Potions Inc.

Ghosts with Heartbeats: Part Three

After several Sundays of Cliff coming and going, Lilith finally noticed.

"You've told him to only refill it on the waxing moon?"

"Waning."

Lilith cut her eyes as she worked at the back-shop desk. Heat rolled off her palm as she molded a talisman to look like the long face of Couzin, the trickster Orisha.

"Whys he always here, then?"

Nyx was decidedly quiet.

Lilith rolled her eyes, but kept them on her project, "You know why he's always here, girl."Nyx knew and she didn't. It was like holding a thesis and it's anti in her head—everything made sense until it didn't and when it did make sense it scared her.

Men left, they changed, they came back and left again—that was the pattern of romance for her and it kept things alive. If Lucille hadn't left, would she still feel this way about him? Would she constantly compare him to Cliff in her head and wonder why she suddenly found him lacking? He was the definition of sex. Of greed and mood and neuroticism. What he lacked in empathy he made up for in his pants and she wasn't sure if she could let that go—not yet. Not now. And especially not for nice.

Lilith had been watching her do battle in her head and Nyx met her eyes, stuck her tongue out and kept mashing away at the peace powder she was making well in advance for Cliff. Days in advance.

"I know Lumina is right there," her sister said, "but he definitely doesn't live near the wall—not with clothes as nice as that. This dragon-man's driving at least three hours to come here on Sundays and ask you silly questions that could be searched up on a computer—which I know he has. You really think he's coming here out of the kindness of his heart, child?" Her voice rose at the end, a pointy trident prodding her to jump off that cliff of "what ifs" and "maybe if she thought about it this way..." or "Maybe if she let that old flame go..."

Nyx pressed on the pestle harder, not caring if the porcelain cracked. "I'm not listening..."

"But you are."

"...if I get these thoughts into my head I'm going to look at him differently when I see him. I don't want that."

"But he already sees you as you are."

Nyx glowered at her sister, "Sundays aren't even your days to watch the shop, so how do you know anything besides what I tell you about Cliff?"

"You forget auras and energies are my thing, girl? That I'm the one who taught you to see?"

Nyx went back to her crushing.

"Ignoring the call of the heart makes it weaker, you know that. I taught you that—so I know you know that."

"I'm not ignoring," Nyx said under her breath, "I'm waiting."

Lilith hung her talisman from a hook attached to a low board above her, "For Lucille." She deadpanned, "The man who broke your heart, stole your blood, and left as soon as the night would take him? That who you're waiting for?" She put her hands on her hips, "Now's not the time to be coy about it, girl. Tell me and tell me straight—you really gonna let a good guy like that dragon go?"

"You don't know if he's good."

"You didn't answer my question."

Nyx hated it when her sister got like this. Cliff wasn't the only "good man" to have haunted Potions ever since Lucille left, but the way that Lilith was prodding at it, poking at what felt like an open wound; he was the only good and right man who had.

"Lucille is my twin flame." Nyx finally said, back leaning against the table, arms crossed over her chest; protecting her. "There."

Lilith blew a raspberry, "We both know twin flames are just an excuse to stay in terrible relationships. After what he did to you—stuff like that shouldn't matter. Shouldn't make you ignore an honest man for a dishonest creature." She shook her head, "I can't force you though, can't make the loa drink when they don't wanna and can't make you either. But there's something you should know," she looked at her sister square in the eyes, square in the heart; where stories lie and lies are told, where un-reality becomes the truth she'd live if she made it so. And Lilith hoped to all of the Orisha that Nyx wouldn't.

She just wanted the girl to be happy. For once.

"You don't have to stick with him, love. Bad men remain bad, they never change. Love don't change people, you know. No matter how strong and magical and deep it is—if a man wants to be a certain way, he will stay that way—you hear?" she tapped Nyx's shoulder, her heart, "If a man works to be near you, if a man works to know you and what makes your heart beat; then don't he deserve a chance?"

Lilith's hand lingered and Nyx looked through her, digesting her words.

Then the shop's bell rang and the magic was broken, but the thought was still there. And Nyx thought that, yeah, it might not be so hard. It might not be impossible.

Then a voice drifted in on the wind that she knew too well and she felt her sister's aura sizzle, felt the energy dance into murderous tentacles that ordered—silently—this interloper out.