A Toxic Trousseau

by Juliet Blackwell

  There was no response.

  “See if it’s locked,” Maya said.

  I reached for the doorknob and slowly turned it. “It’s not locked.”

  “So open it.”

  I hesitated, feeling uneasy. Something wasn’t right here.

  “Do you think we should call the cops?” Maya asked. “Maybe it would be better to be safe than sorry.”

  “It’s hard to believe the dog would be so relaxed if something bad had happened.”

  “That’s true.”

  “This is ridiculous. I’m opening the door.” I pulled the door wide—it wasn’t a closet, but the entrance to a narrow staircase.

  “Hello? Autumn?” I called up the stairwell. “Anybody home?”

  There was a muted thumping from above.

  I looked at Maya, who nodded.

  “Hello?” I called out again, then started up the stairs, Maya close on my heels. “Anybody up here? Autumn?”

  At the second-floor landing, a room to the right was jam-packed with boxes and racks and clothing of all types. One whole movable rack was crammed with clothes, including antique ball gowns; piles of white cotton and lace lingerie were spread out over a small twin bed. Stacks of cardboard boxes lined two walls.

  Across the hall a door stood ajar, revealing a plush quilt-covered queen-sized bed, complete with satin canopy; the floor was strewn with papers and clothes.

  Autumn Jennings’s bedroom? I felt suddenly self-conscious about snooping any further. I could see a kitchen through the open arch at the end of the hall, and that was it. Though the furnishings appeared expensive, the whole place felt sort of . . . off. Dingy and messy and more than a little sad, especially compared to the sumptuous luxury of the store downstairs. I lived over my store, too, but my apartment was warm and cozy, with a sunny, old-fashioned kitchen, a charming living room, and a terrace fragrant with herbs and flowering plants. And Oscar, of course. And, increasingly, Sailor.

  So even though I was facing a lawsuit, dealing with whatever Aidan had just dumped in my lap, worried about Bronwyn’s coven spending the night in a haunted house, and apprehensive about the magical challenges Aidan felt were imminent, I took a moment to remind myself: All in all, I was one lucky witch. Autumn Jennings didn’t seem nearly so fortunate.

  “Maya, we should go. These must be her private rooms . . .”

  Maya didn’t answer.

  I looked over my shoulder. Maya stood absolutely still, her hands in the air.

  A woman stood in the arch at the end of the hall, pointing a gun at us.

  Chapter 3

  “Autumn? Autumn Jennings?” I asked, raising my hands as well. “Please put that down. There’s no need for a gu—”

  “Who are you?” the woman demanded. The pistol waved in the air slightly, as though too heavy for her to keep steady. She was small and birdlike, and her eyes were huge and frightened looking. Her skin was an unnatural shade of gray and she coughed into an old-fashioned handkerchief.

  “I’m so sorry. I think we must have stumbled into your private quarters,” I said. “It’s just that the shop downstairs was open but nobody was around. We thought maybe we’d find you up here.”

  She looked confused. A sheen of sweat gleamed on her ashen forehead.

  “I’m Lily Ivory,” I tried again. “I own Aunt Cora’s Closet? I was just—”

  “You’re here spying on me?” She looked wildly around the hallway. “What’s going on? Are there more of you downstairs?”

  “No, no, not at all. Really, it’s not like that,” I said. “It’s just me and Maya. Just the two of us. We mean you no harm. I came here to talk to you in person about the papers I received today. About the lawsuit.”

  She frowned as though struggling to understand what I was saying, and next thing I knew, she swayed on her feet. I remembered Oscar telling me she seemed “challenged” when it came to balance.

  “Autumn, are you all right? You don’t look well.”

  She seemed to be making an effort to stand tall, but she listed to one side so far that she fell against the wall. Then, as if in slow motion, she slid all the way down until she was sitting on the floor. The hand holding the gun went limp, and the heavy weapon clunked on the floor.

  Maya approached slowly, crouching in front of Autumn and gently pushing the gun out of her reach. Autumn said nothing. Maya picked up the weapon, holding it gingerly with her thumb and pointer finger. She stashed it atop a high corner cabinet where it was out of sight.

  “Autumn, we’ll call an ambulance,” I said. “You’re not well.”

  “I just . . .” She trailed off. “I can’t feel my hands.”

  Maya already had her phone out and was dialing 911.

  Then Autumn slumped over onto her side on the floor.

  I knelt next to her and pressed my hand against her forehead. Her skin felt clammy but not feverish. I closed my eyes, trying to convey sensations of comfort and calm, concentrating on sending healing energy through the pads of my fingers, beyond the barrier of skin, clear to the vitality of the blood. I encountered resistance, and my energy dissipated. I swore under my breath. My grandmother Graciela would know what to do in this situation, but I hadn’t inherited her talent for curing. Autumn seemed too far gone to accept my special brand of help.

  “What do you think is wrong with her?” asked Maya in a low voice, the phone still held to her ear as we waited for the paramedics.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “It could be anything—a virus, or a chronic health problem. Maybe she’s in diabetic shock, something like that?”

  “The 911 dispatcher suggests covering her with blankets in case it’s shock.”

  “Good idea.” I rushed into Autumn’s messy bedroom and pulled the quilt and a pillow from the bed. Several items fell to the floor—jeans and a nightgown and a stack of mail, including a manila envelope. I picked up the mail and placed it on the bedside table but let the clothes join those already covering the floor.

  Once we covered Autumn and made her as comfortable as possible, there didn’t seem to be much else to do but wait. She mumbled a few unintelligible phrases, and I did what I could to cast a comforting spell, but it wasn’t until I heard the faraway whine of an ambulance that I began to relax.

  Maya met the paramedics at the shop door to lead them up the stairs.

  And then she and I stood back and watched helplessly, hoping the professionals would be able to figure out what was wrong.

  “Has she ingested drugs or intoxicants of any kind?” asked one of the EMTs, a young man, as he checked Autumn’s vital signs.

  “Does she have any chronic health problems?” asked his partner, a young woman.

  “I don’t know. We found her this way,” I responded.

  They strapped her onto a stretcher and carefully navigated the steep stairs, Maya and I following behind them.

  “I take it you work here?” said the woman, her eyes running over my outfit.

  “I, uh . . . vintage clothes are my passion,” I answered.

  “Lock up after us, will you?” The EMT nodded at Loretta, who still lay on her bed, apparently unconcerned by all the commotion. “And take care of the dog?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “Where are you taking Autumn?”

  “UCSF. You can call and check on her later.”

  After they left, siren wailing, Maya gave me a quizzical look. “Looks like you’ve been appointed dog sitter and keeper of the keys.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Shouldn’t we see if we can find someone closer to her, like a relative or a good friend? I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but Autumn Jennings is suing you. There’s a slight chance she might not want you taking care of her shop and her dog.”

  “Okay, good point. Judging from the apartment upstairs, I’d say she lives alone,
but maybe she has family nearby. Let’s look for an address book, or a cell phone with a phone number labeled ‘Mom.’” Maya and I started searching the store. As I poked around, I took a gander at some of the papers behind the counter. I didn’t want to go too far in violating Autumn’s privacy, but if something was lying out in plain sight . . .

  “Find anything?” asked Maya.

  “Not yet.”

  “You don’t think any of this is . . . magic related, do you? I mean, I thought this was just a sad case of someone getting sick.”

  I paused as my hands alighted on some fake haute couture tags, the kind Oscar had given me—he still struggled with the concept that fraud was morally and ethically wrong. Why would Autumn have such things? Could she be involved in some sort of fraud, passing off modern reproductions as genuine vintage couture? Or might there be a benign explanation for her having these tags—after all, at one point I’d had some in my possession, too.

  And speaking of familiars . . . I cast a wary glance at Loretta. No, I didn’t think Autumn Jennings was a practitioner, but I wouldn’t put it past Aidan to have assigned a familiar as protection to a cowan—he’d done it before. Still, if she was under Aidan’s protection, why wouldn’t he have he told me?

  “Lily?” urged Maya.

  “What? Oh, sorry. . . . No, I have no reason to believe it’s anything out of the ordinary.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Except . . .”

  “Except what?”

  I shrugged. “Except that I’m involved. As the men in my life like to point out, I seem to attract trouble. Magical trouble.”

  “Maybe it’s just a coincidence that Autumn fell sick while we were here. Maybe the trouble is just run-of-the-mill, pain-in-the-neck litigation, and a random illness, not witchcraft.”

  “It could be. . . .”

  “After all, coincidences happen,” Maya said.

  “Every day, in fact.”

  Then my eyes fell on a brochure for the Rodchester House of Spirits.

  Was this another of the weird coincidences that seemed to follow me around, like a will-o’-the-wisp along the proverbial riverbank? Or might it be a warning, or a clue? Then again, the Rodchester House of Spirits was a popular tourist attraction; maybe one of Autumn’s customers had left it here. As simple as that.

  “What about Loretta?” Maya asked.

  The dog had roused herself to lift her head and still thumped her tail amiably whenever anyone addressed her. But she had remained calm while the paramedics tromped through the store, and she hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss about her mistress.

  “Are we even sure she’s Autumn’s dog?”

  “Does it matter? We can’t just leave her here.”

  “True, but maybe Autumn’s dog sitting and we can bring Loretta back to her family.”

  “There was a phone number on her dog tag. Let me give that a try,” Maya said, crouching down to pet the pup and check the tags that tinkled on her plaid collar. She stood and used her cell to call the phone number. An electronic version of “Greensleeves” led us to a cell phone on a shelf behind the register.

  “Well, that answers two questions: Loretta is Autumn’s dog, and now we know where Autumn’s cell phone is.”

  “Good, it’s not locked,” said Maya as she swiped the phone’s touch screen and started to search through the contacts list. I watched over her shoulder, impressed by her ease with the mysterious electronic devices called smartphones.

  “Anything?”

  She shook her head. “No listing for ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’ or ‘Great-aunt Betsy.’ Looks like mostly business contacts. From her history, though, it looks like she called someone named Jamie a lot in the last couple of days.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Let’s find out,” she said, dialing. No one answered, so she left a message that if this was a friend of Autumn Jennings could she or he please try back at this number right away, or at Aunt Cora’s Closet tomorrow.

  Next we went outside to see if the neighbors could provide any information. On one side was a bank, and on the other a cupcake bakery; both were shuttered for the night. The businesses across the street were similarly dark, so we gave up and returned to Vintage Visions Glad Rags.

  “The hospital must have a procedure for finding relatives,” I said. “Right?”

  Maya nodded and put Autumn’s cell phone back where she’d found it. Jamie hadn’t called in the time we’d been looking around.

  “I suppose we’ve done all we can. So, I guess we should lock up for now and hope Autumn’s feeling better in the morning. I’ll leave her a note and also call the hospital to let her know I have her dog and her keys.”

  The key ring jangled when I picked it up, and at the sound Loretta roused herself from her bed, shook vigorously, wagged her tail, and trotted to the front door.

  “Well, I guess we know how to get her moving,” said Maya. “Want to go for a ride in the car, sweetie pie?”

  “In the past year I’ve brought home a cat, a baby, and a teenage witch,” I mused, letting out a sigh as I gazed down at the dog. “I fear my pig might disown me for good if I bring home Loretta. Any chance you’d be willing . . . ?”

  Maya was scratching Loretta behind her big floppy ears. “I would if I could. She reminds me of a dog we had when I was growing up. She could stay at my parents’ house, maybe, but now that Mom’s busy at the sewing shop every day, and I’m going to school and working at Aunt Cora’s Closet . . .”

  “What if you brought her to the store during the day?” I said, hoping to talk her into keeping the dog until other arrangements could be made. As Maya had pointed out, we couldn’t leave Loretta here by herself, and Oscar might just decide to be another witch’s familiar if I brought her home. “She’s clearly not aggressive, so she won’t frighten the customers. And Autumn will probably be home soon, so it would just be a day or two.”

  “Didn’t you tell the paramedics you were the dog sitter?”

  “I’m working on learning to ask for help, remember?”

  Maya chuckled. “Okay, sure, why not? My folks will get a kick out of her; they’ve been talking about getting another dog. You want to come home with me, Loretta?”

  The dog’s adorable, chocolate brown eyes gazed up at Maya and she wagged her tail languidly.

  “I’m gonna take that as a yes.”

  * * *

  When I entered my apartment, I was greeted by the sound of gobgoyle snores emanating from Oscar’s cubby over the refrigerator.

  It was a much-needed, homey sound since I was still shaken by the encounter with Autumn. She had seemed so small, so wild-eyed and frightened. The paramedics hadn’t given us any clue what she might be suffering from. Based upon her appearance, I would guess her to be in her forties or early fifties, possibly younger. What could be wrong?

  Next, I called UCSF hospital, but I couldn’t get any information other than that Autumn was in the ICU, which didn’t sound promising.

  After putting on the kettle for a cup of tea, I reached up to a high shelf and pulled down my huge Book of Shadows, splaying it open on the counter. My grandmother Graciela had gifted it to me, and it was one of the few possessions I had taken when I fled my hometown. The precious tome was so old that the pages felt more like soft fabric than stiff paper under my fingertips; simply flipping through it helped connect me to Graciela and the line of powerful women who had come before us, throughout eternity. Half scrapbook, half witchcraft manual, my Book of Shadows was filled with recipes and spells and quotes and photos and articles cut out of the newspaper, reminding me of many things I would rather forget but that I must remember.

  I poured steaming water over a tea ball in my favorite mug and turned the pages. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but often the book would help me, flipping open to a particularly significan
t entry or something entirely new that I’d never seen before.

  Not this time, however. I noticed a new recipe for sprite dust, which could come in handy, but I had no idea for what. But nothing that referenced Autumn’s symptoms of confusion and paranoia, her paleness and perspiration.

  After some more fruitless page turning, I slammed the book closed, placed it back on its shelf, and then showered with handmade lemongrass and rosemary soap. I dressed in a fresh black skirt and blouse. Before I’d fled my hometown at the tender age of seventeen, my grandmother had taught me many things about life and about magics. Chief among the latter was this: “Wear all black or all white when spellcasting. Colors may confuse and alter one’s intentions.”

  It was hard to say how much of what Graciela taught me came from her knowledge and experience as a practitioner and how much was based on old wives’ tales, but in the end I had decided it didn’t matter. What was crucial was that I be able to focus my intent. Besides, a lot of those old wives’ tales were spot-on.

  Aidan’s leather satchel remained where I’d left it, sitting on top of the old trunk I used as a coffee table in the living room. Before I left earlier I had done as Oscar suggested and encircled it with salt and with stones of ocean jasper, eye agate, and labradorite at the perimeter for protection.

  Why was Oscar so worried about the bag being here in my possession? Aidan hadn’t indicated there was anything to be concerned about, and I hadn’t sensed any warning vibrations.

  Still . . . Aidan was a master manipulator, adept at casting magical glamours to mask the truth.

  Warily, I sat on the floor in front of the coffee table and studied the bag: It was worn butter soft, a deep, rich brown leather. The black ribbon tied around it appeared to be satin, shiny but fraying slightly at the edges.

  I took a moment to intone a grounding spell, stroked my medicine bag, and then finally opened the satchel. The contents appeared just as before. I took out a set of keys, the business card with what appeared to be the mayor’s personal number scribbled on the back, and a folder with multiple copies of the legal statute covering fortune-telling licensure in the county of San Francisco, along with some application forms.