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Getting the Gram
Josie Woodrow,Globe, Arizona’s most indefatigable real estate agent and purveyor of local gossip — and the instigator of more schemes, promotional and otherwise, than I could even begin to count — came sailing into my store, brandishing her gleaming iPhone 12 in one hand.
“I have it!” she announced, using the phone to punctuate her words with a flourish.
Although I’d only been living in the tiny Arizona town for a few months, by that point I already knew to be wary when Josie got that glint in her light blue eyes. “Have what?” I asked cautiously.
She waved the phone again. It had a red sequined case that was almost as bright as Josie’s short, spiky hair. “I’ve been racking my brains, trying to come up with some kind of event or attraction that would draw more tourists to the town. Yes, I managed to convince the elders of the San Ramon tribe to hold their poker tournament after all, but I honestly don’t think that will be enough to bring the kind of traffic we need.”
I’d been in the middle of restocking the rack that held various packets of incense sticks and cones when Josie entered the store. When I first opened Once in a Blue Moon, I honestly hadn’t known what to expect in terms of sales, since at first glance, Globe seemed like a very conservative little town, and not the sort of place where a shop that specialized in New Age and pagan books, clothing, and various esoteric supplies would necessarily do very well. And while I had to admit that the books were slower to move, I actually did a fairly brisk business in crystals, jewelry, essential oils, and incense.
Not that any of those sales would have necessarily made me rich…but I didn’t need them to. The unexpected inheritance I’d received from Lucien Dumond, late sorcerer and former head of the Greater Los Angeles Necromancer’s Guild — GLANG for short — had pretty much guaranteed that I wouldn’t have to worry about money for the rest of my life. No, the store had been sort of a vanity project, and so it cheered me to see how many people seemed to truly enjoy shopping there, bringing a little bit of magic into everyone’s lives.
Of course, I hadn’t kept all of the windfall from Lucien’s inheritance for myself. I would have felt positively guilty over being so selfish. No, I’d donated to the fund to build a new gym at the local high school, had written large checks for a variety of food banks and other charities, and had also been fairly lavish in giving to Josie’s pet project, the Old Globe Theater Group, which staged several productions each year. Even so, a fairly frightening amount of money remained in my various brokerage and savings accounts. I really had no idea how I’d ever manage to spend even a small percentage of it.
“Do you need me to sponsor another booth at the Fourth of July parade?” I asked, figuring doing so was certainly within my budget. Actually, my budget was big enough that I could probably sponsor the entire parade, the concert in the park afterward, and the fireworks show to follow and not even notice it, but I had a feeling that telling Josie about my seemingly bottomless funds wouldn’t be a very good idea. She was already creative enough when it came to inventing ways for other people to spend their money.
She shook her head. “Actually, we’re already full up. That’s a very good sign, considering we still have two weeks to go. No, I was talking about this. Have you ever heard of Instagram witches?”
And she unlocked her phone and handed it to me.
I took it from her with the same care as someone who’d just been handed a rattlesnake. It wasn’t that I was worried about dropping her expensive new phone. No, it was more that the phrase “Instagram witches” sent a worried pulse down my spine. I wanted to dismiss the sensation as a reaction to the mere thought of anything social media–related — I had a Facebook profile because I had a page for the store, and that was it — but my instincts told me the little shiver had probably been my psychic gifts reaching out into the universe and letting me know that Josie was about to bring some pretty crappy juju down on my head.
On the phone’s screen was the image of a woman maybe around twenty-nine, my own age.Almost thirty,I reminded myself, since my birthday was now only a few days away. She had flamingly red hair the color of a Crayola crayon…a color that didn’t even bother to make a nod toward nature, like Josie’s bright Titian dye job. The woman in the image on the phone wore a black hood over part of her head, making her hair look that much brighter, and a dizzying assortment of amulets and crystals hung around her pale throat.
“Lilith Black,” Josie said as I stared down at her phone. “She’s one of the most popular Instagram witches, as far as I can tell. She has two million followers on Instagram and almost that many on her YouTube channel.”
“That can’t possibly be her real name,” I replied, since those numbers didn’t really mean much to me and I’d instead latched on to the thing that stuck in my brain first.
Josie lifted an airy hand. “Oh, probably not. But what does it matter? Just think of all the people we would attract if we could get Lilith Black to visit Globe.”
Despite the twitchy feeling at the back of my neck, I sent Josie a wry smile. “I don’t think we could fit two million people in Globe,” I told her.
She lifted an exasperated chin. “Well, of course I don’t expectallof them to come here. But just think what it would do for our local tourism industry if we could get even a few hundred of her followers to visit!”
For a moment, I didn’t say anything, only finished hanging the last of the bags of incense from the display rack. Then I brushed my hands against my jeans — I never bothered to dress up when I was doing inventory — and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, Josie, but why would this Lilith Black even want to visit Globe in the first place? It’s not like we’re some hotbed of psychic activity.”
“Oh, but weare,” she protested. “Didn’t you encounter Lucien Dumond’s ghost down by the San Ramon River?”
“Yes,” I said calmly. “But that’s because he was murdered there. It’s not like that particular spot has a history of spirit activity.”
“Maybe not,” she returned, apparently undeterred. “But I’ve heard from several people that all the copper ore in the hills around here has its own power. Haven’t you felt it?”
I had to confess that I hadn’t. Then again, it wasn’t as though I’d been reaching out toward it, either. Frankly, the last few months I’d been mostly keeping my head down, trying to ignore the notoriety that Lucien’s inheritance had given me…and also trying to pretend that Calvin Standingbear, chief of the San Ramon tribal police, hadn’t ghosted me in the worst possible way.
And all right, maybe that was a bit of hyperbole on my part. It wasn’t as though he’d disappeared off the face of the planet or something. But right when we were about to go on our first official date, he called to cancel, telling me something had come up and he couldn’t make it.
At the time, I hadn’t been too worried. He was the police chief, after all, and I realized he was on call pretty much all the time, even though he had a team of six deputies in his department. But if something important enough popped up, then of course he’d be the one who’d have to drop everything and handle it.
Except he kept making excuses…and then just quietly disappeared out of my life. I tried to ignore the sting of his defection, since it had now been more than six weeks since he’d ghosted me, but it still hurt.
A lot.
The hardest part, though, was trying to pretend as if nothing had happened. Josie had asked a few probing questions before she finally got the hint that I needed her to back off, and although my friend Hazel Marr, a local artist, could tell something had happened…or, more to the point,hadn’thappened…she’d also figured out pretty quickly that I really didn’t want to talk about the situation.
Really, what was there eventotalk about? So Calvin and I had shared an awesome kiss, a kiss that I’d thought would be a prelude to even more intimacies. Obviously, though, he didn’t think our kiss had been a big deal, and so I had to pretend that it wasn’t, either.
