From across the store came my mother’s oblivious “Solid black, right?” I turned to see her hair color shifting as she touched the invoked sample amulets. Her hair was exactly like mine. Sort of. I kept mine long, the wild, frizzy red just past my shoulders, instead of in the close cut she used to tame hers. But our eyes were the same green, and I had her same skill in earth magic, fleshed out and given a professional stamp at one of the local colleges. She had more education than I did, actually, but had few opportunities to use it. Halloween had always been a chance for her to show off her considerable earth magic skills to the neighboring moms with a modest vengeance, and I think she appreciated me asking for her help this year. She had been doing great these last few months, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was doing better because I was spending more time with her, or if she simply appeared more stable because I wasn’t seeing her just when she was having problems.

Guilt slithered through me, and giving Jenks a glare at his song about big-busted ladies tying their shoes, I wove through the stands of herbs and racks sporting premade charms, each having a distinctive sticker identifying who had made it. Charm crafting was still a cottage industry despite the high level of technology available to smooth out the rough spots, but one tightly regulated and vigorously licensed. The owner of the store probably only crafted a few of the spells she sold.

At my mother’s direction, I held each sample amulet in turn so she could evaluate my appearance. The clerk ooohed and ahhed, trying to push us into making a decision, but my mom hadn’t helped me with my costume in years, and we were going to make an evening out of it, ending with coffee and dessert at some overpriced coffeehouse. It wasn’t that I ignored my mom, but my life tended to interfere. A lot. I’d been making an effort over the last three months to spend more time with her, trying to ignore my own ghosts and hoping that she wouldn’t be so…fragile, and she hadn’t looked this good in a while. Which convinced me I was a crappy daughter.

Finding the right hair color was easy, and I nodded when my red curls turned a black so deep they were almost gunmetal-blue. Satisfied, I dropped a packaged, uninvoked amulet into the basket to hide the bust enhancer.

“I’ve a charm at home to straighten your hair,” my mother said brightly, and I turned wonderingly to her. I’d found out in fourth grade that over-the-counter charms wouldn’t touch my curls. Why on earth did she still have the difficult-to-make charms? I hadn’t straightened my hair in ages.