We make our way down the narrow hallway. The framed paintings on the wood-panelled walls pool with shadows and become anonymous shapes. 

    “I’m glad you’re the one staying on to work tonight. I don’t much like the others. But you tell wonderful stories. You’re not stingy like them.”

    “They’re doing their best. It’s difficult when the medium and the pharmacist aren’t around. It’s not the easiest of jobs,” I tell her, but I don’t care for the other employees much, anyways.

    "And you've got everything you need for tomorrow?" 

    "Yeah."

    "How do you know what to bring?"

    "I don't." My leather case sits by an embroidered fainting couch with an elegantly carved raised back. "It'll have what we need," I say, sighing. 

  I only work here because it’s what a philosopher in the in-between does. I stumble on some new side of metaphysics and I'm called to investigate it. Otherwise, it might turn on me and keep me up at night and make my food tasteless and fade the vibrancy of colours. In essence, I don't have much of a choice. I wonder, sometimes, about choices.

  But onto more cheerful matters: we’re open for regular business. It’s around nine-thirty (an estimation for practical purposes) and a handful of high school-looking kids form a pocket in front of a shelf, giggling as they latch their hands onto all sorts of packaged tarot decks. Their low voices and pieces of gossip flood the first floor of the shop. One of them turns and asks the cashier if they could go upstairs for iced tea and, then courageously, and with shiny, shiny eyes, is Dionysus around?

  He isn’t, she tells them – though he’s in the back room, smoking. I’m glad we don’t keep alive-like birds in there anymore. Dionysus would choke them to metaphorical death. Then, they’d be ghost birds and ghost birds act like quantum particles so it’s better to avoid them entirely.

  Unless you like to be startled, brutally.

  But of course, go on upstairs, stay as long as you like and buy something. Thanks. But they do. Clumps of glimmering crystals and sticks of forest-smelling incense and dried up sachets of flowers. A love potion?

  We have the mundane kitschy stuff everyone likes. We have best-selling  books on witchcraft and woo-woo multidimensional quizzes to find out where specifically you’ve previously lived. And, hey, how many previous lives have you had, anyway? We have in-shop hand-made candles to accompany you as you hex or spell. We have teas and herbs and natural remedies.

  We have spooky antique notebooks with strong personalities and over-priced crystal balls that don't hesitate to point out your most dreaded flaws in an annoying voice. We have necklaces and rings with glimmering stones to rob you of your breath, and they really do. We have traps to aid in the capture of low-level spooks haunting your homes. Emphasis on aid, capture isn't guaranteed - please be sensible and contact an expert.

  This is a smaller-scale store, you should see the one in the city.

  We keep the heavy-duty stuff in the lab. Mind you, it’s not really a lab, but it’s where stuff gets prepared and stocked. More so, less traditionally medically-oriented than you’d expect. The medium who runs the shops specializes in the diagnosis of the singularity and now you know why I’m here.

  The front-bell chimes and Hermes walks in.

    “Cooking up a hell of a storm. Barely made it here.”

  Normally, you wouldn't want to be caught in one of these storms. Not sure why he'd fuss about it, though. You know, since he's a god and all. 

    “Hi, Hermes,” the kids all say in a playful unison from upstairs. I see their little shyly smiling faces peeking down from above the polished railing.

    “Hi, you guys,” he answers back, and he’s more indulgent than you’d think. His unnerving gaze is just an illusion of sternness covering up a monstrous intelligence. There more to intimidate. When he’s not throwing sharp smart comments or being a sarcastic ass, he has a kind disposition. “And hi to you, philosopher, I do believe it’s been a while.”

  A flash of lighting fills the black mirroring windows with blinding white. The lightbulbs blink in flickers.

    “It has.”

  The rain seems to fall all at once, smashing into rather than drumming against the roof and in the street. Sounds like a cloud of translucent winged desert insects descending on a bony carcass. 

    “You should get a car.”

  Ah, there it is - the jabbing. He peels off his leather jacket and heads for the hallways behind the cashier’s desk. I’d get a car if it would stay in one place when I park it.

    “Thanks for driving in the meantime.”

  He doesn't bother acknowledging my gratitude. 

    “Will you be joining us?” he asks, leaning in the doorway. I hear a hysterical burst of laughter from the backroom. Crystal clinking of toasting glasses. Muffled voices I recognize. 

    "Fun, fun, fun," the harpies chime eagerly.

    “Not tonight.”

    "Ahhh," their high-pitched voices deflate with a noise of agreed-upon disappointment. One of them sticks a forked tongue out at me and pulls an ugly grimace, shaking its minuscule head from side to side.

  Rude.

  A ghost cast wanders past us, pushing its hind body along the wall with much insistence and loud purring. It’s the neighbour’s cat who’s taken a liking to the shop. But, just like an electron in the double-slit experiment, as soon as I settles my gaze on it, it decides on a position and vanishes.