Pen grabbed the snack-sized bag, awkwardly pulling it open between her teeth and right hand. The first pita chip hit the acid in her stomach like a salt-filled wave, ebbing into a dull ache that soothed her despite the discomfort. She was just happy she could eat and keep food down. It had been touch and go for the first couple of months while she helplessly watched her curves diminish as she struggled to recover her sanity and appetite. And then Chango came back.
Pen hadn't seen him since her quince almost thirteen years ago, and he looked exactly the same - a slightly down-on-his-luck eighteenth-century pirate trying to fit into the wilds of urban Brooklyn. Her grandmother once showed her faded photos of Chango from her childhood on the island. But, human or not, he was tied to the DeRosa family in a way that came without explanation. Chango appeared when he thought there was a need, causing trouble whenever he "helped" and then faded away from reality and memories until he made his next grand entrance. Pen had forgotten all about him until he'd shown up with a cafecito, told her she wasn't crazy, and pulled her into a situation he described as a "business opportunity."
She shook her head as she finished the rest of the chips. Business opportunity my ass, she thought. It was illegal, whatever it was they were doing. She had shared some of her concerns with Chango in the early days of his "mentorship." She was untrained, her skills unsanctioned, and what she could actually do, when she could do it, was unheard of. He listened to her, nodding his head as she breathlessly listed all of the Artem Society's laws they were in the middle of breaking.
"Penelope," he'd said, lighting one of his peppermint-scented cigarillos, "true magic cannot be contained by laws." And then he locked her in the bodega's basement until she figured out she didn't need a spell to communicate with the ghost screaming in the dark with her.
Margo, it turned out, was a friendly spirit. She was just surprised that Pen could see and hear her. Usually, it was one or the other and only when summoned within the boundaries of an arcane circle. She'd been Pen's first otherworldly client, something Pen was sure Chango had organized deliberately. She was a sweet, bubbly older woman who loved kittens and musicals and missed her grandchildren terribly. Saying no to her would have been like kicking one of Margo's beloved kittens. Besides, Margo didn't make unreasonable requests. Just an hour or two of merging, giving her enough time to use Pen's corporeal form to call the grandkids and search for cat videos online.
Pen tentatively hovered her arm above the makeshift ice pack, extending and then curling her fingers into a fist. The sensitive skin covering her tricep still ached when pulled with motion but no longer seemed tender. She slid her arms out of her windbreaker and pushed the sleeves of her hoodie up to her elbows, relieved to feel a cool draft of air kiss across her skin. She glanced down at the seemingly random patterns that shaped a circumference of thin markings around her forearms. The tattoos themselves hadn't hurt, but the enchantments that permeated the dark blue lines had been painfully uncomfortable at the start, like getting paper cuts between her toes and then pouring lemon juice over them. Chango told her she would get used to the feeling, and she had, losing steam in her argument against getting the rest done as she built up a tolerance to the discomfort and her own catalog of hex magic.
Water smacked across her face as a couple of small cartons of chocolate milk dropped into the puddle leaking away from the soaked paper towel under the crumpling bag of ice. The trio of teenagers loitering by the beer section stood in front of Pen, stacking their selections haphazardly on the countertop. Pork rinds, individual cheese sticks, Toast Tarts, sardines, and, she sighed, the inevitable pack of Mark's Hard Limeade crowded her view. She wiped at the slow-moving water droplets, streaking them across her lenses, and then propped her chin into her hand. She eyed all three of them, settling on the shortest one in the group.
"Really?"
He maintained eye contact with her, not blinking once when he said, "It's for my mom."
"The sardines?"
"What? No. The Mark's Hard. The sardines are for, hold on." he looked wildly back at his friends and whispered loudly, "Who grabbed the sardines?" They both answered with a shrug, causing Shorty's shoulders to slump. "They're mine, I guess."
Pen pursed her lips. The sardines were stocked next to the tins of dip. These kids were trying to drink liquid sugar that passed as booze and were planning on chewing tobacco. Probably spit it off the sides of whatever abandoned stoop they chose as their party destination.
Unacceptable.
"Look, you're all underage and past curfew." She announced. "I can let you pay for everything but the booze or..." she trailed off, micro shocks of energy fizzed along the hair follicles that framed her ink, pooling into an armor of goose flesh across the rest of her body. The tattoos were picking up the presence of low-level magic. Not strong enough to threaten, but just enough to offer a warning. She darted her eyes to the entrance of the shop. A city deputy stood by the door, the crisp peace-keeping ink on his knuckles illuminated by the outside lights as he pulled on the door handle. He turned his head, looking just over his shoulder, "I just want to get a soda or something," he said, causing the shoulders of everyone under eighteen to hike up.
The delinquents in front of Pen held their breath, their wide eyes glued to the deputy's actions in the convex mirror above her head. A particular smell, the combined eau de parfums of sweat, funnel cakes, and used gym socks, permeated the air. Ugh. Teenagers. They were afraid and oozing pheromones like ferrets in heat.
"Now? Do they want us back now? Yeah, okay, okay, I'm coming." The door suctioned back into place as the deputy released his grip. "But you owe me a drive-thru run."
Shoulders drooped back into their slouched position as the sounds of the deputy and his partner's footsteps faded away with distance. The trio released a sigh of relief in a wave of hot breath that ticked Pen's nose.
She grabbed one of the small shopping baskets behind the counter,
"Okay, you know what? I'm not letting you guys buy any of this crap."
Huffing out her emphasis on the "p" in crap. She hooked the snacks with her arm and dragged them to the edge, "You all need to go eat a salad, something not deep fried, wrapped in plastic, or with an expiration date that lasts up to ten years."
"But you can only get crappy food at a bodega!" The tallest one shouted. Pen gasped and brought a hand to her heart. He was mostly correct, but she was still offended.
She sniffed and then gagged a little at the still lingering scent of recently scared and now bored beyond reason teen angst. "That bucket of amazing avocados behind you begs to differ."
"Lady, just -"
She held up a finger, raised her eyebrows, and let the gravity of the situation kick in, noting the moment Shorty realized the presence of a city deputy meant they had been this close to getting into some trouble. Not that Pen would have actually said anything. Calling attention to herself was anti-everything she stood for at the moment. But these kids didn't need to know she was just as nervous about "getting caught" as they were. The pork rinds crunched under the sardine can as the rest of the items hit the plastic basket with unsatisfying thuds. The boys glared at her for a long pause, then turned and left without incident. She'd leave a note about them for Junior when he came in for the opening shift.
The hours leading to two a.m. passed as tediously as they always did. Pen worked on memorizing the spells she had written between dealing with a couple more underage attempts to purchase alcohol and a pack of drunk bachelorettes looking for a bathroom, and Phil the Flasher bought another pair of tube socks and single-use hand warmers, paying for everything in change.
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