Spellcasting in Silk: A Witchcraft Mystery (24 page)

I grabbed a fistful of the silver charms Selena had polished, set my crystal ball on the steamer trunk, and settled in before it.

I centered myself and drew upon my anger to blast away my anxiety. Cradling the charms in one hand, I thought of Selena and gazed into the depths of the crystal.

At first, there was nothing. Just a few wispy clouds, as always. I tried to exert my focus, while not focusing.

And I saw something, clear as day.

Selena was standing at one of the display tables at Betty’s house, as I’d first seen her. She was wearing white gloves and that ridiculous pink and purple ensemble, polishing a silver tea set.

And then I saw the inner door, the one I had noticed at the back of the garage-turned-closet, when Maya and I were sorting through Betty’s clothes. It was ajar, and beckoning. I had assumed that door led outside, but perhaps it was something else altogether.

I lingered a few more precious moments, to see if I
could pick out anything else from the clouds in the crystal. There was nothing more.

I grabbed the car keys, stuck the Hand of Glory in my satchel, and found the one item I knew this killer had touched: the poppet Maya had found in Betty’s clothes.

Normally, a practitioner’s poppet couldn’t be used against him, but this fellow, though clearly talented, was just as clearly not well trained. Since he had attempted to imbue the doll with his own intentions but didn’t know how to sustain them, I might be able to make the wax work against him. It was the best I could do, under the circumstances.

As Oscar and I ran to the Mustang, I realized the Aunt Cora’s Closet van was missing. We found it parked a block away from Betty North’s house, at an awkward angle to the curb. I pulled up behind it and told Oscar to stay in the car.

“I want to go with you, Mistress.”

“Oscar, I need you to stay here in case Selena comes back to the van. I don’t know what I’m up against in that house, or even if I’m right. I’ll call you if I need you, but right now I want to face him myself.”

Oscar grumbled but did as I asked.

I went around the side of the dark house and used the Hand of Glory to let myself in the back door. I moved silently through the house, but didn’t see or hear anyone . . . not even Betty North’s ghost. I snuck down the carpeted stairs to the rumpus room, hoping to spot my errant charge playing with the silver.

Selena wasn’t there. I went into the garage, now emptied of clothes and knickknacks.

And I spotted the door in the back, the one I’d seen in the crystal ball.

It was locked, but opened quickly under the influence of the Hand of Glory.

A dark passage led to a basement with a dirt floor, lit by a single lightbulb hanging from a string. It had been set up as a workshop, and was filled with the tools of a magical trade: jars of herbs and powders, feathers and bones, oils and honey. But they were all a jumble. When it comes to ingredients for a spell, a smart witch keeps everything separate and labeled because it is essential that elements not be combined by accident. A good witch maintained control over her spells.

The portrait of Lupita I had seen in Fred’s studio was pinned to one unfinished wall. Lupita’s image had been scraped and stabbed, the canvas slashed across her throat.

And lying on the worktable was a wax doll with long brown strings approximating hair. It looked vaguely like me, and was wrapped in my missing scarf.

I immediately went to work, using the poppet I had brought with me. Molding and forming, warming the wax with the warmth of my hands, and chanting under my breath, I began to cast my spell. As I mumbled, I called upon my ancestors, and in particular to the Ashen Witch. My intent concentrated and focused as the energy flowed through my heart and hands before streaming into the wax.

I formed the soft wax to look as much as I could like the Lily doll.

I heard someone coming down the stairs to the rumpus room. Unwrapping the scarf as quickly as I could, I sprinkled it with the brew I had brought in a wide-mouth Mason jar, and dressed the new doll in it, so that it looked like the original Lily doll poppet. I laid it back on the workbench.

I buried the other doll in the earthen floor and pressed the dirt smooth with my foot. I was wiping my hands just as the door opened.

“Lily Ivory,” Finn said. He seemed surprised to see me, but not overly so. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I thought I’d look around for some more clothes for the shop.”

His smile broadened, and he glanced around the basement. “Where’s the kiddo?”

Thank the goddess
, I thought to myself.
He doesn’t have
Selena
. I would worry about where she was later, but at least Finn wasn’t holding her captive.

“Asleep at home,” I lied. “Safe and sound.”

“Guess I’ll have to roust her out of there, then.”

“You won’t get past the front door. Not while I’m alive.”

He laughed, then nodded and shrugged. “I guess you’re right. I’ll just have to kill you.”

“Good luck with that.”

“So, did
you
figure out the message, then? I thought Selena would get it; she always struck me as a bit of a martyr. I figured she’d be able to decipher my message and come to me of her own accord. We used to play together, writing each other messages by mixing up Rot One, Rot Two. . . .”

“You played together, or you used her?”

“She and I are good friends. She’s my little helper.”

“You had her clean the silver, didn’t you? She didn’t realize she was imbuing the metal with power, which you then appropriated. The silver would tarnish as you depleted the power, and she’d clean it again.”

“She’s handy to have around, that one.”

“She’s protected now. You won’t be using her anymore.”

“On the contrary, I’ll do anything I want.” He grabbed the scarf-wrapped doll from the workbench and held it up. “Do you know what this is?”

“I’m a witch, remember?”

“Not a very good one, as far as I can tell. I tested you with those photos I showed you—you had no idea what was going on! None at all! Didn’t catch on to the silver magic, or Selena’s being here, or anything. And Lupita said you were supposed to be really something.”

“Where is Lupita now? Is she okay?”

He kept talking, ignoring my question. “I only started training a few months ago and I’m already better than you. Imagine what I could have done, if my useless parents had only recognized my talents. Instead, they just beat me every time I did something they thought was weird. Well, there’ll be plenty of time later to settle old scores.”

As he spoke, he handled the doll. If he had been as good a practitioner as he thought he was, he would have felt that the poppet’s vibrations were off. But as I had hoped, he was focused on me.

“That’s terrible, Finn. My mother rejected me, too.”

“Oh, right, we’re going to swap childhood sob stories?
Boo hoo
. I don’t think so.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m simply saying that I know how hard it is to be a magical child.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was. Until I discovered Satanism.”

“Satan has no place in the magical world.”

“Whatever,” he said with a shrug. “I called on a few demons, but they never answered. But then I went by
El Pajarito
for supplies one day, and met Lupita. Overheard her trying to talk Ursula into pulling a scam over on Betty. Ursula chased her out of the store, I asked her out for a drink, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“And then you approached Betty about handling the estate sale?”

He nodded. He appeared pleased to share with me how it had all come together. “Lupita introduced me to Betty, and we went to work on the old lady so she’d leave
us the place. Didn’t take much—Betty didn’t really have anyone. I see a lot of that in my business; it’s really sad.” He let out a sigh. “But it was when I met Selena that a whole new world opened up. She fell asleep and stuff started . . . happening. I finally figured out it had to do with the shiny things she loved so much.”

“Selena’s a magical child. She needs guidance.”

“She’s a freak.”

“She’s special, like you and me. She’s lucky, though. She has Ursula.”

He laughed. “Ursula is going down. After a very long engagement, Lupita and I were recently married. That makes me Selena’s uncle. Now that I’m a widower, I’m the closest relative Selena has. She’ll come live with me now. I promised Lupita that I would always take care of Selena.”

“So you found a way to capture her magic? Is that how it worked?” I asked. “Was Lupita in on it from the start?”

“Lupita’s the one who told me how to make a voodoo doll. She got me supplies from Ursula’s shop. But she didn’t have any power. That was all me. It’s amazing what a person can learn on the Internet these days. I did my homework.”

It was true that a person could learn witchcraft from books or the Internet; but to practice it responsibly, one had to learn far more important and difficult skills: how to control the power and use it responsibly, how to rein in one’s own ambition and selfish desires. Not to mention how to maintain a spell over time. The “null” poppet Finn had created revealed that his magic dissipated quickly.

“Did you try to summon a demon to watch over Ursula’s store, by any chance?”

For the first time, Finn looked uncomfortable. “Yeah,
not sure what happened there. I sort of . . . let things fly, I guess. Then I couldn’t figure out how to walk it back. Whatever, I don’t need the stupid store, anyway. When Lupita and I got together I thought that place was going to be a cash cow—I even encouraged her to get more exposure for the store with that newspaper article. I’m good at things like that, good at marketing, making business plans. But . . . I dunno, it’s such a dump now and I don’t feel like cleaning it up.”

“But you’re planning on inheriting this house?”

“Sure. Betty left the place to Lupita until that interloper, Nicky, started sniffing around. I followed her to the Golden Gate Bridge and when she leaned over the rail to drop something in the water, I saw my chance. Boom, a little shove and bye-bye, Nicky. Didn’t even need to use the poppet I made. I told the police I tried to grab her, even worked up a few tears.” He grinned. “They thought I was a poor traumatized tourist from Canada!”

I felt queasy, and tried to use the sensation to fuel my focus.

“Anyway, Knox thinks he’s inheriting this place, but he’s got another thing coming when they validate the new will. As Lupita’s husband,
I’m
next in line to inherit Betty’s property, and heck, my workshop’s already set up here. I’ll sell off the rest of Betty’s crap, pocket the money, and that’ll be that. Oh—except I’ll keep the silver, I guess. Let Selena earn her keep.”

He looked at the doll in his hands, the one wrapped in my scarf.

When he met my gaze, his eyes were cold and empty.

“Do you know what this is?”

“I think so.”

He laughed again and shook his head. “I don’t think you do. If you did, you’d be shaking in your boots, kiddo. This is a special doll. A
Lily
poppet.”

I kept my face blank.

“Right now,” he continued, “I hold your fate quite literally in my hands.”

“Do you, now?”

Holding it in his left hand, he picked up a screwdriver from the workbench, held it over the doll’s midsection, and smiled.

“Don’t,”
I said.

“So sorry, Lily.”

“I’m serious, Finn,
don’t
. Think about who you are, about all the people you have hurt. Is that what you want your life to be about? To leave a trail of pain behind you?”

“Why not?
My
life has been full of pain.”

Raising his arm, he stabbed the doll with the screwdriver, and immediately doubled over. He looked at me in surprise, shock and confusion on his flushed face.

“What did you do?” he asked. “How did you
do
that?”

“
Stop
, Finn,” I pleaded. “Put the doll down, I’m begging you.”

He had dropped the screwdriver, but now held the doll in both hands, and gave it a vicious twist.

He cried out and fell to the ground, screaming and moaning, writhing in pain. The doll lay on the dirt beside him, not far from where I had buried the wax figure Finn thought he was using to hurt me.

Seems I had a gift for poppet magic, after all.

It is a terrible thing to witness someone in agony, on the brink of death. I tried to summon compassion for Finn, but felt my heart harden. He had tried to harm Betty, and had pushed Nicky Utley into the cold gray waters of the San Francisco Bay, just so he could inherit a house. He had murdered his wife, Lupita, and would have used Selena for his own gain. Who knows what he would have done to her when she was no longer of any use to him?

Finn reached one hand toward me and whispered, “Help me!”

Selena burst into the room and threw a handful of shiny silver cutlery in the air with white-gloved hands.

The spoons twirled, catching the light of the bare bulb in their depths and reflecting circles of light. As I watched, the dots played across Selena’s face, then began to gather. They spun together and created a cone of light over Finn.

He collapsed and lay twitching on the ground.

“Did I kill him?” Selena asked in a voice so small I could barely make out her words.

“No . . . he hurt himself,” I said quietly.

“I
wanted
to kill him,” Selena said, her eyes narrowed. “He killed Emma’s mommy. He . . . he acted nice to me. But he was
using
me.”

“Listen to me, Selena: It is a terrible feeling to be lied to and taken advantage of. I know. But Finn can’t hurt you anymore.”

Oscar ran in through the door. He stopped short, looking down at Finn.

“
Dang
. You killed him?”

“He’s not quite dead. And I didn’t touch him, and neither did Selena. He hurt himself, thinking he was hurting me. Finn became the object of his own destruction.”

“Good witch trick,” Oscar said with a nod. He yanked one thumb in my direction. “Hey, Selena, this one has plenty of secrets up her sleeve. She’ll teach you well.”