As she woke, Edna Perry found herself mid-step, two yards from the bed. She couldn’t get enough air. Disasters flooded her mind. 

She left her dog behind. It must be dead by now. 

She yelled at a client yesterday. She was fired on the spot.

She missed another trial date. The police were on their way. 

As her left foot reached the floor, she became aware of her apartment. And she didn’t have a dog. And work went well yesterday. And there was no trial. These crises weren’t real.

These were night terrors, but she still couldn’t get enough air. 

Her eyes drifted to the clock. In three hours, she had to be at the client’s facility to lead the coven in a tessellation spell. 

That wasn’t a night terror, that was her job. 

She sat on the floor and focused on her breathing. In her memory, Dr. Waring’s voice talked through the steps: “Inhale deep into your belly. Exhale through tight lips and make it last four times as long as it took you to inhale. Count your breaths, go slow, be greedy with that air.” 

So far, she’d only managed to get 55 minutes of sleep tonight. It was too late to take a pill now. It would be stronger than her alarm. 

Anchoring herself to the breathing was the only option she had.

Anthony Finch, the security chief for Thorton-Bryce Freight, did a half-jog across the loading bay toward his assigned station. He was still about twenty paces inside the spell-casting area when Edna called to him. “Mr. Finch, I’d like to get started soon. Are we about ready?”

The half-jog became the best sprint he could manage, juggling his phone, clipboard, and pride. “Yes, sorry, just checking the east doors. You’re all good.”

“You’re good, too. Someday I’m going to convince you to come and work with us, Mr. Finch.” 

“You’ve never heard me on karaoke night,” he said. “I’m a lousy singer.” Laughter rose from the ten people in folding chairs beyond the caution tape. Edna knew all of them, as Thorton-Bryce was a regular client. The coven was on this loading bay at least once a month. 

The first few times Spellbound Services did incantations here, the gallery held nearly fifty people. Now, the only Thorton-Bryce employees present were the ones who were required to be there, and most of them were doing other work on their phones and laptops.

Though witchcraft had been legal for decades, industrial partners had only begun hiring magical suppliers about twelve years ago. Hiring openly, that is. Some companies, particularly in eastern Europe, had been quietly using witches for centuries.

This was Edna’s sixth year with Spellbound. In that time, she had worked all the way up from assistant to acolyte. Today’s incantation had her leading a dozen spell casters. She’d done close to thirty of these tessellation jobs, but on two hours’ sleep she was unfocused and overthinking everything.

Edna called out to her group. “Dan? Can you come over here?” Daniel Santiago was contracted last year as part of a diversity program. The national covens were making a lot of noise about hiring men. If smaller concerns, like Spellbound, wanted to compete, they would have to stop discriminating against warlocks as well. So far, the new hires seemed capable.

Dan hustled over, tugging at his robe to keep from tripping. “Yes, Miss Perry?” 

“Call me Edna, please. I’m going to step out for a moment. While I’m gone, get a group of four together and do a gauntcast. We need to be sure there’s no ink here. Got it?”

“Yes Miss— Edna.” As Dan headed back to gather personnel, Edna stepped toward the bathrooms. 

Once she got in a stall, she pulled the tortoise-shell pill case from her bag, popped it open, snatched out a tablet, swallowed it dry, snapped the case closed, then returned it to her bag. It was all one move, so well-practiced that she could have done it in front of Dan without him noticing. With the oxycodone on board, she could focus. 

The bottle said to take one tablet per day with food. She’d been taking four. That meant juggling two different prescriptions, but one of those just ran out permanently and the other could only be filled every-so-many days. She couldn’t get more pills until next week. 

Seven pills— five days. She’d have to taper again. That meant one later tonight, two tomorrow, then one a day until Monday. If things got ugly, she could maybe take an extra one, but that meant a day at the end without any pills at all. 

Without. 

Edna Perry was no stranger to “the taper,” having done it several times over the last three years. Tapering was easier than quitting because quitting meant “without.”

“Without” was scary as hell. 

“Without” meant feeling everything. “Without” meant no more ducking under when a big wave came. Each wave would hit her full force and toss her around and choke her. 

What if she quit this time? What if she ran the taper down to zero then stopped taking the pills forever? Would she lose her confidence? Could she talk to a client (or her coven) without stuttering or crying or shutting down? Could she run a job like the one today?

Too dangerous. For now, she was better on the oxy than off it. If that made her an addict then fine, she was an addict. 

“Without” was a problem for later.

Edna’s first job for Spellbound was right here at Thorton-Bryce Freight. Madame Maria Isadore, Spellbound Services’ founder, led the incantation herself. The client had never hired witches before, and Madame Isadore’s presence helped raise confidence. Her sister, Antonia Isadore, was also there. Edna was needed to stand on the third point in the triangle. 

It was a seeking spell. If any of the newly arrived crates held damaged goods, the enchantment would mark them with deep green streaks. 

Everything went as promised. Afterward, as they folded away their robes, Madame Isadore invited Edna to the post-meeting with Robert Bryce, the company’s owner. Antonia had another engagement across town.

In the field, all Spellbound employees were required to wear business attire if they weren’t in their robes, and the robes were only worn for spell casting. No jeans, sweats, or t-shirts. Madame Isadore set the example that day in her deep blue Eileen Fisher suit. 

Edna received an advance on her first paycheck from Spellbound with instructions to buy nicer clothes. “I want you to carry yourself better,” said Madame Isadore. “They expect to see us with terrible hair and ratty black cloaks, hunched around a cauldron. Or standing in front of a gingerbread house wearing old apron dresses. We must shatter this idea. That starts with a smart, tailored jacket.” Madame Isadore carried just enough of a Castilian accent to put seasoning on the words, to make them special.

Robert Bryce was edgy at that meeting, something Edna would see often in new clients. “Sorry, Madame Isadore. I’m talking too much.” 

“Please, call me ‘Maria.’” 

“Maria, then. Your work is remarkable. They’ve checked fourteen of the marked crates so far and, sure enough, each has at least one problem item inside. This will save us a lot of trouble.”

“But, Mr. Bryce, this is why you brought us here, yes?”

“Call me Bob, please. I hope you won’t be insulted, but for this first job, my crew will check everything. Full inventory, just so I really know it worked. This is still very new to me.”

“This is very new to you, Bob,” said Madame Isadore, “but it is very, very old to the world.” 

“Yes, yes it is. I bet you run into a lot of misconceptions out there, right? People probably think you’ve got broomsticks and talking cats. Black magic stuff.”

“Oh, excuse me,” said Edna, “but no one says ‘black magic’ anymore. We call it ‘ink.’” Madame Isadore’s gaze snapped to Edna. “Sorry, I shouldn’t interrupt.”

“Please to forgive our young Miss Perry,” said Madame Isadore. “She is very new to the world.” Madame Isadore pulled some papers out of her bag. “Now, let’s talk about the new ways Spellbound Services can help Thorton-Bryce Freight.” 

On Edna’s return, Daniel Santiago confirmed that the gauntcast found the site clear of ink. No bad juju from competing covens, no bad charms among the personnel. The circle and glyphs were drawn properly on the floor and each witch and warlock stood ready in their robes. “Excellent,” said Edna, taking her place in the scissor lift. “Let’s have a last look and get started.”

She raised the lift and studied the loading bay, shifting her robes so they didn’t get tangled in the works. From here, she could see into all three of the empty intermodal containers. Each had 2,400 cubic feet of capacity. 

Laid out neatly on the bay’s floor was enough cargo to fill five such containers, and it was the coven’s job to fit it all into three. This would require a well-executed tessellation spell.

The fee for this magical service was $15,000, a bargain compared to the cost of shipping two extra containers all the way to China. The national covens didn’t offer this service anymore. Larger freight companies paid them a fortune to teleport their goods. That was an intricate spell, requiring 39 casters at both the departure and the destination points. 

There were limits. Teleportation only worked for non-organic freight, and printed material often became unreadable in the process. But the shippers who could afford it got the advantage of instant conveyance. Plus, clients loved the sparks and ozone smell when their wares popped into existence halfway across the world.

Spellbound Services was a local company. Madame Isadore employed less than a hundred witches and warlocks. Their emphasis was on craft and personal service, specializing in freight. The Isadore family had been managing freight as far back as the 1500s in Spain. 

“With a smaller circle of clients comes a smaller circle of needs,” Madame Isadore would say. “That makes more successes. It’s not storybook magic, but there is a happy ending with success.” It was traditional magic at traditional rates. And for a lot of companies, like Thorton-Bryce Freight, it was a perfect fit.

From the scissor lift, Edna gave a nod to Finch, the security chief. He made certain everyone in the gallery turned off their laptops and phones, then gave Edna an awkward thumbs-up.

She formed her fingers into a Shipton Knot, then moved her fists toward the coven. Every third witch sang low as the others swung their pendulums. As Edna watched and listened, she felt the oxycodone smoothing her ragged edges. She was careful to time her dose with the start of the gauntcast. If it was still dissolving, the tablet wouldn’t show.

Her gaze shifted to the cargo. Most of the pallets held home electronics. There were also stacks of flat-pack furniture and over a thousand crates of bicycle parts. As her casters sang the tones, she spoke her right words and shaped the song around the goods. All twelve were singing now, modulating higher as the pendulums kept time. 

Edna’s eyes went silver as the spell gave her truer vision. She saw the auditory material surrounding the cargo. Her voice gave shape to the song, weaving it through all the containers. The voices became one, thirteen witches pulling a single note.

Then, a piece at a time, all the pallets and parts gathered in the air. They moved up and back, trading places and flipping end-over-end until each found its place in the song.

The floating cargo formed a geometric pattern, a three-dimensional mosaic. Edna moved her hands, and the whole lot glided into the containers, pulled along by the auditory thread. Without a scratch or dent, everything fit perfectly. The tessellation was successful.

One at a time, the voices dropped out, leaving only Daniel Santiago’s as he sang the doors shut and sealed them. A Spellbound Services agent in Qingdao would use a jade whistle to open the doors and unpack the goods after the shipment arrived.

There were no sparks or ozone, but everyone in the gallery burst into applause at the spell’s completion.

Robert Bryce walked Edna to her car, carrying the container of pendulums as she rolled her suitcase. “So, you’re back in two weeks?”

Edna used her free hand to check the calendar on her phone. “Yes, it’s here. No fee, that one is part of the service contract.”

Bryce smiled. “I like that.” Her car door popped open, and Edna started piling things into the passenger seat. As she took the pendulums from Bryce, her phone chirped with a text from Madame Isadore. 

“It’s the boss,” Edna said, looking at the message. “I’ve got to get to the office.”

“You guys use text messages?”

“It’s more dependable than telepathy. Plus, there’s a paper trail. See you in a few weeks, Bob.”

Spellbound Services had a small space in a professional building, a few desks and a few doors. The tapestry covering the back wall of the meeting room was the only clue that this place was different from the real estate office down the hall.

Edna walked in and stored the pendulums in the supply cabinet. Antonia was the only person in view, scribbling as a client droned over her headset. She smiled at Edna then motioned toward the meeting room. Edna pointed to herself and the door; Antonia gave her a silent go-ahead. Hearing voices inside, Edna entered slowly. 

Madame Isadore, alone in the room, motioned for Edna to take a seat as she finished up with the vendor on the speakerphone. 

“So, that’s four sets total?” asked the disembodied voice.

“Yes, Martin,” said Madame Isadore. The main table was mostly bare, except for a few boxes and a set of crystals laid out on a piece of lavender flannel. “Four sets of twelve quartz, and each set needs a hardback case. I can have them next week?” 

“Yes. By the way, did you get a chance to look at—”

“Sorry Martin, my next meeting has arrived.” Madame Isadore rolled her eyes and flapped one hand like a bird beak. “Email me the invoice and you can tell me about this other thing in the cover letter, yes?”

“Um, yes. Thanks again. Goodbye, Maria, always nice to talk with you.” 

“And you, Martin. Goodbye.” The speaker phone went quiet. Madame Isadore’s hand hovered over the device.

“Do I need to hang up?” she asked. “Edna, can you make sure this is off?” Edna pulled the speakerphone over and saw they were disconnected. Madame Isadore put the sample crystals back in their cases.

“It’s off,” said Edna. The lift from the oxycodone was fading. She thought about taking another, but for now she would stick to her plan. That meant waiting until tonight.

“Good,” said Madame Isadore. “That man has the best prices, the best things, but he won’t stop talking.” She set the cases aside and found Edna staring at the tapestry behind her chair.

It was easy to get lost inside the flowers and meandering patterns embroidered into the wall-sized affair. Madame Isadore’s voice pulled her out of it. “So, Edna, today went well?”

“Yes,” said Edna, finding her way back into the room. “Daniel Santiago, he’s really stepping up.”

“Good. I am becoming less wary of these warlocks. Slowly, though. I’ve seen too many men use the darker magics. Perhaps my view is ancient, yes? Maybe this is no longer true.”

“The gauntcasts will catch any ink if it’s there,” said Edna.

“This word, ‘ink,’ rather than ‘black magic,’” said Madame Isadore, “it has grown on me. ‘Black magic’ makes people think of the Devil. Stone altars, blood, demons. In truth, it is more subtle.”

“Intent,” said Edna. “Any spell is dark if it’s cast with dark intent. Making a person love you, punishing someone.”

“Or even lies.” Madame Isadore’s tone had changed. “Lies are dark. Yes, I like this word, ‘ink.’ Ink makes stains and ugly spots. Quite often, permanent. ‘Ink’ is a good word.”

Christ, Edna thought, does she know? She knows. Why else would she say that? She tried to spend four times as long exhaling as she spent inhaling. 

Madame Isadore pulled a cedar box to the center of the table. The lid was carved with a herringbone pattern, and a simple bronze hasp held it closed.

“My lace,” said Madame Isadore. The hasp clicked and the lid raised up. The box was full of whole pieces and fragments, mostly white or black, but there were reds and yellows as well. Madame Isadore removed each of them from the box with great care, her thin hands spreading them out on the table. “Old. Older than me if you can imagine such a thing. So intricate, so lovely. Real Spanish lace.” 

She drew a white mantilla across her hands. “Did you know that most of what they call ‘Spanish lace’ was not made in Spain? Any lace that moved through a Spanish port, like Barcelona or Castellon, was called ‘Spanish,’ no matter where it was made. Then they could charge five times more for it, no matter how clumsy or cheap.”

Edna paid close attention, doing her best to breathe, to calm her mind. She felt caught. Madame Isadore unrolled a wide, rose-patterned ribbon. “So, for many years, nearly all of the lace in the world came to Spain first, then to its actual destination.” 

She returned the ribbon to the table, then held up a white scrap with gold highlights. One of her fingers traced the lines. “Of course, real Spanish lace, the pieces we created locally, those were superior. The rest of it was a lie.” Her gaze shifted to Edna. “Hold out your hand.”

Edna reached out an unsteady hand and the white scrap with gold highlights was laid across her palm. It felt like an enormous responsibility. Madame Isadore calmed her. “It’s not as fragile as I make it out to be, dear. Do you like it?” 

The precision, the winding and tensions keeping the strands in place, Edna could sense an energy coming off the scrap. “Yes,” she said. “It’s lovely. I can feel it, the work. It must have taken months.” 

Antonia corrected her. “It took more than a year, Edna Perry.” Edna had no idea she had come into the room. “My thinnest needles. Spool after spool of thread so fine that no one knows how to make it anymore. It felt like I was tugging them forever.”

“This is all that’s left of a lovely shawl Antonia made for a wealthy, terrible woman,” said Madame Isadore. “When this lady got tired of wearing it, she cut it up to make doilies, the fool.” 

Antonia’s eyes narrowed. “She brought the pieces back to me, upset because they were unraveling. She tore the shawl apart and then she wanted her money back.”

“That’s awful,” said Edna.

The Isadore sisters shared a smile. “We returned every last coin, a total refund,” said Madame Isadore, “but the money was disgraced. Bad luck came with it.”

“The disgrace spread, infecting her fortunes,” said Antonia. “Everything she bought turned against her. Expensive meals made her sick. Dresses and makeup made her ugly. Soon, we didn’t see her anymore. It was as if she faded away. We managed to stitch the lace into smaller pieces, cuffs and collars mostly. It didn’t go to waste.” 

“This bit was too small to make anything,” said Madame Isadore, “but it was pretty, so it went in my box.” 

The lace held Edna’s attention as she rotated the scrap in her hand. She was drawn to the pattern, like she was with the tapestry. For a time, no one made a sound.

Then Edna broke the silence. “You know,” she said. “You know all of it and that’s why I’m here. That’s why both of you are here.” It felt like someone else was speaking, giving away her most secret thoughts.

“Yes,” said Antonia, “my sister and I know that something pulls on you, always. A harsh tether. We have been waiting, Edna Perry. Waiting for you to make it better.”

They knew. Everything. A big wave was rising, and Edna couldn’t dive under it.

“When we worked as healers, we saw this in the field army hospitals,” said Madame Isadore. “Later, in the cities, New Orleans, San Francisco, it was the same. And here we are again.” 

“It is the pull of opium, the poppy’s liquor,” said Antonia. “You are not using a pipe or a syringe. You are using tablets in a dainty case, but it is the same. And as you take these pills, you still feel the tugging. You think, ‘How long will it last?’ or ‘When can I get more?’”

“My sister is speaking to you, Edna Perry. Please look at her,” said Madame Isadore. Edna raised her eyes from the lace to its creator.

“The opium, it is the last thing you think of before you sleep. The first thing you think of when you wake.” Antonia paused, seeing something new. “No, even before you wake. Your sleep is filled with calamities. You can no longer dream.”

Madame Isadore pushed a box of tissues to Edna. “Stop crying, dear. You are in our employ, an asset. We do not want to lose you.”

 “I don’t want to be lost. But this is everything I’ve been afraid of. And it’s happening. It’s happening right now.” Edna held the lace tight in one hand as she pulled a tissue with the other.

“Antonia quit two years later, and she cheated for one year more,” said Madame Isadore. “We started speaking again four years after that.” She snapped the thread with her teeth and looked at the object’s edges with critical eyes. “This is good, yes?”

She handed it to Antonia. “Yes, Maria,” she said, scrutinizing. “It is lovely.” With that, Antonia handed what looked like a square sachet to Edna. 

The pill case made a muffled rattle as she took it. The flannel had been sewn around the case with a seam so tight it was invisible. The white and gold lace was inlayed over the lavender background. “It’s beautiful,” said Edna. “Is this a mojo bag?”

The Isadore sisters laughed. “Are you at a carnival?” asked Antonia. “Those are for palm readers. They sell them to fools.” 

“It just keeps your pills,” said Madame Isadore. “That flannel is triple woven, one of the thread runs is waxed. Tough, waterproof, should last forever.”

“Especially with Maria’s stitching,” said Antonia. “You would need something sharp to get it open. But you don’t want to ruin my lace, do you?” 

“No,” said Edna, remembering the fate of the last woman who ruined this lace. “It’s a treasure.”

“And don’t put it through the wash,” said Madame Isadore. “Listen dear, this is over now. And you are still alive. Still employed. Do not flush these pills.”

“No. You must keep them with you, always,” said Antonia.

“I can’t get rid of them?” asked Edna. 

“You can never really be rid of them,” said Antonia. “But you can keep choosing not to take them.”

“Yes. You will have them, like a tattoo, for the rest of your life,” said Madame Isadore. “Refuse their call, see through their lies, and this is how you find power. Peace will come in time, perhaps a long time. But until then, you have us.” 

“You have already stopped taking the opium,” said Antonia. “You stopped hours ago. Starting again, that will be hard. You’ll need scissors, maybe a knife. Or you’ll need to charm some idiot doctor. Then you’ll need to hide the ink as the stains grow. To me, these things sound harder than quitting. Quitting is not doing anything at all.” 

Edna noticed the pendant on Antonia Isadore’s necklace. It was a large, glass teardrop with a platinum bale. There was a bubble moving near the top, as the glass held a tiny bit of liquid inside.

Madame Isadore took Edna’s hand. “So, my strong proud witch, would you like to stay with us tonight?”

Edna had stayed at their big house in the hills twice before, when they had large projects coming that needed materials prepared. It was nice, lots of rooms and history.

“Yes,” said Edna. “Yes, I think I should, thank you.”

That night, Edna dreamt of her childhood. On a school trip to the Botanical Gardens, she saw lizards sunning in the walkways. When her class came nearer, the lizards darted away to the safety of the flowerbeds. As she passed by, each one called her name.

She would sleep six hours in a row, and tomorrow she would wake up hungry for the first time in years. She would tie a string around her neck to let her not-a-mojo-bag hang hidden under her clothes.

Edna Perry was a strong, proud witch. She was scared as hell. 

But she had a chance. Because she wasn’t “without.”