Bennet Jones, a high school senior who finds a magical bottle of ink

Ahhh, it’s a beautiful Friday afternoon. School is over for the week, Saturday’s almost here, and… you’re bored as hell. None of your friends are online yet and having already completed all your homework, you have pretty much nothing to do. Usually, you’d be quite content with just sitting down and wasting a few hours in front of the TV, but something about the beams of sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows of your two story home has filled you with the spirit of adventure, so you decide to venture outside and take a walk. Who knows, maybe you’ll find something interesting.

Exiting your house, you begin walking down your city's main thoroughfare. Small groups of people litter the sidewalk around you, entering and exiting the various assortments of shops and restaurants that line the street. It really is a beautiful afternoon, and you can hear birds chirping in the background, juxtaposed by the low rumble of vehicles as they cruise along the road. You see a liquor store and almost consider going in, but… nah. You’re not 21 yet and the fake ID you keep hidden in your wallet has seen better days. You don’t want to risk it. But… hmm, what’s this?

Across the street from the liquor store, nestled in between a Dollar General and a hair salon, is a shop you’ve never seen before. The sign looks old, slightly faded, but you can still easily make out the name:

“Madame Esmeralda's Enchanting Antiques”.

You’re not an antique collector or anything, but still… Something about the quaint shop fills you with intrigue. Hurriedly crossing the street, you hesitate for a moment in front of the building, before slowly pushing open the door and stepping inside.

As you enter, the smell of aged wood and sawdust fills your nostrils. The oaken door slides closed behind you, the resulting thud echoing throughout the shop. Your eyes struggle to adjust to the dim light of the store, and you slowly start making heads and tails of your surroundings - these are antiques, alright. Wooden chairs, tables and all other classifications of furniture litter the area, not to mention the various carvings and souvenirs that populate the shelves and display cabinets surrounding you. On your left, a massive closet filled with dozens of articles of clothing stands gathering dust, whilst on your right, a large wooden statue of a bear towers menacingly, claws outstretched and ready to attack.

You can barely see the register from where you stand, hidden behind multiple massive clothes dressers, but as you make your way further into the shop you manage to spot an old woman reading a magazine seated behind the cash box. She hasn’t seemed to notice you, so you cough loudly into your hand and she perks up.

“Why hello, young man! What can I get you?”

Her voice is raspy, no doubt due to her age. You hesitate for a moment before answering: “I’m, uh, not sure. Just looking, I guess.” The old woman nods passively before putting her magazine away, her gray matted hair stirring the dust in the air as she stands up. “Well, if you figure it out, I’ll be here!” she chirps, leaning against the countertop and eyeing you with a gaze that you can’t describe.

You thank her before taking another look around. Sans the furniture and clothing, there’s actually some pretty cool stuff in here! You spot multiple items of interest: a wooden toy rifle leaning idly against the wall, an impressive collection of old hunting knives locked and sealed within a surprisingly modern display cabinet; not to mention the wide array of taxidermy littering the shop.

“Some of this stuff is pretty interesting,” you muse, almost to yourself. “Kind of impractical, but I get why people are into these kinds of things.”

“Impractical?” the old woman asks quizzically.

“Well, yeah. A lot of this stuff is cool, but they’re… well, novelties, more than anything.”

The old woman laughs. “Oh, my boy! These items are much more than novelties. They’ve been handcrafted by my people for generations!”

“Generations?” you question wryly, motioning towards an inert Big Mouth Billy Bass. “Your people have been making those for generations?”

The woman giggles, shaking her head. “Okay, maybe not the fish, but a lot of this stuff really is a lot older than you might expect. And, some of these items,” she whispers, winking at you, “are magical.”

You scoff. Magical? What kind of sucker does this lady think you are?

“I can tell you don’t believe me,” she says, reading your expression. “But what I say is true. C’mere, look at this.”

You watch as the old woman begins to unclasp the necklace she’s wearing. Placing it on the table, she invites you to take a closer look. It’s an aesthetically pleasing necklace to be sure, a bright red stone framed within a golden cast, but beauty in itself isn’t magical.

“This necklace,” the old woman whispers, her wrinkled arm pulling you closer, “Is imbued with the blessing of good health. I’ve worn it for many years, and have never once suffered an injury whilst it has sat upon my neck. If that’s not magical, what is?”

Unimpressed by the dubious claim, you roll your eyes. “And let me guess, you want me to buy it, right?”

“Of course not! I wouldn’t give it up for the world. Good health is priceless, you know.”

She cackles heartily at your confused expression. “But, if you are here to spend money, I might just have something that’ll strike your fancy!”

The old woman places the necklace on the countertop as she turns away from you, crouching behind the register and scouring through a number of cabinets. After a while she pops her head up, raising what seems to be a novelty lighter in the air.

“You smoke, kid?”

“Uh… no?” you reply, taken aback. Does she really take you for a smoker? You aren’t sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult, but the old woman simply shrugs and returns to the cabinets. After another short wait her head once again bobs up from behind the register, and she slowly stands up, grabbing at her back and cursing under her breath.

“Sorry, I can’t move like I used to,” she mutters, before revealing a small ring box and placing it onto the countertop. “How about this? You got a girlfriend?”

Jeez, what’s with all the personal questions? You almost feel compelled to lie, but you also have no reason to impress this random old lady. “No, I don’t. Not anymore,” you reply exhausted, and the old woman gives you a tiny smirk.

“Ahhhh, there's a story there, I'd bet. Alright, then. How about a sweetheart? Or a… ‘crush’, or however you kids put it?”

You consider the question. One particularly beautiful face comes to mind. Charlotte Amely. You’ve been interested in her for a long time… but so has every other boy in the 12th grade.

“Yes, I do. Look, is this going anywhere?” You ask, sighing loudly.

“Well, this ring here is imbued with the power of love. Guaranteed to make any relationship last, or your money back!” She smiles, opening the ring box and pushing it towards you. “Well, actually, we only take refunds for the first 30 days. But that’s about as long as you kids date for nowadays, isn't it?”

You push the ring box back towards the old woman. “I’m not about to propose to my crush,” you say, bewildered.

“Tough customer, eh?” The old woman nods, closing the ring box. “Well, in any case, I’m just saying. You can find a lot of items like these laying around the shop. Go ahead! Search for something you like.”

You nod skeptically and step away from the register. As you walk around, many more items capture your eye, although most end up just being simple baubles and trinkets; ornate pen holders, whittled statuettes, even a couple of snow globes that likely haven’t been shaken in years, covered in a layer of dust so thick you can write your name in it. If these are in any way magical, you can’t imagine they’d do anything useful.

After a while, the onslaught of embellished wooden crap begins to wear you down, and so you resort to disinterestedly opening cabinets and drawers, finding most to be empty, until…

You notice one of the drawers in a seemingly older cabinet is jammed shut. You lightly strike the side of the oaken container, hoping not to alert the old woman, and to your surprise, the drawer flies open on the next tug. Peering into the box you notice a lone item, toppled over on its side and covered in a thick layer of grime.

Unsure of the object’s identity, you carefully lift it out of the drawer, accidentally covering your fingers in dust which you promptly wipe off on your jeans. After a moment's inspection, you find that the item is a glass jar filled to the brim with some sort of dark liquid. Shaking it around, you determine that the black substance appears to be… ink. Writing ink, to be exact. Now this is something that you’re into!

A while back you had tried learning calligraphy art for a school project, and having really enjoyed it you’d been steadily improving your craft ever since. Turns out good ink is hard to come by, so finding a bottle of what appears to be high quality stuff is a welcome surprise.

Eyeing the jar itself, you notice a faded paper label emblazoned across the front, but you find the light in the shop is too dim for you to read it. Gripping the jar, you walk up to the register and display the ink to the old woman.

“How much is this?”

The old woman glances at the jar and immediately freezes. Her eyes seem to glaze over as she begins trembling, her passive smile fading from her face.

“Wh-where did you find that?” she interrogates, her voice wavering. You notice beads of sweat forming on her forehead, and her crazed eyes seem to be twitching.

“Uh, just over in one of the dressers,” you explain, confused by the sudden shift in the woman’s demeanor. “I’m really into calligraphy, I think I’d like-“

“Not for sale!” the woman abruptly shrieks, grabbing at the jar. You barely manage to dodge the attempt as her arm sweeps the air in front of you.

“What? Why!?” you ask, stumbling backwards.

“Too dangerous!” the woman yells, stepping out from behind the register. She once again lunges at you, and she’s about to grab your arm, when…

Time seems to slow down. The old woman’s left foot suddenly hooks onto the leg of a wooden hat rack and her frail body sails, airborne, past you. You watch in horror as her head cracks against a clothes dresser with a deafening thud.

The room goes silent and you stare in shock as the woman lays on the ground, motionless.

Oh, shit.

Is she dead? What the fuck just happened?

Hesitantly moving closer, you grab the woman’s shoulder and jostle it slightly. She doesn’t stir, but you can tell from the consistent heaving of her chest that she’s still breathing. You sigh in relief as you once again attempt to wake her up, but it’s to no avail. She’s out like a light.

You think back to a first aid training course you had taken a couple years prior. Breathing check is first, step two is to… have her adopt a safety position? Or, no, call 911. That seems like a much better option.

Pulling out your phone, you quickly hit the emergency call button and soon enough an operator is on the other end, talking you through what to do. Luckily, there’s a hospital only a couple blocks away, so it’s just a matter of time before the old woman is on a stretcher, being loaded into an ambulance.

As she’s being fitted with an oxygen mask, you figure now is as good a time as any to share your contact information with one of the paramedics. Hopefully the hospital will call you later and let you know how the old lady ends up, you’d really hate to be left in the dark about this.

Eventually the ambulance leaves, and you decide that you really need to head back home. This day did not turn out how you expected it to, and whatever history that old woman had with the ink is none of your business.

You’re about to push open the door to the shop, when something catches the corner of your eye. Lying uselessly by the register, shimmering with untapped purpose…

Is the necklace of the old woman, unclasped and unworn.

“That would’ve come in handy,” you mutter sadly, as you open the aged door and head outside.