A Magical Match

by Juliet Blackwell

She rolled her eyes. “Who’s the creep? And what’s with the cupcakes?”

  “It’s probably nothing. Just feeling a little cautious lately.”

  I changed out of the wedding dress and went outside to check on Conrad, hoping the cupcake he’d eaten hadn’t made him feel sick or strange in any way. He responded with his typical “Duuuude!” and didn’t demonstrate any obvious symptoms, though with Conrad it might be hard to tell.

  Back inside Aunt Cora’s Closet, I held the pink bakery box and tried to feel any untoward vibrations from the cupcakes. Nothing. I opened the lid and breathed deeply, but I was stuffed up and had a hard time smelling. I touched one after another, but still didn’t sense anything untoward. Still, I wasn’t about to run the risk. Shaking my head, I carried the big pink box into the back alley and tossed it in the dented Dumpster I shared with my Haight Street neighbors.

  I turned to go back into the shop, only to find Oscar and Selena standing at the back door, gaping at me in outrage.

  “Listen, you two, they’re just cupcakes. I promise to bring you both something special later. But we do not eat gifts from strangers—do I make myself understood?”

  “But you knew that man,” Selena pointed out. “You called him Jamie.”

  “I know his name, but he’s still a stranger. By which I mean he isn’t one of our friends. Our people. Our circle.”

  Oscar and Selena trailed me back into the workroom, but neither looked convinced. Patience had changed back into her usual Gypsy getup and was leaning against the kitchenette counter, arms crossed over her chest, a smarmy smile on her wide mouth.

  I tried again.

  “Just . . . for a while, until I figure things out, promise me only to eat things from family, or people like Bronwyn and Maya, our adopted family. Promise?”

  Oscar snorted and Selena uttered a sullen “I guess so.”

  I glanced around the room in the vain hope that I would remember a piece of pie or a few cookies I’d forgotten. I liked to keep the cookie jar stocked for an energy boost during work breaks, but I’d been so busy lately that I hadn’t had time to bake. Then I remembered a tin of homemade “energy bars” left over from the coven meeting yesterday. I took the little tin from the cupboard where I’d hidden it from Oscar, and offered one to Selena and one to Oscar.

  They accepted the peace offering without enthusiasm—the honey-sweetened oatmeal-and-walnut energy bars looked good but were no match for extravagantly iced cupcakes—and joined Maya and Bronwyn on the shop floor.

  Patience was waiting for me.

  “I don’t have all day, you know,” she said, and as much as I didn’t want to hang out with her, I couldn’t put it off any longer. I left Bronwyn and Maya in charge of Aunt Cora’s Closet, encouraged Selena to continue trying on dresses with their moral support, and led the way up the back stairs.

  I hesitated when I reached the little landing outside my door. I don’t bring many people into my private apartment, so it felt strange to invite someone who wasn’t exactly my best buddy. But that was silly; Patience had been here once before, with Sailor.

  Sailor.

  The thought of him sitting in a jail cell, facing boredom and worry at best, threats and intimidation at worst, made my stomach flip and urged me to step outside my comfort zone.

  If Patience could help us, I would do whatever it took.

  Chapter 13

  Once we entered, Patience looked around the foyer, noting the herbal sachets and protective charms. She sauntered into the bedroom, her tongue worrying the inside of her cheek as she picked up a small photo of Sailor I kept on my bedside table. She set it back down and continued her tour, pausing in front of the bookshelf in the living room.

  “Nice crystal ball,” she said.

  “Thanks. It was a present from my grandmother.”

  “Can you see anything in it?”

  I shook my head. “Not often. I try, but . . .”

  “But what? You still can’t scry?”

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  She lifted one eyebrow, and I lost what was left of my self-restraint. “I think it’s important to remember all the things I can do. I really am quite gifted at a great number of things.”

  She shrugged. Listlessly, she walked around my living room, looking at Oscar’s stack of detective novels—he was partial to 1950s noir—running her fingers along the backs of chairs, picking up an old music box and then setting it down in the wrong place. I fought the compulsion to follow her around and set things aright. I realized that the last time she had been here, it had been after a very trying evening, and she hadn’t seemed to take it in like she did now.

  Finally she finished her tour and faced me. “The shoe box?”

  “Yes, the shoe box.”

  “Why are you hesitating?”

  “It’s just that Aidan was wary about opening it—”

  “Hold on one second. You’re saying Aidan was afraid to open it? Aidan Rhodes?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘afraid.’ More like cautious.”

  “Uh-huh,” Patience said, sounding unconvinced. “So cautious that he refused to open it with you?”

  “We were about to. He was going to help me—of course he was. But then—”

  “You screwed up.”

  “Why do you always assume the worst about me?”

  “I could ask the same of you, princess.”

  “Okay, all right, fine. Yes, I screwed up. We got into an argument.”

  “About what?”

  “That’s personal.”

  “Since you’re asking for my help to open a potentially dangerous box, I’d say it’s my business.”

  “We had an argument,” I said, “about Sailor.”

  “What about him?”

  “Aidan says our relationship weakens me.”

  “Weakens you how?”

  “He says it makes me vulnerable. That I need to concentrate on myself and my powers, and work with him to keep San Francisco safe. He thinks . . . I know it sounds a little strange, but Aidan thinks we’re the coincidentia oppositorum, the male and female. He says a witch like me can’t maintain my power while in a romantic relationship.”

  “Aidan said that about you and Sailor? That’s kind of harsh.”

  Her response surprised me. “I thought you’d agree with him.”

  “I don’t understand Sailor’s fascination with you, but so what? Who am I to question the ways of the heart? I mean, he’s pretty over the moon for you—anyone can see that.” She shrugged. “I’d love to split you two up by agreeing with Aidan, but I don’t. We’re women, not nuns. Why can’t a woman fall in love and still be powerful? I don’t hear anyone saying that about men. Do you?”

  “To be fair, Aidan says that’s why he’s not with anyone.”

  “I don’t know, Lily—maybe he has a point. Maybe relationships do make us vulnerable—but so what? Maybe the ability to connect with others, in this world and in the next, is what makes us powerful. Have you thought about that?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. Seems Patience and I shared some common ground, after all.

  “How about you?” I ventured. “Is there someone special in your life?”

  She snorted. “Just because I don’t buy what Aidan’s selling doesn’t mean we’re BFFs. I’m not here to share secrets of the heart over flavored coffee and biscotti. We have more important things to do.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. Once upon a time, not so very long ago, Patience’s words would have stung. Not anymore. Not everyone will want to be a friend, Bronwyn had told me. If you try and fail, oh, well. Move on.

  “So where’s this mysterious box of yours?” asked Patience.

  I brought the shoe box out of my bedroom and set it on the coffee table. I wouldn’t make the mistake I had with Oscar, of underestimating the weight
of my memories, and the power of my grief. Though I couldn’t remember much of what had happened with my father in Germany, I knew it had been traumatic.

  The thought of my father in that burned-out manor house . . . it made me shiver.

  Then Jamie’s words came back to me. He claimed Tristan Dupree had come to San Francisco to work with Renee. But before going to see Renee, Tristan had come here, to Aunt Cora’s Closet, to recover something from me. If Jamie was telling the truth, did Tristan’s death make me even more of an enemy to Renee? Was I her target now? Did this mean she was after the bēag? What would keep her from sending Jamie—or another one of her lackeys—to ransack my place one day when I wasn’t home, in search of the bēag Tristan had been looking for? Could her magic overcome my beefed-up protection spell?

  “What’s all that?” Patience asked while I gathered my supplies in a basket, then brought them to the coffee table.

  I held up a jar with a narrow spout. “These are my special salts—ordinary table salt would do for most threats, but I’m going to pull out the big guns for this box.”

  “I think that’s best,” she said with a nod. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Watch, don’t interfere, and follow my lead.”

  I poured a thin line of salt in a circle around the box, chanting:

  At this place and in this time,

  lock tight the doors of our minds.

  Spirits who wander, spirits who keep,

  do not bring our souls to weep,

  guardians of the night and arts,

  shield the keys to our hearts.

  Glancing up at Patience, who sat silently watching me, I felt a wave of self-consciousness.

  “That’s how it goes,” I said, my tone defensive. “It’s a protection spell.”

  “Rock on, witchy woman.”

  I almost never cast in front of others. But since this was for Sailor, I repeated the chant over and over, forcing myself to focus my intent.

  I wished I had thought to bring Oscar with us. Even though he’s not a typical witch’s familiar, he shares with familiars one very important characteristic: He eases my spellcasting, helping me to open the portals to the next world and beyond more easily. Still, Oscar wouldn’t be able to transform in front of Patience, and I wasn’t sure whether he would be as helpful in his piggy form. We’d never had reason to try.

  I took out a black tourmaline stone from the basket, repeated my chant, then set it on the table right outside the salt circle, just barely touching the white crystals. One by one I placed the rest of the stones: a slick agate, a bloodstone, a labradorite, a black onyx, a peridot, and, from an old Altoids tin, a tiny chip of precious emerald.

  The stones studded the salt circle like ornaments on a wreath.

  I sat on the floor on one side of the coffee table and nodded to Patience to sit opposite me.

  I laid my hands, palms up, on the table. Slowly, she rested hers atop mine.

  A shock of recognition, a tiny spark like an electric current, passed between the two of us. This happened at times with other magical folk, such as Aidan, though with him the recognition was greatly amplified, as if on steroids.

  “We surround ourselves with a veil of protection,” I intoned. “We are safe within our space.”

  I felt Patience focusing, lending her powers of concentration to mine. A light began to emanate from the two of us, rising above the salt circle, atop the box, growing brighter with each breath. It was strong and controlled, vibrating at a high frequency.

  “No evil can penetrate our combined forces.”

  The light spread from its origin above the box to fill the room, casting a pulsating glow.

  “Guiding Spirit, hear my call.” A faint visage of the Ashen Witch appeared in my mind.

  And then I opened the box.

  Chapter 14

  The slithering again.

  “Ugh, you didn’t say there would be silverfish!” Patience said, rearing back. “I hate silverfish.”

  “Silverfish?” I peered into the box. There were silvery blue insects slithering all over the cardboard and the items within the box.

  “You don’t need a psychic. You need an exterminator.”

  “There aren’t silverfish anywhere else in my apartment. Look at them; they seem to be confined to the box.”

  Besides the admittedly creepy silverfish, there were a few items wrapped in brown paper along with an old newspaper and a photograph.

  It was a formal wedding portrait of my father and mother. As I picked it up, I remembered carrying it with me from Texas, hoping it would aid me in my search. But of course my father had changed a lot since then. In the photo, his face was open, hopeful, his smile wide and genuine. The last time I had seen him, when he had come to San Francisco, he looked like an entirely different man. Not just older, but hard, jaded. Bitter.

  My mother looked slightly dazed, and very innocent. She gazed up at my father adoringly, a beatific expression on her young face.

  What does she look like now? I wondered. What would she be like? Why had she decided to board that bus, with all those elderly witches? When I knew her, she had taken pains to distance herself from anything and everything having to do with magic and witchcraft. Including her only daughter.

  When will they get here, already? The anticipation was killing me.

  In an attempt to focus my wandering thoughts, I unwrapped a small bundle that turned out to contain an old windup wristwatch. I started to turn the knob to see if it still worked, before I found myself hesitating.

  “Maybe not,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to start the doomsday countdown, or whatever.”

  “No, indeed,” replied Patience. “Wouldn’t want that. Maybe you should ask Aidan.”

  There were several other crystals and stones wrapped in paper, a few herbs so dry they were mostly powder, and one more photograph: of me, as a toddler. Probably taken around the time my father left Texas. Left me, and my mother.

  I chose another item, this one wrapped in muslin. Inside was a tiny, ornate glass bottle, encased in silver filigree. I held it up to the light of the candle. Inside, a few delicate crystals tinkled.

  “What the hell are those?” Patience demanded. “More salts?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” I replied. “This is a lachrymatory. In the Victorian days, when someone died, mourners collected their tears in a bottle like this. When the tears evaporated, the mourning period was over.”

  “I’ve heard of that. I thought it was a myth.”

  “Lots of things thought to be mythical are true.”

  “Okay. I can roll with that. But why is this one important?”

  “Renee-the-cupcake-lady has been collecting lachrymatories in her bid to take over San Francisco’s magical community. The salts that remain after the tears evaporate are essential to a number of spells. They’re quite powerful because they contain the essence of the bereaved. Concentrated grief, in a way.”

  “Renee-the-cupcake-lady? Wasn’t that her weasel down in the shop?”

  “Yep. Hard to believe the cupcake lady poses an existential threat to San Francisco, but apparently she does.”

  Patience looked thoughtful. “She wants to depose Aidan?”

  I nodded.

  “And would that be such a bad thing?” Patience asked.

  “Renee is dangerous. Besides, I thought you liked Aidan.”

  She shrugged. “I like him well enough. I mean, I don’t dislike him. But I don’t get into supernatural politics. They’re all a bunch of crooks. As far as I can see, power corrupts.”

  “What’s Aidan’s story? Do you know?” I asked.

  “All I know is he’s not a man to cross. The glamour he carries around with him sort of weirds me out. Makes me wonder what he’s hiding.”

  “You know about the glamour?”
I hadn’t realized anyone but me knew about Aidan’s glamour. “Have you seen Aidan’s real self?”

  “Naw, I’m just hypersensitive to glamours,” Patience said. “I get within ten feet of one of them, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. But anyway, I like him for this: He can help us with Sailor.”

  “Um . . . like I mentioned, Aidan might not be in the mood to help at the moment.”

  “Then apologize, because we need his help. Either that or eat the cupcakes and get Renee-the-cupcake-lady on board, because—as much as it pains me to say this—I don’t think you and I alone have what it takes to get Sailor out of the slammer.”

  It had never occurred to me to throw in with Renee. But Patience was right: We needed some help. We weren’t enough, not even as a united front.

  No matter that Aidan and I weren’t always pals, and that he and I fought a lot—deep down I felt he was an ally. I didn’t trust him completely, but that was not unusual for alliances between magic folk. We were cagey that way. Also . . . I had once had a vision while in Aidan’s octagonal room. It included lachrymatories, a rain of blood, and other not-good things associated with Renee. According to Aidan, Renee was seeking a male counterpart for the coincidentia oppositorum—a sort of ancient covenant that had to do with the balancing of magical forces between two powerful practitioners. At that point she would be strong enough to go up against me and Aidan.

  My thoughts turned to Selena, especially how easily she could be influenced—and her talents corrupted—at this point in her life. Then I considered my father, selling out for power. And I thought of the times I, myself, had been tempted. This was the problem with possessing extraordinary supernatural powers; it was far too easy to get carried away, to believe oneself above others, to manipulate and control. To slide on over to . . . whatever one wanted to call it: the dark side, the left-handed way, the wayward path. The God complex.

  No, allying with Renee was not an option. She simply didn’t feel right to me. I just wished I knew more about Aidan’s background, what he was after as an end goal. I didn’t know what could happen in San Francisco, but not for the first time, it felt like I had been urged to come here for a reason. To fight the good fight. To fulfill the prophecy, perhaps.