by Les Goodrich
Inside she turned on her electric kettle and put a chamomile tea bag in one cup, and an Earl Grey tea bag in another. Each got one teaspoon of honey and into the Earl Grey tea she also poured a dash of milk from her small library refrigerator. The music had only played for a minute when she heard a tap on the opened glass.
“Good Lady?” a man’s voice said from the patio and Carol replied.
“That was quick. The tea is on.”
Carol pulled a white paper bag from the cabinet under the tea cups and from it she plated four round shortbread cookies with raspberry jelly centers. The kettle boiled and she made the tea then carried the steaming cups and plate of cookies outside to the balcony on a bamboo tray. She placed the tray on the small round table between the two chairs and the man sitting in the far chair stood and took then kissed her hand.
“My Lady Carol of the enchanting eyes,” the man said. Carol bowed slightly while admiring his suit of warm brown tweed over a cream silk shirt and black bow tie, the deep orange silk vest, and silver watch chain. His grey shoulder-length hair pulled into a pony tail hung below the back of his black derby hat. A black silk scarf about his shoulders. His handle bar mustache curled in a mischievous twist below round glasses.
“Doctor Nicholas Covington, I presume,” she said and then added, “you look exceptional as always.”
“Why thank you,” the doctor said and the two sat. “I do love the gypsy jazz,” he added and waited for Carol to sip her tea before taking up his own cup.
“Your favorite,” Carol said and the two drank. Carol had always summoned the good doctor with guitar jazz since the first time he had appeared on her patio when she was playing it some years ago. Apparently he had been haunting the street below and was compelled by what he called the music’s vigorous yet melodic tones. She watched him sip the tea and take up then eat a cookie. He spoke.
“What is new in your world my dear? How have you been?”
“I’ve been well. The shop is in such a good place.”
“And your current crop of students. They are each well I trust.”
“They are. Tanner is a rune student and he also combines mechanical items with magickal devices to make new and useful things.”
“An inventor. I must meet him someday.”
“Yes you must. The two of you would have much in common. He’s also a writer.”
“Very good.”
“And Brit is my studious one. She is twenty-one and goes to the college.”
“She is the one who married the ghost couple in the tall tower,” Doctor Nicholas inserted.
“Maybe,” Carol said. “I didn’t know about that. How did you?”
“I went to their reception.”
“I see. And Jordan.”
“Jordan is still with you?”
“She is. She has a heart of gold and I just love her. She will find her way.”
“I’m sure of it,” the doctor said and he lifted his cup as if to offer a toast to the fact and drank.
“We are having a bit of trouble with another store though. The Poison Apple.”
“Them again. What is that bunch up to? No good I take it.”
“We’re not sure yet. I had hoped you could help us find out.”
“I am at your service, as always. Exactly what is the issue so far?”
“Some of the witches from the shop have been popping up. Following my kids. They hexed the credit card machine.”
“And what does a credit card machine do, when not hexed?”
“Oh. It accepts a form of electronic currency. A way to send and receive money and it works with small plastic cards. Customers pay with the cards, the store gets the money, and the customers get a bill. Or it can come from their bank account.”
“Genius. And The Poison Apple witches tinkered with this machine on some magickal level. To cause it to short out?”
“Exactly. It’s all been fixed. But I’m afraid this is just the beginning of some larger scheme. Something more, well, sinister.”
“Have you spoken to Gwen?” the doctor asked and sipped his tea.
“No. I thought you might slip over there and see what you can learn before I confront her. If I do it at all. Could you secretly find out what they’re up to?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
“Thank you and it is always such a joy to see you. Would you like to step inside?” Carol asked and stood to take the tea tray in.
“No thank you my dear. That would be entirely improper,” Doctor Nicholas Covington said as he stood with Carol. He always refused to come inside out of what Carol took to be a Victorian gentleman’s manners.
When she returned from placing the tray inside the doctor was gone. She looked down to the street but did not see him there and she pulled her library patio doors closed.
***
The storm did move off shore but it also broke up and lessened and so as it ruffled the slate Carolina Outer Banks waters a waist-high swell stirred the Saint Augustine shores and broke into scattered crumbs within the inlet. Dan strapped two standup paddle boards to the truck tailgate’s closed edge where they stuck angled from the bed like the folded wings of some giant cyborg insect. He stood back and looked at it all. His Tacoma with wings. He climbed in and pulled from his house/rare plant nursery’s canopied driveway under a sterling sunrise and drove to gather coffee then Jordan.
Dan coasted around the corner onto Water Avenue and he looked across the gold flickering water of the intracoastal as he idled along under the fine homes to his right. He parked on the street and looked up to the glass door lights on Jordan's carriage house. He thought about Jordan in there and he smiled. The fact that they were actually still friends was proof to him that miracles happened and he knew that she would say it was proof of some kind of magick or the idea of one sexy goddess or another and he loved her for her brave pagan heart.
He opened the door and stepped out to see Jordan stride down the last three steps and along the path beside the garage front and the driveway in lycra diving pants and a sweatshirt.
“You got coffee surfer boy?”
“Oh yeah,” said Dan and the two closed their doors.
“You have paddles for those things?” asked Jordan and she turned to crane a look into the bed through the back window.
“They’re in there,” Dan said and they pulled out into the morning.
Jordan watched the sky and the boats as they crossed the bridge and she drank her hot coffee with cream only and Dan drank his black with sugar.
“Where did you get this coffee?” Jordan asked with a concerned expression.
“The gas station,” Dan nodded and sipped his again.
“I knew it’d come to this,” Jordan said and struggled through scarce sips as they headed to park at a hotel where they knew no one would notice nor care. Jordan had a waterproof neoprene bag and she pulled out a white nylon tennis hat then wrestled her hair into it and through the hole in the back above the strap. They heaved the large boards and paddles to the river’s shore. The water that flooded then covered Jordan's purple Crocs made the fifty degree air feel warm and she looked to Dan.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“This is awesome. Dawn patrol!”
“Dawn Patrol,” Jordan said. “Take no prisoners.” And the two traded a little fist-bump and they knelt then stood their boards and paddled out into the bay silently save the trickling water around their paddle blades.
The Sun rolled higher yet south in the sky and its power warmed the darkest mangrove grottos and drove fog from below long, low, wooden docks that stretched above oyster bars to the north toward their termination at the darker, deeper channel. Daylight shed morning’s coolness and they paddled Salt Run along the shoreline and they saw cranes standing like porcelain above the reflected likenesses of cranes into which both crane and crane spirit meditated like monks above and below wary minnows.
The Florida air had climbed to seventy degrees when Jordan
rounded the point inside of Cape Francis at nine-thirty a.m. a minute ahead of Dan. She pulled off her grey sweatshirt, peeled the diving pants from her legs, and sat in her black bikini rolling the clothes to fit into the bag with her feet on the board, her knees up, the paddle across her legs. Dan glided up and drug his paddle in the silken water to stop. He sat and looked upon the more windblown inlet to the ocean it fed. The ocean from which it drank.
“I think we could catch those lefts out on the north rocks there,” Dan pointed then looked to Jordan and he was glad for the warmer air. Jordan leaned up some and looked over the more choppy inlet to the breaking waves that crumbled around the first rocks a hundred yards off shore, and her a mile inside that.
“That’s all you Big Wednesday. I’ll stay here and get some Sun.” She looked around at the board as if seeing it for the first time and said, “This thing needs an anchor.”
Dan nodded and hung out there with Jordan inside the point some.
“I’m gonna go try it before the wind picks up any more,” he soon said.
“Go for it. If I move I’ll head that way. Or else I’ll be here when you get done.”
“Listen for boats and don’t get run over,” Dan said, stood, and paddled away.
Jordan reclined on her back under the warming light and she used her bag as a pillow and trailed her hands in the cold water now and again. She kicked off her shoes to let them dry out and she crossed her feet with her heel on one of the shoes. She had rested long enough to wonder how long it had been when she heard water move and felt the board tilt. She sat up to see a young woman her age with her arms crossed over the board nose.
“Jordan! I hoped it was you,” the girl said and she dunked her head backwards into the water to slick her bottle-green streaked foam-white locks. She straightened again and began to pull bits of prickly sargassum from her hair. “This stuff,” she said.
“Shay!” Jordan shouted partially startled and fully thrilled and she quickly sat and steadied herself with her hands on the board sides.
Jordan and Shay had first met at the beach when they were nine years old and they had been friends ever since. It was Shay who had told Jordan that mermaids could always spot witches because they shared the same color aura. And they had learned together that some witches and some mermaids believed the shared aura to be proof that the two were related and the teenaged day when they had talked of that discovery was one of the most exciting days in both their lives.
On this day Shay seemed equally excited and the two spoke briefly of how they had been, then Shay tapped the board top with both hands and said, “You have to hear what I found out.”
“Yeah yeah,” smiled Jordan and she crossed her legs.
“A clue has been discovered Jordan. Far away. An ancient shipwreck. And I’m talking way back. And far to the south. An Italian sailing ship sunk on a reef. All mermaids know of the wreck because it’s said that a witch was aboard. An Italian witch. A strega. The mermaids saw her aura and rescued her and helped her to shore.”
Jordan leaned forward and listened intently.
“The witch must have lived on the island for a long time. In a cave. It’s the witch’s cave home that was just discovered.”
“Who discovered it?” Jordan asked.
“Pirates I think,” Shay said. “Modern day pirates but the ghost pirates know too. And the story is that somewhere among the witch’s books was a tale of the witch who cast the mermaid spell. It’s blasphemy to say it because so many believe it was a mermaid that created witches. To suggest that it was the other way around has labeled me a conspiracy theorist among merfolk but I don’t care. I’m looking for the truth.”
“Do they have the spell?” Jordan asked and her heart pounded.
They had talked many times over the years and they had often shared things about each other’s lives. Sometimes they had spoken of their friends or of guys. But they had always talked about the lost spell that witches called the mermaid spell and mermaids called the witch spell. It was part of the first chat they ever had when Shay first swam up to Jordan on her raft those many years ago. The two had talked of the spell at every visit since. For witches longed to swim among the coral caves and leap from waves with dolphins at their sides. And mermaids, perhaps more so than mermen, longed to walk the city streets and eat the savory foods and Shay longed to sip coffee in a cafe chair and listen to music like Jordan had described. Shay answered.
“I don’t know if they have the spell. Normally they’d plunder the cave and try to sell what they could. Or trade it away. But they’re a superstitious bunch. If they knew it was witch stuff, they might just leave it where it was. Make a map to it and sell the map. That’s their style. But only now have we learned the witch’s name. Her name. The name of this witch the island cave strega tells of casting the mermaid spell in antiquity, is Aradia. Aradia.”
“Wow,” Jordan said quietly and Shay listened with bright eyes and pulled a stray crumb of seaweed she had missed from the hair at her shoulder as Jordan spoke.
“Aradia’s not just a witch. She’s a goddess. They call her Queen of the Witches. She’s as old as the world. None of her writings survive, if there ever were any.”
“Okay, I’ll find out more and you find out anything you can that might connect Aradia to the merfolk. We’re having deep tides now and with the wind I think the highest water will be the night after the full moon. Meet me at the mermaid fountain at, um, about two hours after midnight that night. Morning. Whatever you call it.”
“After Saturday night but technically Sunday morning. Two a.m. I’ll be there man,” Jordan said.
“Love you!” said Shay and she rolled with a trickle into the dark water and vanished.
Jordan saw Shay jump smoothly from the water on her way out the inlet and she was shocked at how far she had gone and how quickly. Shay was so far away in those seconds that Jordan first thought it was some great fish in the distance. Shay’s mackerel hips and finned tail glistened for a glimpse then she was gone underwater again. Jordan stood and watched Dan, out beyond where Shay had jumped, catch and ride a wave on the standup paddle board.
***
Brit had opened and Tanner came in at ten. Carol had been there for an hour when Jordan parked her bike at the fire escape rail just before twelve-thirty. She was arriving to close with Tanner and she entered the front door. Carol stood at the front table opening a delivered box.
“Fantastic,” Carol said as she inspected one of the Italian Cypress Wands. The wood was turned smooth and polished and the tip held a double-terminated quartz crystal the diameter of a pencil. She looked at a second wand. The wood was the same but the tip held a shard of epidote. “These are works of art. Jordan, when you get settled will you please put these in the wand case. I imagine Carmine will be in later for one. He has been waiting for them to arrive.”
Jordan balked and rolled her eyes with a sigh.
“Do we have to have that warlock in here all the time? That freaking guy.”
Carol stood upright and faced Jordan where she stood waiting to get to the table. “Warlock means oath breaker Jordan. He’s a witch so we call him a witch.”
“I know what warlock means.”
“Just put the wands in the cabinet please. And be nice to the customers.”
“Gladly,” Jordan said and she tossed her bag onto the table and walked to the back to get a bottle of water.
“What’s that about?” asked Tanner and Carol looked from him to Brit who was counting out of the register. Brit spoke.
“She’s mad at Carmine because he told a cowan her craft name. Well, he called her by it in front of a cowan customer.”
Jordan returned to the front and Carol took the opportunity to speak to everyone at once.
“Brit, real fast before you leave,” Carol said.
“Sure,” said Brit and she closed the counted drawer, sealed her deposit bag, and dropped it into the safe. She signed the book as Carol spoke.
�
��Tomorrow is the full moon. Did you guys get the Lutin out of here yet?”
“Dan’s bringing the raccoon trap this afternoon. I’m gonna trap it with milk tonight,” said Jordan.
“It ate two books last night,” Tanner said. “And it made a mess in the bathroom. I think it was playing in the sink. We cleaned it up this morning.”
“Thank you Tanner and get that damn thing out of here tonight Jordan.”
“I will!”
“Okay. Next. I’m on the case to find out what The Poison Apple is up to and our shop seems to be secure for now. But I want to know if anything seems weird or out of place and I do mean anything. Got it?”
“Got it,” everyone said together.
“Good. Look out for each other and be careful until we get to the bottom of this. Tribe,” Carol concluded and left.
“Tribe,” both girls said and Tanner just nodded.
Brit went to the back to get her backpack. A customer came in. Jordan looked up to see him as she closed her just counted register drawer. She instantly remembered him as the writer from Tuesday. She nearly mentioned how much trouble he had caused them but she realized immediately that it had not been his fault and she said, “Hi,” instead.
“Hi,” the guy said and he moved into the store.
Brit came face to face with him on her way out.
“Oh hi,” she said.
“Hi. Hey, thanks for your help. I sold the article.”
“That’s great. And you survived going to The Poison Apple I guess.”
“I did,” the guy said and laughed some. “I won’t be going back though. You were right. They weren’t too helpful. And that place is, well, not my kind of scene.”
“Good,” Brit said and she sat in the other bookcase chair when he sat and they talked as he looked over books. They talked about her school and what she planned to do after graduation. He told her that he wanted to travel and write articles for travel magazines. He also said that the blog he sold the article to wanted another story on modern day witchcraft and they talked about that for a long time.