Marisha Pessl - Night Film

A small faded handwritten sign was taped beside them.

We do not sell black magick

supplies, so don’t even ask.

The orange-haired kid who’d chased Zero to the back of the store shuffled over to us.

“Need some help?”

“Yes,” said Nora, setting a book she’d been leafing through —Signs, Symbols & Omens —back down on the stand. “We were hoping someone could help us identify some herbs and roots that we found in strange patterns in our friend’s room.”

He nodded, totally unsurprised, and pointed his thumb toward the back.

“Ask the witches on call,” he said. “They know everything.”

I hadn’t noticed it when we’d entered, but in the back of the store there was a wooden counter, a young Hispanic kid sitting behind it.

Nora and I made our way to him, filing around the women fussing over the colored candles. One with frizzy red hair was holding a purple, a yellow, an orange, and a green. “Should I get Saint Elijah and San Miguel, too?” she asked her friend.

“Don’t mess this up,” Nora whispered. “I know you don’t believe in this stuff, but it doesn’t mean you can be rude.”

“Me? What are you talking about?”

She shot me a look of warning before stepping behind a young woman quietly discussing something with the Hispanic kid. He was perched on a tall stool, industriously carving into a green candle with a large hunting knife.

He didn’t look like a witch —but that was probably the same dim observation as a neighbor telling the Evening News old Jimmy who lived in his mother’s basement and was rarely seen in daylight didn’t look like a homicidal maniac. This male witch had shaggy black hair and was wearing an army-green workman’s shirt, the kind popularized by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, giving him a sort of socialist tropical authority.

Cluttering the wooden counter in front of him were colored candles, sachets of herbs, bottles of oils and dark liquids, box cutters, string, switchblades. On a clipboard hanging off the side of the counter by a rope was a cluster of tattered pages. I grabbed it — ENCHANTMENTS CUSTOM CARVED MENU, it read — flipping through.

“Win at Court. This candle allows you to win in all legal matters great and small.”

“Purple Wisdom. Used for overcoming obstacles, known or unknown — and for prophetic decisions. It is for gaining wisdom in the ancient sciences such as astrology, hermetic magic, Qabbalism, and other magickal systems.”

“Come to Me. This candle works on people who are full of sexual desire and brings them together. It is a VERY POWERFUL SEXUAL candle and should be used with caution.”

I should have come here years ago.

The woman in front of us stepped aside, and we moved to the counter.

“How can I help you?” the kid asked without glancing up. Nora, in a lowered voice, tactfully explained why we were there, removing two Ziploc bags from her purse, one containing the dirt sample, the other with the cluster of roots tied together with white string.

“We found this under our friend’s bed in a series of strange circles,” she said, holding up the dirt sample. “We need help identifying what it is and why it was put there.”

The kid set down the knife, taking time to carefully wipe his hands on a rag before taking the bags. Without opening it, he rubbed the dirt between his fingers, inspecting it under the small desk lamp in front of him. He then opened it, sniffing, blinking from the stench. He resealed it, set it down, hopping off the stool. He grabbed a small stepladder shoved into the corner and set it down in front of the shelves to our right. They spanned all the way to the ceiling and were jam-packed with row upon row of giant glass jars filled with herbs, each one with a faded label.

I stepped forward to read a few.

ARROWROOT. BALM OF GILEAD. BLADDERWRACK. DEER’S TONGUE. DRAGON’S BLOOD CHUNKS. FIVE FINGER GRASS. HIGH JOHN THE CONQUEROR ROOT. QUEEN OF THE MEADOW. JOB’S TEARS.

The kid climbed the ladder, reaching up on his tiptoes to collect a jar from the top shelf.

VALERIAN ROOT, read the label.

He returned to the counter with it, opened the lid, using a spoon to scoop some of the dirtlike substance into his palm.

He compared it to the contents in the Ziploc bag.

“Same texture, same smell,” he whispered to himself.

“What is it?” asked Nora.

“Vandal root.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“An herb. Its magical reputation is pretty dark.”

“Its magical reputation ?”

He nodded, unperturbed by my skepticism. “Sure. Vandal is used a lot in black magic. Hexing. Forcing love. Uncrossing. It’s kinda like coming across a gimp costume in your best friend’s closet. There’s no explaining that shit away, know what I mean?”

I wasn’t sure I did, but I nodded anyway.

“You said it was laid out in a specific pattern?” he asked.

“Yes.” I showed him the photos on my BlackBerry.

“We also found these twigs tied together,” added Nora, indicating the other bag on the counter. “They were hidden along the doorjamb of her front door.” The kid, frowning at it, reached into a box on his left, donning a pair of latex gloves, and pulled out the clump of sticks.

“Where’d you find all this?” he asked uncertainly.

“In a friend’s room that she was renting,” I answered.

He squinted at the root in the light, twirling it in his fingers. “This looks like some really high-level shit, so you should talk to Cleopatra. Lemme see if she’s available.”

He yanked aside a heavy black velvet curtain in the back wall, and as he disappeared, I caught a glimpse of another room with dim red light and a few candles.

“Hang on to your wallet, ” I said to Nora. “We’ve been marked as whales. We’re about to be granted access to the high-rollers room. They’re going to be offering us glimpses of our future, contact with the dead, and other soul-cleaning paraphernalia that’s going to save us from bad vibes and set us back a couple thousand bucks.”

“Shhh,” she admonished as the Hispanic kid stuck his head out.

“She’ll see you,” he said and held aside the curtain for us.

Nora grabbed the plastic bags, eagerly stepping after him like she’d just been granted a one-on-one with the pope in the Vatican’s inner chambers.

With a silent Hail Mary, I followed.

It was a small back room lit with gloomy red light, crumbling brick walls draped with black fabric, a circular wooden table with a few folding chairs, a red stained-glass lamp suspended over it.

A woman —Cleopatra, I could only assume — was standing in the back beside a messy counter, talking on a cordless phone, her back to us. She was tall and pudgy, wearing a black peasant blouse, jeans, old red Doc Martens. Her shoulder-length jet-black hair, streaked with chunks of purple, sat atop her shoulders like a lampshade.

“Have a seat,” the Hispanic kid said, pulling out the chairs for us around the table. “I’m Dexter, by the way.”

“Yeah, let’s try that on him,” Cleopatra said into the phone, her voice flat and clinical. “The Juniper berries. See how he reacts. If he doesn’t call you to set up the third date, we’ll try something more potent.”

She set the phone down and turned around.

She was Asian —Korean, I guessed — with a stark, chubby face, late forties. She wore a long clip of bluebird feathers in her hair and so many silver bracelets, cuffs, dangly skull earrings, necklaces — one pendant a four-inch tooth from the mouth of a tiger — as she strode toward us, she rattled and clanged.