I liked working at Gateway Books well enough, despite the fact that the mall in which the store was located featured the typically bland offering of shops and eateries: cheap electronics, caramel corn, and our specialty--overpriced paperbacks, the horror stories of Stephen King being the top sellers. I liked the manager, who had a habit of avoiding the store until evening when she’d return to help close, leaving me free to read or study when I wasn’t busy with customers. And customers liked the relaxed atmosphere, many becoming regulars who stopped by to talk about books as often as they actually purchased anything. However, many of the male customers seemed to view me as a captive to their charms, ensnared behind the cluttered counter, caught between the cash register and towering stacks of bestsellers.

So on a Saturday night in late October, I wasn’t caught off guard completely when a young man leaned over the counter and whispered, “You have the most beautiful hair. Has anyone ever told you?”

I raised one eyebrow in response. Not to sound too conceited, but of any attribute I possessed, my fiery auburn hair was complemented the most. And I was used to male customers who noticed it, flirted.

“Are you looking for something?” I gave him a level, cool gaze.

He ignored my question. “I bet you’ve heard men sigh into that lovely hair, and my guess would be . . . often.”

My face felt scorched and I cursed myself for blushing, but he rewarded me with a wide, piercing grin.

“You’re ridiculous,” I countered with an attempt to sound aloof. I’d had to deal with my fair share of weirdoes. Who has worked in retail and hasn’t?

I was the one who felt ridiculous, though, as my heart began to thump harder because he was simply beautiful. With clever, deep blue eyes, blond hair that grazed his collar, and sculpted biceps emerging from his T-shirt sleeves, he resembled the swains that graced the corny covers of ‘bodice rippers’ in our Romance section.

“Can I help you find a book?”

“Do you have the Satanic Bible?” he asked. Those intense eyes searched my face for a reaction.

Oh, no. He’s too good looking not to be batshit crazy, I thought. I managed a tight smile, and replied, “Actually, it’s in stock. Occult section, back wall.”

“Good to know.” He didn’t move, but continued to look into my eyes. I noted the curve of his eyelashes, the architecture of his cheekbones.

“Are you a warlock?” I was a little bored to be honest, so I thought I’d lower the caution flag just a bit, tease him. It was a warm fall evening, Indian summer still, and I was restless, feeling trapped indoors.

He shrugged, tilted that handsome head sideways. “I saw you standing here as I walked by. That hair. And I just had to see if I could talk to you, offer you an opportunity.” His face was serious now.

“Uh huh. An opportunity?” Was Blondie involved in some pyramid scheme? I avoided certain relatives known for their myriad sales pitches for beachfront timeshares, makeup hawked door to door. . .

“Well, I live in a community of likeminded individuals.” Then he laughed, and the mischievous chuckle complemented the slight dimple in his chin. “You might call it a coven. And we’re always looking for new members. Especially a beautiful woman like you.”

“Someone once said that the devil was a beautiful woman. Perhaps I outrank you already.”

He laughed huskily, ran his fingers through his hair. “Maybe I’ve met my match then.”

He looked at me thoughtfully, drumming his long, slender fingers on the counter. The sound was hypnotic, calming, and I began to feel drowsy. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered what had happened to the other customers. But the faint tapping continued, and suddenly, I was back in my grandfather’s hundred-year-old farm house, hearing the click of heels on an oak floor. My great aunt had stopped by to look in on grandpa, say hello to me and my parents. I adored Great Aunt Sadie because she would coo over me like a fairy godmother.

“Look at those green eyes,” she exclaimed to my mother. “She has the mark of beauty on her.”

I had no idea what my great aunt meant by a ‘mark’, but while she continued to beam at me, my mother’s straight-faced comment was, “She takes after her father’s side of the family.”

And as soon as that memory faded, another surfaced. My great aunt stood nearby as I packed a weekend bag, leaving my grandfather’s house—which had been scrubbed clean of the scent of his unfiltered cigarettes and was soon to be sold—for the last time.

“You might meet a special man someday. Or should I say, a man who could exert a special kind of power over you,” she said.

I giggled awkwardly that I’d already met several, wondering what abyss of embarrassment I was headed for.

She told me of her girlhood in the hamlet of Alpha, Kentucky, “nothing but a post office at the crossroads,” shared some of the beliefs and sayings of her ‘kinfolk.’ I listened respectfully, but I couldn’t make sense of what seemed like a tangle of rural superstitions, remedies, and riddles. She insisted that our family’s roots were not only in the bluegrass of Kentucky, but were much deeper, in Scotland’s outer isles, invaded by the Viking Norse. “That’s where you get your gifts from, child. From those who had to have a fearless spirit to sail the icy northern seas.”

Suddenly, I felt my head jerk up. Dazed, I asked, “What just happened?” My would-be recruiter still stood across from me, both hands relaxed now on the counter.

“You look tired, my sleepy beauty. It’s been a long day. Why don’t we leave, get a drink?”

My throat did feel dry, and my tongue was thick, but I needed to say something first—something I was trying to remember. Was it possible that I recalled one of my great aunt’s spells for that special man she had prophesied? Could my memory of her words save me? Finally, I managed to whisper, “You were born of fire.”

“What did you say?” He drew back suddenly. His eyelids fluttered briefly, and his face drained of color.

“You were born of fire,” I spoke, raising my voice, “but I was born of frost.”

“No,” he groaned, his face contorted with pain. Bent over, shoulders hunched, he stumbled a little.

“Frost in! Fire out!” I shouted, startling a few customers who now turned their heads toward me.

I watched in astonishment as my fallen angel lurched sideways, then spun around, and seemingly, flew backwards through the air though untouched by any visible force. He hit an immense shelf with an explosive crack like a bolt of lightning. The shelf split, and my eyes followed a large shard of wood impaled in the floor. When I glanced up, he was gone, but I saw the manager strolling through the door.

“Let’s hurry up and close. Steve’s parents are coming for the weekend. They’re impossible and I’m dreading it. Been busy?” I was mute. She’d spoken rapidly, her face slack, but her eyes grew wider as they traveled to the broken shelf, the strewn books, then to my face. “Good God! What happened?” She gaped at me—then back at the splintered shelf—and knelt down to feel the jagged chunk of singed wood at her feet.

“I was talking to a man, and um, he flew back into that shelf . . .” I pointed, lifting a limp arm.

“Flew into the shelf? What are you talking about?” she frowned at me. “That’s impossible.” She went back to the door, peered out. “Where did he go?”  She walked back to me and stood at the counter where no sign of the mysterious stranger remained.

“I don’t know. He was here a minute ago—but it seems he just disappeared.” I decided it would be unwise to share his invitation to join a coven, the discovery that I might have telekinetic powers I was unaware of, at least for now. I needed time to think about what I had witnessed, what my newfound—and magical?—abilities might bring about. And after all, she was facing the imminent arrival of hellish in-laws.

She blew out her breath between pursed lips. “Well, was he okay when he left?”

I shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “Do you want me to turn off the lights?”

Giving me a look of weary exasperation, she shook her head slowly. “My God, I hope he doesn’t sue.”

Yvonne Morris' work has been published in various journals, including The Galway Review, Wild Roof Journal, The Bengaluru Review, Writer's Block Magazine, and others. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Mother was a Sweater Girl (The Heartland Review Press).