Hexes and Hemlines

by Juliet Blackwell

  Dastardly felines.

  I went downstairs and out the front door to deliver the sandwich and a travel mug of sweetened coffee to Conrad, a neighborhood fixture who spent much of each day sitting on the curb outside my shop.

  “Anything new on the street lately?” I asked.

  “Duuude,” said Conrad. It was a sort of all-purpose response that sometimes led to a longer discussion, and sometimes was a sentence in itself.

  I waited a beat. Apparently, today that was all there was to say.

  Soon after I opened Aunt Cora’s Closet, Conrad—or “the Con,” as he called himself—and I sort of adopted one another. He was one of the hundreds of young people who flocked to the Haight each year in search of freedom. What they usually found, instead, was a sort of homeless, in-between existence. They called themselves gutter punks, and were generally reviled by the merchants and permanent residents of the neighborhood. Part of me understood why—their panhandling and general lack of hygiene left a whole lot to be desired. But they tugged at my heart, not unlike a recently orphaned black cat I could mention. In my estimation people, and animals, should never be treated as throwaways.

  Though Conrad wasn’t ready yet for my help in fighting his obvious chemical addictions, he watched over my store and did small tasks for me, while I made sure he had breakfast most days, and I welcomed his friendly, mellow presence outside my shop.

  “Enjoy your sandwich.”

  “Duuude,” Conrad repeated, this time by way of “thank you.”

  I retrieved the San Francisco Chronicle from the concrete stoop and went back inside.

  Perching on a high stool, I spread the paper out on the glass counter and searched the pages to see if Zazi’s death had rated a story. I was just about to give up when I found a brief article, relegated to page nine. According to the story a man had been found dead in his apartment, an apparent homicide. There was no mention of bad luck symbols, but it did refer to Malachi Zazi as founder of the famous—or notorious—Serpentarian Society dinners. There was even a picture, a black-and-white image of several men and women in period attire. I counted: There were thirteen members, including Malachi Zazi himself.

  Then I noticed the byline on the story: Nigel Thorne. Nigel was a senior journalist who had spoken to me a while back about a series of missing children in the Hunters Point neighborhood. Why would he write this short, nothing article about a homicide? Could he be working on a bigger story? Nigel had become the unofficial go-to guy for strange things—paranormal things—for the San Francisco Chronicle.

  I checked my watch: It was still early, before nine. I made a mental note to call him a little later. And as soon as Maya and Bronwyn got here, I would go talk to Gregory and try to figure out what was going on. And to Inspector Carlos Romero. Had he known I was connected to Gregory when he asked me to weigh in?

  But in the meantime there was plenty of work to do. Witch or no witch, I still had to fill out paperwork and payroll and health benefits and sales tax. Running a retail shop of any kind, I was learning, was no easy thing. Good thing I loved it so much.

  The little bell on the door tinkled when Maya arrived a little before ten, a chai latte in hand.

  “Good morning, Lily. Hey, who’s this?” Maya asked, picking up the black cat and cradling it in her slender arms. I could hear its raspy purring from where I stood.

  “I sort of agreed to find a home for it. Looks like you two are hitting it off—would you like to keep it?”

  “I wish I could. I live in a no-pet building. It’s adorable, though. You should keep it here as a shop cat!”

  “Black hairs on the merchandise? I don’t think so.”

  “I guess you’re right,” she said with a smile. “Too bad it’s not a bookstore.”

  As though to prove my point, Maya put down the cat and brushed a few stray black hairs off her saffroncolored sweater. She went to the back room to wash her hands; clean hands are an occupational necessity in the vintage clothing business.

  Mondays at Aunt Cora’s Closet were typically mellow. Within half an hour of opening a half dozen women were perusing the merchandise, and a couple of college students were trying on skirts in the communal dressing room, which was cordoned off from the rest of the store by heavy velvet curtains. Most of the customers were dressed in the uniform common to local students and artists: old jeans or long skirts—or both—topped by tatty T-shirts, faded hoodies, and worn backpacks slung over their slim shoulders.

  I felt a surge of satisfaction. Aunt Cora’s Closet was my first attempt at making a normal living, and so far we were in high cotton, as we’d say back home. The shop was developing a loyal following, and I was becoming a true scavenger: From auctions to garage sales to personal reference, I was Johnny-on-the-spot when it came to acquiring great old clothes.

  “Hey! Guess who came into the shop yesterday,” Maya said over the gurgle of the steam machine. She started meticulously smoothing out a Jackie O–style ivory linen shift with a matching jacket trimmed in faux ermine. I found the chic outfit balled up in a dresser drawer at a white elephant sale last month at the Oakland museum. I bought it for five dollars; the buttons were missing and there were a few small tears in the fine linen, but Maya’s mother, Lucille, was a gifted seamstress. After a thorough laundering, Lucille mended the holes, and then unearthed four antique buttons made of carved bone to replace the missing originals. Perfect.

  “Who?”

  “That chick from that movie . . . what’s her name?”

  I laughed. “You’re going to have to give me a few more clues. I don’t read minds, remember?”

  Maya smiled, teeth flashing very white against the smooth mocha of her skin. “Blond, sort of elfin-looking . . . she was in that movie a few years ago, the big blockbuster about vampires? Spells her name funny . . .”

  “Sorry,” I said as I moved behind the counter to start organizing the weekend’s receipts. “As you know, I’m about the last person in the world you want to ask about movies or TV shows.”

  “Was it Nichol Reiss?” asked a petite dark-haired woman. She returned a beaded top to its crowded rack before joining Maya and me at the counter. I recognized her as a client who had recently purchased a vintage 1920s flapper dress for the upcoming Art Deco Ball in Oakland. While she was here, she had also asked Bronwyn and me to mix a love charm for her.

  “That’s it!” Maya said. “Nichol Reiss. Sounds like ‘Nicole,’ but spelled with a ‘ch’ and no ‘e.’ Anyway, she didn’t buy anything but she spent a while looking. I guess she’s from San Francisco, so it’s not all that surprising, but still.”

  “You’re Claudia, right?” I said to the woman who had spoken. “How nice to see you.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d recognize me,” she said. “You must get gobs of women in here asking for your help.”

  “Of course I remember you,” I said with a smile.

  One of the benefits of my powers was an excellent memory, but I would never have forgotten Claudia, even with terrible recall. She had dark olive skin, long nearblack hair, and the kind of exotic features that indicated a mixed ancestry. She also happened to be the first person who had actually come into Aunt Cora’s Closet looking not only for vintage clothes but specifically asking for a magical spell . . . and I had mixed a charm bag for her. To someone like me, who had spent the first thirty-plus years of her life trying to keep her witchiness under wraps, it had been a milestone worthy of note.

  I dropped my voice a tad. “How did the love charm work out?”

  She grinned. “He called and asked if he could escort me to the Art Deco Ball. Maybe it would have happened anyway, but that charm didn’t hurt. I’m still using it.”

  “That’s good.” Most spells were not a onetime thing; rather, the continuing steady influence of intention brought them to fruition.

  Truly powerful love spells could result in zombielike, mindless obsession. I kept away from such things. Any witchcraft that forced others to act in ways not na
tural to them was dangerous to all concerned. In contrast, the mellow “love charm” I had prepared for Claudia would open the gates a bit, simply ease the natural progression of things. People tended to get caught up in outside forces—what other people thought, worries about their careers, insecurities, and extraneous life goals. The charm I had prepared for Claudia helped her to clarify her own desires, and to clear the way for the object of her desire to respond.

  “Hey, not for nothing,” Claudia said, “it’s great that you’re getting discovered by celebrities, but . . .”

  “What?”

  “Nichol Reiss has a little bit of a problem.”

  “Oh, the shoplifting thing?” Maya asked.

  Claudia nodded.

  “I didn’t even think of that,” Maya said. “You’re right, though. That’s why she sort of dropped off the radar after that movie. It was such a big hit, too.”

  “What shoplifting thing?” I asked.

  “She was caught red-handed shoplifting at some high-profile store on Rodeo Drive.”

  “This is a movie star we’re talking about?” I asked. “Why would a big star need to shoplift?”

  “I don’t think it was a matter of need per se,” Maya said. “It can be a compulsion, a cry for attention, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, of course,” I said, feeling insensitive. But as a shop owner, I was also concerned. Theft was a serious problem for any retailer, but it was a particular issue along Haight Street. When I first opened the shop I had created an antitheft charm and hung it over the door—a red leather bag filled with charged caraway seeds and old keys. Plus, I cast a spell of protection over the store every morning. Still, those simple enchantments wouldn’t chase off every ne’er-do-well. The most determined could still manage to overcome such hindrances. The human spirit was a powerful thing.

  I had considered casting a stronger guardian spell, but a complete lockdown tamped down other forms of creativity as well. It was a conundrum. There is always, always a cost to the use of power.

  “Anyway, I don’t think she could have taken anything,” Maya said, a slight frown marring her otherwise smooth forehead. As usual she wore a shiny collection of silver cuffs on her delicate ears, but today her black locks were decorated with fresh wildflowers, making me think that Bronwyn’s nature-loving ways must be rubbing off on her. “She was the only customer in here at the time, and she knew I recognized her, so it would have been tough.”

  “And just think,” said Claudia. “If Aunt Cora’s Closet starts getting known among celebrities, you’ll be all the rage.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be all the rage,” said Maya.

  “Me too,” I said with a smile. “So, Claudia, are you looking for anything special today?”

  “Just picking up my dress for the ball, but of course I couldn’t resist browsing while I was here.”

  “Mom finished the alterations on Claudia’s gown,” Maya explained. “I gave her a call to come pick it up.”

  “Oh, great! Would you mind trying it on before you go?”

  “You think it might not fit?” asked Claudia.

  “Oh, I’m sure it will. Lucille is an amazing seamstress. Mostly I want to see you in it one more time.”

  When Claudia first came into Aunt Cora’s Closet in search of a dress for the Art Deco Ball, she had her mind set on a different-style outfit altogether. But I have a gift for sensing what fashions suit my customers. Sometimes I have to practically bully people into trying on a particular dress or ensemble, but I’m almost always right. It gave me great satisfaction that at least in this one, admittedly limited area, I was very much a master of my craft.

  When Claudia emerged from the communal dressing room a few minutes later, she had her long dark hair piled loosely on her head and a huge grin on her face. She practically glowed.

  “It looks even better than I remembered,” said Claudia.

  The 1920s gold lamé flapper dress managed to appear at once quaint and exotic. The chemise-style gown had an underbodice that fit snug to the body, while the gold drape gathered in a bow at the left hip. The outer fabric featured a delicate woven border pattern of Egyptian stylized lotus blossoms—a sign of the sun and rebirth. The vibrations from the gown, which I had picked up at an estate sale in Bernal Heights, were dancing, alive, almost giddy. It was ideal for Claudia at this point in her life.

  “I tell you what: Between that dress and your smile,” Maya said, “your sweetie is toast, love charm or no.”

  A trio of customers came over to admire Claudia, commenting on the fabric and the fit. Oscar, never one to miss out on a party—especially one consisting entirely of women—snorted and wound through our legs, making everyone laugh. The feeling of the place immediately became festive, and I basked in the warm sensations. I could scarce believe how Aunt Cora’s Closet, quite without explicit intent, had become a natural, jovial meeting place. Whenever there were several women trying on clothes in the communal dressing room, giggling and sharing—almost like children playing dress-up—the store felt like the setting of a spontaneous girls’ night out.

  As a young woman, even as a child, I had never been part of the easy, cheerful way of women when they’re alone and unobserved. Indeed, until I met Maya and Bronwyn I had never had friends at all.

  Claudia’s fashion success inspired several other young women to try on gowns from the era. They streamed in and out of the communal dressing room. But when they started chatting about the upcoming Art Deco Ball, I felt the first whiff of worry and disappointment come off of Claudia. Since everything was all set with her dream date, I wondered what was on her mind. Still, I hesitated to ask in front of everyone and risk changing the tenor of the moment.

  I carefully packed Claudia’s altered dress and wrote out care instructions as Maya ran her credit card through.

  “Hey, what are these?” Claudia asked, pointing at some new carved talismans in the display case. “I think I may need a good luck charm.”

  “The love charm wasn’t enough?”

  “So far that part is great, but . . . this is going to sound weird, but I went to this dinner last month and I feel like I’ve had bad luck ever since. And now I’m helping set up the Art Deco Ball and our toastmaster was”—her voice dropped—“he was found murdered yesterday.”

  Maya gasped. “Murdered? That’s terrible. What happened? Who was it?”

  I’m no mind reader, but I already knew. San Francisco was a marvelous environment for coincidences, at least when it came to me and mine.

  “Malachi Zazi.”

  Chapter 7

  “They found him in his apartment,” said Claudia. “I don’t know any details—I only know that much because I live in his building. Sort of. I’m just apartment and pet sitting—I could never afford that area normally. But anyway, that’s how I got involved with the Art Deco Society; Malachi told me about it.”

  “I thought you wrote the newsletter,” I said.

  “I do. In fact, that’s how I found your store, from a newspaper article your friend Wendy sent us. But Malachi’s the one who got me the newsletter gig in the first place.”

  “Zazi’s part of the Art Deco Society?”

  “Oh, yes. He had a love of historical things—his apartment’s like a museum. His stuff’s earlier than Art Deco. That’s for sure. More like Victoriana, but I guess he enjoyed a lot of different things.”

  “Sounds like you knew him pretty well.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far; I attended one of his dinners last month, but that was enough for me. It kind of weirded me out.”

  “In what way?”

  “I thought it was just a kind of historical reenactment or something—we all wore clothing from the era, and the dinner was quite ornate. But here’s where it gets weird: I guess Malachi was trying to poke fun about bad luck symbols or something. There was a broken mirror, and an open umbrella, a ladder to walk under . . . I never really thought of myself as superstitious before, but it really started to
bother me.”

  “And you feel like you’ve had bad luck since then?”

  “It’s probably my imagination, right? But I always figure, why tempt fate?”

  Why indeed?

  “Could you tell me anything else about him? Was he the kind of guy with a lot of enemies, anything like that?”

  Claudia smiled. “Now you sound like a cop. They already came by and asked me a million questions yesterday. Besides the Art Deco stuff and the dinner stuff, he pretty much kept to himself, never went out during the day.” She paused. “Why are you asking? Did you know him?”

  “Not exactly.” Carlos Romero hadn’t sworn me to silence, but I didn’t suppose he’d want me to broadcast that he’d brought in a civilian to give him witchcraft advice on a crime scene. “He was sort of an associate of a friend of mine.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  The bell over the main door rang as several new people wandered into the store. A young couple headed straight for the lingerie section. A man with a goatee entered with two women, one a redhead, the other with an overabundance of curly blond hair. They already looked as though they were in costume, and indeed, they made a beeline for the costume corner.

  I liked to let people wander the aisles without being bothered, so after a friendly nod of welcome I continued my conversation with Claudia.

  “I’m on the board of the animal shelter, and a while back Malachi asked me to keep an eye out for a black cat. He adopted one not long ago. And now this. How sad is that?”

  “Did he go down to the shelter to pick out his cat?”

  “No, to tell you the truth, I went against regulations . . . I’ve never done so before. But I happened to know we had a black cat, which was his only stipulation. He didn’t care about age or gender. We have so many cats, and they all need homes . . . anyway, I brought the cat to him. He reimbursed me for all the fees.”

  “Weren’t you at all concerned about the cat’s welfare?” I knew shelters had to be especially careful with black cats around Halloween. There were crazy folk who took the poor felines to be used in dark ceremonies and the like.