The Amaranth Wand

ONE

"This is such a gorgeous town, so quiet and picturesque... something out of a postcard... or an old movie... We've spent a lovely weekend. You're very lucky to live here..."

"Here's your bag. Thank you for shopping at The Amaranth Wand... Have a good trip back home," I answer automatically, smiling kindly although inside my head I'm rolling my eyes hard. If I had a dollar for every time someone said the same sentences and praises to me, I'd be rich, I would've moved to California and joined a Wicca coven full of lesbian witches.

My clients leave the store laughing and chatting excitedly, holding their bags full of scented candles, star-shaped silver pendants and pink quartz stones. They look like big city girls, from New York, Boston or somewhere like that, unable to tell the difference between a real witch and a carnival barker, one of those witches that pretend to read tarot cards and tell you that you'll be lucky in love. But I can't complain because this kind of frivolous creatures are my best clients, young ladies who are addicted to last trends in social media, that will buy anything with an esoteric and bohemian vibe as long as it's suitable to be used as decoration in their cute apartments and can look good on Instagram pictures.

"What do you think, Merlin?" I ask to my cat when he jumps on the old wooden counter. The animal is not black, a fact that disappoints some of my clients, but a ginger tabby; the truth is that the fur colour doesn't affect the felines' ability to draw good vibes or their connection with the magical world. We can't choose our spiritual guardians, they come to you one day and decide to adopt you, and you become a skilled food can opener suddenly. Merlin sneaked in my store one morning, when he was a kitty, made himself comfortable on my favourite dark blue velvet armchair and never left. "Should we tell them the truth?"

"Meow," my cat answers watching the girls standing in the middle of the sidewalk, probably debating where to grab a bite before going back to their homes.

"You're right, as usual," I smile scratching the fur behind his ears. "They wouldn't like the town in winter, when snow blocks the street, there're hardly any tourists, it gets dark super early and the internet connection is a mess."

I heave a sigh, walking across the store, rearranging some books about herbs on a shelf, making sure that the essential oil bottles are tightly closed, straightening the brooms that are leaned against the wall close to the door and crossing my arms over my chest while looking through the window. Autumn has arrived to Blue Hill and colours are wonderful, that's true. The town is exactly like those girls described it: picturesque, full of Victorian houses, with its white church and well-maintained cemetery, a main street full of stores whose owners are the great grandchildren of the founders, in most cases, and a park with old trees with leaves that are turning brown and orange close to the school.

A town that looks like a postcard picture in the middle of Vermont, where it seems that the time has stopped, surrounded by a big lush forest, close to a lake that's the delight of fishermen in this region and protected from the north wind by the Blue Hill, from which the town takes its name. We're also close to a highway and get lot of visitors in spring and summer, but not so many and mass tourism is not a problem yet. There're a couple of fancy hotels in the outskirts, half a dozen of classic bed and breakfasts and some old houses available for rent. There're three or four good restaurants, a handful of pubs where families can go to stuff themselves with delicious burgers, a clinic... All our needs are covered... I understand why they think this is a good place to live.

But is not gold all that glitters, it never is. Everybody knows each other here, we've grown up together and went to the same school, generation after generation. Girls get married to their longtime boyfriends, they have children and their lives follow the course established by their great grandmothers. So boring and predictable that I feel depressed just to think of it. Families fight each other for decades but no one remembers why the grandparents got mad. They see the same faces every day, they discuss the same subjects, year after year... Tourists come and go but none of them move here to live, despite they say they love this place. There're not surprises in Blue Hill... nor secrets... at least, that's what people believe.