I am fortunate to live in a community that has a relatively healthy library system. There is one very large mother library in the center of downtown, with numerous daughter libraries scattered around the city and out into the surrounding suburbs and smaller towns.

That mother library also contains a used bookstore. With limited shelf space and evolving tastes, the library makes room for new acquisitions by selling off older books that are still in good condition. Several times a year, they host a really big sale that includes special editions, rare collectibles, signed editions, and more.

For the first time in quite a while, I was able to hit up that big sale on its last day. The books had been pretty well picked over, and I really wasn’t expecting to find anything. I was just browsing. Admiring. Wishing.

And then my eyes caught on something totally unexpected: a signed edition of Speak Daggers To Her by Rosemary Edghill. Published in 1994, this is the first of the Lady Bast Mysteries — arguably one of the founding texts in what has become the incredibly popular paranormal or witchy mystery genre.

Speak Daggers To Her has been on my To Read list for ages. I love the genre and I was keen to dive into one of the first examples; but other books just kept popping up and other things needed my attention and I just never quite got around to buying or checking out a copy for myself.

And there it was, sitting on a cart, a signed edition no less.

Portentous. So I grabbed the book and brought it home and opened it immediately.

Thirty years after its original publication, Speak Daggers To Her reads a bit like an historical document. Or historical fiction. The technology is out of date. Landmarks have changed. Even some of the Pagan and witch organizations and groups that Lady Bast interacts with have either evolved, fallen into disfavor, or become more prominent.

But the magic that Lady Bast practices is Real Magic, not the flashy special effects magic of witchy rom-coms. This is getting your hands dirty, feet on the ground, what are the ethical implications? what will this cost? Real Magic.

Lady Bast’s questions about the nature of magic and intent, the nature of guilt and innocence, friendship and community, judgement and acceptance and pacifism, among others, brought to light several of my own that have been hovering in the background. Her faith, too, made me take a hard look at myself and my own expectations about religious experience and practice.

No, I won’t tell you what my particular questions and answers are. Or were. You have your own.

So remember: be open to the unexpected. The portentous. Maybe your answers are waiting for you on a library cart somewhere, too.

[Written by Rebecca Buchanan.]