The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,91
A brass plaque next to the door was engraved with the words Familiars Welcome.
“I guess that’s you, boy,” Nora said to Gmork.
She pushed open the door and heard a gentle tinkling of bells. A string of silver bells on a golden cord hung on the back of the doorknob. Nora spotted Mercedes behind a counter, on the opposite side of the store. A customer—a well-heeled white woman of about fifty—was chatting to her. Nora only caught a few words, something about arthritis inflammation. Mercedes was recommending spearmint tea in addition to whatever compound she was preparing for the woman.
Mercedes glanced Nora’s way, and nodded her head in recognition and greeting. She didn’t seem too surprised to see Nora. Maybe a little pleased? Or was Nora imagining that?
As she waited for Mercedes to wrap things up with her customer, Nora wandered the store, Gmork at her side on a very short leash. “You break it,” she whispered to Gmork, “you buy it.”
The shop was a good size, about twice Nora’s living room. A converted cottage, she decided. The main front room had been a living room at one point. The back room, hidden behind a curtain, had likely been a bedroom. A sign beside the curtain said it was now the Reading Room. That was where the private tarot and palm readings happened.
Nora found the store welcoming. Nothing strange or scary here. No eyes of newt or voodoo dolls. She found a wall of scented candles that had apparently been “charged” with magical properties. A green candle worked a money spell. A yellow candle stoked creativity. A pale blue candle promised to help with anxiety. A red candle promised love.
Another wall was replete with books of magic and spells. Journals, too, with embossed leather covers and thick with heavy cotton paper. From the ceiling of the shop hung Mardi Gras beads, mostly silver, and draped in elegant loops. The sunlight through the stained-glass panels in the shop window reflected off the beads and tossed rainbows throughout the entire store. And the whole place smelled of blooming flowers, potent but not over-powering. Nora felt better just inhaling the air in there.
While Mercedes rang up her customer’s purchase at another counter, Nora examined the decks of tarot cards. There were dozens of different decks, dozens of different sets of artwork. Some she recognized. Everyone had seen the Rider-Waite decks. Others were stranger, lovelier, sillier. She found tarot decks for cat-lovers, for witches, for medievalists. There were vampire decks, angel decks, African decks, and Italian Renaissance decks. Nora fell in love at first sight with the Aquarian deck and its eerie Art Deco illustrations.
Nora moved away from the decks before she bought all of them simply to stare at the artwork for hours on end. She wandered to a table of jewelry, but it wasn’t the gems and beads that caught her eye.
A newspaper article had been cut out, framed, and hung on the wall in a back corner. Time had yellowed the paper, which was dated November 1984. Nora skimmed the article about a woman named Doreen Goode, a local New Orleans witch, who had helped the police recover a missing child. Though the image was grainy, Nora could spot the resemblance to Mercedes in Ms. Goode’s face.
“My mother,” Mercedes said.
Nora glanced over her shoulder and found Mercedes standing behind her at a respectable distance.
“She rescued a little girl?” Nora asked.
“She helped the police whenever they asked her.” Mercedes held out her hand and Gmork strained against his leash to reach those extended fingers. Nora loosened her grip so Gmork could reach Mercedes and get petted.
“Do you?” Nora asked.
“I would if they asked me. City’s not what it once was. But nowhere is.” Mercedes had gone down into a squat to meet Gmork eye to eye. She stroked his head, his long ears. If Gmork had been a cat, he would have purred.
“What do you mean ‘nowhere is’?”
“Ah, cities are self-aware now. New Orleans used to be a little strange and wild because it was strange and wild. Now it’s strange and wild because tourists expect it of us. Internet makes it hard, too. In ’84, a missing child in New Orleans wasn’t national news. No Facebook or Twitter to make it national news. Nobody around here batted an eye at the police asking a witch for help. Now you don’t want to be the police chief that’s made a laughingstock on the world’s stage by admitting you believe in the occult.”