History, though... yeah, therein lies the magick. And the reason folks never stop trying to find me. If this could talk, people say dreamily, peering at a piece of antique jewelry. In truth it’s generally pretty boring; the item gets worn, and then it goes in a box. Repeat. But once in a while, once in a while an item passes across my palms with a real story to tell.
And that’s where the trouble starts.
Trouble smells like singed horsehair. I’ll never get past that. When I was ten, my pony died when our barn was burned down, and I’ll never forget the way Sugar screamed. That was my first look at an angry mob, but not my last. If you think they don’t burn witches anymore, you never lived in Kilmer, Georgia.
And that’s the damnedest thing; those same folks will come creeping after dark to your back door, one by one, begging for the moon, but get them together, talking, and they start lighting torches. Not the whole town, of course, but a select few who come in midnight’s dark to do their devil’s work. They said it was for the greater good, but I saw their eyes before I ran.
To this day, when life is about to get rocky, I smell the burning all over again, one of two legacies my mama left me. And on that Monday, the shop stunk to high heaven as someone pushed through the door, jingling the bell. I put down the miniatures, already braced to make a break for the door off the alley.
But I didn’t want to leave, dammit. Thanks to the second gift my mama gave me, I made a good living here and sometimes I even went out on Saturday nights. Nobody brought me tiny pierced earrings from dead babies or soiled mittens from missing children. Nobody expected me to do anything at all, and that was exactly how I liked it.