I. The Pawn Shop
A low ceiling. Dark lacquer, heavy beams, a frowning sort of light. A thin-bladed fan that might have trembled the spiderwebs (had there been any). Glass cases, containing old and shiny things, such as turquoise earrings, faded pearls, tortoise-shell pins and so forth. At the back: a sequined flapper dress, raven-black, on a mannequin. It could have been an antiques shop, eccentric certainly, but only insofar as antique shops are necessarily eccentric.
The sign on the door said, politely but firmly, that the store was closed, which would not have surprised any of the locals. The store was always closed, for the very simple reason that nothing in it was for sale. On the window there were letters that said: Magical objects: cash, loans, secured storage guaranteed! No aural leakage. The locals had no suspicions as to why the letters said this. In fact, only three people in the immediate vicinity of that brick-lined New England boulevard on that fine Sunday morning (and a passing greyhound, but that’s another story) suspected anything at all out of the ordinary about the shop. But the occult, after all, is not meant to be suspected as such.
On that particular Sunday morning, there was an original 1972 Jim Croce record droning under that low, dark ceiling, trembling the dust: If I could save time in a bottle…
