By Familiar Means

by Delia James

  But farther back, up a short flight of stairs, the shelves were tall and crowded and old-fashioned. In fact, they were salvaged antiques. They invited you to slip into their twilight and explore, and just maybe get lost. But you got the feeling you wouldn’t mind so much, because you’d definitely end up someplace interesting.

  When Grandma and I walked in, Julia Parris was behind the counter chatting with a couple of women who were buying healthy piles of cozy mysteries and romances. As the doorbell jangled, Julia looked up with a ready smile. She saw Grandma B.B. and that smile froze.

  If Mae West had taken to witchcraft, she might have ended up looking like Julia Parris. Julia is a tall woman with a straight back and a mane of pure white hair. She’s grandly curved and despite the fact that she uses a walking stick to get around, she does not give off any hint of frailty. Like Grandma B.B., Julia leans toward the dramatic in her personal fashion choices. That day, she was wearing a sparkling ankle-length duster over a black skirt, and a gold tunic with a necklace of stars.

  Grandma met her old friend’s eyes. “Hello, Julia.”

  “Hello, Annabelle,” replied Julia coolly. “And Anna. I’ll be with you in just a minute.”

  Julia finished ringing up her customers, who were so busy chatting about each other’s book hauls, they didn’t seem to have noticed that anything unusual had just happened. The same could not be said for the pair of small wiener dogs in the blue doggy bed by the counter.

  I’m not the only witch in Portsmouth with a familiar. Julia is the human partner of two miniature dachshunds; Maximilian is a sleek copper-colored wiener, and his brother, Leopold, is a proud little black and tan. Both dogs scrabbled and plopped out of the basket. They came galloping up to us, yapping importantly to each other as they snuffled busily around our ankles.

  “Yip!” announced Leo, and he somehow managed to sound both officious and skeptical.

  “Yes, all right, all right,” I said to them both. “I’m still me, I promise.”

  “Anna?” called another voice. Valerie McDermott, my very, very pregnant friend, waddled slowly out of the stacks, turning a little sideways as she did in order to fit through the narrow aisle.

  “Val!” I said, trying to sidestep the dachshunds, who were not making it easy. “How are you doing?”

  Val and I weren’t just friends and coven sisters; we were neighbors. She and her husband, Roger, owned McDermott’s Bed & Breakfast. Our gardens back up onto each other, so we regularly gossip over the fence. At least, we would have if either of us had been taller.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.” Val puffed as she maneuvered herself carefully down the steps. Val is a petite, strawberry blond woman. She was over the moon about becoming a mom, but navigating the world from behind a belly that she described as roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle was testing her patience. “It’s Roger you should worry about. He’s got a full-blown case of Impending Daddy Syndrome, and I’m not sure we’re all going to survive it.” She made it down to the main floor with a sigh of relief and held out her hand to my grandmother. “I’m guessing you’re Mrs. Britton.”

  “And you are Valerie McDermott,” Grandma said as they shook. “Anna’s told me all about you.”

  “I don’t think she’s told me half enough about you. I hope we’ll have some time to all get together while you’re in town.”

  “Oh, I know we will, dear.”

  The customers left, and Julia came out from behind the counter. Max and Leo finished their inspection of our ankles and evidently decided we were who we were supposed to be. They scampered back to Julia as she faced my grandmother.

  You would have needed a machete to cut the tension.

  “It’s good to see you, Julia,” said Grandma.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Annabelle.”

  The pause was at least as pregnant as Valerie. “You’re looking well,” tried Grandma.

  “So are you,” replied Julia.

  That first pregnant pause seemed to have spawned another.

  Grandma tried again. “What a lovely store.”

  “Thank you.” Julia nodded once in acknowledgment.

  “I guess the nightclub didn’t work out?”

  Nightclub?

  Just like that, what might have been a third deeply uncomfortable pause was shattered by the unprecedented sight of Julia Parris blushing like a teenager. “That is not something we need to bring up.”

  “Oh, no, I really think it is,” said Val. “Did Julia run a nightclub, Ann . . . You know, we’re going to have to do something about your names.” She gestured at the two of us Annabelles, but Grandma waved that away.

  “Call me Grandma B.B., dear. Anna’s friends all do.”

  “Okay, Grandma B.B. it is,” agreed Val. “I was pretty sure you two didn’t want the solution Young Sean and Old Sean had come up with.”

  A startled look crossed Grandma’s face. “Old Sean? You couldn’t possibly mean Sean McNally?”

  “That’s him, or them, rather.” Val was looking at me significantly, and I wished she’d stop that.

  “Did you know him?” I asked quickly.

  “I did a lot of babysitting when I was in high school. My goodness. Sean McNally has a son? I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “Oh, you’ll be meeting him soon, I’m sure,” said Val, far too cheerfully.

  “Val.” I lowered my eyebrows at her in a way I hoped was darkly serious. “We’re coven sisters and neighbors, and so you are going to listen when I say you should shut up now.”

  “Is there something I should know?” The question was exactly as sweet and innocent as you would expect coming from a grandmother. Somebody else’s grandmother.

  “That depends who you ask,” said Val.

  “I see,” said Grandma.

  “No, you don’t,” I told her. “There is nothing to see. At all.”

  Val just smiled. “Not sure Young Sean would agree with that.”

  “All right, Valerie,” murmured Julia. “I think that’s probably enough.”

  “Probably,” agreed Val magnanimously. Fortunately for all of us, a buzz sounded from the vicinity of her hip. Val rolled her eyes and pulled the cell phone out of its quick-draw pouch. “Roger,” she muttered. “He gets nervous if he hasn’t heard from me every five minutes.” The phone buzzed again. Val sighed and ran a hand over her swollen belly. “Daddy loves us, kiddo. We better go check in at home. Wonderful to meet you, Grandma B.B. I’m looking forward to some really nice, long talks.”

  We said good-bye and all received her assurances that she was fine. When the door shut and the brass bells finished jangling, I was left with Grandma and Julia and the dachshunds, all facing one another.

  Julia sighed sharply and shook her head. “You haven’t changed at all, Annabelle.”

  “Neither have you.”

  “I don’t suppose you would care for a cup of tea?”

  “Well, I suppose I might, if there was one being offered. But I’d hate to take you away from work.”

  “My assistant, Maria, is in the stock room. She can mind the register.”

  “Well, if it’s no trouble . . .”

  “No trouble at all,” said Julia quickly. “But perhaps you two have plans?”

  “No, no. Anna needs to talk with a new client.” Grandma took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m free as a bird.”

  “Well then,” said Julia.

  “Well then,” agreed Grandma.

  It might have been my imagination, but the dachshunds seemed to be looking at me a little desperately. Leo actually whined.

  “Wow, gosh.” I clapped my hands together. “I would love to stand here chatting, but if you two are okay, I really do need to get to my appointment. So, are you two okay?”

  The old friends looked at each other. Both dachshunds looked
up at their mistress, tails wagging hopefully.

  “I really would like that cup of tea, Julia,” said Grandma.

  “Yes,” said Julia. “So would I.”

  It wasn’t exactly a warm embrace, but I had the feeling that would come, and soon. At least, I sure hoped so.

  3

  Being a freelance artist is not a high-wage job. I was doing very well to be making any kind of living, but my move to Portsmouth had brought some money complications with it. The house, which I’d come to think of as mine, was not really mine. It really belonged to Frank Hawthorne. Frank had let me stay there for the summer mostly rent-free because I had been helping him find out what happened to his aunt, Dorothy. But the lease we’d signed was for only three months, and those three months were up in two weeks. Frank had hinted he wasn’t in any hurry to have me gone, but I could not and would not take advantage like that. I had always paid my own way, and I wasn’t about to stop now.

  That meant there needed to be some kind of money coming in, real soon.

  The Northeast Java coffee shop had become a regular haunt of mine since I arrived, but as much as I loved the quirky little place, it was no wonder the owners had decided to make a change. For starters, the shop was really easy to miss, sandwiched between a shadowy vintage store and Annabelle’s (no relation, unfortunately) Ice Cream. There was no visible sign on the chipped wooden door, and just a couple of old wrought-iron tables and chairs out front. Other than that, you had to hear the babble of voices and smell the rich scent of fresh roasted beans wafting through the open window to know you’d just found somewhere special.

  Despite the chill of the breeze off the river six feet away, both tables were occupied by people in business suits, checking texts and talking on their phones over cups of the heavenly brew served up by the shop’s owners, Jake and Miranda Luce.

  A pair of young women were coming out just as I ducked into the crowded, noisy café. A line stretched from the counter to the door. There was next to no space for seating, so everybody was jostling for a spot to stand or make their way through. Four of the shop’s staff somehow managed to fit themselves behind the tiny Formica counter, and there wasn’t anything like enough room for any of them.

  “Anna!” called Miranda Luce over the heads of the crowd. “Thank you so much for coming!”

  Thanks to the combination of my tiny little caffeine dependency and the fantastic brew the Luces served up, I’d actually spent a fair amount of time at Northeast Java since I’d come to Portsmouth, and Jake and Miranda and I had quickly become friends. Miranda and Jake had been hippies at the height of the sixties. They met as teenagers when they both decided to hitchhike down to Woodstock (no, I’m not making this up) and had been together ever since.

  Miranda Luce was a tiny, thin woman who somehow managed to be both peaceful and intense at the same time. Her jeans and her vests were still brightly embroidered, and her preferred jewelry was wooden beads and colored quartz. She wore her silver-streaked hair in a long braid, which she currently had pinned in a coronet around her head.

  “Jake!” Miranda called as I edged my way through the crowd of people who were trying to make way as best they could. “Anna’s here!”

  “Tell her to come on back!” shouted Jake from . . . somewhere.

  Miranda beckoned, and I slipped behind the counter and through the Dutch door.

  I’d seen closets bigger than Northeast’s kitchen. The space that wasn’t taken up by the industrial-grade fridge was filled by the blocky roaster. The smell of coffee in here was strong enough to wake up half of New Hampshire.

  “Hey, Anna. Got your latte over there.” Jake jerked his chin toward the counter, but his attention was on the crotchety old roaster and its precious beans.

  There was no mistaking Jake Luce’s vintage. He was a child of the sixties and had the beard, the bandana, round, wire-rimmed glasses and Birkenstocks to prove it. The only reason he didn’t look exactly like Jerry Garcia was that he ran ten miles every morning. Like Miranda, Jake was kind and cheerful. They both believed in living and letting live, organic soy milk and better karma through better coffee.

  It said so, on the hand-painted sign right above the chalkboard menu.

  “Okay, Starbabe, this batch is ready to go out.” Jake scooped the beans from the hopper and handed the container to Miranda, who carried it the very short distance out front to be ground and served with varying degrees of foam.

  I sipped my own smooth and perfectly foamed brew and heaved a contented sigh. “Thanks, Jake.”

  He grunted.

  “Business is good,” I remarked.

  “Almost too good.” Miranda laughed as she returned from delivering the beans to the front of the house. “It’s Chuck’s fault, I swear.”

  “What did Chuck do?” I glanced through the door at the young barista with slicked-back hair, stubbled jaw and a rhinestone stud in his ear.

  “Turns out the kid’s some kind of software genius, and he’s built this program—”

  “App, Jake. It’s called an app.”

  “Anyway, somehow it hooks up coffee drinkers and does some kind of rating on their ideal coffee experience and . . .” He waved his hands. “And all of a sudden, we got this.” He waved his hand out front and I swear he sounded annoyed. “He didn’t even ask us. Said he wanted it to be a surprise. Kids these days!”

  “With the clothes and that hair!” Miranda laughed. “Lighten up, old man.”

  Jake made a face and Miranda shrugged. “Chuck, Luis, have you got it covered?” she called toward the guys manning the counter. “We’re going over to the new space.”

  “It’s all good,” called back the Rhinestone Barista. “Have fun, you crazy kids.”

  Jake and Miranda grabbed denim jackets and we all headed up Ceres Street, which is not really a street. It’s a narrow, cobbled almost alley that runs along the Piscataqua River. You can use it only on foot, and there are concrete stairs at either end. The high brick warehouses on the inland side had originally been built to receive the cargos from the oceangoing ships that sailed up into the harbor. Now those warehouses held offices and condominiums, restaurants (and coffee shops) and stores for the tourists. The docks for Portsmouth’s famous red tugboats were here, along with ticketing booths for various harbor sightseeing cruises.

  “And here it is!” cried Miranda as we reached the top of the stairs beside the cut-in for the little marina. “Our new home!”

  Architecture was not my specialty, but to me the “new home” looked like it dated from the turn of the previous century. A freestanding brick building, three stories tall, it was a classic of its kind, with a rolled copper roof and plate glass windows that were currently covered over in brown paper. Farther up the street, I could see the curving white sides of the Harbor’s Rest hotel, a Gilded Age behemoth that was one of Portsmouth’s landmarks, so it wasn’t too much of a guess that this building was of about the same vintage.

  “It looks fabulous,” I told them both.

  “It used to be a bar back in the 1910s,” Miranda was saying as she fished in her jacket pocket for her keys. “And then it was a drugstore and soda fountain. It was a gallery for a while, but now it’s ours.” She squeezed Jake’s shoulder like she thought she could impart some enthusiasm by osmosis.

  Jake muttered something under his breath.

  “Jake.” Miranda frowned. “You said you were going to be cool about this.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m cool. I am.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “Embracing change ain’t always what I’m best at. We been on Ceres Street since the beginning. People always found us.”

  “Moving to a larger place is not the same as selling out to the capitalist establishment,” said Miranda patiently, and I got the sense there’d been a whole lot of conversations on this theme I hadn’t heard. “In fact, you were the one—”

  “I said
, I’m cool,” Jake cut her off. “It’s like you say, if the people are coming, we should be able to welcome them. Show them what we’re really about.”

  “Having the hotel so close should be great for foot traffic,” I tried, but Jake just made another face.

  “If any of the yacht clubbers can be bothered to get off their assets and walk . . .”

  Miranda sighed and turned back to me. “We’re going to have space for community meetings and resources for families with kids. We’re going to be able to have a real kitchen to serve locally sourced food, and a music venue and—”

  “And it’s way too late to back out,” said Jake. “Yeah, yeah, Starbabe, I’m still in.”

  Miranda struggled with the lock for a minute and then pushed the door open. An old brass bell hanging from a metal arm rang brightly. Miranda stepped across the threshold and inhaled the smell of plaster and sawdust, her face lit up with excitement. Jake followed, a little more slowly, and definitely not as excited. Me, I hesitated on the threshold.

  You see, my whole life, I’ve had this little problem. Sometimes, when I walk into a place, I’ll get hit by a wave of feeling. I call it my Vibe. I will know whether a place is generally a happy or a sad one, whether the people who have lived in it have had good times or bad ones, and all of this will land on me whether I want to know it or not. Sometimes the event I pick up on has happened long in the past. Sometimes it’s more recent. Timing doesn’t seem to matter. Whatever has left the strongest imprint on a place, it’s going to be streamed straight into my brain.

  It doesn’t happen all the time. Not every place holds on to its vibrations, which is a good thing; otherwise, I’d never be able to walk into a 7-Eleven, let alone an old building like this one. But it happened often enough that the major focus of my magical training so far had been learning how to keep that flood of emotion from drowning me. Julia Parris assured me that as my skills increased, I’d be able to understand the nuances of the impressions I picked up. I might even be able to tune in to specific happenings or sensations. For now, though, I was just happy to be able to shelter myself, psychically speaking. I just needed to be prepared.