Chapter Sixteen: Devil’s Shoestring
Adara coiled her pointed red fingernails around the Packard’s steering wheel and drove away from Rowe’s house smiling to herself. Once in a while things do go my way, and I have Rowe right where I want him.
She drove home watching the waxing moon peek above trees, always a confidante eager to learn about her recent successes. With that crow of hers nowhere in sight, her old friend would have to do.
She exhaled a slow breath, savoring the fact that Rowe would now spend time with her serving on the council. A clear victory.
Also, she’d given that simple girl Jancie, who by some accident managed to open the moonstone locket, the scare of her life through an enchantment on her ex-boyfriend. Adara smirked. He was delicious to look at but dumber than her mother’s familiar, a deranged buzzard who now excreted his foul waste on the back porch steps. It’d been almost too easy to pull off the charm that kept watch on Jancie. Adara wished she could’ve seen the looks on Jancie and her friends’ faces with that crazed were-creature after them.
Too bad the fun ended with the ex taken in by a sheriff’s deputy. Adara learned about the incident from Sheriff Todd himself during their daily carnival security updates.
The drunken charges left her to assume someone from the coven had transformed her spell on the young man. She twisted her lips to one side considering who would have done it. Rowe seemed likely, along with his friends. She turned a corner and slapped the wheel. “Logan.” He would’ve helped Rowe get the girls out of the carnival. The thought of that man prickled her skin as if she’d had a run-in with a patch of thistles. An angry pit-bull, always eager to challenge her. His parents had been poor farmers with the barest of skills, little more than hedge witches, without magic enough for their departed spirits to inhabit cemetery statues. He couldn’t lay claim to any standing in the coven. Licking her lips, she relished finding a way to retaliate against Rowe and Logan.
She might find a way using the bracelet belonging to Jancie or her friends. While Adara had chased through the carnival keeping an eye on the bespelled boyfriend, a stream of orange copper particles swept past her. Rowe’s energy surrounding the transmission piqued her curiosity. After a huge expenditure of her own energy, she wrestled it back to its material form, the bangle now on her wrist.
Well worth the price, considering how the mere sight of the bracelet in her possession caused Rowe’s face to blanch like an Indian pipe wildflower in sunless forest depths. That alone gave it value, but Adara felt sure she’d find even more use for the treasure.
When she opened her car door outside of her garage, a sharp coldness slunk up her spine and wormed its way into her head. An uncomfortable niggling sensation that something important wasn’t under her control. What was it? She wracked her brain. She was so distracted that the stiletto heel of her pump slid off of a paver on her way to the back porch. “Damn.” She found her balance, but the unsettling chill persisted.
An idea hit her as she turned the key in the lock. Rowe hadn’t given off familiar energy from the moonstone he wore. She shoved the old, stuck door with her shoulder. Does he really think he can fool me with a fake?
She tossed her clutch and keys on a kitchen counter. Stymied, she grabbed a bottle of claret from the fridge, poured a glass, and took both to a chaise in the parlor. Under the soft glow of a prized Tiffany lamp, she gulped the first glass and settled into the cushions to let the alcohol permeate her mind. For clarity from the confusing question about Rowe or for relief from the persistent icy sensation at the back of her head, she didn’t care.
The fuzzy warmth of the wine made her smile with confidence. Whatever Rowe was hiding made for a fun game. He wanted to be with her on the council; that much seemed certain. Perhaps a cat and mouse relationship turned him on, and he must think he held a few cards unturned. If he wanted to play, she could do that. She licked her lips. “With pleasure.” Her words purred from her curled lips, and she poured a second glass. She settled back savoring the idea that she and Rowe were even better suited than she’d thought.
A waft of pungent geranium assaulted Adara’s nose. She flinched, sloshing wine onto her red dress. “Damn!” She sniffed the air and shivered, knowing full well what she was up against. Her mother’s favorite scent. Adara took a long gulp of wine pretending to ignore the growing cloud around her.
She jumped up and out of the haze, moving across the room to the scroll-top writing desk and flicked on a lamp. From the locked chamber, she withdrew the family grimoire and thumbed through its pages. Not finding the needed spell, she started from the beginning again. Another time through with no luck, a thin line of perspiration formed along her upper lip. Keep it together. Don’t let her get to you. Her fingers trembled. She coughed in the murk of geranium. Her eyes wept.
On the desk, a fountain pen rose above a tablet of paper. Words scrawled in front of Adara. “You’re still a foolish, drunken girl. Under your nose, Rowe is falling for the one who channeled the moonstone. He is protecting his new love. Fight for what is truly yours. If you can.”
Adara shoved the pen and pad off the desk and grabbed up the grimoire. Waving the heavy, black book, she screamed, “I have this now, even though you didn’t want me to have it. Didn’t think I deserved it.” She lifted her father’s onyx pendant from her chest. “And I have Daddy’s focus amulet. I don’t need your advice. Or your precious Sight that your darling daughter Fia inherited. And I don’t need your approval. Leave me alone.”
Adara panted. Her heart thumped, but she sat stiff and straight.
The air slowly cleared of the stench.
Adara replaced the magic book inside the desk, making sure to reset the locking spell. Chin in the air, she collected her glass and wine bottle. Checking her posture, she took small, ladylike steps up the stairs.
Portraits along the walls of the stairwell and upper hall emitted noxious odors of trillium flower, camphor, and stink bell. Denunciations from deceased Tabards. One oversized painting of an elderly matron in a wide blue gown let out such a prodigious puff of skunk cabbage, the frame scratched across the wall and hung crooked.
Once in her bedroom, Adara downed the contents of the glass and collapsed on the bed, hoping her mother couldn’t see her there. Adara rolled onto her stomach and sobbed into the pillow. A loop of blame and inferiority ripped through her thoughts.
When no more tears would come, she turned over and clenched a fist around her father’s onyx pendant. Her eyes burned away residual moisture. “He will be mine or no one’s.” What her mother wrote was true, Adara couldn’t deny. The bouquet of love she’d smelled in Rowe’s house wasn’t meant for her. She’d avoided the truth. No more. He hid a new love but there was something else other than that fragrance. Rowe’s goal for serving on the council likely was to continue his parents’ dangerous coven reforms. Changes that would undermine traditional powers as well as her family’s leadership. When his parents’ spirits returned, he’d be even more influential.
Adara shuddered. It was well known his mother had relations near the Ohio River. Her spirit could be eavesdropping on Adara’s sister Fia who lived nearby. An icy stab shot through the base of Adara’s skull and made her wince. Fia’s Sight could be Adara’s undoing.
Adara vowed to learn everything there was to know about Jancie. But now, she needed sleep. Another glass of wine helped diminish her pain.
***
Awake at dawn, Adara threw away the stained red dress she’d slept in and changed into a fuzzy gray bathrobe. She stumbled to the kitchen, the only safe zone in the house where she could be totally free from her prying relations. She peered out at the drizzly morning that matched how her body felt. Her head ached from the wine, but at least it had dulled the chill, stabbing sensation. Staring at the perking coffee pot on the stove, she pondered what Jancie’s last name might be. Rowe hadn’t supplied a surname when he introduced them.
Through remnants of Adara’s spell, a connection to the girl’s e
x might remain. After what she’d already done to him, the young man would most likely panic if she got near him. She could dampen his hysteria, but since he didn’t have much mental power to work with, numbing him probably would create a useless zombie. She sighed, poured a cup, and sat on a barstool at her tiled counter.
She considered consulting Sibeal. That might turn up some useful information, but also meant spilling more of her cards than she wanted to right now. The seer was a good friend. Perhaps useful as a second choice. Intuition told Adara to work through more possibilities.
Her gaze wandered to the fog rising in the woods at the edge of the lawn. It mirrored the rich steam wafting up from her coffee cup and soothed her senses. Her body coming back to life, she rubbed her hands along her upper arms and noticed the curious bracelet prize she’d claimed. That might contain what I need to know.
From what she knew about releasing energies in metals, she’d need to heat the copper with herbs that unlocked its secrets. She set about researching it and brought the grimoire back to the counter along with her four-inch thick herbal tome.
The grimoire indicated that copper collected energy. A plus as far as Adara was concerned. Governed by the goddesses of Venus, the metal should be particularly receptive to feminine energies. Another plus. She ran her finger down the page and read that copper aligned with the water element. Okay, I’ll use a water bath.
Always most comfortable relying on herbal magic, she wanted to use her strongest gifts to coax as much information as possible from the bracelet. At least one of each alignment: feminine, Venus planetary, and water elemental. She consulted the ponderous tome to decide upon the correct alignments. Pleased her stores held the correct supplies, she got to work.
With her bathrobe sleeves rolled up, Adara hoisted a cauldron onto her stock-pot-size stove burner and filled it with water and a pinch of sage to promote transfer of wisdom. As soon as the first bubble broke, she added a handful of dried foxglove blossoms, a feminine herb which tinged the water pink. This she followed with a crushed stalk of goldenrod for Venus, which she pulled down from the rafters of her back entry, hoping its fall harvest would be dry enough. The pungent, bitter scent of powdered birch bark made her grimace. A dash of bark strengthened the water element. Fizzy spray erupted, and she slipped the bracelet into the brew.
Without waiting, Adara added a tablespoon each of dried Devil’s Shoestring and Club Moss to encourage transfer of power.
Once bubbles formed, Adara reduced the heat to still the surface, held her breath, and waited. Two minutes passed. Nothing. Another minute without results. With no patience left, she leaned down eye level with the cauldron and took a deep breath that tickled her throat. She muffled a cough and blew across the surface. In the path of her breath, letters formed spelling the names Jancie and Ann. “I need surnames!” she shouted and blew at varied angles which revealed Rachelle Ann Dorset. “Damn!” She blew more until dizzy from hyperventilating. Head spinning, she gripped the edge of the counter and read: Willow Fernsworth; Lizbeth Johnson; Jancie Sadler.
“Sadler! Holy crap!” Adara wiped steam from her forehead. “Can that be the same family?” Dumbstruck, she stood motionless staring at the letters as they faded.
The bracelet scraped across the bottom of the cauldron and startled Adara. “Wait, don’t sink yet. I need to know where to find her. Where does she work?” She leaned over the water and blew again. She groaned. Reflex made her hand reach to the stove’s knob and increase the flame, even though reason told her the stored energy had already fully released. If she’d acted right away, there may have been a chance. Not now.
She leaned against her porcelain sink and stared through the window, hoping to find guidance from the rain pattering on the panes. The answer of the girl’s last name gave her new questions.
***
Under cover of heavy mist, Adara slipped onto the whitewashed front porch of Sibeal’s red brick Victorian. Before she rapped the brass knocker, the shutters banged as if in anticipation. Such was the clairvoyant nature of generations of seers whose spirits took residence in the house itself. Her mid-heeled Mary Jane’s didn’t offer enough height, so Adara bounced on her toes to peer through the door’s frosted sidelight pane for any hint of movement.
A loud squawk sounded behind her, and she jumped back from the window.
Her crow Dearg waddled along the porch rail in her direction. “There’s my sweet patootie.”
Adara glared at her good-for-nothing familiar. “Where were you last night? I could’ve used your help last night when Grizela decided to pay me a visit.”
The bird let out a series of squawks. “Can’t handle your own mama yet? Well, rather than taking the fall for her harsh judgment, this bird caught some good buzz at the cemetery.”
Adara tilted her head toward the crow. “It better be good.”
“Sure thing.” He hopped closer. “The word at the circle is that someone wants you to kiss off and will turn the south wind on you.”
She laughed. “No one’s strong enough to remove me from power. That’s all you came up with?”
Before the door opened more than a crack, Sibeal’s smiling voice called, “Adara, I expected you.” Dressed in an everyday black bias skirt stretched tight over her protruding stomach, a matching peter-pan-collared blouse left untucked colluded to hide the seer’s higher midriff rolls. A grin curled across her narrow ferret face, and she stepped aside for Adara to enter. “Apprehension and anxiety are drippin’ from your pores, my dear. Let’s hope I can help you.”
Adara straightened and shot an authoritative nod to her crow. Shaking off her friend’s desperate description of herself, she peeled out of her wet trench coat as if her problems clung to it. “You’re slipping. Just raindrops falling off of me.” She hung the coat on a hook and managed to lift the corners of her mouth.
“For your sake, you best hope I’m a better seer than that.” Sibeal chuckled, and a strand of peppered hair floated from bun to collar. She settled at her mahogany dining table and reached for a tea pot shaped like a toad. “Tea?”
Adara lifted a palm. “No thank you. I’ve had more than my share of coffee this morning.”
Sibeal’s beady eyes met hers. “Working on a new potion, eh?”
Adara shrugged and folded her arms across her chest. Not enjoying her friend’s intrusive stare, she changed the topic. “I don’t remember that pot. I’m not going to have to turn you in for possession of inappropriate new house wares am I?”
“Good goddess, no. Things like this are scarce as hen’s teeth.” The seer poured a dainty cup from the toad’s mouth, added three sugar cubes, gave it a stir, and took a loud slurp. “I dragged this one out from the basement in a box left by my grandma. Pretty keen, huh?”
Adara lifted a single brow. “Interesting.”
“I can tell somethin’s not settin’ right with you. Try to keep your shirt on.” She turned the teapot’s handle toward Adara. “By the looks of you, this is what I need to try. Go ahead. Pour yourself a cup. Drink it down and hand me the empty cup.”
After a whole pot of coffee, the first sip of tea disagreed with Adara. With lips pinched, she managed to finish. “There.” She held out the delicate china cup.
The seer examined the white porcelain inside, turning it in several directions. Her narrow eyes squinted to pinpricks while she hummed and hawed. “Looks like your big effort to get Rowe is coming out the wrong end of the horn.”
Adara looked down at her hands and shook her head. “I’ve got that issue in hand, thank you. What I need is for you to discover where to find a young woman from Bentbone named Jancie.” She pursed her lips and glared at the seer. “And I’m not wasting time drinking another cup.”
Sibeal chuckled. “If you and I hadn’t been friends since way back in grade school, I’d surely think you were mean enough to steal acorns from a blind hog. The man’s in love with Jancie. Leave them be. I know you’re heart still aches, but he isn’t the one.”
&n
bsp; Adara blinked back moisture seeping into her eyes. “Doesn’t that cup tell you her last name?”
Her friend took a closer look. “No. It doesn’t.”
“It’s Sadler,” Adara declared, her voice flat, but her stomach churned with emotion.
Sibeal’s jaw went slack, and she put down the cup. “Are you sure?”
Adara nodded and picked at her nails. “The words formed in my cauldron when I released energy from her friend’s bracelet.”
“Oh, sweet goddess. Let it not be the same Sadler.” Sibeal stepped to a tulip lamp on the buffet and stuck her long, thin nose close to the cup. After a moment, she closed her eyes and took a deep inhale. A moment later, she looked to her friend. “I’m so sorry, hon. It is the same Sadler. Their only child. She works at the Federal Bank.”
Adara balled her hands into fists and gritted her teeth, but still a tear slipped from the corner of one eye. “She will pay. Whether or not I get Rowe, she will pay.”
Chapter Seventeen: The Terrazzo Floor
The next afternoon, outside the ascetic limestone front of the Federal Bank, Adara rechecked both her suit jacket’s peplum and her posture. With head high, she glided through the glass doors. From under the jaunty tilt of her wide-brimmed hat, she worked to exude elegance, superiority, and power. Both her carriage and the trail of magic she emanated defined those qualities. The jealous fire within her escaped only through the heat of her exhalations, flaring her nostrils wider than she would have liked. Curbing that last detail, a slow grin spread across her lips as she approached the manager’s door displaying Jancie Sadler’s nameplate. Adara stood outside the closed door and studied the girl through the office window.
Jancie poured over a stack of papers on her desk. Her simple surplice dress in plain forest green gave the perfect accent to her ginger hair. A single barrette held the glowing strands from her creamy complexion. Adara bit her lip and considered how that simpleton attained such effortless grace and beauty. She corrected that display of weakness only to have her nostrils spread with fiery breath. She took a slow, deep inhale and knocked on the door.
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