Aria took a deep breath and faced the store in front of her, the reason she’d come. YE OLDE MYSTICK SPIRIT SHOPPE, said the calligraphy on the awning. There was a neon pentacle in the window and a green sign on the door that read TAROT CARDS, PALM READINGS, PAGAN, WICCAN, CURIOS. And underneath that, SEANCES AND OTHER PSYCHIC SERVICES OFFERED HERE. INQUIRE INSIDE.
After Aria’s talk with Byron yesterday, she’d become more and more convinced that they’d seen Ali’s ghost. It made so much sense—for months, Aria had sworn someone had been watching her, looming near her old bedroom window, peeking out of the thick woods, ducking out of sight around a corner at Rosewood Day. In some of those instances, the girl might’ve been Mona Vanderwaal, collecting secrets as A . . . but maybe not always. What if Ali had something to tell Aria and the others about the night she died? Wasn’t it their duty to listen?
Bells tinkled as she entered. The shop smelled like patchouli, probably from the sticks of incense that smoldered in every corner. Crystal amulets, apothecary bottles, and dragon-inscribed chalices lined the shelves.
A radio was perched on a shelf behind the register, tuned to the news. “The Rosewood police are investigating the cause of the fire that decimated ten acres of suburban woods and almost killed Rosewood’s Pretty Little Liars,” the WKYW reporter squawked, the sound of typing in the background.
Aria let out a low growl. She hated their new nickname. It made them sound like deranged Barbie dolls.
“In related news,” the reporter added, “the police are teaming up with the FBI to broaden the search for Miss DiLaurentis’s alleged killer, Ian Thomas. There’s also some discussion over whether Mr. Thomas had accomplices. More to come after this short break.”
Someone cleared his throat, and Aria looked up. A balding guy in his twenties in a vest made out of what looked like horsehair was slumped by the register. HI, I’M BRUCE, said his name tag. RESIDENT WITCH. There was a musty, ornately bound book in his lap, and he was studying her as if he thought she might shoplift. Aria backed away from the table of ritual oils and gave him a sweet smile.
“Uh, hi.” Aria’s voice cracked. “I’m here for the seance. It starts in fifteen minutes, right?” She’d found a seance schedule on the store’s website.
The shopkeeper flipped a page, looking bored. He slid a clipboard across the table. “put your name on the list. It’s twenty bucks.”
Aria rifled through her yak-fur bag and scraped together a couple of limp bills. Then she leaned over and wrote her name on the sign-in sheet. Three other people had registered for today’s event.
“Aria?”
She jumped and looked up. Standing next to a wall of voodoo talismans was a boy in a Rosewood Day blazer, a yellow rubber Rosewood Day lacrosse bracelet circling his wrist, and a huge, pleased smile on his face.
“Noel?” Aria sputtered. Noel Kahn was her brother’s best friend, the typicalest Typical Rosewood Boy she’d ever met, and just about the last person she’d ever expect to see in a place like this. Back in sixth and seventh grade, when being popular mattered, Aria had had a huge crush on Noel—but of course he was crazy for Ali instead. Everyone loved Ali. Irony of ironies, the moment she’d stepped off the plane from Iceland at the beginning of this year, Noel had been all over her, suddenly finding her exotic instead of kooky. Or maybe he finally noticed she had boobs.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Noel drawled. He strolled up to the counter and scrawled his name below hers on the seance sign-in sheet.
“You’re going to a seance?” Aria squeaked incredulously.
Noel nodded, examining a set of tarot cards with a half-naked sorceress on the front. “Seances rock. Have you listened to any Led Zeppelin? They were obsessed with the dead. I heard they got their song lyrics from Satan worshippers.”
Aria stared at him. Led Zeppelin was Noel and Mike’s latest craze. The other day, Mike had asked Byron if he had an old copy of Led Zeppelin IV on vinyl—he wanted to play “Stairway to Heaven” backward and listen for secret messages.
“Anyway, now that you’re here, it’s getting me closer to a hot girl, isn’t it?” Noel snickered lasciviously. “And hey, maybe if this works, you’ll come to my hot tub party Thursday night.”
Aria’s skin felt like it was crawling with leeches. The various skull talismans lined up on a nearby shelf were leering at her. Behind the counter, the shopkeeper smiled mysteriously, like he was keeping a secret. What was Noel really doing here? Had someone from the Rosewood press put him up to this, asking him to follow Aria around and report her every move? Or maybe this was a prank thought up by some of the lacrosse boys. In sixth grade, before Ali had welcomed Aria into her exclusive clique, kooky Aria had been relentlessly teased by girls and guys alike.
Noel picked up a phallic purple candle, then put it down again. “So I guess you’re here because of Ali?”
The patchouli incense was beginning to clog Aria’s sinuses. She gave a noncommittal shrug.
Noel looked at Aria carefully. “So did you see her in the woods?”
“It’s none of your business,” Aria snapped, looking around for hidden cameras or recorders nestled among the boxes of clove cigarettes. That seemed like just the kind of question a Rosewood reporter would encourage him to ask.
“Okay, okay,” Noel said defensively. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
The shopkeeper slammed his book shut with a whump. “The medium says you can go in now,” he proclaimed, parting a bead curtain at the back of the store.