I do not think Hecate is the first name she had. I do not think that was the first people to know the Guardian of the Edges. Is it possible there were multiple different entities who slowly became one? I don’t know. I tend to think it’s the other way around, that there is one spirit who holds this office, and each culture that comes to know it only knows some part of it. I think the people of her first known tribe learned of her from somewhere else. I think, before she was Hecate, she was Hathor.

No, I don’t think Hathor was her first name, either. We’ll get to that. But think about it. Hathor is primeval, like Hecate. She is of an old guard that are eclipsed and absorbed by some body of upstart gods. And what did she look after? We know her primarily for her role in fertility and femininity, but her first worshipers did not. Not that she didn’t have those traits, but that she had others. Hathor was also the goddess who guided souls on their way to the Underworld and helped them adjust to their new existence, in the same manner as Hecate did to those souls on their way to Hades. And she was the goddess of the outside, the patron of goods coming from lands beyond the borders of Egypt.

We think of the Guardian of the Edges as the darkness beyond the light of civilization, but that’s because we’re used to her as Hecate and Trivia and the Devil at the Crossroads. Even Trivia was not so dark, though; and perhaps the Egyptians had a more natural curiosity and love for the beyond than we do. Where other cultures viewed outsiders with suspicion, Egypt praised the goods they brought. Where Mediterranean peoples viewed death as a dreary place from which no one returns, the Egyptians embraced it as a waiting friend. They did not fear the world beyond themselves. They romanticized it, embraced it, lusted after it. I submit that it is not incidental that the goddess of undeath is the goddess of fertility, that the goddess of the outsider was a goddess to be lusted after. The Greeks feared her place in the cycle of death and rebirth, as the Egyptians praised it. The Greeks looked to the darkness beyond their cities with fear, while the Egyptians looked to it with desire. But perhaps it is not that they saw something different when they looked there. Perhaps they simply had different appetites.

Hathor comes to Egypt at the edges of all they know, carrying the gifts of lands abroad, stirring the hearts and loins of the Nile people, promising them a welcome transition to their next home. The Crossroads was not a thing named, but they knew where to meet her. They knew how to trade with her. They knew she would understand their desire, their longing, and would reward it. Is this not the same mistress of the Crossroads, the same three-headed goddess who stands at the fringes of life and death and day and night, the same goddess who guards travelers as they move from one land to another, the same stranger who meets the outcast under a moonless night and grants a wish in exchange for something of equal value?

​Hecate was Hathor. And before that? I think she may have been known even farther back.

The Devil at the Crossroads is a case study in how modern mythologies take the elements mankind has always known and revisit them with a different angle. There is no real origin to the idea of meeting a dark spirit at the borderlands between two places, or the not-space past the walls, to make a deal with a steep cost that seems acceptable—maybe even sensible—at the time, but proves to be too much. That this being becomes the Christian Devil probably has more to do with Faust than any specifically Christian belief about that Devil. Perhaps it is taken from his attempts to tempt Jesus, where on his final try he offered the whole world in exchange for a moment of worship; but there is little else he does, at least as my Russian Orthodox parents described him, that sound much like bargaining.

The Devil at the Crossroads has all the makings of an old world myth being draped in Christian imagery in the new world. This is incredibly pronounced in African-American folktales, where slaves brought their stories with them and then clothed those stories in elements from the Christianity they began to accept over later generations. He is the wandering spirit of the land just out of reach, offering his wares for a great price. I do not know much mythology from Africa, but I have trouble imagining they did not have such concepts in the stories they brought, and calling him The Devil some centuries later follows a known pattern.

Whatever true name the Queen (or King) of the Crossroads originally had, they have acquired numerous titles and names and faces ever since. Hecate is almost certainly not her original name; her basic function—guardian of the edges, great magician, the cycle of life and death tainted by the fearsome undeath—would almost certainly have become a necessary spirit the moment people began to have edges and recognize death and seek power. This would have happened well before humans reached Asia Minor. Petitioning that being is older than history, magic predates writing. Maybe it had something to do with wandering traders, people from ‘outside’ meeting a community at the edges and bringing them exotic things. Maybe it’s just because some early people felt there was something powerful in the dark and wanted to reach out to it rather than run from it. We will likely never know; the point remains, when people first went to the limits of their known pocket of the world and called out for an audience, something was there to receive them. And century after century, when people from some new land went out to the forest, or the crossroads, or the sunset, or the graveyard, they were received anew, and gave the thing that welcomed them a name they understood.

​The Devil at the Crossroads is just this, again. Robert Johnson walks away from the community that knows him, and when he returns he brings with him a gift of music no one could explain. His community seeks an answer, and they look to the edges. And the thing they see lurking there, the eyes in the darkness, has acquired a name. A name associated with the first musician, even. Satan, the one whose voice once echoed through heaven with the tones of instruments mortal and divine, cast into the darkness where he now draws people to their doom. This Devil, Johnson’s community decides, must have welcomed a wayward soul and given him some of that music. Oddly enough, it is not the one who seeks the Thing at the Edges that names it, but those who stay behind and seek to warn others not to follow that path. We don’t know if Johnson even did make such a deal—I suspect he did not—but if he had, I wonder what name he called his patron. Would we know the Devil at the Crossroads as a devil at all, if we had learned of it from someone who cried out to it, and was embraced by it, rather than those who feared to seek it?

I excitedly explained to Sergei and Nan what had happened over dinner, how I had managed to peer backwards in time which had never happened properly before. They were excited to hear about it, and Nan took it as evidence that distance from Matteson was a good thing for my magic. It was hard to argue with her on that, but I tried to make sure she didn’t let her concern become any actual dislike of Matteson. It wasn’t exactly his fault if that was the case, and I was the one who chose to keep living with him. I could have just as easily stayed in the house on West Hill and let his influence on the space fade. Well, not just as easily; splitting the property tax with him was a smaller bill than rent would have been.
​
Either way, Nan felt she could improve my results with the right application of material components. So she started working out some ideas while I helped Sergei close up shop, and when I came down to the shop the next day she had a couple crystals set out and a few herbs in her mortar and pestle. We talked through my experience again, how I was connecting with time and what everything felt and smelled like, and she added a few more things from behind the counter and ground them up into a fine powder which she mixed with a little bit of water. She asked me to add a drop of my blood, which I did by picking at the scab from the day before, and she turned it into a fine paste which was gathered into a small bowl. She instructed me to try again, and use the paste to make my wave marking before I began, and gave me a different incense she thought would be slightly better. I thanked her, went to the meditation space, and tried again.

While Sergei and Nan worked in the front of the store, I spent some time in their meditation corner working on some of what I had learned from The Fates. After returning to the physical world, I had been unable to duplicate the results I’d had in the cave. This was to be expected; The Fates had warned me that it would be much harder to do as it was, and the impact of Matteson’s nature on my magic, even when he was away, was probably a factor I hadn’t adequately considered. But I had a new theory to work with that I couldn’t access time the way The Fates did, anyway, at least not outside of their help. The thread they gave me was a focus, but the means they used relied on their nature as spirits, which I didn’t have. After my conversation with Sergei this morning, Nan suggested that spirits have their own paths to magic, distinct from humans. And, since I relied on a type of elemental energy, I may need to reframe my attempts at time magic to something that could connect to my element.

“This,” she said, “would be very difficult for some elements, like earth, which is too rigid. But water? I think you’ll figure it out.” If that was the case, then maybe I shouldn’t be thinking of time as a tapestry the way they did. Maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about time as a thing at all. Maybe I should be thinking of it as a flow.

So I sat down in the meditative space, the thread woven into my hair, trying to commune with water and feel the flow of things not just through space, but through time. Nan had set an incense burning to help me, and I had a stone from the Ohio River in one hand and one from Lake Michigan in the other. I quieted my mind, and began seeking the flow.

I don’t know how long it took me, as I started to lose sense of nearly everything before it happened, but I finally felt something click. I opened my eyes and looked around. At first, nothing seemed different, until I turned my attention to the incense and saw the smoke frozen in place. I felt pressure building up on me, and I suspected that this was because I was trying to stand still. Here I was, meditating on flow, and when I finally slipped into it I was looking at a single moment instead of going with that flow. I tried to push backward, but the pressure was stronger that way. Going against the flow would be even harder. But I knew I could do it, if I just gave it a little more energy. I bit my thumb, hard, hard enough to draw blood, and used that bit of blood to paint waves on my forehead as I chanted. Slowly, I felt the pressure begin to ease, and I turned my attention to the smoke again. I stared at it, pushing, until the smoke started to curl downward toward the fire. It was slow going, but I was getting there. I was watching time in reverse!

I stood and continued pushing, and when I glanced back I saw myself sitting in place, eyes closed. I left myself behind and walked out of the meditative space into the shop at large, and watched Sergei walking backward toward the office while Nan pulled a crystal out of a paper bag, folded the bag, and put it under the counter under the warm gaze of a customer, who had coins floating up into her hand from a change purse. I watched, in absolute glee at the fact that it was working, before I suddenly felt the pressure hit me again and throw me forward.
​
I gasped as my eyes flew open and I dropped the stones. I checked my hand, and my thumb had a small droplet of fresh blood on it. But I was out of the trance, and it had proven that I could do this. Now I just needed to get better at it.

The big picture for Sergei’s theory begins some time before the rise of Greek culture. He tried to describe what time frame he was talking about, but didn’t know the English name for it and for all I know he never knew the Russian one either, so it was only after I searched online and asked if he was talking about the Minoan civilization, and he vaguely agreed, that I decided to just go with that and move on. But the broad sweep of his theory had a few major sections.

First, that Hecate predates the Greeks. He believes basically all the Greek gods predate the Greeks as a culture, in fact, but that’s not the point here. Sergei pointed to an idea that Hecate is originally from modern-day Turkey, near the coast on the southwest, though he seemed somewhat unconvinced of the specifics. I have no idea how they came to that specific location, but Sergei said it was a specific temple and I decided to look it up later. By this theory, the people who originally worshiped Hecate would have been monotheistic, serving their dread goddess with no rival or distraction. I asked how a society could function if their sole moral ideal was a goddess of undeath and magic, and he noted that monotheistic faiths don’t have gods of anything. They have a single god of everything, and what we pagans see as foci are just personality. For instance, there are these claims that the Jewish god was just a Babylonian sky god who got his own spin-off series, but Sergei believes it would be more accurate to say that the Jewish people had this one god, and the Babylonians may have adopted him into their pantheon and relegated him to the role of sky god because there was an opening there he seemed to fit. I asked if he thought all polytheistic beliefs started this way, as a collection of monotheisms merging together, and he said it was probably at least similar to that. At any rate, this would have put a tribe of people in southwestern Asia Minor as a monotheistic cult serving their goddess, Hecate. He believes everything worth knowing about her begins here, which is a shame because we know almost nothing about what this period of her life would have looked like.

The next phase would be the one we already know pretty well. The tribe worshiping Hecate gets conquered and/or Hellenized, Hecate is absorbed into the Greek pantheon and relegated to a position suiting her personality and available job openings, and the stories we know of her come to be either created, or altered into their known form. But the thing is, my studies of the Matteson family library suggest that the metaphysical realm and the physical realm do not have an equal exchange of influence. Henry clearly believed that the physical realm is nudged to a certain degree by things that happen in the metaphysical, but that the metaphysical is fundamentally defined by things that happen in the physical. If he’s right, any changes made to her character by introduction into the Greek pantheon would have changed who she actually was on a basic level. Sergei noted that was a significant ‘if,’ but if it was true, it wouldn’t change the importance of her first existence as a solo deity. Everything the Greeks used to define her would have already been there; they only changed her role in the universe relative to other gods, but not who she was. This, he felt, was not a difference important enough to straighten out for now. I’m not convinced it’s that minor, but I’ll have to consider that on my own.

This bleeds into the next phase, when the Romans absorbed the stories of Greek mythology and associated their own gods with the Greek gods. Here, Hecate becomes Trivia, a strange goddess who held sway over her own mystery cult (like Hecate would have before becoming part of a pantheon) and was occasionally described with traits that seemed to blend her with other gods, especially Diana. But while much of what defines her here is identical to things that defined Hecate, it is in the Trivia stage that she comes to be associated with crossroads. I noted that her function as Queen of The Crossroads seemed a pretty integral part of Hecate’s nature, so why would it only pop up here? Sergei stated that maybe it became part of her nature as Trivia, or maybe it was always a part of her nature and the Romans were just the first of her worshipers to find roads important enough to list them.

After this, things get murky. Most of the Roman gods fade into cultural obscurity or are overshadowed again by their Greek counterparts in the public mind as time goes on, but the spirits who received that praise almost certainly continued on in some form. Sergei notes a rise of she-devil queens in European Christianity, sometimes borrowing from Jewish sources (such as Lilith), sometimes from pagan ones. He believes Hecate spent some time as one or many of this latter sort, but there are not enough surviving records to his knowledge for us to piece together who or when. And, he said, that relies on assuming she remained a woman. It’s not like spirits are generally bound to a gender, and Sergei believes he knows at least one instance where Hecate was, in fact, a man.

​Sometime in the 1900s, the idea arose in the southern American states that people could go to the crossroads and make a deal with the devil. This apparently really took off with a blues singer. But while there is little information to tie the Christian Devil to such behavior, Sergei claims the descriptions of this Devil at the Crossroads suits Hecate well. And, he notes, the stories of this devil only begin to fade once neopagans begin to arise with the advent of Wicca, once the name of Hecate becomes relevant again to a group of people seeking power. This, he claims, is where she is now; having stepped away from the position of Devil at the Crossroads and leaving no one to continue making those deals, the stories of that being would slow to a halt while the stories of Hecate appearing in her mythic form to young witches would rise.

My flight into Chicago landed shortly before dinner, so that evening was mostly spent catching up with Nan and Sergei. It wasn’t until morning, while we were all in the shop beneath their apartment, that I got to work. In the back room, I laid out the notes and images I’d brought, and showed them to Sergei.

“So Hecate is being bad now?” he asked, looking everything over.

“I don’t know. I know she wants something from me, but I don’t know what. I think it has to do with Matteson, but I don’t know why. And I know she’s willing to threaten or endanger me to get it.”

“But you don’t know how?”

“Oh no. I very clearly remember how.”

“Okay. So what you need is…what?”

“Well, there are a couple things. But the big one I would like from you, specifically, is your theory on Hecate taking on different names across history.” He gave me the biggest smile I can ever remember seeing from him.

“Oh yes,” he said, pointing at me as he started to jog for the stairs up to the apartment, “Yes, I have you.”

“It’s ‘I got you,’ Sergei.”

​“Also that!” he yelled, vanishing into the stairway. He was gone only a few minutes before returning with his large poster, which he had made attempting to lay out the whole timeline for me. “Okay,” he said, unrolling it on the table, “we start at beginning.”

There is a significant gap in my knowledge of Hecate's history. What I can say for certain is that she is the real goddess from ancient Greece, that she did not originate in Greece, and that she was also revered in Rome under the name Trivia. The former and latter facts are well-attested, and a host of epithets for her existed in both Grecian and Roman practice. ​Of her origin, however, little is known for certain. Historians with an eye toward mythology debate a Greek, Anatolian, or Egyptian source for her cult. I am inclined to believe she is of Anatolian origin, as the Egyptian theory seems circumstantial and her personal disdain for the other Greek deities as thieves and upstarts suggests to me that she was incorporated into that pantheon some time after both she and they formed. This is difficult to argue without pointing to personal contact with her, however, so it it a matter I can only share with a limited audience.

Sergei is a member of that audience, and remains convinced that she can be traced much farther through history. He notes that some Christian sects associated her with the spirit of salvation and gave her limited dominion over the world; I have not yet managed to help him understand the limited respect Wikipedia has in the academic world, and neither of us has searched for more information on this particular claim yet. But using that, he claims that she shares traits with various minor goddesses, demons, and folklore entities around the world for centuries afterward. His certainty of each of these claims varies, but there is one he is absolutely convinced about: that Hecate is the Devil at the Crossroads that appears in folklore surrounding blues musicians. His case is well-made in this instance, and it does seem difficult for me to believe that she would allow anyone else to claim dominion over the Crossroads, even just as a term for a deal. Many of these accounts do, admittedly, view the Devil at the Crossroads as male; but I have seen her present as male before. I'm not fully convinced that she is this devil, but I also can't assume she isn't.

What I do know is that, by the time I met her, she had begun selecting witches from around the world for direct training. Her exact standards are unknown, as are her goals. I don't know how many witches she has selected or even if she is teaching us all similar material. I have met a couple others at the Crossroads, on rare events when she decided to have us there at the same time. Through these interactions and her own off-handed comments I have pieced together that she has not selected any male witches for her training. She seems to show no preference regarding trans or cis women, and at least two witches I've met at the Crossroads over the years have been nonbinary.

Her demands on me, at least, are high. She has made it very clear that she expects me to become highly skilled at seeing and passing through the metaphysical realm. The latter is a skill I have yet to learn, but she promises that under her tutelage I will be able to open portals between realms and across space, maybe even across time. I don't know why I was selected for this specific set of skills, but I am deeply curious about what I can learn of magic and the metaphysical realm by traveling in this way.

Her claims that she has authority over individual Anchors and Warlocks is of some concern. John didn't seem to have any knowledge of her, and she seemed ignorant of his presence in my apartment until I mentioned him. If she rightfully has the dominion she claims, shouldn't she know them? Shouldn't she at least be aware of them? If she doesn't have that dominion, what happens if and when she tries to assert it? I've decided to do more research on her, at least partly to find out if any previous Anchors or Warlocks appear alongside her. As much as I may doubt some of Sergei's attempts to connect her to history, it is the only list of places to look that I can access. It may be educational to explore those claims, even if only to rule them out.

She is served directly by a dog, a great hound usually with jet black fur and red eyes. She has a deep animosity for ravens and reacts strongly when they are suggested as a symbol of any of her domains. I have seen other animals in the Crossroads, but do not know how many serve her directly. She has other symbols that appear frequently in the Crossroads and our training sessions, most commonly the key and the torch.

She has three faces, or possibly three selves, that never seem to face the same direction. I have seen at least a dozen different forms that she may take; she is gorgeous in every form, and most of them retain her threefold form, her distinct musculature, and her eastern Mediterranean complexion. She is sexually active to some degree with at least some of her followers, though personal experience on the matter is limited to very few incidents. Her variety of forms prevents me from making any statement on common aspects of these incidents.

​I have not seen her since the night I asked John to shield me from her call, and at this point I'm beginning to worry that I will not see her again.

"That was it, wasn't it?" I asked, looking at the newspaper sitting between me and Sergei. "I felt her attacking her father."

"Could be," he replied. "Could well be."

"How are you feeling?" Nan asked.

"I had to lay down the rest of that day. It was too much. But I'm better now." She nodded.

​"Now, about these other beings you saw."

"The ravens! Are you familiar with them?"

"These are Odin's," Sergei offered.

"Well," Nan said, giving him a side-eyed glance, "maybe. Their exact nature is less clear, but I did ask some spirits and one said that Huginn has a blue glow in all her forms, one prominent one being a raven."

"And she travels with Muninn," he said, pointing at me.

"Yes, yes. But we don't know if that was her, or Muninn, or what their actual relationship to Odin would be. Huginn and Muninn are hardly the only raven spirits in the world. Though if it was them, it's worth noting that the spirits I met with were very hesitant to invoke their names, or even vague titles, which is highly unusual."

"Maybe it was them, though. What were they doing there? Why did they help me?"

"It's hard to know if what they did really counts as 'helping,' but unless they show up again there's little point worrying about it. We should make a note of it and focus on what we've learned about Alethea." Nan sat down next to me and rested her hand on my knee. "I think we need to consider the possibility that she has become something more like a poltergeist."

"No, no. She has to be someone we can still help!"

"She's killing people, Jackie."

"The abuser who killed her! I think that falls within what can be expected from a ghost."

"What about the Mattesons?"

"We don't know if she actually killed them, but even if she did, we don't know why. But we know she was scared and recently unbound and may not have been in her right state of mind at the time."

"My concern is that we don't really know what the right state of mind for a fifty-year-old trauma ghost even is. And if she did kill them, your friend and anyone else who reminds her of him may be in trouble." I stood up and started pacing.

"I can't. I can't just give up on her. I helped create this situation, don't you see? I have to try to make it right!"

"Maybe making it right means facing her as an enemy instead of a lost soul."

"Are you willing to assume that? To go after her like some terrible spirit instead of the victim of a terrible situation that she still hasn't escaped?" Nan took a deep breath and leaned on the counter. She looked down for a moment, then finally met my gaze.

"All I'm saying is that we shouldn't rule it out. Just give me that much. For your safety." I rested my hands on my hips and stared off toward the drifting colors on the ceiling. Finally, I crossed my arms and looked at Nan and Sergei.

"Fine. We'll consider it a possibility. But I'm not ready to give up on trying to save her." Nan nodded, then turned to the counter and patted the chair next to her.

​"Good. Now, let's work on some plans."

"The problem," I said, laying the book down on the counter, "is that I have no idea what I'm looking for." Sergei was standing on the other side of the counter, looking through a newspaper while Nan counted the money for the day in the back. The shop had closed twenty minutes earlier, but she had invited me to come by and work on 'our project,' as they called it. We were still trying to find Alethea.

"And this girl, she is for sure problem?" he asked.

"I don't know! I mean, maybe? She certainly was when she was trapped at the apartment. But I mean, I still feel like I owe it to her to help, you know?"

"Is good of you. But how long do we give?"

"She waited fifty years for John to turn up. I don't think we can assume she's in a rush now."

"And you are looking where he is?"

"He says he is, but I don't know what he's doing about that." Sergei gave a concerned hum and turned the page of his newspaper. "To be honest, though, I suspect she's still in Chicago. Or nearby."

"Why?"

"It's like...it's almost like a gut feeling, you know? That she's not too far away."

"This is real sense, or worry?"

"I don't know yet."

"And your Mistress? Would she know?"

"She...I haven't seen her all month."

"This is odd?"

​"Yes. I don't know what's going on with that, usually I'd see her at least a few times a week."

"She is busy, maybe?" I gave him a tired look and he laughed.

"I'm concerned it's about John."

"Your little night together?" I nodded. "Is she..." He waved his hand, as if trying to remember the word.

"Jealous?" He nodded and pointed at me. "She hasn't been in the past, but...I don't think she much likes him, personally. But I mean, I had just had a terrible day! I was dealing with some shit, you know? I just...I couldn't do another of her games, not that night. I had to try to get a break, just for one night. Sometimes I wonder if the gods really understand what they're doing to us."

"You trust her, though."

"Well, yeah. Yeah, I do."

"Ever since that statue."

"You know, I've been dreaming about that lately. Probably trying to deal with not getting any summons."

"Maybe. Nan!" She peeked out of the office.

"What?" He yelled back something in Russian and she held up a finger and then went back into the office. He nodded at me, then turned back to watch for her. When she emerged, she had her binder for dream interpretation, and walked straight for the counter.

"Oh, no, that's not necessary," I started, but she waved me off as she set the binder on the counter. Sergei rested his hand on her shoulder as he leaned in and kissed her cheek, then headed off to the office.

"Your magic attunes you to the universe, Jackie; and sometimes when it speaks, only our subconscious can hear it. It's worth the little bit of effort to interrogate our dreams a bit when we're wrestling with a big problem." I sighed, and hesitantly nodded. She was right, I just didn't really want to admit it. She gave a single definitive nod and opened her binder. "Now, darling. Tell me all about it."

I had the best sleep I'd had in a week last night, completely uninterrupted by ghosts or gods or anything between. Jacob wanted to talk about finding me in John's arms this morning, but I had brushed him off. He wanted a story I couldn't, and wouldn't, give him. Nothing had happened, and that was exactly what I was hoping for.

When he wasn't around, John and I exchanged numbers so we could keep in touch about Alethea or other spiritual matters one of us might need from the other. I went with them to the airport to send John off, and now Jacob and I were on the L on our way back. I excused myself at an early stop, telling him I needed to look into something before work, and slipped out while he waved.

​I transferred to another train, which would take me closer to work and near a shop that sold ritual supplies. I didn't know what I would need, not yet. But the people there had been a valuable resource ever since I'd moved to Chicago, and the only people I'd met who knew anything about the Crossroads. Or, at least, had some notions about it. Sergei, who lived above the shop and ran it as much for somewhere to practice his beliefs as to make money, thought it was the same crossroads the Blues singers talked about, and associated Hekate with the devil who dwelt there. I was unconvinced, but had to admit there did seem to be some similarity in how seriously she took deals made with her. Deals that were, near as I could tell, always made at the Crossroads. He was still trying to convince me and would occasionally pull out a timeline he was working on to explain what happened to the old gods and what names they may have used through the years as found in assorted legends and folklore. Where he didn't know the English yet, he wrote in Russian and breezed over to get to what I would understand.

It was always very interesting, but I was relieved to find his wife, Nancy, behind the counter instead when I arrived. She looked over the edge of her magazine when the door chimes softly rang. Her eyes lit up and she closed the magazine, setting it down on the counter as she stood from her stool.

"Jackie! Where have you been?" She came around the counter and gave me a hug, then held her hands on my shoulders and looked me over. "Are you okay?"

"It's been a hell of a week, Nan." I smiled at her as best I could. "I came by a couple weeks ago to prepare for the full moon, but I guess you were out."

"Yes, yes, he told me you said hi." She let go of my shoulders and waved me over as she went to the couches where they do consultations. "What happened this week? You want some tea?"

"I'm alright, thank you," I said, following her over and sitting down. "I have a little time before work. I just, I had a situation with a ghost."

"One situation?" I chuckled.

"Maybe I would take some tea. If you don't mind." She slapped her knees and then stood, heading into the back.

"Nonsense, child! You're family." I leaned back on the couch, looking up at the shards of colored glass hung from the ceiling that spun slowly and cast the sun from the windows all over the room. They had always been comforting to me, a thing I could fix my attention on that was alive enough to connect with, calm and warm enough to ease my mind. The first time I walked into this store I was nervous, and lost, and just starting to look for any knowledge that I hadn't picked up at home. The slow, patient rhythm of the colors flowing through the room were what made me feel comfortable to stick around and finally ask for a little bit of advice, which Sergei and Nancy had always been gracious to provide.

She returned with my tea and I thanked her, then began explaining the events with Alethea. I meant to give an overview, but found myself spilling everything, and I began to cry when I described the feeling of helplessness and distance when I was possessed. Nan scooted over and held me, waiting until I was ready to continue. When I finished, she rested her hand on my shoulder.

"So, this Alethea, you have no idea where she is now?" I shook my head. She nodded, looking off into the shop. "Okay. Okay, this is going to be difficult, but we may have something for it." She got up and walked over, shuffling through stock and muttering to herself. I sat for a moment, then tried to take a sip of my tea and found it cold. I sighed and stood, walking over to her.

"What are you looking for?"

"It's a powder, mixed it up a while ago but haven't needed it really. If I did it right, it should hold a ghost in one place, which would hopefully give you a chance to do...something to help, I guess."

"I have to find her first."

"We can work on that. But we want to know what to do when we find her before he go charging in again, yes?" She was half buried in a cabinet by this point, yelling out to me. I leaned on the edge of the cabinet and lightly ran my hand over the display case on it.

"We?"

"Ah! Here it is!" She pulled out of the cabinet and leapt up to her feet, holding out a burlap pouch tied with twine. "Yes, this stuff, probably won't need all of it, just enough for a perimeter, really." I held out my hand and she set the pouch in it, then closed the cabinet and walked over to the counter.

"I should pay for this and get going. I still have to work today."

"It isn't inventory, just take it. But come back soon! I'll look for something we can use to find your ghost. In the meantime," she said, leaning on the counter toward me as I approached, "I suggest avoiding this new friend of yours, at least until you have an idea on what to do about her, okay?"

"That'll be easy. He flew back to Pittsburgh an hour ago."

"Good. But listen, if she's so keen on him, keep an eye out for people who may remind her of him. That might give you your trail."

"Thanks," I said, putting the pouch into my bag. "I hadn't thought of that."

"You haven't had time yet to think, dear. Be safe out there." She gave me one more hug and then sent me on my way, both of us waving as I went through the door.