They collected their Devil Dogs and drinks and walked on.
It took some juggling to handle the hot dog and the cup, but Corinthia managed.The bun was pillow-soft; the hot dog was just the right temperature, with the perfect snap; and the mustard was spicy enough to keep it interesting.
Corinthia drank the frothy, creamy orange beverage until her stomach shivered with cold.A new hunger made it tastier, more satisfying, and Corinthia had no explanation for where this appreciation came from, only that it felt as if something was waking up for the first time.
There were sellers of candles, and crocheted stuffed animals, and local authors with books stacked high; kitschy wreaths and cutting boards and homemade dog biscuits; lotions and soaps and every variety of baked good and fried snack.They wandered until Stevie spotted her favorite tent and, after depositing their trash in a nearby bin, she dragged Corinthia into it.
“Oh, no, not this one again,” Corinthia said.
“Stop being a killjoy,” Stevie retorted.
The tables beneath the tent were piled high with packs of tarot cards, baskets of colored stones, packets of incense, and bottles of essential oil.Stevie immediately began examining tall pillar candles, reading aloud their supposed magical powers: “‘Magic Money.’‘Bad Spell Remover.’‘Come to Me.’Ooh, that one sounds good for you.You can find the mystery lady.”She held it out to Corinthia, who took it and placed it decisively back on the table.Undaunted, Stevie plucked a crystal out of a basket instead.“This one’s for mental focus—”
“Get that one,” Corinthia said, dryly.
“Very funny.”She picked up a bloodstone, dark green and flecked with red.“For abundance.”
“If they sell enough of them, yes.”
Stevie brandished a blue stone.“Altered consciousness!”
“Unaltered consciousness is good enough for me.”
“Moonstone!Isn’t there just something magical about this one?”Stevie cupped the stone in her hand and let the light play across its pearlescent surface.
“What does that one do?Your taxes?”
Stevie used her free hand to shove Corinthia.“Intuition and wisdom, you stodgy old stick.”
“Stevie,” Corinthia said.“There is no such thing as magic.And if thereweresuch a thing as magic, why would a rock dug out of a pit halfway across the world have literally any relevance whatsoever”—she swept her hand through the air—“here in Shadow Ridge?”
Stevie blinked down at the moonstone.“Are you saying it’s notlocalenough?”
The vendor, who had been standing off to the side pretending not to hear their conversation, drifted a few feet closer.
Corinthia forged on nevertheless.“If—not that Ibelievethis, mind you—butifthere were such a thing as magic andifyou could manipulate it in some way, it certainly wouldn’t be with trinkets dug up wholesale.”She picked up a pink quartz.“‘Love,’ it says.Why is that?Is it because it’s pink?Pinkforloveis just a cheap cultural reference and a thoroughly new one, at that.I don’t buy it.”
The vendor was frowning, and Corinthia realized she was, in fact, on the border of killjoy territory.
“But Iwillbuy this crystal,” Corinthia rallied, handing it to the vendor, who looked genuinely startled.
“You will?”asked Stevie.
“Yes,” Corinthia said.“Because it’s a pretty color.And because it makes you happy.And if I don’t believe in magic, well!I can still believe in happiness, can’t I?”She paid the vendor and took the little paper bag, which crinkled with the sound of the tissue paper cradling the crystal inside, then handed the bag to a bemused Stevie.
“You’re very strange, Corinthia,” she said, as they walked away.“I could almost imagine youdobelieve in magic.”
Corinthia harrumphed.“There’s more magic in a handful of plain white sand than in that entire gaudy display.”Strangely, she felt the presence of the sand beneath the asphalt: cold, locked down, and deep; and, more distantly, where it wound between the dense oak trees of the scrub, warm from the sun and tumbled by the wind.Come back, it said.
Corinthia brushed off her arms as if sand had dusted them.
“Are you going to returnAlien Space Lesbians?”Stevie said, admiring the pink quartz she’d pulled out of the bag.
The book lay heavily in Corinthia’s bag at that very moment.“Yes,” she said.“Of course.”
“You don’t want to read it first?”
“I will when I get around to it,” she said, with feigned nonchalance.She couldn’t say that her desire to read the book burned like a fire.It was too much to share with anyone save perhaps Beaufort, who would not judge and would keep it to himself.Corinthia cast about for a way to change the subject, and, not being particularly adept at it, landed on a topic familiar to them both.“Have you ever gotten lost in the Refuge?”Corinthia asked.
