The question to ask yourself before visiting Hierophany & Hedge is not, Do I believe in magic? It’s, Would I like to?
You’ll certainly be tempted the moment you see the shop, Covington’s only destination for bespoke arcana. There’s plenty to stop you right in your tracks. It might be the massive apothecary’s counter, or perhaps the large glass cases filled with jars full of mysterious substances. And you can’t help but notice the shopkeepers, who look as if they’d just been plucked from the pages of a sweeping gothic novel.
Photograph by Lance Adkins
This is how Coil and Augur—the aforementioned shopkeepers—would like you to find the store. (Yes, seriously, they prefer using these single names.) This is a place made for lingering, where visitors are welcome to leaf through books and shuffle tarot decks, wave wands, and cuddle plush familiars. Hierophany & Hedge has rejected the movement toward fast and impersonal service, instead focusing on connection above all.
Take wand fitting, for example. Coil and Augur delight in taking down any—and if needed, every—wand in their shop, setting it in someone’s hands, and watching the spark in their face on a match.
“People are used to wands that are extruded in plastic and made in a factory somewhere,” Augur says. “Where these are made by a human; it has imperfections, some of that unique character. I think the feeling of the world being enchanted comes from that human touch.”
Not interested in a wand? Hierophany & Hedge tries to have a little something for everyone, from talismans filled with a bespoke blend of herbs, stones, and other tiny, enchanted items; to patches decorated with the Loveland Frogman.
“So much of our customer base has started to feel like a community,” Augur says, noting that they tend to see people again and again. “One customer vets boyfriends by bringing them here,” Coil says—an effort Augur notes was successful. “She seems to have found a winner,” he adds.
Photograph by Lance Adkins
Coil and Augur understand magic as a relationship—whether it’s two people, an individual and an object, or humanity and the universe. In that respect, even if you never find your perfect wand or discover you have a deep, spiritual bond with rose quartz, you’ll still discover magic the second you walk through the door.
Hierophany & Hedge, 19 W. Pike St., Covington, hierophanyandhedge.com
Photograph by Lance Adkins
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