The tinkling of a tiny bell attached to the door announced the arrival of a group of teenage girls. A cold burst of air entered with them, carrying with it the smell of freshly fallen snow. The girls pointed at the objects for sale in the store, giggling at the more bizarre items on display like the shrunken heads and voodoo dolls.

"Oh my god, check it out," one of the girls said. "They have love potions!"

Dru glanced up from the Nursing textbook she had propped up against the checkout counter and snorted as the girls crowded around the "Love" display her mother had set up near the window. Her mother may have been a witch, but she was also a smart business woman. Nothing drew in the customers like the promise of making your crush fall in love with you on Valentine's Day.

"Sarah, get this one," suggested the tallest of the girls, pointing a mittened hand at the bottles of love potion. "Maybe it will help get Matt to notice you!"

The girl named Sarah frowned. "I don't know-"

"Oh come on, it can't hurt," her other friend added, tossing her blue woolen scarf over her shoulder as she picked up the bottle of love potion and placed it in Sarah's palm. "We don't want you to be alone today. We feel bad that we've all got boyfriends and you don't."

That's great, Dru thought, make the girl feel like she's ruining your day by being single. Turning the page, she tried to focus on the graph. She sighed. Nothing said alone like studying for a test while working the late shift at your mother's magic store on Valentine's Day. Her mother had a big date planned with some lawyer she'd been seeing lately, which left Dru to cover her shift.

Sarah shuffled over to the register, the bottle of love potion clutched in her hand. Her face reddened as she placed it on the counter.

Dru gave her a kind smile. "It's okay to be alone, you know. You don't have to buy this if you don't want to."

Sarah glanced over her shoulder at the girls who stood waiting at the door. "It's okay," she said morosely. "I want to. It works, right?"

"Of course," Dru lied. She didn't have the heart to tell the girl that most of the items for sale in the shop were cleverly packaged fakes. They stored all of the real stuff in the back, out of the reach of the thrill seeking tourists and inept novices. Magic is not a power to play with her mother always said.

Dru rang up the transaction, slipped the bottle into a small brown paper bag, and handed it to Sarah. The girl hurried to rejoin her friends, and the group of girls exited the shop. Dru watched them leave, shaking her head. There had been a time when she'd been like Sarah, desperate not to feel lonely and eager to please. Now, at twenty-one, she embraced her independence.

She peered at the grandfather clock against the wall and saw that it was five minutes to six. In just a few more minutes, she'd be able to close shop and head home. Curling up with a steaming mug of chamomile tea and reviewing her medical drug uses and side effects flashcards were the only two items on her agenda once she left the store for her apartment a few blocks away.

At 5:59 PM, she grabbed the keys to lock up and shuffled to the door. Just as she reached it, a man appeared on the other side and entered. The man appeared to be near her age, and his dark brown hair was covered with a fine dusting of white snowflakes. He rubbed his hands together and blew on them, his entire body trembling. The man hadn't dressed for the weather as evidenced by his lack of a coat, hat, gloves, or snow boots. Dru felt cold just looking at him and found herself drawing the sleeves of her cable-knit sweater over her hands.

Annoyed to have a customer arrive just as she was closing up shop, she forced a retail smile. "Sorry, sir, but we're closing now."

The man didn't seem to hear her, his eyes quickly scanning the shelves. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, sending a shower of snowflakes floating to the ground. "What is all this junk?"

"Excuse me?"

He stomped over to the "Potion Ingredients" section and jabbed a finger at the packages. "Eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog! Do people seriously buy this? Haven't they ever read Shakespeare? No self-respecting magic shop would sell these."

Dru's brow furrowed, angry on her mother's behalf. She adjusted her glasses and straightened her spine. "Perhaps you didn't hear me before. We're closed."

"Look, I'm out of Winter's Thumb and crushed butterfly wings, and I need to use them tonight. Do you have any?"

"We do," Dru admitted through gritted teeth, her retail smile fading fast. "We also don't keep stuff like that out in the open where just anyone can pick it up." She gave him a pointed look.

"You must not do a whole lot of repeat business if this is how you treat customers," he muttered under his breath. He leaned against a shelf, his warm brown eyes examining Dru from head to toe. A smile formed on his lips. "What do you need from me? A criminal background check? My blood?"

He's trying to be charming, Dru thought with a roll of her eyes. She despised charming. Over the years, she'd found the words "charming" and "arrogant beyond belief" tended to go hand in hand. He probably thought she hadn't heard his snide remark about her customer service skills. If he thought flirting with her was going to get him what he wanted, he was in for disappointment. "Don't be so dramatic. Tell me what you need the Winter's Thumb and butterfly wings for, and I'll go get them for you." She had a pretty good idea what he wanted them for but was hoping she was wrong.

The man paused, a look of guilt flashing across his face. "I need them to make a potion to counteract another potion."

"Gee, could you be any more vague?"

"It's a little embarrassing," he said, his tone self-deprecating. "Can't a beautiful girl like you help a poor bloke out?"

 Dru couldn't believe he was still trying to flirt with her. She decided to ignore the "beautiful girl" comment. She tossed her braided ponytail over her shoulder. "I can only sell the ingredients to you if I know what you're going to use them for," she stated, folding her arms over her chest.

The man opened his mouth to speak but snapped it shut when a woman's voice wailed, "Levi!"

All of the color drained from the man's face. "She's here," he whispered, terror in his eyes.

"Who?"

"Please, you have to give me the ingredients."

The bell attached to the door rang merrily, and Dru turned to tell whoever it was that they were closed. A young woman dressed in a salmon colored dress which hugged her ample curves stood at the entrance, her arms outstretched toward the man. With her gleaming blonde hair pulled into an elegant chignon and a strand of white pearls at her throat, the woman looked as if she belonged at an art gallery opening.

"Levi, I've been looking for you everywhere. I haven't slept or ate since you left me," the woman said, stumbling in her matching pink heels as she walked toward him, her stride unnatural, as if her legs were moving against her will. She reached for Levi, attempting to pull him into her arms.

Levi backpedaled, bumping into the love display in his haste. The bottles of love potion fell to the ground, the glass breaking into jagged pieces and the red liquid inside them spreading across the wood floor like blood.

"I gave her a love potion," he shouted to Dru as he scrambled to keep the rest of the bottles from falling. "I made it too strong. She's completely obsessed with me. If she's not with me every second of the day, she goes crazy. I need to give her the antidote. Get the ingredients, please!"

Dru gasped. "That's awful! How could you do such a thing?"

"I'm a horrible person, I know. Can you help me now and scold me later?"

Dru took one look at the woman's blue eyes and saw they were rimmed by an unnatural golden light. To the untrained eye, it may have seemed the woman's eyes were shining with love as she tried to pull Levi into a close embrace but Dru recognized the glow for what it really was, the effect of a powerful love potion.  She darted into the back room and gathered the required ingredients before returning to the front of the store. Scooping a bowl from the shelf behind the counter, she measured out the crushed butterfly wings and poured the bottle of Winter's Thumb over them. The potion sizzled for a moment before turning pure white. Grabbing a spoon from underneath the counter, she mixed together the dust from the butterfly wings with the liquid Winter's Thumb until the mixture was fully combined.

Holding the bowl with both hands, she rushed around the counter, doing her best not to slosh any of the contents on the floor. Levi now stood trapped against a shelf, the woman twining her long arms around his neck while also rubbing her pantyhose clad leg up and down his calf as she pressed the full length of her body against his. Resisting the urge to gag at the image, Dru pulled the woman off of Levi.

"No," the woman protested. "He's mine! You can't have him."

"I don't want him," Dru said. She forced the bowl up against the woman's lips before she could say another word. Surprised, the woman swallowed the liquid mixture.

Slowly, the golden light left her eyes as she stepped away from Levi. She frowned in confusion as she took in the sight of the items for sale in the shop. Her forehead crinkled when she read the labels of the bottles on the shelf nearest to her. Dru watched as the woman's nose wrinkled with distaste as she wordlessly mouthed the words "dragon's blood" and "salamander eggs." 

"Caitlin?" Levi asked, his voice hesitant as he tapped the woman on the shoulder.

The woman blinked. "Yes, I'm Caitlin. Sorry, do I know you?"

"No," Levi said with a sigh of relief. "No, you don't."

"Oh," Caitlin said. She glanced down at her watch. "I'm late! I'm supposed to meet my boyfriend for dinner." Without another word, she left the shop.

Levi watched her go before turning his gaze to Dru. "Whew, am I glad that's over. How did you know which potion to make?"

"Nothing cures a lovesick fool like a little dose of Cold Reality," Dru said, naming the potion she'd created. She strode over to the cash register. "That will be $15.75 for the ingredients. No charge for saving your ass."