Anthony looked in the different bins, unable to identify anything except sunflower seeds. “She’s particular, huh?”
“Well, I guess you oughta know, seeing’s how she’s letting you stay there. You people have to pass some sort of written test or something?”
“Us people?” Anthony asked.
“You’n your friend.”
“No, no test,” he said slowly, trying to figure out where this was going. “My partner and I just blew through her front door when it was snowing.”
“Huh! And she let you stay? Now this here’s what she bought when she was in to order wallpaper.” He scooped ten pounds of seeds into a brown bag and stapled it shut. “My cousin came into town last year, and she wouldn’t let him stay there. Said he had to have an advance reservation, even though she was empty at the time. Seems odd for a B&B owner, don’tcha think?”
“Mm, it’s toasty in here,” Annie said as she poked her head around the doorjamb the next afternoon.
She was one of the few people Jade allowed in the drying room, and for good reason. This was the heart of her craft. The spicy-sweet fragrance of frankincense, burned daily for months and then years to bring their men home, still lingered.
This was the room that held the family grimoires, the books of remedies and spells they’d pored over after their husbands disappeared. It was the only time she, Courtney, and Jade had worked hand in hand. For months, they’d tried every spell, old and new, designed to relocate people, pets, objects. No method of divination had gone untried. They’d gotten discouraged after so much effort expended over such a long period, their own spirits flagged, and as the effort drained their energy, they’d finally had to taper off. Nothing could work without energy.
Directly across from the deep entry arch was a stone fireplace that never sat cold, not even in the middle of summer. It must have seen more duty in its lifetime than all the fireplaces in the county put together. Presently, the black cauldron in it was hanging above a low flame, its contents rising to a gentle boil. The mantel held two white tapers, both burning, each with a remnant of black ribbon tied around it.
Annie was always awed by this old house, all the history, all the memories. Over generations, the drying room had accumulated many tools of the trade: a variety of mortars and pestles; nonmetallic mixing bowls, pans, spoons, funnels; censers; jars, most with cork stoppers; and on and on. More than once, Jade had donated a no-longer-used item to someone who would value and appreciate it. It was how Annie had acquired her first cauldron.
Jade’s hands were buried in a bowl of herbs, oils, and tragacanth glue, mixing it to a stiff, doughy texture. She’d been at it a while; hundreds of incense cones lined the table, drying on waxed paper.
Annie stepped across the threshold, moving around, checking shelves and baskets and bundles of herbs drying overhead to see what was new. She’d give anything to be half as good at the Craft as Jade. A quarter as good. No, make that one-tenth. Jade was her role model. Jade kept telling her she needed to believe in herself more, but shoot, all Annie’s spells except the candle ones kept blowing up in her face, so how was she supposed to believe in herself? Maybe the spirits didn’t want her doing anything but candles. Even the Delarues, as good at spellcasting as they were, had to bow to what the spirits wanted.
There was one thing she could do well, though.
“I brought you something. It should help.” She pulled a silk pouch out of her purse and, from that, extracted a black seven-knob candle, one knob to be burned for each day of a seven-day banishing spell.
“Oh, Annie, that’s wonderful!”
“I made it with the right intention, but of course you’ll add your own. Inscribe each knob with Mason’s name, then do what you do best.”
“I’d better use symbols since he’s staying in the house. I’ll start it right after I finish up here.” Jade tipped her head first to one side, then the other, stretching her neck.
“Have you been in here all day?” Annie asked with concern.
“Since about three.”
She knew Jade meant A.M. “You know, of all people, you have the ability to whip up a sleeping potion.”
“Grandma said…”
“I know, I know, spare me,” Annie said with a chuckle. “‘Everything will come right when you find the right man.’ Sometimes I wonder if she was making a prediction or casting a spell.”
“It suits me to be up at night. I get a lot done.”
Jade’s hair had come loose and was in danger of falling into the sticky mess, so Annie stepped behind her and retied the narrow ribbon holding it back. “You still believe it? Even though you couldn’t sleep when Doug was here either?”
Jade grinned over her shoulder. “You’re trying to give me advice again.”
“If I were trying to give you advice, I’d remind you of one of the first things you taught me: that the spirits sometimes block our energy for a reason, or work against it, even, to give us what’s best for us. So maybe we’re not supposed to know what happened to the guys. Not yet anyway.”
“Thank you, Alanna.”
Annie shrugged it off good-naturedly. She used Jade’s office to bang out the syndicated Dear Alanna advice column that she penned under someone else’s household name. All very hush-hush to anyone outside their circle of friends. She’d fallen into the job with a bit of luck and a well-timed spell that actually had worked. If everyone in town thought she was a lazy do-nothing with no visible means of support other than selling a few candles, so be it. She had food on the table and a roof over her head.
“There’s a letter I’d like to run by you when you have time,” she said. “I know what I want to say, but I’d like your take on it.”
“Now is fine.”
Annie pulled the copy out of her back pocket and unfolded it.
Dear Alanna,
Recently I invited my best friend and her husband to stay with me while they were in town looking for a new home. I know they love their little dogs to pieces, but I was totally shocked when they showed up at my door with them. I have a small home, and she knows I have allergies, but she never even asked if it was okay. She just said they’d bathed them in special shampoo and everything would be fine. It wasn’t. I had to use my inhaler around the clock. She’s my best friend in the whole world and I wouldn’t hurt her feelings for anything, but what can I do to keep this from happening when they come back to close on the house?
Annie refolded the letter. “So what would you say?”
“Before or after I told her to grow a spine and stand up for herself?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought. But my editor’s been telling me to tone it down.”
Jade’s jaw dropped. “But that’s why people like Dear Alanna. ‘Tone it down’ isn’t in her vocabulary.”
Movement outside the window caught their attention, Annie’s especially.
“Jumpy,” Jade commented.
“You should see the dog lurking around in the woods by my house.”
“Lurking?”
“Darn thing’s as big as a black bear. Annoys the cat no end.”
“This is awfully bad weather for someone’s pet to be out.”
“Pet? Think Cujo on steroids.”
The glass panes were original and a little wavy, but Annie was able to make out the scowl on Mason’s face as he trudged through snow, camera in hand. She had to fan herself; grumpy or not, he was still a hottie.
“I see he’s still here.”
Jade hummed, but the true meaning of that hum was as yet indecipherable. “The weather’s certainly cooperating—for me. From the looks of him, he won’t last much longer.”
“For a guy who just got dumped, he sure has thrown himself into his work.” Annie watched Mason pause to photograph bright red cardinals crowding around the feeder. “I don’t know, me, I think I’d have to spend a week in bed first.”
“Maybe his ex told him she was carrying another man’s child.”
“No! He said that?”
“Lyle told me. Mason’s probably feeling lucky to break up sooner rather than later. Or,” Jade mused as she watched Mason raise his camera, “maybe photographing eagles soothes a troubled soul.”
Annie observed her friend. As an eagle soared from the river valley and up over the bluff, right over his head, Mason’s scowl softened. He raised his camera halfway, but then his mouth fell open, and he forgot to take a picture. He tracked the eagle, gazing at it intently, and as he did so, Jade’s actions mirrored his, only she didn’t have the excuse that she was watching one of nature’s most awesome creatures. Though Mason was pretty awesome.
It wasn’t the cursory glance of a host toward a guest. It wasn’t even the calculating glance of a witch looking for any signs that her reversal spell was working. Instead, it was the watchful eye of a woman staring at a man whose every movement caught her attention and held it far longer than necessary.
“Earth to Jade.”
“Hm? Oh, sorry. I was, umm, calculating the next mixture. This is Business Incense. For a guy in Colorado.”
“You know,” Annie began slowly, treading her way carefully. “There’s a reason I’m good at giving advice.”
“Yeah?” Jade said absently, forming more cones.
“I’m good at reading people.”
“Uh-huh.”
Annie leaned close, lowering her voice. “Your mind may be telling you to get rid of him, but the rest of you is screaming, ‘I’m tired of being alone. Come help me sleep.’”
Jade’s laugh sounded false. “Don’t be silly.”
“I might not be as gifted or practiced as you, girlfriend, but silly, I’m not.”
“I’m telling you—”
“Yeah? What have you done to get rid of him today?”
Jade inclined her head toward a small plastic bag lying to the side. “Cotton balls, soaked in Banishing Oil. One for his coat pocket. The others…I’m thinking his camera bag and inside his pillowcase.”
“Oh.” Maybe she’d read Jade wrong. “That ought to cover every minute of his day, I guess. What about the other one?”
“Anthony? They’re partners. If one goes, they should both go, right? So I’ve made enough for him, too. If something doesn’t work, and I mean fast, I’m going to have to start putting things away around here.”
That puzzled Annie. The only messy room in the entire house was the office. “You’re going to clean house?”
“Good grief, no.” Jade’s laugh was momentary, then she was all serious again. “Mason’s a professional, right? With a camera. All I need is for the inside of Mystic Manor to end up in a coffee table book on eagles. I already locked up my parents’ room, but there’s so much of me in plain sight everywhere else, so much of what I do, things I don’t want to reveal to just anyone and everyone—”
“Especially not the saints of West Bluff,” Annie finished dryly.
“Exactly.”
The majority of religious residents were rather paranoid about anything outside their parameters.
To the casual guest going in or out of the house, Mystic Manor’s pentacles were just a few stars, as unobtrusive as dentil molding, purely part of the architectural charm. The original Delarues wanted them for protection, of course, but at the same time, they didn’t want to scream, “Here we are, come burn us.” Family baggage like that got handed down. From the cradle, Jade had been taught to be circumspect.
Photographs of Mystic Manor, published in a big, glossy book, lying open on a coffee table to be perused, would jump out and scream witch. Pentacles were embedded in the glass in the front door. A huge one was carved into the stone floor of the conservatory. A book like that in the hands of West Bluff residents, many generations of whom had heard rumors about the Delarues, would be all the proof they needed to further ostracize Jade.
Oh, Jade wouldn’t mind for herself so much. Annie admired her strength that way. But she wanted to have a child and raise her at Mystic Manor, the same as she had been, to carry on traditions of the Craft. She wanted her to go to school in and be a part of the community.
What she didn’t want was for her to go to the first day of kindergarten and get a pointy black hat slapped on her head.
Worse, over the years, the city limits had expanded to include Mystic Manor. Witchcraft, astrology, psychic readings, tarot, and everything else deemed non-Christian by those in power, was illegal within the city limits. Jade regularly cast protection spells to guard against intolerant people who would wish her harm, but Annie worried about her getting closed down, maybe run out.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Annie said, “but aren’t you the one who always says, ‘Cast a spell and leave it be’?”
Jade sighed. “Yes.”
“Then why are you supplementing with cotton balls and Banishing Oil?”
“Because it’s not working fast enough.”
“And the candles on the mantel?”
“One represents me, the other, Mason. The cut ribbon between them is symbolic of cutting the tie that binds.”
They were both staring out the window again, but only Jade jumped when Mason suddenly turned and stared right back.
“Did you notice he shaved?” Jade mused aloud. “Good thing I don’t have neighbors living right on top of me. They’d be running over here for autographs.”
Mason’s hand waved about in the air, miming a request to join them.
“It’s about time,” Jade said, nodding in agreement. “See? Cast a spell and leave it be. He wants to come in and tell me good-bye.”
Not us, Annie noted with interest. Me. Showed where Jade’s thoughts were, and if it was that obvious to her, a mere mortal, then she doubted Jade’s good-riddance-Mason spells were packing much punch with the spirits.
Annie didn’t want to be in the way. She uttered a hasty farewell, rushed out the deep arch, through the conservatory and into the kitchen, where she ran into Mason struggling with frozen bootlaces and growling about the weather.
She tossed one end of her pink scarf over her shoulder. “You don’t like a little snow?”
“A little?” He shivered inside his parka and grumbled. “When’s it warm up around here? How long’s it take all that to melt?”
“It’s just a few inches. Six to eight at the most.”
“I saw a foot and a half.”
Annie chuckled. “Yeah, maybe where the snowplow pushed it. Anyway, the kids love it.”
Mason’s laugh was colder than ice. “Little monsters. They run up and down those slopes at the speed of light! I’m always a half second from falling on my ass. What’re their mothers thinking? They should keep them inside. Being out in record lows can’t be healthy for them.”
His run of grouchiness tickled Annie’s sense of humor. “What record lows? It’s almost thirty.”
The disgusted look he shot her was colder.
“You should come back in the summer. It’s pretty then.” That would be all right. Fair. His free will to do so then, because Jade’s spell was for now.
If Mason came back in the summer, Jade would have no reason to send him away.
Standing outside the door to the conservatory, all Mason could see through clear and etched leaded glass was an inviting collage of light and green. It was doubly welcome after being loaded down with two cameras, a pair of binoculars, several layers of clothes, a tripod, a camera bag, and having spent hours tramping through white death.
Snowdrifts; as a concept, they sounded innocent enough. Maybe even pretty. In reality, they were sneaky sons of bitches, lying in wait for unsuspecting photographers generally looking the opposite direction, up. All in all, he’d rather take his chances with a shark.
The closer he got to the conservatory, the warmer the ambient temperature beckoning him forward.
He’d avoided this wing so far only because it was exactly that, a separate wing. It seemed private, even though Weezy’d said otherwise, and considering that he had his own secrets to keep,
he didn’t want to appear to be a nosy guest and arouse suspicion if there was any chance he’d be caught in the act. But now Jade had waved him in.
All of his senses came alive as he pushed through the double doors. Humid, earthy aroma of rich soil. Every shade of green imaginable. Twittering black-and-yellow finches.
“Holy shit. I didn’t know you could grow a jungle inside a house,” he said, momentarily distracted from the splendor by Jade, waiting just inside. Waiting for him.
What the hell—why not just admit that she aroused him more than Brenda and her two predecessors put together, all of whom had tried to rush him into marriage? There was nothing wrong in getting turned on. Jade was a sexy woman; he was healthy. If he got any healthier, he wouldn’t be able to walk.
He quickly forgot that he was fighting a cold and short on sleep, that he’d spent hours snooping through Mystic Manor in the middle of the night. The kitchen drawers were safe another day, as Jade had been up, too, and he’d had to be content with searching the attic.
“I thought the eagles were awesome, but this…”
Finally, a warm spot in the midst of all the snow. Mason circled a few paces, corralling his libido, looking up, around, all around.
“This is like stepping into the tropics. All it needs is a surf—Wait, is that a waterfall I hear? How big is this?”
It felt right. It smelled right. But son of a bitch, there were at least a dozen tall cabinets set into the stone walls, between windows. If he was going to black bag this area—and he was—he’d have to be creative. One way in, one way out, probably Jade’s favorite area. Already it was his.
“I took a sketching class last year,” he improvised, raising his camera, snapping off a dozen pictures, constantly moving, changing angles, catching a few shots of Jade. The heat, while welcome, made him sleepy after being out in the cold, and he struggled against a yawn. “Would you mind if I come in sometime and practice? All these leaves, the shapes, the textures.”
“There’s a hook in the wall if you want to take off your jacket,” Jade said.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
Witch in the House Page 8
