A Charmed Death

by Madelyn Alt

  “If you change your mind . . .”

  But I knew I wouldn’t. Tom already had a low opinion of Liss and anyone else who practiced the Craft. Casting a spell on him wasn’t going to help matters at all. Even a cosmic message might be pushing things.

  “Oh! I almost forgot.” Liss leapt to her feet and went to one of the glass cabinets, returning a moment later with an expectant look on her face as she handed me a small package. “I have something for you.”

  “For me? What is it? Oh, for heaven’s sake, you don’t have to give me presents, I . . .” I had untied the string and began to unwrap the plain brown paper. Out rolled a glittering arrow-shaped object on a slender silver chain. A pendulum, crafted of deepest purple amethyst, balanced on the opposite end by a beautifully worked silver bead. My breath caught. “Oh—my—it’s gorgeous.”

  “I’m so glad you like it, sweets.”

  My eyes flew to her face. “Oh, but I can’t keep it. It’s much too expensive. It’s—”

  “I’ve always loved this one. Amethyst is marvelous for psychic connections. And I wanted you to have it, Maggie. You’ve worked so hard for me and for the store, it’s the least I can do. I’ve never used it much anyway, and I’d like it to go to someone who might take some pleasure in it. You seem to have a knack for this particular tool of divination, whereas my tool of choice is a scrying mirror. Besides, a thing of beauty should always be appreciated, not tucked away in some old box, gathering dust.”

  I let the pendulum roll back and forth on my palm, marveling at the glitter of its faceted point. “Oh, but Liss—”

  She slid another item onto my lap while I was distracted. I glanced down. It was a piece of oiled canvas, printed with a semicircle graph intersected by a number of radial lines, a series of two letters or numbers at the end of each. “It’s a diviner’s chart,” she explained at my blank look. “To help you take your divination to a deeper level.”

  I turned it this way and that, trying to make heads or tails of it. “How do you use it?”

  She spread the cloth on the floor and held out her hand for the pendulum. Supporting her elbow to keep it steady, she suspended it so that the tip of the amethyst hung directly over the center of the half circle. “Ideally, you say a prayer of protection—the Lady of the Light is a good one, but you can, of course, use Lord in Her stead, or substitute whatever prayer you wish to use—and then center yourself. When you feel you’re ready, you run through your usual questions to ascertain that you’ve accessed your spirit guide, or your inner self, or even an ascended being, just as Eli instructed you. And then of course, you begin asking questions. Except for with this method you’re not restricted to ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions only—the pendulum points toward a line to spell out an answer, and then you clarify the letter or number by asking it to show you a ‘yes’ answer for the correct letter. Slow going, but not nearly as slow as running through the entire alphabet to obtain the correct letter.”

  Fascinated, I cocked my head and squinted at the graph. “Does that work?”

  “Why don’t you let me know? As I said, the black mirror is my method of choice. I’ve never been much good with a pendulum.” As though to prove her point, the pendulum in her hands hung stock-still over the center. “Oh, and one other thing, Maggie. Until you become more proficient, holding the point of the crystal over your opposite palm may help to open your energy pathways, at the beginning of a session especially. You should be able to feel the energy running though the chain, through the crystal, and into your palm.”

  I had felt it, the other night, and it still amazed me. Truth be told, I was excited by Liss’s gift, and I couldn’t wait to test out this new aptitude a bit more. “All right. Thank you. I’ll just consider it an early Christmas present, so long as you allow me to return the favor. Er, do witches celebrate Christmas?”

  She threw back her head with an engaging laugh. “Well, in the witching community I think you’ll find it more commonly referred to as Yule or Yuletide, but yes, absolutely. Many of the modern Christian celebrations hearken back in actuality to pagan rituals, traditions, and beliefs, and for good reason. The people could not give up their beloved traditions that stretched back into antiquity. Eventually, when they couldn’t abolish the practices, the church absorbed the most persistent of them into their own theology.”

  Food for thought, anyway. “It’s supposed to be about the birth of Christ,” I murmured pensively.

  “The birth of the god, yes. If you believe what church theologians have to say, the birth of Christ was supposed to have taken place in mid-April. Early church leaders moved the date back to coincide with the old celebrations of the rebirth and renewal of the god figure, to convert the masses who still followed the Old Ways. More followers equaled more money in church coffers, and money always equals power. It’s a universal truth. Then of course, there’s the fact that they demonized the old godface of Pan or Dionysus, giving their Devil horns and cleft feet to convince those who clung to bits and pieces of their old beliefs that the Old Ways were the way to evil. They used fear to manipulate. To dominate.” She shook her head with a rueful chuckle. “Having one church, one belief system, ensured their continued prosperity and power. But it has nothing to do with the divine spirit that created us all, by whatever name. Only human failings.”

  A cynical viewpoint, perhaps, but it made sense given the psychological makeup of man. A person could see it happening firsthand in a smaller way, right in his or her own church. What was it about human nature that made jockeying for position such an important facet of our psyches? Human weaknesses. Would they be our downfall? They certainly hadn’t served Amanda Roberson well. “So you celebrate Yule, then.”

  “Yes. Well, some do.”

  “Only some?” I asked, a little confused.

  “Yes, you see, there is no one way to practice the Old Ways. Ancient traditions are as varied and individual as the people who brought them into being. There are so many traditions that one could never say, this is the one true way. It would be arrogance at its most overbearing. Which means, there are no two pagans or witches exactly alike. Spirituality is a very personal thing, and our sense of individuality is something we all fiercely defend. All paths of Light lead to the Divine.”

  But were all people entitled to salvation? I wasn’t so sure anymore.

  Chapter 15

  I spent most of Thursday, in between customers, hunched over the counter at the store, practicing with my new toy. It was better than the Crazy 8 ball I got for Christmas when I was seven. Hours of entertainment, fun for the whole family. But this was specific to me, and there is something very appealing about that. Something I didn’t have to share with anyone. My little secret.

  So while Liss caught up on paperwork and made plans for the summer line, I began to familiarize myself with what it meant to be a dowser. I discovered that the crystal wouldn’t start to respond until I asked if anyone was there. I learned that sometimes the connection was better than others. Most intriguing was the realization that by the end of the day, whomever or whatever I was in contact with was responding to questions I thought through in my head before I spoke them aloud. Which left the skeptic in me wondering: Was I somehow subconsciously causing the pendulum to move, even though I was consciously making an extreme effort not to affect it? Could I trust the answers that the pendulum gave? Or should I assume they came from the depths of my psyche, so far buried that even I didn’t know they were there?

  If that wasn’t twisted, I didn’t know what was.

  I also discovered that using the dowsing chart was going to take practice. The yes-no questions were easy to discern, once you’d attuned yourself to your particular pendulum, but using the chart required a still hand and a perceptive eye. Sometimes it appeared that the pendulum point followed a certain path, but when asked to clarify, it wouldn’t specify any of the letters indicated. Of course, I hadn’t asked it anything important either, so maybe my spirit guide was just tired of answer
ing ridiculous questions, like, “Is the sky blue?” So as the clock rounded 2 P.M., marking the customary afternoon lull, I smoothed my hands over the cloth chart and focused my thoughts on the black nothingness within before taking up the pendulum once more and pouring my energies into the crystal point. It was working—I could feel the vibrations pulsing through the crystal. I balanced my elbow on the scarred wooden countertop and let the pulsing waves flow through me.

  “Spirit guide?” I said in a low voice.

  The pendulum swung clockwise in generous circles, motioning Yes.

  “Spirit guide, I’d like to ask you a question or two about a death that occurred here in our town within the last week. Is that all right?”

  Yes.

  Encouraged, I continued. “Do you know who was killed?”

  Yes.

  “Can you spell out the name of the person who was killed?”

  Yes.

  Okay, now we’re getting somewhere, I thought. I dipped the pendulum to allow it to stop moving, a clearing motion so that it would start with a clean slate. “All right, first letter.”

  M

  I frowned. “Is the first letter an M?”

  Yes.

  Hmm. I dipped the crystal to clear it. “Second letter.”

  The pendulum began to move, settling into the direction of the N.

  Double hmm. “Is the second letter an N?” I asked, my skepticism in this particular method growing.

  Yes.

  This was getting me nowhere. “Third letter?”

  D

  Something clicked in my brain, and I stopped breathing. “Is the third letter a D?” I asked faintly.

  Yes.

  M-N-D. “Are there any other letters?”

  Yes.

  “Fourth letter . . . ready?”

  The pendulum swung in a wide circle, again, and again, then elongated its orbit to settle on a straight line path toward the A.

  M-N-D-A. Amanda. God, I was slow.

  Excited now by my success, I thought about what I should ask next while the pendulum moved back into its powerful back-and-forth motion that indicated a waiting pattern.

  “Spirit guide . . . do you know who killed her?”

  The pattern did not change.

  I frowned. “Spirit guide, am I not allowed to ask that question?”

  No.

  I blew out my breath in frustration. Why the blazes not? Wasn’t it for the greatest good? I tried again. “Spirit guide, can you tell me anything that will help the police find the person who killed her? The person who killed Amanda Roberson? Anything at all?”

  The pendulum began to alter its orbit again. “First letter?”

  W

  “The first letter is a W. Second letter?”

  T

  “Second is a T. Third?”

  R

  “Third is an R? Are there any more letters?”

  Yes.

  “Next letter?”

  A

  W-T-R-A. “And the next?”

  The pendulum slowed until it resumed the short, choppy waiting motion.

  “Are there any more letters?”

  Nothing.

  W-T-R-A. Well, the A had been out of sequence in Amanda, so maybe it was in this word, too. Or maybe my spirit guide just couldn’t spell. I knew lots of people in the here-and-now who couldn’t spell to save their lives. Maybe that didn’t change once a person passed over to the other side. I thought through what words used those four letters. Amanda had been found in water, perhaps that was what my spirit guide meant. Or maybe . . .

  A waiter?

  Did Amanda know anyone named Art?

  Dammit. This was useless. Liss never mentioned I’d have to be proficient at unscrambling anagrams.

  I meant to put the pendulum down. I did, really I did, but the pendulum had started to move toward a letter again. Unable to do anything else, I watched, held captive by the flowing energies that made my hand feel paradoxically heavy and light at once. “C”—a pause as the pendulum circled, and then made a line drive once more—“C again?”—I held my breath—“L?”—“K”—nothing. “Is that all? C-C-L-K?”

  Yes.

  This one wasn’t as hard, or at least it wasn’t if I was interpreting it correctly.

  My eyes swung toward the end of the counter, where I’d left the box I had carried in from my car this morning.

  Clock.

  I set the crystal down carefully in the center of the dowsing chart and went to the box I’d transported from the Roberson house. I slipped my fingertips under the flaps we’d crisscrossed to hold the box shut in lieu of packing tape and flipped them up. The clock rested within, its cracked face giving testament to the passing of many years. I lifted it out of its padding and set it carefully on the counter, brushing away some stray bits of Styrofoam that remained stuck to its dark wooden surface. It was a beautiful specimen, elegant lines of polished wood giving testament to great care being afforded it over its lifetime. But it was only a clock. There was nothing that could be viewed as evidence against her killer. Nothing on its back, or underneath.

  I tipped it, angling it carefully backward so that I could look at its face. The winding key was in a tiny, shallow drawer that was typical of clocks of this style. I took it out and decided to wind it up, just a little ways. There was something so comforting about the muted tick-tock of an old windup clock. Some people hated the sound, a reminder of the relentless passage of time, but it had always made me think of long summer nights spent on Grandma Cora’s lumpy horsehair divan, the sounds of an old clock playing counterpoint to the singing of crickets and whirring buzz of a million cicadas.

  But when I turned the little key, nothing happened. The clock didn’t tock. It didn’t even tick. What it did do was clunk.

  The inner pendulum must have come loose. I turned the clock around on the counter until I could get to the door in the back. The mechanism refused to budge. I twisted it carefully, but it would not twist. Yeesh. Had it come loose while I was transporting it?

  “Uh, Liss? Can you come out here a moment?”

  Liss stuck her head between the velvet curtains, her usually sleek hair a trifle disheveled and reading glasses stuck on the end of her nose. “Did you need something, Maggie?”

  I swept my hand toward the counter. “The clock Mrs. Roberson returned . . . it isn’t working. I think the pendulum has come loose, but the door mechanism doesn’t appear to be working either. I know the clock was working when Mrs. Roberson first looked at it, and I know it was working when Amanda bought it, but—”

  She waved her hand at me. “Don’t fuss, Maggie. I’m sure it’s something quite simple.”

  She placed her hands on either side of the clock and shook it gently back and forth. Something shifted inside. Instead of reaching for the knob I’d been trying to twist, she ran her hands over the carving around the base of the clock like a blind person reading Braille. I heard the tiny sound of a catch releasing, and to my amazement the door fell open the tiniest fraction of an inch.

  “How did you know what to do?” I asked her, incapable of hiding my admiration. “I would never have guessed that release was there.”

  She smiled at me. “This clock takes me back to my childhood. My grandmother had a clock just like this. My gran, she was a village wisewoman in Scotland, you know. She was quite lovely.”

  “Scotland?” For the first time I realized that there might be more to the lilt of her accent than I’d realized. “I thought you were English.”

  “I am both, I suppose, technically. I was raised in Callander before moving to London with Geoffrey when I was in my twenties. But I do have family still in the Trossachs around Loch Lomond, whom I’ve been missing desperately of late. Perhaps I should arrange a trip home soon,” she mused. “Springtime in the Lowlands is lovely in a way that Indiana, as pretty as it is, cannot possibly manage.”

  Such a view might be denounced as elitist, but we were talking about Scotland here, so I was inclin
ed to forgive her.

  We turned as one toward the clock, bending at the waist until our heads nearly touched.

  There was the pendulum, lying on the floor of the clock case. Liss withdrew it easily, but hooking it back up proved a little more difficult.

  Finally Liss bent down even farther and craned her head to see inside. “Well, well. What have we here?” She poked her fingers into the space. Frowned. Got down on her knees in front of the counter. “Could I trouble you for the needle-nosed pliers from the tool chest?”

  “Of course.” Hurriedly I retrieved the tool from the chest in the supply closet and brought it out to Liss. “What do you see?”

  She didn’t answer. By then she was needle-nose deep in the case, pulling at something inside that I could not see. Something on the hidden ceiling of the cabinet.

  “There! By Jove, I think I’ve got it.” From the small space she withdrew a small piece of what looked like plastic, about an inch square.

  “What is it?” I asked, a little breathless at the discovery.

  “It appears to be a kind of disk. Like the sort one would use to expand the storage capacities of a digital camera.” She held it in the palm of her hand, and we both stared down at it, then brought our eyes up to lock gazes.

  “Does this kind of thing fit into more than one kind of digital camera?” I asked.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Liss answered, gears clicking in her head.

  “Do you think Amanda hid it in the clock?”

  “Well, it does make sense, doesn’t it? The antique dealer I bought this lovely old thing from wouldn’t know a digital camera from a didgeridoo.”

  “It could be Spring Break pictures, or pictures of her friends.”

  “Certainly it could. Only if that was the case, why should she hide them at all?”

  Neither of us could fathom it, but on one thing we both agreed: We were dying to know what was on the disk.