“I’ll just bet you have,” she said, playing with her handbag. She released a long breath. “I was so young, Lily, younger than you are now. That’s not an excuse—I know you would never react that way, had you been in my shoes. But you’re much more worldly than I am, Lily. Than I’ll ever be. In fact, you were born more worldly than I’ve ever been. I don’t know if you got that from your father’s side, or it was just the way you were, but it’s true.”
I tried to think of something to say, but just sat there, silent, and listened as she continued.
“And what I went through with your father . . .” She shook her head. “I’m a small-town girl, Lily. I was a beauty queen, and I thought that was important, for land’s sakes!” She laughed. It was a throaty, deep laugh that I remembered from childhood.
“I had never met someone like your father,” she continued. “Why, the things he said, the things he knew, the things he did . . .” She trailed off and a blush crept up her cheeks. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know about all the things he did. “Anyway, he was a wonder. And I never knew Graciela beyond the rumors, really, until after I married your father. My people never went to her. And then, what he put me through, well, I can only hope you have better luck. That’s why I made you a trousseau, so you will have the support and advantages upon your marriage that I never had. I’ve been learning knot magic from Graciela.”
I gaped at her. “You’ve been learning what, now?”
“Knot magic. It’s when you imbue the threads with your thoughts and desires as you tie the knots—”
“Yes, I know what knot magic is. But you say you’ve been learning this from Graciela?”
She nodded. “I went to her, asked her for help. Believe it or not, Lily, my estrangement from you has been the saddest aspect of my life. If only you knew how much I regretted that day in the tent, at that terrible revival meeting. I never knew. . . . First, I was so ashamed. Just so ashamed of myself, and of you, or what I feared you were.” Her voice dropped to a hush. “Can you comprehend what it feels like, to be ashamed of one’s own child? It’s like a sin against nature.”
How many times, I wondered, had I dreamed of my mother acknowledging my pain and apologizing for her role in it? I felt myself letting go of the years of festering bitterness, felt myself accepting that my mother had truly loved me and had done the best she knew how.
“I imagine I was pretty scary,” I said in a quiet voice, thinking of Selena.
My mother shook her head. Again, the gray hairs startled me. I still remembered her as she had been when last I saw her, in that tent with those hateful people. When I was seventeen. A lifetime ago.
“Yes, you were scary to an uneducated person like me, who didn’t know better. I’m . . . I’m sorry, Lily. What you were was a child who needed her mother. Thank goodness Graciela was able to take you in, to understand you and help you to control your talents.”
How many times had I dreamed of this moment? I wondered again. I reached out and put my hand over hers. She patted it. Her hands were soft as velvet and warm as love, just as I’d imagined them for years.
“Since then . . . Well, it took a while, but I’ve educated myself. I’ve read a lot. And I’ve come to understand that ‘strange’ isn’t a synonym for ‘wrong.’”
I smiled. “And I’m strange, am I?”
She looked at me, startled, as though worried she’d hurt my feelings. She relaxed upon spying my smile, and returned it.
“Oh, aren’t we all, darlin’? Aren’t we all?”
* * *
• • •
Half an hour later, the bell tinkled over the door as I led my mother into Aunt Cora’s Closet.
She lingered in the doorway, as though unsure about whether to enter.
“Come on in, Mom,” I said. “Welcome to my store. It doesn’t usually look like this, though, I have to say.”
“You named it after my cousin Cora?”
“I used to love playing dress-up in her closet, remember?”
My mother had insisted on bringing a big sewing bag in with her, and it slipped off her shoulder, falling to the floor.
“Oops,” I said. “Nothing breakable, I hope.”
“Not at all. It’s a . . .” She looked around at everyone in the store. “I didn’t mean to make a scene in front of everyone, all your friends. . . .”
“Everyone, this is my mother, Maggie. Mom, these are very important people to me. They’re my San Francisco family.” I was proud to introduce her to Bronwyn, and Maya, and Conrad, then Lucille and Selena and Imogen, and Wendy and Starr and Wind Spirit and the others from the Welcome coven. I only wished Sailor could be here, but I trusted that he would be in my arms soon enough.
“Well, then,” said my mother, bringing a gown out of the bag. “I thought I should bring this to you. Maybe it’s too soon, but I wanted you to try it on here because Graciela said you had a seamstress who could make alterations. . . .”
“That would be me,” said Lucille, stepping forward. “That looks like a lovely gown, Maggie.”
“I wore it when I got married,” my mother said. “It was also my mother’s and her mother’s before that. My mother told me my grandmother’s mother and sisters sewed it for her.”
The dress was from the late 1920s, and was made from a champagne-toned slippery silk satin. The bodice featured a sweetheart neckline, a high back, and dolman-style sleeves. A self-sash was looped through the neckline and finished at the shoulder, where it could be used to tie the sleeve. Tea-stained floral lace appliqués highlighted the front of the bodice. The skirt was asymmetrical and fell from the banded drop waist, which was adorned with sparkling rhinestones in a swirling pattern. There were a few snags in the fabric, and a couple of the rhinestones were lost or loose. A little smudging at the neckline, no doubt evidence of a former bride’s lipstick.
But otherwise the dress was pristine. Lucille would be able to alter it to fit me, and I felt confident I could remove the lipstick stains with a tiny bit of ammonia or hair spray—an old vintage clothes dealer’s trick.
“It’s . . . stunning,” I said when I was able to catch my breath. “Truly, absolutely stunning.”
Best of all, without even trying it on, I knew it was perfect for me. The vibrations were strong and happy and hopeful, and I detected something I had never before felt in a vintage garment: family. This dress had been made by my great-aunts, worn by my mother, and my mother’s mother, and her mother.
I had never before worn a family hand-me-down.
“I know there are some issues with it, but Graciela said you’d be able to fix it up, no problem.”
“Lucille is amazing,” I said with a nod.
“Mom will be able to make it perfect,” said Maya, looking over at her mother, who nodded. “And with a good laundering, it will be right as rain.”
“Try it on,” said Bronwyn.
“Yes, try it on, already,” urged Graciela.
“Dude,” said Conrad.
I felt shy, and finally realized why some of my customers held back a little. Even though the vibrations felt right and the dress beckoned me, it was a little bit scary to be the center of such attention.
“I’ll help you,” said Selena, taking my hand and leading me into the big dressing room.
I took off the polka-dot dress that matched Selena’s; then Selena helped me to pull my mother’s family wedding dress over my head. The fabric slipped easily down my body, encasing me in silky softness. It fit loosely, in the style of the twenties. And though I didn’t have a boyish body, it was big enough in the right areas. It needed some alteration, but not much.
“Wow,” said Selena.
“Really?”
I stepped out of the dressing room. You could have heard a pin drop.
“Well?” I said, wondering at their silence.
Bronwyn
gasped and teared up.
“What?” I looked down at myself, suddenly doubtful.
My mother came up to me, gave me a hug, and then turned me around so I could look into the three-way mirror.
I looked beautiful. I looked like a princess. Best of all, I looked like a very happy witch.
Everyone started talking at once, oohing and aahing, pulling a little here, a little there.
“All you need now is the perfect veil,” Maya said. “We must have some in boxes next door, right?”
“I have one here,” my mother said as she pulled a lace veil out of her sewing bag. It was attached to a tiara. It was antique, but not fancy, made of cheap wire and rhinestones that had been cleaned up and polished.
“I know it’s silly,” my mother said. “But that’s the tiara I won when I was crowned Miss Tecla County. That was the closest I’ve ever come to feeling magical.”
“It’s amazing,” I said, wishing I had a better word for it. I smelled daisies, and my mind was flooded with images of home, and Texas, and sitting in my mother’s lap while she read me a story when I was little. I thought of what Patience had said, that my thoughts were expressed in scents and symbols. Maybe this was what she meant.
“Thank you,” I said, tears stinging the backs of my eyes. I knew if I had been able to cry, I would have done so. “It’s amazing. It’s exactly what I’ve been hoping for.”
While saying, “No time like the present,” Lucille trailed me back into the changing room and pinned the dress for alterations, then helped me to take it off without stabbing myself.
After I had changed back into my polka-dot dress, Bronwyn excused herself to take Imogen and Selena to their respective homes, Maya and Lucille begged off as well, and the last of the crowd began to disperse. My mother and the Texas coven climbed back onto the school bus to drive to Calypso’s house in Bolinas. Only my grandmother and Oscar stayed behind to accompany me in my Mustang. Graciela insisted on hunting for a sparkly jacket in my inventory piled in Lucille’s Loft, and then wanted to ride with the top down, because she’d once seen a movie in which a glamorous actress—was it Audrey Hepburn, or Grace Kelly?—drove across the Golden Gate Bridge in a convertible and she wasn’t about to miss a chance to do the same before she died.
“You really taught my mother knot magic?” I asked her while we packed the last of the leftovers into boxes to take to Calypso’s.
Graciela laughed. “She’s atrocious. Truly. Still and all, it’ll be interestin’ to see what she came up with in that trousseau. Have you looked yet?”
“She told me not to, yet.”
Graciela lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m respecting her wishes,” I said, a defensive tone to my voice.
“That’s a first.”
I remembered snooping around in Graciela’s things, which was how I’d found out more than I should have about my father. “I was just a child, after all.”
“A nosy child.”
“You’re right,” I said with a laugh. “A nosy child. I guess I still am, in lots of ways. I seem to stick my nose in all sorts of things around these parts—that’s certain.”
I looked up from the Tupperware container I was closing to see Graciela—clad in a silver bugle-beaded jacket much too large for her—standing and gazing at the map behind the register, where the red thread now displayed Deliverance Corydon’s entire sigil.
“So you and the coven deliberately made Deliverance Corydon’s sign?” I asked as I joined her.
She let out a sigh, and nodded. “Yes, we cast at each point to rally her strength for you—you needed it. You now have two guiding spirits, m’ija. And they are at war. It will not be easy.”
“I don’t understand. Two spirits? That sounds bad.”
“It is not all bad. There is great strength in the negative, as you know. You are on track to become very powerful now, m’ija. More than before, much more. But you must fight to maintain control. Otherwise, one spirit will win out over the other.”
“Is that why the Ashen Witch didn’t come to me the last time I brewed?”
“She didn’t?” Graciela looked surprised, and it scared me to see worry in her eyes. But then she chuckled ruefully and patted me on the shoulder. “I guess we’ll have to work on that. She hasn’t abandoned you. Don’t worry. But she might need to be invited back.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“I know you will, m’ija. You have always been brave. To the point of foolishness.”
“So you’ve told me.”
“You must take precautions. But there is no denying what you are, so you must deal with it, embrace it, learn to best use it while maintaining balance and control. That’s the way life is. You must work on your training; you cannot keep running away from that. But we are here now, m’ija. We will help you figure this out.”
“Thank the heavens for that,” I said. “So, does this have to do with the prophecy?”
“What prophecy?”
“Aidan told me there was a prophecy about me, that my father knew about it. And . . . a demon knew about it, too.”
Now in addition to the worry in her eyes, I saw pain. She turned away.
“Graciela? Is it true?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I know there’s a prophecy, but it had to do with your father, not you specifically.”
“But through him, me, right?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Graciela, you aren’t making any sense. Please don’t talk in riddles.”
“I was going to wait to tell you this, but I guess there’s no point. The truth is, the prophecy referred to your father’s child.”
“Right. But I’m an only child.”
Graciela held my gaze for a long moment.
“You’re saying . . . ,” I ventured, “I’m not his only child? You’re saying I have a sibling?”
“I thought he was dead. We all did. But lately there have been some signs. . . . Anyway, it’s possible he’s coming to San Francisco. Lucky we’re here, right? Let’s get going, m’ija. We should consult with the coven about this.”
I mulled over this disturbing revelation while I loaded the boxes of leftovers, plus Graciela and Oscar, into the car, and ran back to Aunt Cora’s Closet to grab my bag and coat and lock up.
As I grabbed my keys, I felt a shiver of premonition, the bell over the door tinkled, and I turned around to see Sailor stride into the store.
I blasted him with a wall of energy, and he hit the wall with a loud grunt.
“Ow,” he said as he straightened, rubbing his shoulder. “I really dislike it when you do that. I hope you don’t plan on resorting to violence after we’re married.”
“Sailor? I’m so sorry!” I threw myself into his arms. “It’s you!”
“Of course it’s me.” He chuckled and hugged me. “What is going on?”
“How did you get out? Are you off the hook?”
“I don’t know if it was Carlos, the cupcakes, or what, but apparently they figured they didn’t have enough to make the charges stick. Since Dupree died of poisoning, and they couldn’t find any blood evidence to link me to the beating, they’re dropping the complaint. Also, now they’ve got some guy in custody who claims he was responsible . . . ?”
I hugged him again. “Oh, I can’t believe you’re here. I want to introduce you to my grandmother. She’s waiting in the car. Can you come to Bolinas with us?”
“Why not? I’m free as the proverbial bird.”
We went around the corner to the car.
“Abuelita, this is Sailor. Sailor, this is my grandmother Graciela.”
Sailor took her hand in his, and they stared at each other for a long while. Finally, Sailor said, “Nice jacket.”
“It’s new
. I like how it sparkles.”
“It suits you.”
Graciela stuck her chin out, and nodded. “He’ll do. It’ll be a challenge, but he’ll do.”
One side of Sailor’s mouth kicked up in a crooked smile. “I’ll take that. And I guess I’ll just climb on in the back with the pig, unless you want me to drive.”
I smiled. “I’ve got this. You just relax. We’re going to drive our convertible over the Golden Gate Bridge, like— Was it Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn?”
“One of those,” said Graciela with a wave of her hand. “I looked just like one of them when I was your age. Especially in a classy getup like this one.”
Chapter 30
Calypso’s house, as predicted, was full of laughter and lively discussion about everything from the proper way to brew lavender lemonade to the best order in which to plant the “three sisters”: maize, beans, and squash.
Sailor, as the only male on the premises besides Oscar, held up well under the ardent grilling of Graciela, my mother, and the other coven sisters. It got so intense that Calypso stepped in to help him out from time to time, but I figured he could hold his own.
Just watching him sitting there, patiently answering questions, cracking the occasional joke, and sending me steamy looks across the room, made me feel flushed all over.
Sailor was out of jail. Exonerated. And he would be in my bed tonight.
Okay, Aidan was right: Sailor and I should probably talk and get a few important things worked out prior to the handfasting. We had some time—not very much, but a little—before we got married. And I didn’t want to put off the ceremony, among other reasons, because I could not wait for the honeymoon.
The only thing that worried me now was Oscar. He was decidedly mopey. Oscar wasn’t one to hide his feelings.
I called him outside, and we walked along a path into the redwoods so he could change into his natural form. I took a seat on a fallen log and patted the space next to me. He sat.
“What’s up, little guy?” I asked him, nudging him with my elbow.
He shrugged and looked petulant, refusing to meet my eyes.
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