Page 2 of The Second Sight (Wanderlust Emporium Presents, Season One)

Chapter

One

KASI

SIX YEARS LATER

Ihadn’t planned on celebrating my twenty-first birthday. Birthdays sucked for obvious reasons, but Brooklyn insisted we do something special. She drug me through the streets of Chicago like someone who refused to let her best friend wallow in grief.

Six years without a mother, and birthdays still felt like reopening a wound that never fully healed.

Brooklyn knew this, which was why she’d shown up at my house that morning with coffee and donuts.

She demanded that I put on something cute for a day of shopping and whatever else twenty-one-year-olds were supposed to do in Chi-town.

“We need to hit at least three more stores,” Brooklyn announced. Her raspy voice cut through the downtown noise as we navigated the crowded sidewalk.

“How about two more?” I offered a compromise that I was sure she was going to ignore.

Her dark eyes rolled, reminding me why we’d been best friends since sixth grade. She was going to force me to get out and have fun. I was going to pretend to have fun. It was a win-win for the both of us.

“Kasi, your current fits are old. You needed new clothes.”

I shifted my shopping bags to my other hand, my shoulders already aching from the weight of all this stuff. “I think four bags of stuff is enough for one day.”

“It’s your twenty-first birthday. We still need to get you a freakum dress.” Brooklyn bumped her hip against mine, nearly sending me into a businessman hurrying past. “Besides, your dad gave me strict instructions to make sure you had fun today.”

My dad, he tried so hard, especially on birthdays and holidays. Six years later, he still left the porch light on every night, just in case she came back. He never said it out loud, but I knew it was for her. I never stayed out late. Well, I rarely stayed out late.

“Fine, it’s whatever.” I sighed, unable to resist Brooklyn’s infectious enthusiasm. “One more store. Then food. I’m starving. We can go back to shopping after I eat something.”

“Yeah, girl, one more store.”

Brooklyn changed the subject and started describing her latest dating disaster.

I found myself smiling despite everything.

That was Brooklyn’s gift. She could distract me out of the darkness when I sank too deep.

Even as I nodded and laughed at all the right moments, I felt the familiar hole in my throat, the space that opened whenever I remembered that SHE wasn’t here to see me turn twenty-one.

She would never see me graduate from college next term. Never meet whomever I might someday marry. Never hold her grandchildren. The weight of all those nevers pressed down on me, momentarily drowning out Brooklyn’s story about the guy who brought his infant daughter to their first date.

“Oh, he got me fucked up if he thinks I’m going to be a stepmother. Damn girl, you not even listening to me. Kasi,” Brooklyn waved her hand in front of my face. “Come back.”

I blinked, forcing myself back to the present. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“About your mama?” Brooklyn’s voice softened, all teasing gone.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. It still felt like yesterday sometimes.

The note. The dream. The knowledge that maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t just left on purpose.

Maybe she had to really run. Just like in the dream.

From what, I still didn’t know. The dreams had stopped after that night, leaving me with more questions than answers and a father who refused to believe his wife was anything but perfect.

“Hey, it’s okay to miss her. But she would want you celebrating today.”

“Would she?” The words came out sharper than I intended.

“I remember her. She had purple hair. Any Black woman confident enough to dye her hair purple loves to party.”

“I guess, but how would I know what she’d want? She left before I even had my driver’s license.”

Brooklyn didn’t flinch at my unsympathetic tone.

She was used to the occasional flash of anger that bubbled up through my grief.

“Kasi, because I knew her too, remember? And your mom loved birthdays. I was at your parties eating like three pieces of your birthday cake. I know she would want you to enjoy your day just the way you used to.”

She was right. Mama had made my birthdays magical.

She served me my favorite breakfast in bed.

She baked elaborate homemade cakes. She came up with backyard treasure hunts, and she went all out for the gift bags.

All the kids wanted an invite to my parties just to get the treats.

Theia was a great mother until she became someone who could vanish into the night.

I took a deep breath, about to apologize, when something across the street caught my eye.

Between a sleek coffee shop and a boutique clothing store stood a storefront that seemed to belong to another century.

A faded red door, weathered by time, sat framed by what looked like black iron branches that twisted up around the wood.

Above it, an arched stained-glass window sparkled in the afternoon light.

I’d never seen anything like it. The stain-glass depicted two Black girls in blue dresses. I had to take a closer look.

“What is it?” Brooklyn asked, following my gaze.

I pointed. “That shop. Was that always there?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Above the strange entrance, old English letters spelled out “Wanderlust Emporium” in faded gold paint. “What’s a Wanderlust Emporium?” The display windows on either side of the door were covered with so much stuff, I couldn’t see inside at all.

“Never heard of it. Look’s weird,” Brooklyn said, squinting across the street. “It looks totally out of place. Like someone dropped a Romanian antique shop in the middle of downtown Chicago.”

She was right. The store was completely out of place. It was nestled between minimalist storefronts with their clean lines and bright lighting. The Emporium looked like it had been plucked from another time.

“Let’s check it out,” I said, already stepping off the curb.

Brooklyn grabbed my elbow. “Wait for the light, birthday girl. I didn’t spend all day shopping with you just to watch you get flattened by a Lyft driver.”

Brooklyn was talking, but I barely heard her. Something about that shop pulled at me. The crosswalk signal changed, and I practically dragged Brooklyn across the street with me.

Up close, the Emporium was even stranger.

The red door’s paint was chipped at the edges, revealing layers of red paint underneath, as if it had been repainted countless times over centuries.

The black iron branches framing the door weren’t decorative metalwork as I’d first thought.

They looked like actual pieces of a metal fence, somehow preserved and incorporated into the door’s facade.

The most beautiful thing was the stained-glass window above the door.

Up close, the little Black girls with rich brown skin and raven-colored hair were perfect in their matching blue dresses.

Their faces peered down at the people who entered the shop.

There was a sadness that matched the single tear they both shed.

One sister was comforting the other. They had to be sisters, maybe even twins.

From across the street, I hadn’t noticed it, but they both had angel wings.

“This place is giving me serious witch vibes,” Brooklyn muttered, eyeing the stained-glass window above the door. “Look at those black angels. Creepy.”

“It’s not creepy. It’s cute. It’s got to be black-owned.” I said.

“Facts. They ain’t putting no Black angels up when they still making Jesus pale-colored.”

“This is probably the only place on this street we can shop without being followed around the store.”

“Well, now that’s double facts. But this place doesn’t match anything else on this block,” Brooklyn continued, gesturing at the surrounding stores. “How have we never noticed it before? We come downtown all the time.”

I didn’t consider a half a dozen times a year as all the time, but I don’t think this place was here before. I placed my hand on the doorknob, and I could have sworn it vibrated slightly beneath my palm.

“Maybe it’s new,” I suggested, though even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t true. Nothing about this shop looked new. It felt ancient, like it had stood here for centuries while the city grew up around it.

Brooklyn snorted. “Yeah, right. Someone just built a haunted Victorian shop overnight. Makes total sense.”

I turned to her, my hand still on the doorknob. “We have to go in.”

“Ah, miss ma’am, do we though?” Brooklyn eyed the building skeptically. “It looks like the kind of place where they kidnap underage girls to ship them to other countries for sex-trafficking.”

“Good thing neither of us qualifies then,” I said with a half-smile. “We are not underage.”

Brooklyn rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress her laugh. “Fine. But if some creepy old dude tries to read our palms or sell us a voodoo doll, we outta there.”

“Deal,” I agreed, turning back to the door.

My heart pounded as I twisted the knob. It turned with surprising ease. The door swung inward and a bell chimed over my head. A wave of scents washed over me, old books, dried herbs, beeswax, and something else I couldn’t identify.

Before I could second-guess myself, I stepped across the threshold. Brooklyn was close behind me. The door closed behind us with a soft click that sounded somehow final, like the period at the end of a sentence.

We were inside the Wanderlust Emporium, and somehow, I knew nothing would ever be the same again. I just didn’t know how I knew it. I just did.

The interior of the Emporium swallowed us whole.

After the bright sunshine outside, my eyes needed a moment to adjust to the dim light that filled the space.

Tiny beams of light came in from high windows I hadn’t noticed from the street.

Brooklyn coughed beside me, but I barely noticed.

She was allergic to dust. Going into a thrift store could send her into anaphylactic shock.

I was trying to take in everything at once. There were towering shelves that stretched toward the ceiling, and narrow pathways between displays of objects I couldn’t even begin to identify. This stuff was old as the dirt dinosaurs walked on.

“Jesus,” Brooklyn whispered beside me. “It’s bigger in here than it looks from outside.”

She was right. The shop seemed to extend impossibly far back.

The rear wall looked like it was a block away.

Antique brass lamps with green glass shades cast pools of warm light throughout the space, illuminating collections of various things.

Every surface was covered with strange vintage gadgets and thingamajigs.

“Hello, ladies.”

The commanding but serene voice came from the center of the shop, where a wooden counter stood like an island in a sea of organized chaos.

Behind the island stood a woman, tall and regal with dark skin that seemed to glow in the amber light.

Her hair was a crown of silver coils, and she wore a flowing dress in deep purple that rustled when she moved.

Something about her made my heart stutter.

It wasn’t fear exactly, but recognition.

Which was impossible. I’d never seen this woman before. I would’ve remembered her.

“Welcome to the Emporium,” she continued, like she was singing instead of talking. “I’m Moira. And you are?”

Brooklyn nudged me when I didn’t respond. “Hi. I’m Kasinda. This is Brooklyn.” Why did I tell her my full first name?

Moira’s dark eyes locked with mine, and for a moment, I could have sworn they flashed with some hidden emotion. Maybe surprise, perhaps, or satisfaction. But it was gone so quickly I might have imagined it. Plus, if it was hidden, I couldn’t have seen it.

“Look around,” she said, gesturing with elegant hands adorned with silver rings. “See if anything speaks to you.”

The phrasing struck me as odd. Not “catches your eye” or “interests you,” but “speaks to you.” As if the objects here in the shop had voices of their own.

“Thank you, ma’am. Come on,” Brooklyn whispered, tugging at my sleeve. “Let’s look around.”