Page 4 of Good Golly Miss Molly

And that is why I amnothaving my lunch on the boardwalk on this fine nearly-summer day. I can’t risk running into Logan again. I’ll have to cross to the other side of the street from now on, just to be safe.

Brighid has been training me to run the shop so she can finally take some vacation and spend it with her best friend, who’s spending the summer in Mystic Beach. Dream Weaver nominally sells yarn and other needlecraft supplies, but these days it’s most popular among a certain subset of customer who has a penchant for crystals, herbs, incense and other esoteric items. Some of them quite esoteric. Less so to me, but I have let Brighid teach me her way of doing things to ensure I can run the shop to her satisfaction.

If you’d told me when I was a child that I’d be spending my time in coastal Delaware, selling teas and crochet hooks, I’d have thought you’d lost touch with reality. As it stands, I’m grateful to be here and to have a job I like, working with Brighid, who I also like. Right now, I’m wishing her shop was farther inland, but not even I can make that happen.

“You’re back from lunch early, Molly… Did you forget you had an hour today?”

“No. I was just ready to come back, get back to work. I thought I’d inventory the books, get a few days’ head start.”

“That’s a great idea! Keep out a copy of the Druid herbal. It’s the next thing I’d like you to read before you start helping the customers with their teas and incense.”

“Will do.”

I head into the back room where Brighid keeps the books and other related materials, tools and candles. I don’t tell her I’m familiar with most of what she has in the shop. I’m careful to steer clear of a few of the herbs she keeps in stock (forget-me-nots, daisies, nettle), but that’s the only thing I’ve had to make adjustments for.

Well, that and the shop bells over the door. I swapped out the ear-shredding cast-iron shop bell she had over the door the first time I was alone in the shop, telling her it had fallen and rolled across the sidewalk and into the street, where it had, sadly, been crushed by an oncoming car. I’m sure the driver of said car found it quite… odd that I’d be carrying a bell down the sidewalk while wearing a pair of silk gloves, let alone that I’d dropped it so suddenly, just as they happened to be driving by. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. The set of little brass witch’s bells that took its place have a nicer sound anyway — especially to my ears.

Doing inventory doesn’t take my mind off… things… (cough— Logan —cough) nearly as effectively as I’d hoped. Brighid’s shop isn’t a bookstore, even though she carries a few dozen titles, plus a selection of tarot decks and other divination systems, some of which are astonishingly close to their ancient counterparts. Brighid has excellent taste. It’s one reason I was happy to get the job here. She’s even got some polished antler buttons engraved with Norse runes and hand-made wooden staves carved with the ogham writing used by the ancient Druids of my sometime homeland.

That reminds me again of Logan, and I start reflexively reorganizing the candle stock by magical correspondences instead of the color spectrum, just because it keeps my mind busy. And still I’m done with the inventory before the shop’s closed for the day.

“Go head home, Molly. I’ve got things handled here,” Brighid says.

“Are you sure? You’ve been here all day.”

“Of course. I want to get a few things ordered so you have plenty of stock while I’m out.”

“That sounds like so much fun! Not the ordering, I mean — having your friend come to visit for the summer.”

“Well, it’s a working vacation for him, especially after the first couple of weeks. But it’ll be nice to have him home again.”

“Did you tell me what he does? I can’t remember…”

“He’s a musician. Actually you may know his band — he’s the rhythm guitarist for aMUSEd, Hunter Graves.”

And now it makes sense why I didn’t remember what her friend does for a living… I’d blocked it out. And now the gods have seen fit to double-whammy me with the handsome musical men today.

“Idoknow them. And he’s your best friend?”

She hesitates, and I see she’s tempted to confide something, but she shakes her head…

“He is. He grew up here, with me. At least until he was 17. Then he moved to D.C., and the rest is history.”

I may avoid musicians these days, but if they’re like a food addiction, music itself is like oxygen to me. I can’t survive without it. Especially now.

“Well, let me know if you want to extend your time off. I’m happy to keep things running here. It keeps me busy.”

“I appreciate it, Molly. I’ll try to keep it to two weeks, but I may need to be a little flexible with everything Hunter has to do while he’s here.”

I bid her farewell and head out, crossing to the north side of the street, just in case. Once I reach the boardwalk, I head north again, passing through the private beach and behind the gates of the place I now call home. My little efficiency apartment contains all I need — all I possess, in fact. It isn’t much. I got a small stipend when I arrived, along with the use of the apartment for as long as I live here.. I won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, that’s for sure.

One of my treasures is the high-end wireless speaker system that connects to my phone, and the first thing I do when I get home each day is to turn on my music, seeking to lose myself in whatever inspired piece of creative magic spins its way out of my collection of many thousands of songs. Did I mention music is like oxygen to me? Each song a molecule keeping me breathing, alive, even while I slowly starve for what I really need…

But the gods aren’t done with me yet today. The song that comes on — randomly shuffled up by my phone — is “Magic Man,” by Heart, a tale of a young woman beguiled, quite willingly, by a man with magical skills. Literally or… well, in bed. And she’s so drawn to him that she can’t help herself.

OK. Fine. It’s a song. It’s also my current reality. Thanks for the reminder. Next!

“You Can Do Magic.”

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