by Kater Cheek
Theoretically the kappa would keep us safe, as long as whoever attacked came from the street and not from the alley behind the house. There were still bloodstains on the concrete slab spanning the ditch. The kappa wasn’t visible in the damp weedy darkness underneath, but it was still there, lurking.
Elaina had fed it faithfully, not trusting me with the important sushi-offering task. Could it be trusted? Could anyone be trusted? Elaina was paranoid too, and she didn’t have people trying to kill her.
Second step of the spell. Take a deep breath and visualize an envelope, an “aetheric placenta,” around our apartment. This was harder because it couldn’t include the upstairs
where Rosa and Tony and Phillip lived. When Elaina did it, the apartment glowed briefly with an envelope of light, like a rough purplish skin. Nothing ever happened when I did it, but I went through the motions.
“Millie? Mildred Melbourne?” A woman with curly brown hair had pulled up next to the curb, and was shutting her car door. She wore a loose teal green pantsuit, with an appliqué of a hummingbird on the chest. Over that she had a bulky purple knit coat, with a long tie that dangled low on one side. “I’m Theresa, an old friend of your uncle.”
She locked her car door, unlocked it, opened the car door, pulled her purple coat tie out of the door, and shut it again. She didn’t seem to notice the webbed hands reaching up over the ditch. Shit, now what? Was this woman an enemy, or was the kappa just getting hungry?
Theresa walked towards the bridge. “I came by to talk to Elaina. Is she here?”
The name clicked. Theresa of the curse-and-dog story. “Oh, right, You’re a friend of Elaina’s mom. Elaina’s not here. You just missed her.”
The kappa’s hands began to retreat back under the bridge.
Theresa didn’t appear to notice how close she came to becoming fish food, but my hands shook in relief so much that the spell got ruined. Oh well. The door was locked, so that would have to do. I decided to take the friendly route and extended my hand in greeting. The henna still hadn’t faded.
“Oh, my dear, I’m so glad to meet you.” Theresa ignored the hand and enveloped me in a hug. She smelled like sandalwood and baby powder, and hugged as firmly as an aunt who can’t believe you don’t remember her. “I wanted to thank you for giving that jewel back to Monica. It means so much to her to know that it’s back in the family again. You don’t know what she suffered for that thing.”
Good news, Monica either didn’t know she had a fake, or she wasn’t telling anyone. Bad news, I was in the doughy arms of a woman who cursed her neighbor’s kid and smelled like Johnson and Johnson.
I managed to extricate myself from the hug without using any of the nerve attacks they taught us at the dojo.
“I’d love to chat, but I was actually just leaving.”
Theresa linked arms and walked with me. “Oh, but where are you off to? I’ll come with you.”
“Out for cigarettes.” The purple tie of her coat was dragging in the mud from the previous night’s rain, so I picked it up and tucked it in her pocket.
“You smoke? You don’t look like a smoker.” She didn’t let go of my arm.
And what was a smoker supposed to look like?
“So, you say the jewel once belonged in Monica’s family?” Maybe if she got distracted by her story, I could get my arm free without being rude.
“Oh, yes. You know that jewel was in Monica’s family for oh, generations. It belonged to her grandmother and great-grandmother and it was supposed to be hers. This was back before your time.
“Monica is such a sweet soul, so she offered to donate the jewel to a museum, even though it was hers. The museum said they’d be happy to have it, but that man wanted it, and he convinced the museum that it belonged to him, and he took it.”
Theresa gestured with her free hand as she walked, and the tie fell out of her pocket and dragged on the ground again.
“But weren’t they dating or something? Why wouldn’t he just ask her for it?” I stooped down and picked up her tie off the ground.
Theresa held my elbow tighter. “Oh, thank you dear. Because he was cheating on her with that hussy. Monica was pregnant with his baby too, did you know?”
“Really?” Could this possibly be true? I had a cousin? “I had no idea. What happened to the kid?”
“Well, that hussy cursed Monica, and Monica lost it. She lost the little baby.” Theresa shook her head and pursed her lips, patting my arm consolingly. “She got hers though. Karma always works out. People get what’s coming to them.”
“Who got hers?”
“That man-stealing hussy that Frederick married. She never had any of her own children. She wasn’t meant to. She got hers. Frederick got his too.
“Serves him right that he went broke trying to run for mayor, after he ran poor Monica’s coven into the ground. That’s why he moved away. He didn’t have any friends left after what he did to poor Monica.”
Theresa’s purple coat tie fell again. This time I let it drag in the mud. “I heard he left because Monica destroyed his reputation.”
“Well, all she did was tell people the truth,” Theresa looked at her watch.
“I’d heard that Monica was the one who cursed him, not the other way around.”
“Don’t believe a word of it. Monica’s a dear sweet lady. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. Where’d you hear this anyway?”
“Sunwise,” I lied.
“Well, you can’t trust anything on the internet. Oh, dear, look at the time. I have to run. Bye dear, it was so nice talking to you.”
I put my hands up to defend myself, but she wrenched me into another intimate hug, pressing my nose up against the purple coat. Smoking dulled my sense of smell, but not enough to save me from the onslaught of baby powder.
Theresa wasn’t just a hugger, she was a patter too, and, by God, if she pressed any closer against me I really would use a nerve attack on her.
“Ow!” I cried at the sudden pain in my head. “What are you doing?
“Oh, I’m sorry, my watch is caught in your hair.” It felt like she was tearing out a whole lock.
“That hurts!”
“Almost got it.” She finally released me from the hug, and inspected the hairs dangling from her watch as though admiring her catch. She smiled at me. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Did that hurt?”
“It’s fine, really.” I backed away with my hands up before she could give me another hug.
“Bye now.” She turned and walked back towards her car.
“Hey, Theresa,” I asked, when she was at a hug-free distance.
She turned back with another bright smile. “Yes?”
“That story about your dog and the neighbor boy. Was that true?”
She spoke without emotion, but didn’t lose the smile. “People get what’s coming to them. Karma always works out.” Theresa turned and walked back towards her car.
When I got back to the apartment, Elaina gave me a withering glare and pointed to the dining area, where my mess had exploded during the week.
“I was going to get to that. I just stepped out for a pack of cigarettes.” There wasn’t that much mess anyway. “I ran into that friend of your mom’s.”
“Which one?”
“Theresa. The one from the story about the Weimaraner and the neighbor kid.” I picked up a coil of lights and the scraps of floral wire from amid the debris of my studio area.
“Oh, her. Very touchy-feely, isn’t she? Did she hug you?”
“Yeah.” I got the broom from the cabinet.
“My mom thinks she's the sweetest. I personally can’t stand her. She’s always going on and on about all these people she knows, name dropping as if I cared.”
“Help me with this. It’s easier with two.” One of the half-finished boughs had to be coiled in a box before I could sweep around it. “She told me some things about my uncle.”
Elaina picked up the other end. “Oh? Anything interesting?”
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�She said that my uncle did some not very nice things.” I wrapped the bough carefully into a spiral. “I’m not sure if they’re true or not.”
Elaina made a noncommittal hmm.
“What do you mean, ‘Hmmm?’ You know something?”
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Kit, but not all Pagans are as nice as I am. I’ve heard some stories about Frederick Edgerson.”
“Like what?” I closed the box and picked up the broom again.
She pushed her glasses up her nose, and started wiping off the counters. “I heard that he gave Paganism a bad name. My mom says he stole coven money and used it for his campaign. I also heard a rumor that he cursed someone.”
“Hmmm,” I growled.
“I’m just telling you what I heard, Kit. Don’t get all snippy with me.”
“I’m not getting snippy, it’s just, he was a nice guy. I don’t want to think that he was the jerk that Theresa said he was.” I stacked some of the boxes on top of each other to create a partition wall containing the rest of my tree-making mess.
“If he didn’t curse someone, why was he kicked out of Seabingen?”
“He left because—what do you mean, kicked out? Who would kick him out?”
“The U.C.S. They must have cast a binding on him. That’s what they do if they find out someone’s been casting curses. Why else would he have left?”
“Do they have to do this often? Is it hard to curse someone?” I had swept the loose leaves and silk scraps into a pile, and knelt down to sort through looking for anything still useful.
“I won’t teach you how to curse anyone,” she said.
“I just want to know if it’s hard. Is it the kind of thing that an average witch would know how to do?”
“Yes, but they won’t.”
“But they know how.”
“Yes, but.” Elaina pursed her lips, and looked up, as though searching for an analogy. “It’s like making a bomb. Plenty of chemistry students know how to do it, but most of them won’t.”
“Can you bring that dustpan over?”
Elaina picked it up and handed it to me, leaving me to handle both the broom and the dustpan. “Any more questions?” She sounded like she meant to add “class?” at the end of that sentence.
“Just one. Can mages really see the future?”
“Yes, of course. What do you think I use my scrying bowl for?”
“I thought it was for feng shui or something.” There. The mess was cleaned up. Elaina made such a big deal out of things sometimes.
“Feng shui?” she scoffed. “Moving your furniture to make your life better? What a load of crap. I can’t believe anyone actually believes in that.”
Elaina didn’t see the irony that a witch should disbelieve in feng shui. She rarely saw the irony in anything. Her lack of humor came in handy when I wanted to be really sarcastic without her knowing.
“I’m gonna go to the dojo for a few hours.” There were no classes scheduled, so maybe I could work out without running into anyone, like my former best friends, for instance. “Will you cast the closing spell? It never works for me.”
“Fine. I’ll see you later.”
I grabbed my bag and walked up the street towards my van. Tossing my sparring gear into the front seat, I climbed in and stuck my key in the ignition. Nothing happened. A few more tries rewarded me with nothing more than the realization that my old clunker wasn’t going anywhere. Out of gas.
Now what? Take the bus? No. It cost a couple bucks each way, and I was getting pretty lean in the pocketbook these days. Walk? Too many miles. By the time I got there, I’d only have enough energy to get home again. These damn cigarettes weren’t helping with that.
What I needed, in addition to finishing the boughs, was to find out who was most likely to kill me. If Monica knew the bindi was a fake, she was the number one suspect, but according to what Theresa said, she wasn’t.
And what about Madame R.? If she wasn’t the one who hired Eddie and Jojo to search my apartment, there was a third person interested in the bindi. But who could that be?
It would make sense that she was the one who wanted my apartment searched, especially if she found out later that night that she’d wasted her money on a fake. But what if she herself had enemies? I’d have to find out more about Madame R. if I wanted to know who her enemies were.
I got out and started walking to the bus stop, not bothering to lock the van, since it wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
A trip to investigate Madame R. might be a wasted trip. Even if I did find out she was the one who was going to try to kill me, how was I going to stop her? Maybe going to the dojo was a better idea. But Fenwick might be at the dojo. Rob would almost certainly be at the dojo. Neither one of them were people I wanted to deal with.
***
Madame R.’s parlour was still locked shut, with a handwritten “closed” notice on the door, so I went to talk to the neighbors. The chain bookstore across the street had a large staff, but the employees claimed complete ignorance of Madame R. and her mysterious attacker. Even the proprietor of the maternity fashion boutique in the shop underneath said she didn’t know anything, despite the fact that we both knew she had been there.
The art dealer in the gallery next door gave me the evil eye, fairly pushing me back out the door with ‘you can’t afford my wares’ vibes. The Korean jeweler squinted his eyes at me, and pretended to misunderstand my question.
That left only Capisciolo’s Deli, which had a cartoon salami bedecking the glass window. Since a guy wearing that logo on his apron had been at the scene of the accident aftermath, it promised to be a good lead. And if he wouldn’t talk to me, my belly told me, he’d at least sell me a sandwich. I pushed the door open.
There are two kinds of delis. One kind is cluttered and worn, with peeling posters on the wall, menus and lists of goods everywhere, too many tables and chairs crammed around, and a long line of happy customers alternately chatting with one another and ordering huge amounts of excellent meats and cheeses at working class prices.
Unfortunately, this was the other kind. The deli proprietor, a bald, slightly overweight man in a white apron, blinked and nodded as his customer deliberated between provolone and smoked provolone. Glossy white and black tiles covered the floor, lapping up against the white walls. Sleek brushed aluminum tables posed next to their uncomfortable stylish metal chairs.
A couple of Lululemon types discussed something important over sprout and lettuce sandwiches, while a businesswoman nursed her minestrone and frowned through a pile of documents. The glass case displayed expensive salamis and cheeses laid upon enormous beds of lettuce like jewels on black velvet. I stared at the overpriced food and thought about how to get him to talk to me. Flatter him?
“Can I help you?” The aproned man asked me, when it was finally my turn.
He was obviously the owner. Working for James had let me detect this about people. I could tell immediately upon entering a retail establishment if the person was owner, manager, or hired chump. The former had the aura of “this is my business and I’m proud to be here.” The latter had the aura of “I’m working retail and I hate all human life.”
Not only was he the owner, he was also the same rubbernecker who had called 911 when Madame R. got thumped. Good news and better.
My stomach jumped up and answered for me, before my brain had time to plan an attack. “I’d like a chef’s special sandwich.”
“There isn’t a chef’s special sandwich,” he answered slowly, blinking as though my unusual order had broken his trance. “Do you mean the club?”
“I mean whatever sandwich you’d eat, if you were making one for yourself. You look like the kind of guy who can create a masterpiece of deli meat if he’s given free rein.”
“You got it.” He smiled and winked at me, as though I had just reminded him that he was a nice guy. With a deft hand, he sliced open a loaf of fresh bread and nodded at my hands. “Did Annette do that?”
&
nbsp; “Do what? Oh! The henna, yeah. Why, you know her?”
“She used to share space with that fortune teller lady across the way.” He began to slice the salami. A heap of red and white circles piled up next to the machine. “She was a lot nicer than her mom. Her mom’s in the hospital now. Got beaten up during a robbery a few weeks back. They still don’t know who did it.”
Why, oh why, had I wasted two hours talking to his neighbors? Maybe that money spent on henna wasn’t wasted after all. “You heard anything about that robbery since then? It’s gotta be kind of worrisome not knowing if they caught the guy or not.”
“No. Haven’t heard nothing. Doubt they’ll catch him though.” He went to fetch a stack of onions and tomatoes.
“What makes you say that?” My stomach growled at the prospect of fresh vegetables. Meat too. Ramen was getting very, very old.
He only hesitated a brief moment, then lowered his voice and leaned sideways towards the counter to divulge this precious gossip. “She’s a drug dealer.”
“No way, she’s a drug dealer?” Maybe Annette was right about her selling mushrooms.
“I’m telling you. There are these two guys who come in and out all the time.”
And he was putting pickles on the sandwich too, pickles and olives and a whole handful of sliced ham.
“They got some kind of thing goin’ with her. I know this because Vera across the way, the one with the pregnant lady shop? She sees them coming in and out all the time. She thinks they supply her with the stuff and she sells it out of her shop.”
“You think that’s why she got mugged? Maybe they wanted more money for the stuff and she didn’t have it?”
“Maybe, but that’s not all.” The deli man added a few extra slices of cheese. “Vera thinks that fortune teller lady and one of the guys were having a fling. That night she thought she heard them arguing about some jewelry he was supposed to get her.”
“Like a wedding ring?”
“Probably.” He wrapped the enormous sandwich in parchment paper.
“I didn’t hear it. Vera said she didn’t even realize until afterward that it was probably Jojo himself who beat that lady up. Kind of makes sense though, if she was whining about a wedding ring, and he didn’t want to get her one.