Chapter Four
Brains and beauty are a lethal combination. Good thing I only have one of them.
—Tensanne’s inner thoughts
Tensanne
THE SMELL OF patchouli mixed with dust, smacks my senses, making me sneeze. The store is overly warm, sweat starts to bead on my forehead but a peaceful feeling fills my heart, I feel as if I’m supposed to be here right now. Despite the dust and the creepy vibe, the store has a homey feel.
Along the front walls of the store are bookshelves from floor to ceiling. Each shelf filled with paperbacks.
Gasping, Ronnie rushes to the shelves, “Oh, my gosh,” she exclaims, “They have Indie Authors. Penelope Ward, Mia Sheridan, T. Torrest. I may have to live here, Ten,” looking to me, her face is glowing like a kid in a candy store. She starts grabbing spines from the shelves.
While I love to read, I’m a digital girl. I like my books in Kindle form. They take up less room that way, but Ronnie loves her paperbacks. She says the greatest smell in the world is the smell of a musty old book. While she is stocking up, I look around the store.
Past the bookshelves toward the back of the store is a round counter centered in the middle of the floral pattern, carpeted floor. I’m looking through the items sitting on top the counter when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. A little old lady is sitting, hunched over, behind the counter.
“Oh, I didn’t see you there,” I say with a humorless giggle, jittery from her presence, I feel a strange vibe radiating from her.
She doesn’t respond, so I continue my perusal of the items on the counter. Key chains, small shining stones attached to leather string necklaces and bookmarks spread across the glass top. A brightly colored box of little bottles grabs my attention, ‘Potions’ it says on top the box. The labels read “Love Potion”, “Lust Potion, “Forget Potion, and “Youth Potion”. Several bottles of each kind filled with brightly colored liquids, promising to solve all of life’s woes.
“Those aren’t vwat you need, Tensanne Craig.”
My body stills, my breath catches. Did she just say my name?
“What? Did you say something, Ma’am?” I ask the lady sitting behind the counter, my voice trembling. I swear she looks like she’s dead. When she raises her head, her eyes meet mine. Fear flutters along my skin when I meet her cloudy gaze. Her eyes are covered in a white, hazy film preventing me from seeing the color they used to be. They have an eerie blue glow that makes my hair along my arms stand on end.
“I said, those aren’t vwat yous need, Tensanne.”
“How do you know my name?” I ask my voice shaking.
“I know lots of tings. I’ve been around for a long time. I’ve been waiting for yous to come into my store. I have just the thing for yous,” she states, slowly rising she grabs a walker and makes her way slowly to the back of the store.
As soon as her back is to me, I push my legs to move quickly back to Ronnie. “We need to go, NOW,” I squawk grabbing her elbow, pulling her toward the door. The words spill from my mouth so fast it sounds like “wetogonow”.
“Wait, Ten,” she balks “I haven’t paid for my books yet,” she grits her teeth, pulling her elbow from my grasp. “What’s wrong with you?”
“There’s a creepy old lady at the counter and she knows my name, Ron. I’ve never been in here and she knows my name,” I screech, panic filling my tone. “This store doesn’t feel right; we need to leave.”
“Oh, bullshit. Come on, let me pay for these and we’ll leave,” she says calmly, walking to the counter. Standing in place, I don’t want to go back to the counter, I stay where I am. “Come on, stop being such a pussy willow,” she huffs.
Heaving a sigh, my head falls forward, sagging my shoulders, I fall into step behind her, following her to the counter. Just noticing her arms are overloaded with paperbacks.
“Geesh, Ron. Got enough books?” I tease.
“Blasphemy! You can never have enough books,” she jokes with a wink carefully setting her load on the counter. She shrieks when the old lady rises from behind the counter, “Holy mother of Moses, where did you come from?”
Shoving the books to the side, the scary woman lays an ornate little black bottle, wrapped in aged lace on the counter, turning her hazy eyes on me, “Dis is vwat yous need,” she says with a thick accent. In my haste, I missed her accent earlier.
Can she see me? How does she know where I’m standing?
“Why, I thank you kindly, Madame, but I would just like to purchase these books,” Ronnie says, laying her on her southern charm, pushing the vial back toward the lady.
“’Tis not for yous, ’tis for zee other girl,” she says slapping Ronnie’s hand away, rolling the ‘r’ with her accent making it sound like a growl. “’Tis for Tensanne.”
“You know my girl, Ten?” Ronnie asks, rubbing her hand where she was hit.
“I’ve been waiting for her,” she says, placing Ronnie’s books into a bag.
Ronnie looks to me with UFO size eyes, mouthing “What the hell?”
“I told you we needed to leave,” I whisper through the side of my closed lips.
“The potion is Dragoste Potion. Love Potion,” the lady continues pushing the vial back in my direction.
“I-I don’t need a love potion,” I respond shaking my head. “Nope, no potion; just these books.” My fight or flight instinct is telling me to run like the wind but my feet are rooted to the floor.
“’Tis different kind of love, yous need. You must have. De’ Mulo shows me yous, yous is zee one zee potion belongs to.” Her broken English is hard to understand as she places the vial in my hand.
Rolling the vial around in my palm, my eyes catch on a shimmer, locking my gaze, a warmth builds from my fingertips up to my elbow, I question dazed, “What is a mule?” Still staring at the bottle, the warmth traveling over my shoulders, settling in my chest.
“A Mulo, child ’tis de spirit of the dead. Ven it speaks, yous listen. Yes, girl?”
I look to Ronnie for help, she shrugs her shoulders and returns her eyes to the bottle I’m still rolling around in my palm.
Setting the bottle back on the counter, “I don’t have the money to buy this,” I say, smiling, though I’m not sure she can see it through the film over her eyes.
“No, girl. No, money. Mulo says yous have zee potion, yous have zee potion. I have one more for yous, wait here,” she commands, grabbing her walker once again and slowing moving to the back of the store.
A warm breeze smelling of roses, skates across my skin bringing a twinkle of chimes in my ears, raising the hairs on my arms and sending a chill along my spine. My hand yearns to hold the bottle again.
“What the fuck, Ronnie. We need to go. Forget the books. Let’s go before she gets back,”
I whisper yell.
Ronnie opens her lips to respond, stopping with her mouth gaping, the frightening gypsy lady is back. Damn, she’s spry for an old lady. I swear she must be pushing a hundred, her skin’s wrinkled like a prune, her hunched posture, she looks so frail and small but utterly terrifying.
“Here is other potion de Mulo say yous need. An Adevăr Potion, truth potion,” she says placing another old looking vial, this one red with black lace, on the counter.
I’m ready to get out of the store, away from this maddening old lady. She wants to give us these potion’s, fine; I’ll indulge her if we can get the hell out of here.
“Alright, we’ll take your potions. What do we owe you for the books?”
“No” she yells. Slamming her hands on the counter, causing both Ronnie and I to jump back. “If yous do not believe, potion’s not work. Yous must believe.”
“I’m not Romany, Ma’am. I don’t believe in magic potions.”
“Yous believe in zee mind, yes? Yous study zee psycho side of zee brain?” she asks. Causing Ronnie to snicker.
How does she know this? Do I know this woman? This is crazy, we need to leave but my feet won’t move toward the door, I’m rooted in place. “Not exactly the ‘psycho’ side, but yes I study the cognitive psychology side of the brain. Why?”
“Believe in zee mind of over matter, belief in magic potion not necessary. Believe in zee possibility zat there is something more powerful zan yous. That there is better for yous. If you believe dis’ then potions vill vork.”
I don’t believe a word of this shit but I want to leave and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get the hell out here. I say what I’m hoping will appease her, “Fine, how do we use them?”
“Ze Dragoste potion is only for yous, Tensanne Craig. Two drops each day in yous mornin’ drink is all yous need. But yous must use every day. Zee truth potion is for both of yous. If yous vant to know if someone is being truthful with yous, add a drop to their drink. If they are dishonest, yous vill know,” she replies with her English and Romany overlapping each other.
“Sometimes, Tensanne Craig, yous think too much and believe too little. Now ’tis time to believe. Yous come see me again, yous will know when zee time is right,” she says placing the vials in my hand, cupping it in both of hers, her skin feeling like tissue paper, thin and fragile, “Just believe, girl. Anything can happen if yous jus’ believe.”
“Puri Daj Esmeralda? Are you in here?” a female voice calls, as a lady makes her way to the counter. The old lady slumping back on her stool. Noticing Ronnie and I she says, “Oh, hello. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the bell on the door ring. Is there something I can help you with?”
“We were wanting to purchase some books and having an interesting conversation with this lovely lady,” Ronnie says, gesturing to the bag on the counter.
The lady’s dark eyebrows draw to a severe V, her eyes question our sanity, “You were talking to my Grandmother?”
“Yes,” I respond.
“I’m sorry, you must be mistaken. My Puri Daj, my grandmother, hasn’t been able to speak since she had a stroke a month ago,” she says glancing from the old lady to us waiting for a response.
I’m not sure what to say. The old lady was talking to us. I look to Esmeralda and she winks one cloudy eye at me. She’s bluffing her family. Unbelievable. I’m not going to be the one to explain to this woman that she is being snowballed by her grandmother. My feet no longer feel like they’re stuck to the floor, it’s time for us to leave.
“Right, well. What do we owe for the books?”
Giving us our total, Ronnie pays for her books. An obscene amount of money for paperbacks that will take up more space in our dorm room.
“Will that be all?” the lady asks.
“Yes, that’s all. Thank you. Goodbye Esmeralda,” I call, waiting a second for a response but getting none.
Taking the bag full books and stuffing the potions in my pocket, we quickly rush out of the store. When our feet hit the sidewalk, we look at each other and burst out laughing. All the tension from moments before leaving with our chuckles.
Gasping for air in between laughs, I ask, “Do you have any idea what the hell just happened in there?”
Holding her side with tears of laughter streaming down her face, Ronnie says, with a mock Romany accent dipped in a southern drawl, “I have no idea. But ‘yous must believe’.” Making me laugh harder.
“Are you going to try the potion?” she asks, tapping on her phone, signaling an Uber to come pick us up.
Sobering some at her question, “The analytical part of me says there is no way anything like this could work but the hopeful little girl in me who still believes in fairy tales wants to give it a try. But that lady was a con man, she’s lying to her family so I’m not inclined to believe anything she said.”
“She knew things about you, though. That wasn’t a con. I don’t think it could hurt. I mean it may give you a case of raging diarrhea or something like that but I don’t think she would give you anything that would do ya any real harm. Can you bypass your brain enough to give it a chance to work?”
“You believe in magic potions?”
“I don’t not believe in them. I mean, if all you need is some belief to make life a little better, than yes. I would believe.”
“You’re right. What do I have to lose?” I ask looking at her smiling face. Feeling a warmth coming from the pocket I placed the vials in.
“Fine, I believe this tiny magic love potion will work. Starting tomorrow, I will test it out. Worst case scenario, I end up being able to write a paper on the negative effects of believing in magic or I’m glued to the toilet with Montezuma’s Revenge,” I say, patting my pocket.
We’re silent on our ride back to campus. Exhaustion from the day settles over my body, my brain works double-time to digest it all. Once we’re back in our room, I set the vials on my organized desk, place my new underwear in my dresser, take my hair out of its hair tie and slip into my favorite purple fuzzy pajamas.
Ronnie slides into her bed next to mine, her face clean of makeup in her tank top and sleep shorts with her hair pulled up in a ponytail. I slip into my bed, under the covers while she turns off the lights. Staring up at the poster of Jean Piaget, the pioneer in child cognitive development, on my ceiling glowing in the moonlight filtering in from the window.
Realizing I haven’t looked at social media the entire time we were out, nor have I thought about the mess that is my life right now. For several hours, I put the whole SnapTalk incident behind me, forgetting the drama that consumes my world. I wasn’t ridiculed by students on campus. I didn’t care what they had to say. Yes, there was bullshit at the restaurant and then more with the old men but I’m out of fucks to give about that. A warmth blooms in my chest, dare I say I feel happy right now, maybe even hopeful. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I want the potion to work. I want to believe in a better me. I want to find love.
Drifting to sleep with a goofy grin on my face, curled up with my Mom’s favorite quilt wrapped around me, I think back to the stories she used to read me before bed. The time before I could read for myself. The tales of Princes and Princesses, of happily ever after’s. A time before social media made my world harsh and cold. A time of innocence.
Tapping into that little girl, I believe as I drift off to sleep dreaming of a faceless man with mesmerizing sea colored eyes.