AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Let’s just say Archie wasn’t going to win any awards as Roommate of the Year.
Thinking about my altar made me realize that I definitely didn’t want to show off my private ritual space to the world the way most of those witches on Instagram seemed to. I frowned for a moment, pondering the problem, and then realized I had the perfect solution right downstairs. After all, I ran a shop that carried all sorts of supplies for altars. I could just grab the things I needed and set up a secondary altar in the stockroom, a place I could photograph and use for faux rituals, videos I could put on Instagram without ever revealing to anyone who might be watching anything about the place where I did my real work.
After checking that the water in Archie’s bowl was still fresh — the cat sometimes annoyed the heck out of me, but I wasn’t going to retaliate by neglecting him — I went down the back staircase and into the store. From the locked case by the cash register, I retrieved a boline and an athame, a pair of ritual knives, the boline small and used for cutting paper and other items used in spellwork, the athame larger and showier, used while making an invocation to the Goddess. In addition to the knives, I rounded up a choice selection of crystals, an altar cloth emblazoned with a screen-printed pentacle, and a few more odds and ends. Then it was back to the stockroom, where I cleared off the table I used to pack my occasional mail orders and set out the altar cloth with everything arranged nicely on it.
Once I was done, I thought the setup looked lovely. It wasn’t the same as the altar upstairs in my second bedroom, but that was a good thing. I didn’t want this altar to look anything like the one I used in real life.
I’d just gotten in a new shipment of manifestation candles, so I arranged several of them on the altar as well, choosing the ones for prosperity and money and health. Even if this was going to be mostly for show, I wanted to make sure I’d be putting good energy out into the universe.
And actually, maybe I needed to watch exactly how much energy I put out there. Right before the store opened back in April, I’d performed a prosperity ritual, figuring I needed all the help I could get when it came to having my store be a success. Not too long after that, Lucien Dumond had been murdered by his younger brother Eugene and the girl Eugene was involved with, and Lucien had left all his money to me. No one could argue that I was now very, very prosperous…even though obviously, I hadn’t been thinking of that sort of outcome when I first performed the ceremony.
Well, there wasn’t anything I could do about it now, except try to be doubly cautious in the future.
I’d already set up my Instagram account. Selena_Blue was my username, since I figured I might as well get shout-outs for the store in there while I was doing the more mainstream witchy stuff. Yes, I’d be fine even if the store didn’t make a cent, but Once in a Blue Moon was my baby, and I didn’t want it to be a dismal failure.
From what I’d been able to tell, most witches on Instagram first posted a photo and a little introduction about themselves to get started. And while my altar was all set up, I knew that I, with my dark, straight hair pulled back in a scrunchie and wearing a plain shirt and jeans — and those lime-green Keds — wasn’t anything close to camera-ready.
I went back upstairs and sent a wary look around. To my relief, Archie seemed to be asleep, lying in a pool of sunlight on the living room’s polished wood floor. I tiptoed into the bedroom and shut the door — an unnecessary precaution, since the master suite was the one place the cat tried to avoid at all costs.
Even so, I felt better with the door closed.
After that, I went to the closet and got out one of my witchiest-looking tops, the black one with the lace insets and tone-on-tone embroidery. Since it had a low, scooped neckline, it provided the perfect backdrop for me to festoon myself with a bunch of crystal pendants, along with silver pentacles, hands of Hamsa, evil eyes, and anything else that would make me look like an occult practitioner extraordinaire.
I pulled my hair out of its scrunchie, and applied way more eye makeup than I usually wore, accompanied by a dark brick-colored lipstick. Then I stared at my reflection and chuckled.
“Trick or treat,” I remarked, and winked at the almost unrecognizable Selena in the mirror, blue eyes circled in kohl, mouth coated in a shade worthy of a silent film star.
Actually, I figured it could only be a good thing that I didn’t look anything like myself. Maybe the “Selena_Blue” was a dead giveaway, and yet I had to hope that if any of my former practitioner friends and acquaintances back in L.A. came across one of my photos, they’d just keep scrolling because they wouldn’t even realize it was me.
Once I’d deemed myself ready to go, I went back downstairs. The stockroom probably wasn’t the most photogenic setting in the world, with its dingy off-white walls and battered wood floors, but with the fake altar positioned behind me, it served well enough.
The photos turned out better than I’d hoped. I chose the one that seemed the best, with me looking suitably sultry and mysterious in front of an altar bedecked with flickering candles, and then did my best to compose a short caption.
Merry meet, my witches! I’m @Selena_Blue, from the magickal town of Globe, Arizona. Follow me for rituals in a place positively charged with magick! #witches #magick #ritual #blessings
Oh, dear Goddess. That sounded absolutely ridiculous. Supposedly hashtags were the way to go, even though it felt as though I was trying to write in a foreign language.
But I’d promised Josie I would do my best, even if the message felt just as artificial as the getup I was wearing.
Before I could lose my nerve, I pushed the screen to post the photo and its accompanying caption. For all I knew, absolutely nothing would come of this. It wasn’t as though Instagram — like all social media — wasn’t already flooded with millions of different faces and voices, all clamoring to be heard. My silly little post would probably sink to the bottom of that sea of posts, never to be seen again.
I reached for a snuffer — it was never good practice to blow out ritual candles, since you’d be blowing away your intentions at the same time — and was just about to start putting out the altar candles when my phone beeped.
The snuffer dangled from one hand as I bent down to peer at the screen of my iPhone.
It looked like someone had responded to my photo.
Love your look, @Selena_Blue. Can’t wait to see more of you and your rituals!
The comment had come from someone named Isis_Moon. Somehow I doubted that was her real name, either. The tiny thumbnail of her showed hair dyed cobalt blue and what looked like the triple moon tattooed across her throat. It seemed she was taking her name — real or not — pretty seriously.
Should I answer her?
I had no idea how this was supposed to work.
Since I was so new to all this, I figured I might as well err on the side of friendliness.
Thanks, @Isis_Moon. I have lots of great things planned!
