The Conjurer (The Vine Witch)

by Luanne G. Smith

  His eyes sharpened like a hawk singling out its prey. “There is a blood feud between our clans. Neither can abide the other drawing breath in this world. But she, as green as she is, has hurt me like no other.”

  “Because you believe she took your brother’s life?”

  “No, witch, because he fell in love with one who is our enemy. And then she robbed his dead body of an object of indescribable worth. One that she continues to taunt me with. And I will have it returned.”

  Jamra hit the end of his patience. Before Elena understood what was happening, her feet violently lifted off the ground. Her body sailed backward onto something soft yet sturdy that seemed to be moving. Her legs dangled over the edge of—she looked down—the Aubusson tapestry from her salon wall?

  Horrified, she gripped the edge of the tapestry as they accelerated over the top of Château Renard’s chimney. The jinni sat straight-backed beside her with his legs crossed, obviously pleased at the terror he’d provoked in her by taking to the sky.

  “Put us down!”

  He tugged his derby snug against his head. “Too late. Enough with your games, witch.” The tapestry veered sharply right, and Elena screamed as her fingernails nearly gouged holes through the wool threads. “Tell me which way to the lying jinniyah this instant or I will only go faster.”

  She felt the wind speed increase. Her stomach lurched. With no time to think, she shouted, “South! I swear to the All Knowing she is in the south.”

  “You see, telling the truth is not such a hard thing to do.”

  Defeated and angry at herself for giving in to her fear, Elena curled on her side as the wind whipped her hair and her knuckles grew white from the effort of holding on. She cursed the hour that announced this madman into her life. Queasy and afraid, she found what solace she could in knowing Jean-Paul at least was in no further danger. So long as she cooperated. Little comfort, but it was all she could find on that tiny patch of wool, aloft on unseen currents of air.

  The jinni removed the cork from the stolen bottle of wine with his teeth, then laughed as he pointed the tapestry toward the southland. “Now we will see whose magic is superior.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The market hummed from the fusion of so much color and scent mingling in the dry air. The heat from the paving stones penetrated through the soles of Sidra’s sandals as palm trees swayed overhead. If not for the local women in their white linen dresses and broad straw hats, she could almost imagine she was in her homeland again.

  Yvette poked her nose in the bouquet rising off a dish of red saffron. “I thought you said it wasn’t safe to go out.”

  The jinni produced three coins and dropped them in the shopkeeper’s hand in exchange for a packet of the threaded spice. The smell alone, like the tall grass by the river after the sickle has swept through it, worked its magic on her foul mood. She brightened a fraction, remembering how much she adored wandering the winding walkways of the village on a sunny morning. She was too much like the saffron flower, she mused, thriving in the light instead of the shadow like so many of her kind. Hariq had been the same, so eager to walk among the people, enjoying earthly delights as if there were no greater pleasures to be had. Sidra knew of jinn who spent their entire existence hidden in dim corners, never becoming more than a fingerling of touch on the back of the neck of a passerby. For some it was enough to live in shadow. But not her.

  “I said it was unsafe for you to walk out,” she said. “At least by yourself.” Sidra tucked her purchase in the folds of her caftan. “With me, you can be assured that yellow head of yours will stay atop your skinny neck. For now.”

  The girl skipped beside her to catch up. “How did you end up living here? I thought all you jinn lived in the desert.”

  “My heart remains in the oasis of my homeland, but I cannot live there anymore.”

  Sidra turned down a side alley. Her gold bracelets rattled on her wrists as she adjusted her headscarf. The girl went silent as she traipsed behind, but her thoughts stirred like a hive of bees. The buzzy energy that radiated off the girl was not unpleasant, but it never ceased. And the mortals—men and women—turned their heads, gawking in wonder every time she strode past, as if she were some delicate, beautiful goddess from another time. Fairies were nothing but narcissists glowing for all the world to see, Sidra thought with an eye roll. Yet the mantle fit the girl, cloaking her in new skin that seemed to shine brighter the longer she wore it. Burnished. Polished. Shed of the scar and grimy patina she’d once brandished with pride. And her newfound perception—it, too, sparkled with the sheen of the freshly formed.

  “But why here?” Yvette asked.

  They passed a palm tree whose bushy top swayed above the terra-cotta roofs. Beside them, a clay urn held an olive tree, the branches already laden with hints of the fruit to come. Ahead, two- and three-story apartments rose up on either side of the lane they walked, ancient and sagging on their beams, their plaster walls the color of sandstone and ocher. Every third door they passed was painted blue as an omen against bad luck. In the narrowest sections of the village, walking between the buildings was like traveling through a desert canyon shaped by rare torrents of wind and water, and yet the fair one had to ask such a question.

  “Look around, girl. My people have left their mark on every street in this village.” Sidra stopped before an arched wooden door with black iron hinges. “I blend in. It’s a place where I can remain hidden in plain sight.”

  The fairy looked at Sidra with her usual quizzical expression. “So Grand-Père did you a favor by returning you here?”

  “He did me no such thing. He’s only rushed me toward the problem I was trying to avoid.”

  “So that’s why you don’t want me out alone, because you’re still wanted by les flics?” The girl twisted around to look behind her as if checking for a tail. If she only knew what could actually be out there waiting in the shadows between buildings, she would run back to the apartment and hide her head under a pillow. “But then why am I here?”

  A fair question. Sidra assumed Yvette had been sent along to aid in her fated journey, but given the high probability of death, it was possible Oberon had a separate purpose for the girl. “Perhaps your grandfather merely wanted to air the place out from your smoking,” she said and knocked on the arched door before them.

  After a pause, the door creaked open. An older woman wearing a simple cotton abaya and hijab answered. She held a goat in the crook of her arm that bleated in protest at being restrained.

  “I wondered when I’d see you again.” The woman’s kohl-rimmed eyes scanned both guests.

  She didn’t invite the two in, as was generally customary, instead blocking the door against entry. Left standing on the threshold, Sidra slipped a bangle off her wrist and held it out in offering. The woman met her gaze, accepted the gold, and shut the door. A moment later she returned, gazed briefly at Yvette in curiosity, and handed Sidra a small bottle of civet oil in an amber-colored glass vial.

  “Three drops should do, but there’s a little extra. The stars say you’ll need it.”

  The women nodded at each other and the door closed. A second later the door opened again, and the woman beckoned Yvette closer. She slipped a small leather pouch in the girl’s hand. “For later,” she said and shut the door. The lock slid into place.

  “Is she one of yours too?” Yvette sniffed at the contents of the pouch—which resembled two dried-up figs—and made a face. She quickly closed it up again. “Smells off.”

  “She’s closer to Elena’s kind. Though perhaps a bit like you too,” she said. “She, too, steals from her employer a little at a time to work her magic.” Sidra held the bottle up to the light before adding it to the fold in her robe where she’d stashed the saffron. “I’d protect that if I were you. She’s rarely wrong.”

  Yvette tucked the oddly scented pouch in her bottomless pocket. “Oh là là, I don’t steal anymore.”

  “But you’re good at it, yes?”
<
br />   “I suppose I always was. So, what’s the oil for? What did she mean you were going to need extra?” Yvette’s skin began to glow from the heat of her rising emotions.

  “In time, girl, in time. Right now, we need to find a dishonest man with one leg.”

  “Of course. You can find one of those in every marketplace, if you know where to look.”

  “Calm yourself and follow me. We need to put your skill to work. There is something I require.” Sidra led them up a stone staircase that looked as if it had been carved out of the hillside with the buildings added as an afterthought. They climbed single file until they emerged into another square sequestered from the rest of the village. There a secondary market flourished, one where the usual baskets of flowers and spices were offered for sale along with an array of ingredients a jinni in trouble might be on the lookout for.

  Sidra walked beneath the loggia that ran alongside the market, observing the crowd. Women in pale blue-and-white dresses and broad-brimmed straw hats sniffed at jars filled with aromatic potions. On the sidewalk, woven baskets the size of fish traps displayed mounds of pink magnolia petals that had begun to wilt from the afternoon heat. Their fragrance stirred the air with the promise of perfumed love spells. A boy scooped his hand in a bowl of cowrie shells, then held each one up to his ear to find the one that would tell him his future. And there, in the corner, sat the man with one leg. A worn taqiyah covered his wretched head.

  “Is that him?” Yvette asked with a nudge of her chin. “The one scratching himself.”

  “Like a camel with fleas. That’s the one. Yanis the Dishonest.”

  The man’s stall displayed half a dozen small brass incense burners, innocuous tourist talismans, and mesh bags full of herbs and shaved tree bark for sale. There were also fuzzy yellow flower sprigs that floated in jars of marula oil. The blooms were of the mimosa flower. The mime flower. Some called it the mocker of death. But Sidra knew that to be a lie when left to his care.

  “Do not let him see us approach,” she said. “The coward will scream for his life, and I don’t wish to be chased through a busy market.” If not for the crowd and the need to keep an eye on the girl, she would dissipate and seep into the man’s stall to whisper in his ear about an insect small enough to enter through the nose during sleep and chew a path through the soft tissue of the brain. A most maddening death. One she would wish upon him a thousandfold.

  The man with one leg kept busy braiding sweetgrass into bundles for smudging. He didn’t look up until they were standing right in front of his table. Sidra took pleasure in the way his face sank when he saw her, as if he’d been forced to abandon every ounce of comfort he’d ever known. His hands flew up, fingers spread wide, to defend himself.

  “It had to be an accident,” Yanis said, his voice rising in pitch. “The potency was the same in both bottles. You have to believe me.”

  “And yet I do not.” She wanted to strike him with fire. Burn his scalp down to the white-bone skull. Melt his eyes as if they were candle wax for his part in everything that went wrong. But, curse the fates, she needed this twisted scrap of a sorcerer. Without taking her eyes off the man, she told Yvette to go behind the table and look for a jar of frankincense.

  “What’s it look like?” The man risked wiggling a finger as he pointed to a canister on his right beside his wooden leg. “Much obliged,” Yvette said and gave a little smile. She hadn’t even shown her teeth, yet Yanis smiled back at her like a lovesick puppy despite his predicament.

  “Pour a scoop into this cloth and tie it up.” Sidra made sure the man looked away from Yvette long enough to notice the insignia on the slip of silk she’d laid out on the table with a thud. The cloth had belonged to Hariq.

  “There was nothing I could have done different,” Yanis pleaded. “One potion, two bottles. Everything went according to plan.”

  Feeble excuse for a witch. She would sew his lips together with stingweed if he didn’t stop talking about that day. “Except it didn’t. Now do your spell,” she said through her gilded teeth. “The one for the scent.”

  “Anything, anything,” he begged, then jumped from his seat onto his leg while the wooden one kept him balanced like an awkward shorebird. “Give me one minute.”

  While the sorcerer went about his work, crushing small brown seeds with his pestle and adding drops of various oils into the mix, all the time muttering incomprehensible words about magic and jinn, Yvette tied up the cloth full of frankincense resin.

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me what this is for, too, just like you explained about the last two items.” Yvette secured the knot with an extra tug for emphasis.

  Sidra adjusted her headscarf, her bracelets chiming with the effort. “It’s for an incantation. As soon as this goat’s ass is done with his spell mixture, we can begin.”

  “Sidra, you have to believe me,” Yanis said, looking up from his work. “It was something other than the potion. Let me explain.”

  “Enough!”

  With a sigh, he handed her the mixture folded up in brown paper. A card was tied on top with instructions for how to use it. She sneered at him, and the hair on his arm singed until it smoked. He patted the arm and rubbed his skin against the sting.

  Back in the apartment, Sidra placed the items collected from the market in a polished clamshell along with three drops of the reeking civet oil. She opened the envelope of fragrant seeds the witch had crushed under his pestle, passing it under the girl’s nose with a smile. They both sighed at the strong aroma of vanilla and cardamom.

  “You asked me earlier why I live in a village not in my own country.” As the jinni spoke, she lit the wick of a fat candle with a finger’s touch. The firelight gleamed in her eyes as they traced the dancing flame. “There’s a unique magic in this place. Protective magic. Scent magic.”

  Yvette leaned in, her gauzy gown sparkling against her luminescent skin. “You mean the witches who make perfume? I met one in the city before I found my parents.”

  “The magic of the perfume witches is all about pleasure. Their spells are designed to entice. They focus on allure and attraction. All good and well in the right moment.” Sidra poured the contents of the sorcerer’s spell packet into the shell with the other ingredients, then held the bowl over the candle flame. “But what we’re after is something stronger. Something to confuse the dog chasing after the fox. A repellent. A cloak in the darkness.”

  “You mean from les flics?”

  “Bah. I could strike them down with one puff of breath.”

  The jinni shook her head as she swirled the contents of the clamshell over the fire to let the civet oil heat up.

  “That smells as bad as that stuff the witch gave me.” Yvette waved her hand in front of her nose. “Then who?”

  Sidra added another pinch of crushed cardamom as she spoke. “Jamra, that’s who.” The spice flared in a puff of golden scent. She added another drop of civet oil to be sure and a chunk of frankincense resin. The scent of pine and lemon spiked in the air.

  “Who’s he?”

  “The one who bound me to the city,” the jinni said, swirling the clamshell slowly over the flame. “Our families have been at each other’s throats for as long as there have been throats.” Sidra sniffed the mixture. “He is my husband’s brother.”

  The fair one started catching on as she sat back and stared at the man’s clothes by the door. “Your husband was once your enemy.”

  “Until we fell in love.”

  “Well, well, well,” Yvette said and whistled. “Tell me more.”

  Sidra paused her stirring. How to explain to this girl of twenty years the novelty of one ethereal entity discovering another in the midst of an ongoing imperial conquest that took place over three centuries earlier—Hariq drawn by the skirmish of mortal men leading the fight for territory from their horses, and she attracted by the toll of war on the women once the horses trampled past. Each had hovered above to observe the ever-creeping expansion of the mortal empire
, each resisting the urge to interfere and nudge the course of events to their liking.

  In the cool of the evening after a fiercely won battle, when the mood among mortals swayed between relief and misery, she spotted him. They’d each masqueraded as tiny songbirds so they might sail over the skirmish and spy on the progress of the war. In the aftermath, the pair had perched in separate trees to sing—she to lull the wounded to sleep, he to offer promise of another life for those who would not wake again. Disguised as they were, they didn’t know each other as enemies, and so a game ensued where she flitted from one tree to another, only to be followed by Hariq, who landed closer each time until their wings touched as they alighted side by side. At last he revealed himself in his human form, entreating her to do the same so they might press more than shoulders together.

  When she saw his robes, his hair, the curved blade on his belt, she knew him for who he was: clan of the sunset tribes. Her enemy, sworn by blood and fire! Instinct urged her to smite him and leave the cursed jinni for dead on the pile of soldiers where the hungry vultures already filled their bellies. But then he smiled full of kindness, encouraging her to appear. A man brimming with curiosity and compassion, not hate and belligerence. Some fluttering counterinstinct told her he could be trusted, overriding her impulse to do him injury. And so she animated as a woman beside him.

  Instead of lashing out in recognition of a foe, he offered her a solution to their dilemma. He held his hand up and asked for her to do the same. Then he vowed that she of the sunrise and he of the sunset would be destined to know only harmony because no day under the heavens could be complete without having the sun rise and fall in tandem. “Tawazun,” he said and pressed his palm to hers.

  She never hid from him again. He made her feel seen in a way she didn’t know was possible. Such a desire was foreign to most jinn, yet she discovered that the pleasure of his gaze was what she’d craved all her life. Before the mortals could wage their next battle, she knew she couldn’t live without his face being the first thing she saw at dawn.