The id in front of me claimed that I was “Theodore Smith” and it was indeed my picture on it, but it felt completely wrong and foreign. It had been surprisingly easy to get the new identification, it had only taken a few minutes to verify that I was the person on the waiting document Terry’s wife had sent, then another few minutes making small talk and verifying what I wanted my new name to be. A few other pit stops and awkward conversations about my “amnesia” later, and we were back in the apartment with my new papers under my right arm that contained everything I needed for my new life.

“That was easy,” Connie said, slumping onto the couch. She kicked off her shoes and curled her feet underneath her. “I was really expecting to be there all day, but it’s still just early afternoon.”

“I wonder how many people just disappear, then come back with whole new identities,” I wondered aloud.

“Probably quite a few,” Connie answered with a shrug of her shoulders. “Hell, if that’s all it takes, I’m keeping it in mind for the future.”

Shaking my head, I slipped the id into my pocket and dropped the paperwork next to the now defunct laptop and keyboard system. “I don’t really suggest it,” I replied, “kind of hard to figure out what to do when you don’t even have a pencil to your name.”

She stood from her place on the couch and trotted over to her backpack, rummaging around for a moment. With a triumphant expression she stood back up, pencil in hand, and marched to me, offering it.

“It’s a start,” I chuckled, “but I’m not used to having to rely on people quite this much. Even while I was a cat I tried to be as self-sufficient as I could.”

“Maybe if you had thought to reach out for a little help before hand, you wouldn’t have spent so long trying to fix things yourself.” Her hands were on her hips, voice matter-of-fact. “I know I haven’t known you for all that long, but I’ve known you long enough to realize that you don’t exactly seek out help, even when you really, really need it.”

“What can I say? I’ve always been like that.” Even when my parents had died and I was left to deal with the family home and their funerals, I had secluded myself and trudged through it all, despite the fact I could have asked for help at any time. I had barely even utilized the attorney I had hired for the sole purpose of helping me navigate the paperwork. I just wasn’t someone who didn’t necessarily think about or like the idea of asking for help.

“Well since you’re starting a whole new life, maybe you should consider making that something you work on then,” she continued. “Won’t hurt anything to try.”

“I guess,” I conceded, “then would you mind helping me find a job or something? I don’t want to continue mooching for any longer than I have to.”

“On one condition: you start teaching me magic, real magic.”

“Are you sure you want me to do it?” I asked. “It looks like Terry now knows way more than I do.”

“Maybe he does, but I don’t think he has the same passion for it like you do,” she said. “Even when you were still a cat, the way you explained it and the intense look you got on your face when it was brought up really made me see how important it is to you. Sure I want to learn it, but I’m also fascinated by your connection to it.”

“It’s in my blood,” I responded, “it was the way I was raised. For a long time it was the core of my identity.”

“Exactly.” She nodded her head. “I can tell that Terry didn’t have quite the same attachment.”

That was fair, he had only really gotten into it after meeting me and it was never something that his parents really accepted as something he wanted to do. In hindsight, I realized that they probably thought it was some fade, rebellious, religious phase that he was going through. I hadn’t seen it before, because having lived and breathed it as a part of my upbringing, I had never seen it as anything put the reality of the universe.

“So… are you in?” She asked, holding up her hand in the universal signal for a high-five.

I raised my own hand and returned the gesture to seal my agreement. “Deal.”

“Perfect! When do you want to start? If you can’t tell, I’m kind of excited.”

“Uh… well, that’s a good question,” I admitted, wracking my brain for even how to begin. “I have never taught anyone else, so I don’t know right off hand where to begin.”

“Pretend that I’m some little kid and you have to start at the very beginning?” she suggested.

It wasn’t a half-bad idea, though it did make me feel a little like I would end up being condescending without trying. I assumed that she wasn’t going to walk into this with absolutely no knowledge of basic ritual practices, but I didn’t know that for sure. Every movement in a ritual has a purpose and if you misalign your a intent with your actions, that’s how mistakes like mine happen. Suddenly I felt even less certain that I should be the one to teach her at all, but I had promised her that I would take her under my wing.

“How about we do a simple cleansing ritual for your ritual space?” That was a relatively safe option and one that I couldn’t even begin to imagine ending with one or both of us transformed.

“Sounds great,” she chirped, “what will we need?”

“Nothing special.” I started to run through the ritual in my head, trying to imagine the set up and what exactly would be needed. After a moment, I opened my eyes again, confident of my list. “We’ll need some sage, salt, moon-blessed water, and an athame at the very least. We can get fancier if we want, but that’s the bare minimum to do the trick.”

“Moon-blessed water?” Connie looked at me with an uncertain expression. “Is that something I should just have laying around?”

“I guess not,” I lied. I felt bad telling her that it really should have been considering she sounded like she had never even heard of it before. “If you want to put off the ritual of cleansing, we can do one to make the water instead, we’ll just need to wait for the next full moon.”

“Can’t we just like… buy it?”

“Sure, I mean it should be functionally the same,” I said, “though I’ve never used anything but what I or a family member has made before.”

“Great, there’s a little pagan store not too far from here, we won’t even need to catch a ride. I’ve been wanting to pick up a few things from there anyway, you in?”

I shrugged my shoulders and motioned that I would follow her. I couldn’t imagine what a store devoted to magic would even look like, every ritual item I had owned had been passed done through the generations and growing the necessary herbs was easy enough once you got into a routine and god a garden established. Making money from peddling magical wares felt like a kind of greasy idea, but the world had certainly evolved since I had last been a part of it. In the hustle and bustle of modern life, it was likely that most people valued what little down time they had and couldn’t be bothered to tend a garden or forge a blade after putting in a long day of work and dealing with the other necessities of life.

The shop was squished between a cell phone store and a small boutique, it would have been extremely easy to miss if not for the sign with a giant, gilt pentagram on it with “The Village Witchery” printed beneath it. In the windows there were wind chimes of all sizes hung, displaying symbols both sacred and ridiculous, including peace signs, and generic Celtic scribbles that meant nothing. We were greated by the heavy, cloying scent of one too many incense sticks set too close to each other, the stench filling my nose so completely that it would be hopeless to actually decipher one scent for another if I had wanted any in particular. A fat, orange tabby cat eyed me from next to the cash register, eyes narrowing as it assessed me. I didn’t have to have been a cat to know that it wasn’t overly fond of me and was skeptical of my proximity to what it considered its territory.

“Looking for anything in particular?” A woman, looking about forty, appeared from the back, the beaded curtain tinkling behind her.

“Yeah, do you have moon-blessed water?” Connie asked, her voice more nasally than normal. It seemed that the overwhelming scent in the air was getting to her as well.

“Of course, it’s right next to you on that shelf with all the other blessed items,” she explained. “Oh, there’s also moon-blessed crystals and perfumes if you’re in need.”

I gave her a half-smile and an incline of my head, then turned towards the aforementioned self to find what we needed. There was something about the woman that made me feel like I wanted to get what we needed and get out of there. My mother had always told me that I had a gift for catching on to people’s character quickly and my gut told me that there was something not quite right about her.

“So what do you two need it for?” She asked, stroking her cat who hadn’t stopped staring at me angrily.

“We want to do a cleansing ritual for my ritual space,” Connie said cheerfully. Obviously she did not have the same talent that I did.

The woman tutted and shook her head. “Well then you don’t need that water at all, you’ll want an anointing oil.”

“What?” I found myself saying aloud despite the fact that I had told myself not to engage anymore with her.

“No no,” she continued. “You’ll want to use the oil to dribble on all the spaces where you sense bad energy has accumulated, only then will you be able to cast it out.”

Sensing something was off, Connie cast a glance at me and raised her eyebrow questioningly.

“Anointing oil isn’t used for that,” I insisted. “At best that will just serve to leave lasting oil stains. Water blessed under the full moon is more than adequate for a simple cleansing ritual.”

The woman’s mouth with to a thin line and her hand stopped its petting motion. She looked at me like I was a bad smell, but perhaps one that she could reform. “No, I’m sorry to tell you, honey, but you’re wrong. I have been practicing for maybe longer than you’ve been alive and I have always used anointing oil. Check online, you’ll see, it’s what everyone uses.”

“And it works?” I pressed, trying to let her obvious feeling of superiority roll off my back.

“Of course, I always feel that negative energy skedaddle as soon as I sprinkle it around. Hardly need to do any of the ritual after that step.”

I felt a headache coming on. I had no idea how to even begin to approach how asinine her statement was. That was not how any of that worked and if she truly thought it was, then that meant she had a shop full of potentially powerful items that were of zero use to her.

“Were you the one to bless the water?” I asked with a sigh.

“Well, no,” she admitted.

“Great, I’ll take it,” I said, picking up a small glass vial of it and moving towards the register. The cat raised its back and hissed when I drew nearer.

Wordlessly, the woman glared at me while ringing up the vial, turning it over in her hand a moment like she was considering not letting me purchase it at all. After an awkward moment, she tossed it into a tiny bag and let out a curt, “$10.79.”

Connie paid and took the bag from the woman, giving her an awkward smile before power walking out of the store as fast as she could. I did not follow her for a moment and instead stood in awe of someone owning such a store while obviously having no idea what exactly she was doing. The growl of the cat broke me from my confused stupor and I shuffled my way out of the store, feeling like the current state of magic needed serious help and an earnest reformation.