a witchcraft mystery 08 - a toxic trousseau (28 page)

He shrugged and looked away, as though embarrassed.

“You sure didn’t
act
smitten.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t exactly fit in to where I saw my life going. I may be a psychic, but I don’t seem able to predict my own future. And you—you scared the hell out of me.”

Sailor stopped suddenly outside a door. He cocked his head, waited for a moment, then consulted the floor plan in his hand.

“What’s in there?”

“Something . . .” He glanced at his wristwatch and swore under his breath. “I don’t want to get into this without enough time. The sisters are going to want to go call the moon soon. Let’s go babysit the coven and then come back and check this out.”

“Um . . . okay. What did you see? Or did you feel something?”

Sailor was already headed back the way we came. I trotted along to keep up with his long strides; he still held the map, and I feared I’d lose my way without it. Clearly something was on his mind. He was distracted; determined.

“Sailor?” I tried again. “Hold up a minute! What did you sense? Something dangerous?”

He stopped and turned to me. Lifted his hand and cupped my cheek. Gave me a half smile. “Not dangerous. I don’t think. I’d rather not say more until we can come back and check it out properly. But it has to do with something I felt in Autumn Jennings’s apartment.”

*   *   *

The Welcome coven stood in a circle in the Russet Room, preparing to draw down the moon.

Sailor was guarding the door on the outside, and I looked down on the group from one of the odd interior windows that led from one space to another; it overlooked the room from a story up. On our quick walk-through of the house we hadn’t encountered the ghost of the Widow Rodchester, but I imagined if she was lurking she would approve of tonight’s activities. From all
accounts she spent every evening in this very room, conducting séances, calling on spirits, receiving messages. The bell in her tower used to toll, signaling midnight, while she tried to communicate with the beyond. I would think a well-intentioned coven drawing down the moon would be right up her alley.

Then again, she had lived a solitary life. And integral to the magic of the coven was the sense of community and connection.

My very favorite part of the ceremony was when they started to link hands, one after the other, touching their clasped hands to their hearts. It was a touching, bonding gesture. It linked them to one another and to the long line of powerful women who had walked Mother Earth throughout the ages.

As I watched, part of me wished I could join the circle. I had done so in the past, but only on specific occasions when I needed the strength of the coven behind me for going up against demons and the like. But although I had been learning to ask for help and rely on my friends, in general my brewing was a solitary affair. Notwithstanding Oscar and now, on occasion, Selena.

But coven magic was special. As I felt the hum arise from the circle, I realized I could never be a full member of this sisterhood. And I accepted that.

The coven moved through the stages of the circle, with first one priestess, Wendy, then another, Starr, taking the lead, invoking the Lord and Lady of the Woods, Quan Am, the Corn Mother, and Hulda. They called on several goddesses from different cultural traditions; it was an equal-opportunity belief system. Finally, Bronwyn moved to the middle of the circle and the women invoked the Mother, the Daughter, and the Crone, beseeching them
to bestow their blessings through the light of the moon. Then Bronwyn went around the circle to receive a private blessing from each member, one by one.

As they bowed their heads in a final moment of worship, thanking the calm strength of the moon, as women have done throughout millennia, the bell of Mrs. Rodchester’s tower began to toll.

And then Starr screamed.

Chapter 22

The door flung open and Sailor rushed into the room.

“Over there!” Starr exclaimed, pointing. “Did you see it?”

Sailor ran toward a pair of shutters that opened onto a kitchen the floor below. There were no stairs. The shutters were ajar.

“I saw someone, or some
thing
!”

“I saw it, too!”

“What was it?”

A cacophony arose from the group as the women milled around, gasping and exclaiming. I ran down the narrow stairwell and joined them in the room. By the time I arrived they were giggling with excitement and nerves, everyone talking at once.

“Was it a
spirit
of some sort?”

“More like a demon! It was so ugly, covered in scales, with a long snout . . .”

Sailor and I exchanged glances.

“And big ears, like a bat!”

“About how big was this creature, would you say?” I asked.

“I don’t know, exactly; I just caught a glimpse—but not as big as we are.”

“With green scales and a snout and long ears?”

“Big ears, and eyes that glowed green!”

“Yep, that’d be a common house demon,” said Sailor in a grave tone. I gaped at him. When he met my eyes, I could see he was fighting to keep a straight face.

“A
house demon
?” said Wendy.

“Harmless little critter, by and large,” he continued. “But he can be . . . mischievous, I guess is the best word. I think he was attracted by the energy of the coven. If I were you I’d go back to the ballroom and stay there for the rest of the night, just so you don’t scare up anything else.”

“Well,”
said Bronwyn, holding her hand over her heart. “This is the best birthday
ever
! If this doesn’t call for a cocktail, I don’t know what does!”

*   *   *

I encircled the entire ballroom with salt and sprinkled the protection brew at the four compass points: east, west, north, south. Then I lit a white candle and uttered a charm.

“Do you think that’ll do it?” Starr asked Sailor.

He nodded. “Your average house demon won’t cross the threshold of a protected room. No worries.”

“Use the buddy system for the bathroom,” I said. “And here, take the pouch of sprite dust when you go, just in case.”

“Sprite dust?”

“It’s helpful. Sometimes.” It made spirits think of a
person as a sprite, and therefore they kept their distance. But I didn’t think it was worth going into a long explanation. The dust was probably overkill, since we hadn’t actually encountered anything particularly troubling in this bizarre house, but it couldn’t hurt.

Then Sailor and I headed back to the strange door that had attracted Sailor’s attention. As we traversed the house, I expected Oscar to show himself, but there was no sign of him.

“I can’t believe he disobeyed me,” I muttered.

“Really? You can’t?” Sailor said in a sardonic tone.

“He does hate to be left out. Where do you suppose he is?”

“Probably exploring. It’s a fascinating place. Given all I’m feeling, I can only imagine Oscar is sensing even more. It’s sort of like a dog’s sense of smell—Oscar can pick up on things way beyond human perception.”

Since Oscar hated being compared to a dog, at Sailor’s last comment I thought he might pop out of somewhere and surprise us, but all remained quiet. We climbed the steps to the third floor, and Sailor paused in front of the door that had caught his attention during our earlier exploration.

“What do you think is in there?” I whispered.

“One way to find out.” Sailor reached out slowly, gripped the doorknob, and turned. The door opened onto a narrow stairway leading up into blackness.

“Do you suppose we’re allowed to go up there?” I whispered.

“There’s no velvet rope.”

“True.”

“There’s something up there. And it’s not on the
regular tour, so maybe there’ll be less scattered energy and it’ll be easier to tease out whatever it is. Want to wait for me here?”

“No, of course not. I’m your girl Friday, remember?”

He nodded and led the way up the stairs into the attic.

The roof was steeply slanted, so we could easily stand in the middle but had to crouch along the sides. The attic was dimly lit by the moonlight coming through several dormer windows. It was jammed with old furniture, cardboard boxes, and sheet-shrouded forms that looked, to my all-too-vivid imagination, like human-shaped creatures.

Sailor walked around the perimeter, pushing past an old armoire and a dusty globe.

“There’s definitely something here. . . .” He sat cross-legged on the floor. “I’m going to take a moment.”

“Of course. Sure.”

I watched him. It bothered me, to tell the truth, to watch Sailor go into a trance. It took him away from me, however briefly. This was a part of his experience that I would never understand, something I could never be part of, rather like the sisterhood of the coven. On the other hand, my brewing was like that as well, a private, guarded thing. I supposed it was all right for each of us to keep part of our journey to ourselves. Alone didn’t have to mean lonely, after all.

Still, it rankled that
Patience
, of all people, shared this with him.

I realized the banging sounds of the hammers had stopped. Silence enveloped us, broken only by the buzzing of an insect.

A honeybee flew by.

“Call me crazy,” said Sailor finally, standing. “But this feels a lot like something I was feeling at Jennings’s place.”

“Are you saying Autumn Jennings was here? Or . . .
is
here?”

He shook his head and started pulling sheets off the cloaked items.

He revealed a couple of upholstered chairs and a dressmaker’s dummy. And then a large black steamer trunk.

“This is it,” he said.

“This is what?”

“This trunk holds the sense of the clothes we felt upstairs at Autumn’s place.” He opened the lid. The trunk was empty. “Come and feel.”

I laid my hands on the shredded silk and threadbare velvet of the lining. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on sensing the vibrations of the fabric.

Sailor was right.

“But how . . . ?” I began.

“I guess that’s the question,” said Sailor. “What connection did Autumn have with the Rodchester House?”

“I don’t know about Autumn, but Scarlet volunteered here once. And I was told Renee donated cupcakes for the event as well.”

The bee buzzed lazily past me again. I held my hand out, and it landed.

“A little unusual to see a bee at night, isn’t it?” asked Sailor. He was already moving toward the dormer window to see if he could get it open. It was stiff, but with effort he managed to lift the sash a few inches.

I held my hand out through the opening, and the bee tapped a little on my palm, then flew off.

“I’ve heard bees communicate through dance,” Sailor said, his voice thoughtful. “Is she trying to tell you something?”

“I think it’s possible,” I said, realization dawning. Selena had mentioned bees the other day as well, when she gave Loretta a bee charm for her collar. “I wonder . . . Apparently the name of the woman who owned this trousseau, the woman who died because of the curse, was nicknamed Bee.”

“And what do you think she’s trying to tell you?”

“I have no idea. But . . . this reminds me of something I meant to ask you about: I had a vision that included a thread being pulled through a pearl, and a crown of parsley, a cup of snakes, and a phrase:
coincidentia oppositorum
. Any idea what that all means?”

“Since when did you start having visions?”

“I don’t normally. But I was in Aidan’s vision chamber and they came surprisingly easily.”

“What were you doing in Aidan’s vision chamber?”

“Waiting for the mayor.”

Sailor looked at me for so long I started to feel defensive and was about to assert my right to be in Aidan’s office whenever I darned well wanted to when he nodded.

“Okay. The thing about visions, in my experience, is that they can mean different things to different people—the symbols are incredibly personal. To some, a rose is about beauty, or love; to others, the thorns indicate danger.”

“That makes sense. But I can’t think what a pearl being threaded might mean.”

“The pearl can be the world, the globe. The thread is
the energy that runs through its axis, the special energy that your kind tap into.”

“My kind?”

He nodded. “A crown of parsley is female, the cup of snakes male. The
coincidentia oppositorum
is all about the primordial forces of male and female coming together, the All-Mother and All-Father.”

“Seriously?”

“As I said, it’s usually a personal interpretation. But that phrase was pretty specific.”

“True. So . . . what does it all mean?”

He shrugged. “Beats me.”

I chuckled. “Okay, back to the bee, or the young woman named Bee: Isn’t this your area? Why isn’t she talking to
you
, if she’s hanging around?”

“These things don’t work according to the rules you and I live by, as you know,” said Sailor. “She might be sending you a sign because she knows you’re the most likely to be able to help her. Or it might not be her at all, but something altogether different.”

“Like what?”

“Your guiding spirit, letting you know you’re on the right path.” He shrugged. “Or knowing you, you could be manifesting it, somehow, because you have bees on the brain. There are a few things we could try, next time a bee comes by, to see if we can communicate. But for now, let’s head back to the coven.”

I started down the stairs, with Sailor following close behind.

“That’s a disturbing thought,” I said. “If I start manifesting everything on my brain—”

A man stood on the landing, glowering at us.

Chapter 23

I screamed. Just a little. More like an undignified squeak, really.

Then I realized it was Clyde, the caretaker. His hair stuck out from the side of his head slightly, as though we had gotten him out of bed.

“The attics are
off
-limits,” he groused. “Don’t make me send you and your friends home.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It didn’t explicitly say so, and there was no velvet rope . . .”

He swore under his breath. “This is what I told the higher-ups when they came up with this harebrained scheme: that we needed to test it out. You never know what tourists will come up with. Listen here: The attics and basements and outbuildings are
all
off-limits, you got that? You kids have one hundred and sixty rooms in the regular house to look through, and you go up into the
attic
?”