A Practical Guide to Sorcery for Night-Shift Workers novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Night Shift
The line on the back of the photograph said, "Stop apologizing. Go teach somebody."
He taped it inside the kitchen cupboard, next to the tea.
On the second Tuesday in March, at 10:50 at night, we stood together in front of Meeting Room 2 and unlocked the door.
The lamp wall was dark.
The long table was set with a dozen chairs.
A brass plaque had been screwed to the doorframe overnight.
It read, in small clean letters, "Instructors: A. Corday, R. Novotny."
"I didn't ask for that," I said.
"I did," said Anselm. "Duane delivered it himself."
They came in at ten to eleven, shaking the cold from their coats.
A hospice aide in blue scrubs.
A delivery driver with a thermal bag.
A line cook who still smelled of onions, and a security guard, and a woman in a hairnet who yawned through the whole first minute.
Winona came last, in her purple vest, with two Thermoses.
She sat down in the back row and put her blue glasses on.
"I'm auditing," she said. "I'll be heckling, and I'll be warm."
I looked down the table at eleven gray faces.
I knew every one of them.
They had worked all day, or all night, or both, and they had come anyway.
Someone had told them that a paper from the county meant a raise.
"Good evening," Anselm said. "I'm Anselm Corday. This is Reya Novotny."
"Welcome to Practical Sorcery for Working Adults. Nobody here is going to set anything on fire tonight."
Winona snorted.
"A cast is three things," he went on. "A breath, a phrase, and open hands."
"And a fourth," I said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of A Practical Guide to Sorcery for Night-Shift Workers are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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