I sat outside on my patio and watched the sun come up. As usual, I drank all my coffee, before heading inside for my customary hot shower.
I got out, dried myself off, put on a t-shirt and sweats and decided to catch up on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Such a disgustingly raunchy show, but hilarious, and I was almost done with season three.
Then, soon after I had composed myself after watching a sweaty and naked Frank slime out from the inner depths of a leather couch, I began to obsess about magic again. But not the type of magic Paris had bestowed on me, but I began to wonder about the black stuff...the forbidden stuff. No matter how much I tried to put it out of my head, the power of magic, in general, was becoming quite intoxicating.
My obsession led me to the computer. I went online and researched everything Paris taught me, as well as the books she purchased for me at the herbal shop. After quenching my sudden lust for knowledge, I felt I needed more, so I trawled the inner depths of the internet searching for every single bit of information regarding Black Magic. I probably would never do an actual Black Magic spell. I just wanted to see one, a real one. Not from Youtube, where any geek with a computer, and a little knowledge about post-production software could pretend to actually cast a spell, no I wanted to see real magic in action, in person. I eventually found a website that claimed to sell real spells. They didn’t claim to have Black Magic spells lying around. But I guess it was true when they said you could find pretty much anything and everything on the internet, if you knew to where to look, of course, or had some elite Google-Fu skills.
What led me to this store was the following term, “Black Magic Spell Book bookstore California.” Thanks to the all-powerful, and all knowing breach of privacy Google specialized in, the search revealed a local shop that claimed to have a forbidden spell or two in its inventory.
A store in Westminster called Esscenxe. Westminster was not very far from where I lived. I had no idea what else they sold. But I got their address and put it into my GPS.
The store opened up at 9:00 a.m. so I had plenty of time to get there. I took my time and put on my usual wardrobe.
I got to Esscenxe with a little bit of time to spare. The store was surrounded by various shops, all catering to the local Korean community. I might’ve been in Koreatown, then again, I remembered Koreatown was in L.A., and Little Saigon was in Orange County. But I knew for sure the signs were in Korean; the same type of lettering was displayed in front of one of my favorite restaurants that served bulgogi, a type of marinated, grilled beef that tasted as if it were handed down from the heavens.
I parked my car and walked a few feet to the store. It was another herbal medicine shop. I wondered why they kept that a big secret on their website.
I stepped inside and was greeted by horrid dark lighting. I could barely see anything.
A woman greeted me behind a counter. I looked around the store. Vitamin bottles everywhere. Five shelves, filled top to bottom with natural cures, ranging from cod fish oil to colloidal silver, whatever the hell that was.
I stepped up to the woman and had no idea if she even knew that the store she worked in had been implicated on the internet as a Black Magic peddler. I started to get the sinking feeling that the site may have been a hoax and probably was a bait and switch tactic so customers would buy their herbal remedies.
But the shop that Paris had taken me to was also an herbal place.
The woman at the counter looked to be in her late forties/early fifties. She had jet-black hair with large streaks of gray. Or was it gray with streaks of black? Either way, she was a rarity. An older woman who refused to chop her short.
“Hi,” I said to the woman. “Can I ask you a crazy question?”
The woman looked at me and without missing a beat, she said, “I’ll probably have a strange answer.”
Was that her way of letting me know it was safe to ask anything?
I drove through morning rush hour traffic to be here, so I might as well ask the question. “I’m looking for a type of book,” I said.
“What type would that be?” she asked in a condescending way. She was just waiting for me to ask. I didn’t know why I was afraid of asking. Maybe, I thought once I asked, I had let another person know I was interested in Black Magic. “I’m looking for a book...,” I said, stammering a bit, “a book about...that would...uhh...have Black Magic spells in it.”
Oh my god. I said it.
“I see,” the woman said. She knew I wanted ask about Black Magic books the second I walked in here. The black attire probably gave it away.
“It’s through the door,” she said.
“What door?” I asked.
“The one you came in from,” she said.
“That’s to the parking lot.”
“Is it?”
I wasn’t sure if this woman was just messing with me or this was some potentially screwy Alice in Wonderland moment.
I decided to take a leap of faith, so I opened the door and expected to immediately feel and see the sun.
But there was no sun, in fact as soon as I opened the door I realized I wasn’t outside, but inside a reasonably large bookstore that had nothing but books, or was I inside a Black Magic spell? How could I be here? Was I in a different dimension?
The room had a wooden décor. The only source of light were the couple of fluorescent bulbs above.
I browsed the books on the shelves.
I assumed they all dealt with Black Magic. Feeling slight unease, I looked around and there were two other women shopping and another woman behind the counter, a different cashier than the one I encountered as soon as I entered the store. I wasn’t sure how I was going to ever get to the parking lot again.
This cashier was much friendlier and much younger. She had blond hair and was rail-thin. Unhealthily thin. I think the gray-haired lady outside was like a guard dog, and her job was to keep out the riff-raff.
The cashier smiled at me as I walked up closer to her.
“Hello,” she said. She looked to be around my age, maybe younger. Probably younger. “Can I help you find something in particular?” she asked me.
Okay, here it is. Showtime.
“I’m looking for particular kind of spell book,” I said.
“Any type of spells, in particular?”
I said, “I want a spell book that will show me how powerful my magic has become.”
“Hmm,” she said. “So, you’re saying you want a book that will challenge you?”
“Something like that,” I said.
The lady came out from behind the counter and very swiftly grabbed three books that were in different locations of the store and brought them up front and laid the books in front of me.
All three books were rather small. Almost pocket-size, compared to the massive books that Paris had bought me.
One book’s title was, Ruling a Man for Life. Okay, that was just extremely wrong. All I could think was that a Black Magic witch’s scorn must be the worst scorn there was.
“I don’t think I’ll be taking this one,” I said handing back that particular book.
I looked at the next book and it had the smallest title I had ever seen on a book: Warrior Spells.
“What’s this one about?” I asked.
“Sometimes, things get ugly and you need to be able to fight witch to witch. This book will teach that to you.”
“It helps you fight?”
“Attack and defend,” the woman said.
“I’m definitely getting this one,” I said. The next book I laid eyes on was titled: How to Defeat a Warlock. “I guess this book is self-explanatory,” I said to the lady.
“Men fight an uglier game. This book will help you think the way they do and keep you five steps ahead.”
“Is it a book of spells?”
“Sort of. It’s more of a power book.”
“Power?”
“It shows you how to handle yourself in any situation you may come across with a warlock
, including techniques that harness pure, unadulterated brute strength.”
“I’ll get this one, too,” I said. I wasn’t sure about the warlock book, but the lady was really pushing me to get it.
Both books cost me seven dollars. This place was ten times cheaper than the place Paris had taken me to.
I handed the money to the blond cashier.
I then asked the cashier, “How do I get back to my car in the parking lot?”
“The same way you came in,” the cahier said.
“Okay.”
The lady didn’t give me a bag and she didn’t give me a receipt. I turned around and the same two women were still shopping in the store.
I stepped out through the double doors, expecting to be back in the herb shop; instead, I was smacked in the head with sunlight. I was on the sidewalk in front of the shopping center parking lot. My car was to my left.
I got in my car and made my way back home. I laid the two books on my passenger seat. I often looked over at them on my drive home.
This time I didn’t. A sense of guilt kept my eyes glued on the road ahead.
Chapter Twenty