Penelope was back.
♦
The heat still shimmered in the alley as I let myself into Pentacle Pawn an hour later.
Most tourists know Pentacle Pawn as an upscale shop in Scottsdale’s Old Town. Bronwyn, my daytime manager and oldest friend, offers classic antiques and high-end jewelry. Only a few people – those who have certain talents and abilities – know that there is a second shop in the back of the building that caters to their particular needs.
My Pentacle Pawn, the one down the alley, specializes in organic objects that have magical powers. Our upscale clientele comes from all over the world, and they value our discretion.
I have to admit that I wasn’t paying nearly as much attention to my surroundings as I usually do. Penelope’s appearance at the wedding had shaken me, and I was juggling my midnight snack. I work nights, and my shift doesn’t end until almost sunrise. Since I can’t exactly call for takeout – the normal world doesn’t know about the alley shop – I’d stopped on the way in and picked up a box of roasted sweet potato fingers from the fabulous Chinese place around the corner to nibble when I got the munchies in the middle of the night. Because Scottsdale is a resort town, even the casual food in Old Town is first-class. You never have to settle for a burger – unless, of course, that’s what you are in the mood for. In that case, you can expect sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese and mushrooms that sell for hundreds of dollars per ounce.
Anyway, I was standing right in front of my door before I noticed the package leaning against it.
The alley entrance to Pentacle Pawn is oak. The door has an ornate wrought-iron grille with a Tree of Life motif, but it has no handle or lock; it operates only by introduction. That’s pretty handy when you’re juggling a designer sling pouch and an insulated grocery bag. I had just called to the door let me in when I looked down and saw the bundle. No, not a bundle. Someone was asleep on the pavement in front of my shop.
No, I realized as I looked closer. Emil Portiere was in front of my door, and he was dead.
The old man was curled on his side almost into a fetal position, his head cradled in his hand. He looked very peaceful. There was no blood, no bruises, no sign of violence. It was as if he had just walked up to the door and decided to take a nap.
I had a horrible flashback. My husband John had died in just this way. Someone – a member of my family, it turned out – had put a spell on the door of our family home in New Orleans. John died instantly when he touched it.
But how could this have happened here? I’m the witch in charge of Pentacle Pawn Scottsdale. The only person able to command the alley door is me.
I can count on one hand the people who have permanent introductions to the alley door, and Emil was not one of them. When I come to work each evening, I set the door to admit the people I am expecting during that shift. The door remembers people who have been here before, so all I have to do is say their names and visualize their faces. If I’m having trouble picturing someone, I pull them up on social media and show the door a selfie, but it’s not usually necessary – the door has a much better memory than I have, these days.
No living thing can get inside the alley shop without my specific permission. If the door knows you, it courteously opens for you; if not, you are locked out, and no amount of begging or threats will get you in. It had been more than a week since Emil last visited the shop, and once he was back out onto the street, the door would no longer have recognized him without a new incantation.
Still, there he was, dead on my doorstep without a mark on him.
Unfortunately, our security system doesn’t work the way that the slick state-of-the-art electronic one on the front shop does. There are no digital recordings or tapes to watch. The door can recite the list of people it’s admitted, but it has been spoofed before. That’s the one drawback of securing the place with magic.
My first reaction was to glance at my watch. I had nearly 90 minutes before my first appointment, plenty of time to do what needed to be done.
The door let me in, and I dropped my bags on the counter. I was not about to call 911. There was no way I could permit the local police to investigate a body found on the floor of Pentacle Pawn. For starters, Pentacle Pawn does not exist, at least on the books of the city of Scottsdale. As far as the planning commission knows, our alley door opens into a storeroom for the main shop, whose retail space faces the street. To allow anyone outside the magical community access to the premises of the alley shop would be to invite a host of questions for which I did not have ready answers.
Second, the police would be very interested to examine that door since it had no visible lock. There would be a lot of explaining to do.
The third problem was the cause of death. As far as I could see, there wasn’t one. Perhaps Emil died of natural causes, but the smart money would bet that something awful had happened to him that defied conventional explanation.
Police in the regular world proceed under the assumption that all facts are discoverable. Probably true, but not by the methods they use. Since the ordinary world’s science discounts the existence of magic, the police, therefore, will never have all the facts.
This leaves them with the uncomfortable options of an unsolved crime or consideration of what may be euphemistically called “facts not in evidence.” My experience has been that the police do not like loose ends. I did not plan to be one of them.
All in all, these were not conversations I was anxious to have. I pulled out my phone and texted Mark Corcoran.
Mark, along with being my best friend, is perhaps the most brilliant person I have ever met. He and I have been pals since we met when we were both teaching college in New Orleans. We got fired on the same day. Mark had held my hand at a tearful luncheon in the French Quarter while I tried to work out whether I wanted to be a physics professor or a witch when I grew up, and he unconditionally supported my decision to open Pentacle Pawn.
We learned to look out for each other, and we’ve been doing it ever since. We’ve seen each other through bad marriages (his), a full-blown identity crisis (mine), and a whole lot of questionable Tex-Mex take out (ours). My late husband John adored him, in part because Mark would patiently explain to him what was actually going on when things happened nearby that John could neither see nor sense.
Mark was there in ten minutes. I met him in the alley and waited for him to say something. I needed his first impressions, uncolored by my own. Mark is a writer; verbalization is his thing. I wanted his textured, nuanced assessment.
What he said was: “Yikes.”
Yikes, indeed.
He cocked a bushy eyebrow at me. “Care to introduce me to your friend?”
“Emil Portiere. First-time client. I only met him a week ago.”
“You seem to have made an impression. Did you kill him?” Leave it to Mark to get right to the point.
“Of course not. I just got here, myself.”
Mark grasped the situation immediately. “And you would prefer that...” he nodded at the body on the cobblestones, “... whatever happened to your Mr. Portiere, it happened somewhere else.”
“Exactly.” I told you he was quick.
Mark plays the concertina. His favorite is a lovely early 19th-century German model delicately carved of ebony and rosewood with ivory buttons and glove leather bellows, said to have once belonged to a gypsy prince. I know this sounds off-topic for such a dramatic moment, but it is very much to the point. In concert (pun, sorry) with the appropriate tune serving as an incantation, Mark can use his instrument to expand or compress objects for storage or transport. To wit: one Emil Portiere.
Mark sniffed the air. “Cinnamon?” he asked hopefully.
I couldn’t believe Mark was still hungry after all the rich food and champagne we both had consumed at the wedding, but my order of sweet potato fingers was a small price to pay.
“Music first,” I agreed.
Mark produced his concertina in a small puff of orange smoke. He
began to play.
♦
A few minutes later, after Mark left with Emil in his concertina and my takeout box of sweet potato fingers under his arm, I tried to get my mind back on work. My first client would be there in less than an hour.
First, though, I had to attend to a bit of unfinished business.
Lissa had refused to touch Penelope’s gift. Orion wisely agreed and asked if I would keep it safe in my vault until they could figure out what to do with whatever was in that box. He took Lissa inside while Mark and I secured the package.
Our first inspections showed nothing magical about the ribbons or packaging. I placed a protective ward around the area, sort of like magical sandbags, as Mark gingerly unwrapped the small box.
Inside was an ordinary cardboard cube. We each scanned it again before Mark took a table knife and teased open the top flap.
I first thought that the object nestled in the tissue paper was an egg; it was about the right size and had that same pebbled surface. But when Mark lifted it out, we could see that it was the knob end of a large bone.
Penelope had been known to use human bones in her spells. I felt a chill go down my spine.
Mark lifted it up. “Heavy,” he said. “This was a large animal.”
“So, not human?”
Mark shook his head. He placed the bone on the trestle table and ran his hands over it again, scanning for magic. “There’s nothing here,” he said, puzzled. “You try.”
I did the same and got the same result. “I don’t get it,” I said. “It’s just an ordinary bone.”
Mark glanced back at the house. “Suppose Lissa knows something about it?”
♦
Lissa was still sobbing into Orion’s shoulder when Mark carried the box containing the bone into the house. They were cuddled on the couch, her beautiful wedding dress crumpled beneath her.
“Lissa, I need to ask you something,” Mark said softly.
Orion protectively tightened his embrace. “She’s not up to it right now, Mark,” Orion said.
“Yes, I am,” Lissa said, raising her head. “What do you need?”
Mark held the flaps of the box open so Lissa could see inside. “Does this mean anything to you?”
“Only that my mother is crazy,” Lissa said bitterly. “What is it?”
“We think it’s an animal bone,” Mark said.
Lissa rolled her eyes. “Of course it is. Probably part of one of her weird spells, or something. I have no idea.”
Mark closed the box and took a step back to give the newlyweds some space. “What would you like me to do with it?”
The look in Orion’s eye told him that the bridegroom had edited the first response that came to mind. “Can you take it away?” Orion asked after a beat.
“Is that what you want, Lissa?” Mark asked.
“Yes, please,” Lissa said. “Could you ask Maggie if she would store it for us until we figure out what Penelope is up to this time?”
Chapter Two
I secured Lissa’s wedding present in the vault with an extra ward on the lead-lined steel box. It doesn’t pay to take chances when Penelope is involved.
As soon as I put Lissa’s wedding present away, I put out food for the animals. Frank was waiting by his bowl, pacing impatiently as I served up his canned sardines. Edgar’s perch was empty, but I dropped some shelled peanuts in his food cup; he’d be hungry when he got back.
Two amazing creatures make Pentacle Pawn their home. Frank is an orange tabby who used to be my grandmother’s familiar. After she died, we discovered – to our mutual horror – that I was the only person who could hear him. Frank and John were like oil and water, so I made Frank my head of security at the shop.
Frank has an opinion about everything, and that includes Edgar.
About six months ago, John and I were having breakfast on the balcony – well, I was having coffee and a croissant, and John was pining loudly over how much he missed food – when a huge crow joined us for breakfast.
The crow started picking at my roll. The bird was enormous, as big as a chicken and black as coal. I’d seen him back in the alley a few times, hanging around the dumpsters, but he had never flown up to our balcony before. I smacked the tabletop with the flat of my hand a couple of times, trying to shoo him away.
The bird rocketed up from the table and flew straight at the French doors. There was an enormous crash, and the crow lay motionless on the patio tile.
I ran to where he had fallen.
“Is it dead?” John asked over my shoulder.
I carefully touched the soft, glossy feathers at the back of its neck, keeping an eye out in case the bird whipped around and tried to bite or peck me. The crow’s only reaction was to flutter his wings a little. It lay still again.
That was when I noticed that the crow’s left wing was bent at an odd angle.
John has become a total Amazon junkie, so I always have a couple of big, empty cardboard cartons sitting around. I put a towel over the crow and carefully wrapped him up, then placed him inside a box and folded the flaps. I headed for the car. My friend Bessie would know what to do.
♦
Pentacle Pets was only a few blocks away. Its proprietor, Bessie Dunlop, is a direct descendant of a Scottish wise woman burned in the 16th century for witchcraft because of her ability to heal children and animals. Bessie had inherited her ancestor’s gifts and built on them with a modern veterinary degree.
I eased the carton onto the counter and explained what had happened.
“At the very least, you have damage to the wing and probably a concussion,” Bessie said. “This bird was fortunate it didn’t hit that glass any harder.”
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled, almost in tears.
Bessie patted her hand. “You had no way of knowing he’d make a run at the glass. Ravens are usually pretty smart about that.”
“It’s not a crow?” I asked. “I thought...”
Bessie smiled. “Crows and ravens are cousins, but this guy – he’s something special.”
My French ancestors believed that ravens were the reincarnated souls of fallen priests. Bessie just laughed at the idea. “The appearance of a raven means that a stranger is coming,” she said as she bent over the injured bird.
“So what will happen to him?” I asked.
“I can check around with the sanctuaries and rescues, but they pretty much have their hands full this time of year. It’s going to be hard to find a home for a bird that will need lifetime care.”
The raven cocked his head and fixed me in a beady stare.
“ You can’t keep a crow or a raven in captivity – it’s illegal without a permit,” Bessie said gently, more to the bird than me. “Lucky for him, I have a permit. Would you like to be the rehabber for this guy, under my supervision?”
I grinned. “Absolutely! I’d love...”
“Not so fast,” Bessie cautioned. “Taking care of a wild bird – especially a raven – is a big job. It’s not like having a cat or dog. These guys are as smart as human children, and they quickly get bored. They can get in as much trouble as a toddler. It’s never a dull moment.”
♦
A lot of people think ravens are creepy, but I think Edgar is kind of cute. I carried him back and forth to work with me for the next few weeks so I could feed him during the evening. I purchased a too-expensive parrot perch online, and it became the throne from which he surveyed his kingdom. As he got stronger, he was able to glide the length of the showroom – a good sign, Bessie said, that he could make a full recovery – but most days, he seemed content to hunch down on his perch and supervise me during my shift. Frank’s primary engagement with Edgar was to give him the stink eye.
At home, he preferred to be out on the patio, perched on the back of one of the wrought iron chairs so he could look down into the courtyard. I got a large manzanita branch, and Daisy sent over a big terra-cotta pot filled with pea gravel to plant it in. Edgar was delighted with his
makeshift perch and claimed it for his own. He kept us company at breakfast, and impatiently paced the kitchen floor, cawing at us until we opened the French doors to let him out when I brought him home from the shop after my shift.
Ravens are excellent mimics, and he’d apparently been paying attention when John said my name. We’d hear “Maggie! Maggie!” as soon as he heard us moving around inside the condo.
There was no way of knowing how Edgar perceived human personalities, but he had definite opinions about his favorite and not-so-favorite people. Maybe it was pheromones or some sensory perception specific to birds. He seemed to base his opinion of entire families on how he felt about the member he knew best: the first time my aunt Daisy stepped onto my patio after Edgar took up residence on the manzanita branch, he greeted her like a long-lost friend.
We quickly learned not to leave shiny objects out on the patio. Edgar was an accomplished thief. I spent nearly an hour one evening searching for my car keys before John discovered that Edgar had buried them in the pea gravel beneath his perch.
I was both happy and sad the day that Edgar took wing again, but he wasn’t gone for long. He made a long loop around the courtyard and came back to steal a strawberry from my cereal. I left him out there when I went to work that night. A few hours later, the door opened and in he flew.
And so Edgar joined the staff at Pentacle Pawn. The door knows him, and he comes and goes as he pleases. He is spoiled rotten. My aunt Daisy brings him cardboard cartons of live mealworms. He loves fresh fruit, especially any kind of berries, and he’s crazy for unsalted peanuts. He quickly learned to check my friends’ pockets for treats. Orion brought Edgar a little slotted plastic ball, and Edgar loves to push it around the floor, trying to get at a morsel of food inside. He’s learned to get someone’s attention by cawing three times. His voice is lower than a crow, almost like a frog, and he won’t be ignored.
And Edgar is smart. He’s learned to say everyone’s names, and he’s picked up some of their speech patterns. He can laugh like Orion and whistle like Barry. He picked up Mark’s exasperated sigh, to the delight of everyone except Mark.
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