by S. E. Akers
“I could totally see Katy Perry wearing something like this — at a concert,” she clarified and then raced towards the next one in line. “Do you think Madame Syeria knows any gypsies that use a crystal ball?”
“I don’t know, and I really don’t want to find out,” I insisted.
Katie picked up a pair of crystal-encrusted kicks that sparkled like glass slippers. “Do you think she’ll let me try a few of them on?”
I issued my ears a pop after hearing that. “So you really want to work here?” I questioned. “Seriously?”
“Hell no!” she gasped. “I wouldn’t be able to uncurl my knuckles for an entire month after just a week of sewing beads and gluing stones on these things. Ugh, and having to feed miles of fishing line into all those ruffles . . .” Katie shook her head. “No-freakin’-way!” She hopped up behind one of the mountainous dresses that cascaded into a field of lavender satin rosettes dusted with Swarovski crystals. You could hardly see her head poking out. “I just want to put a few on . . . and twirl around in them for a while.” She tried lifting the dress form. “This thing weighs a freaking ton.”
“We’re not trying on some Bride-to-be’s dress,” I laughed.
“It’s not like we’ll jinx it or anything,” Katie huffed. “Come on! Remember how much fun we had dressing up as Anne and Diana when we were little? It’ll be just like that.”
I pointed to one claiming a peek-a-boo bodice that only had two metallic stars sewn around the bust. “I don’t recall Anne of Green Gables being that progressive.”
My bosom friend’s arms fell into a serious fold. “Well, clearly you haven’t read the online fan-fiction.”
I shook my head. “NO!”
Katie flounced around the room in protest. “PLEASE? It’s like jumping out of an airplane. It’s something totally insane that I would never-ever-ever choose to do, but then when someone slides open a door and hands you a parachute like this . . .” She aimed another remote at a gown fitted with butterfly wings and sent them gracefully flapping with a light tap. “ . . . You just have to strap that baby on and freaking jump! Come on, Shi . . . It’ll be like one big crazy-ass princess tea-party,” she laughed. “I mean, seriously? Look at these things!”
She had just wrapped up her spiel of silly pleas when our peripherals sensed someone in the doorway. We turned our heads to find Madame Syeria walking towards us. Seeing her scathing glare as she approached was just as chafing as hearing the sound her heels were making as they slowly struck the hardwood floor. Oh, there was no denying it: as proud artisans went, this one was offended. But to what extent depended on exactly how much she’d heard.
I started to mount an apology when Madame Syeria cut me off with a shushing point to her lips, followed by a battery of “tsk, tsk, tsk, tsks” that synced with the stern back and forth rocks of her finger.
Slightly stunned and fearing for my BFF, Madame Syeria’s stealthy strides closed in on her like a lioness. The proud dressmaker stopped in front of Katie and then casually reached behind her own neck. Her hands slid along the chain of her seashell necklace, extending the run of gold links to roughly four times its original length.
“So, Katherine Hepburn . . . What do you think of my gowns?” she queried, her nose cocked while rocking her seashell pendant back and forth purposely.
Katie straightened her stance like she was standing in front of a school principal. “They’re beautiful,” she replied, straight-faced.
With her steps solid and steady, Madame Syeria prowled around Katie while she dangled the swaying pendant from her palm. “A simple flower is beautiful. My dresses deserve more praise than that.”
My busted BFF passed me a glance. “You’re right. They’re gorgeous,” Katie corrected, trying to keep a tight lock on the sneer that was trying to bust loose.
She stopped in front of Katie, now looking her dead in the eyes. “And you would walk down the aisle wearing one of these for your own wedding?”
Katie’s eyes flared like a doe about to be bagged & tagged in December. “Definitely,” she lied.
The woman took a step backward and held the tiny conch shell in front of her face, looking oddly more interested in it.
What the heck is she doing? I sought out the woman’s thoughts as she stood there bouncing her stare between Katie and her tapering seashell pendant. Suddenly I sensed a familiar energy radiating from the tiny conch shell. That’s when I discovered it wasn’t just any old piece of costume jewelry, but a charmed pendulum being fueled by a particular gemstone hidden inside the shell that I was sorely acquainted with — a peridot to be exact. After rubbing that lime-green stone’s totem so ignorantly the first go-around and Tanner’s lie-detecting crack, I’d made a point of remembering its signature vibe. Madame Syeria may have been a dressmaker by trade, but the blood of a full-fledged Romani gypsy was running through her mystical veins. With the aid of the peridot, she was using the direction of the pendulum’s sway to verify the truthfulness of Katie’s replies with one-hundred percent accuracy. Then on a harrowing hunch, I extended the diamond’s reach throughout the room. Once Madame Syeria had received all the confirmation of Katie’s lies she needed, a strong magical current seeped into the room, rippling down the walls. And unfortunately that only meant one thing.
I whipped up my head, painfully familiar with another shopkeeper’s protective wards. Son-of-a-Bitch!
Madame Syeria released the pendulum and then grabbed hold of Katie’s hands, clenching them almost as tight as the scowl on her face. “NO! Only gypsy hands sew seams and make my clothes! I wouldn’t let these vile mitts pull the first pin out of one of my gowns.” She belted out a laugh. “Or feed my lunch scraps to the rats out in the trash!” Then she dropped Katie’s hands with a gruff grunt.
Oh no… That was the first thing rolling through my head. The second was a message directed to Katie begging her to keep that freaking combustible mouth of hers shut.
Katie narrowed her eyes. “I wouldn’t waste the effort in one of my pinkies trying to stitch one of these tacky crystal-covered hot-air balloons together!” Katie barked right back. “I bet most of them fall apart before the brides even make it to the church.” Hoping to prove her point, Katie turned to one of the gowns and started tugging on a row of rosettes stitched just below its waistline. When she couldn’t get them to rip, she held on to the neck of the dress form with a vehement grasp and then started yanking even harder. I was certain of two things at this point. One, Katie had lost her daggone mind… And two, even if we made it out of here, that chick wasn’t leaving without being saddled with a curse.
Madame Syeria pushed her away from the gown. “My dresses, ALL OF MY DRESSES, make it straight through the ceremony!” She let out a curdling growl and held up one of her hands. “That is what these crafty fingers and my family name guarantees!” she roared.
I’d been hollering to Katie’s head for the past minute trying to get her attention, but apparently the heated seamstress stare-down she and Madame Syeria were locked in was far too pressing. With their hairy-eyed battle still silently charging at full-speed, I decided to blast a particularly loud and direct message to her head.
“Do you remember how Ms. Lá Léo had protective wards in her store? Well, Madame Syeria does too. So that means you’ve just ticked off a full-fledged magical-assed gypsy!”
The hellcat who hadn’t backed down for a second throughout any my other warning cries suddenly bounced her knees into humble curtsy and cranked out a smile. “Thank you for your time,” she blurted tersely and then started hotfooting it for the exit.
“Leaving so soon?” Madame Syeria asked.
I grabbed Katie’s arm and yanked her through the double doors just before they crashed to a jolting close. “Yep,” we mumbled now running for the main door.
Katie rattled the knobs. “Shit! They’re locked!”
“Oh, I figured that,” I grumbled.
Madame Syeria came casually strolling through the curtain and into the
foyer. “You two cretins are not going anywhere.” She edged towards Katie. “Especially not you.”
I handed Katie my gris-gris to hold and stepped between them. “YES — WE ARE,” I confirmed with my steeliest gaze fired. I knew the exact moment the gypsy woman became aware of the diamond’s power by the way the hostile flare in her eyes paled into a quivering daze. Madame Syeria had no sooner taken a staggering step back when the sound of the door unlocking rattled the room.
Madame Syeria pointed to the door. “Go,” she urged warily.
“Thank you,” I said, practically shoving Katie outside before her ballsie-butt could start up with another round I’d sensed brewing. I may have closed the door on my way out, but I felt a swarm of eyes on me as the two of us headed to the car. Sure enough, I looked back when I reached the foot of the walk to spy various brunette-haired young girls standing in each of the building’s windows, from the ground to the roof, watching my every move.
Katie was already inside the car with the passenger-side door kindly open for me when I turned around to slide inside. “Still think finding that flyer was ‘A SIGN’?” I posed, brow arched as taut as a bowstring.
“Yeah, of your bad luck,” Katie griped. “I swear I’m never taking you anywhere again.”
My mouth fell to the floorboard. “Me?” I honestly wanted to smack her with one of the shopping bags that had pushed into the front seats. My glare sought out her neck. “And where’s your diamond?” I fussed. “That pendulum she was using wouldn’t have been able to pluck the first answer out of your head if you’d had it on!”
Katie held up her purse innocently. “It’s in here.”
I stared out the front window in a cross daze, still fearful of what could have happened to her. “You’re supposed to be wearing it!”
“Easy,” she pleaded. “I’m with you — the in-person ‘real thing’. How much freaking safer could I be?”
I pointed to her purse. “Put. It. On. NOW!”
“OKAY!” Katie huffed and unzipped one of its inside pockets. Once it was out, she threw it around her neck and pinched the diamond between her fingers. “There,” she said and dropped the stone under her shirt.
Another pointy edge from one of the shopping bags rubbed against my skin. I shoved it with my elbow, only to have more shift forward through the gap between our seats.
Feeling as grumpy as all get-out, I directed my stare towards the window to my right in hopes of calming down. Ugh. This space in this car really sucks…
“It won’t always be this packed, Shi,” Katie assured. “Nothing sucks on my cute ride.”
Curiosity whipped my head around immediately. “Why did you just say that?”
“Because you made that crack about the space in my car,” she muttered.
“Yeah, but . . . I didn’t say it out loud,” I explained. “And I didn’t shoot it to your head either.”
“But I heard it,” Katie insisted, wide-eyed and now reflecting every ounce of my own intrigue.
I formed a quick thought. “What am I thinking?”
Katie belted out a shriek. “You HATE my hair?”
I threw my hand over my mouth when I heard her brain repeat back noiselessly what I’d said — that her pastel braided streaks looked more like clumpy twists of cotton-candy.
Katie scrutinized her strands in the rearview mirror, looking all puckered. “It’s not my best look, but I wanted to try something a little different. I was planning on dying it back next week anyway.”
This was completely crazy. “Katie, maybe somehow the diamond left some sort of mark on you?” I muttered.
My BFF’s eyes exploded. “That’s so wicked-cool!” she gushed. “Maybe that’s why I’ve been having a lot of luck with my spells?”
I was almost afraid to ask. “What kind of spells?”
Katie averted her head while her fingers lightly trailed the curve of the steering wheel back and forth innocently. “I may have performed a little ritual the night before you texted me that you were coming. One where I threw it out to the universe that I needed some new clothes . . . and a car.”
My eyes flared. “SERIOUSLY?”
Katie nodded. “I didn’t want to freak you out, but now I’m thinking the diamond’s magic may have given me a little help.”
I looked out my side window. I supposed that was possible, however my suspicions were pointing in the direction of her linked faery giving her a leg up because of her connection to me. After all, humans had them too. Surely it could sense the diamond’s energy, even an itty-bitty microscopic trace of its afternote.
Katie cleared her throat. “What linked faery?”
I totally froze. I didn’t think I’d been “thinking” that loud at all.
I shook my head. “What are you talking about? I wasn’t thinking that. I was thinking Pinkberry,” I fibbed. “So is there one close by?”
“Oh yes, you did say, ‘LINKED FAERY’!” Katie snapped back, pointing her finger. “In fact, that harried head of yours is trying to scrub it from your thoughts right now!”
I slumped down in my seat with a sigh. “Just take me someplace where my witch-radar has no risk of going off and I’ll tell you all about them.”
Katie cranked the engine and gave all four-cylinders a hard rev. “It sucks being on the other side of mental eavesdropping, doesn’t it?” she grinned and then sped off with a jerk.
So Katie drove someplace where we could chat a few miles away. And I’ll be damned if the little smartass didn’t purposely pull up to a daggone Pinkberry. Once I’d sedated my nerves with enough bites from my cup of Strawberry Vanilla frozen yogurt, I came totally clean about the little Veil beings and how helpful they could be in regards to successful spell casting. Plus, I warned her about how frisky they were, especially under the right drug-induced circumstances. Then for the next hour, all she wanted me to do was teach her how to hunt for signs of the invisible creatures, thinking it would be just like chasing down fireflies when we were little. She was honestly envisioning a real-life Tinker Bell. But as soon as it had finally registered in her head how hard it was to see them “glow” like that, let alone find one hanging around in general, we suspended our search and ended up catching a movie at a nearby cinema. That gave us a little more time to kill before heading back to Bethesda’s. Neither of us were sure if any of her covenmates would be there, what with it being Saturday night and all, but Katie knew a posse of witches was the last thing I wanted before my head hit the pillow.
The two of us talked telepathically throughout the entire movie, which was pretty cool. I could communicate as freely as I always could with her, and she, in turn, could now chat back with me—and only me—as long as she was wearing the diamond I’d carved out for her. But that wasn’t its only limitation. She couldn’t listen in on anyone else’s head, nor compel them with the first directive, which sure pulled her puss straight into a pucker real quick. Now knowing that her ability had some constraints, I covertly tested the waters to see if I could block her from hearing a few of my own. Turns out I could and it wasn’t hard at all. I just had to focus on reversing my telepathic essence and then it shielded my thoughts perfectly. Of course I was keeping mum on that one, since she loved the idea that we had this bonded psychic connection. However we soon discovered her powers only worked if I was within close range, around twenty feet at best. We stumbled upon that when she’d run across the street to get the car while I was still back in the bathroom, wondering why she wasn’t slipping me some toilet paper under the stall like I’d requested several times. But our limited range was of no consequence. This was something magical we shared, and the witch-wannabe couldn’t have been more tickled pink.
The two of us finally called it a day around eleven-thirty, since both our butts were dragging. I was surprised they weren’t literally bumping up the stairs on our way up to her floor. She left most of her the bags in the car, which I was glad. I would have hated to add any more fuel to Bethesda and Katie’s bonfire with
any envy, despite the gifts I came bearing. I knew my BFF like the back of my hand and was well aware that at least one of her paws secretly wanted to rub Bethesda’s face in her treasure trove of swag, especially after being blackballing from joining her coven.
I halted Katie’s hand before she could slide her key into the lock. “Hang on,” I urged. “Let me see if anyone else is in there.”
My bosom friend stepped back with a theatrical wave. “Scan away.”
After a quick telepathic check, I discovered two sets of brainwaves. Both of them were fuzzy. Bethesda’s muddled signature I knew, but the other seemed more staticy. Whoever it was might be wearing a medallion similar to hers.
Katie could tell I wasn’t about to deliver the best of news. “How many?”
“Two,” I groaned. “Maybe another witch from the vibe I picked up?”
Katie rolled her eyes, looking as pooped as I felt. “It could be Cassie?” she speculated. “She’s nice. Cassie won’t hound you like Bethesda does about signing up.”
At this point, I was honestly too tired to care. “Just open the door,” I instructed.
“It’s a shame your bad luck can’t take a vacation too,” Katie giggled as she inserted the key into the lock and gave it a hard turn.
I kneed her rear as she opened the door. “Just be glad it doesn’t rub off like yawns.”
Just as Katie had predicted on our drive home, Bethesda was lounging on the futon fast asleep, clearly attempting to wait up for us. I scanned the rest of the loft as she started to rouse from our noisy entry. There wasn’t another soul to be found anywhere within the span of the common areas. I quickly scoped out the remaining three potential spots. The other party’s vibe was definitely coming from Bethesda’s bedroom.
Hmmm…
Bethesda stretched out a yawn as she rose to her feet. “Shiloh,” she beamed, arms wide and closing in fast. “It’s so good to see you again.” Then she swarmed me with one of her suffocating hugs.