herbs & arts.

wolfman

That bus stop again. The worn bench into which years of idle troublemakers have carved their initials, their obscenities, their ex-girlfriend's phone numbers, crude representations of their genitals.

No buses inbound. Forty minutes late now. Sometimes this happens. Traffic upstream, a car wreck, a flooded street. Could be anything. He is in 'camouflage' again, though he wears this uniform of the disenfranchised with far more ease than he wears the cufflinks and the ties and the stiff-starched shirts. He has a backpack, too, slumped on the bench between his feet -- he's sitting up on the back again. There's a dark mark on the backpack's bottom. A spreading stain. He's getting impatient.

He looks at the nearby shop. The one with the crescent moon on the sign. My god, who the fuck does something like that. He looks at the street, empty of buses. He looks at the stain, the wet mark it's left on the bench, and then he gets up. Jumps down. Lands with that solid heft, hefts that backpack over his solid shoulder.

The shop seems a little smaller when he bulls through the door. Somewhere, an electronic chime goes off. New customer. He looks for an attendant.

witch

The chimes are there, but they're natural: made of wood and metal, the knocker adorned with feathers. There is a blessing worked into a charm above the door. There is a blessing written underneath the mat that his feet step onto when he comes inside. It is not large inside but the walls are lined with jars upon jars with hermetic seals, handwritten labels of the herbs they hold. There are baggies everywhere, the type you'd find drugs in most places. Here they hold raw incense to be tossed over burning coals.

You can see things in the smoke if you try. If you work for it.

Here a bookshelf with different tarot decks arranged alphabetically. There are the candles and the books on candle magic; here are the mirrors and the pentacles. Here are the other books, a smaller selection than some other places in town. Here are crystals; there are statues of various gods and goddesses, fairies and angels and various animals. The oils are near the bath salts and sea salts and earth salts. The teas are by the herbs. There are flags and tapestries. It should feel kitschy, and perhaps to him it does, but there is also a seriousness here. A weight. A woman behind a counter is having an energetic discussion with another woman on the other side about a house she visited, a twenty-four-point elk's head on the wall, a spirit that had not been released and a power that weighed on her, awed her. The woman in awe is in her fifties or so. Has long, dark hair and glasses. The woman she is talking to wears a track suit and has short grey hair.

But there are sharp, sudden eyes on him when he walks in. Blue, sparkling eyes ringed in black liner. The owner of those eyes is holding a book in her hands whose title he can't see from that far. She does not walk across the store to intercept him. She just watches, dark hair in two fishtail braids, lean body in a leather jacket that may be too big and may be intentionally so. There are tears up and down the legs of her skinny black jeans. Her sneakers are Converse, once-bright but dirty-dingy blue, wearing terribly thin, the canvas pulling away from the rubber. Her eyes follow him.

wolfman

Shop full of wonders, like something out of harry potter, macbeth. Eye of newt, heart of toad. Standing in the doorway a wolf could be bewildered by the array of scents and sights. Two women at the counter having a conversation; at least one of them works here. Could probably provide him with a phone, maybe even a bus schedule.

The wolf doesn't go to the counter, though. Doesn't stand shell shocked in the doorway either. Pauses a second to get his bearings - flick his eyes over the wares and the occupants without much distinguishing one from the other. Then, with no hesitation at all, he walks toward the girl.

With the blue eyes. And the clothes almost in shambles. Somehow she pulls the look off; wears her holes and her tatters so well that another woman might look at her and think yes, of course, that is how I should dress. Straight out of a trash can.

In front of her now. Breathing rage like dragons breathe fire. He glances briefly to see what it is on the shelves behind her; one hand restlessly pulls his shirt away from his stomach, lets it recoil back. Then his attention is hers again.

"You got a phone?"

witch

Instead of going to the woman holding down the counter with the strength of her belief in the elk and its trapped soul, he comes right at the scentless kinfolk he's met thrice before instead. Locks her eyes and stalks her way, but she doesn't make a contest of it; she looks away, back at the book in her hands, then slides it back in place on the shelf. It says it is about the Morrigan.

Then she is watching him again. She's already met him three times, and she remembers the moon phase of each, and she knows they were all at night. In her mind he exists in binary: rich and poor, smooth and rough. Right now rough. Right now bloody, even though it is concealed.

Barely.

Her eyes flick to his hand as he tugs at his shirt, then she turns back to the shelf, scanning the titles, her head tipped a bit to read. "You've got a limo but not a phone?"

wolfman

"I had a phone." Gives that backpack a light heft. Something inside shifts wetly, unpleasantly. "Something ate it. You gonna let me borrow your phone or not?"

witch

Her eyes flick down to the bag that he's indicating. The tip of her tongue touches the top of her mouth, just behind her front teeth, about to say something. He doesn't leave a space. Her mouth stays fixed as it is; her eyes flick upward.

There's a curve of her tongue, a stiffening, pressing to her alveolar ridge. It is a movement from an almost-th to a: "No. But I'll make a call for you."

wolfman

Frown. "What the fuck? Why?"

witch

All she gives him is a shrug. Not even both shoulders.

wolfman

Mouth a hard line. Shoulders rounded forward, arms folding across chest. Frown becomes a scowl as he gives her proposal some thought.

"Seven two zero -- five five five -- oh two six eight." Local area code. Local number. Not many people memorize numbers anymore, but the wolf's apparently an exception. This number's an exception. He rubs the pads of his fingers over his jaw; scratchy. "Gonna let me at least talk to my driver myself, or you wanna have that conversation for me too?"

witch

She -- who is as nameless to him as she is scentless, lacking the sort of identity that would cement someone like her in the mind of a wolf as real -- withdraws a phone from her pocket. It is not the newest and sleekest. Surprisingly, it is not a beat-up dented burner, either. She punches in her code and then dials. As it is ringing, she puts it to her ear, looking up at him.

"I think I've got it."

Someone picks up. She doesn't miss a beat. Turns from him a bit, tugging another book -- something called The Inner Temple -- from the shelf to look at it.

"Hey. Your boss needs a pick-up. Herbs and Arts on Colfax." Her eyes slide to look at the wolf standing nearby. "He made a mess."

wolfman

Male voice on the other end. Cautious and a little suspicious; doesn't recognize the number. Girl declares a mess. Wolf snorts. Answerer starts saying something -- who is this?, maybe. Wolf pantomimes the hanging up of an old-fashioned handset.

Just cut him off, he mouths.

The call ends one way or another. Backpack's starting to drip. One dark blot on the floor. Another. Wolf notices. "Gonna be outside," he says. Pause. "Thanks."

witch

Male voice sounds suspicious. Woman listening smirks as she talks. Wolf tells her cut him off; does a bit of miming with it.

"Good witch of the North," she informs the driver. Her eyes flick down. "His bag is dripping."

She hangs up after that. Moves the phone, blindly presses the End Call button, which does in fact feature an old-fashioned handset icon. In red. Soon that image will be as obscure as the floppy disk in the 'Save' icon.

Her eyes are now on the dark blots on the carpet. She ignores him when he says where he'll be. She glances up when he says Thanks, but says nothing.

The chimes sound, metal and wood, when he leaves again. She picks up what she came for and pays. When she comes outside his driver is not there yet, and she is carrying a handled paper bag with the store's emblem stamped on it in purple.

"Offer me a ride?" she asks, the instructive pattern of the words not matching the cadence of her intonation.

wolfman

Wolf's standing on the curb when girl comes out of the store. At the edge, toes of his workboots hanging over. Bag's hanging over too. Drip-drip-drip into a storm drain. Lifts his head when he hears the chimes, when he hears her footsteps behind him. Half-turn, a swivel at the waist, a glance back at her.

"What, so you can say no again?"

witch

To that, she grins. A spreading of lips, an exposure of teeth that is as slow and sly as to look unconsidered. An animal's mouth opening in salivation.

She's a couple feet from him. Pulls a cigarette -- not a pack of them -- from her jacket pocket along with a lighter. Sticks the cigarette in her mouth, holding it between her lips as she lifts her free hand to light it. As the lighter goes back in her pocket she takes the first drag, even exhales the smoke without taking the cigarette away just yet. She does, though. It certainly is easier.

"Don't think I ever really said no," she tells him. And:

"Either time."

wolfman

"Thought I told you to stop harping on that," and then he reaches out and plucks the cigarette out of her mouth. Squints down the street while he takes a drag. "Shit's going to kill you."

witch

He reaches.

She jerks her head back, brow furrowing, arm twitching as though to smack. Whether it stays in her mouth or not:

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

wolfman

"I'm a fucking werewolf." The cigarette does not stay in her mouth. "Chill the fuck out. I didn't touch a hair on your head."

witch

"I know what you are,"

as an image flashes in her head, and the meaning of that image.

Her head gives a small shake. "Hasn't anything to do with being a prick. 'Less you want it to."

wolfman

"Gotta be kidding me," muttered, and he turns, the bag drip-drip-drips on the pavement, he's suddenly altogether too close, inches away. "Listen to me.

"I don't owe you a goddamn thing. I don't have to be nice to you. I didn't ask you to follow me out here. I did ask you to stop bringing that night up, though. But you keep running your mouth about it. What, you think it's funny? Well, I think it's funny watching you flinch when I make a move you didn't expect."

Step back. Air around her lifts, a weight from the throat. He turns away, goes back to watching for his ride.

"Now fuck off." It's almost an aside.

witch

listen to me

stalk stalk stalk, in her face face face.

She exhales a sigh, looking up at the sky. Cigarette rolls onto the sidewalk where it was dropped, smokes away, not yet diminished. She looks past his hairline at the sky. He pushes himself into her space again. It's his right. It's because he doesn't owe her. He doesn't have to be nice. It's all about that night.

She is running her mouth. Deserves this, then. Deserves whatever he does, if she laughs at him.

Her eyes slowly lower from the sky to meet his. Not for very long. When he tells her it's funny watching her flinch.

She is watching him when he steps back. When he tells her to fuck off.

"Foder sua mãe com esse pequeno pau," she tells his back. Recites it. Like a poetry. A proverb.

And fucks off.