A Magical Match

by Juliet Blackwell

  He shrugged one bony shoulder. “Beats me. I forgot my Old English. It’s been years since anybody talked that way.” Oscar was something of a linguistic chameleon. He spoke numerous spirit languages, when speaking English favored a lot of teen slang, and now had a tendency to mimic my Texas twang. Or maybe he was making fun of me; it was hard to tell.

  “Just how old are you?”

  He looked at me askance. “You’re not supposed to ask things like that! Sheesh.”

  It was humbling to be taught social niceties by a gobgoyle.

  I sneezed.

  “Gesundheit. You know what you oughta do for that cold? Find a topaz the color of the sea. Take a boat out to the middle of the bay and—”

  “It’s not a cold.”

  “Whatever you say.” Oscar shrugged. “How much longer until the mac ’n’ cheese is ready?”

  “Soon as the pasta’s done, little guy,” I said, finishing the cheese sauce. “I don’t have time to bake it in the oven like I usually do, so cheese sauce and macaroni mixed together in the pot will have to do. I need to take care of a few things.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” Oscar said magnanimously. “Whatcha gotta do that’s so important?”

  “I want to take a quick look through my old suitcase, and then I have to go see Aidan.”

  “Master Aidan? Why?” Oscar’s huge eyes got impossibly wide.

  “He’s not your master anymore, remember?”

  “Listen.” He tried to smile, which came across as a grimace, then chuckled, which sounded like a rusty saw. “No need to talk with Maaaiiiister Aidan, no need at all. I know a little Middle English—how about this?”

  He launched himself off the counter, landed lightly on the kitchen floor, and began reciting a poem, complete with sweeping gestures of his surprisingly graceful oversized hands:

  WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote

  The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,

  And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

  Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

  Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth—

  “Stop that Oscar! Stop it at once!” I said, alarmed. “Is that . . . are you casting a spell?”

  He blinked, one arm still held aloft, frozen in a dramatic pose. “What are you talkin’ about? You know my kind don’t cast spells.”

  “Then . . . what are you doing?”

  “Duh.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Duh what?” I said, impatient now.

  “I’m reciting the prelude from The Canterbury Tales.” Oscar’s tone suggested this was the most obvious thing in the world. When I didn’t react, he added, “Hello, Geoffrey Chaucer? Ring a bell?”

  “Um . . . sort of,” I mumbled.

  “I know you didn’t finish high school, mistress, but you did go for a couple of years, right? I thought they made kids memorize and recite that in English class.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I was sort of . . . absent. A lot. So, okay, I’m not up to speed on Chaucer. The point is, why are you reciting one of his poems?”

  “’S not poetry, exactly. More like a prose poem, I guess. It’s written in rhyming couplets—”

  “Okay, sorry. My fault for asking the wrong question.” Oscar was a stickler for precise language. “Let’s focus. What is Tristan Dupree looking for? You’re saying he used an Old English word?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “By that very rude gesture I’m going to assume you mean, ‘Yes, mistress.’”

  I decided to pursue this line of questioning later, when he might be more forthcoming. Hunger made Oscar a mite testy. No two ways about it, Oscar and I had a nontraditional witch-and-familiar relationship.

  I drained the cooked pasta and poured it into a bowl, mixed in the cheese sauce, and grated some Parmesan over the top. Not a gourmet version of mac ’n’ cheese, but better than the premade stuff from a box. I set the steaming bowl on the kitchen table. “Serve yourself. There’s also a pizza in the freezer if you get hungry later. Unless you want to come with me to visit Aidan?”

  “I . . . uh . . .” He picked at his talons.

  As nervous as Aidan made me, he had a much stronger effect on my familiar. Oscar had been bound to Aidan for a very long time, until I freed him by stealing back his wings. The wings themselves had been destroyed in the process, but at least Oscar now had his freedom. Ever since, though, whenever Oscar was around “Master Aidan,” he was alternately obsequious, giddy, and nervous as all get-out.

  “Tell you what: You eat your dinner while I look for something. Let me know what you decide in a few minutes, okay?”

  I went into the bedroom, closed the door behind me, and headed to the closet. At the very back, behind the clothes hanging on the rod, sat an old suitcase I had lugged around the world with me but hadn’t opened since arriving in San Francisco. It was nothing like today’s luggage; heavy and hard-backed, it was a mottled jade green, a 1960s-era suitcase as vintage as any of the clothes in my shop. My mother had called it her “special valise” when she helped me pack it to move in with Graciela, all those years ago. I stared at it for a moment, reminding myself to breathe, before dragging it out of the closet and hoisting it onto the bed.

  I had never really blamed my mother for sending me away when I was eight. Children with supernatural powers can be a challenge to raise. I had recently become an unofficial “big sister” to a powerful young witch named Selena, who, despite my own powers, kept me on my toes. My mother, in comparison, was a simple small-town woman overwhelmed with life in general, never mind her magical misfit of a daughter.

  But lately I had started wondering. Every once in a while Bronwyn’s grandchildren would come hang out at the shop, or customers would wander in with their kids. Seeing children who were about the age I’d been when I left my home made me realize just how young I had been. How vulnerable. How in need of guidance and love and nurturing.

  Of course, it wasn’t as if my mother had put me out on the street, I reminded myself. She had sent me to live with Graciela, a woman who loved me unconditionally and had the strength and knowledge to handle my talents while helping me to understand them.

  Still . . . now that I had made my home in San Francisco and had made friends—good friends, who felt more like family—I was beginning to realize that I wasn’t so bad, after all. Yes, I was different, but I wasn’t wicked and I wasn’t a freak. I was a person as deserving of love as any other.

  All of a sudden I flashed on a memory of the drive-the-demons-out-of-her ritual I had been subjected to when I was seventeen, and felt a surge of anger toward Margarita Ann Velasquez Ivory. My mother.

  Well, I thought. This reunion was going to be interesting. Clearly, I had a lot to say to the mother of the bride.

  I pushed those thoughts aside for the moment and concentrated on the suitcase in front of me. I placed my hands on it and took a moment to ground myself before opening it.

  The suitcase’s old metal fasteners popped open with a loud snick. I splayed the luggage open to reveal several tightly packed pouches and small boxes, many of which were bound with magically knotted string, as well as a manila envelope containing loose papers and newspaper clippings. I had traveled the world for many years before coming to San Francisco, and this suitcase was filled with items I needed to keep from each locale. Not the fun souvenirs that I picked up in my wanderings, such as my Bavarian cuckoo clock or stash of antique Chantilly lace. And don’t get me started on the vintage clothing I had started to collect and which was one of the main reasons for opening Aunt Cora’s Closet. No, this suitcase was filled with mementos too important to discard, even if I wanted to.

  “Whatcha doin’?”

  I jumped at the sound of Oscar’s gravelly voice, right behind me.

  “My Lord in heaven, Oscar, you scare me when you do that!�
� Oscar had an uncanny ability to sneak up on me.

  He cackled and waved one oversized hand. Goblin humor.

  “Whatcha doin’?” he repeated.

  “I don’t know if you noticed,” I said, slamming the suitcase shut, “but the bedroom door was closed.”

  He stared at me.

  “That usually means something,” I continued.

  He shrugged.

  “A desire for privacy?” I suggested.

  “Wasn’t locked.”

  “That’s true, but you could have knocked. What if I had been dressing?”

  “You weren’t.”

  “No, but—”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  I gave up. One day I would have to write a book: Etiquette Lessons for Gobgoyles.

  “What’s in the suitcase?” Oscar persisted, and once again I was reminded of how intelligent he was. He didn’t fall for my attempt at diversion.

  Keeping things to myself was a lifelong habit, and a hard one to break. It wasn’t my default to be open and trusting with others, like Bronwyn was. But I was trying to change.

  Besides, the little guy and I had been through numerous adventures together, and he had saved my life more than once. And the truth was, Oscar was probably more likely than I to figure out whether something in the suitcase might be what Tristan Dupree was looking for.

  So despite my misgivings, I opened the suitcase. Oscar perched on the bed and leaned in.

  “Ooooh! What’s this? What’s that?” he asked excitedly, poking at one object after another. “What’s this?”

  “Tea from Sri Lanka . . . seashells from a beach in Peru . . . lava rocks from a volcano in the Philippines . . . a handful of wool from Iceland.”

  “How ’bout this?” His knobby index finger landed on a bundle of postcards.

  “Those are postcards I wrote to my mom.”

  “But you didn’t send them?”

  I shook my head. Oscar’s face was covered in scales and didn’t express much emotion, but his big green eyes were another story. At the moment they were filled with sympathy.

  He nodded and let out a long sigh. “Mother issues. Those are the worst.”

  Oscar had been searching for his own mother for years. She suffered under a spell that turned her into a stone gargoyle most of the time. I didn’t know many details—I didn’t know much at all about my familiar’s life before he met me—but I did know Oscar would never stop searching for her. Gargoyles lived a long time, he’d informed me.

  “What’s with all the newspaper?” he asked.

  “Those are articles about a fire in Germany a while back,” I said.

  “What is it with you and fire?” Oscar asked, shaking his head. “’Member what happened at the wax museum?”

  Did I ever. I still had vivid memories—and the occasional nightmare—of the wax figures melting, turning into hot molten puddles on the floor, swirling and pooling and streaming as if reaching out to capture us as we tried to escape the inferno. I shivered. I was not looking forward to going back there to visit Aidan in his newly renovated digs.

  “And what’s this?” Oscar asked again, poking a little leather pouch that looked a lot like the medicine bag I kept tied at my waist.

  I picked it up, weighed it in my hand for a moment, felt for vibrations.

  “This is my land bag. I put a little earth from each place I spent more than a few nights.”

  He held his hand out and I set it on his palm. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Cool, you went all over. What was Madagascar like?”

  “You can sense that?”

  He snickered as though I were making a joke. I had known my familiar for quite a while now, but still wasn’t clear on the extent of his abilities.

  “There’s no San Francisco in there,” he said.

  “That’s because I haven’t left—” My stomach did a strange little flip. I really needed to speak to Aidan to address the threat posed to my adopted city by Renee-the-cupcake-lady. If we weren’t able to defeat her . . . would I have to leave? Would I become a wanderer again? If so, would Sailor come with me? Would Oscar? What about my friends?

  Oscar pointed to a battered cardboard shoe box, sealed with duct tape and twine. It was wrapped in long-dried loops of rowan—a plant common to protection spells—and covered with hand-drawn symbols. My teenage attempt to keep evil at bay.

  “What’s in there?” he whispered.

  I lifted the box from the suitcase. This was what had come to mind when Tristan accused me of stealing something from him.

  The shoe box held the remnants of my meeting with my father in Germany, many years ago. When I was just seventeen and unsure of myself as a person, much less of my abilities as a witch. I had only vague memories of the reunion, lingering, disconnected flashes of images, like the snippets of a vivid dream—or, more aptly, a nightmare.

  I hesitated. If I opened this box, would I learn something about my father, or our encounter, or myself, that I had suppressed so long ago? Some memory that would be best left in the past, unremembered?

  There was a reason I hadn’t opened it all these years. But I sensed it was time to deal with it, whether or not it was connected to Tristan.

  I took a deep, calming breath and steeled myself. I wasn’t a teenager anymore but a grown woman and a powerful witch. The past months in San Francisco had taught me that I was stronger, and more in control of my magic, than I’d ever thought I could be.

  “Hand me the pair of scissors on the chifforobe, will you?” I asked, sniffing loudly.

  “You’re catching a cold.”

  “I don’t get colds.”

  “I didn’t think you were immortal.”

  “I’m not immortal—I just don’t get colds. If my throat gets scratchy, I take garlic and lemon, or a spoonful of honey with turmeric, and then I’m all good.”

  “’Kay. Maybe you should do that, because you’ve got a cold.”

  Oscar leaned over and grabbed the scissors, then slowly, solemnly handed them to me.

  His eyes remained on me, steady and wide. I started chanting as I cut through the rowan and the knotted threads, feeling the faint resistance from my teenage spell. I had been only partially trained when I was forced to leave my grandmother at the age of seventeen, but clearly I had done my darnedest to cast a binding spell over this otherwise innocuous-looking shoe box.

  I sliced through the heavy packing twine, and finally snipped at the duct tape. The process took several minutes, and my chanting never faltered. Oscar watched intently, his mere presence adding strength and calm to the flow of energy through me . . . though to tell the truth, I felt something resisting my magic. Could the contents of the box be fighting against me, or could it be the remnants of my teenage spell?

  Nonetheless, I completed the charm.

  Taking one final deep breath, I lifted the lid off the box.

  Chapter 4

  Something inside slithered.

  Oscar let out a screech and leapt onto the top of the armoire.

  I managed to slide the cover, still looped in rowan, back into place and jumped back. I grabbed a few crystals and a tiger’s-eye talisman from my nightstand and slapped them down on top of the shoe box. From inside the box came a distinctive thump.

  “What the heck is that?” Oscar growled.

  “I’m not sure,” I choked out, my heart pounding. I met my familiar’s eyes. “I think I might need to take a few more precautions before opening it.”

  “Ya think?”

  “No need to be sarcastic.”

  “What you should do is take the whole kit ’n’ caboodle to Maaaaiiister Aidan. See if he can find the whatchamahoozit that Tristan guy’s lookin’ for.”

  “I thought you were afraid of Aidan?”

  He puffed out his scaly chest. “O
scar’s not afraid of anything. It’s just that . . . I have other things to do tonight. I was going to use the cloak you gave me.”

  “The cloak? What will you use it for?”

  A while back I had come across an enchanted cloak that had the ability to transport the wearer through time and space, to places one had been before. To compensate Oscar for the loss of his wings, I had given it to him. From time to time, Oscar would disappear for a day or two, but I had not realized he was using the travel cloak.

  Oscar shrugged. “You’re not the only one with important things to do, ya know.”

  “Well, now, that’s fair,” I said.

  Now that Oscar and I were no longer truly witch and familiar, he had his own path to follow. And like me, he tended to keep his cards close to his chest. It was entirely possible he was simply meeting some magical friends for a round of margaritas, guacamole, and gossip, though he might also be on some kind of magical mission. Oscar liked to play it cool, but I knew he loved San Francisco as much as I did. This was our adopted home.

  Once again, I thought of the impending threat to our beautiful City by the Bay. I wasn’t even sure precisely what the threat was, but I’d sensed long ago that my arrival in San Francisco wasn’t entirely accidental. Aidan and I had banded together to try to strengthen our magical alliances for the big supernatural showdown, whenever that might occur. I knew Renee-the-cupcake-lady was involved, but didn’t know exactly how.

  Could Tristan’s sudden appearance somehow be connected?

  “Okey-dokey,” I said, trying to sound casual, hoping to reassure Oscar—or myself?—that creepy strangers and sealed shoe boxes with mysterious slithery contents were all in a day’s work. “I’m going to just wrap that puppy up and go see Aidan. If you travel tonight, promise me you’ll be careful?”

  He waved his oversized hand and grimaced, his version of a smile.

  I took a carved pendant from the top drawer of my dresser. It was a crescent moon, symbol of good luck for travelers, carved with the Algiz protection rune. I had made it from a branch of an old tree from Calypso’s ancient peach orchard, polished it with olive oil beside the flame of a white candle, bathed it in goat’s milk, and consecrated it under the silvery light of the waning moon.