The shop with the flowers growing around its window frames opens before dawn and closes after dusk. It’s rumored to be a place of exquisite wonders, and you have heard that a witch owns it along with her vampire brother.
The townspeople spoke about her in whispers at first, ashamed that a witch would dare to practice her unholy craft in such a clean and respectable town as theirs, but now one can hear them talking proudly about her on the street. The witch may indeed be a frightening creature of the dark, but the town has claimed her as their frightening creature of the dark. You were worried that she had them all under an unnatural spell, but there is no evidence of magical foul play, and now you’re just confused.
A sign above the door states that it is the Song Siblings’ Curiosity Shop; a smaller sign under it attempting to clarify—rather unhelpfully—that this is a place for “those who wish to escape.” You push open the freshly painted door doubtfully, wondering if the inside will explain how the witch has this town entranced.
It creaks and a bell tinkles somewhere miles away in the back. You are suddenly surrounded by the clean smell of earth and something else running under it, something warm and spicy like good chocolate.
“Sage!” a clear voice floats out of the back room. “Can you come stir this for me while I greet our guest.”
You realize that a man has been sitting on a stool in the overgrown shadows behind the counter watching you take a deep breath, half-hidden under a riot of vines and large purple flowers.
“Half a second,” he responds mildly, unfolding himself from his perch. You notice his skin is bone white and that the shadows follow him out from under the plants.
The vampire brother, then. You shiver without meaning to and he glances at you sharply.
“You seem to be under the impression that I am dangerous because I am not like you,” he says. “How limiting.”
“Sage,” the clear voice comes from the back again, laughing like water. “Don’t scare our guest away.”
She appears in the door behind the counter. She is obviously the witch. There’s no pointed hat on her head, nor does she carry a black cat and a broom, but as soon as you see her you feel a tingling on the back of your tongue, like when electricity jumps from cloud to cloud, and ozone fills the air.
She smiles at the man who must be her brother. “Please be careful with the potion when you stir it; it’s for Mrs. Mosswort’s son, and she was very specific about his indigestion, so it needs to be as delicate as possible.”
He slips through the doorway with a nod, and she turns her gentle smile on you. Your ears pop like when air pressure drops before a storm.
“What have you come here for?” Her voice floats over to you, and you shake your head dazedly. Your only reason for coming was concern, but now that you stand in front of her it seems impossibly humiliating to admit.
She nods with wry amusement. “Ah. I see. Don’t worry; you’re hardly the only visitor we’ve had who doesn’t want us around.” You nod back, not knowing what to say, and she gestures at the shelves. “Take a look around, see if anything catches your eye. I’ll be right here if you want to ask about a product.”
“What should I call you?” you ask hesitantly.
“My name is Sophia—my brother who you just met is Sage—and yes, I am the witch who runs this shop. Whether you believe it or not, or whether you just want me gone doesn’t matter to me. This is my business, and you’re as welcome to it as you want to be.”
You look around, feeling chastened, and notice that most of the walls are covered with intricate shelves filled by bottles of all sizes. Crammed in among the bottles wherever there is a free space are plants of all varieties: marketable, medicinal, mystical, and magical. Ostensibly magical, at least; you’re not sure what to believe yet, and witches aren’t exactly common.
One bottle jumps out to you. It seems to be blue, constantly shifting through different shades: turquoise, teal, cerulean, cobalt, navy so dark it’s almost black. Something about it compels you, and you point a finger at it.
“What’s this one for?” you ask.
Sophia glides across the floor and plucks the bottle off the shelf. “Ah, yes, this one. This is one of our most popular experiences. Everyone loves a little salt breeze.” You frown at her words, confused, and she hands it over. “Just try it.” Her cheek dimples with a mischievous grin. “Don’t worry, if I wanted to enchant you, I would have done it already.”
There’s no real reason to it, but you believe her. Nothing about this place suggests evil, and you are curious about her wares; this is the easiest way to find out what she’s up to.
The cork comes out easily under your fingers and you take a deep breath as a soundless explosion of fresh air bursts into the shop from inside the bottle.
The world is wiped away.
A new scene comes into being around you, painted in broad swathes from a heavenly brush. Endless sea stretches before you, endless sand stretches behind you. A cool layer of fog hangs over everything, caressing you in soft droplets. You take another deep breath, and this time salt fills your lungs, fresh salt from the sea. It’s electrifying. You feel so deeply alive that it resonates in your bones, in time with the soft wash of the waves on the beach.
As you become more aware of your surroundings, you feel your feet, sinking into wet sand. Waves push and pull gently around your ankles. It should be shockingly cold, but it feels more soothing than anything you’ve ever experienced before.
You get one more luxurious heartbeat, and then the vision shivers and drains away, right back into the bottle as Sophia replaces the cork firmly.
“What did you think?” she asks, and you blink, rubbing the sun out of your eyes as you fall back into the cool darkness of the shop.
Her words drop into the air between the two of you. You can hear the bubbling of the potion and Sage humming as he works in the back of the shop in the silence, but you are struck speechless. Sophia watches you with sympathetic eyes.
“It…” You stammer, trying to find the words to explain the deep sense of peace that briefly surged through you. “It was beautiful.”
Beautiful is an understatement, but you think you can be forgiven for your lack of eloquence. Sophia is still watching you with that sympathetic look, and you blush. You can tell she’s done this routine many times before.
“So,” she says. “I assume that answers all the questions you wanted to ask me?”
You blink and open your mouth. Not at all, you try to say, but the only thing that comes out is the one truly important question that outweighs everything else.
“What else do you have?”
Sophia brings you many vials and potions, whisking you away to other worlds and then bringing you back just as effortlessly. You visit mountain caves where the only sounds are distant birds chirping and gentle winds that smell like rain. You visit a country creek, banks overgrown with violets and luscious green moss. You fly above deserts, blasted and pure in their simplicity.
Coming back to your body feels like dying a little bit each time.
One vial brings you to a cavernous place where steppingstones rise out of mist. Darkness hangs all around and it should be frightening, but you can feel in the air that whatever this place is, it is warm and ancient and massive. Awe supersedes any fear that might grow in your heart.
One tall alabaster bottle brings you to a city floating in the sky. One glimpse of shining white towers and curved roofs, then you are shunted back to the cozy little shop, unsure if what you saw was somehow impossibly real.
A clay jar stoppered with cloth doesn’t take you anywhere when opened, but the scent that floats out is undoubtedly your favorite childhood meal, somehow transplanted into this unfamiliar place with no detail missing.
It hits you like a gut punch, and you could almost cry, it’s so visceral. Sophia takes it back with a wistful look and gently wraps it back up.
“This was the first potion I created,” she says quietly. “Sage, he…well, being a vampire, he can’t eat human food anymore. Soon after he was bitten, I made this so that he’ll always be able to hold a little piece of the comfort a familiar meal can give someone.”
“That’s lovely,” you manage.
“He thought so too.” She crosses her arms and shrugs. “Either way, after making that potion, it didn’t take long to realize that even though the troubles of the living dead are more specific than what we mortals are usually burdened with, everyone can do with a little comforting magic now and then.”
She’s right about that; you know it well.
You clear your throat. “So, you started making these for your brother and just never stopped?” you ask, defaulting to curiosity to deal with your deeper emotions in private.
“Pretty much, yes,” she responds. Her eyes drift over the shelves with an unreadable expression. “Like I said, we can all do with a little comforting magic sometimes, so why shouldn’t I try to provide it? I have the skills to do so. Everyone has a purpose and I found mine here.”
“Ah.” You rub the back of your neck, caught at a loss for words again.
The two of you stand in silence.
“Will that be all, then?” she asks after a moment. “I have to get back to the kitchen; Sage has probably burned the medicine by now.”
“Wait, wait-” You reach out after her. “How much does one of these bottles cost?”
She pauses and meets your eyes. “How much would you give to escape your life?”
You consider the question, the weight of her eyes pinning you down. It’s an uncomfortable question, and you wish she hadn’t asked, because if she hadn’t, you wouldn’t have to think about just how much the answer really is.
You tell her.
She presses her lips together and gives you a decisive nod. A bottle appears in her hand. It’s as green as spring leaves with a twisting pattern like an elm tree’s branches. It smells like clear oxygen. Like a fresh start. You don’t know where she got it from; if she moved between blinks or if it was always there in her hand waiting for you, but there it is, and you want it for yourself so desperately.
“I hope it brings you peace,” she murmurs. You thank her awkwardly and pay the price she accepted, then quickly bow out of the shop.
The bottle sits on a shelf in your room, and you often wonder when you should open it. You know there’s a right time for everything, and you know the bottle’s time will come eventually, but you’re deadly afraid of wasting it
You almost open it each time you lose a friend.
You almost open it each time you lose an opportunity you desperately needed because of your own stupidity.
You almost open it each time you lose a piece of your soul to the unbearable weight of continuing to exist, but you can never quite make yourself do it.
Years later, when you stand on the brink of a terrifying fall, you remember the kind-hearted witch and her potions.
You open the bottle as you jump. Tell me, where do you land?
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Jay Kang Romanus is a queer, mixed, Asian-American author of speculative fiction that explores the experience of living this intersectionality in worlds not our own. You can find his other short stories in magazines such as Anathema: Spec from the Margins and PodCastle, as well as multiple anthologies. He is also the editor of Dudes Rock, an anthology of speculative fiction celebrating queer masculinity. You can find him online under the handles @jellicle_jay/@jelliclejay.bsky.social or on his website jaykangromanus.com. | |