The Witching Hour

Closed for MTPersson



Unlocking the front door - a seemingly normal one were it not for the pentacle symbol painted on the glass panel that made up the entirety of the door - Sophia Duncan flipped the switches right next to the entrance and flooded the bookstore with light. The old book shop was filled with floor to ceiling bookcases, ladders attached to a few of the cases for those who wanted a book off the top shelves. Books were jammed onto the shelves in a haphazard manner. The heady scent of musty books and wood, and the occasional smell of tallow from the many candles that littered any available space, filled the small shop. The whole place was cluttered and chaotic, much like Sophia's Aunt Lilith had been. The shop had been hers, after all, until her death only a few months ago. It hadn't come as a shock to anyone when Lilith left the book shop to Sophia, who had always been her favorite niece. But Sophia, despite feeling honored that Lilith would bequeath her prized possession to her, didn't want the book shop. Especially since it was a shop devoted to the study of the occult.

The Witching Hour had been Lilith's life. As a practicing witch, she had loved to introduce people to the world of witchcraft and the supernatural. Sophia's mother, Helen, had always hated when Lilith - her sister- had come to visit because it would mean Lilith trying to entice Sophia to the world of magic. As a child, Sophia had always been intrigued by the tricks her aunt was able to do with her spells, but as she got older, she was less impressed and began to doubt that magic was even real.

In college, Sophia had lost touch with Aunt Lilith, choosing to focus on her studies. Her aunt's eccentric ways were no longer of interest to her. But, four months after graduation, while Sophia was still trying to decide what she wanted to do with her life - after all, what could a girl with a degree in Medieval history hope to accomplish in life? - that she learned of her aunt's passing and that she was now the owner of an occult book shop. She had planned on selling off the store's contents and then renting the space out, but a stipulation in Lilith's will stated that Sophia had to maintain the shop for at least eight months before she could disband the business.

And so, here she was, three months in and shocked at how much business The Witching Hour actually did. Not only did it have its regular customers from town and the surrounding areas, but the phone and online purchases made a hefty profit. The shop was so packed, however, that Sophia had never been able to do a complete inventory, and her aunt's records were a complete mess.

As she set about business that day, Sophia went through her usual opening routine then began to fill the purchase orders that had been called in the day before. Her day progressed and Sophia kept busy. A number of regulars, including some women from Lilith's coven came in. Sophia was intrigued by the people that frequented The Witching Hour. They looked so normal, like anybody that you would pass on the street and not think twice about, yet they were obsessed with the supernatural.

The light tinkling of the bell over the door alerted Sophia to another customer. Looking up she saw her moving gracefully towards the rows of books. She had been in nearly every day since Sophia had taken over the shop, systematically making her way through the stacks of books, occasionally buying something, but generally leaving empty handed. She was a cute girl, probably not much older than Sophia herself, and just the type of person that one wouldn't imagine in an Occult shop. The mysterious girl tended to stay in the section that, Sophia could only guess, was geared towards vampire lore. An odd topic of study for such a girl, but who was Sophia to judge? After all, vampires were all the rage right now, so what if someone wanted to do a little more research.

Going back to her work, Sophia didn't pay much attention to the young woman, focusing, instead, on the account books in front of her.

It was a warm, sunny day and Roxana was glad she had decided to bring her sunglasses along with her. The tinted glass might have made everything slightly dull and brown but at least she could see where she was going and not become blinded with the glare off of the windows of passing cars. She hated this kind of weather. The bright reflections of sunlight always ended up giving her terrible headaches because she was forever squinting her eyes. The sunglasses helped a little but they did nothing to stop the heat throbbing through her head. If it's not one thing it's the other. Bring on winter.

The one positive of the warm weather though was that she could wear some really pretty clothes. Some consolation but I still think I prefer snow. The outfit she was wearing today was a bright summery number. A neon yellow lace blouse which kept her arms cool by failing to include any sleeves and a short skater skirt which was covered in a dense, floral pattern. There was a light breeze in the air and Roxana let it whip around her arms and legs enjoying the feeling of it's coolness blowing softly up her exposed thighs and under her skirt. It also does a good job of messing up my hair. Although she kept it short, no longer than shoulder length, Roxana's brunette hair always seemed to find the smallest breath of wind and fly off in wild directions.

Spotting the shop she was headed for, she let out a sigh of relief savouring her chance to get out of the sun and take shelter inside the dark, musty smelling bookshop. The Witching Hour. What a great name. Her steps quickened and before she knew it, Roxana was looking through the middle of the pentagram that adorned the door and pushing through into the relative dinginess of the store, a small bell signalling her arrival.

The inside of the shop was everything you would want from a bookshop. Rows and rows of shelving units stacked full of books in a haphazard style. On her previous visits, she had found out that there was no real system in place to organise the various hardbacks and paperbacks so she had simply resorted to starting at one end of a row and checking every single spine and cover looking for the title she was searching for. Stepping into the entrance, fixing her hair by using her fingers as a makeshift comb, Roxana could see that nothing had changed since yesterday, or the day before, and the same chaotic arrangement prevailed. And why shouldn't it? Peering down the central aisle, she could just make out the desk that sat at the far end as well as the small figure sat hunched over it. The dimness was exaggerated by her sunglasses so she removed them, slotting one arm down the inside of her blouse and letting them rest there, and replaced them with a pair of large reading glasses similar in style to the ones the owner of the shop was wearing.

The shop was busy, as usual, with lots of local occultists casually browsing some of the shelves. Roxana politely worked her way past them, smiling sweetly and apologising as she went, and made her way over to the section she had spent the last few weeks working her way through. Vampires. Finding the place she had marked off the day before she started pulling out small piles of books and slowly checking them over, being careful to make sure that she didn't miss what she was looking for.

An hour passed and all of the people who had been in the shop when Roxana had entered had left and been replaced by new patrons, their respective exits and arrivals signalled by the small bell over the door. She heard a lot of them speaking to the young lady behind the desk, just general chit-chat and the occasional condolences over the death of her aunt. It seemed that she was well known and well liked around the city. At least in the occult community. She had found a little stool hidden in one of the corners and had dragged it over to the section she was searching for and sat down on it. A huge pile of books was built up around her where she had been discarding them and she was almost hidden behind it. She felt dust, floating around in the air, agitating her nose and, all of sudden, she let out a loud and violent sneeze which made her knock over one of the taller piles next her.

"Ah Choo!" It almost sounded like a mouse sneezing the way it squeaked out of her body. A bloody big, loud mouse though.

"Oh no!" She screamed in a long, exasperated cry before calling out to anyone who may have been in one of the adjacent sections.

"Sorry, can anybody give me a hand with all of these books?"

Scrolling through the Excel spreadsheet that she had created, Sophia searched for where she'd left off the day before. She had decided that, if she were going to be running this bookshop that she needed to have some sort of system and, thus, had begun the very slow process of creating an inventory. Though she'd worked nearly nonstop the day before, Sophia had barely made a dent in the vast collection of books housed within the shop.

The sound of someone sneezing barely registered in Sophia's mind as her eyes flicked from the computer screen to the stack of books sitting next to her. She'd pulled a handful earlier that day, hoping to sort them better when she replaced them later, to enter into the database. The subjects of the books ranged from basic witchcraft and spells to advanced voodoo practices to werewolf lore. And they had all come from the same shelf. Sophia shook her head, marveling at her aunt's lack of organization.

The loud crash of books caught Sophia's ear and she snapped to attention, quickly scanning the bits of the shop that she could see. Nothing within eyesight, but with the way the shelves were stocked to the brim, Sophia had known it would only be a matter of time before they all came crashing down.

"Oh no." The exasperated cry came from one of the back rows. "Sorry, can anybody give me a hand with all of these books?"

Quickly shutting her laptop, Sophia jumped off the stool she sat on and headed towards the voice. Rounding the corner she saw the cute brunette that was in nearly every day, a pile of books on the floor surrounding her.

"Are you alright?" Sophia asked, quickly bending to help pick up the books. She noticed that they were all about vampires. Sophia had seen the young woman going through the shelves of each row whenever she came in, carrying armfuls to the section they were now in. She could only assume that this woman had been doing her own organizing.

“Are you alright?”

Roxana looked up and saw the woman who had been sat behind the desk. She would have assumed that she was the owner of the shop but she appeared to be no older than Roxana herself. Though age and looks could be a strange thing never quite being the same for everyone and often independent of one another. Whatever, and whoever, she was, the woman coming to Roxana’s aid was very attractive and the glasses she was wearing helped to frame her face adding a sense of character to it. They were very similar to her own. Two girls rocking the geek chic look and looking hot. The woman bent down and began picking up some of the books that littered the narrow aisle.

"Oh, thank you. I’m such a clutz sometimes" She fumbled around the floor, clumsy fingers picking up books and trying to put them into some sort of organised pile. Together, it took them a few minutes but eventually they managed to get all of the books off of the floor and back onto the shelves. If they were in something that resembled a structured order than all the better but it was unlikely. They had just piled them as precariously as they were before Roxana took them off the shelf.

Taking her reading glasses off, brushing her bangs out of her eyes and turning to the woman who had helped her, Roxana held out a hand and introduced herself,

"I’m Roxana, sorry for coming in here and ruining your lovely shop. It is your shop isn’t it?"

She listened to the reply the woman gave her, smiling her sweet little smile all the way through. Truth be told, Roxana was a little surprised that this was the first real conversation between the pair of them. She had been in everyday for the past week and the only words they had exchanged were at the register when she had brought a couple of books three days ago. Sophia, as she had introduced herself, had never come up to her and asked whether there was something she was looking for in particular or why it appeared to be that she was reorganising the vampire section.

"Could I ask you a favour, Sophia?" She fluttered her eyelids and generally tried to look as cute as she could. "There’s a book I’m looking for, do you have some kind of inventory you can check? Or maybe you know about it. It's an old book about vampires called Bent Steeple. "

Sophia looked down at the pale hand the other woman held out to her before taking it quickly in her own.

"I'm Sophia." She replied, trying not to notice how cool Roxana's slim hand felt inside her own heated grip. "Yes, it is my shop. Or, rather, it's my shop now. It used to belong to my aunt, but she left it to me when she passed."

What was she doing babbling like an idiot? Sophia had never felt so unnerved by anyone before. But there was something...off about Roxana, something that Sophia just couldn't put her finger on. The woman was undeniably beautiful, but it was something more than that. It was because of this sense of something more that Sophia had never really talked to Roxana before.

"Could I ask you a favour, Sophia? There’s a book I’m looking for, do you have some kind of inventory you can check? Or maybe you know about it. It's an old book about vampires called Bent Steeple. "

Sophia blinked, trying not to stare at Roxana as she fluttered her lashes. Books, yes, she could talk about books without sounding like an idiot.

"Oh yes, I have an inventory I've been working on. Though, I don't know if I've gotten to that one yet. Come with me and we can check the database."

Sophia turned quickly on her heel and made her way through the shop to the front desk. Her laptop blinked back to life with a touch of the mouse and she began to type in the book's title.

"You wouldn't happen to know the author as well?" She asked, casting a quick glance at Roxana. After Roxana gave her the author's name, Sophia found the book with just a few keystrokes.

"Okay, here we are. Bent Steeple by G. Wells Taylor. I had a copy in stock last week but it sold. What I can do is order another if that works for you." She looked up at Roxana who stood on the opposite side of the counter. "If you don't mind me asking, just out of curiosity, how come you're looking at all the books about vampires?"