The Amulet

By Katie Gray

“Hexed,” Ariadne pronounced, setting the amulet down on the glass counter.

“Ohh,” sighed her customer. “Are you sure? The man at the market specifically told me it was cursed.”

Ariadne took a deep, reconstituting breath. She had no-one but herself to blame, she reminded herself. She had filled her shop with tinkling wind chimes and scented candles and jewellery, because that was where the money was, and now she attracted this sort.

The amulet was shaped like a beetle, with a shiny brown shell and legs and antenna made out of a metal that looked like gold but definitely wasn’t. If you flipped it over you’d probably find a made in China stamped on the underside.

“Are you certain it isn’t a very low level curse?” said the girl. “Perhaps a grade one curse?”

There it was, that optimistic, obnoxious I’ve read Pearson’s Elementary Magick and now I know it all expression. The girl was blonde, willowy, with a horrendous public school accent, gaudy rings upon all her fingers, and a very fetching sundress that matched her hat.

“Look,” said Ariadne. “I put it through all the standard tests. It’s a hex. Now –” She indicated the sign taped to the front of the counter: amulets, charms, fetishes and tokens assessed, £20.

“It’s just – the line between a high-grade hex and a low-grade curse can be,” the girl clucked her tongue in a condescending manner, “fuzzy. Are you absolutely certain?”

It wasn’t even a high-grade hex. Ariadne drummed her fingers on her counter and thought of her master’s degree in the art of enchantment. She thought of the cup of herbal tea she’d been about to make in the back room. She made a mental note to charge the idiot girl extra and fetched a beaker.

“Look,” she said a few minutes later, the contents of the beaker frothing gently, the amulet suspended inside. “This is a tincture of mandrake and horseradish. Any cursed object would have boiled it and eaten through the glass by now. Do you follow?”

The girl eyed the beaker suspiciously. Leaning across the counter, she sniffed it and primly coughed. “Wellll,” she said. “I suppose you’d know best.”

Ariadne fished out the amulet, tossed it on a square of kitchen roll to dry, and said, “Twenty-five pound, please.”

The girl didn’t argue.

*

            It’d been a quiet day. Ariadne was behind the counter with a murder mystery novel, watching the sunlight creep across the shop. A wind chime tinkled softly in the draft from the back room. When the bell rang, she said, “We’re closing in five,” without bothering to look up.

There was a rattle of metal on glass, followed by a protracted hiss. Ariadne looked up from her book; and at the sight that awaited her, on raw instinct that had nothing to do with her master’s degree and everything to do with millions of years of evolved survival instinct, snatched her feet off the counter.

“How about now?” said the girl, flushed with excitement. “Is it cursed now?”

The beetle amulet sat upon an island in the midst of a frothing, blackening puddle of molten glass and rapidly melting jewellery. There was a soft pop like a lightbulb burning out as an enchanted crystal pendant – one of the nicest pieces in her collection – imploded.

Ariadne said, “Um.”

“I did what the book said!” The smile dropped off the girl’s face, eyes flicking to the mess. “Oh – sorry about your counter.”

Smoke was beginning to rise from the amulet. Its glass eyes were glowing; the metal antenna began to wave. Slowly, not daring to take her eyes off the horror show unfolding next to her till, Ariadne groped behind herself for the fire extinguisher.

“I’ll just –” The girl reached into the ruin of the counter, wincing at the heat. “Get that – there!”

In her hand, the amulet sat inert. She turned it over and her fingers crackled with deep purple sparks. Holding it out to Ariadne, she beamed with pride. Ariadne hefted the fire extinguisher like a shield.

There was nothing in Pearson’s that could teach you how to do that. Smoke was rising more thickly from the counter. Flames had begun to lick her jewellery.

“I need to, um,” she said. “Consult my – books – in the back.” Dropping the extinguisher on the floor with a solid thunk, she turned and bolted into the backroom.

“It is cursed, isn’t it?” the girl called after her. “I did everything the book said!”

Out in the alley, Ariadne skidded on damp concrete and raced past the bins onto the street. At the corner of Ambrose Road and Main Street she looked back at her little shop. She looked at the wind chimes in the window and the display of tarot cards and crystals. She saw dark, purplish smoke spilling down the step.

No, she thought to herself as she turned on her heel and made for the bus station. Not worth it.