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Behind the Curtain  Behind the Curtain is a story about two friends meeting for the first time. It’s also about a copper kettle simmering on the stove, a gentle approach to tip people toward kindness and cinnamon sticks and sliced apples. I stood with my elbows on the counter and my chin in my hands looking out through the shop window as the daylight faded and the stars began to appear. On the bricks of the building opposite a vast maple vine had climbed from the street nearly to the second floor and its leaves were a bright ruby red that glowed under the street lamp. “I think I should put the kettle on,” I said aloud and heard a soft, agreeing meow from the back room behind the curtain. We were alone in the shop after a busy day. It was that time of year but I hadn’t closed up yet and I had a feeling I knew why. Someone was coming. It was about to be someone’s first visit to my shop. I turned and parted the black curtain that hung behind the counter and stepped into my workshop. I had an old scrubbed pine table where I mixed herb preparations and tea. In fact, I had the regular weekly order for the tea shop wrapped up and ready to be delivered tomorrow. Beside the table there was a stove with a large copper kettle set on top, already full of water and just waiting to be warmed. I rubbed my hands together in front of me, building a bit of heat between my palms then turned on the gas and snapped my fingers close to the burner. A small spark jumped from my fingertips and lit the flame. I smiled to myself and adjusted the burner. I’d come a long way since that day a few Octobers past when I met my mail carrier on the front step of my house and been handed a package wrapped in paper. I remember still a feeling of awe and recognition as I peeled back the wrapping and held my grandmother’s book in my hands. How she had gotten it to me so many years after she was gone herself, I still didn’t know. But her timing had been right. I was ready for it when it came. When I thought of her, it was always with her book in her hands or propped up on a stand on the counter or set on her bedside table .. ready for her to record her dreams in when she woke. It was a family grimoire handed down through the generations. It held entries from as far back as my five times great grandmother, most of which were indecipherable to me - though I was still very glad it was there. That same day when I started to learn about who I was and how to work as others had, it wasn’t just the book that had come to me .. a small grey cat had arrived at my back door and scratched to be let in. She both couldn’t be (but definitely was) the same cat who had slept at the foot of grandmothers bed and sunned herself among the Azaleas in her garden. Grandmother had called her cat Cinder and so she was still called. She watched over me as I charted the movements of the moon and worked my first spells. Everyone has their own gifts and mine were mostly of intuition. A sudden flash of knowing would hit me, like it had just now, sending me to put the kettle on to boil. Over the years, like training a muscle, my intuition had gotten stronger and I found I could be in the right place at the right time to help someone or tip the balance toward good. To nudge someone to check on a neighbour or set the wheels in motion for a dream to grow. I was sure most of these things would have eventually happened on their own. I thought of myself not as pulling strings but just as one clearing a path so that the obstacles blocking most peoples best instincts were lessened. A stone with a hole in it might be left at the edge of a river for the next person mud larking there. The six of cups tucked into a book and left on a shelf in a little library at just the right moment to fall into just the right hands. When Cinder brought home a little orphaned orange kitten and set her in my lap, I knew just the home for her and watched over until she was safe inside. Most people in our little village had no idea I was here, working quietly in the background to make our days just a bit softer and sweeter. And that was just how I liked it. I stood beside the stove as the kettle got closer to singing and added a touch more water to the simmer pot beside it. I started one each day when I opened the shop and lately had drawn ingredients from the orchard, fresh cut apples and cinnamon sticks, some cloves. But today I was simmering cinquefoil, lavender and rose hips. There was a prickle at the back of my neck and I turned and peeked through the curtain into the shop. Out on the sidewalk a woman stood seemingly in a trance. The full moon was reflected in her glasses and I recognized her face. She’d come close to finding us before but had never made it all the way to the door. “Look this way” I said aloud, and in that moment someone in a hurry to cross the street bumped into her and spun her toward our sign. “Thank you” I said. I watched her taking in the sign, the door in the front window freshly stocked with candles, herbs and a hand me down but valuable scrying bowl. If my gift was intuiting and maybe a bit of prescience, I could feel that hers was for healing. In a flash of understanding I knew hers was the house in the neighbourhood whose door was knocked on when a baby squirrel fell from its nest. She would take the box, carry it inside and nurse till the creature was ready to venture back into the branches. Scraped knees or broken hearts, elders who’d lost themselves or friends worn out by the long grey days of winter. She was the one who reached out. She would have the gift of the cool touch of mothers hands on a hot forehead, the soft voice that would ease another to relax. She did all sorts of healing and I was already eager to meet her, to pour her a cup of tea and tell her my own story to help her realize hers. I reached up to a top shelf to bring down a few teacups and sorted through the blends to find one that would open her eyes and ears even more as we talked. Cinder wove through my ankles, excited as well at the proximity of such warm, lovely magic. We heard the door open and close and I slipped out from behind the curtain to welcome our guest. Nothing Much Happens |
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