The Flower Bowl Spell

by Olivia Boler

  “That calls you?”

  He nods.

  “Cool.” I toss it in my bag. “I’ll remember that. I’ve got to get out of here.”

  Xien holds up his hand. Wait. He points to the vial.

  “I don’t know. I think he was going to use it on me.” I look at the man on the ground. Whatever hold he had over me—and I’m guessing a smothering curse, with a twist of bitter dark side—it’s not there, for now at least. I rummage through his pockets. No wallet, but I come up with a leather pouch full of small bones, a cell phone, a knife, and a pair of sunglasses that look very much like Tyson’s. No. Exactly like Tyson’s.

  He also sports a tattoo that coils around his neck. I don’t want to turn him over and disturb my binding spell, so I lift him up just a little. The tattoo has a snout with teeth, flopping ears, and a long body, with legs and a fishtail with horns. Nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s crudely rendered and reminds me of a Hindu makara—part crocodile, part elephant, part fish. I lie him back down softly. Xien flutters over my shoulder and sheathes his sword. I see he also has a quiver of arrows and a delicate little bow I could probably snap in two with ease. I think how Cleo would love to check out all of the fairy gear.

  Shit. Cleo. The girls. “I have to get home right now.”

  I run out of the room, Xien right behind me, and slam the door shut. Quickly, I whisper a lockdown charm. Sorry, residents of this scary housing project, but you’ll have to wait a while to launder your togs. I think about calling the police, but what will they do? Most likely arrest me for assault and kidnapping. I think about calling a cab too, but I doubt one would come out here to get me.

  We retrace my steps. The basketball-playing boys are gone. I run out of the project and into the street. Xien, still with me, points. There’s a bus coming. I wave it down. The only other passengers are little old ladies dressed in coats and hats as if on their way to church, and I love them as I would my own grandmothers.

  ****

  My tongue runs over my teeth. There’s a jagged place on one of my molars, a new chip from the grinding Stinky gave me.

  The bus, like just about every other Muni vehicle (except the last one I was on), is about as swift as a sloth. The little old ladies with their canes could hobble down the sidewalk faster than this motor coach. But it gives me time to go through Stinky’s stuff. First, the sunglasses. I hold them carefully. They zip and zing, humming with an energy that causes a little dropsy in my stomach, like carsickness, from which I’ve always suffered unless I’m the driver or asleep. I’m sure they are enchanted, like Tyson’s. I’ll have to ask someone about the bones. Maybe Mr. Worth, my old AP biology teacher. Of course, he’s a friend of Cooper’s, so nowadays I’m supposed to call him Henry.

  I have a feeling the bones aren’t leftovers from KFC. The powder I’ll save too. The cell phone is easier. I click through the address book. Nothing I recognize, until I do. And my heart sinks.

  Cheryl L.

  Cheryl LeBrun. Cheradon Badler.

  And there’s another number I recognize. Tyson’s.

  I scroll through the names again, more quickly this time, and another one lights up in my brain, like an exit sign: Dex. I close my eyes and try a little self-hypnosis with some breathing exercises thrown in. Dex. Dexter. Dexter Berdin. D.B.! Cheradon’s manager. Somehow, this makes sense, although I have yet to figure out why.

  I have to transfer buses at the next corner. I get lucky—my connection is coming. This one is more crowded, with four-o’clock commuters on the way home, and I have to stand. The man seated in front of me is getting a call on his phone. He studies the caller ID, his lips pressed together in inner debate. The phone stops its jingling. I watch him cuss under his breath and hit redial.

  “Hey,” he says to whoever has picked up. “Yeah, sorry. We were going through a tunnel.”

  We actually were not.

  He hangs up, and I try to figure out what Stinky’s attack was all about. Who does he work for? Is it Cheradon? Is she after the girls? Or Viveka? I think about the Flower Bowl Spell, and why I think I know Stinky. It’s not only from that first day I saw Xien in the subway tunnel. There’s something else. I look at the bus window in front of me at my own reflection, and am reminded of a face through a window. A face I’ve only half-seen.

  Bright Vixen’s murderer.

  But what does Cheryl—Cheradon—have to do with it all? Maybe she’s the one putting together the Flower Bowl Spell. Perhaps she’s looking for an ingredient.

  My thoughts jump around. Maybe she’s ramping up the gross-out factor as well as the power of the spell by adding something other than a fetus to it. The idea is almost too much to bear, and I start fretting anew over the girls. Could she do such a horrible thing, especially to children, to children who are her cousins?

  By the time we’re almost to my stop, I’m so jumpy I hop off three blocks early and run. As I reach the flat, I see that the living room lights are illuminating the curtains. Rosario’s car is still parked on the street, blocking our driveway. Cooper was supposed to pay her and send her home after he got back from work, which should have already happened.

  I take the stairs two at a time, dropping my keys on the landing my hands are so shaky. Finally, I get the door open and run to the living room, afraid of what I’ll find.

  What I do find is the girls and Rosario steeped in an intense game of Candyland. Romola and Cleo turn and give me big smiles, which I love even more than the old ladies on the bus. Rosario’s look, however, is one of exasperation.

  “Miss Memphis, I must to go.”

  “Rosario, I’m so sorry. Didn’t my—didn’t Cooper come home?”

  “No, no husband. I must to go and cook dinner for my family. My sister, her childrens…”

  I apologize profusely as I rummage in my bag for my wallet. Not a lot of cash. I run to my room where Viveka’s envelope is still in my luggage and pull out four fifties. Rosario takes it but balks.

  “Is too much.” She tries to hand it back. I push it into her hands.

  “Take it take it take it.”

  She’s embarrassed, but doesn’t protest for long. Before she heads out the door, she turns back to me one last time.

  “No husband. Where he is?”

  I shake my head and shrug. I can’t think about that right now.

  The girls sidle up to me and I finally touch them, making sure they’re really all right. Soft hair curling under my fingers, shampooed last night. Smooth, young cheeks, graham-cracker breath. They’re fine.

  Cleo takes my hand, her lips pressed together, like she’s trying not to cry. “We should have gone with you.”

  I grimace. “Oh. You would have been bored silly. Grown-up stuff. Not that growing up is boring. But. Well. Did you have fun with Rosario?”

  “Memphis couldn’t take us with her,” Romola says in her big-sister voice. “She had to work.”

  Cleo ignores her and looks at me. “But you needed us.”

  There’s something about her words and the intensity of her gaze on me. I try to laugh it off. “I probably did. I think I destroyed my laptop.” But she means what she says. I suddenly realize I’ve forgotten all about Xien. The last time I saw him was outside the housing complex. Where did he go?

  “Your Auntie Tess called,” Romola says. She hands me a slip of paper written in her neat nine-year-old script. Tess. I suddenly want to see her very much. I grab my cell phone out of my bag and punch through the menu to my most recent calls—she’s almost always at the top. Before I call, though, I’m reminded of the guy on the bus, the liar who hit redial.

  I plunge my hand into my bag again until I find Stinky’s phone. I check his recent calls.

  I recognize the last phone number, and I can’t believe it.

  Why would he be getting calls from Gru?

  PART FIVE: THE FLOWER BOWL SPELL

  Chapter Twenty-three

  My thoughts enter compartmentalizing mode: Gru. Stinky. The girls. Viveka. S
unglasses, Locket. De-winged fairies. And whatever else I’ve forgotten.

  Where to begin?

  Stinky’s phone is in my hand, Gru’s number ready and waiting. I hit the call button. After the fourth ring, I expect Gru’s answering machine to pick up, but it doesn’t. On the tenth ring, she answers.

  “What is it now?” Her voice sounds old, hesitant. A little peevish. And something I haven’t heard from her before—scared.

  She waits for a reply, but when none comes, she says, “I can’t do any more for you. Can’t you just leave me alone?”

  Still, I say nothing.

  “Wait. I didn’t mean that.” She’s conciliatory now. “What is it, honey? What do you need?”

  I know she doesn’t know it’s me. I know that the smart thing to do would be to hang up and move on to my next thought compartment, but I can’t help myself. “I need to know, Gru, why you’re helping this stinking chickenshit bastard. What you can do for me is give me a goddamn answer.”

  There’s silence on the other end. It seems like an eternity before she says anything. “Memphis.”

  I glance at the girls. Romola is rolling dice. Cleo looks anxious.

  “Hi, Gru.”

  “You’re—you’re all right?”

  “Define all right.”

  “Where are you?”

  I walk into the kitchen, away from inquisitive eyes. “Not in captivity, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  There’s a sigh on her end. I wait for her to say something, knowing that whatever her words are will make a huge difference in what happens next. “I’m sorry.”

  Maybe not so huge. “What are you doing with this guy?” I ask. “What the hell is going on?”

  “You haven’t…you didn’t…no. You would be asking different questions if you had.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m sorry,” she says again. “You’d better get to safety. That’s all I can tell you.”

  I picture her—long, silver-gray hair, grown more and more brittle over the years, breaking off at the ends no matter how many homemade herbal cream rinses she uses, coiled in a bun or hanging down her back in an ever-shortening braid. Sun-damaged skin, wrinkling her into a crone older than her seventy-odd years. Kindly blue eyes and wide face, with strong, yellowing teeth. She has been the surrogate grandmother I’ve neglected since leaving the craft, the grandmother who seemed just as finished with me years before, when the coven broke up, although I pushed and pushed, driving up, often unannounced, to her Mendocino compound with Auntie Tess, and later on my own, until Alice died and I let go of magick.

  Never once have I doubted that Gru loves me, or that she would protect me no matter what.

  “Are my great-granddaughters with you?”

  “No.” If she’s half the witch I’ve always believed her to be, she’ll know I’m lying.

  “Good.”

  There’s a tug at my skirt. Cleo is looking up at me. “Hang up, Memphis.”

  I take the phone from my ear, and just before I end the call, I think I hear Gru say, “If you were a mother you’d understand.”

  Just as I hang up Stinky’s phone, my phone rings. It’s Cooper.

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  “That’s a very good question.” The voice on the other end is not his. It’s a woman’s voice—youthful, flirty, and dangerous.

  “Who is this?”

  “Another good one. You are on a roll, Memphis.”

  I recognize her. Cheradon.

  “What are you doing with my boyfriend’s phone?”

  “The real question is, what am I doing with your boyfriend?”

  Fuck me.

  “You know, those high school faculty parking lots are really ideal for being bad,” she says. “I don’t think one single soul saw us lure him into our car.” She sighs. “Teachers are so trusting.”

  “Let me talk to him,” I say.

  There’s a bit of muffled sound and then Cooper is on the line.

  “Hello, ma cherie.” He sounds happy. Maybe drunk. “I think I might be dying.”

  “Cooper, where are you? What did they do to you?” As I ask my questions, I reach out to him. He’s not far away. He’s in a dark place. His hands are bound. My heartbeat rocks into double-time.

  Cheradon gets back on the line and her voice is sweet but vicious. “If you really love him, you’ll meet us at Lindley Meadow, two a.m. And come alone or he’s eviscerated. We’ve already started slicing, and it’s pretty fucking fun. Got it?” She laughs. “Kiss noises.”

  ****

  Strangely, I don’t panic. Get fucking angry, yes, but panic, no.

  My magickal cabinet has been relegated to a dismal corner in the basement/garage. Our neighbor in the flat above us is an antiques buff, and he’s always offering me more and more ridiculous sums of money for it. I catch him glaring at me sometimes like I’m a museum-looter for keeping it here in its damp, dusty nook. It’s about a third of the size of Tucker’s gorgeous wardrobe, and much more simple than Tess’s Chinese cupboard inlaid with jade and mother-of-pearl.

  Of course, almost everything in it is way past its sell-by date. My dried herbs, most bought at Whole Foods (I’ve never been a garden witch), are bleached of color and scent. The flasks of olive oil and rose water have turned. There isn’t a new, unused candle in sight. Even the ribbons on the wand I never bother using are fraying, and my silver pentacle needs a good polishing. I throw the sundries in my bag. I could duck out to the store for fresh herbs, but if there’s anything Gru said that I can take to heart it’s her get-to-safety warning. Besides, pushing a shopping cart up and down the grocery store aisles with a bunch of wooly-cap-wearing hipsters doesn’t seem like the best idea right now.

  Without further ado, I whisk the girls out of the house and into the car. We barrel over the hills and cut through Golden Gate Park to Tess’s apartment in the Richmond district.

  “Ah, what a treat!” She stands in the doorway clapping her hands when we arrive. “I have presents for you girls, presents!” She laughs and grabs me in a hug. “Guess what?” She pulls away. “Gil called me and said I haven’t lost my job at all! In fact, he wants to thank me for initiating a partnership with the ACLU over the sweatshop thing! They’re forming an oversight committee and I get to be on it! Ha!” She does a little jig. “I cut my trip short and came straight home. That resort was so boring. Eating, yoga, meditation, eating, yoga, and more meditation.” She fakes a yawn. “And your protection charm worked, well, like a charm!” She starts laughing.

  “Auntie, I have to talk to you, right now. It’s about Cooper.”

  “Is he going back to his wife? I knew it.”

  “No, that’s not it at all.”

  But Tess isn’t paying attention. She holds up her hand, stopping me. “Just a minute, lamb.” She throws open the door of the hallway closet. It’s full of coats, appliance boxes, her vacuum cleaner, and shoes. She pulls out two large shopping bags full of gift-wrapped packages and hands one to each of the girls. Cleo begins tearing into hers with abandon, while Romola takes her time, although her eyes are gleefully shiny.

  “Auntie Tess, these are kind of elaborate gifts, don’t you think?” I don’t add, For people you hardly know, even children.

  “Oh, they aren’t from me. I don’t buy souvenirs. They’re from Viveka.”

  Romola stops shaking a box and Cleo pauses in her shredding. “You mean our mom?” Romola asks.

  “Mommy!” Cleo squeals.

  Auntie Tess nods, her expression that of the proverbial canary-catching cat. “She was in las Islas Melloras too! She was visiting a friend and she told me to tell you girls that she’ll be home soon. But it’s going to take a while longer than she thought.” Tess takes an envelope from her purse on the front hall table and gives it to me. I peek inside: more cash. A lot. “She gave me a cashier’s check,” Auntie Tess says to my unasked question of how she got so many greenbacks through customs.

  Rom
ola’s eyes go from shiny to glazed. “Are we going home to Daddy?”

  Tess pats her on the shoulder. “Soon, sweetheart. Soon. Listen, I don’t have much to eat in the house. But how about we order some burritos?”

  The girls shrug and nod. Tess waves her hands at them, as if shooing them into action. “Well, go on! Keep opening your presents. Memphis? Help me pick out the food?”

  I follow her to her old-fashioned kitchen with its classic O’Keefe and Merritt stove and 1950s-era refrigerator. She opens it and pulls out a half-empty bottle of chardonnay. “This might send me to sleep, but I think we need some.”

  “Hell yeah,” I mutter as she pours two glasses, emptying the bottle. “Tess, they have Cooper.”

  She looks puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Cheradon Badler, and I don’t know who else, but Tyson Belmonte is involved, and this guy who attacked me today, and maybe Gru.”

  I tell her everything that has happened since she left, leaving nothing out, not even the clothes-wearing geese. I feel myself getting lighter as I unload the truth. Tess simply looks at me from beneath her bangs without interrupting. When I get to Bright Vixen’s dead body, she puts her hands over her mouth and tears fill her eyes, spilling over, but she doesn’t interrupt. As I describe Tucker’s powers and his fairy aviary, her eyes are dry and wide. I pull Stinky’s bag of bones from my bag and she pours them into her hands, shaking her head when I ask if she knows what they are. She recognizes the vial of powder though, sniffing it and rubbing the powder between her fingers.

  “This is negative stuff, Memphis.”

  “What is it?”

  She washes her hands, liberally pumping soap from the dispenser next to the kitchen sink into her palms. “It’s a knock-out powder. Cypress dust and dried lettuce.”

  “A magickal roofie.” Stinky wanted me out. And then what?

  I get to the phone call from Cheradon, Cooper’s addled voice. I feel tears in my own eyes, my throat going tight. Auntie Tess hugs me. Her hugs are something I’ve been able to count on my whole life, and I find myself letting go in her embrace, trying to cry quietly so I won’t scare the girls. She lets me.