A Cast-Off Coven

by Juliet Blackwell

  “Could we make cookies?”

  I wasn’t sure how far to push my familiar. I knew Aidan well enough to know he wouldn’t like being crossed, and if he had sworn Oscar to secrecy, the little guy might be vulnerable to some sort of punishment if he told me the truth. Knowing Oscar, he wouldn’t be able to keep the guilt off his gnarled face.

  Besides, did it matter? If Oscar was spying on me, could he be telling Aidan anything I wouldn’t be willing to tell him myself? Only the details of my love life, I thought to myself. Or more to the point, my current lack of a love life. I had checked the message machine first thing upon walking into my apartment. Max hadn’t called.

  After whipping up a batch of Toll House cookies using local Ghirardelli chocolate chunks, Oscar and I both overindulged while discussing the further details of the shortstop position and the San Francisco Giants’ current pitching lineup, and then he curled up in his cubby atop the refrigerator to sleep.

  I brought out yesterday’s paper and read Max’s article on Jerry Becker’s meteoric rise. Interestingly, it was entitled The Devil’s Own Luck. The son of a poor immigrant, Jerry grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood in the city of Richmond, across the bay. He dropped out of high school by his sophomore year and got a job driving a delivery truck. Finally, he went back to school at night, managed to secure a small loan to develop a hair-curling device, and then attracted one investor after another as he founded one of the nation’s most successful chains of hairdressing schools. He then diversified into auto mechanic training and business schools, and had fingers in real estate and several pharmaceutical companies.

  Indeed, despite his humble beginnings Becker seemed to have had the devil’s own luck: He won a scholarship to go back to school when the first-place winner was killed in an auto accident; he sold off his first business mere days before the stock plummeted upon announcement of a new invention that would make his obsolete; his business partner went blind from a rare condition and eventually killed himself, leaving his half of the business to Becker.

  I sat back and pondered for a moment. The article had only whetted my appetite. Clearly, I needed to do some further research on the Internet. But technology makes me nervous. Since my senses are so primal, I feel put off by cyberspace and all those bits of code jumping around, uncontrolled. Theoretically the computer programs had all been developed and engineered by humans, so they had no inherent spirit of their own, but I had seen energy attracted to too many odd places not to believe that some opportunistic entity might jump right into the high-tech world. And then where would we all be?

  Still and all, search engines were useful research tools.

  Feeling rather silly, I laid out stones of hematite, malachite, and amethyst on the kitchen table, then lit a white anointed candle for protection before starting up my notebook computer and logging on to the Internet.

  I searched for “nuns in San Francisco.” Up came a site for an “order” of gay male nuns called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, established by a Sister Hysterectoria. Apparently they were huge in the Castro. Next I found a used clothing store in the Richmond district called Get Thee to a Nunnery. I made a note of the address, figuring I should check out the competition the next time I was in that part of town. Finally, there was a punk rock group called the Nuns who once opened for the Sex Pistols.

  These were not exactly the nuns I was looking for.

  Neither could I find anything significant with regard to the building that housed the San Francisco School of Fine Arts. I did find that Andromeda was right; there had been a cemetery on the site a long time hence. But it turned out that there were small graveyards all over San Francisco at one time; most of the bodies had been exhumed and moved to Colma and Oakland a century ago.

  As usual, there was an overwhelming amount of information on the Internet but nothing pertinent to my particular questions, odd as they were. Tomorrow I would go to the California Historical Society, where Susan had found the photo of the French novices, and talk to a human. I liked my chances there better.

  “Funny that the nuns left right after the earthquake.” Oscar’s voice startled me.

  “What are you doing up?”

  He shrugged and shoved one of the few remaining cookies into his mouth. “Couldn’t sleep. Hungry.”

  “Why do you think it’s strange the nuns left after the quake? Everyone left the building; it needed to be repaired.”

  He nodded. “It’s just that . . . sometimes when you summon a demon, all hell breaks loose.”

  “Are you saying these nuns caused the earthquake by calling the demon?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Can demons even cause an earthquake? If they were that powerful, wouldn’t they be wreaking major havoc every day?”

  Oscar shook his big head. “They like to play too much. If they’d wanted to wipe out humanity, they woulda done it back during the Holy Roman Empire, I reckon.”

  I had to smile at Oscar’s unconscious parroting of my Texan phrases. But then I considered what he was saying. It made a certain amount of sense.

  Speaking of nuns . . . I had intended to check in the closet for the missing letter while I was at the school earlier, but after my meeting with Ginny, and the fire alarm, I forgot all about it. Rats. I would love to get that missive fully translated, just in case it could shed some light on this whole affair.

  “Oscar, you didn’t happen to notice an old letter with all the clothes we took from the closet at the School of Fine Arts, did you?”

  He shook his big head.

  “Durn it,” I sighed under my breath. “How much do you know about demons, Oscar? Is there any way to tell who we’re dealing with exactly? The entity in the closet?”

  Oscar’s bottle green eyes widened. “I don’t know nothin’,” he said breathlessly. “They scare me. Can’t say their names.”

  I nodded. Those of us with powers and connections to the other realms had to be careful about these sorts of things. Regular humans might be able to talk about things like demons and elves and brownies without fear, but as for the rest of us, we adhered to the old saw, “Speak of the devil and the devil appears.”

  “You know who you should talk to, the one who knows everything. . . .”

  “Aidan? I thought you said he was out of town.”

  “Nah, not Aidan on this sort of thing. Sailor. He’s your man.”

  I sighed and rubbed my eyes. The last thing I wanted to think about was dealing, yet again, with the recalcitrant man in the bar. Not only was his negative attitude frustrating, but Sailor made me feel . . . strangely vulnerable. He said he couldn’t read my mind, but it seemed almost as though there was an elevated level of understanding between us—something beyond the norm. Given his apparent character—or lack thereof—this was not a comforting feeling.

  “Let’s get some sleep,” I said, switching off the computer.

  I tucked Oscar in his nest, showered, and crawled into bed.

  Night mares circled the room again, but I think I was on sensory overload. When I was riled, my powers were focused just fine. I merely shouted at the mares to go away, and they did.

  I spent the next morning finishing up laundry left over from the previous day’s washing marathon and opened the store on time at ten. Foot traffic was slow, as usual for a Tuesday morning. I enjoyed the quiet and used it to rearrange the shelves of gloves, folded scarves, and miscellanea, and to lay out some new talismans I had charged over the weekend.

  When Maya arrived to start her shift at noon, the store was empty of customers.

  “Maya, could I ask you a couple questions?”

  “Sure,” she said, stowing her shoulder bag under the counter and popping the lid on a travel mug of what smelled like chai tea. “What’s up?”

  “I ran into Ginny yesterday. She said she’s been hearing and seeing things at school.”

  Maya nodded, uncharacteristically quiet. Maya was no chatterbox under the best of circumstances, but neithe
r was she as solemn as she had been lately.

  “You didn’t tell me that,” I said.

  “We’ve all been hearing things. You know that.”

  “Hearing things, yes. But she’s seeing things, too.”

  Maya nodded.

  “Seeing things,” I explained gently, “is a whole different matter, supernaturally speaking.”

  “Huh. Guess I never thought of it that way.”

  “Are you okay, Maya? Is something bothering you?” Maya shrugged. “Nothing special.”

  “Maya?” I pressed. “What is it?”

  “It’s just that . . . this whole situation is making me . . . I don’t know . . . really . . .”

  “Uncomfortable?” I guessed. Maya was supportive of me as my friend, but she wasn’t intrigued by my abilities the way Bronwyn was. When it came to magic and mayhem, she was nearly as skeptical as Max.

  “Yes! I mean, I’m trying to be cool and all, and you know I really respect you and everything you’ve been through, but it’s not easy accepting what it all means.”

  “That there are other dimensions out there, and that our worlds sometimes overlap?”

  Maya looked sheepish. “Exactly. It’s all very hard to reconcile with the way I was raised. There aren’t a lot of ghosts and spirits in the Baptist church. Other than the Holy Ghost, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course,” Maya said, returning my smile.

  “I know it’s hard,” I said, “and I don’t want you too close to any of it, really, especially if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  “I’m all right. Maybe just a little at a time, okay?”

  “It’s a deal. Did Ginny say anything to you about the closet where we found the clothes we got from the school?”

  “Nothing much. She was a little odd, I remember, when she mentioned it. I think she was just scared, but you know the sounds have been getting worse. Besides, she’s been pretty upset about Andromeda’s doing so well, while she wasn’t.”

  “Those two don’t like each other much, do they?”

  “In your immortal words, boss, ‘not hardly.’ ”

  “Why is that? Just a student rivalry, or something more?”

  “I think it’s mostly just a personality clash. But on top of that . . . Ginny thinks Andromeda’s dad was fooling around with her mom.”

  “Marlene Mueller and Jerry Becker?”

  Maya shrugged and straightened a stack of promotional store postcards. “I imagine Ginny’ll calm down now that she has a show coming up. Did she mention it?”

  “She did.”

  “The reception is tonight. Want to go together?”

  “So soon? I thought she just signed with them.”

  “It’s fast; I know. But another exhibit that was supposed to be coming from Europe fell through. A ship holding the artwork sank, or something,” Maya said. “But Ginny’s been pretty optimistic about all of this; had her work prepped for the show already. I guess she’s not wanting to waste any time.”

  I left Maya in charge of the store while I ran to the North Baker Library at the California Historical Society on Mission Street. To my surprise I found Marlene Mueller working at a computer.

  “Marlene, how nice to see you here. This is a pleasant surprise.”

  “Lily,” Marlene said, looking shocked, and decidedly not pleased to see me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to look into the school building’s history. And you?”

  She shrugged. “The same. Trying to figure out what’s going on. Do you—how can I phrase this?—Lily, Ginny thinks Jerry Becker was murdered by a ghost.” She paused. Her delicate hands fluttered, and her voice dropped. “I can’t believe I actually just said that. Do you think such a thing is possible?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said, deciding it was best not to explain why.

  She looked relieved. “Me neither.”

  “Marlene, you were a student at the school, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, back in the early eighties. God, that seems so long ago, doesn’t it? I studied collage, paper arts in general.” She gave a little laugh. “Looking at all this stuff in here makes me want to go make art. I feel the urge to cut it up—if it weren’t historical, of course.”

  “Oh, that reminds me. I was at a garage sale, and I bought an old Scrabble game. It only has some of its letter tiles, but I thought you might be able to use them in your art.”

  “You bought it for me?”

  “It cost all of fifty cents. Don’t you love garage sales?”

  Marlene smiled and seemed to relax a little.

  “Was there anything unusual going on at the school when you were a student there?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. I mean, people talked about the bell tower’s being haunted just as they do now, and there were occasional rumors of something up under the eaves, but nothing more specific. Mostly the kind of stories young people like to tell one another about things that go bump in the night.”

  “But you never heard or saw anything yourself?”

  She shook her head.

  “Never knew anyone who claimed to have experienced something?”

  “No.”

  “How about recently? Did you see or hear anything the night Jerry Becker was killed?”

  “I wasn’t on campus when that happened. Todd had a ‘boys’ night out’ at a concert that evening, so I got together with a girlfriend.”

  “How about earlier in the day? Anything strange happen?”

  “No.” She shook her head again. “It was just another day. Meetings, phone calls with parents, e- mailing faculty. The usual. Well, except . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Just what I mentioned before. That someone took some things from my collage table. It happened a couple of weeks ago, as well. It just bothers me that anyone would have come into my office unannounced.”

  “No idea who?”

  “No. Why would anyone want to? Couldn’t they tear up their own magazines? It seems strange, doesn’t it?”

  “When did you notice this?”

  “Right after lunch. I ran into Jerry . . . I mean, Mr. Becker. He seemed preoccupied, hardly even said hello to me. As if he were looking right through me, and after . . .” She trailed off. Again I detected the smell of shame. Her pretty eyes looked hurt and confused. “How can men be so cold?”

  “That’s a hard one. I think sometimes—”

  “We . . . he and I . . .” Her vibrations zigzagged from shame to grief to red- hot anger. “He even made a pass at Ginny. Bastard.”

  So says the woman apparently cheating on her much-younger husband with a wealthy man. Being nonjudgmental was a tough gig at times. Those who cast spells do not have the luxury of casting judgments, Lily, I remembered Graciela lecturing.

  “When you and Ginny first opened the closet on the third floor, did you notice anything unusual?”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, anything at all . . . strange noises . . . ?”

  “Like the ghost?”

  “Sure. Or did you hear music playing, maybe? See anything in the mirror?”

  She frowned and shook her head. Her vibrations were tense, closed off. She was guarded around me.

  “Did you do anything unusual while you were there?”

  “Like what?”

  “Sing a song? Hum a chant? Accidentally set fire to a bundle of sage?” I was trying to determine if Marlene or Ginny had inadvertently conjured a demon. But it couldn’t be that easy, could it? If demons were that easy to summon, this world would have been overrun by their kind millennia ago.

  “Accidentally. . . . what?” Marlene’s expression suggested that I had gone completely insane, but then she didn’t know the full truth about me, and I wasn’t about to enlighten her. Admitting that you might have a resident ghost and bringing in a “psychic” investigator is one thing; casting witches’ spells quite another. Most people fear witches. The people around me in the Haight had been so
open and accepting that I was starting to forget how unusual that was.

  “Are you saying there’s something strange in that closet? I thought it was just the stairwell.”

  “Never mind,” I said. “It’s probably nothing.”

  “You might ask Ginny. She’s the one who discovered it in the first place.” Marlene stood and hoisted her huge designer purse onto her shoulder. “Anyway, I have to dash. How do I close this computer search?”

  “Click the x in the top right-hand corner,” I said.

  And with the click of a mouse Marlene was gone. I watched her go, then glanced down at the computer screen. She hadn’t closed the program as she had thought, and a search engine showed results for “demon possession.”

  I wish people would stop lying to me, I thought grumpily. How am I supposed to rid their schools of evil spirits when they keep lying to me?

  “I’m Dean. What can I do you for?”

  The unfamiliar voice belonged to a young man with thick black glasses and a fifties do, short on the sides, puffed up in the front, and slick in the back, à la Buddy Holly. He wore narrow black jeans and a crisp white T-shirt, and both actually fit him, unusual in the land of low-slung jeans and extra-extra-large T-shirts. It both amused and annoyed me that the local street toughs chose to dress like droopy-drawered babies in ill-fitting hand-me-downs.

  Not Dean. Dean was someone a girl would be proud to bring home to meet Ward and June Cleaver, back in the day.

  “I’m looking for information on a group of French nuns who arrived in San Francisco at the turn of the last century. They joined a convent here in the city, but disappeared sometime after the 1906 earthquake.”

  Dean looked thoughtful. “That’s a familiar story. A lot of people disappear from the public records after the quake. No surprise there, since only a small percentage of the refugees were ever officially processed. Besides, the fire destroyed all kinds of records; it took years to get the bureaucracy back on track. We might find some evidence of their being at the convent, but I doubt there will be any way to trace their steps afterward. Let’s look at the Ephemera Project.”

  For a second I thought he was referring to Marlene’s collage table.