and various forms of debauchery.  There were rumors that he had dark dealings on those weekends as well, whispers of occult practices.  As long as he kept the gates of Camberwell Manor closed Geraint could do as he wanted in the huge house and no one dared stop him.  That is until the morning when the household staff found the bodies.  Every  house guest was dead and no one knew how.  The law in town couldn’t turn a blind eye to Geraint’s perversions and had him dragged off to an asylum.  Since then the Manor had passed through several hands before some West Coast housewife bought it and turned it into a hotel and spa.  Initially she had started the venture so she and her pampered girlfriends had a place to escape from their husbands but she became bored with the small town of Camberwell Heights and left it to be managed by the locals.  Locals believed she had an encounter with the ghosts of the Manor and that kept her away.

         Mediums and psychics and ghost hunters kept coming back to the hotel to investigate the hauntings, maintaining that the souls of everyone who had died that weekend were still there trying to find their way out.  That brought the tourists and amateur ghost hunters to the Manor in droves, especially at Halloween.  Local businesses kept them entertained with a street fair and special events at the Manor all week.  Norma had been after Christi for years to perform a seance and call the spirits of the dead to speak to the guests, but year after year Christi refused. 

         Christi had learned witchcraft from her Mother and Grandmother.  Gramma’s talent had been spirit communication; Mama’s, divination and premonitions.  Christi went beyond Mama’s and Gramma’s teachings and studied Wicca during the brief time she’d lived in  Philadelphia for college.  She’d hoped to discover what her latent talents were.  So far her talents lay in herbs and oils, candlework, and basic energy healing.  Gramma might have been disappointed to learn that when it came to spirit communication Christi was a Brick - completely unable to sense spirits.  Mama had been satisfied that while Christi couldn’t scry with crystals at least she understood their energies and could “prescribe” them to her customers shortly after she opened The Eternal Flame. 

         Christi listened to her heels click on the flagstone path that led through the herb garden that grew up to her front door.  Once inside the door she hauled off the hated heels and slid her feet into the slippers she’d left by the door.  A rattling from the large cage on the other side of the room attracted her attention.  Her pet crow gnawed on the cuttlebone that hung from the top of the cage. 

         “Corvus, I’ve been roped into it.  I know I said I wouldn’t, but I’m going to the damned seance tomorrow.  I’ve never had premonitions before but I swear when Norma mentioned the medium has next to no experience I knew there would be trouble.  So what do I do?”  She opened the cage so the large black bird could climb out and onto the top of the cage.  He hopped back and forth cackliing.

         “I go in and I go armed for bear and prepared for anything as Gramma would say.”

She was tired beyond tired, but she’d leave for the seance right after she closed the store tomorrow.  And she wasn’t going to go into that place unarmed.  She had supplies to pack.