Once Blessed, Thrice Cursed: A Sister Witches Urban Fantasy #1

by Coralie Moss

  “Clementine, are you nuts?”

  “But what if using the mirror and the mascara within the circle of containment would actually help me see more?”

  “And what if it allows you to see too much? Clemmie, I—”

  “Girls, I have a possible solution. Beryl, you are correct in voicing concern about the power of your mother’s mirror. Alabastair carries one that has been spelled to enhance encounters with ghosts and shades. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for Clementine to use his mirror within our circle. Times like these a more generic tool that carries no burdensome backstory is a Goddess-send.” Maritza spun to face the table, unhooked a set of latches on the underside of the valise’s lid, and removed a circular mirror housed in a bone-yellow melamine frame.

  “This should do,” she said, handing it to me. “There’s a little stand attached to the back, if you prefer to keep your hands free.”

  “Thank you, Tía.”

  “Beryl, are you set?”

  My sister affirmed her readiness as she walked the outer circumference of the salt circle one more time. “No breaks in the line, and I have set the containment thread as you asked.”

  “Good. Your task is to wait and watch and notice. Oh—” Maritza tapped at her chin with her fingernail. “I’m debating whether the door and windows should be open or closed.” She tapped again, then lifted her gaze to the broken window in the corner, the same window I had seen my mother disappear out of. “Let’s leave everything as it is. Beryl, you may have to act quickly if it turns out the door especially should be closed.” She waved in the direction of the stained wall and the broken pane. “I’m afraid there’s not much we can do about that.”

  “I shall call in the directions and invite Hecate to join us.” With that, my aunt stepped to the entrance of the salt circle, removed her bright yellow boots and black-and-white-striped socks, and stepped into the circle’s center. She faced north, her left palm turned to the ground and her right hand lifted above her head. “Join me,” she commanded, “both of you. We shall ground first, rooting ourselves in this place and within our tradition, and call upon our sister witches and our collective history.”

  I stood behind her and slightly to her right, mimicking her movements as she traced a pentacle in the air. She repeated the movements three times more, to the east, south, and west.

  “Now, to call in the directions. We’ll keep this brief.

  “Powers of the East, please be present. Bless us with light.

  “Powers of the South, please be present. Bless us with clarity.

  “Powers of the West, please be present. Bless us with transparency.

  “Powers of the North, please be present. Bless us with truth.

  “Great goddess of ghosts, Hecate. Mistress of thresholds. She who lights the dark and opens the doors. Bless my family with your protection and guidance.”

  The flames on the five candles rose and expanded as the sky outside the windows darkened. A jagged line of lightning lit up the backside of a cloud, followed five seconds later by a muffled boom. Bigger weather was on its way. I was glad for my aunt’s presence within the safety and comfort of the circle.

  “Apply the mascara, Clementine, and gaze into the mirror.” My aunt sat in front of me, settling onto one hip and tucking her legs to the side. She held the mirror high enough I could see without having to distort my posture and by the third application I sensed the mascara’s magic taking effect.

  I stuck the wand in the container and twisted it closed. “Ready,” I whispered.

  Maritza simply nodded and said, “I shall follow your lead.”

  “Where did Mom stash her financial records?” I watched my reflection mouth the question, then asked the second one. “And where are her notes?”

  When nothing happened, I asked another question.

  “Where is Rémy Ruisseau’s love match?”

  Lightning split the sky. Thunder followed much more closely, perhaps two-and-a-half seconds later. I jumped a bit and asked the question again, this time using the mage’s exact wording.

  “Where is Rémy Ruisseau’s beloved?”

  External sound faded, moving toward the walls. I saw the mirror in front of me, but Tía’s body zoomed away too. It was just me, a mirror with no reflection, and hazy sparkles hanging expectantly in the air.

  “Where is Rémy Ruisseau’s beloved?” I whispered again, watching as my breath caused the particles to move and begin to re-form. Pearly-white story threads wiggled into the light and clustered near the center candle, shivering.

  Fear mixed with an eagerness to communicate. I closed my eyes and recentered myself. When I opened them again and slid my arms into my mother’s shop coat, Clementine had become Moira and the air was filled with a tempered sense of urgency.

  Moira drawing on the wisdom of the tarot. A well-used deck, its images unfamiliar and gorgeously drawn.

  Cups.

  I moved back in time, to the moment Moira reached for her deck on the underside of one of the drawers of her desk. Fast-forwarding, we were back at the cards. A bowl of charms, some carved from stone and wood, some shaped from metal, all with runes and other symbols carved or painted onto their surfaces. A huge abalone shell half-filled with water. My mother’s athame—no, a pair of scissors designed to look like a sword when they were closed.

  “Where is Rémy Ruisseau’s beloved?”

  A plain wooden box. A doll wrapped in muslin. An envelope filled with snippets of fabrics, ribbons, and trims. Beads. All of it in iridescent shades of greens, blues, and a nearly white pink.

  I felt love and death rising in the air, chilling my skin, Moira’s skin.

  Hands shaking as more tarot cards were overturned. Charms landing on the table and surrounding the cards. The table shaking, creating ripples across the surface of the water in the bowl.

  Fear. Everything about the emerging creature broadcasted…desperation. A plea for help.

  Many pleas for help. Many voices.

  The emerald ring pressed to the side of Moira’s massive desk chair. A secret bottom dropped down. Something shoved inside.

  I noticed I was standing. The mirror was on the floor and Maritza was in front of me, arms akimbo and her eyes wide open. Only, her eyes had gone as milky as the dead and she was floating in the air. Story threads were winding around her, tasting her, eagerly reweaving themselves into the fabric of her roomy sweater. As the threads disappeared and her feet made contact with the rug, she closed her eyelids and crumpled to the floor.

  “Beryl, how do we stop this?” I asked. Unlike the first time, the mascara was stinging my skin.

  Something landed at my feet. “Clemmie, use the wipes to get it off.”

  I went to my knees and fumbled with the container’s snap on lid until I had a handful of towelettes. I swabbed my face and gently pinched my eyelashes until the pain abated and my sight—Clementine’s sight—returned. Maritza was still down for the count.

  I stood where she had when she invoked the cardinal directions, thanked the powers that be and apologized for the brevity and clumsiness of my words. I blew out each candle as I went, lifted the candle at the center, gave my thanks to Hecate, and doused that flame too.

  “I don’t know if I did that right, but we have a code red here,” I said, kneeling by my aunt. I tore off the shop coat and lifted Maritza’s arm. It was like lifting overcooked spaghetti out of the pot. “Shoot, Beryl, now what do we do?”

  “I’m calling Alabastair. He can portal here.”

  “Tell him Tía’s breathing. And I know where Mom stashed at least some of her records.” I grabbed the coat and hung it over the back of Mom’s big desk chair. “Let me have the ring,” I said. “I need it to open something.”

  Beryl twisted the ring off her finger and put the call on speaker. She launched into relaying the sequence of events to the necromancer. When she finished, I asked, “Bas, can you get here soon?”

  “I’m on my way,” he said, “but while I
’m waiting can you describe to me anything you saw that might have directly affected Maritza?”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. The threads. They’d reacted to Tía’s presence inside the circle. I described how the threads worked themselves back into my aunt’s sweater. Alabastair interrupted me. “I’m up next for the portal. You’ve got to get the sweater off her. I’ll be there within the hour.”

  The anxious tone in Alabastair’s voice added extra propellant. I passed the phone to Beryl and pulled my mother’s scissors—the ones I’d found downstairs—from the pocket of her shop coat. “Prop up Tía’s head.”

  Beryl cradled our aunt’s head in her hands while I kneeled next to them. I held the bottom of the sweater and cut upward to the neckline. Within seconds we had the garment off.

  “She’s wearing Agent Provocateur,” Beryl said, giving Maritza’s lacy bodysuit an appreciative whistle.

  “If I had someone like Alabastair in my life I’d go all out in the undergarment department too.”

  “We should cover her with something.”

  “I’ll get that piece of mohair. Can you stay with her while I see if the ring still works?”

  “Sure, as long as you tell me everything you’re doing. The weather out there’s getting worse and it’s giving me the willies.”

  I found the folded length of warm, drapey fabric, handed it to Beryl, and stepped to the desk, my heart pounding hard. I didn’t quite understand the significance of the tarot cards and the charms, but the message was loud and clear. Whomever Mom had found as a match for Rémy Ruisseau had strong feelings.

  What their strong feelings were about was not clear.

  I sat on the chair, leaned to the right, and felt for an indentation, a hole, anything that might accept the shape of the emerald. My fingers found only a smooth, unbroken surface. I changed the angle of my hand, concentrating more on the side of the chair.

  And boom. The section under the upholstered seat swung down in slow motion, giving me time to get on my knees and prop it open. “I got it, Beryl,” I said. “I got it, a whole bunch of papers and it looks pretty organized too.”

  “Bring it here, Sissy. I want to go through it together.”

  “Can you do that thing where you make the lights brighter, please?” I asked. I was in the middle of figuring out how to haul the chair over to where Beryl was sitting with Maritza. “And how’s Tía?”

  “I think she’s going to be fine. She’s been twitching a little, but her eyes are still closed.”

  The chair was heavier than it looked and the legs knocked at my shins as I walked it across the room. I set it near my sister, then reached inside the drop-down section for the first wad of notes. As I emptied the box, Beryl read from the oaktag labels.

  “These are organized by date,” she said. She waved her hand impatiently. “Give me half.”

  We found the receipts from the year our mother died in a stack half the size of the others. Rémy’s was close to the top. Beryl was about to open the folded piece of paper when I closed my hand over hers. “What time is it?”

  My sister tugged out her phone. “Almost six. Twenty-four hours left.”

  “We can do this.”

  She tugged her hand from my grip and puffed out her cheeks. “I sure as heck hope so, Sissy, because if we don’t—”

  “If we don’t, we deal with it. What’s the paper say?”

  Beryl scanned the page, opened her mouth as if to speak, and closed it again.

  “What’s it say?”

  “It says Mom found a match for Rémy.” She looked at me, tears filling her eyes. “It’s dated a couple of days before she died.”

  “Are there any names on there?”

  “All it says is, ‘Found Gosia on 30 April.’” Beryl chewed at her lower lip. Her phone buzzed. “It’s Alabastair. He’s at the front door. Can you go let him in?”

  By the time the necromancer and I reached the workroom, he’d apologized for taking so long—the portal in the cellar was acting up—and I’d filled him in on what we’d done. His first question was, “Did Maritza have anything to eat before she cast the circle?”

  “She nibbled at the food you set out and she had some of the tea.”

  He glanced at the snacks, frowned, and knelt by my aunt. “Her magic has a profound effect on her metabolism,” he explained. “We’ve been trying to counter the stress by having her eat more frequent meals. I think she’s still getting used to the change.” He supported Maritza under her knees and across the back of her shoulders and lifted her off the floor. At my nod, he settled onto Mom’s desk chair, my aunt in his lap. “She should awaken soon. While we wait, tell me what you’ve found.”

  We showed Bas the paper as he drew his cape over Maritza’s legs.

  “This U might stand for underland,” he said, pointing to a letter that had been underlined three times. “Your aunt knows more about them than I. There is one confirmed underland on the island where your uncle lives. I’ve been inside the site, which functions as a portal to ancient realms. I confess to being extremely intrigued by its possibilities.”

  I’m sure Beryl’s mouth gaped liked mine at the mention of “ancient realms.” I wanted to pull more information from Alabastair, but Maritza began to stir. The necromancer asked for the plate of food, the thermos, and the cup to be placed by his side.

  “Do you think the portal in the cellar might lead to an underland?” Beryl asked.

  He urged our aunt to finish the cup of tea while he cradled her on his lap and considered our question. “The portal certainly had some very unusual qualities, as did its end point. Once Mari is fully recovered, we can return to the cellar and have a look.”

  “Clementine. Beryl.” Our aunt’s voice was soft and wobbly. “I apologize for passing out. Where is my sweater?”

  “Oh! It’s right here.”

  Mari sat up. Bas stood, deposited her with care back on the chair, and offered her his cloak. She smiled and accepted him draping it over her shoulders. She also accepted his murmured request that she please eat more. The look she gave him was swoon-worthy, and the way he kissed her made me blush.

  That.

  That was what I wanted. Up until now, I’d been happy with the occasional casual hookup and having guys in my life like Kostya who were great as both friends and lovers and didn’t try to conflate the two into something more permanent. But there was something about being around two or more beings who really loved each other—and who expressed that freely—that had me longing for exactly that.

  “Clementine? Could you please hand me my needle box? Bas will show you where it is. And Beryl, would you be so kind as to cut a yard and a half of”—Maritza visually catalogued the rolls of fabric on the wide shelves and pointed—“the black, lightweight wool knit. Second shelf down, right-hand side.”

  While we hurried to collect the requested supplies, Bas refilled her plate and fed her bites. I set the oblong, velvet-covered box on her lap as Beryl unrolled the wool yardage on the cutting table.

  “I must stitch up a fresh shirt. Then we can go to the cellar. I am curious to see this portal, and I find the possibility that it might connect to an underland extremely—” She tilted her head to one side, then pursed her lips. “Hmm. The U could also stand for Unseelie, as in the Unseelie Court. My sister was onto something. And I think we’re getting closer to discovering what that something was.”

  Beryl shook out the length of fabric. “What would you like me to do, Tía?”

  “Cut out a shirt for me, please. Keep it simple. Long sleeves. It’s chilly in here.”

  My sister stared at me, shrugged, and frowned in confusion. “Do you want some help?” I asked.

  She nodded vigorously, confessing, “This is where I would always tune out Mom’s instructions. I keep two tailors busy with copying my favorite dresses and with alterations. I’m a failure at drafting patterns.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I was paying attention,” I said, pushing up my sweater
’s sleeves and opening the drawer filled with scissors. I pointed to the opposite side of the table. “There’s chalk in one of those drawers and rulers in the other. I need the clear, curved one. Watch and learn, sister. Watch and learn.”

  Beryl kept one eye on what I was doing and the other eye—and both thumbs—on her phone. “Kostya expects to be here by eight. With at least one brother.”

  “Did he say which one?” I asked. I had to be careful not to nibble too hard at my lips while I was working. They were beginning to chap. “And can you get me some water?”

  “Sure thing, Sissy. And that’s a negatory on knowing which brother will accompany Demon Boy.” Beryl looked up from her phone. “Is there a bottle in your purse, or—” She glanced around the room. “I can always wash out… Crap, do you think the plumbing still works now that we’re using the bathroom as an elevator?”

  “Only one way to find out.” I shooed her away and concentrated on refining the curve of the garment’s armscye.

  “It doesn’t have to be perfect, mi sobrinita.”

  “I know, but I haven’t made a pattern freehand in a long time and I’m remembering how much I enjoy this.”

  “Then take your time. But not too much time. We have the cellar to explore and a contract to complete.”

  10

  Maritza sewed herself a top from the pieces I cut, and I rehydrated and shared some of her snacks. Beryl led the four of us down the stairs to Mom’s cramped, ground-floor office. We all had to squeeze in as we waited for her to press the emerald to the keyhole. That door slid open. The lights she’d left on earlier had gone off.

  “Lucerna lumen.” Beryl flicked her fingers at the wall to her right, then left, then explained, “Mom taught me that spell when I was going through an extended period of being afraid of the dark.”

  On both walls, rows of glowing, clear-glass balls hung from braided cords in pristine condition. I ran my fingertips along the fibers and recognized my mother’s handiwork. Where most parents braided their kids’ hair using three strands, she often used four or five when taming our unruly waves for school.