Lucy

Lucy stared down at the steam billowing from her coffee.

She’d retired to The Bubble and Squeak after Tom left her at the bookstore. It was always quiet, smelled more of dark chocolate than dark roast, and perpetually in off-season mode, unlike similar coffee shops in Hermit’s Rest. Its roughly 90s interior, faded pastels and scratched chrome covered another skin, the previous 70s reno, which regulars still complained about.

Sure, she was the youngest customer there by decades. But they had one thing in common: they were all sitting alone, gloomy and detached, under the harsh fluorescent lights of the cafe.

I look like a ghoul in this lighting.

Maybe she did under any conditions; after all, she’d hardly started her story about the crossroads, and he basically ran away. Was he that much of a chicken?

No, he just doesn’t like being with you.

Maybe she’d been too forward. Lucy rubbed her eyes, forgetting her makeup until the stinging began.

“Shit,” she said, pulling a little mirror from her purse to make sure she hadn’t messed her entire face up.

She was well-suited to casual goth styling; being pale was half the battle, she didn’t have to hit the foundation as hard as others. Yet, with one errant brush of the eye, she looked as if she’d been crying.

Which she hadn’t been.

You just wanted to.

A quick pass didn’t fix it. If anything, Lucy was just making it worse.

I’m a ghast, a ghost, some shambling shell mumbling and bumbling along the highway, just like charity.

She put her mirror away; it was no use; he was already gone.

Tom wasn’t a bad guy; if he were, he’d have made a pass at her. They didn’t get him, the people at school. He was either idolized by idiots for being a dog, or dismissed as a creep. But she knew they were just rumors. She had her fair share too.

They were so much alike, two outcast peas in a pod. But it wouldn’t matter if she kept scaring him away like that.

She sighed so hard that the steam from her drink blew up into her face. Another fog bank to peer out of, like a vengeful spirit.

“I’ll ease off the scary stories a bit,” she said to herself, realizing how much the spookiness was invading her internal monologue.

She nodded to herself, a quick affirmation, before taking a big bite of her orange muffin. It was a bit too sweet, not enough of the rind to balance it out. But that’s what she needed too: balance. Lucy had to be less spooky and more approachable. Like Kat.

Well, less spooky unless she’s alone with Kat. Lucy would not ease off trying to remove her rival from the picture.

She was a nice girl; maybe they’d even be friends someday. But she could work somewhere else.

Maybe one good scare will be enough?

To that end, Lucy’d worked out a deal with Dawn to borrow one of her more interesting books.

Lucy ran her hand over its cover. The tattered red leather binding was warm to the touch, and it had a sort of static to it. A charged field that tingled her palm.

This was something beyond her normal spellcraft.

With most spells, it was hard to tell if anything had happened. She would feel tired after, which implied energy had left her, but had it manifested? The effects were subtle at best.

But this… the results would be clear.

She’d have answers, or silence.

There were no grey areas with this kind of spell.

All she needed were some supplies, time to memorize the needed passages, and a willing participant.

Lucy smiled to herself as she read the title again.

The Seventh Treatise: Piercing the veil and summoning the dead.