There is a shop with incongruous architecture, gnarled mossy wood tucked in between a pink stucco nail salon ("Gel manicures!") and a similarly stucco but painted blue record store ("BUY - SELL - TRADE").

Ooh, a store that is antique. Is it also an antique store? What has it got in its windows?

The windows are actually really hard to see through, they have a smoky stained quality and also the pieces of glass are really small. The mullions between each little smeary glass diamond look real, not decorative.

Huh, that seems counterproductive, and also like it might be a historical building they can't change. Curious. But it's definitely a storefront kind of place and not an office or an apartment entrance? She doesn’t want to bother anybody that isn’t asking to be bothered.

There's a bell on the door!

Okay, fair enough. If the shop turns out to be for things completely unrelated to her life she can apologize and compliment the architecture. Clunk DING DING squeeeal.

"Welcome!" says a girl who looks much less antique than the shop. She is, as compensation of some sort, dressed up as a witch complete with pointy hat. "Come in come in!"

The wares are not exactly antiques. There are fantasy maps up on the wall, a glass column full of live giant butterflies, a model of a solar system that isn't this one, scrolls and wands and crystals and a fishbowl and decks of ?tarot? cards...

Wow. It’s a strangely high-budget kind of cryptically eclectic. Fantasy decor? Cosplay for a locally popular fandom with lots of money? Magic props?

She looks around, intentionally conveyed puzzlement on her face, and tries to see if the butterflies have an explanation visible.

The butterflies are unlabeled.

"When you have had enough look at the butterflies come here to be looked at your own self, I have a hunch!" chirps the witch.

“What, is your hunch perhaps that I’m your next customer? With a hole in my life shaped like a butterfly?”

Whatever this is, it is not a normal sort of store and it does not seem fitting to stick to a conventionally polite sort of conversation. Arguably she should be making an excuse and exiting promptly before she has to exit less gracefully from whatever this is. But there’s something about the whole picture that — is somehow right despite looking like it should be wrong.

She will approach the counter to a more comfortable conversational distance.

The witch takes Kaitliyn's hands in hers like that is a normal thing to do. And then her witch hat flies off her head, because her ears have abruptly morphed into big brown bunny ears.

"My hunch was so right. How would you like to be a witch, stranger?"

Whoa.

“If I am one, do I have to ply my trade in a mysterious shop with no name?”

"Only if this sparks joys."

“I can see how it might, for people who aren't me.”

"I like it. But needs not must. The line of work is not retail, anyway, that is mostly decoration - not that I would not sell you something if you wanted any. The line of work is awakening witches!"

“And this is a rare enough opportunity that you don’t have a booth at the career fair.”

"Oh, you could be an awakener if you wished but there is some continuing of the education after learning just how to do magic."

“Oh, sorry, that was ambiguous. I mean — being a witch is not the sort of thing that comes up at the career fair.”

"Oh. No. Most people do not have potential."

“And the ones that — awaken — aren’t out there having already collected the Randi Prize and generally being agreed to exist and do magic because—?”

"There is a Veil, and a Veil is needful, because if too many mundie types learn of magic here on this Earth - this one specifically, tell all the neighboring ones you like - then there is a bad problem. It has happened before, sixty five million years ago, and back then, this was not the specific Earth! It was a different one and all the dinosaurs here still died."

“Does that mean that — wait, who was doing the telling to whom, then? Were the dinosaurs intelligent and magical? — never mind, you didn’t say that these are somehow otherwise-identical Earths, it’s just a popular idea that there could be some.”

“So if I get to be a witch, and I have to keep it secret, what can I do with it? Besides hang out with butterflies and stained glass, which are pretty but aren’t people. Unless they are.”

"Some pretty similar but presumable differences were happening sixty-five million years back.

"You can go places full of witches! And use magic here too, on the sly - the Veil will help, if you are not too obvious. These butterflies are not people, they are just big."

“And is there a price? Or an oath? A lethal allergy to water?”

"Lethal allergy to water optional, since I am helping - natural awakenings sometimes get nasty surprises. My business model does not charge you or ask you any oaths."

“Ah, you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart and the fluffiness of your ears?”

"Not at all! Business model very much exists, just does not charge you. Natural awakened witches are so much less useful for everyone to have around, so aforementioned everyone compensates awakeners for doing the job and for being very neutral about all of everyone."

“Less useful?”

"You do not have to work for any of everyone if you do not so wish. But natural awakenings come out with things like the water allergy, which is real and can hurt not you but people who have it, and they have ranks in magics they do not want to have jobs in, and inconvenient talents in things like making the weather change with their mood, and species that are unpleasant to be and hard to do workplace accommodations of. Bad for the labor pool, for recruitment, et cetera. Like if everyone were coming out of universities having accidentally got a double doctorate in basket weaving and history of australopithecene dance, perhaps it would be nice to open a nursing school and a computer science program, you see? Also all the everyone would like to be able to send their children to professionals, too - you are something of a sideline."

“That makes sense. So how does professional awakening work? On my end, I mean.”

"I walk you through what-all you have the potential for and you pick things and you walk out a witch! You will pick a species and a way of getting better at magic and some magic to already be able to do, and if you want more points' worth of magic than you already have the potential for you can pick up some inconveniences. Such as the water allergy. But you did not sound keen on it. There are more popular ones."

“—species?”

"Species!" She pets one of her own ears. "I am an oread for instance. You can stay a human, or, the PC thing to say is 'neutral', because you will be a witch human not a mundane human. But many species are more fun or make it easier to learn more of some or another type of magic."

“Neat. Disguisable?”

"Varies. Oreads have the convenient shapeshifty thing as you saw, that comes standard with us-es. If you stay neutral but do a cosmetic tune-up of your true form while awakening, the Veil will cover that. If you walk out of here on four legs, Veil will have a bit of a time, but you could get a special wheelchair for pretending in and that would most likely do. If you go around being hashtag ifrit pride it will be pretty hard for the Veil to conceal that you are at all times very much on fire, so you should be also invisible or something if you do this."

“Flexible. All right. What do I have the potential for?”

"In the species department?"

“Well, for everything, but we can start there, why not. I do want to get the whole picture before deciding anything.”

"In your family tree way back it looks like we have... neutral, aforementioned; daeva, souped-up superhero-comic-book-human-ish guys; dryads, treeple; lamia, like a snake-taur; elf, what it sounds like; undine, water elemental; sprite, tiny insect fey; lilin, demonic folks; erinyes, fallen angels; pixie, tiny plant-theme fey; fairy, tiny party fey."