Spellcasting in Silk: A Witchcraft Mystery Read online

  Jealousy, came the unbidden thought.

  What I was feeling wasn’t supernatural at all. It was the entirely ordinary, and not terribly admirable, sensation of jealousy.

  But why? I had no reason to worry. Patience Blix was Sailor’s cousin; probably she looked a lot like his aunt Renna, well-rounded and middle-aged. Besides, she was training him and helping him to grow. Sailor had been so unhappy, unable to draw upon the powers he once wielded. A man adrift. This training was good for him, and what was good for him was good for our relationship.

  I just wished he would tell me more about what he was thinking, feeling.

  Just listen to yourself, Lily. As I waited while the taxi in front of me disgorged its passengers, I nearly laughed out loud. I had spent a lifetime keeping my secrets to myself, hiding my thoughts and my soul from everyone around me. Apparently I had been soaking up my adopted region’s obsession with self-disclosure, California-style.

  And besides . . . Sailor was who he was. He seemed to be happier with me than he had been on his own—evidenced by the fact that he actually smiled and even laughed from time to time—but he was still a taciturn, cynical man. Probably always had been, and always would be. Not only was it unreasonable to expect him to become a Sensitive New Age Guy, but would I even truly want him to? If I cared for him, shouldn’t I accept him just as he was?

  Better, by far, for each of us to remain true to ourselves and to keep our thoughts safely tucked away. It was the time-honored way of magical folk.

  I found a parking spot within a few blocks of Madame Detalier’s, and made my way through a sidewalk crowded with hipsters with sculpted facial hair, wearing skinny jeans and chic eyewear, coffee drinks and iPods in their hands.

  From the outside, Hervé’s shop looked like many on Haight Street: The front window displayed an innocuous collection of various statuettes, embroidered runners, and inlaid pipes. But inside, the ceiling was hung with carved gourds and brightly painted wooden animals. There was an extensive collection of molded body parts, skulls and bones, as well as wax-sealed bottles with mysterious contents, and candles in every color of the rainbow.

  A horned creature with a human body and a goatlike head had pride of place in one corner, a pentagram carved on his forehead. At its feet were several lit votive candles, along with a jar of flowers, a croissant on a little plate, a cup of still-steaming coffee, and a large bag of dried pinto beans.

  It reminded me of the shrine to Santa Muerte in Ursula’s shop window.

  Behind the counter stood Hervé’s wife, Caterina. She was an elegant woman with traditional blue-dot tattooing across her brow, and in spirals on her smooth cheeks. Today she was wearing a brown and cream mud-cloth dashiki, and her long dreadlocks were tied up in a purple and yellow batik scarf.

  “Hi, Caterina, how are you?”

  “You’re looking for Hervé?”

  “Yes, thanks,” I said with my best version of a friendly smile. “How’d you guess?”

  She looked me over with cool disdain. Caterina didn’t like me very much. I couldn’t imagine she was jealous in any way—Hervé was a devoted husband and father to their twin boys. But something about me set her on edge. A while back, some antiwitchcraft folks had mixed up voodoo with my kind of magic and had vandalized the shop. Perhaps she blamed me for it.

  Fortunately, I was accustomed to being disliked. As a witch growing up in a small West Texas town, I had learned at a young age that people were much more likely to spurn me than to embrace me. Still . . . although I could understand this reaction from those who didn’t know any better, it hurt when it came from other practitioners.

  “They’ve been expecting you,” she said. I noticed the glint of a delicate gold cross on a chain around her neck as she ducked through the bead curtain into the back office.

  I waited by the register, wondering about the cross she wore. It had always struck me as odd, given her surroundings. Could Caterina be unhappy running a voodoo supply shop? I had always assumed she shared Hervé’s beliefs, but perhaps I had been wrong. Really, I knew nothing about her. Maybe, in my effort to stop judging people and make more friends, I should invite her out to lunch one of these days. . . .

  Hervé emerged from the back, a huge smile lighting up his face. He was a powerfully built man, with a rugby player’s physique.

  “Lily! Always such a pleasure. I was so happy to hear you found your pig.”

  “Thank you. Me, too. Things were a little rocky there for a bit.”

  “And you? You are well?”

  “Fit as a fiddle.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it. What can I do for you today?”

  I pulled the red flannel bundle from my bag and set in on the counter. Hervé slowly folded back the material.

  He stared at the ugly little doll for a long moment, then looked at me, eyebrows raised.

  “What can you tell me about it?” I asked.

  “It’s a poppet.”

  “Yes, thanks. I knew that much. But . . . have you ever seen it before? Would there be, I don’t know, some sort of signature of the person who made it? Anything like that?”

  “I’m a voodoo priest, Lily, not a DNA expert.”

  I stared at it, feeling let down. I knew it was a long shot, but I’d been hoping Hervé might be able to tell me something about it.

  Finally he splayed his big hands about twelve inches above the doll and held them there. Breathing deeply through his nostrils, he rolled his eyes back in his head, his eyelids fluttering and lips moving in a silent incantation. After almost a full minute he slowly lowered his hands and placed them on the poppet.

  After another moment he shook his head and opened his eyes.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t feel charged.” He picked up the doll without using the cloth and turned it over in his hands, studying the worked wax.

  “Can you tell if it ever was charged? Would there be a leftover hum, or anything . . . ?” I trailed off lamely.

  “It might have been at one time, can’t really tell. Now it’s just a lump of wax. It means nothing.”

  “Wax with pins in it.”

  “People always seem to think the pins are menacing. Originally, pins were simply used to fasten a picture or personal items of the target to the doll, to link them. They aren’t necessarily sinister.”

  “You sure?” I asked, skeptical.

  “Lily, one of these days you’re going to have to get over your inordinate fear of poppets. You can use them in your system just as well as I can in mine.”

  I shook my head. “They’re creepy.”

  He gestured with the doll in one large hand. “The poppet itself is a vessel, it’s not inherently good or bad. It’s all about the intent. So-called ‘voodoo dolls’ are mostly used for curing. The photo is placed on the object to guide the spell; the pins are there to hold the photo in place, not necessarily to inflict harm. They may be no more threatening than a piece of scotch tape.”

  “You’re saying the doll could be a positive object? Not an attempt to harm the target?”

  “I really can’t say for sure because I don’t know what the person who fashioned the poppet intended. But neither do you. Without more information we don’t even know if the doll has any significance. It could simply be someone’s toy, a souvenir.”

  “I wondered about that.”

  “In my system, when the spirits are angry or disgruntled, they appear red-eyed. When the red-eyed spirit accompanies you, things are bad. But I don’t feel that with this doll. I don’t feel anything at all.”

  “Okay, thanks for looking at it.” I wrapped the doll up and returned it to my bag. “I really appreciate your expertise.”

  “And here I thought you were going to ask me about what’s going on at El Pajarito.”

  “You’ve added mind-reading to your services?” I joked. “That was my next question. Do you know Ursula?”

  “Of course. The Mission is like a small town; we’re all
up in each other’s business. The news of her arrest spread pretty quickly.”

  “Do you know anything about what’s happening at her shop?”

  “What is happening at the shop? Was it vandalized? I looked in the windows and saw a huge mess.”

  “Things are going haywire. It’s as if . . . almost like everything’s charged and acting of its own accord. It’s really odd. I tried to read the vibrations, but they were chaotic, too difficult to get a handle on. Any ideas?”

  He shook his head slowly, as though deep in thought.

  “Do you know anyone who might want to make Ursula look bad? Did she have any enemies?”

  “Plenty,” he said with a broad smile. “Does this surprise you? This business can be rather cutthroat, after all.”

  “I’ve always stayed away from curanderas, except for my own grandmother, of course. I’m not familiar with the politics.”

  “Well, let’s just say Ursula has more than a few rivals who would have been pleased to hear of her arrest.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “I’d better write you a list.”

  “That many?”

  He rolled his eyes. “You know how this sort of thing is, Lily. But you might check with Aidan to see if he’s sensed a rogue witch.”

  I played with a small bottle of van-van oil from a display on the counter. “Um . . . Aidan and I . . . well, we aren’t talking much these days.”

  “No?”

  “We had something of a falling-out over my familiar. Not to mention the whole thing with Sailor.”

  I read sympathy in his dark eyes. “Relationships are hard.”

  “Aidan and I don’t have a relationship. I mean, not like that.”

  “I was referring to you and Sailor,” he said, looking amused. “Anyway, if you’re avoiding Aidan you should run along. He’s—”

  “Right here,” said Aidan as he ducked through the beaded curtain.

  Chapter 8

  I reared back and grabbed my medicine bag. My heart pounded as my mind cast about; there were a couple of jars of all-purpose protective brew in my satchel, but such magical devices wouldn’t go far with someone as powerful as Aidan Rhodes.

  Besides, I was more of a brew-alone-in-my-kitchen-type witch, not so great in an unexpected, throw-down situation.

  Caterina’s words finally registered: “They’ve been expecting you.” They. I should have known. Where was my witchy intuition when I needed it? Still, when it came to Aidan my already dubious intuition wasn’t worth a plugged nickel anyway. He threw my senses off, put me in a tizzy.

  I didn’t want even to imagine the consequences of a serious confrontation between the two of us. Indeed, I had been avoiding that line of thought ever since I had defied him and stolen a valuable object from him in order to free Oscar.

  “You look pale, Lily. Are you quite all right?” Aidan asked.

  Only then did I realize I was cowering beside Hervé. My voodoo buddy was looking down at me with an amused, bewildered look on his face.

  “Sure, I’m just peachy,” I said as I lifted my chin and stepped away from Hervé. Might as well face the music. “And you?”

  “Oh, I’m peachy, as well,” Aidan said with a smile. “It’s always so lovely to see you. And I do adore that frock.”

  Today’s getup was a shell-top dress from the fifties, with an azure-and-violet-painted floral design. The flowing skirt was meant to be worn over a crinoline, but that seemed a bit much for my personal style, so I simply let it fall and enjoyed the feeling of it wrapping around my legs as I walked. Happily for me—especially given the way my day was going so far—whoever had owned the garment before me had imbued it with positive vibrations.

  “I take it you’re here in an official capacity?” Aidan asked.

  “Sort of.” Two could play at this game. If Aidan was going to act as though nothing had happened, I certainly wasn’t going to complain. And now that I had a moment to think about it, I realized Aidan would never attack me in front of Hervé. In fact, his revenge would no doubt be much subtler and more destructive than a simple magical match. It would be the kind of thing that would sneak up and bite me when I least expected. “Have you heard anything about what’s going on at Ursula Moreno’s shop, El Pajarito?”

  “I know something’s amiss.”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “What concerns me is twofold: First, the mayor’s on the warpath about fortune-telling scams and the like. It’s caused quite the kerfuffle in the community.”

  “Kerfuffle?” I asked.

  “There’s a lot of finger-pointing. One might even say there’s a bit of a witch-hunt vibe.”

  “You can’t get the mayor to back off?”

  “How would you suggest I do that?”

  “I thought he was in your back pocket.”

  “Why, Lily, I am flattered that you imagine me to have so much influence. I assure you, it is not the case.”

  I didn’t believe him. I once had spotted the mayor in Aidan’s office. At the time Aidan had insisted it meant nothing, but I suspected there was much more to it than that. Controlling a politician behind the scenes, puppetmasterlike, seemed right up Aidan’s alley.

  But for now I let it go. “And what’s the other thing that’s worrying you?”

  “This isn’t something many people feel entirely comfortable discussing,” said Aidan, flashing a look at Hervé. “But it’s possible that there are some . . . mental health issues in the magical community.”

  “Mental health issues? Like what?”

  “The same as afflicts the greater society: depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD.”

  “There’s no shame in that. After all, this isn’t the 1950s; there’s help available.”

  “I realize that, and you realize that, and even our friend Hervé here realizes that.”

  Hervé cupped his hands over his heart. “Gee, I appreciate your confidence,” he said with a sarcastic tone.

  “But as a group . . .” Aidan trailed off with a shrug. “We’re twenty years behind the larger society in this one area.”

  “By ‘we’ you mean . . .”

  “The magical community, for want of a better word. As you can imagine, if someone with magical abilities starts losing touch with reality things can get ugly, fast.”

  I remembered an elderly friend of my grandmother’s back in Jarod, a gentle soul whose descent into senility caused her to magically light fires. Mostly little things—a single match, a small notepad, a leaf—but still. If she hadn’t been watched over, she could have taken down the town.

  “So you’re suggesting what’s happening in El Pajarito could be the result of a practitioner with mental illness?”

  “Hard to say. It’s also possible this thing with Ursula is something else entirely, an infection of some sort that is moving through magical businesses.”

  “That sounds even worse.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Couldn’t it be the work of another witch? Someone gone rogue who’s got it out for Ursula?”

  His beautiful features shifted. Aidan fancied himself the godfather of the magical folks in the Bay Area—with the notable exceptions of Hervé and yours truly, neither of whom recognized Aidan’s authority—and he didn’t like to think one of “his” people might have gone off the reservation.

  I tried a different approach. “Do you know a woman named Lupita, who might have been working with Ursula?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. But Ursula had relatives helping in the store occasionally; it wasn’t unusual.”

  “Speaking of relatives, what about the girl, Selena? Do you think she could be with Lupita?”

  Aidan and Hervé shared a significant look.

  “What?” I asked. “Am I missing something?”

  “I saw her the other day,” Hervé said in a low voice. “Selena came running in and hid under the altar cloth, right over there. Clearly terrified, but she wouldn’t tell me why. I tried to fin
d Ursula, of course, but apparently she’d already been arrested; the shop was closed. I felt. . . . Caterina and I decided to keep her here with us instead of turning her over to Family and Children Services.”

  “Selena’s here? Could I speak with her?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but she spent only one night, then ran away the next day without ever saying a word. Caterina feels terrible about it. She’s angry with me for not calling the authorities, making sure Selena was safe.”

  “And why didn’t you call them?”

  “I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to handle her. Selena is . . . different.”

  “Different in what way?”

  “She reminds us a little of you,” Aidan said. The gentleness in his voice was disconcerting. I met his eyes, and the apparently sincere concern in those blue depths was even more so. I remembered Oscar saying: “The girl’s the secret weapon.”

  Forcing my attention back to the issue at hand, I said, “In that case, the average social worker couldn’t have stopped her anyway. I think you were right to assume she wouldn’t do well in the system.”

  Hervé shrugged. “Still, I should have made sure she was secured. I’ve checked in with everyone I can think of she might have known, or trusted. But as I said, Ursula isn’t exactly popular around here. I think I was probably the closest thing she had to a friend in the neighborhood. I assume that’s why Selena came here . . . though I wish I knew why she didn’t stay.”

  “If she’s powerful, she can probably take care of herself better than the average young teen on the street.” At least I hoped so. Unless one was properly trained, having magical powers could cause more problems than they solved. “So, no idea where she might have gone?”

  He shook his head. “Caterina and I have been racking our brains.”

  “Do you remember the last thing you said to her?”

  He took a moment, then shook his head slowly. “Nothing, really. I remember telling her Caterina and I were going to be babysitting my niece’s daughter. I thought Selena might enjoy meeting the baby.”

  “And?”

  He shrugged. “And that was it. Next thing I knew, she was gone.”