In A Witch's Wardrobe Read online

  “I believe you’ve mentioned it once or twice.”

  He hugged me closer and smiled, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling adorably. Finally, he opened his eyes.

  “I’ve got to warn you: I’m not great before coffee. In fact, my own mother called me an ogre before coffee. And according to rumor, she likes me.”

  I smiled.

  “So if we’re going to have one of those ‘talks,’ for both of our sakes, I should get some caffeine into me before…” He trailed off as his hand landed on soft rose petals. He held them up and looked at them quizzically. “What the hell… ?”

  I avoided his eyes.

  “Did you do this?” he asked, his gaze sweeping around the room. “Is this… Is this something you do?”

  “No. I mean, it’s not something I’ve ever done before. It’s… I don’t really know what it is.”

  He gazed at me. I thought I noted more worry than anger in his expression, but it was hard to tell. I was still trying to get a handle on Sailor’s emotions, most of which seemed to manifest as out-and-out irritation.

  “So you’re saying this doesn’t happen every time?”

  “Rose petals have never appeared before.”

  “What does happen?”

  My cheeks were burning. I hadn’t had all that much experience with this sort of thing; nor was I the kind of person who went around flaunting such things. I was still a small-town girl from Texas, after all.

  “One time… once before, there was something strange.” Sailor gazed at me, clearly not about to let this subject drop. I took a deep breath and went on. “The clothes downstairs, they were sort of… enchanted?”

  “Enchanted.” He scootched back to sit up against the brass bedstead, the white sheet riding low around his hips. “Would you care to elaborate on that?”

  “They danced.”

  “And that was it? They didn’t lead into any other transformations, nothing like that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Is this the first time something’s actually manifested?”

  I nodded. “It’s sort of pretty, don’t you think?”

  As though deciding something, he paused, then relaxed an infinitesimal amount, his lids falling closed a bit, his mouth relaxing. “Very pretty. Smells good, too.”

  I smiled. He responded with a half smile that was more seductive than amused.

  “Come here.”

  When we kissed, the petals swirled up and around us like fragrant pink butterflies.

  I pulled away. If we felt that magic between us again, I would be off to a late start. And I had to go. The dream I had—the image of Miriam’s blood soaking the roses—was it a sign? I had never experienced reliable visions before. But I had seen what must have been a premonition in the theater before Miriam fell ill, when I viewed the woman lying amid thorns in the mirror. And then in the hospital when I laid hands on Miriam, I saw a similar sight. Was it possible that all the work I’d been doing on scrying was starting to pay off?

  In any case, whether the dream was merely a random message from my subconscious or a vision of some kind, it compelled me to act—quickly.

  I had to go back to Calypso’s place. We needed to chat, and I needed something very particular from her garden. Something she, herself, had grown.

  Sailor groused, but I finally coaxed him out of bed with the promise of coffee and the threat of a murderer on the loose. Also, he seemed to savor the idea that Aidan might be blind where his old friend Calypso was concerned—I wasn’t convinced she was innocent in all of this. On the contrary.

  I put on coffee, then called Maya and Bronwyn and let them know what had happened with the store. I suggested they each take the morning off, and we would get together later in the afternoon to start the cleanup. Then I came out to the front room to find that Conrad had already gone, leaving behind a note of thanks for the use of my couch and apology for having been under the influence and for letting the store be ransacked. Poor guy. I needed to track him down, let him know I didn’t blame him for what happened, and see whether he could tell me anything further about the vandals.

  Downstairs I put up a sign on the broken window of the front door, telling the public that Aunt Cora’s Closet would reopen just as soon as we could.

  When I returned to the kitchen and started whipping up a batch of biscuits, Oscar came to join me.

  “Be careful, mistress,” he said.

  “Careful?”

  “You and Sailor…”

  “He’s a good man, Oscar. You’re sweet to worry, but I feel really good about this.”

  He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Oscar?”

  “Master Aidan… he’s not going to like this.”

  I hoisted Oscar up on the counter so I could speak to him eye to eye.

  “Master Aidan doesn’t have to find out, now, does he? He’s not your master, remember? I’m your mistress now, and have been ever since he gave you to me. Oscar, you’re a very special creature. But a witch’s familiar can’t be loyal to two masters.”

  He folded skinny arms over his scaly chest.

  “Do you understand me?”

  After a long pause, he nodded. “I won’t tell, mistress. I promise.”

  “Good,” I said, relieved. I buttered a hot biscuit, fresh out of the oven, added a dollop of my own strawberry preserves, and handed it to him. “Thank you for your discretion.”

  He nodded again, and bit into the biscuit. I heard Sailor coming out of the bedroom and turned to hand him a cup of coffee.

  “I won’t tell, but Aidan has a way of finding things out,” came Oscar’s quiet growl behind me.

  * * *

  Sailor insisted on accompanying me to Calypso’s house, and though I put up a symbolic protest I was happy to have him along. Not only for safety concerns, but because it was just plain fun to be with him—his companionship nearly made me forget the mess someone had made of my store. On the long drive up the coast, whether we chatted or sat in silence, it felt good. Exciting, a little nerve-racking, yet at the same time somehow… comfortable.

  I turned off at the dirt road, and we squeezed through the hedge.

  “This is quite a place,” said Sailor as I drove up to the house.

  “Isn’t it, though? I used to dream of having a place like this.”

  “You don’t anymore?”

  “Lately I find myself pretty happy in the city. Guess I like the action.”

  He gave an ironic smile. “Plenty of that, lately.”

  I half expected Calypso to come out to the porch and greet us as she did last time, but when the house remained silent I went up and rang the doorbell, then knocked loudly.

  “Guess she’s not home,” I said.

  I looked at Sailor. He shrugged. Together, we started around the back, searching for an open window.

  There were plenty in my life who would accuse me of thinking I’m above the law. Thing is, I was sure of my own motives, and it seemed to me that a woman who didn’t adhere to the natural laws of physics or the universe didn’t need to worry much about human-made rules and regulations.

  I considered how Carlos Romero would respond to that. Not well, I imagined.

  The exterior door to the greenhouse was ajar. I pushed it open.

  Inside was a gruesome tableau. Several dead birds: a dove, a swallow, a crow. And a hare. A jar with a liquid that looked a whole lot like blood, almost black in the dim light.

  “What in the world is all this about?” asked Sailor.

  “A love spell,” I said, then shook my head. “Not real love, but a way to force someone to feel something they wouldn’t otherwise.”

  On the table was a fat book of spells not like my Book of Shadows, but a real, published book of medieval incantations and recitations. This sort of thing scared me: trying to duplicate spells from long ago without the training and knowledge that had been lost, save for by a few of us.

  I read the spell: “Black dust of tomb, venom of
toad, bile of ox, blood of brigand…”

  A thief’s blood? Perhaps she used her own. At least it wasn’t a chunk of flesh or fat, something that required death beyond the poor birds. A piece of wool soaked in this mixture, then placed under the pillow of the romantic interest—or worse, ingested—would lead to a blind sort of devotion that passed for obsessive love.

  Calypso seemed so sure of herself. Why would she need such a strong love charm? I associated this sort of thing with self-doubt, lack of confidence. Or could her apparent charms be due to just such practices as these?

  “We should get out of here,” Sailor said. He had that look I was coming to recognize, when he sensed something.

  I looked around and noticed the flowers and plants seeming to turn toward us, their movements almost imperceptible, but threatening.

  Out in the garden, I quickly harvested the special herbs I needed for casting my spell. I would rather have taken a sample of her hair, but it wasn’t worth breaking into the house. And in any case, witch or no witch, Calypso was too clever to leave hair lying around, I would wager.

  Sailor offered to drive home. The hedge seemed to have closed in on us, but we squeaked through. While Sailor handled the twists and turns of the highway with ease, I asked to borrow his cell phone to call Carlos.

  “I think Calypso Cafaro might have killed Tarra,” I told him.

  “What motive would she have?”

  “Could Tarra have been the foster daughter who turned her into authorities?”

  “I’ll see if I can find out.”

  “Anyway, there’s… stuff in her house you might want to see.”

  “Stuff? Like what?” Carlos asked.

  “Evidence of a spell—the kind that involves animal sacrifice.” There is energy in spilling the blood of a living being, a glint of power that cannot be replicated with any other kind of sacrifice, however dear. But anyone who would use it to cast a love spell… well, I don’t hold with that.

  “She showed this to you?”

  “Not exactly. I sort of saw it.”

  “But she invited you into her home, is what I’m saying.” At my lack of immediate response, Carlos added: “You can’t go into someone’s home without an invitation, Lily.”

  “That only works on vampires, not witches.”

  I thought I heard a reluctant chuckle. “Unlike some people I can name, I can’t barge into homes without reason. I need a warrant. I questioned her after you gave me her information, but didn’t come up with probable cause. Can you think of any other evidence that would point to her?”

  “You mean besides the fact that two—maybe three—of her seven pupils were poisoned?”

  “Have the doctors determined Miriam was poisoned?”

  “No,” I admitted. “They can’t figure it out. But there were henbane flowers in her corsage that night at the ball.”

  “This would be the corsage we don’t have, that the emergency personnel don’t remember seeing.”

  “I have the corsage now. You’re welcome to it.”

  “And if this corsage has poisonous flowers in it, we would blame it on some woman up in Bolinas rather than the boyfriend or the florist… why, exactly?”

  Sometimes I hated the criminal justice system. It seemed enough for me to just determine who might be guilty of wrongdoing. Then again, I reminded myself, I had been wrong too many times to count. I supposed that’s why there was a process for such things, to try to avoid such wild accusations.

  “Wait—I also have lip balm of Miriam’s that contains henbane, I believe. I can get that to you.”

  “And do you know who supplied Miriam with this lip balm?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I’ve done some research into poisonous plants. Apparently a very small dose of Hyoscyamus, aka henbane, does a world of good for motion sickness. Who’s to say Miriam wasn’t dosing herself, using organic materials?”

  I sighed audibly and studied the scenery as we whizzed by. Now that I knew what to look for, I kept spotting rings of redwoods like the one at the edge of the forest near Calypso’s house.

  “Look, you know I trust your instincts on this sort of thing,” Carlos said. “And I’m trying to be flexible, which is evidenced by the fact that I’m not accusing you of criminal trespassing after you just admitted to me that you broke into someone’s house. But unless you have something more concrete, the most I can do is conduct an independent investigation of Cafaro based on her involvement with the botanicals group and see if I can get to the same conclusions in a legal manner.”

  “You’re right. Thanks. Let me know when you find anything out, will you?”

  “Sure thing. Oh, by the way: We made an arrest in the DOM case. You’re not going to believe who.”

  “Greta Cafaro.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Instinct.” Greta had mentioned “knowing” my neighbor Sandra’s store right after Sandra found a warning from DOM. And later, she asked whether Herve would reopen his store, though from my side of the conversation she couldn’t have known what I was talking about that day in Vintage Chic. Thinking back on her words at the Art Deco Ball, when she spoke of “preserving our way of life”—that was the exact phrase on the DOM flyers and the billboard. And finally, as Calypso’s sister… there was something about the DOM’s fervent messages that made me think someone involved was very familiar with the world of magic.

  I felt a surge of sympathy for Calypso. Raised in foster care, with a sister from whom, I presumed, she was now estranged, she had endured some mysterious negative history with Aidan, and then was accused of wrongdoing by a young person she was trying to help… Maybe she had simply gone ’round the bend, living out there in that big, beautiful house all alone.

  “Anyway… Greta and her cronies have an airtight alibi for that night at your place. Across town, at Ghirardelli Square at a fund-raiser. Oh, and by the way? I asked about that record for you. She says it had satanic messages on it, so she smashed it.”

  My heart fell. “Oh, thanks for trying.”

  “I felt sort of sorry for her when they brought her into the station. She’s got some kind of terrible rash all over her body, even on her face. Almost didn’t recognize her.”

  I guess Herve got his revenge.

  But according to Carlos, Greta hadn’t been the one who’d torn up Aunt Cora’s Closet last night. I wasn’t too surprised… . I had a feeling the culpable party wasn’t DOM, but someone with magical abilities. I didn’t care what Calypso said about not practicing magic. What I just saw in her greenhouse was clear: She was casting. But would she go after my store? Was she trying to scare me off?

  I had a sneaking fear… Could that love charm have been meant for someone like… me and Sailor? Was there a reason last night happened?

  I could still feel him, the sensation of his whiskers on my neck, his scent and warmth enveloping me. I sighed again. Closed my eyes and tried to get myself together. This was ridiculous.

  I opened them to see Sailor glancing over at me. We had emerged from the winding highway and were now on the freeway that skirted the bay to the north.

  The look he gave me was one of yearning and desire, unspoken need.

  Great. Now I had to worry about whether my most intimate feelings were being manipulated by a third party. But why? To keep me busy and out of people’s hair?

  “You okay?” Sailor asked, his voice low and gruff.

  I nodded. “But Carlos can’t do anything about what we saw.”

  “Chain of evidence.”

  “Guess so.”

  “So how do we track down this woman? Any of the people you’ve been talking to seem open to a friendly conversation, maybe one in which you use your mind-control skills?”

  “It’s not mind control,” I insisted, punching him lightly in the ribs. “As you very well know.”

  He grinned. “Your persuasive skills, then?”

  “One of the girls, maybe.” I thought of Anise and Jonquil, bu
t I didn’t know where to find them. I wished I had asked them more questions. “Or… maybe Jonathan?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Miriam’s boyfriend. He’s so worried about her—according to Bronwyn, he’s made amends. He’s been helping with her baby and spending time with Miriam at the hospital. But he mentioned he’d be in his shop today. Maybe he could tell us where to find the women, and they could tell us more about Calypso.”

  “Worth a shot. Let’s go.”

  I told him the location, and we headed across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, past Berkeley, to Oakland. When we arrived, Sailor found a parking space not far from MJ’s Games.

  “Jonathan’s perfectly nice,” I said. “You could just drop me off. You don’t have to go in with me.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Right.”

  “I’m serious. I’m sure you have other things to do, and this is probably just another of my harebrained schemes… .”

  “Why are you trying to get rid of me?”

  I felt my cheeks burning. “I’m not trying to get rid of you. I just… I imagine you have other things to do, and you never used to enjoy following me around.”

  We looked at each other a long time. The top was down on the convertible, the sun was shining down on us, a soft breeze blowing. After a few moments, I noticed we were both breathing fast.

  Great balls of fire, please make this not be the result of a spell.

  Finally he lifted his hand to cup my cheek. “This isn’t a game, Lily. I… I don’t really do this sort of thing.”

  I nodded and took a deep, shaky breath. “I have to tell you something. I’m afraid that we… that what happened… that it might not be coming from us. There might be magic involved.”

  He grinned. “I’d say it was magic, all right. And the rose petals were a nice touch.”

  “No… I mean literally, magic. I think the things we just saw in Calypso’s greenhouse… they were evidence of a powerful love spell. I think she might have cast on us.”

  “You’re saying what we’re feeling isn’t real?”

  “Real, of course. But manipulated.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You’re scared, and now you’re blaming what happened on an outside force. What happened to that overly confident, reckless witch I know and… like very much?”