Hexes and Hemlines (29 page)

Sure enough, Sailor strode in, big black motorcycle boots stomping on the shiny wood floor. The crowd seemed to part, men wary, women watching him surreptitiously from under mascaraed lashes. He was the classic bad boy: dark good looks, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in black leather, overall bad attitude. Just seeing him cheered me up.

When he spotted me, he stopped dead, as though reconsidering his choice of establishment for the evening. A redhead in a short leopard-print skirt seated at the bar preened, smiled, and cooed,
“Hello there
.
”

Sailor rolled his eyes and came to sit across the small table from me.

“Where the hell have you been? I thought you weren’t going to run out on me, ‘buddy.’”

“Sorry. I needed a little time alone.”

“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“Could I buy you a drink?”

“Out with it, already. We both know this isn’t a social call.”

“If I were to ask a big favor of you . . .”

He snorted.

“What would you want in exchange?”

“What, we’re bargaining before I even know what you’re after? Must be something really good.”

“Name it. What do you want?”

He looked suddenly serious.

“All I want is to be free of Aidan Rhodes.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “And just how do you propose to do that?”

“I can’t say, exactly. But I’ll work on it.”

He gave me a disbelieving look.

“You yourself keep saying how gol-durned powerful I am. So why do you doubt I could go up against him? Especially if someone like your aunt is willing to work with me, train me.”

“Wait just a goddamned second,” he said. “My
what
? My
aunt
?”

“You mentioned her before, remember? Outside of Aidan’s, you said—”

“I know what I said. But I also took it back. I told you, I don’t want any part of that life.”

“She’s the real deal, though, right? Powerful?”

He nodded, still wary.

“All I’m asking for is an introduction, for you to set me up with her. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“And you’re saying that if I do this . . . that you’ll get me free of Aidan Rhodes, male witch.”

I nodded. “I can’t guarantee exactly when, but I’ll find a way.”

He held my eyes for a long moment. Cynicism was edged out, just barely, by something very rare for Sailor: hope.

He blew out a loud breath. “I don’t have a lot of faith, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Hey, that’s about the best I can do.”

“I know.”

 

I picked up the phone to call Bronwyn and then put it down at least ten times that night. Partly because I don’t like telephones, and partly because I didn’t know what to say.

I hadn’t seen or heard from Bronwyn since I found the hex, though Maya told me she had visited and Bronwyn seemed to be holding up well. I felt terrible that our friendship seemed to be slipping away, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I simply couldn’t accede to her wishes and leave her unprotected.

The next day was busy at Aunt Cora’s Closet. Maya’s mother, Lucille, had started making patterns based on vintage dresses, enlarging them and sewing reproductions for the more typical, larger-framed modern woman. They were selling like hotcakes. On my way to Coffee to the People yesterday I had seen two women on the street wearing a couple of the popular styles.

A mother in her thirties and her teenaged daughter were having a rollicking time trying on outfits—the daughter fit into the originals, and the mother into the reproductions. They each tried on sundresses, then skirtjacket combos, all from the late 1950s. They were joking about wearing matching dresses to the girl’s graduation and started laughing so hard they could barely speak. Their relationship warmed my heart.

That’s it,
I thought.
I’m calling Bronwyn
.

To my surprise, she didn’t hang up on me. In fact, she assured me that she loved me and she knew I thought I was doing the right thing. In a way it made me feel worse than if she’d yelled at me; it was just so Bronwyn of her.

As I was ringing up the mother-daughter purchases, the teenager looked down at the glass counter display.

“Oh, those are so pretty! What are they?”

“Spirit bottles,” I said, bringing a few out and setting them atop the counter.

The bottles were among the few nonvintage items I carried in the store, alongside talismans that I consecrated and charged with the New Moon; pentacles, powerful crystals and stones, and a few small totems. I had recently been inspired to make the spirit bottles out of a bunch of old items I found at a garage sale in West Oakland. Spirit bottles are embellished on the outside, then filled with herbs, oils, and rolled parchments full of thoughts and wishes.

I had no intention of becoming a supernatural supply shop, but I had to admit that with Bronwyn’s herb stand in one corner and my growing display of witch-related items, I might be accused of such. Then again, along the Haight Street shopping district, with its head shops and hippie paraphernalia, Aunt Cora’s Closet was hardly out of place.

“They’re so pretty! What are they used for?”

“They’re meant to draw and trap evil and negative energy.”

“So they bring good luck?”

“Not exactly. They take away negative energy . . . sometimes it seems like the same thing. In the old days they were filled with things like needles, urine, hair, and herbs, and buried under the fireplace hearth, or the four corners of the floor, or plastered into the walls. It was said that evil would be impaled on pins and needles, drown in the liquid, and be sent away by the herbs.”

The mom picked up a blue bottle embellished with shells, spangles, and feathers. It was filled with dew I collected in the forest of Golden Gate Park.

“Ooh, I love that one!” said the girl.

“That’s a water spirit bottle,” I said. “Are you crafty at all? They’re fun to make for yourself. There are all different kinds, incorporating different sorts of items, depending on what you’re after. Moon goddess and sun altar bottles, prosperity bottles, earth elemental bottles . . .”

“But would it be really, um,
magical
if I made one myself?”

“Oh, yes. Creative energy is very powerful. For most people, making art and crafts brings up a kind of relaxed concentration, similar to meditation, allowing the positive energy to flow through your hands and into the item you’re working on.” This was the sort of state I couldn’t manage to attain while scrying—or at least never had until Aidan worked his magic. But creating things like carved talismans and spirit bottles got me pretty close.

By now several customers were gathered around for my impromptu seminar, picking up the bottles and inspecting them.

“It’s like wearing a hand-knitted sweater.” I picked up a hand-knitted pale pink baby’s sweater made of the softest wool, with a little pewter Winnie-the-Pooh button at the collar. “What child could wear something like this without feeling comforted? And that goes tenfold when an item’s handmade by someone you love. You can’t help but think of that person whenever you wear it, or use it, or look at it. That’s a powerful spiritual connection, and it sets off a series of positive thoughts, ideas, sensations.”

The mother and daughter wound up buying two dresses each and the water spirit bottle. They also suggested we start a craft day at the store, to teach people to make their own.

“That’s a great idea,” said Maya. “I could bring leftovers from school. We’d have a blast.”

I agreed. We could make it a regular event at Aunt Cora’s Closet. But first I just needed to prevent the dissolution of a supernatural pact so that Mike Perkins didn’t set up a massive youth-stealing company by allying himself with an evil practitioner. How hard could that be?

Right after lunch, Sailor came by the store to tell me we had an appointment with his aunt. He left his motorcycle under Conrad’s loving care, and we took the Mustang east across the Bay Bridge. His aunt’s house was in the Oakland hills.

As we drove, I peppered Sailor with questions.

“Are there a lot of Rom around here, in the Bay Area?”

“Enough,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe more than enough.”

“But there are a lot of different types of Gypsies, though, right?”

“Plenty. My family’s mostly Gitan, Cale from Spain.”

“And the language? You speak it?”

He shook his head. “Just a very little bit. A lot of it’s dying out, anyway. And even among people who speak Rom, a lot of the words are borrowed from the host country language, so much so that the different dialects can be unintelligible.”

I found the whole Rom culture fascinating. I had met a lot of them as I wandered the world, in Spain and France and North Africa. I’d heard they were originally from India, but they’d been wandering for so many generations it was hard to say. Like a lot of wandering peoples, they didn’t recognize any particular governmental authority. They often deserved their reputation for being thieves and liars—as far as I could tell, they did what they had to in order to maintain their cultural integrity. And if that meant breaking the law, then so be it.

We wound through nice large homes with well-tended yards and expensive cars in the driveways before pulling up to a two-story structure behind ornate iron gates. The house was painted a bright bubblegum pink, and a large hand-painted sign, decorated with curlicues and flourishes, read:
Fortunes Read, Desires Fulfilled
.

When I pulled up to the gates Sailor leaned out and pushed the buzzer for the intercom. “It’s me,” he said. The wrought iron swung open slowly.

There was a line of salt across the threshold of the front door.

“Sastimos,”
Sailor said by way of greeting.
“Sar san?”

“Sastimos,”
said the man who answered the door. He was short and stocky, wearing jeans, athletic shoes, and a sweatshirt. His coloring was dark, Mediterranean. He gave Sailor a manly backslapping hug and invited us in. Sailor introduced him as his uncle Eric, though he didn’t look any older than Sailor, probably midthirties.

“Renna’s just finishing up with a client,” Eric said. “Coffee?”

“Sounds great. It’s Turkish coffee, really strong,” Sailor said to me.

“I’d love some. Thank you.”

Eric led us into the well-appointed kitchen, which was outfitted with maple cabinets and filled with bowls of fruit, painted china, and carved brass knickknacks. I also recognized charms against the evil eye, along with bundles of rosemary. Everything carried the aroma of cloves and cardamom, and then of strong coffee as Eric brewed it in a brass coffeepot.

I noticed a copy of the
Guardian
facedown atop the counter. At the back, circled in red, was an advertisement for Renna’s “Gypsy Fortune-telling” services.

“You have a lovely home,” I said, making conversation. “Have you lived here long?”

“Long enough. Neighbors hate us.”

“Why?”

He looked up from the coffee-making equipment, met Sailor’s eyes, and smiled.

“Because we’re Rom. And because we painted the house pink, I imagine.”

I thought of Prince High’s black abode. I was willing to bet those neighbors would be happy to trade one Devil’s House for a pink structure owned by Gypsy fortune-tellers.

On the stool sat a very old accordion. It looked like an antique. “Do you play?”

“Would you like me to?”

“Really? I love accordion music,” I said.

He picked it up in a practiced swoop, looped the strap over his head and adjusted the fit. Then he started playing, swaying slightly. The accordion is an all-body instrument.

He played what sounded like a flamenco tune. The music carried with it history, and dancing, and sultry nights. Suddenly I was transported to a summer’s night, heady with the scent of grapes and the lingering heat of the day, in a little plaza in a village in the south of Spain. I remembered a young man playing the accordion, a very old woman dancing, the crowd keeping time with loud, rhythmic clapping.

I glanced over to find Sailor’s dark gaze on me. It made sense, somehow, that he had this blood running through his veins. Whether he wanted to admit to it or not.

Just as Eric launched into a second song, a door down the hall opened and a young woman emerged. It was clear she had been crying. She clutched candles and flowers to her chest as she hurried past us and out the front door.

Sailor’s aunt appeared to be in her late forties, at least ten years older than Eric. She was curvy, ample, wearing a long skirt and a vest over a white shirt, and an elaborate multitiered necklace of gold coins. Her dramatic dark eyes were lined in kohl.

“Lily, this is my aunt Renna. Renna, Lily Ivory,” Sailor introduced us.

“Welcome to my home,” she said with a sweeping gesture, inviting me into her room. And then in a nononsense voice: “Eric, put the accordion down and finish building those shelves in the basement. And all that new equipment needs to be unloaded from the Honda. Sailor, make yourself useful.”

He rolled his eyes but followed Eric.

Renna shook her head as she led the way down the hall.

“Try to get anything done around here,” she groused. “A witch’s natural enemy is time—or actually, the lack of time. You watch, you’ll see. The need to share oneself drives us, but it takes from us as well.”

As I walked into the room, I realized we were in her bedchamber. I tried to cover my shock at how open Renna was, to allow clients into her sleeping chamber, her inner sanctum. The house was large; surely there was no necessity to meet in this room. I wondered if perhaps she gleaned some of her power from the intimacy.

There was a shallow bowl of water and flower petals on the dresser. Renna dipped her fingertips in it and invited me to do the same.