Mr. Niven is at present our sole male employee on two legs. He hails from the banks of the Mehsolo river where he was born under a Viddsaelae tree. His work as a tincture alchemist in his late teens brought him to Hollingswald in North Devon, sometime around 1812, though the record of this is unclear. Shortly after his arrival Mr. Niven took over a small post office from which he metered and stamped and delivered the post of the small village there. His primary work though was alchemy, particularly his cobalt tinctures he sold after hours, from a small window at the back of the shop. It is said that H.V. Niven’s headache cure was unparalleled within Great Britain and though it remains unfounded, a small notation in a since lost ledger, indicates president James Madison himself sent for the remedy in the fall of 1817 when his wife Dolley claimed a three month long nightly headache. Mr. H.V. Niven, despite spending much of his childhood in the tropics, is terrified of anything that crawls, including babies. Because of this, he is generally not assigned any insect related hexes.

Cora is not forthcoming about her history or her present. At our team lunches on Fridays, she rarely shares what she is doing for the weekend. We don’t know where she is from, what she likes to do outside of work or whether she has a family. She drives a Ford Aspire. We know this because it’s the only joke she’s ever made. “It looks like it’s aspiring to be a real car,” she said once, and then laughed so hard that we all laughed with her. We were in the break room and Mr. Niven was explaining how to shoe a mule, and that it was all becoming too much for him: the care and maintenance of Carlotta (the mule) and the commute itself, a harrowing experience full of honking and rude gestures. He said he thought he might get an automobile, one like Cora’s. He looked shyly at her when he said this. He is desperately in love with her and it is plain to see it. “A mule is a mighty thing,” Cora said. “It’s nothing like my sad motor car.” And then she told us what type it was, and after that, the joke. So that’s all we know about Cora. The kind of car she drives and also that she isn’t the least bit aware of Mr. Niven’s yearning. Cora B. Ellsworth enjoys transportation related hexes.

Lucrezia was born in Pisa, Duchy of Florence, sometime around 1722 and was employed as a housekeeper for a family of masons. One evening in the winter of 1737, she accompanied the master of the house to aid in the removal and reburial of a corpse. This corpse was the body of Galileo Galilei. During the transfer and reburial, three fingers were cut from Galileo’s hand, as well as at least one tooth from his mouth. All were taken as momentos. The mason pocketed one of the fingers for himself, an act Lucrezia found unpalatable. Still, she understood the significance of the man’s work and with this in mind, sliced a gray curl from Galileo’s beard and hid it in the false bottom of a sewing box. In the early 1900s, the box found its way to the United States, perhaps as part of a trunk of other antiques shipped on a steamer. Then, in 1936, a well-meaning relative preparing a house for sale, sent the entire trunk to the Goodwill of Chattanooga on E. Main Street. Every spring, Lucrezia uses her PTO to make a pilgrimage to each Goodwill in the state of Tennessee. She has thus far not located the box. We can see it weighs on her; to lose something you love or care for deeply is a vexing and terrible thing. Lucrezia Lorena is therefore most interested in hexes in which she is called upon to share this feeling of disquiet and loss.

Prior to her employment at The Hexes for Exes Emporium, Ida performed in the Halliday Circus. She was, and remains, generally clumsy. For example, Ida arrives to the Emporium each day in a pressed silk blouse, but by 9:30 AM the blouse nearly always sports a jelly stain. She was not a solid performer for Halliday, owing to her lack of balance; after the third fall from a moderately high tightrope, she was put on cage maintenance for the magic rabbits. It was this change in assignment that saved her life. One afternoon during a performance in Atlanta, the spark from a cannon wick set the tent ablaze. Ida, who had been watching the show glumly from the periphery, was spared, as were the magic rabbits. Following the fire, Ida married an audience member who had aided her exit by slicing a gap in the canvas with a pocketknife. Ida now avoids fire at all costs. Even the steam from a tea kettle is enough to make her anxious. She prefers her food chilled, her apartment unheated and her toast so light it’s legitimately still a piece of bread. Ida Worthing has an affinity for spills, jammy messes, and the ruining of expensive and necessary objects by liquids.

Timbo is a Bedlington Terrier. If you have never seen one, imagine a lamb in dog form. Bedlington Terriers are known to be good with children while also able to kill a dog of its own weight. In other words, they are gentle except when called upon to be brutal. Timbo is particularly disgusted by injustice, unfairness and bigotry. This is put down to the fact his first owners were Romani travelers and Timbo often witnessed their mistreatment by the resident townspeople. One night outside the caravan, his owner was set upon quite violently by a cruel and drunken tax collector. Timbo bit the aggressor on the leg, sinking his teeth into the flesh of the man’s calf. In his interview with the Emporium, when asked why he wanted to work as a hex administrator, Timbo cited the thrill he felt at hearing the man’s yelp, and at the sight of him limping away into the dark. He assured us he was not violent, but instead loyal and sharp-toothed. We hired him on the spot. Timbo enjoys a hex in which the unfair is made fair.

Henrietta hails from Salem, Massachusetts, which (we won’t lie) gave her a leg up on other applicants. Until recently she traveled by train, as a freight hopper. She eats the same meal every day for lunch, thinly sliced tomatoes on rye bread. Two of her aunts perished during the Salem hysteria. “They were not witches,” she says. “There were no witches in Salem, just strong, unusual women, so don’t ask me again." This is in her recorded notes from her first interview with HR. We made no mention of it again. Also in those recorded notes, her response to where she would like to be in five years: “In a boxcar, with a fresh pair of earplugs.” Henrietta is the only employee without a hex preference.