Nothing good ever comes out of this place. 

Those were the last words that Valerie's father had said to her before he'd given her an awkward hug and driven off. 

Well. So far, nothing had happened to prove him correct. It had been about an hour since he'd dropped Valerie off, and Oakriver seemed just like she had always imagined: a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere, a little antiquated, but charming with its cobblestone streets and quaint middle-class homes. There was nothing particularly offensive about it, nothing at all to validate the grim expression on her father's face as he'd navigated the narrow alleyways—unless, perhaps, one had a severe aversion to red bricks or Halloween decorations put up an entire month in advance. 

The dorm room she had been assigned was similarly unassuming. It was small and furnished with nothing but two desks, two beds, and two closets, but standing in it, Valerie couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. The fact that she was here at all was a small victory in itself. It had required not only several arguments with her father but also a healthy dose of cosmic intervention. 

She wasn't sure which astronomical constellation she had to thank for the flooding that had damaged a large part of the college's housing and subsequently forced the school to delay the start of term to late September, but it was the sole reason she was able to study here. Had the school year started on time, she would have had neither her father's permission nor enough money to afford to live on her own, but now, after weeks of constant nagging and a summer of working several jobs, she had reached what she had been dreaming of for years. 

Before leaving, her father had asked her what it was about Oakriver that attracted her so much. Valerie understood his confusion—after all, a tiny town with a population of less than ten thousand wasn't exactly where most nineteen-year-olds dreamed of going after high school. She had told him it was because of the college's good reputation. While that was partially true—its art program was nationally renowned—it wasn't what intrigued her the most. 

Valerie Morgan knew exactly four things about her mother. One: she was probably a witch. Two: with red hair and green eyes, Valerie looked similar enough to her to sometimes make her father flinch when she entered a room. Three: she had lived in Oakriver. Four: seventeen years ago, she had disappeared here. 

Countless times, Valerie had asked her father to tell her what had happened to her, and countless times, she hadn't gotten a response. She wasn't sure if her father simply didn't want to talk about it or if he truly did not know. Either way, the mystery around Isabelle Morgan had long ago solidified a goal in Valerie's head: she wanted to go to Oakriver to find her mother, or at the very least get some answers.And here she was, one gigantic step closer to her objective. 

But first, some smaller tasks. She had already unpacked most of her stuff, making an effort not to overstep the invisible border that divided her half of the room from her roommate's, which was already fully furnished and decorated. If the sketchbooks littering the desk and the art prints covering the wall were anything to go by, her roommate was probably an art student like Valerie. The two small pride flags above their desk—nonbinary and pansexual—made her lips tick up. She carefully stored the knowledge away. 

Her last thing to unpack was her deck of tarot cards. Valerie placed them gently onto her bedside table, keeping her hand on the topmost card a few seconds longer to ground herself. It showed a man on horseback with a wooden staff in his hand, his body a vibrant blur of reds and oranges as he charged forward. It was the Knight of Wands, a recurring motif for her. She'd painted this deck herself—her favorite art project to date—and so she didn't need a handbook to understand the card's meaning; just by looking at it, she could feel the energy it held. 

The Knight of Wands was passion, movement, progress. He was fire, raw and reckless, filled with the same potential that she felt coursing through her own veins. The unbridled power packed into his frame was enough to make her fingertips tingle. 

Valerie pulled back her hand and pocketed her keys. She paused only once more to grab the flyers from her desk, studying them as she pulled her dorm room door shut. They were made of lilac paper with an illustration of a crystal ball at the top and some text in a whimsical font beneath it: Tarot readings — astrological forecasts — palmistry. Want to know what the future holds for you? Contact this number! 

She had designed them at home before she left in hopes that they would not only help her make some money on the side but also allow her to meet new people here. She didn't expect too much to come from them, but she tacked them to every bulletin board she encountered anyway. 

Self-advertisement completed, she left the building and strolled out onto the campus. Oakriver College was of the smaller variety, offering around four dozen courses with a focus on the arts. Like most of the town, it looked ancient; a handful of ivy-covered stone buildings strewn near the edge of the woods as if some clumsy hand had carelessly dropped them there, connected by narrow paths left in the tall meadow by generations of students. 

Valerie followed the makeshift trails at random, passing the art studios and the main building that housed the cafeteria along the way, until she was spat out at the edge of campus. From there, she wandered into the town.There weren't many people on the streets, which Valerie blamed on the weather. It was a gloomy day with an overcast sky, the cold biting enough to make her bury her hands deep in the pockets of her denim jacket. 

The few people that she did cross paths with tended to stare at her and then quickly avert their gaze when Valerie stared back. Valerie didn't care. From what she'd gathered from the town's website, it was rather liberal—it had to be, since so many of its businesses relied on the college students and their families. Still, it was a given that she would stand out with her bright-red hair, the slit in one of her eyebrows, the heavy combat boots, and the piercings in her ears.

As she drifted aimlessly past the residential houses, she tried to imagine her mother behind their windows, hurrying down the stairs, sitting on the porch. Would she live in that one, with the overgrown garden? Or that one, with the neatly trimmed rosebush? 

There was one house in particular that caught her eye. It looked older than most as ivy climbed its brick façade and green paint chipped from the window shutters. Mismatched flowerpots in bright colors stood in the windowsills, and a cat dozed on the porch while Stevie Nicks's voice drifted onto the street, begging her lover to stay with me, stay. 

However, what gave Valerie pause wasn't the house itself—it was the girl behind one of the windows on the second floor.She was tending to plants on the windowsill, a contented smile on her lips as she watered them. It was hard to tell from the street, but she looked to be a good deal shorter than Valerie, and significantly curvier. She wore a yellow knit sweater that was luminous against her dark-brown skin and a headband in the same color, which allowed only a few curls to bob around her face as she worked. Even from a distance, there was something warm about her, a strange charm that slowed Valerie's steps without her doing. 

She only realized she had stopped in her tracks when the girl turned around, disappearing out of sight. Valerie peered up at her window a few seconds longer before she started walking again.And her father had said nothing good could ever come out of this town. 

As she continued, the music fading in the distance, she found her way right into the heart of the town. The family homes soon made room for little shops and restaurants, each more picturesque than the last. There was a café called Sugar & Spice that Valerie stopped in front of long enough for a blond-haired boy to catch her gaze through the large window. He paused while wiping down the tables to offer her a toothy grin. Valerie returned it with a smile of her own and vowed to pay the café a visit over the next few days. The cakes she could see in the display case looked delectable—even more so when she saw the handwritten sign that proclaimed that all of them were vegan. 

She truly didn't think things could get any better than that until, through sheer coincidence, she stumbled onto one of the narrower backstreets. The building that had caught her attention was at the very end, so secluded that the light barely reached it. It appeared to be even older than the house that Plant Girl lived in, and, if she wasn't mistaken, it stood at a bit of an angle, leaning onto the building next to it like a weary elder might lean on a friend. The large shop window was so dusty that she could see nothing but the reflection of her own eyes blinking curiously back at her. On the door, there was a small wooden sign that read Obscura Oddities. 

Looking at it from the outside, nothing gave the impression it was open. Still, guided by a sudden instinct, Valerie walked up to the door and gave it an experimental push. The jingling of a bell drowned out her soft sound of surprise as she all but stumbled into the shop, jumping when the door fell shut behind her with a loud bang. 

For a few long seconds, all Valerie could do was wait until her eyes adjusted to the half-light, a blend of different herbs tickling her nose. Finally, some of the darker shadows revealed themselves as shelves. The floorboards creaked under her boots as she neared one of them to investigate the objects on display. Candles. Not of the scented Yankee Candle variety, but ones that looked like they belonged in fancy candelabras or scattered around a pentagram. They came in all sizes, colors, and shapes—one of them, Valerie noted as she squinted, was suspiciously phallic. Interesting. 

On the next shelf, there was a row of incense burners and matches, along with a few sticks of cedar, which Valerie could now recognize in the overwhelming mix of scents. There were other things she knew—cauldrons in all sizes, rune stones, different tarot decks, dried herbs, crystals—and some things she had no name for.As she trailed her fingers along the spines of books with titles like The Garden Witch's Guide to Botany and Contacting the Dead: A Practical Handbook to Necromancy, she felt a pleasant shiver running down her spine. There was an unmistakable energy in the air, a static crackle that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up: magic, so strong it was almost tangible. 

Valerie had never felt anything like it. In a trance, she wandered between the shelves, so caught up in seeing and touching and feeling that she startled violently when a voice sounded somewhere to her left."Can I help you with anything?" 

"Holy sh—" Pressing a hand to her chest, Valerie spun around to see who had spoken. "Where the hell did you come from?" 

The person turned out to be around her age, sitting behind the register a few feet away with their chin propped in one hand, curls of dark-blue hair flopping onto their face. At Valerie's question, they cocked their head with a puzzled frown. "I've been here the entire time."

"Then why didn't you say anything?" 

"I didn't want to disturb you while you were browsing." With a sheepish shrug, they lifted the small gaming console that was sitting on the counter in front of them. "And, uh . . . Animal Crossing." 

The sight of the Nintendo was so unexpectedly mundane against the backdrop of peculiar items that Valerie couldn't help the laugh that escaped her. Walking over to the counter, she stretched out a hand. "I'm Valerie. I use she/her pronouns." 

"Quinn. I use they and them." 

Valerie's eyes widened when she remembered the name that had been scrawled on the covers of the sketchbooks sitting in the other half of her dorm room. "Wait, Quinn Jiang?" 

Quinn blinked once. "Yes?" 

"No way. We're roommates for this year! You're also majoring in art, right?" 

With a nod, Quinn raised their hands so that Valerie could see that the pads of their fingers were stained black with charcoal. "I am." 

"Guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other then, huh?" 

"Looks like it." Tugging the sleeves of their black sweater down over their knuckles, Quinn offered her a smile. "So, is there anything specific you were looking for here?" 

Valerie glanced around again, shaking her head. With bundles of herbs hanging from the low ceiling and jars of magical ingredients (some of them labeled careful: poisonous!), the shop seemed like a dream that might disappear if she so much as blinked. "No. I wasn't really expecting . . . anything like this." She looked back at Quinn. "It's so cool that you work here." 

"It is." Quinn's eyes lit up as they glanced around the room. "I started here a few months ago, and I really love it. We have so many interesting people coming in every day." 

"Do a lot of witches live here?" 

"Not in Oakriver itself. This shop is the only one of its kind in the region, so most of them come from nearby towns." Even though there was no one else around, Quinn lowered their voice and leaned a little closer. "There are three large family covens in this area that practice, but I only know because they shop here sometimes. They're very careful to not let the townspeople here know about magic. You probably should be too." 

"Why, are they still hunting witches around here?" Valerie joked. 

"Well, not actively. But . . ." Quinn rubbed at their neck, glancing around again as if they were worried some eavesdropper might materialize from between the shelves. "From what I've gathered, there was an incident that led to the Council of the Three—the three big witch families that live here—swearing an oath not to reveal their abilities to the town. I think there's some kind of punishment if you do, but I don't know too much about that." 

In one of the little bottles on the counter—a sample of a beauty potion, naturally—Valerie could see her own wide-eyed reflection. The Council of the Three sounded like something straight out of Hocus Pocus. She was instantly intrigued. Gesturing at their surroundings, she asked, "But then why have a shop like this one? Doesn't this make it a bit obvious?" 

"No. Because not everyone can find it," said Quinn. "The owner of this shop put a spell on the building. Unless it is directly pointed out, only those who have abilities or are at least drawn to magic will notice it."

"Oh! So, you also practice magic?" 

"No. I suppose I must have a small affinity for it, but nothing full-fledged. No, you know—" they paused to give a vague wave of their hands "—actual magic." 

Valerie, being her own only point of reference, wasn't sure what actual magic looked like, but she figured now was too early for any probing questions. Switching gears, she asked instead, "And you still have enough customers?" 

"We also have an online shop." Quinn chuckled. "A lot of my job is just packaging orders and bringing them down to the post office." 

"I see. So advertising, say, tarot readings wouldn't be a smart idea? Hypothetically?" 

Quinn quirked an eyebrow. "Hypothetically?" 

"Uh-huh." 

"Would you listen if I said it's best to be as subtle as possible about it in this town?" 

Valerie scratched at her neck, her mind flashing back to her flyers hanging all over campus. "Depends. Is this ominous council going to put a hit out on me if I'm not?" 

Quinn scrunched up their nose as if they honestly weren't sure. "I don't know. I'm from a town an hour away from here, and I've only been staying here since July. I . . . don't think so?" 

"Huh. Then I guess I'll take my chances. Being subtle isn't really my strong suit." 

Quinn looked like they didn't know whether to be amused or concerned. "Oh dear. I have a feeling you're going to stir things up around here." 

"I have a feeling you might be right about that." Pointing at one of the shelves, Valerie said, "So, about those crystal balls . . ."