“I’m not going over this again, Oscar. I like regular people. And no one’s getting burned.”
I hoped.
I brought my basket into the kitchen, set it on the tiled counter, and put my cauldron on to boil. I wished I had thought to take Miriam’s corsage before the emergency medical personnel arrived. If I could examine it more closely, there was a slight chance I could recognize who had made it. Some witches were so distinctive that their work was unique, like a signature. And very occasionally, I could recognize that signature.
I didn’t have the corsage. But I did have time. As Aidan had reminded me, witchcraft seldom worked quickly. Unless someone died of a heart attack due to the stress and strain of confronting a curse, or in the case of the infamous choking curses, witchcraft took a while to take effect. Which is how a lot of witches—like Aidan—made money. Removing curses was big business. Almost as lucrative as casting them.
The spell that cursed Miriam seemed to have initiated a long-term fading, giving me time to come up with a cure. It wouldn’t be easy, but I remembered I did have one advantage: a sample of Miriam’s hair. I took the comb out of my beaded purse and extracted the two strands.
“Whose are they?” Oscar asked, wide-eyed.
“Miriam’s. The woman I met at the dance.”
“The one in the mirror?”
“That’s right.”
His bottle glass eyes grew even bigger. “You’re going to curse her?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m trying to help her.”
“How’d you get her hair?”
“She borrowed my comb.”
He gasped.
To witches, hair and fingernail clippings are powerful. Originally parts of our body, they maintain a connection with us even when they are shed and, like DNA, contain a little bit of the magic that makes each of us unique. My grandmother Graciela taught me as a little girl to gather my hair and nails and burn them so they couldn’t be used to cast a spell on me. To this day, simply walking by a beauty salon could make me hyperventilate.
“Why’d you keep ’em if you didn’t wanna cast a spell on her?” Oscar asked.
“I just… I don’t know, actually.”
“When I first knew you, you didn’t want to admit what you were to anyone, especially to cowans,” he said. “I liked it better when it was just us. It was safer. Strangers can be dangerous.”
“Most people aren’t dangerous, Oscar,” I said, wondering, and not for the first time, about his past. For such a garrulous fellow, Oscar was close-muzzled about his experiences before he came to me. Only recently I had learned that he was searching for his mother, a woodscreature who suffered under a curse that transformed her into a gargoyle. But who he had been with before me, and how he came to be in Aidan Rhodes’s debt… it was all still a mystery. “If I think I can help someone, especially if I might be the only one who can help… well, I feel obliged.”
I crushed rosemary with my mortar and pestle, then sprinkled it into the bubbling cauldron, starting to chant and mumble under my breath. “The brew will help protect Miriam from further harm, which will give me some time to find the perpetrator and force her—or him—to retract the curse.”
“How ya gonna find her—or him?”
He had me there. I was plum out of ideas.
After finishing the brew, pouring it into a glass bowl with a pair of talismans, and setting it out on the terrace under the moonlight, then washing my cauldron and magical tools, I slumped onto the couch to watch the rest of The Shining with Oscar. I was exhausted but too riled up to go to bed. Good thing I didn’t need much sleep.
Chapter 4
The next morning, I was anxious to discover what had happened to Miriam.
But first things first: I had made a commitment to my friend Bronwyn’s coven. The coven sisters were helping women from the Haight-Ashbury Women’s Shelter to set up job interviews. Today a group of shelter residents was coming to Aunt Cora’s Closet to pick out new clothing so they could be well dressed for the interview process.
Before people started arriving, I began the day as I always did: by sprinkling saltwater widdershins—counterclockwise—around the perimeter of my shop, then smudging deosil—clockwise—with a sage bundle. This cleansed the shop of any lingering negative energy, and started the day afresh. Finally, I lit a white beeswax candle and mumbled a quick incantation of protection.
As soon as I’d finished, my assistant, Maya, walked in, clutching two cardboard cups from the café down the street.
“Morning, Lily.” She handed me a Red Eye—coffee with a shot of espresso—and blew on her own soy chai latte. Today Maya’s multitude of black locks were decorated with vivid orange beads, which contrasted nicely with the bright blue tips of her hair. The pleasant clacking of the beads as she moved had become a familiar, favorite sound of the normal workday in Aunt Cora’s Closet. “Today’s the big day, huh?”
“Yep. Ready for the onslaught?”
“You bet. I think it’s a great idea.”
Within minutes of my opening the front door, a long caravan of cars arrived. They pulled up one by one in front of the shop and deposited small groups of women, from their late teens to early sixties, at the door. A pair of coven sisters covered a card table with a brilliant orange tablecloth and laid out a selection of homemade baked goods along with cider and coffee. I provided orange juice and peanut butter cookies.
As I had come to learn, no one went home hungry after a coven gathering.
When Bronwyn approached me with the idea for today’s event, I had immediately agreed. I loved being able to help out women going through tough times. Still, I wondered how much of the clothing that crowded my shop would be suitable for job interviews: My inventory leaned more toward the funky than the corporate. Then again, this is San Francisco, where the average convenience store worker is adorned with multiple tattoos, ear plugs, and piercings and favored offbeat vintage clothing. In this city, I imagined a stockbroker could wear a frilly corset to the office and fit in just fine.
Still, as I watched a couple of women giggling near the rack of 1950s-era prom dresses, I wondered what kind of job would consider powder blue chiffon to be proper attire. But if nothing else, at least today’s outing provided the women a rare chance to relax and enjoy the absurdities of past fashion trends.
“Oscar,” I called out sternly. “Stop.”
Oscar had taken on his potbellied pig form, as he always did around nonmagical folk. But while people attribute a fair amount of intelligence to pigs, they tended to underestimate this particular critter.
At my reprimand, he withdrew his snout from under the velvet curtains of the shop’s communal changing room and batted his pink porcine eyes at me in an attempt to appear guileless. I wasn’t fooled.
“Pillow,” I ordered, holding my arm out and pointing. Oscar trotted over to his purple silk pillow near Bronwyn’s herb stand and settled down, grumbling just a bit.
“So, tell me everything,” Maya said, elbows on the glass counter, ready to listen. Though when it came to romance Maya was much more cynical than the average twenty-three-year-old, I’d noticed she always wanted to hear about my experiences. “How was the ball? Was Aidan amazing? The way he moves, I’ll bet he’s an incredible dancer. Are you two, you know, an item now?”
“No, we’re not an item. We’re friends.” Sort of.
She frowned. “You told me no more than two days ago that you and Max Carmichael were ���just friends.’ You keep moving smart, employed hetero men into the ‘friend’ category and you’ll run out before you know it. This is San Francisco, lest you forget.”
“Mmm,” I said. “I thought you didn’t believe in romance.”
She shrugged. “I’d like to be proven wrong. So? What happened? Surely he kissed you good night, at least?”
“No, he was… called away.”
“Away?”
I nodded.
Her eyes, dark as my coffee, widened. “You mean, he ditched you?”
>
“He didn’t ditch me. It was unavoidable.”
“What happened?”
“I really don’t know.”
She blew out a breath and shook her head slowly. “Can’t believe that fine fellow ditched you. Geez. Sorry, Lily.”
I could feel my cheeks burn. To distract myself, I took in the crowded shop floor. Aunt Cora’s Closet was jumping. Bronwyn was helping a young woman try on a mustard-colored bolero jacket with a dark tweed skirt. Another coven member, Wendy, knelt by the overflowing lingerie chest, rooting through silk teddies and lacy, old-fashioned bloomers. A clutch of women was flicking through the racks of mid-1960s A-line “career dresses” appliquéd with flowers. Two other members of Bronwyn’s group lingered near the communal dressing room, acting as gofers.
“So, I’ve always wondered,” Maya said, tactfully changing the subject, “how can you tell which are witches?”
“Mostly we’re green with warts on our noses. And then, of course, there’s the cackle.”
As if on cue, Bronwyn held up a 1970s-era white polyester pantsuit encrusted with rhinestones, and two of her coven sisters broke into loud peals of laughter.
“The cackling part, I believe,” Maya said with a smile.
“Lily, we could use your help over here,” said Starr, a coven sister who wore her hair in wheat-colored braids. She stood with a young woman who at first glance looked to be in her late thirties, but as I approached I could tell she was much younger—maybe late twenties. Her skin was sunburned and blotchy, her hair dry and untamed. There was a scar on her cheekbone, right near her eye, and another running from her upper lip toward her cheek. She had that wary, skittish look I had seen on too many people living on the streets. No matter what country, what city, that look was the same: beaten or abused, as though waiting for someone to yell or do much worse.
“This is Monica,” continued Starr. “She thinks she’d like to find a job in a café or maybe a diner.”
“My mom was a waitress,” Monica said with a shrug. “She always said it was hard work, but the tips were okay. I think I’d like it better than a desk job. Plus, I’m not so good with writing. I’m better with math. I could do bills okay.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Monica.” I held out my hand to shake.
Monica glanced over at Starr, who nodded. As though unsure, Monica took my hand, her own resting limply in mine. I noticed that her nail beds were red and inflamed, as though she chewed on her cuticles.
I smiled, held her hand with both of mine, and concentrated. She was fragile. She’d seen hard times, violence. Her vibrations felt heavy, as though weighed down by responsibility. Probably had children, and wore the shame of being unable to provide for them like a shroud.
I knew exactly what she needed.
“Have I got an outfit for you, Monica,” I said and led her to a 1940s cream linen skirt suit with cocoa-brown piping around the edges culminating in a squiggly design on the jacket lapel. I had acquired it recently from a garage sale; it was unusual to find an outfit this nice in such a setting. I had the rare opportunity to speak with its original owner, a woman in her nineties with a ready laugh, despite hands gnarled from arthritis. The woman told me she had left Alabama during World War II to work across the bay in the shipyards of Richmond. “I had me some times in that suit,” she’d said, a mischievous twinkle in her deep brown eyes. She didn’t elaborate, but she didn’t have to. The clothes told their own story: of having adorned an independent, spirited young woman. Their vibrations were bold, strong, and striking.
Starr unearthed a mocha silk shell to wear underneath the suit, and a pair of stylish yet comfortable walking shoes to complete the outfit.
Monica looked doubtful. “It seems kind of… bland.”
“Go on, give it a try,” I urged her. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to take it.”
With a sigh of resignation, Monica disappeared behind the curtain. When she emerged again, she gazed at her reflection in the antique three-sided mirror. For a long time she said nothing, her expression flat. Finally, she smiled, looking shy but delighted.
“Oh my dear goddess,” said Bronwyn, clapping her hands over her chest. “Monica, I swear you look like a whole different person. A few tucks around the waist and it’ll fit like a glove.”
“One more thing,” I said, as I brought over a scarf printed with orangey red lip prints, like a dozen kisses. It added a surprising dash of color to the outfit. As I tied Monica’s tangled hair loosely at the back of her neck, I wondered if the coven sisters intended to prevail upon a local salon for hair and makeup help.
“I like that,” said Monica. She smiled and instantly looked a decade younger.
“Come look at these talismans,” I said as I led the way to the display counter. Maya opened the sliding door in the rear of the display and brought out a maroon velvet-covered tray that held a selection of hand-carved necklaces. Each was charged with magic.
“Those are cool,” Monica breathed, looking at them almost reverently.
“Would you like to choose one?”
She looked up at me in surprise. “Really?”
I nodded. As other women gathered around, I passed out the necklaces. I don’t normally give away my merchandise, but these women needed every ounce of strength they could muster to get back on their feet. Their pleased, surprised faces were more than sufficient payment.
I made a note to remember to carve more talismans during the next full moon.
One of the women from the shelter noticed a cardboard box full of baby clothes behind the counter. She started pawing through them.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Those aren’t for sale yet,” I said. “They haven’t been washed or sorted.”
“I don’t mind,” said the woman. “And there’s a washing machine at the shelter.”
I hesitated, stymied. The other day Maya had bought the box of children’s clothes, which was out of character for her, not to mention pointless since we don’t carry children’s clothes at Aunt Cora’s Closet.
But that wasn’t what was bothering me. There was something wrong with the clothes, a disturbing sensation I had sensed immediately but hadn’t had time to investigate. I should have tucked them out of sight but had been so focused on getting ready for the Art Deco Ball that I had forgotten all about them.
“I’m truly sorry,” I said as I closed up the box and lifted it. “I’ll be happy to bring them to you at the shelter. But I wouldn’t feel right until I’ve had a chance to go through them… .”
“She’s a stickler that way,” said Bronwyn, coming to my rescue. “Professional standards, don’t you know?”
The woman looked a bit miffed, and I sensed her rolling her eyes at me as I struggled to carry the overflowing box into the back room. I set it upon the jade linoleum table—an exact replica of the one in my mama’s kitchen in Jarod, Texas—and picked up the outfit on top, a cute little red-and-white-striped onesie, complete with footies. It would be adorable on a baby.
Too bad there was something wrong with it, something almost… dangerous.
The murmur of the crowd drifted through the heavy velvet curtains that separated the back room from the shop floor. I preferred to do this sort of thing alone, but a sense of urgency washed over me, a compulsion to look through the clothes now.
I hugged the red and white striped onesie to my chest. The vibrations were shrill, vacant, and disturbing.
Miriam. I had felt these very same vibrations last night when I touched Miriam. I would bet my cauldron on it.
No wonder the young woman had felt familiar—I must have been remembering the sensations from these clothes. But how were the garments connected to Miriam? Had she brought them to the shop and sold them to Maya? Did the poor woman in the mirror have a child, and was that baby in peril?
If I had felt compelled to try to help Miriam before, I now felt doubly so. I returned to the front of the store to find out what my assistant might know.
“Maya—”
I felt a whispered tingle of premonition. Sure enough, moments later the bell over the front door tinkled as SFPD homicide inspector Carlos Romero strode into Aunt Cora’s Closet.
He stopped, taking in the good-natured melee, before turning his grim, dark eyes on me. As usual, his aura was guarded, tense, humming with determination and grit.
What was he doing here? Had Miriam… passed over? Could my intervention, meager as it was, have made me a suspect, as Aidan had warned?
My heart hammered within my chest like a bird’s, robbing me of speech.
“Carlos! It’s been a long time,” said Bronwyn with her signature warm smile as she handed a lace blouse to a client.
“Good morning, Inspector,” said Maya with a big smile.
The other night, over a pitcher of margaritas, Maya had confided that she thought Carlos was cute… which I supposed he was, though I didn’t usually think of him that way. He was short for a man, barely taller than I was, but with dramatic, dark features and a sense of purpose that made him seem much larger. A few years on the city’s homicide beat could do that to a person.
Oscar snorted and made a big show of turning his back on the inspector, though I doubted Carlos noticed. My familiar wasn’t fond of authority figures of any kind. His sentiments were shared by the women in the aisles, who, when they heard Maya greet Carlos as “Inspector,” quieted down and avoided eye contact.
Not long ago I would have done the same, but now I was happy to count Carlos as an ally—maybe even a friend. He had surprised me by being open to the possibility of other dimensions, and not long ago had sought out my opinion in a case with supernatural overtones.
I swallowed hard and found my voice.
“Carlos, nice to see you.”
“You too. You seem busy today.”
“We’re helping women from the local shelter in their job searches,” said Bronwyn. “Lily offered to provide them with new clothes for their interviews and whatnot.”
Carlos looked at me. “That’s awfully nice of you.”
I shrugged. “It’s good to be able to help in a concrete way.”
In A Witch's Wardrobe Page 4