This would be Lissa’s first circle. Lissa had been with me a while as a clerk, but now, as she trained to develop her own skills, she had become a trusted companion. It was time.
She carried a small woven bag over her shoulder. Inside were a few items I’d gathered from store inventory to get her started: an antique Mason canning jar, filled with olive oil with a wire bail securing the lid; an extra pair of socks and a light jacket; and a water bottle. The jar was part of the ritual. The clothes and water bottle? Nobody with any sense goes into the desert without them, even for a short walk. The desert is beautiful, but it can be deadly for the unwary or unprepared.
I slung my pack over my shoulder as we walked side-by-side up the easy trail. We didn’t talk. Lissa was almost quivering with anticipation, and I was preoccupied with the task ahead of us. We hiked in companionable silence up to the saddleback between two low hills.
The trail forks at the top, going east and west along the ridge. People think of the desert as a wasteland, but it’s actually a complex biological world that’s easily damaged. It’s illegal to leave the trail in the preserve, and the fines are enormous if you get caught cutting across country. I pulled Lissa aside as we reached the saddleback so that an older couple and their grandkids could pass us on their way down the hill.
Once we had the junction to ourselves, I worked a quick spell to protect the soil from our footprints. I threw in an extra line to ward off snakes, just in case. Hey, it never hurts to cover all your bases.
Lissa’s eyes were wide as I took her arm and guided her behind a boulder. In front of us was a goat trail. We followed it over another low rise. We were just below the saddleback now, on the far side of the ridge that shielded us from the view of anyone up on the main path.
We were in a small natural amphitheater about fifteen feet across. Ten trunk-sized boulders were scattered around the clearing in a rough circle, and four ancient saguaros marked the cardinal compass points. Anybody who stumbled across this place wouldn’t give it a second look, but it had been established more than a hundred years ago by a small group of wise women who understood the value of a permanent place to gather. My friends and I honored what they had handed down to us and cared for it well.
It was February, and the desert was in bloom. It was a little early for wildflowers, but here they were: a vast orange and purple carpet of poppies and lupines covering the slope in the sheltered valley, meeting the blazing sunset at the horizon. It took my breath away.
My friends and I are not a coven — we’re not even all witches. Each has his or her own skills and talents. We are a circle of friends, and any of us can call the circle together in time of need. As convener this time, I settled myself on the big rock at the north point of the circle. If we had been on the beach in Malibu, it would’ve been Mark at the north point. In New Orleans, it would have been Daisy.
I gestured to Lissa to find a seat. The women arrived first — they always do. I’m not sure why that is, but it always makes me smile. Having the women I love most in the world join with me in the circle is one of my greatest joys.
Stella had promised to pick Daisy up, and they came up the trail together. It took Daisy a while to stump up the trail with the claw-foot cane she’d bought on the Home Shopping Network. Stella stayed close by Daisy’s elbow, wary of a fall but taking care not to crowd the older woman’s dignity by hovering. They were our past and our future: Stella’s youth and enthusiasm, Daisy’s wisdom and experience. Stella fussed a little over Daisy as she helped her get settled on the boulder next to me. She never saw Daisy toss me an amused wink.
While the others took their places around the circle, I pulled out my canning jar. We’re not allowed to have open flames in the mountain preserve, but these work just fine. I unsnapped the wire bail and swung the lid open on its hinge. I lit the wick that I’d threaded through a small foil float on the surface of the oil. The flame quickly caught, glowing brightly through the antique glass.
I’d asked Lissa to meet me at my favorite Italian place for lunch, and even though the pasta Primavera was her favorite, she’d been too nervous to eat while we talked. It was part interview, part final exam, part confession, and we were both in joyful tears by the time I finally invited her to join us tonight.
I had forbidden Lissa to tell Orion that she might be joining the circle tonight. I didn’t want there to be any disappointments if it turned out she wasn’t yet ready. Now I saw that she had saved the boulder next to hers just for him. When he saw her there, the expression on his beautiful face was as perfect as Michelangelo’s David. He took her hand as he knelt to place his candle.
Barry arrived last. He tipped his cowboy hat to me, lit his candle, and found a place between Stella and Lissa.
We waited quietly in the candle glow for the moon to rise, each lost in our own thoughts. It had taken us only minutes to leave civilization behind. The lights of the city had spread out at our feet as we climbed the main trail. Here, below the ridge, it could have been an hour ago or a millennium. I noticed Stella look up.
For a moment, I wished I could be inside her head. What was she seeing? As an astronomer, she knew the name and position of every bright object in the sky with mathematical precision. But I suspected that what resonated in her mind at this moment were the old names, the legends and heroes from the beginning of humankind itself, created to make sense of the wonders in the heavens. The stars humbled us, reminding us how brief had been our kind’s time on earth.
We sat together but separate, each coming to the Circle through our belief and practice.
Suddenly, Mark was there. He had called the night before, apologizing profusely and saying he had been unavoidably detained in Los Angeles and wouldn’t be able to get back in time for the circle. Beginning this task without him had seemed impossible. When he stepped around the boulder into the circle of candlelight and solemnly nodded to me, my heart sang.
Each of us had brought a talisman to help center ourselves. I use a small black bowl made for me by a Navajo friend. Barry had his elk-horn knife; Stella, her doorknob; Lissa, the baboon’s tooth; Daisy, her sea turtle shell comb; Orion, his extraordinary pearl that, he always said with a wink, had come from Atlantis. Each, in turn, placed his or her talisman in the center of the circle next to their candle. Mark placed his walking staff across the center.
I filled my bowl with clean water from my water bottle and looked at a point in the center of the water to clear my mind and focus my thoughts.
Each of us placed our talisman in front of our candles, and together we spoke a cleansing incantation. Nobody invoked Penelope’s name. There were no curses or warding spells. This was not about our enemies; it was about the power of our friendship.
Our circle of candles glowed brighter as we poured our energy into the spell.
So we bind ourselves in battle; so we bind ourselves in love.
Chapter Twelve
Pentacle Pawn reopened for business the next night. I had working electricity and the water and phones were on, but there was still a huge mess that would take several weeks to put right. Meanwhile, our clients required our attention — and we needed to get back into that daily routine that gave us all at least the illusion of safety.
I’d salvaged my desk and the oak table, and Barry cobbled the front counter back together. We gathered just after sundown to celebrate. Mark brought champagne; Barry brought the beer. Daisy brought a bouquet of fresh sage and smudged the place to chase away any lingering evil spirits. I wondered aloud if it might work on Penelope, and Daisy rolled her eyes.
“I still don’t understand,” Lissa said as we sat around the big table. “Why does my mother want the teapot?”
“It’s not about the teapot,” Mark said. “It’s a powerful focusing tool, that’s all. She’s up to something bigger, and she needs the teapot to pull it off.”
I agreed. "It's just like the last time when she tried to get her hands on that blue amber. We never did find out what she pla
nned to do with it. We assumed that it was a one-off heist, that she wanted the amber and its spellbook for their own sake. After all, that was pretty powerful magic, just in itself. But I think Mark is right — all of this is part of some bigger scheme. She’ll just keep coming back unless we stop her.”
The color drained from Lissa’s face. She was remembering the death of her stepbrother, Simon, in our vault the last time Phoebe tried to use magic to break in. “You don’t mean kill her?”
Daisy patted her hand. “No, none of us want it to come to that.”
“But we do have to be prepared,” I said. My voice was grim.
“So how do we find out what she’s really up to?” Lissa asked, looking around the table at each of us.
Daisy spoke up. “We may not need to know. If we can stop her from getting the tools she needs, that might be enough.”
I thought about that. Magical objects are the means to an end. They have no power of their own; they are simply a way to harness a witch’s own powers and abilities, much as you might use a screwdriver to hang a picture hook on the wall instead of pounding it in with your fist.
What Penelope was doing was upping her game. The tools she had been trying to steal — first, the amber, and now, the teapot — were professional-grade. She was into something big.
“Daisy is right,” I finally said. “Whatever Penelope is up to, she’ll keep coming back until she gets her hands on something that will do the job. That means that our job will be to discourage her. If she can’t get what she wants from us, maybe she’ll move on to somebody else.”
Mark looks concerned. “You need to make some calls,” he said to me softly.
He was right: I needed to tip off our sister stores in Paris and New Orleans in case Penelope decided to come at them instead.
“Absolutely — I’ll let them know. Meanwhile, how are we going to keep her out of here?”
We talked through the night.
♦
I do regular maintenance on the magical objects in our care. This mostly involves updating the restraining spells that guarantee their good behavior while they are on the premises. Sometimes, the owners pay me to do what amounts to obedience training.
After Barry’s adventure in the parade, I figured that the auroch drinking horn could use a refresher course. I called the owner again and asked if he’d like for me to spend a little extra time with his object.
He was still angry.
The client was the direct descendant of a Viking chieftain, he said. The drinking horn had been handed down through his family for six generations, he said. It was a lie — I knew from my Paris cousins that he bought the horn a dozen years ago in Ukraine. He insisted that he was perfectly capable of controlling it. I wasn’t so sure.
From what I’d seen, the auroch was way too much for him, and I wasn’t going to take the chance that Ajax might escape again on my watch. It stayed down in the vault; Barry was not allowed near it. But this couldn’t go on indefinitely.
I gave the owner until the end of the week to come and pick up the trombone case.
“I’ll have a courier pick it up this evening,” he sniffed.
No way was I going to allow that to happen. After all, Barry was an experienced cattleman—and if he couldn’t control the auroch, giving it to an unsuspecting courier was a recipe for disaster.
“I’m sorry, but I won’t release the drinking horn to anyone but you,” I told Swensen. “I’ll hold it for three days. After that, your contract allows me to charge you reasonable daily security fees. In this case, your object will require round-the-clock supervision. That comes to more than a thousand dollars a day.”
I could hear him sputtering at the other end of the phone before he took a deep breath to calm himself.
“I will see you tomorrow evening,” he shouted. My ears were still ringing when he hung up on me.
♦
There was no sign of Penelope, but the next evening, we had a different kind of drama. The investment banker who owned the auroch drinking horn called back to make an appointment to pick up his property.
Actually, his secretary called. I went through my appointment book and found a time when no other clients were scheduled after midnight, and we found an appointment for him on the next Thursday.
I still wasn’t confident that the owner could control the object. The only one I knew for sure could deal with Ajax was Barry, so I called him and asked him to be there when the horn was picked up. If Ajax got loose, I’d have some backup.
Ajax’s owner was right on time. I’ve never met him before, but he looked exactly as I pictured him in my mind: tall, blond, chiseled, close to middle age, with the sort of muscles you get in the gym instead of from actual work. His custom suit was worth more than my car.
“Mr. Swensen,” I said in greeting, extending my hand.
His handshake was perfunctory as he glanced around the wrecked showroom. “What happened here?” he asked. His eyes narrowed. “Are you saying my Viking horn did this?”
“No,” I answered, taking his elbow to help him through the ruins. “Sorry about the mess — just a little remodeling.” I heard Lissa snicker behind me.
Swensen shook his head. “I assume my case is ready to go, Ms. Flournoy?”
I gestured to my desk. “Of course. We just need to complete the paperwork.”
I sat him in the Eames chair in front of my desk and had him sign the pawn redemption forms. There was no banter. We would be happy to be rid of each other.
After we had both signed, I pulled the crumpled dollar bill that Barry had worn in his hatband from the paperclip on the pawn declaration and put it in my pocket. I settled Mr. Swensen onto the sofa while I slid into the Eames chair and popped downstairs.
When I returned with the trombone case, Barry was leaning against the front counter. They were eyeing each other like it was the O.K. Corral.
“So this is the man who nearly lost my auroch?” Swensen snarled at me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Barry rock forward on his feet and settle his weight into his fighting stance. I put out my hand toward him, and he leaned back.
“Mr. Swensen,” I said as calmly as I could, “Barry is the only reason that Ajax made it back here in one piece. If he hadn’t been there, I don’t even want to think about what could’ve happened.”
Swensen shook his head. “It was his fault that the bull got out in the first place.” I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to restrain Barry. I needed to get this over with.
I took the dollar bill from my pocket and handed it to Swensen. I gestured to the trombone case on my desk. “I think we’re done here,” I said to Swensen. “Thank you for your business.”
Swensen took the bill and slipped it into his breast pocket behind the handkerchief. He stalked over to the desk and roughly snatched the case up by the handle. I watched it rock in his hand.
From inside the case came a low moan.
In one fluid motion, Barry stood next to Swensen. “Whoa there, partner,” he crooned. He wasn’t talking to the investment banker.
“Get away from me!” Swensen shouted at Barry as he slammed the case back down on the desk. I thought he was going to take a swing at Barry, but one look at the little cowboy’s eyes and he thought better of it.
Small puffs of steam were misting out from around the brass locks of the trombone case.
Barry gave Swensen a mighty shove. The investment banker stumbled over the Eames chair and ended up sprawled on the floor.
Barry ignored him. He turned to the trombone case. He put the palms of his hands flat on the top and started mumbling. At first, I thought it was an incantation, but I realized that Barry was just talking to his friend Ajax.
“Hey there, partner,” Barry murmured in a soothing voice. “You remember me, right? It’s okay, Ajax. Everything is under control out here. You’re fine. Settle down, partner.”
The moaning stopped, and I thought that maybe there was a little less
steam around the latches.
Swensen was rising from the floor.
“Don’t,” Barry said to him. There was an authority in his voice that I had never heard before.
Swensen lay back down.
Barry turned back to the case. “You don’t want to do this, partner,” he said to Ajax. “Settle down. We’ll figure this out.”
I bent over Swensen and retrieved the dollar bill from behind his handkerchief. “This item is not safe for transport,” I told him. “It’s a public safety issue. I can’t allow you to take it.”
Swensen struggled to his feet. He started to reach for the dollar bill, then looked behind me at Barry. I watched Swanson’s eyes as he went from anger, to confusion, to resignation.
“We are not done here,” he said to me.
“Yes, we are. You can have your drinking horn back to me when you prove that you can transport it safely. Until then, it stays in my vault.”
What was he going to do — call a cop?
That’s exactly what he did.
♦
Just as all calls to Uber for the alley shop address are magically routed to Stella, all calls to the police department regarding that address go to my cousin Jim, a Scottsdale detective. He showed up half an hour later, rumpled and grumpy.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” He said to me as the door admitted him.
I apologized for the call and introduced him to Swensen.
“I want to press charges!” Swensen said without preamble.
I explained the situation.
“So, let me get this straight,” Jim said in his calmest voice. “You can’t control this thing...” he gestured at the trombone case, “... but you want to take it out onto the streets of my city. That about the size of it?”
Swensen nodded hesitantly, not quite sure how he’d lost control of the situation.
Jim turned to me. “And you don’t want to let that thing in the case out of your shop until it’s been properly trained, right?”
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