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I didn’t pluck the blooms; they rained on me as soon as we sat, which made Aunt Lyrica happy. She told me the tree accepted me and was happy to share gifts with me. That today I saw the permission but in future I would feel it instead. If I practiced my magic in the right way.
She sat cross-legged (it always amazed me how dexterous she was for a woman in her upper seventies) and was animatedly sharing details of the eccentric woman who had come into the shop that morning and pleaded with me to break the spell she’d paid Aunt Lyrica to have put on a man.
Though the business operated as a drycleaning and tailor service, Aunt Lyrica also did readings and in some cases, provided additional magic services. She read my concern as she’d already told me to guard our family secrets when this contradicted that. She explained she did things in a way that kept most people in a safe place in terms of knowledge about what she’s capable of. Most people were either skeptics or held some level of skepticism. Some thought she was a complete fraud. Others looked to her as a kind of spiritual guide or their own personal psychic and tried to glean wisdom from her to help them make decisions about their lives.
She ran her business in a way that gave some folks a little of what they wanted - belief in the mystical. And fostering her reputation as a quirky town fortuneteller meant that most people regarded her oddities as quirks, which often just threw them off the trail of figuring out anything that could harm our coven.
But she had clients that she provided deeper services for, too, and this lady was one of them. Aunt Lyrica told me she was careful about who she took on as clients and said some people were drawn to her for reasons. Sometimes she took them on because she needed to, because of her magical responsibilities, even if she wanted nothing to do with them. I didn’t understand what that meant, but would later learn a whole lot about that kind of thing when ledgers were handed over giving me a long list of dates and events to ready myself for, to prepare for and in many cases intervene for.
Beyond that, I would often see Vivica go into a sort-of trance as facts would come to her and we would often help her get them down. We’d go through those notes together to help us anticipate future or current events that needed our intervention.
Aunt Lyrica said sometimes her clients got exactly what they asked for. Other times they got something they needed instead. She admitted that sometimes she threw people off the scent of the truth because of the danger it or they represented. And for some, she gave them enough to believe in to keep them working to put themselves in a better mental place.
She’d been practicing for nearly six decades with strong intuition - knowing what people were truly about as well as often getting an inkling of what they needed. She was considered a very powerful witch. Sometimes people were directed into her path for reasons that served the greater good and she had the sight for the gifts people had, such as psychic abilities and supernatural bloodlines. I counted myself beyond lucky to have her as my teacher.
***
So, there I was, covered in flowers, laughing at the tale of the lonely legal assistant who went to Aunt Lyrica for a love potion to make her grouchy boss fall in love with her. Aunt Lyrica told me how she weighed it all out, how she found a way to do it safely with no risk of harm, so made the potion and handed it over. And the lawyer boss did fall, but the secretary had buyer’s remorse. She’s been trying to talk Aunt Lyrica into reversing it, but had already agreed to Aunt Lyrica’s no cancellation, zero reversals policy. Aunt Lyrica was a stickler.
The woman regaled me with her tales of woe that morning after finding out I was Lyrica’s great niece as I was manning the cash while Aunt Lyrica was busy in the back getting something ready for today’s lesson. The woman pleaded with me to talk my aunt into making a reversal potion as she couldn’t handle his lovesickness any longer. He was driving her crazy. He was much hotter as the broody boss than as the lovesick puppy.
I told the lady I couldn’t help, and she offered me money. I said I still couldn’t help, so she skulked out of the shop throwing her arms up in exasperation. Not five seconds later, I saw a handsome man in a three-piece suit rush along after her with a bouquet of flowers in his hand and a goofy grin on his face.
