In A Witch's Wardrobe Read online

  He held up one hand. “Tell you what: I’ll look into it if you’ll agree to let the authorities handle things. You don’t need to involve yourself. The hex isn’t strong enough to kill her. At least not right away.”

  “Did you even get close enough to make that sort of assessment?”

  “Trust me. I’ll look into it. Scout’s honor.”

  “You don’t strike me as a Boy Scout—in any sense of the word.”

  “I’ll have you know I’m always prepared,” he said. His gaze drifted down my body and back up to my face. He shook his head. “It is astonishing, you know. You truly appear as though a spirit from another time and place.”

  I wasn’t sure how to take that. “I’m not. I’m me.”

  His gaze softened. “Do you ever think about… ? Do you believe in past lives?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Some people think that we travel through each life seeking the companions of our past lives and that they continue to play important roles, no matter how much time may pass.”

  “I…” Suddenly the idea of knowing someone from one life to the next made all kinds of sense. It would explain the sense of familiarity I had with Aidan, the inexplicable pull I felt despite my reservations about him. But I wasn’t sure I truly believed such things. The only thing I really knew, at the moment, was I had to be cautious of thinking along those lines. Aidan and I had once shared a kiss… and the combined heat we threw off had quite literally melted metal.

  He caressed the line of my jaw with his thumb. “And here we are, just the two of us, in a secluded corner of a fancy dress ball, as though in a different time and place… .”

  “Bad things happen when we kiss, remember?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘bad’ as much as… ‘powerful.’ Anyway, I’ve been working on my control.”

  Speaking of control, it took all my willpower to place my hand on his chest and push him away. “Maybe another time. Right now, I want to see what’s happening with Miriam and make sure she’s okay.”

  “This wasn’t exactly how I saw the evening going.”

  “Apparently seeing the future isn’t one of your gifts.”

  “Why are you so interested in this stranger? Because you bumped into her on the front steps? That’s not a significant social bond.” Aidan clenched his jaw, clearly irked. “Stay out of it, Lily. I haven’t been around as long as I have, and been as successful as I have, by interfering in witches’ squabbles.”

  “Are you saying Miriam’s a witch?”

  “I have no idea yet what she is. But please, leave this alone. I told you I’d look into it.”

  After a moment, I nodded. “All right. Thank you.”

  We emerged from our private corner just as the EMTs wheeled the gurney carrying Miriam down the corridor. Her tuxedoed escort jogged alongside, distraught. He may be too old for her, I thought, but it was clear he loved her. I caught whiffs of dread and fear as he hurried past, and watched until the gurney rolled around the corner and out of sight.

  After a few moments of subdued hubbub, the orchestra started back up and the crowd returned to the festivities. I could almost feel the communal sigh of relief. Aidan was right—whatever had happened to Miriam was none of my affair. I didn’t know her, and as much as I might want to, I simply can’t help everyone. Sometimes I have to protect myself.

  Still, I felt at a loss. The thought of dancing away the evening now seemed impossible. Carved, gold gilt faces seemed to watch me from the walls, waiting to see what I’d do. The Paramount Theater was stunning, but at the moment it felt chock-full of ghosts.

  “Oh wait. I left my bag in the lounge,” I said.

  “Want me to get it?” offered Aidan.

  “It’s a women’s room, remember? I’ll be right back.”

  The crowd suddenly swelled as a song came to an end and people rushed for the lounges and bars. I squeezed into the ladies’ room, and with a sense of relief, spied my beaded bag sitting on a glass ledge.

  And behind it, something in the mirror.

  An odd flicker. I looked more closely.

  Miriam.

  Her face appeared before me, her big hazel eyes, clear as day, reflected in the shiny glass.

  I glanced over my shoulder to see if by any chance she or someone else—her doppelganger, perhaps?—was behind me. I’m a witch, yes, but I’m also human and as prone to an overactive imagination as anyone else.

  But there was no Miriam and no Miriam-look-alike standing there. Just a small crowd of women milling about, heading to and fro.

  When I turned back to the mirrored walls, the image was gone.

  I was about to give up, to blame the vision on nerves, when I glanced up at the mirrored glass chandelier—and saw Miriam’s flickering image.

  This time there was no mistake about it. Although her body was strapped to a gurney, en route to the hospital, Miriam’s spirit was trapped in the reflective surfaces of the Paramount Theater.

  She was here. Displaced. Distraught.

  Dang it all.

  Chapter 3

  I needed help. I hurried out of the lounge and up the stairs.

  “Have y’all seen Aidan?” I asked as I returned to our table to see my escort wasn’t there.

  “What—did he ditch you?” Susan teased. Seeing my concern, she suggested, “He’s probably in the men’s room, Lily.”

  “Good idea,” I said, and hurried off in that direction.

  I stood outside the men’s room, calling Aidan’s name, but got no reply. An obliging young man agreed to check the stalls for me. No luck.

  Next I discovered he wasn’t at either of the bars, and he wasn’t on the dance floor. Surely by now he should have sensed that I needed him, was calling to him. Although neither of us is psychic, our intuitive connection, our “witchy premonition,” is strong enough that he should have responded. Unless he had left the building or was ignoring me on purpose.

  Climbing up to the balcony, I edged in by the orchestra to get a bird’s-eye view of the party below. I scanned the crowd, looking for Aidan’s golden hair, trying to locate his brilliant aura. Nothing. He wasn’t here.

  Susan had been teasing, but now I wondered—had Aidan ditched me?

  I returned to the ladies’ lounge and loitered in the outer chamber, waiting until it emptied.

  “Miriam?” I whispered. “Are you here?”

  I caught quick flashes of her, glimmers so fleeting that if I hadn’t known better, I might have thought my imagination was running amok or that I needed an eye exam. Finally, I knelt on the floor, bowed my head, took my medicine bundle from my evening bag, and centered myself.

  I’m not psychic and I’m no necromancer. Although ghosts seem drawn to me, I had never been able to communicate with them. But Miriam wasn’t dead—at least so far as I knew—which meant what I was seeing wasn’t a ghost… . It was something else. Maybe if I tried hard enough, concentrated enough, I could read Miriam’s aura. If she was still alive and her soul was caught in the mirror, perhaps I could learn something from her reflection.

  A few women walked in and out of the lounge, casting interested looks my way, but I ignored them and continued chanting softly under my breath. To hell with keeping my powers under wraps—a woman’s life is at stake. I wouldn’t be able to do a full conjure under these circumstances, but I called to Miriam with all the strength of my mind and my magic.

  When I opened my eyes, she was there. I saw her in the gold-framed mirror as clearly as though she were standing behind me, looking at herself in the glass.

  I stood. My own reflection was over hers, almost as though we were melding.

  “Raew mah I?” she said. “Pleh eem! Pleh ime eebabe, zeelp. Zeelp pleh eem.”

  Her words were garbled, nightmarish.

  She raised her hand, placing her palm to the mirror, holding my gaze. Her hazel eyes shone brightly; her color was still high, flushed. She licked at chapped lips, blinking repeatedly.

  “I don’t u
nderstand. I’m so sorry.” I spoke a smattering of languages, but linguistics wasn’t my strong suit. Still, Miriam hadn’t spoken with any kind of accent earlier tonight. It made no sense.

  Could this be a language of the underworld… some sort of demon tongue?

  A pair of women who had been using the toilets strode past, heads bent close to each other, whispering as they glanced over at me. But they didn’t seem horrified or scared as they surely would be if they saw Miriam. Just giggly and snickering, as though they thought I was deranged.

  I placed my hand flat against the mirror and felt the energy of Miriam’s palm meeting mine.

  “Uth pill mawb,” she said. “Pill mawb?”

  “I’ll be back, Miriam,” I whispered. “I promise. I won’t leave you there.”

  When I pulled my hand away from the mirror, there were foggy traces of two handprints: mine and one with longer fingers.

  I watched while the handprints faded away.

  * * *

  I paid the cabdriver a small fortune, let myself into my store, crossed the darkened shop, and climbed the rear stairs to my second-floor apartment.

  Through the door I heard screams.

  “Oscar?”

  As I opened the door, I braced myself. I expected Oscar, my pseudo-familiar, to be waiting up, wanting to hear about my evening. Oscar had tried to talk me into letting him accompany me tonight, not understanding why a shape-shifting potbellied pig might have been out of place at an Art Deco Ball.

  In his natural form, Oscar is a mix of goblin and gargoyle, a greenish gray fellow covered in scales with big bat ears, a monkeylike snout and hands, and clawed feet. While other witches had reasonable familiars, such as black cats or croaking toads, I had Oscar. When he was around non-witchy folks, he shape-shifted into a miniature potbellied pig, which was only slightly easier to explain than his gobgoyle form.

  Truth be told, Oscar isn’t a very good familiar. A gift from Aidan, Oscar’s loyalties were divided. Usually a witch’s familiar was her staunchest ally, but Oscar slipped occasionally and called Aidan “master.” Still, he was entertaining as all get-out.

  I found Oscar sprawled on the couch in my cozy living room, a huge bowl of popcorn on his lap, his big green eyes fixed, wide and unblinking, upon the screen of the old television set Bronwyn had passed down to me.

  I always felt bad about leaving Oscar alone, so I had set up a DVD player and taught him how to use it. And how to make popcorn.

  I approached, but he didn’t look up, mesmerized by the movie. On screen, creepy-looking twins in matching blue dresses were inviting little Danny to come play with them “forever, and ever, and ever.”

  I had to smile. The Shining was one of the few movies I was familiar with. I remembered watching it in high school at a film festival, sitting by myself in the darkened theater while my fellow students used the macabre tale as an excuse to cuddle and scream. Personally, I found the story unsettling but not all that frightening; I’ve accepted that there are other entities sharing this space with us, seen or not. To me, that was normal life.

  I leaned over the back of the couch, my face very close to one batlike ear, and whispered: “Heeeeere’s Johnny.”

  The bowl of popcorn went flying, scattering kernels to all corners of the room. Oscar jumped so high he hit the ceiling, fell back onto the couch, and trampolined into my arms.

  “Mistress! You scared me!”

  “Sorry, Oscar. I didn’t mean to give you such a fright.” I chuckled, patting his quivering form. “I told you not to watch these scary movies. Especially not all by yourself.”

  I had supplied Oscar with a dozen wholesome film classics, including one I thought he’d particularly enjoy: Charlotte’s Web. But my familiar had decidedly ghoulish tastes.

  “Where’d you get these movies, anyway?” I asked, noting a stack of DVDs on the salvaged steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. The movie at the top of the stack was the cult zombie classic Night of the Living Dead.

  A shrug was my only answer. Oscar craned his neck to look around the apartment.

  “Where’s Aidan?” he asked as he crawled out of my arms to stand on his own two sets of talons. “Why didn’t he come up?”

  “Long story.” I went into the kitchen and handed Oscar a small broom and dustpan. This was my utilitarian broom; I kept the ceremonial one in my bedroom closet.

  Taking a seat at one of the painted wooden chairs at the kitchen table, I kicked off the wretched high heels and rubbed my sore toes. My liberated feet relished their freedom.

  “I like long stories,” Oscar said, halfheartedly brushing popcorn kernels into the dustpan. “Plus, I got all the time in the world. My kind live a long time.”

  “Aidan… had to attend to something.”

  “Like, at the ball?”

  “No, not at the ball.”

  “Then where?”

  “Oscar, please. Give me a moment. I just got home.”

  “Yes, mistress.” I saw him sneak a couple of glistening buttered morsels from the floor into his mouth. And two seconds later, he asked again, “Where’s Aidan?”

  “He had to leave early.”

  “Leave early? Leave the ball? Why?”

  “I don’t know why.”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  Why couldn’t I just lie to Oscar to quiet him? Living a life of integrity, as I’d sworn to do, had its drawbacks. “Not in so many words.”

  “How many?”

  “What?”

  “How many words?”

  I sighed. “None, actually.”

  “You mean he ditched you?” said Oscar, grizzled mouth agape.

  “He didn’t ditch me,” I insisted, despite the fact that I had indeed been abandoned at the ball, as though in some twisted version of the Cinderella fairy tale. But I had other things to worry about: I couldn’t stop seeing Miriam’s face in the mirror. Her final words sounded like “Pill mob.” Was she taking pills of some sort? Is that what had sickened her? But pills wouldn’t explain how she ended up in the mirror… . That smacked of magic.

  I slumped in my chair, feeling beaten. I had lost my princess status, and more than my wrist corsage was wilting. A lank lock fell from my chignon; its precious Marcel curves now a distant memory.

  “Where’d he go?” Oscar persisted.

  “If he didn’t tell me he was leaving, how would I know where he went?”

  As Oscar puzzled over this conundrum, I went into the bedroom to change. I slipped out of my finery, hanging the lovely silk-chiffon beads-and-lace concoction on a padded hanger and giving it a wistful pat. Then I shrugged on a comfy oversized white cotton dress from the thirties, which I had bought at auction as part of a lot that included two wonderful 1940s cocktail dresses and an assortment of pillbox hats like Jacqueline Kennedy used to wear. I had almost tossed the white dress because it was irreparably stained, but realized it was perfect for the messier aspects of my work.

  “Does this mean you won’t watch the rest of the movie with me?” Oscar asked when I returned to the kitchen. He recognized my work dress.

  “Not just now. Time to brew,” I said, reaching for the musty, red leather-bound Book of Shadows I kept on a high shelf in my kitchen, above mismatched jars of dried herbs, fungi, honey, and powders.

  “How come?”

  “I met a woman at the ball named Miriam, and she… needs my help.”

  “Pretty name.”

  “It suits her.” I flipped through the Book of Shadows until something caught my eye. “It’s as I thought: says here her soul’s been displaced, which makes sense. Mirrors capture souls adrift.”

  Oscar’s big bottle glass green eyes were full of trepidation, but also fascination.

  “The only problem is,” I continued, speaking now to myself more than to my familiar, “her soul shouldn’t have been adrift, since she’s not dead. Yet.”

  “Sounds like witchcraft. Your kind of magic, mistress.”

  “There’s more:
She was wearing a cursed corsage.”

  “Is that why Aidan ditched you?”

  One thing I can say for my familiar: He gets to the crux of matters.

  But why would Miriam’s collapse prompt Aidan to leave so abruptly? Or had the two occurrences been coincidental? Maybe Aidan was called away to mediate an unrelated dispute or to intervene with something on someone’s behalf. But wouldn’t he have said something to me? Aidan was many things—a lot of them questionable—but his manners were impeccable. Ditching one’s date was never polite.

  I was highly aware that I had agreed, sort of, to let Aidan try to figure out what was going on with Miriam before I became involved. But a little extra protection never hurt. And given my relationship to Aidan… well, it made sense to have a backup plan.

  “That is the question, isn’t it?”

  “Whatcha gonna do?”

  “The only thing I’m really good at.”

  Grabbing my wicker basket and boline, the special knife I use for cutting herbs, I passed through the living room and out a pair of French doors onto my terrace garden. A verdant, serene little urban oasis, the terrace was chock-full of tubs and planters containing lush magical and medicinal herbs and plants.

  I started snipping. Nothing like work to focus the mind and calm one down.

  “Watcha doin’?” asked Oscar as he trailed me around the terrace. When I stopped to gather Saint-John’s-wort he plowed into the back of my legs. “My bad,” he said by way of apology.

  “I told you: I have to brew tonight.”

  “Did the woman in the mirror hire you to do a spell?” Oscar rubbed his big hands together in anticipation. “Oooh, how much is she payin’ you?”

  Oscar was always interested in the paycheck. I never understood his avarice. I bought all his food, and he didn’t wear clothes or pay rent. What did he need cash for?

  I cut bits of Hecate’s Sword and stinging nettles, adding them to the sprigs of lavender and rue in my basket. “You know I don’t charge for my witchcraft.”

  He crossed his skinny arms over his scaly chest and tapped his foot. “Don’t forget, her type would have burned you at the stake not so long ago.”