“Want to check it out?” Bishop asks as we approach the shop and the chaos of the movie shoot looms closer.
I don’t even dignify that with a response. Save to glare at him.
My footsteps grind to a halt in front of the shop. I stare up at the big cursive letters on the shop’s canvas awning. the black cat. I give a wry laugh, recalling the day nine years ago when Mom received a loan approval from the bank, and before doing any of the more practical things, like finding a location, ordering stock, or taking a bookkeeping course, she insisted we pick a name for the place. Something original. Something to entice tourists in off the street. When I suggested the Black Cat—about the least original name for an occult shop—she happily agreed. Agreed because it made me happy. Tears well in my eyes, which makes Bishop shift awkwardly next to me. I’d forgotten how weird he is about that.
“Does it really get better?” I ask, wiping my face. “I mean, everyone says it’ll get better with time, but does it really?”
I hold my breath, because everything depends on his answer. How can I do this, go on with life, if every memory knocks the wind out of me, every day steals my breath away.
Bishop stuffs his hands into his back pockets and stares vacantly at nothing. And then he finally speaks. “Not better. Just less”—he shrugs—“intense, I guess. I don’t know how to explain it. It still hurts to think about my mom, but now I cope with it better.” He looks at me, a twist of dark hair falling in front of his face.
“Less intense,” I repeat.
I guess less intense is okay. I’ll take any emotion over what I feel now, which is the worst kind of pain. Pain times a million. Pain on acid.
“Was she a witch?” I ask.
Bishop smiles so brightly his eyes crinkle in the corners. “One of the best.”
And now I can’t look away from his face, because I’ve latched on to the idea that one day, some time from now, I might be able to think of Mom and smile the way he’s smiling: a real smile that reaches all the way to his eyes. “How did she die?” I ask.
His smile melts away.
“Don’t answer that,” I say, burying my face in my hands. “It was rude of me to ask.”
“Cancer.” His voice is even, but there’s bitterness laced in the word.
It’s so unexpected, I look up from behind my fingers. “But—but she was a witch?”
He nods. “A witch who smoked two packs a day.”
I shake my head. “But wasn’t there some magic spell that could make her healthy again? That’s just such an ordinary way for a witch to die. I mean, not ordinary.” I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“There are some spells that work for a while, but then the magic fades and the cancer comes back stronger than before.” He gives a bitter laugh. “But I wasn’t a warlock then. There was nothing I could do anyway.”
His voice cracks, almost as if he might cry, but then he cleas his throat and claps his hand on his thighs. “Well, there goes my lifetime supply of sappy minutes. We going in or what?”
I touch his arm to let him know I can see past the veneer of his joke before fishing in my purse for the shop keys. My hands shake like a crack addict’s in withdrawal. I don’t know why I’m so nervous—the house holds as many, if not more, memories than the shop—but somehow this place is entirely Mom. It was hers, and she loved it so much.
I’m not ready to go inside, but I slip the key in the lock, because I’m desperate to hear her voice. Bishop says the magic he plans to use only works where the energy of the dead is the strongest—something about energy never being destroyed once it’s created—and I can’t think of any better place to find Mom’s energy than here.
The door pushes open with a creak that sends a chill through me.
And I don’t even have to walk in to know the magic will work. Mom’s presence here is as undeniable as traffic in Los Angeles. It’s not just her scent, which is so strong it’s like burrowing under ten of her duvets. It’s the fading smell of Murphy Oil, the only wood cleaner Mom trusted on her floors. It’s the sequined scarf slung over the chair behind the till, the inkwell and pen next to the till’s ledger, the unique way she arranged books on the shelf—laying a stack horizontally every now and then, “for variety.” It all screams Mom.
I step into the fractured block of sunlight coming through the big picture window, circled by dust motes that dance lazily around me. When I close my eyes, I can almost see Mom at the bookcase, dusting off the spines of the how-to witchcraft books, wild curls spilling down her back. She turns and sees me, and a bright smile lights up her face. Then she makes some crack about gracing her with my presence, because I’m always so busy with school and cheerleading.
A second later, a shadow falls across my face, and I’m pulled into the present again.
I open my eyes and find Bishop leaning against the window. He looks at me—“appraises” would actually be a more fitting word—and his face takes on an unreadable expression.