Burlington’s Inkwell Emporium Offers Witchcraft Supplies

They can’t set you up with Halloween candy, but if you’re after a cauldron, a hex, a spell or a few voodoo dolls, Heather and Shiloh Sefcik have you covered. The married couple own the Inkwell Emporium, a Burlington witchcraft retailer and tattoo parlor.

Heather runs the retail shop. Shiloh tattoos in back. He specializes in esoteric designs and does a lot of neo-Gothic black work, “witchy stuff … like weird, pagan, occult stuff,” he said. The two halves of the business, he noted, dovetail nicely. “We had a guy the other day who came in, and he bought a copy of the Necronomicon and divination tools specifically to commune with eldritch beings. And then we did this big eldritch sigil [tattoo] on his back.”

The original Necronomicon, a book of knowledge said to drive readers mad, appears in the fiction of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Though it didn’t exist, subsequent authors have produced books with the same title. Eldritch beings are strange or unnatural entities, and a sigil is a symbol believed to have magical power.

For the uninitiated, the Sefciks’ (pronounced see-viks) world requires some explanation. Even they call it weird.

“Oh, it’s definitely weird,” Shiloh said. “I mean, I grew up around it, and it’s — you just don’t get used to it.”

His mother’s Czech, Native American and Celtic roots intertwined to produce a roster of traditions that dictated appeasing spirits, not touching certain objects on certain days and dodging the “white lady,” a ghost that roamed their West Newbury property. His mother, aunts and grandmother didn’t call themselves witches, he said. “They were just like, ‘Oh, you leave this out on this stump, and whatever takes children doesn’t take children anymore.'”

Heather considers herself a witch, a term that means different things to different people, she said. To her, it’s “anyone who just practices the metaphysical in any way … You don’t have to be an occultist or do black magic or anything like that,” she said. “Some people just are herbalists.”

In the Main Street shop next to Memorial Auditorium, a taxidermy goat head hangs on the wall opposite the door. Little coffin-shaped display boxes and skeleton decorations are tucked among the merchandise. But many of the products look as if they could be found in a gift shop or spa: books, herbs, incense, perfume, scented candles in antique teacups, and teas to promote sleeping, healing and concentration. Even the spell jars aren’t evil-spell jars. They’re designed to bring about love, happiness, abundance, protection and good health, the couple said.

Heather makes those jars, along with the candles, smudge sticks and hexes. Unlike their gift shop counterparts, each of these items carries intent, she said. Her craft nights are tied to phases of the moon.

Inside each spell jar are attractively layered “objects of intent” selected to manifest a specific outcome. They may include bark, flowers, leaves, salt, seashells, chains and broken glass. Sealed with colorful wax, topped with crystals and adorned with a charm, each spell jar comes with an incantation and a recommendation for periodic recharging via the energy of the full moon.

Heather designs the candles to produce similar results — peace, motivation, joy, love, purification and protection.

Hexes have less cheery functions. Nightmare and Illness have sold out, but Exile and Despair are currently in stock. Made by Heather’s business, Inky Cap Coven, each “contains a formulated blend of herbs and spell components aimed towards their particular intent,” the online product description says. “There are small crystals inside as well, which excel at different things such as nausea, frailty, and chaos.”

Unlike curses, which last forever — or until broken — the description continues, hexes are temporary and produce small hindrances or annoyances. Users can add a “taglock” to increase efficiency. “This can be anything associated with the target: DNA such as hair, nails, or blood, a photo of the person, their signature, something that belongs to them, or even just writing their name on a piece of paper if you have nothing else.” Add the taglock to the hex bag, meditate, focus intent on the target, and then place the hex near that person.

“Be careful how you use this kind of magick,” the site says. “As with all Inky Cap products, the creator is not responsible for the effects this product may or may not have.”

Heather, who uses the name Hade professionally, started Crypt, a Goth dance night at Bent Nails Bistro in Montpelier where she deejays as Ghost <3 (Ghost Heart). She came to witchcraft naturally, she said. A solitary child who played alone, she was drawn to nature and the energy she felt in the woods and from the moon. She got a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at Burlington College and worked as a photographer, practicing witchcraft privately, until she was laid off from her day job during the pandemic. Then she started Inky Cap Coven, listed her spell jars on Etsy and began selling her wares at events, such as the Salem Night Faire and Haunted Happenings in Salem, Mass., and Deadwick’s Ethereal Faire in Portsmouth, N.H.

At that point, Shiloh worked for Event Horizon Custom Tattooing, which occupied half of the first floor of a house at 236 Main Street. Last fall, when owner Brant Newton announced plans to close the Burlington shop and open a new business in St. Albans, Shiloh took over the lease.

He took out the fluorescent lights and replaced the drop-panel ceiling with a coffered one. The purple-and-lime-green walls are now Cottage White with trims and accents in Dark Kettle Black and Raven Gray. The tattoo room walls are papered with pages of books, including Edgar Allan Poe’s poems and short stories.

McKenna McNall, a medical assistant who does not practice witchcraft but does get spooky tattoos, stops by Inkwell Emporium several times a month. On a recent Friday the 13th, she popped in during her lunch break. “It’s just such a great place to come,” she said. “You feel so comfortable here.”

Pagans, witches, occultists and Goths are the store’s primary clientele, Heather said, but all sorts of people come through the door. Honeymooners en route to Salem detoured to Burlington after they found the store online. Sorority girls and soccer dads come in, too.

“And it really weirds me out sometimes,” Shiloh said. “You don’t want to judge, but you’re just like, You’re so normal. Like, you’re just a chill, regular person. I mean, you’re welcome, obviously, but I just didn’t expect you.”

Heather recalled a woman and her bridesmaids who bought hexes to exile a bridesmaid who had failed to show up for the wedding. A soccer dad came in asking for a curse to put on the man he believed was having an affair with his wife. Shiloh persuaded him to consult tarot cards instead, which, Shiloh said, revealed the woman was not having an affair. “You just need to talk to her,” Shiloh advised the customer.

Shiloh created a custom spell for a woman who wanted to head off criticism from her boss during her presentation the following day. It involved two ritual candles embedded with sage to provide protection and clear negative energy, burdock to add grounding, and peppermint for “a little pizzazz,” he said. “She smells that, she’s gonna feel good right off the bat.”

He instructed the nervous presenter to recite the incantation he gave her, burn or bury it, burn the candles down to nubbins, put the nubs in a spell satchel, and take it to work.

Her boss didn’t show up for work that day, and her presentation went well.

The Sefciks witnessed one of the most striking results of their work when Heather sold an abundance spell jar to a woman, Shiloh said. “And then, like five minutes later, she came running back and was like, ‘Dude, I literally just found $100.’ And I was like, ‘What?!‘”

He was floored. “And Heather’s just standing there, like, ‘Yeah, it’s what they do.'”

This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2023.

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