The Flower Bowl Spell (28 page)

“Is too much.” She tries to hand it back. I
push it into her hands.

“Take it take it take it.”

She’s embarrassed, but doesn’t protest for
long. Before she heads out the door, she turns back to me one last
time.

“No husband. Where he is?”

I shake my head and shrug. I can’t think
about that right now.

The girls sidle up to me and I finally touch
them, making sure they’re really all right. Soft hair curling under
my fingers, shampooed last night. Smooth, young cheeks,
graham-cracker breath. They’re fine.

Cleo takes my hand, her lips pressed
together, like she’s trying not to cry. “We should have gone with
you.”

I grimace. “Oh. You would have been bored
silly. Grown-up stuff. Not that growing up is boring. But. Well.
Did you have fun with Rosario?”

“Memphis couldn’t take us with her,” Romola
says in her big-sister voice. “She had to work.”

Cleo ignores her and looks at me. “But you
needed us.”

There’s something about her words and the
intensity of her gaze on me. I try to laugh it off. “I probably
did. I think I destroyed my laptop.” But she means what she says. I
suddenly realize I’ve forgotten all about Xien. The last time I saw
him was outside the housing complex. Where did he go?

“Your Auntie Tess called,” Romola says. She
hands me a slip of paper written in her neat nine-year-old script.
Tess. I suddenly want to see her very much. I grab my cell phone
out of my bag and punch through the menu to my most recent
calls—she’s almost always at the top. Before I call, though, I’m
reminded of the guy on the bus, the liar who hit redial.

I plunge my hand into my bag again until I
find Stinky’s phone. I check his recent calls.

I recognize the last phone number, and I
can’t believe it.

Why would he be getting calls from Gru?

PART FIVE: THE FLOWER BOWL SPELL

Chapter Twenty-three

My thoughts enter compartmentalizing mode:
Gru. Stinky. The girls. Viveka. Sunglasses, Locket. De-winged
fairies. And whatever else I’ve forgotten.

Where to begin?

Stinky’s phone is in my hand, Gru’s number
ready and waiting. I hit the call button. After the fourth ring, I
expect Gru’s answering machine to pick up, but it doesn’t. On the
tenth ring, she answers.

“What is it now?” Her voice sounds old,
hesitant. A little peevish. And something I haven’t heard from her
before—scared.

She waits for a reply, but when none comes,
she says, “I can’t do any more for you. Can’t you just leave me
alone?”

Still, I say nothing.

“Wait. I didn’t mean that.” She’s
conciliatory now. “What is it, honey? What do you need?”

I know she doesn’t know it’s me. I know that
the smart thing to do would be to hang up and move on to my next
thought compartment, but I can’t help myself. “I need to know, Gru,
why you’re helping this stinking chickenshit bastard. What you can
do for me is give me a goddamn answer.”

There’s silence on the other end. It seems
like an eternity before she says anything. “Memphis.”

I glance at the girls. Romola is rolling
dice. Cleo looks anxious.

“Hi, Gru.”

“You’re—you’re all right?”

“Define all right.”

“Where are you?”

I walk into the kitchen, away from
inquisitive eyes. “Not in captivity, if that’s what you’re
wondering.”

There’s a sigh on her end. I wait for her to
say something, knowing that whatever her words are will make a huge
difference in what happens next. “I’m sorry.”

Maybe not so huge. “What are you doing with
this guy?” I ask. “What the hell is going on?”

“You haven’t…you didn’t…no. You would be
asking different questions if you had.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “You’d better
get to safety. That’s all I can tell you.”

I picture her—long, silver-gray hair, grown
more and more brittle over the years, breaking off at the ends no
matter how many homemade herbal cream rinses she uses, coiled in a
bun or hanging down her back in an ever-shortening braid.
Sun-damaged skin, wrinkling her into a crone older than her
seventy-odd years. Kindly blue eyes and wide face, with strong,
yellowing teeth. She has been the surrogate grandmother I’ve
neglected since leaving the craft, the grandmother who seemed just
as finished with me years before, when the coven broke up, although
I pushed and pushed, driving up, often unannounced, to her
Mendocino compound with Auntie Tess, and later on my own, until
Alice died and I let go of magick.

Never once have I doubted that Gru loves me,
or that she would protect me no matter what.

“Are my great-granddaughters with you?”

“No.” If she’s half the witch I’ve always
believed her to be, she’ll know I’m lying.

“Good.”

There’s a tug at my skirt. Cleo is looking up
at me. “Hang up, Memphis.”

I take the phone from my ear, and just before
I end the call, I think I hear Gru say, “If you were a mother you’d
understand.”

Just as I hang up Stinky’s phone, my phone
rings. It’s Cooper.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“That’s a very good question.” The voice on
the other end is not his. It’s a woman’s voice—youthful, flirty,
and dangerous.

“Who is this?”

“Another good one. You are on a roll,
Memphis.”

I recognize her. Cheradon.

“What are you doing with my boyfriend’s
phone?”

“The real question is, what am I doing with
your boyfriend?”

Fuck me.

“You know, those high school faculty parking
lots are really ideal for being bad,” she says. “I don’t think one
single soul saw us lure him into our car.” She sighs. “Teachers are
so trusting.”

“Let me talk to him,” I say.

There’s a bit of muffled sound and then
Cooper is on the line.

“Hello,
ma
cherie
.” He sounds
happy. Maybe drunk. “I think I might be dying.”

“Cooper, where are you? What did they do to
you?” As I ask my questions, I reach out to him. He’s not far away.
He’s in a dark place. His hands are bound. My heartbeat rocks into
double-time.

Cheradon gets back on the line and her voice
is sweet but vicious. “If you really love him, you’ll meet us at
Lindley Meadow, two a.m. And come alone or he’s eviscerated. We’ve
already started slicing, and it’s pretty fucking fun. Got it?” She
laughs. “Kiss noises.”

****

Strangely, I don’t panic. Get fucking angry,
yes, but panic, no.

My magickal cabinet has been relegated to a
dismal corner in the basement/garage. Our neighbor in the flat
above us is an antiques buff, and he’s always offering me more and
more ridiculous sums of money for it. I catch him glaring at me
sometimes like I’m a museum-looter for keeping it here in its damp,
dusty nook. It’s about a third of the size of Tucker’s gorgeous
wardrobe, and much more simple than Tess’s Chinese cupboard inlaid
with jade and mother-of-pearl.

Of course, almost everything in it is way
past its sell-by date. My dried herbs, most bought at Whole Foods
(I’ve never been a garden witch), are bleached of color and scent.
The flasks of olive oil and rose water have turned. There isn’t a
new, unused candle in sight. Even the ribbons on the wand I never
bother using are fraying, and my silver pentacle needs a good
polishing. I throw the sundries in my bag. I could duck out to the
store for fresh herbs, but if there’s anything Gru said that I can
take to heart it’s her get-to-safety warning. Besides, pushing a
shopping cart up and down the grocery store aisles with a bunch of
wooly-cap-wearing hipsters doesn’t seem like the best idea right
now.

Without further ado, I whisk the girls out of
the house and into the car. We barrel over the hills and cut
through Golden Gate Park to Tess’s apartment in the Richmond
district.

“Ah, what a treat!” She stands in the doorway
clapping her hands when we arrive. “I have presents for you girls,
presents!” She laughs and grabs me in a hug. “Guess what?” She
pulls away. “Gil called me and said I haven’t lost my job at all!
In fact, he wants to thank me for initiating a
partnership
with the ACLU over the sweatshop thing! They’re forming an
oversight committee and I get to be on it! Ha!” She does a little
jig. “I cut my trip short and came straight home. That resort was
so
boring
. Eating, yoga, meditation, eating, yoga, and
more
meditation.” She fakes a yawn. “And your protection
charm worked, well, like a
charm
!” She starts laughing.

“Auntie, I have to talk to you, right now.
It’s about Cooper.”

“Is he going back to his wife? I knew
it.”

“No, that’s not it at all.”

But Tess isn’t paying attention. She holds up
her hand, stopping me. “Just a minute, lamb.” She throws open the
door of the hallway closet. It’s full of coats, appliance boxes,
her vacuum cleaner, and shoes. She pulls out two large shopping
bags full of gift-wrapped packages and hands one to each of the
girls. Cleo begins tearing into hers with abandon, while Romola
takes her time, although her eyes are gleefully shiny.

“Auntie Tess, these are kind of elaborate
gifts, don’t you think?” I don’t add,
For people you hardly
know, even children
.

“Oh, they aren’t from me. I don’t buy
souvenirs. They’re from Viveka.”

Romola stops shaking a box and Cleo pauses in
her shredding. “You mean our mom?” Romola asks.

“Mommy!” Cleo squeals.

Auntie Tess nods, her expression that of the
proverbial canary-catching cat. “She was in
las Islas
Melloras
too! She was visiting a friend and she told me to tell
you girls that she’ll be home soon. But it’s going to take a while
longer than she thought.” Tess takes an envelope from her purse on
the front hall table and gives it to me. I peek inside: more cash.
A lot. “She gave me a cashier’s check,” Auntie Tess says to my
unasked question of how she got so many greenbacks through
customs.

Romola’s eyes go from shiny to glazed. “Are
we going home to Daddy?”

Tess pats her on the shoulder. “Soon,
sweetheart. Soon. Listen, I don’t have much to eat in the house.
But how about we order some burritos?”

The girls shrug and nod. Tess waves her hands
at them, as if shooing them into action. “Well, go on! Keep opening
your presents. Memphis? Help me pick out the food?”

I follow her to her old-fashioned kitchen
with its classic O’Keefe and Merritt stove and 1950s-era
refrigerator. She opens it and pulls out a half-empty bottle of
chardonnay. “This might send me to sleep, but I think we need
some.”

“Hell yeah,” I mutter as she pours two
glasses, emptying the bottle. “Tess, they have Cooper.”

She looks puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Cheradon Badler, and I don’t know who else,
but Tyson Belmonte is involved, and this guy who attacked me today,
and maybe Gru.”

I tell her everything that has happened since
she left, leaving nothing out, not even the clothes-wearing geese.
I feel myself getting lighter as I unload the truth. Tess simply
looks at me from beneath her bangs without interrupting. When I get
to Bright Vixen’s dead body, she puts her hands over her mouth and
tears fill her eyes, spilling over, but she doesn’t interrupt. As I
describe Tucker’s powers and his fairy aviary, her eyes are dry and
wide. I pull Stinky’s bag of bones from my bag and she pours them
into her hands, shaking her head when I ask if she knows what they
are. She recognizes the vial of powder though, sniffing it and
rubbing the powder between her fingers.

“This is negative stuff, Memphis.”

“What is it?”

She washes her hands, liberally pumping soap
from the dispenser next to the kitchen sink into her palms. “It’s a
knock-out powder. Cypress dust and dried lettuce.”

“A magickal roofie.” Stinky wanted me out.
And then what?

I get to the phone call from Cheradon,
Cooper’s addled voice. I feel tears in my own eyes, my throat going
tight. Auntie Tess hugs me. Her hugs are something I’ve been able
to count on my whole life, and I find myself letting go in her
embrace, trying to cry quietly so I won’t scare the girls. She lets
me.

“It’s not him they want,” she whispers after
I’ve worn myself out. We both glance towards the living room where
the girls sit watching TV. “He’s just a pawn.”

“I know,” I say through my sniffles. “And
pawns are expendable.”

“They’re also incredibly strong.”

We pull away from each other. Auntie Tess
offers me a clean, soft hankie from her pocket. I blow my nose
while she opens her pantry and pulls out a bottle of merlot. She
pours herself a generous glassful, downing it without letting it
breathe. “We’re going to get him back. I’ll help you.”

“Thank you.”

She glances at the clock. “It’s seven now.
We’d better order that food. Then we’ll figure out what we need to
do until you have to get to the meadow.”

“Okay.”

She pours me a glass of the red wine. “I have
just one question. You can see fairies?”


“Yes, but they’re more of a pain in the ass
than you’d think. And I can’t hear them. What do you think this is
all about, Tess?”

She paces the kitchen a bit, and I watch,
waiting for her to figure out what I can’t.

“I can’t believe Gru would be involved in
this. Unless she’s gone crazy or has Alzheimer’s.” She stops. “Then
again, she did like being head priestess.”

“You think this is about a power grab?” I
say.

She doesn’t answer right away. “I’ve heard
some disturbing things lately that are starting to make sense,” she
finally says. “Things about a very powerful group of witches trying
to form a coven with dark, iniquitous magick. But they were
supposed to be based in Canada—Vancouver, I think. Someplace up
north.”