Hazel’s Market & Goods: A Harlem Horror

My name is Jason, and I used to believe I was destined to save the planet. I was that kid—the eco-club president, the one who wore recycled bottle hoodies and scolded strangers for failing to separate their trash. I watered my balcony garden with rain collected in a cracked fish tank, convinced every drop counted. I went to college for environmental science. I wanted to work for a nonprofit, live out of a van, protest pipelines, get arrested for the right reasons.

Instead, I spent last year in the fluorescent-lit bowels of a recycling firm that didn’t recycle much at all. My job was organizing spreadsheets for waste that got sorted and shipped off for someone else to throw away. Eight months in, I quit, telling myself it was temporary. Graduation came and went in a blur. My friends talked internships and fellowships; I smiled for photos, pretending I had a plan.

I didn’t expect anyone from my family to show up. Most were too far away, too old to travel. But as I walked across the stage, I saw her in the crowd—my grandmother, Miss Hazel. Purple church hat, sunglasses, a smile like she’d been waiting there all my life. Afterward, we sat under a tree while the campus emptied around us. She handed me an envelope with two hundred dollars and said, “You’ve done well enough for now. Come learn the family business.”

I thought she meant real estate, insurance, maybe one of those city jobs my cousins bragged about. I had a vague memory of a corner shop from when I was little—sticky floors, too many smells, bread and bleach and beans and sugar. I remembered getting scolded for knocking over a jar of something I wasn’t supposed to touch. There was always a line for canned goods and produce, some customers looking tired, some not quite looking like people.

That was Gramma’s shop in Harlem. She called it Hazel’s Market & Goods, like it was just another mom-and-pop bodega. But it wasn’t. Turns out, she sold groceries to monsters.

II. The Shop After Dark

No one hid it from me, but no one explained it either. Gramma figured if you were old enough to ask, you were old enough to see. The shop ran like any other during the day—collard greens in crates, coffee by the gallon, lottery tickets by the register. But after sundown, something changed. A hidden door behind an old bookshelf opened, and the shop became something else entirely.

Roots in jars. Bones wrapped in paper. Candles with handwritten labels. Herbs you couldn’t find unless you knew how to ask. There was a back room that smelled of smoke, salt, and cinnamon, every shelf older than the city itself. Gramma was a witch—a real witch, not the costume kind or the Etsy sellers with self-branded tea. She’d learned from her mother, who learned from hers, and so on. Old southern rootwork, passed down through hands and stories by the stove.

I’d grown up around it—holidays spent sweeping, wrapping bundles, writing labels—but never knowing what any of it meant. Gramma kept me just outside the circle to keep me safe. Now, she said it was time to learn. The shop would be mine someday, and I needed to know what I was inheriting.

Six months in, I was watching Gramma light candles and mix oils like it was nothing. I rang up werewolves buying shampoo, counted out change for ghosts who paid in coins that melted if you stared too long. I was getting the hang of it. But I was getting ahead of myself.

III. Salem, The Familiar

The shop’s familiar was Salem, a grey cat with a bad attitude and a long memory. Nobody told me his full story, but people talked. The rumor was he used to be a wizard—arrogant, powerful, thought rules didn’t apply. He pissed off an enchantress and got turned into a cat for a thousand years. Gramma said, “He’s not halfway through yet.” Salem didn’t talk, but he’d knock over jars if you forgot to feed him, disappear when you needed him most, and show up looking smug.

He liked the highest shelf in the back room, just out of reach. Gramma named him Salem as a joke—after the black cat from that old witch sitcom. He didn’t find it funny.

Hazel’s Market & Goods sits on the corner of 137th and Malcolm X, between a barber shop and a storefront church. By day, it’s neon OPEN signs, dusty crates, and a bell that rings when the door swings wide. Soap, cereal, canned vegetables, frozen waffles, batteries. But after 8PM, the front closes and the back opens—not to the alley, but to another part of the building.

There’s a bookshelf in the office. Gramma’s favorite book—Frankenstein—sits on the spine. Pull it out, turn it just right, and the back panel opens to a narrow hallway. At the end is the night shop.

Wooden shelves. Stone floors. Low, warm ceilings. Air thick with cinnamon, smoke, copper. Every jar labeled, even the ones with eyeballs. Every candle handmade. Roots wrapped in cloth, powders in tins, bones tied with string, bundles of herbs that don’t grow anywhere I’ve ever studied. Oils that shimmer like motor fluid, flannel bags sewn shut with black thread.

Gramma’s shop serves Harlem’s supernatural crowd—the ones tucked between the cracks. Old southern bloodlines. Werewolves with tired eyes. Witches from Louisiana with mud under their nails. River spirits who drag muck across the floor. Boo hags looking for coffee beans and gluten-free bread. Sirens from the Hudson Valley passing through, always asking for salt and tobacco.

I stocked shelves, wiped counters, restocked candles, brewed things I could hardly stand the smell of. And Salem watched.

IV. The First Lesson

Gramma picked me up from the train station in an old blue Buick that rumbled like it had been hexed into staying alive. A sack of yams sat in the front seat. “Hold it on your lap and don’t ask questions,” she said. That was my first job—yam security.

We rode in silence, then she handed me a brown paper bag with two hot rolls and cornbread wrapped in foil. I didn’t say no. You don’t turn down Gramma’s food.

At Hazel’s Market, she gave me a tour—register in the front, broom in the back, break table by the ice machine. I was to keep shelves neat, sweep before closing, never move the jar by the window. “It’s got a job to do, same as you,” she said.

She showed me the last shelf on the left. “She’s called Helen. If you treat her right, she’ll restock herself.” I stared. “You named the shelf.” “She named herself. Be polite.” I leaned in. “You’re lookin’ real solid today, Helen. Straight lines. Good wood grain. Proud of you.” A box of rice slid into place on the bottom row.

Next, she brought me into the office. The desk was stacked with papers, a cash box, and ceramic frogs. The bookshelf held cookbooks, gardening guides, and Frankenstein. She pulled it and the shelf slid open.

Inside was a room that didn’t make sense—long shelves, stone walls, soft light from glass lanterns. “This is where the work happens. During the day, we feed people. At night, we help them with something a little more special.”

Jars, bundles, candles, tiny bags pinned up like museum pieces. The place smelled of cinnamon and dried herbs. “Your daddy never took to it. Black thumb, that one. Good man, but magic slid off him like rain off a slick coat. But you might have something. That blood didn’t skip every generation,” she said.

I told her I wasn’t looking to become a rootworker, just help out. She smiled. “Good. We’ll see where it goes.”

That’s when I met Salem. He walked in, tail high, eyes half-closed. I bent down to greet him and got a sharp swipe across my sneaker. Gramma said, “That means he likes you. He doesn’t bother with people he don’t plan on seeing again.”

V. The Night Customers

A werewolf came in first, half-buttoned into a work shirt, asking for cedar-and-clove shampoo. Gramma handed him a dark bottle with a wax seal and a faint pine scent. He paid in exact change, promised to send his cousin by next week.

A vampire followed, sunglasses and a wool coat. He asked for two jars of blood replacement, one warm, one cold. Gramma brought them out, placed them in a padded box. He left without a word.

Later, a witch stopped by. She and Gramma hugged, traded cinnamon sticks for a jar filled with pickled eyeballs. No one blinked. They just nodded and the woman walked out humming.

I stood off to the side, trying not to stare. Gramma moved through it all like this was the most natural job in the world. I didn’t understand half of it, but I knew enough to keep the counter clean.

By closing, I realized I hadn’t looked at my phone once. It wasn’t what I expected, but I went to bed thinking maybe I’d stumbled into something better. Maybe I could get good at it—even if the cat hated me.

VI. The Rootwork Revelation

Weeks passed before Gramma sat me down in the conjure room. It was late. The store was closed, the front lights off, the back room smelling of cinnamon, bay leaf, and something warm I couldn’t name. She handed me a mug and said it was time to learn about rootwork.

“This isn’t wizard magic. This ain’t no fireball in one hand and lightning in the other,” she said. “No arson, got it,” I joked. She smacked me.

She said rootwork—Hoodoo, conjure—was magic for the people. Born out of necessity and survival. “It’s everyday magic. Household magic. Dust and bones to create tonics to heal the sick. Salt laid in the corners to keep out ghouls. Red brick ground up under the window frame. Things to keep you safe, to keep your people safe.”

She moved around the room, pointing out jars of powders, oils, eyeballs that moved. She showed me the difference between hot devils powder and bone dust, where she kept the graveyard dirt. Let me smell two jars of pixie dust and asked which felt stronger. I guessed, and she said I was right.

“This kind of work helped folks through the worst of times. The kind of poor where there’s no soup left in the pot. The kind of sickness where there’s no doctor coming. We made do with what we had. And we kept each other whole.”

Her mother taught her, back in the low country before they moved north. Every woman in the line carried some piece of the knowledge, even if it scared them. Gramma wasn’t afraid. She learned everything she could.

“I tried to teach your daddy once. He didn’t take to it. Not that he wasn’t smart—he just didn’t have the right hands for it.”

“Why didn’t you ever teach me?” I asked.

“Because it wasn’t my call. Your daddy asked me not to. Said he wanted you raised clean. You’d already been through enough losing your mama, and he didn’t want you caught up. I honored it. Even though it hurt me. I kept you out the shop. I thought maybe one day he’d change his mind.”

My brow furrowed. “Dad asked you not to?”

“When she passed, something in him folded up. Like he couldn’t unbend. Grief makes people turn away from what used to give ‘em comfort.”

She handed me a small bundle—dirt, bone, dried herbs. “This is a starter hand. For protection. Don’t ask it for anything fancy. Just carry it. You’ll know when you need it.”

The cloth felt warm, like it had been in the sun. “You don’t have to be a rootworker. But you need to understand where you come from. This isn’t just magic. This is blood and legacy.”

The room was quiet after that, and for the first time, I understood why my dad kept me away. Gramma had given me space to come back on my own terms. And somehow, I had.

VII. The Curse in Harlem

Days later, Gramma left to “commune with the spirits.” Sometimes she was gone for hours, sometimes days. The third morning she hadn’t returned, I was sorting plantains when Luther walked in. He looked like hell—tall, broad, clothes worn, eyes drifting toward the back hallway.

When I told him Gramma wasn’t here, something in him tightened. He explained: his apartment smelled like blood on Wednesdays only, no matter how much he scrubbed. All the lightbulbs broke, one at a time. He lived by candlelight. He woke up with dirt across his chest every morning, nails packed with soil, dried blood at the cuticles. His shoes were scuffed, jeans ground with dirt.

He tried to explain it away—maybe he scratched the floor in his sleep, maybe dirt tracked in from the hallway. But then graves started getting dug up at a cemetery nearby—opened with bare hands, no footprints. The news made him sick. He woke up with blood under his nails, exhausted, like he’d worked a full shift in his sleep.

The bartender told him to “go talk to the witch.” That was how he ended up in front of me, waiting for someone to tell him if he was imagining things or if something was genuinely wrong.

I didn’t know what to do. Gramma hadn’t left instructions. But Luther kept standing there, shoulders drawn tight, hands in his pockets, like a man holding his breath. I told him I could come take a look.

VIII. House Call

I packed a tote bag with the items Gramma used for protection—candle, salt, a charm of dried herbs and thread, a jar of cleansing mix. Salem climbed inside without hesitation, circling once and settling like he’d been waiting for this. I figured if the familiar wanted to come, it was better to let him.

We walked through Harlem’s evening, the city settling into its night rhythm. Luther’s building had peeling paint, a broken buzzer, hallways that smelled like boiled cabbage—a scent I recognized from Gramma’s books as a spell to mask magic.

Inside, every lightbulb was gone. Luther hadn’t exaggerated. Salem walked the perimeter. I checked corners for powders, markings, doorframes for symbols, under the mattress for anything strange. Dirt on the sheets, shoes covered in mud, jacket sleeves frayed.

Salem paused near the kitchen, tail twitching. He sat in front of the refrigerator. I pulled it forward, revealing a crawlspace. The boiled cabbage smell was strongest there. Inside was a bundle wrapped in cloth, tied with horsehair.

I unpacked it carefully: bone fragments, herbs, a stone covered in red dust, a piece of torn cloth. It was a voodoo artifact, old and tense, used to direct fear or sickness toward someone. Gramma kept items like this locked away. They were nothing to play with.

I set out the candle, salt, protection charm, cleansing mix. Salt across the threshold, corners, window sills, candle in the living room. I worked slowly, the way Gramma did. Salem inspected every spot.

When I finished, the apartment felt calmer. The boiled cabbage smell faded. Luther thanked me, looking like he believed he might finally sleep through the night.

Gramma returned three days later. She examined the bundle, said Luther must have upset someone with old magic. Someone planted the artifact, and the apartment did the rest—a boneyard curse meant to drive a person toward the grave, one night at a time. Left alone, it would have pulled Luther toward the cemetery. He wouldn’t have survived.

If I hadn’t made the house call, Gramma said, he would have buried himself alive within weeks. Luther was safe now. The curse was broken. The apartment was clean. But whoever planted the artifact hadn’t shown themselves. That part of the mystery remained unsolved.

IX. The Haunting

Things settled down after the Luther case—by Harlem standards. The shop kept its rhythm, Gramma slipped back into her routines, and I kept helping customers, stocking shelves, learning names, and figuring out which jars not to touch.

The familiar regulars stopped by: Betty with her gossip, Jack with his cigarette smoke, and the supernatural crowd who treated the shop like home. I stayed. It wasn’t a decision I made all at once. It happened slowly, the way you realize only after it’s true.

Some mornings I’d see my degree hanging on the wall and feel that itch—like I should be doing something more official. But the itch got smaller every day. Harlem had its own kind of work waiting for me. Real work. Work people needed.

Gramma gave me jobs with more weight—a cleansing, a blessing, a reading. Nothing big, but enough to show she trusted me to walk in the same direction she had. I didn’t call myself a rootworker, and she didn’t either. She said the title wasn’t important. The responsibility was.

I could see myself staying here a long time. Maybe longer than I expected. This neighborhood keeps you anchored. Once you start paying attention, you realize how many stories sit under the sidewalks and fire escapes. Monsters buying groceries. Witches trading recipes. Spirits trying to pay off old debts.

It’s a strange corner of the world, honest in a way my old life never was.

X. The Warning

So that’s all I’ve got for now. These are the stories I can tell without Gramma fussing at me for sharing too much. If you’ve listened this far, thank you. I’ll have more eventually. Harlem always provides.

Oh, and if you ever need anything—bread, beans, coffee, or a solution to a problem you can’t say out loud—come find us. But be careful. Because in Harlem, every corner has eyes, and not all of them are human.

And if you hear the bell ring after midnight, don’t answer the door.