The Hex Breaker's Eyes (16 page)

After some
research, Marlene found that there is a magic supply store in
Toronto that offers what we need. It’s a two hour drive, so it’s
lucky that it’s the weekend. Ryan made up a story about going to
the city to get a get-well present for Tam, and his parents let him
borrow the BMW. Marlene brought the big leather book, but I made
her write a list on a normal piece of paper so we seem slightly
more normal when we go into the store.

We eventually
find the place, a small shop in a strip mall in a mostly industrial
area in northern Toronto. The sign above the store is red with
black letters in an old-timey sans serif that might better suit an
Irish pub. “Cauldron Bubble,” it reads.

We enter the
shop and are greeted lazily by a middle-aged man sitting on a bar
stool behind the counter, who then goes back to reading his comic
book. We take a couple minutes to walk around. A lot of the store
is devoted to candles, some to dried herbs, and a shelf near the
back holds jars and vials of various animal parts. (Yes, there is a
section of glass tubes containing eyes of newt. But I don’t need
those, I need rat eyes, which are farther down the same shelf.)

Marlene is
intrigued and distracted by a section of spellbooks, and Ryan is
picking through jars in the animal parts section. He picks up a
small jar and rotates it, make a face, then reads the sticker on
the jar with the hand-written note explaining that this is a dog’s
liver. He moves on to a small vial and looks at the lizard’s tongue
contained within.

“This is so
gross,” he says.

“Very gross,”
calls the shopkeeper, not even looking up from his comic. “And if
you kids feel like stealing, I’ve got cameras on every square inch
of the place.”

Ryan carefully
slots the vial back into its holder and we settle into choosing our
ingredients so we can make the potion. Marlene also picks out a few
spellbooks and I offer to split the cost on them with her, since
I’m the one who seems to need the knowledge anyway. There’s only
one ingredient we can’t find, so we bring everything up to the
counter and set it down, then I ask. “Hey, do you sell any black
root?”

The shopkeeper
sets down his comic book and cracks his neck. “Why would you want
that?”

“Um,” I
stammer. “It’s on the ingredient list.”

“For what?”

I don’t really
think that’s any of his business. “We’re just making a potion and
the book said we need black root, so…”

“Back root is a
hallucinogenic,” he says. I think this is a practiced speech he’s
said to a lot of people. “I cannot sell you an illegal substance. I
am not a drug dealer. I sell legal, natural products for the
practice of a legitimate religion known as Wicca and I will not
sully my noble practice by selling dope to teenagers.” He looks at
all three of us. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Fifteen,” I
manage to say, then point to Ryan. “He’s almost seventeen.”

“I’ll sell you
anything on the shelf, but I don’t deal drugs. So you want to ring
this stuff up, or not?”

I look to
Marlene. “Will it work, without the root?”

She shrugs.
“Doubt it.”

The shopkeeper
is looking at the things I’ve set on the counter and typing them
into his old mechanical cash register. “What are you looking to
brew?” He asks, punctuating with a bored sigh as if to say he’s
completely above us and our teenage dalliance with witchcraft.

“Seerseye,” I
say. “Seerseye potion.”

He stops
typing. “That stuff’s dangerous. It’s like PCP and peyote had a
baby. I’ve only seen one person drink it, and she ended up in a
psych ward for eight months before they let her out again. Trust
me, kid, you’re better off smoking pot.”

I realize that
he thinks of us as nothing more than annoying kids who don’t
realize what we’re messing with. Heck, that’s probably most of his
customers. But I have a genuine second sight and I won’t be talked
down to like a small child. “I’m a seer,” I say, my voice more
confident than I am actually am. I’ve never said it out loud, or
really even thought of myself that way, but there it is.

“I’m a seer and
back in our hometown there’s a girl with a nasty hex on her that’s
taking her apart piece by piece. And if I can’t track the source of
that hex then our friend will die. And if I have to risk going
crazy to save my best friend then I’ll do it. So I’d prefer if you
would stop mocking us, ring up the sale and tell me where I can get
some goddamn black root.”

The shopkeeper
is taken aback. He raises his bushy eyebrows and nods. “A seer,
huh? What do you see?”

“Hexes on
people.”

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“Prove you have
the sight.” He takes out a shoebox from under the counter,
containing various trinkets and items. “I’ll hex one of your
friends, and you tell me which one. Get it right a few times and
I’ll let you know where there’s some black root available.”

“You’ll take
the hex apart as soon as I get it?” I ask.

“Obviously.”

“Then do it.”
Marlene takes a small step back, and I realize that maybe I should
have asked their permission before volunteering my companions to be
hexed.

“I’ll need an
item from each of you,” he says, and holds out his hand.

Marlene takes a
pin from her hair and hands it to him. Ryan slips a rubber bracelet
off his wrist and hands it over. The shopkeeper slips both under
the desk, where I can’t see. He takes his own possession—his
glasses—and ties them to a rock while whispering a hex. He then
slips the whole works under the counter, and finishes the hex by
tying his item to one of my friends’ possessions. As soon as he
stops whispering, The light around Ryan turns red.

“Him,” I say,
pointing. I didn’t even wait for the shopkeeper to tell me to
guess. “He turned red.”

“Lucky guess.”
The shopkeeper pulls the string away, breaking the talisman, and
the red light disappears. “Let’s try another.” He repeats the
ritual, whispering something a little different, and this time
tying a small twig, which is tied into a circle like a tiny wreath,
to his glasses. He slips his hands under the counter and chooses an
object. Once again, Ryan lights up, only now he’s green.

“Him again.
Different hex, now he’s green.”

“Still could be
luck,” the man says. “Get one more and I’ll believe you.” He breaks
this new talisman and Ryan returns to a normal colour. The
shopkeeper follows his familiar hexing routine again, tying his
personal item to a bone and then slipping his hands out of sight.
He whispers so quietly and fast I can’t make out the words, and
then I realize he’s speaking in Latin. He finishes talking, and
looks at me expectantly.

“Well?” he
asks.

I look at Ryan,
and he’s still normal. Then I look at Marlie, who is also just a
regular colour.

“Can we turn
the lights off? I don’t see it.”

“I thought you
were a seer? Pretty bad seer if you can’t see.”

I think maybe
he’s trying to fool me; maybe he didn’t cast a hex at all. I say as
much, and he mocks me with fake laughter. “I cast a hex to weaken
the immune system. Not harmful in short doses, but definitely easy
for a seer to spot. If she were actually a seer.”

I look back at
Ryan and see nothing. I look at Marlene and see the same total lack
of evidence. Could the guy have cast it on himself? No, I don’t see
anything on him either. Finally, I realize the game he’s playing
and walk a few feet away from the desk, where there’s a mirror. In
my reflection, I’m surrounded by a red fog.

“It’s red. It’s
all around me, in the air.” I hold out my arm and look at myself,
but see nothing. It only shows up in the mirror. “Why can I only
see it in the mirror?”

The shopkeeper
nods in appreciation. “A mirror is a second sight. It reveals the
truth.”

“Like a vampire
casting no reflection?” Ryan asks.

“No such
thing,” the clerk says.

“How did you
cast a hex on me?” I ask. “I didn’t give you anything of mine.”

The shopkeeper
holds his hand up, pinching his forefinger and thumb together. It
looks like he isn’t even holding anything. “One of your hairs.”

“That’s enough
to cast a hex?” Ryan asks, a little shocked.

“More than
enough. It grew from your body. It’s way more potent than a
bracelet or a pin. In medieval times, people burned their hair
after they cut it, just to make sure their enemies couldn’t get
their hands on it.”

He pulls on the
hair a little and it comes away from the rest of the talisman,
breaking the hex. He holds it out to me, and I actually reach out
to take my stray hair back.

I come back
toward the desk. “So you say there’s no such thing as vampires? But
there is such a thing as black root?”

The shopkeeper
smirks. “Of course there is.” He opens a drawer behind the counter
and pulls out a small plastic baggie of thin black fibres that look
a bit like saffron. “And it is extremely dangerous, and we don’t
sell it here, understand?”

“Of course,” I
say, reaching out for the baggie.

We ring up the
sale, which is egregiously expensive and requires a split between
our three debit cards, and then we head for the door.

“I mean it
about that potion,” he says. “That girl who went crazy was a
friend. She was a seer too. Don’t drink it.”

I nod, and open
the door to leave. As the door’s shutting behind us, he shouts.
“And if you change your mind, there are no refunds!”

We couldn’t
actually make the potion after we got home yesterday. That’s the
tough part about brewing up a batch of magic hallucinogen: you
really can’t do it when your parents are home. Ryan, Marlene and I
promised to get in touch with each other as soon as one of us had a
parent-free house to brew in, which never happened yesterday. Today
Marlene called and said her parents were going to Collingwood to
watch an afternoon movie, which meant three hours of uninterrupted
kitchen time for us.

I’m watching a
pot of water boil as Marlene lines up the ingredients on the
counter. The magic requires that the various ingredients are added
to the brew in a specific sequence, so we have to get it right. In
addition to brewing the potion, we also have to recite the spell
that will enchant the liquid with whatever magical properties will
open my perception to allow me to better use my sixth sense.

Marlene will
read from the spellbook, and when she pauses, I will respond with
“Sight beyond sight,” and then drop one of the ingredients into the
pot. Once all ingredients are boiling, we will remove the pot from
the burner, cover it, and let it steep for a while. Then I am to
dunk a cup into the pot, scoop up some potion, and drink it down.
Considering that this brew will contain boiled rat eye, I fully
expect it will be disgusting. I just hope I can actually drink the
stuff without puking.

“With the sun
in the sky and the earth below,” Marlene reads.

“Sight beyond
sight,” I say, and drop a shrivelled funky-smelling mushroom into
the pot.

“With Gods in
heaven and the devil below,” she continues.

“Sight beyond
sight.” I drop a dried purple flower into the water, where it
floats.

“A light
unseen, a sound unheard.”

“Sight beyond
sight.” In goes a spoonful of fish roe.

“In a foreign
tongue, the unspoken word.”

“Sight beyond
sight.” I scoop the pickled rat’s eye out of its jar and drop it
in.

“The five
senses of man, this world of thorns.”

“Sight beyond
sight.” I dump in a powder that we made from yet another
mushroom.

“The knowledge
of Gods, a new sense born.”

“Sight beyond
sight.” I crack an ordinary chicken egg into the pot, where it
begins to poach.

“Bless this
potion and your servant by,” she says.

“Sight beyond
sight.” I add the black root, making sure it goes into the water
and doesn’t just sit on top of the egg.

“Opening your
servant’s all-seeing eye.”

“Sight beyond
sight.” I add the last ingredient, something personal of mine to
bind the potion to my energy. Normally this would be a talisman
binding the caster to the subject of the hex, but in this case I’m
both the ‘witch’ and the ‘subject’ so I don’t need to do that.

I have chosen
to add my mom’s wedding band to the brew. I wear it on my necklace
every day, which gives it a strong connection to me, and since it’s
metal the hot water won’t wreck it. Once that’s added, I pick up
the lid and cover the pot, then step aside so Marlene can slide the
pot to a different burner where it’s off the heat.

“Amen,” says
Ryan, who has watched this procedure from several feet away where
wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. “Now what?”

“Now we let it
sit,” says Marlene. “It has to steep a while, just like tea. Once
it’s cooled down enough to drink, Mindee gets to drink it.”

“Gross,” he
says, making a face. When he sees my displeasure he corrects
himself with, “I mean... I’m sure it’s delicious.”

We sit at the
table and wait, each of us absentmindedly reading one of the many
pages scattered over the table. Marlene’s parents’ home is littered
with newspapers, magazines and any other sort of reading material,
so there’s a lot to keep us occupied since we have nothing to say
to each other. We’ve just cooked up a magic recipe that might send
me into a crazy drug trip, and somehow talking about school or
gossip or anything normal would just be disrespectful to the
complete insanity we’ve just carried out. After a couple minutes of
silence, I turn to Ryan.

“Have you been
to see Tam?”

“Yeah, I went
to the hospital last night. Her mom was waiting and I guess she
never told her folks we split up since they were really happy I was
there.