Magic and Macaroons (2 page)

I raised my hand and twiddled my fingers. “I did. Remember when I missed the meeting last month and asked Cookie to pass on my suggestion?” I wrinkled my nose. “Sorry. It’s pretty awful, isn’t it?”

Jaida raised one sardonic eyebrow. For a moment I felt like a witness on the stand. It didn’t help that she still wore a conservative linen suit from her day in court.

Aunt Lucy shifted on her oversized chair, slipping off the Birkenstocks she typically wore to work at the Honeybee and tucking her legs up under her tie-dyed maxi skirt. She had already freed her mop of gray-blond hair from its twisted bun. “Why did you choose this book, Katie, honey? I’m sure you had a good reason.”

I felt heat in my cheeks, and it wasn’t from the ovens in the kitchen. At six p.m. we were long done with the day’s baking, and, mercifully, the sweltering August evening outside was held at bay by the building’s efficient air-conditioning. “I did have a reason, but I don’t know how good it was,” I said. “I was browsing online, and the description said Rowanna Bronhilde was a young witch who had recently come to the Craft and wanted to share with others what she’d learned from her mentor.”

Lucy beamed affection at me, which made me feel a bit less foolish. She was one of the sweetest people on earth, and I could always count her on my side.

Jaida made a noise of derision. “
Rowanna Bronhilde
? There couldn’t be a more made-up name.”

“Made-up!” the parrot screeched, loud enough to make me jump.

Ignoring him, Mimsey let her expression soften. “Many witches take on new names for whatever reason. Perfectly reputable ones, too. That’s certainly not the most
unusual name I’ve heard. What about Rainbow Daxel and Amethyst Angeline? Or Juniper Sunbeam?”

“I kind of like Juniper,” Bianca’s red-limned lips pursed in amusement. “Not so much Sunbeam, though.” She crossed her long legs, and as she turned, a huge Tahitian black pearl strung on a silver chain glinted from the V of her white silk blouse. I marveled at the understated elegance money like hers could buy. Of course, Bianca possessed so much natural grace that it would have shone through a burlap sack.

Jaida looked somewhat chastened, something only the oldest member of our spellbook club—and informal coven—could effect. Not that Mimsey was trying to put anyone in their place, but she would have been our high priestess if our group had been so formal as to have one. Jaida respected her as much as any of us did.

“I should have read it first,” I said, “before bringing it to everyone. It’s just that I was curious how Bronhilde’s experience as a new witch compared with mine.”

Bianca tossed her long black braid over her shoulder and grinned. “So what do you think?”

I half smiled. “She seems like more of a newbie than I was last year. I feel like I could tell
her
a few things. I wonder why she decided to write a book when she’s still such a neophyte.” I paused, then: “There’s something else that bothers me.”

“What’s that?” Cookie asked, tipping her head. The gesture reminded me of a playful colt, as did her slim physique, which was shown to advantage in a green miniskirt and striped crop top. In the two days since I’d last seen her, she’d changed the blue streaks in her dark hair to deep magenta.

“Well, her attitude,” I said. “As if spell work is supposed to be a bunch of pat formulas, simple recipes a witch follows without any . . .” I trailed off. After all, who
was I to criticize? I called my own grimoire, where I kept track of spells and techniques, my recipe book.

“Without any intention,” Lucy finished for me. “It’s disturbingly lacking in everything she says. She forgets that spells are tools by which we send intentions into the universe. Not to say that physical things like water and salt and herbs and stones—”

“Flowers,” Mimsey broke in with an enthusiastic nod. “And colors.” Two areas of magic in which she happened to have special skills.

“Yes,” Lucy continued. “All those things have power of their own to be tapped and shaped. But without intention, that power is chaotic and ineffective.”

Cookie leaned forward and put one hand on the book that sat between us and her other on the arm of the sofa. It was a simple gesture, but it garnered all our attention. “Perhaps this Rowanna didn’t forget. Perhaps she never knew.”

“But,” I began. “She has a mentor—”

“Not a very good one,” Jaida said.

Mimsey turned over her copy of
Spells for Everyone
and perused the back. Shaking her head, she opened the front flap and scanned the copy. She looked up at the group. “Her mentor goes by the name Astroy.”

We exchanged glances. Jaida asked, “Astroy what?”

“Just Astroy.” Mimsey leafed through the pages. “There’s a picture of them together at the end of the text. He looks much older.”

“Oh?” Bianca flipped her book open, too. “Oh! You’re not kidding. She barely looks twenty—if that. Do you think they’re . . . ?”

“It’s not impossible.” Mimsey sounded resigned.

“If not, they soon will be,” Cookie said with conviction. “He is a sham, a fake guru, and she’s an innocent.”

I stared at her, surprised at her fervor.

She met my eyes and said, a bit defensively, “I know that look. The mentor is too self-satisfied. Unfortunately, that expression on the author’s face, this Rowanna girl, is devotion. Blind devotion. It’s easy to fool the young, and I suspect this one has either been fooled for a very long time or is a very young soul to begin with.” She frowned. “Their union will not end well.”

Silence settled over the six of us, broken only by Mungo’s soft grunt as he rolled over on his back. At twenty-five, Cookie was four years younger than my twenty-nine, and I found it intriguing to hear her make such a proclamation about someone she’d never met. Still, I couldn’t disagree with her.

“Well!” Lucy said with forced cheer. “Did anyone find a spell or two in here they would like to discuss?”

I sprang to my feet. “Who needs a refill? More coffee? Or I can brew tea.”

Jaida directed a pleading look up at me. “I don’t suppose there’s any wine?”

I laughed. “What kind of joint do you think we run here? Of course there is—and mint julep blondies were the special today. I’ll grab what’s left.” Faces brightened at that.

“Winos!” Heckle squawked.

“Oh, hush,” Mimsey absently said to her familiar. “This is why you aren’t invited to our meetings very often.”

“Lushy witches,” he announced, ignoring her admonition. She turned and gave him a firm look. He quieted immediately.

Grinning, I hurried to the kitchen to retrieve the bottle of Malbec breathing on the counter and a chilled Moscato from the industrial fridge. As I piled a variety of biscotti on one plate and sweet, bourbon-laced treats on another, I listened to the murmurs of my friends. A
deep gratitude settled into my chest. How lucky I was! More than a year before, Aunt Lucy and Uncle Ben had invited me to quit my loathsome job in Akron and use my pastry-school training to open the Honeybee Bakery in Savannah with them. I’d bought the cutest carriage house in Midtown and gone from practically being dumped at the altar in Ohio to dating a sweet, good-looking fireman who liked to cook for me. Yeah, maybe Declan McCarthy and I had encountered a few bumps as our relationship got off the ground, but things were going smoothly now. On top of all that good fortune, I’d discovered my true nature as a hereditary hedgewitch, and now had the amazing opportunity to learn the different aspects of magic from the ladies gathered in the other room.

Okay, so I had to admit the whole witchcraft thing had started off a little rocky, too, with a woman murdered in front of the bakery and my reluctance to believe in my own power. However, the spellbook club, and Lucy especially, had guided me to both belief and understanding. Not to mention that we’d brought a killer to justice and saved my uncle Ben from being arrested for something he hadn’t done.

Unfortunately, that murder case wasn’t the last one I’d been involved with since moving south. Guess you can’t be lucky in everything.

Lucy was my mother’s little sister, and, much to Mama’s chagrin, had spilled the beans about our family history of hedgewitchery soon after we started working out recipes and baking up bespelled goodies for our clientele. Mama was pretty much over that by now, but things had been a little tense there for a while.

Mimsey Carmichael was the youngest-looking seventy-nine I could imagine, but Lucy and the others insisted she didn’t use magic to hide her age. Comfortably padded and shorter than Lucy’s five-two, she was from a
long-standing Savannah family. Jaida French also looked younger than her forty-something years, her chocolate-toned skin smooth and utterly unwrinkled even around her expressive, almost hyperintelligent eyes. A defense attorney, she had been schooling me in tarot magic. Bianca Devereaux focused on traditional Wiccan methods and moon magic. The divorced mom of seven-year-old Colette, she supported them partially with Moon Grapes, her wine shop on Factors Walk, but her real money came from playing the stock market for big bucks. And then there was Cookie Rios. She’d immigrated to Savannah from Haiti when she was only nine, and her magical heritage included some slightly darker elements than the rest of ours.

I carried the tray to the Honeybee’s library and set it on the coffee table. The ladies filled their glasses and chatted away about their lives. Jaida and her boyfriend were thinking about a trip to France the next spring. Mimsey and her husband were going to visit their daughter in California, along with their granddaughter, Wren. Bianca, still single after her husband had dumped her for practicing magic, had dropped her memberships to online-dating sites, deciding to let the man chips fall where they might. Then the conversation turned to Cookie’s new husband, Oscar Sanchez, his position at a local lab that tested buildings for mold and other toxins, and her new job managing commercial real-estate properties.

No one was talking spells. At least they’d stopped tearing apart the lame spellbook I’d chosen for discussion. For a moment I felt embarrassed that I’d ruined our meeting, but then I glanced at my aunt, who was happily listening to our friends, and I realized there was no ruining our gatherings. The last time we’d all been together had been at Lucy and Ben’s town house on the first of August to celebrate the sabbat Lughnasadh with a fire
and a harvest feast. With our busy lives, it had been another two weeks before we’d managed to dovetail our schedules, and it was obvious that a little social time with each other was better than discussing spells a kinderwitch could do.

“How’s Iris working out?” Bianca asked. She was referring to our new employee, the eighteen-year-old stepdaughter of the cheesemonger down the block. Beneath her Goth makeup, Iris Grant sparkled with creativity and latent magical talent. She would be starting her studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design in a few more weeks.

Lucy’s smile deepened, crinkling the fine lines around her eyes. “She’s wonderful! We really do need someone here part-time, and she’s taken to the work remarkably well.” Her eyes twinkled. “And Katie was right about her potential power. We haven’t so much as hinted at the idea yet, but I think she may be open to learning more about the ‘special amendments’ we add to the Honeybee pastries to help out our customers.”

Mimsey had opened her mouth to say something when a loud rapping on the front door made us all jump. I let out a little laugh and glanced over my shoulder. The angle of the sofa prevented me from seeing who it was. The door handle rattled as someone shook it, then knocked again.

“We’re closed,” I called out.

Lucy waved her hand. “They’ll see the sign in a second.”

Sure enough, the knocking stopped.

“How could anyone miss it?” Bianca asked. “It’s as big as your head and right at eye level. Not to mention the hours you’re open are listed right below.”

Bam!
This time a fist pounded on the thick glass door.

Mungo rolled to his feet and barked, loud and high-pitched. His whole body quivered with alarm.

“Heavens to Betsy!” Mimsey craned her neck to try to see the door. Behind her, Heckle launched into the air and flew up to the speaker mounted high in the corner.

I bolted to my feet. “Now, that’s just downright rude.” I leaned down and scooped up Mungo, who was still barking. “It’s okay, little guy. Hush now.”

He fell silent. Honeybee had shifted on the windowsill to press her furry, orange-striped cheek against the glass and look down the side of the building toward the ruckus.

“Perhaps there’s something wrong.” Lucy stood. “Maybe Croft or Annette need something.” Croft Barrow owned the bookstore on one side of the Honeybee, and Annette Lander managed the knitting store on the other side.

A pale face appeared at the window next to where Honeybee sat. Startled, she jumped from the sill and scooted to the corner, where she turned and directed baleful disapproval toward the interloper. A hand cupped the glass, and a young woman peered in at us beneath the half-drawn blind. She bobbed up and down slightly, and I guessed she was standing on tiptoe in order to see inside. Even with her hand shadowing her face, I could see her eyes were so wide, the whites showed all around the washed-out blue of her pupils. She shouted something, her palm on the glass now, fingers curling against the surface as if trying to dig through it.

Desperate.

A feeling of dread settled below my sternum as a shiver ran down my back. Mungo whined. I put him down on the sofa and approached the window.

Even with her shouts muddled by the thick pane, her lips mouthed words I gradually recognized. Over and
over, she was yelling, “Katie Lightfoot! I need Katie Lightfoot!”

I ran to the front entrance without thinking, fumbling in the pocket of my shorts for the key to the deadlock. Aunt Lucy and Jaida joined me as I flung open the door. Humid heat instantly wrapped around us like a heavy blanket.

The woman turned at the sound and stumbled down the sidewalk toward us. Her knees buckled, and she threw out her hands, almost dropping a small leather purse. I grabbed her elbow to keep her from falling. She hardly weighed a thing, which didn’t surprise me, given her stick-thin arms and the protruding collarbones evident through her thin T-shirt. Those wide eyes met mine, searching.