The shopkeeper's bell chimed three minutes before close.

Sandelene lifted her face from her forearm, pulled off a bit of magazine that'd stuck to her chin from the drool of deep sleep, and sniffed. The quiet scent of burned sage was lost to the stink of alcohol and strong floral deodorant.

A group of teenage girls huddled around the store entrance, dressed in short skirts and cropped tops with styled hair the humid June air hadn't yet frizzed. White eyeliner made their eyes seem comically wide as they stared at the neatly stacked copper ritual bowls and incense sticks featured in the shop's main display. 

"Um," began one girl at the back, pulling a driver's license from her clutch. "Ribbet, ribbet, croak?"

"Ribbet, ribbet, croak," chorused the rest. There was a quiet unzipping of clutches and nervous brandishing of fake IDs.

Sandelene slipped her magazine below the counter, brushed dark bangs from her face and brusquely declared what they were beginning to suspect, "Not the Groggy Frog."

Immediately the shortest among them, a pretty girl in a bouncy peach skirt, hit one of her peers on the arm. "Told you 'Smudge' was wrong!" she hissed. 

The second girl rubbed her arm. She gestured at the windows. "But it's all blacked out! And look-" She waved wildly at a distant display. "Frogs! We're in the right place. You probably got the password wrong. Text Dave and ask him what tonight's is."

"You text Dave. I don't want to owe him one."

"Neither do I!"

"Have Maribel do it. It's her brother."

The conversation devolved into a high-pitched spat.

Sandelene massaged her temple.

Maybe she should have taken her inheritance and opened a secret speakeasy instead. Would've been more profitable. When she'd chosen the metaphysical supply store's name and designed the sign out front, she'd thought that 'Smudge' was a sleek, modern title that would help attract good business. Instead of her desired clientele, however, she'd attracted teenagers in spades, lured in by the dark windows, the slick, inky name; and rumors of a super secret speakeasy in the basement of a building around these parts.

"Dave's a liar, girls. You're looking for Barghest, not the Groggy Frog," Sandelene offered when the girls didn't see themselves out. "Unless you're looking to share a plate of wings with off duty cops."

"We're twenty-one," a girl asserted, but she leaned over and whispered at another to google it.

"B-a-r-g-h-e-s-t," Sandelene snapped, glancing at her wrist. The watch ticked past seven pm. Supper time. It was too late and she was too hungry to argue nonsense with a group of thrill-seeking teenagers. "Two blocks down. Red dog painted on a brick. Knock above it. Will be a ghost town until nine, though."

She fished her keys from her pocket and slipped around the counter. It was actually five blocks, and you had to whisper a password through a tiny little slot of faux brick— 'Throstlenest,' according to this week's email —but poor research wasn't her problem.

The second girl, somewhat braver than her watchful counterparts, gave Sandelene a leery once-over. "Are you a witch?" she asked, her fingertips following a pentagram stamped onto a glossy crimson ritual bowl.

Sandelene, a woman who preferred leggings and long sweatshirts to Gothic, romantic dresses and smoky eye shadow, a woman who, at current, wore an old blue tee and a pair of navy yoga pants, folded her arms across her chest and stared down the pimply little thing before her. "Yes."

"So you cast sorcery spells and brew potions?"

"More than that, my dear," Sandelene purred in a tone low enough that the girls all paced back toward the door. She picked up a bronze knife and ran her finger along the edge. "I run naked through the woods, howling at the moon with my animal friends- when I'm not holding seances and licking toads, that is."

One of the teens eyed her fire-bellied toad and newt landscape with newfound curiosity. Sandelene rolled her eyes and laid her elbow on the edge of the terrarium. The knife scraped lightly against the cool glass as she let her hand hang.  "Don't even think about licking Neville here."

The bell tinkled.

A tall man eased sideways through the door to keep it from slamming into the girls. His glasses were slightly askew, his beard a little wisp of blonde, and the colorful scarf he wore wrapped just below his narrow chin was fashionable if not incredibly unnecessary on a hot southern night.

He held a long-fingered hand against his chest. Surprise flicked through bright green eyes as he looked from startled teenagers to startled shopkeeper. "Is this a bad time? This is a bad time."

"It's closing time," Sandelene corrected him. An imperious stare sent the girls scurrying from the building, leaving her time enough to assess the man. She didn't get many men in here, teenage or otherwise. Mostly they came with their wives, and they always looked at the wildly under-dressed Sandelene as if she were running a con on their innocent spouses. She flicked the edge of the knife in the newcomer's direction. "You looking to buy something?"

He'd been trying to look at everything all at once, but the second that blade moved, his green eyes fixed on her. "Yes and no," he said slowly. "My name is Margery Alesa, with the Tennessee Historical Society."

"Forgive me for saying, Mr. Alesa, but I wasn't expecting such a dainty name for such a..." She looked him and his scarf over. He seemed reedy and nervous more than anything else. "...for such a fine fellow," she finished. A teasing smile clung to her mouth.

Stroking his thin beard, the man laughed, but soon as he had, he winced and clutched at his chest again. "Come hell or high water, Mom's first child was going to be named after my great grandmother."

"That's unfortunate," she observed, fiddling quite noticeably with the keys so that he might in turn observe her desire to lock the door.

"Makes me unique," he argued, fluffing his scarf. "Anyway, I don't want to waste your time. I'm here on behalf of a local library in need of some help. Have you heard of the William Wisener library?"

Setting the knife down beside Neville's terrarium, Sandelene pushed her dark bangs off her cheek. She was a brunette with burnished blonde highlights today, but she'd dyed her hair so often now she wasn't entirely certain she remembered the original shade. "Can't say I have."

"Can't say I'm surprised in this day and age. It's small, but there's a wonderful collection of documents and exhibits from the civil war. Lots of history." His lips pursed as he regarded knife, keys, newt and toad. She couldn't rightly say he was judging the history in her shop, a shop filled with replicas of items that had been bought and sold for centuries before the civil war, but she could tell he wasn't much fond of anything in here.

"What's that got to do with me here? 'Case you haven't noticed, I've never even heard of your library. Not sure I've got anything to offer. Don't know much about the war past whatever knowledge managed to sink into me during high school history."

Margery toyed with the hem of his scarf. "Well, you see, we're in need of some special assistance. Ever since renovations were completed last year, library staff have been complaining about strange noises. Hearing and seeing things that aren't there, feeling breezes with windows shut, orbs in selfies, you know, the usual haunting hysteria.  Back in November a librarian claims she was pushed down the stairs. Now, the dean of libraries can't get a single person to stay past sundown. Complaints have started to roll in during the day, too. We were looking to hire someone to perform a blessing, to set the staff's mind at ease."

Sandelene set her hand on her hip and stared at Margery long and hard. He stared right back despite a nervous flush. He was scared, she realized. "And you'll pay me for this? Me? A white witch? You must be pretty far down your list if you're coming to me."

People liked a confident witch, but dealing with the paranormal always made her hesitate. In twenty five years of living, she hadn't seen one real ghost, not one. And if there was, well, she wasn't sure she wanted to be dabbling in that sort of thing. In fact, she made a point to stay on the sidelines, just as, all those years ago, she made a point not to do things like whisper "Bloody Mary' three times in her parent's darkened bathroom. Until she'd gone to the zoo, she'd never seen a tiger, but that didn't stop them from prowling some distant corner of the world. She'd supply the bullets, but someone else would do the hunting.

Unaware of her thoughts, Margery carried on eagerly. "Thousand dollars on the spot, just for showing up. More, if you can remove it."

She whistled. "That bad?"

He flipped an incense twig. "I'm not a believer in mumbo jumbo or religion, but-" here he paused, lifting his shirt to reveal three large, blistered slashes, as if something had raked burning iron across his flat belly,  "-you should see what it did to the priest."