In A Witch's Wardrobe Read online

  “I, uh… I have no idea. It hasn’t been a priority. Right now they’re just trying to keep her alive.”

  “Okay,” she said with a delicate shrug, scooping up her dog once again and kissing him on the head. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

  “Thank you for your time,” I said. “I appreciate it. You really do have a great place here. And if someone can’t find the dress they need at my place, I’ll suggest they look here.”

  She didn’t seem particularly open to the idea, but what could I expect from my competition?

  The dog yapped at me as I slipped out the door.

  Chapter 12

  “Whatever you do, do not drool in the food,” I ordered Oscar.

  My apartment smelled of sassafras, garlic, andouille sausage, and shrimp. The mouthwatering aromas reminded me of home.

  Though the majority of my memories of Jarod were unhappy, a few still called to me. The food, number one. Also, the scent of chilies coaxed from the harsh red soil; the sound of a lone fiddle on a summer’s night; the way a real “gully-washer” would sweep through, cleaning the air of the dust and heat, coaxing the children outside to play in the warm rain.

  Until my guests arrived, necessitating his transformation into a potbellied pig, Oscar was serving as my salivating sous chef. He kept sneaking bites of spicy jambalaya rice when he thought I wasn’t looking, and his enthusiastic way of stirring spewed ingredients all over the kitchen counters and the black-and-white-checked floor. Still and all, it was plain old fun to have a companion to cook with.

  Far downstairs, we barely heard the bell ringing on the front door of the shop.

  “They’re here,” I said, rushing to open the door of my apartment.

  “Oh my goddess!” said Bronwyn as she mounted the stairs and enveloped me in a bear hug. “You can practically smell this meal all the way down the street!” She breathed in loudly through her nose. “Like heaven. I’m famished.”

  “Ditto,” said Wendy.

  “Good thing there’s plenty,” I said. Even though Bronwyn was one of my closest friends and I saw Wendy almost every day, I was a nervous hostess. To be on the safe side, I’d wound up making enough jambalaya and étouffée to feed an army, as well as stuffing the refrigerator with beer, wine, and watermelon agua fresca. Also cooling was the custard flan with dulce de leche for dessert.

  In addition, I had scrubbed the small apartment to the cleanliness standards of the average operating room, then filled half a dozen mason jars with daisies, roses, and snapdragons and placed them all around the front room and kitchen.

  “Would anyone care for…” I trailed off when I saw that Bronwyn was already peeking in the fridge. “Just help yourself to anything you like. There’s beer and watermelon agua fresca—which is nonalcoholic, but is surprisingly good with a shot of vodka—or I’ve got wine, if you prefer.”

  “Wendy, look at this,” Bronwyn said as she pointed to jars and bowls in my refrigerator that were labeled things such as “llama ear,” “fresh spider silk,” and “river water—smooth” and “river water—rapids.”

  “Um… the llama ear is a kind of tree fungus, not a real animal part…” I said in a small voice. Like many witches in my tradition, I used blood sacrifice from time to time, but avoided it whenever possible.

  “And check this out,” said Wendy, as she perused the jars on the shelf above the counter. “There are, what? Ten different kinds of honey here? What do you need so many kinds for?”

  “Honey can be powerful, but it’s a product of a third party—”

  “As in bees?”

  “Yes. And the bees extract the nectar at different times, from different kinds of flowers, so each honey has distinct properties… .” The intricacies of apiculture were hard to explain, and at the end of the day I was better at making things happen than explaining how things worked. “In short, they work differently in different brews, or in honey jar spells.”

  “Honey jar spells?”

  “They attract sweetness and repel the negative. Like this.” I gestured toward a jar that held a cored apple filled with orange blossom honey, topped by a rolled beeswax candle. Also in the jar were two cloves, a bit of bayberry root, two lodestones, a pinch of deer tongue leaves, and a square of rag soaked in camphor. “Honey’s amazing. It never, ever spoils. Also, it has antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties, so it was used in wound care long before modern antibiotics were developed.”

  “Really?” Wendy’s darkly outlined eyes cast about the kitchen. “This is hella cool,” she said after a moment, and I warmed under the praise.

  While I finished up with the cooking, Bronwyn cuddled with Oscar and we chatted about my moon calendar and the most effective spells for romantic love. Finally we sat down to our feast at the kitchen table, and Wendy started to tell me what she knew about Tarragon Dark Moon, née Tanya Kolchek.

  “I looked her up, and now I realize why she sounded so familiar. She goes by Tarra, and she’s with the Unspoken coven. Remember, Bronwyn? A few of that group carpooled with us to the annual Pagan Festival up in Oroville last year, and then we saw Tarra at the craft retreats up in Humboldt County for Samhain.”

  Even now, after months in San Francisco, it made me dizzy to think how open people were with their witchcraft and pagan ways.

  “Can you tell me about the Unspoken coven? You said they aren’t Wiccan?”

  She shook her head while pouring more hot sauce on a healthy serving of jambalaya. “I don’t know that much about them. The Feri tradition is very different from Wicca, though, like us, there are probably as many different ways of worshipping as there are members. None of us are into hierarchical structures or edicts from above. But as far as I understand it, Feri is more an ecstatic tradition than a fertility group.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “In our group, for instance, we worship the Lord and Lady of the Woods and the beauty of fertility—whether it be creativity, or some other kind of fulfillment in life. The Feri tradition recognizes various gods that are fluid, both male and female, as well as dark and light. They value sensual experience and sexual mysticism.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said as I passed around the loaf of sourdough, which I had warmed in the oven, along with fresh butter from the farmers’ market.

  “They take it quite seriously.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to belittle it… . It just sounds like fun.”

  “There are some specific beliefs, like that of the Three Souls and the Black Heart of Innocence. But there are lots of splinter groups, too. I’m telling you, they aren’t easy to categorize.”

  I was getting that.

  “One more thing…” Wendy and Bronwyn met eyes across the table. “I don’t know much about the Unspoken coven, as I said. They’re a mystery religion, and unless you’re a wand-holding initiate—which is no small thing—you can’t know their secret names or anything like that. But they have a certain… ‘comfort zone’ with darkness.”

  “Darkness?”

  “Becoming an initiate involves rigorous self-honesty, a willingness to delve into one’s own darkness as a source of power and self-healing.”

  “That sounds a little like the tradition I was raised in. But…” I thought I heard something in her voice. “It sounds as though you’re warning me off.”

  “It’s not that,” Wendy said. “I’m just telling you that they’re not going to spill all over some jambalaya. Though this is pretty freaking good jambalaya, so I’m happy to spill all my secrets.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” I, myself, had eaten so much I could barely move. “You should take some home when you go.”

  Oscar snorted his displeasure at my suggestion. He loved leftovers.

  “Oh, by the way, Lily—I talked to Duke today,” said Bronwyn. “He asked if we might come by tomorrow and visit with the baby. He hasn’t been able to find anything new about his daughter’s condition. Miriam’s stable, so they moved her out
of ICU. Duke had her transferred to San Francisco Medical Center so she’d be closer, and they have specialists in this area.”

  “How did he sound?”

  “Oh, good, good. Given the circumstances.”

  “So anyway,” said Wendy. “Bronwyn tells me you went to an open coven meeting last night. Didn’t you see Tarra there?”

  “No…” I realized I hadn’t told either of them about Tarra yet. I looked at the faces of both these witches, these friends, and screwed up my courage. “I’m so sorry to tell you this, but the reason I was asking about her… I have a friend in the SFPD and he told me she was found dead last week.”

  “Are you serious?” Bronwyn gasped. “What happened?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I went to their meeting yesterday, even took part in the circle, but it didn’t go very well. When I told them I was looking for information, they clammed up.”

  “You joined the circle?” Wendy asked. “Before you told them what you were really doing there?”

  I nodded.

  “No wonder they were pissed. I would have been, too. You have to go into the circle with an open heart. You should know that.”

  I blushed. “You’re right. I was… I felt awkward, wasn’t sure how to approach it. At least it wasn’t, you know, one of their private meetings, right?”

  “You would never have been allowed to join that circle.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. I screwed up. Do you know how to get in touch with them? I’d like to apologize.”

  Wendy shook her head. I sensed she was holding back, not that I blamed her. I guessed I was fulfilling all her fears about opening up to the likes of me. From the beginning, Bronwyn had been my backer in this community, while Wendy had kept some distance.

  “How about a woman named Calypso Cafaro? She’s a botanical worker who was meeting with some of the young women from the coven to train them. Would you know any way I could get in touch with her?”

  Wendy shook her head, looking down into her wine as though looking for inspiration.

  “Sorry, Lily,” Bronwyn said. “It’s not as if we’re all in the same group, or know each other. Some social circles overlap, but most don’t.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out who harmed Tarra, and trying to help Miriam. I know I don’t know all the rules…”

  “You know,” Wendy said, her voice thoughtful. “It’s people like you who make what we do so difficult.”

  “Wendy—” Bronwyn began.

  “No, Bronwyn, don’t try to silence me on this. You know it’s true.” She turned back to me. “I mean, you weren’t lying when you said you make a mean étouffée. But outside the kitchen, you’re kind of a screwup. We were just starting to be accepted in the community when you came along and brought your ‘friend’ Aidan Rhodes, and suddenly there’s this DOM group, people thinking we’re all weirdos, mucking about with evil. And now Tarra’s dead? Frankly, I don’t want to be associated with the likes of—”

  “That’s enough, Wendy,” Bronwyn said with uncharacteristic anger. “You owe Lily an apology.”

  “No, please,” I said. “I truly am sorry if I caused you any difficulties; I certainly never intended to. I swear I’ll—”

  “Don’t bother with promises,” Wendy interrupted. She pushed back from the table, snatched up her things, and headed for the door. Before leaving, she turned back. “You’re not the only one with family from the South, Lily, so let me phrase this in a way you’ll understand: ‘If promises were persimmons, possums could eat good.’”

  She stomped down the stairs, and we heard the slam of the shop door.

  Bronwyn sighed. “She certainly does know how to make an exit, doesn’t she?”

  I tried to return Bronwyn’s smile, but couldn’t. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight. “Don’t let it upset you, Lily. She’s a little hypersensitive on this issue.”

  “Doesn’t mean she’s wrong about me.”

  Bronwyn stiffened. “That is ridiculous.”

  “Is it? I have a history of driving away everyone who cares about me.”

  “Well, now, that’s simply not true. What about me and Maya?”

  “How about my mother?”

  “And you think that’s your fault?”

  I shrugged.

  “Being a parent doesn’t, by itself, create the capacity to love. If it did, there’d be no such thing as child abuse, now, would there? It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the child.” She paused and slipped into her sweater. “I don’t know what the situation is with your mother, Lily, and I can only imagine how painful that must be for you—and for her. Perhaps the two of you will still find a way to each other.”

  I nodded, though I didn’t believe it in my heart.

  Bronwyn helped clear the table and put away the food, but I insisted she leave the dishes to me. It was getting late, and I knew she wanted to return some phone calls and e-mails this evening. Bronwyn, no surprise, had more friends than she could shake a stick at. She spent a lot of time and energy maintaining such friendships, and I couldn’t help but respect and admire that.

  When I walked her to the door, Bronwyn gave me one last lavender-scented hug. “Wendy’s upset. The news about Tarra, well, it’s shocking. And none of us is without damage, Lily. Remember that.”

  * * *

  After Bronwyn left, I started to clean the kitchen, but the music of the wind chimes coaxed me onto my terrace. I wandered out to stand amid the planters and pots that made up my urban witch’s garden.

  It was cool, veering clear round to cold, the way almost all San Francisco nights were, even in summer. The marine layer surged in off the ocean in most afternoons, covering the whole of the city with a thick mantle of fog and cooling off even the hottest summer’s day—though no matter what, San Francisco’s version of “hot” never came near that of steamy, sticky, so-hot-the-ice-cream-melted-before-you-started-licking West Texas.

  The weather around here was crazy pleasant, but seemed somehow… dreamlike, even insincere. On my harshest, homesick days, such perfect weather, day in, day out, made me jittery. Seemed like maybe the weather should be better matched to the thorny realities of life.

  Dang. I was in such a foul mood I should take care lest I brown the leaves just by standing near them.

  I took a deep breath and let myself be soothed by my lush surrounds. The very first time I saw this terrace I knew how it would be. Though I’ve never had the gift of sight, I could envision it in my mind’s eye as clear as though it already existed: abundant and green, overgrown with plants and vines and flowers. Though my grandmother had insisted a true witch’s garden be grown directly in the earth, I brought in soil from the surrounding area, mixed it with my homemade compost, and compensated with frequent fertility spells and careful care of the plants.

  Idly, I picked off a few dead sprigs from my bushes of lavender and mugwort. Then I noticed the rosemary was looking rather ragged, and there were weeds in the planters holding espaliered apple, pear, and pomegranate trees.

  Before I knew it I had donned my gardening gloves and apron and was digging in the soft light of the gibbous moon.

  The plants must be cared for, I remembered Graciela telling me, and they will care for you in return. Tu las cuidas, y te van a cuidar a ti. Sometimes I forgot that. It had been too long since I’d spent quality time with my photosynthesizing friends.

  Graciela was a much better gardener than I, but almost all witches have a green thumb. It was the only part of “green-skinned witches” the legends got right.

  “Watcha doin’?” Oscar appeared suddenly, hanging upside down from a small overhang that protected the French doors from the rain.

  I jumped. I still hadn’t gotten used to the sudden sight of a gargoyle-like face right in front of mine—especially when he smiled, which looked a lot like a grimace. The impression intensified when seeing him upside down.

  “Gardening,” I replied.

  �
�It’s late.”

  “And we’re early to bed these days? I thought you were a night owl, like me.”

  He jumped down and crouched on the fresh patch of earth I had just dug up.

  “Yeah, I’m a night owl. But… that works more for somethin’ fun, like dancing or movies. Wanna watch a zombie movie?”

  “No. You like dancing?”

  He waved an oversized hand in my direction, shook his head, and cackled, as though I had said something hilarious. “Nah, not human dancing.”

  Whatever that meant.

  The fruit trees now weed free, I moved on to pruning the rosemary. Oscar followed me.

  “Master Aidan doesn’t keep plants.”

  “And he’s the poorer for it,” I said, and meant it. It had never occurred to me to wonder where Aidan procured the herbs and powders for his spells. I knew he worked less with botanicals than I, but surely he needed a trusted source?

  “What are all these plants?”

  “This one’s enchanter’s nightshade,” I said as I watered its pot thoroughly. “It likes it wet and swampy.”

  “Cool name… It’s poisonous?”

  “No, it’s not deadly. It sounds like it should be, doesn’t it? This one is belladonna, a pretty name for deadly nightshade—which is very poisonous. And here’s rue, also called herb of grace. It was considered sacred to Diana, Aralia, and Mars. Used properly, rue can break the power of the evil eye.”

  As soon as I said it, I wondered whether little Luna might be helped by a cure for mal ojo. My grandmother treated the malady among the town children from time to time. Mal ojo can be caused inadvertently by someone with “strong eyes,” whose admiration for a child can “heat up” the child’s blood, resulting in colicky symptoms such as fever, inconsolable crying, aches and pains and a gassy stomach. Luna was so beautiful, mal ojo would make sense. There was a simple, straightforward diagnostic test I could try, involving an egg in a jar of water. I made a mental note to see whether Duke would let me perform it on Luna tomorrow.