[center][h1][color=2B5BAB]۞ NOAH ۞[/color][/h1][/center]

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[sub]Friday 6th February
5 AM[/sub]
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[center]Near the borough of Bromley there once existed a music shop that dealt in records, tapes, and equipment. To say it was a community hub would be inaccurate, but it did serve as a sort of hangout for a certain group of people who polite society frowned upon. The kind of people who had long hair and ripped clothes, who had trouble holding jobs because showing up on time wasn't 'for them'. Every day the sounds of Britain's finest acts of the time would be heard even outside the walls of the establishment, each track absorbed and each album sparking endless debate. The brightest moment in the history of the shop was when [i]X-Ray Spex[/i] played a secret show out front without getting permission from the locals; the noise complaints had been worth it for the experience of it all. 

That same music store would shut down only twelve years after its grand opening after the manager, a bassist in a now disbanded punk band, overdosed a year too late to be part of the 27 Club. 

In the years since the music store's failure, it became something of a local legend. People who were there when it was open had become responsible members of society and now looked back with some sort of fond nostalgia while others only had negative words to say about the deceased. As was typical of local legends, soon the legends turned to stories that leaned towards the macabre. Youths saw the run down shop and invented ghost stories and came up with dares to tease and torment their friends. But of course, the truth of the wailing ghost in the shop was little more than the landlord yelling at trespassers to piss off. Unbeknownst to that landlord, however, there was a spirit there. And the only reason that Noah even knew about the history of the building she lived above was because she had spoken to him. 

Noah had been drawn to the place not because she thought that living above an 'old haunted music store' was the kind of thing that made for a hell of a pickup line for the girls at the pub when her accent didn't seal the deal already, but because she was always drawn to places where spirits lingered and whispered for those who had the ability to listen. The fact that the rent was cheap enough to afford on her salary was pure icing atop the cake. Ever since she was a child plagued with dreams of what she now knew to be her ancient ancestors back in Ireland, spirits had comforted her where warm bodies often couldn't. The first night Noah spent in the place, she had a dream of the shop in its early days, of youths sharing a cigarette and looking over a magazine for the 'articles'. By the first month she had befriended the spirit after speaking to him via ritual. What did it say about Noah that her closest friends were beings that had left this world behind? 

The sun hadn't yet risen and Noah Devlin was already awake which was an unfortunate necessity given the importance of today. So important, in fact, that on the calendar hanging on the wall, the date was circled in blue marker, its modern, clean visage standing in contrast to the old, weathered poster of XTC's seminal album [i]Drum and Wires[/i] that had been hanging there when Noah moved in. She would've taken it down but it had sentimental value. It was her friend's favorite album in his lifetime. The room was empty, cold, and dark and only one of those was by design. The footsteps on the wooden floor creaked as Noah made her way to the bathroom and for a brief moment she wondered if, given time, the sound of her stride would also become the stuff of local legend. Probably not. She'd have to die first. And she wasn't planning on that happening anytime soon. 

But then, neither had her friend. 

In the bathroom, the light flicked on and Noah had to close her eyes as the adjustment was made. When she opened them, looking at herself in the mirror, at the blue color of her hair (it had been purple before; green even before that), she took a deep breath. She wasn't nervous. What reason did she have to be? Her family? They didn't know what she was up to, other than that she had left Ireland to find refuge across the sea though of course the Devlin's had eyes everywhere. That tended to happen when your family was in deep with The Elders. Even so, if her family had any idea of what she was up to, then Noah likely wouldn't even have woken up in her dingy little ghost flat in the first place. Sure, she still sometimes had the feeling that she was being watched, but she’d had that feeling ever since she was a kid. That was the thing about being in tune with the other side: that side didn’t have normal hours like the living did. 

What was this feeling she had, then? Excitement? Anxiety? Exhaustion? That was more likely than anything. Noah was no stranger to late nights and later mornings, nor was she unfamiliar with waking up in places, beds, that didn’t belong to her with a throbbing headache and hazy memories and only the presence of mind to make for the exit before talk of breakfast or dinner or second servings. But as Noah looked in the mirror, she didn’t feel exhausted. She had barely slept, true, but the cans of energy drinks and cold brew in the recycling bin suggested that sleep was a luxury Noah didn’t often afford. 

Noah had never been part of an actual coven before. She had known some who called themselves witches, had spoken in secret code with those like herself who actually had been charmed, but that was about the extent of it. As much as she would’ve wanted to, Noah couldn’t simply go around shouting how oppressive and repressed the Elders were, how powers like theirs shouldn’t simply be kept secret. She wanted to, of course. For reasons both practical and selfish. But those she had met who knew the difference between a tome and a grimoire had not shared her secret sentiments. That was until Corinthia got in touch with her. Maybe she wouldn’t have to be secretive. Maybe she wouldn’t have to keep looking over her shoulder whenever she went for a walk or bought some candles and incense sticks or just for a takeaway. 

Maybe she’d have an actual family for once in her life. 

Outside the flat, Noah looked as if she was on her way to a live show or a tattoo parlor. Dark blue trousers, a sleeveless shirt with the album cover [i]Teenage Warning[/i] from Angelic Upstarts on it, and a leather jacket on which she had stitched various flags, symbols, and patches. Just another member of the youth populace trying to make a statement through fashion and attitude. The spirit of rebellion lived on in people like Noah. Only in this case, she likely did have a literal spirit of rebellion on speed dial somewhere. 

Hands thrust in pockets, head down but eyes always looking, Noah stopped only once on her trek: for a coffee with a splash of something extra in it that she poured from a small flask kept on the inside pocket of her jacket. Cheers. 

The coffee was still in her hands when she stepped off the bus and traveled the path to the Manor House as if it was a flickering light and she was a moth caught in its allure. The coffee had gone lukewarm and unfinished but she still sipped from it on her walk up the path. The sun was introducing itself to the world below by the time the doors loomed in front of her. By her watch? A least a quarter past six. Too fuckin’ early. That she was even here at all at this hour meant everything to her. She believed in the work this coven had spoken to her. 


[color=2B5BAB]”Oi oi, how much a place like this cost?”[/color] Noah whistled to herself as the doors opened. She wasn’t the first to arrive, but she had barely acknowledged her fellows in arms, instead looking up and around at the interior of the place. [color=2B5BAB]”Feckin’ half expected cobwebs an’ cockroaches on the walls. Proper cabin in the middle o’feckin’ nowhere, like.”[/color]

Noah didn’t hide her accent and took a sip of her rapidly cooling coffee. [color=2B5BAB]”Movin’ on up in the world. Dibs on the basement. Perfect place for night terrors.”[/color] Noah paused and looked at the others who had arrived before her. [color=2B5BAB]”Just fuckin’ wi’ya. So. When do we start burnin’ shit down?”[/color]
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