by Bailey Cates
Eulora closed her eyes. “I very much doubt that.”
My stomach twisted. “Why?”
“He came to see me about four months ago. He wanted information about how human sacrifice is used in voodoo magic.”
I heard Cookie suck in her breath. Hadn’t Quinn mentioned something about a case in New Orleans that involved human sacrifice?
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“That sacrifices are usually to appease a spirit or gain its favor. However, some believe it’s possible to absorb the power of a life sacrificed—whether that life is animal or human.”
I blinked. “Good heavens.”
Her eyes were sad. “That’s not a belief restricted to voodoo, of course. Everyone from ancient druids to the Aztecs have offered up the lives of others.”
Could Franklin have been sacrificed? The thought made my heart stutter.
Cookie stood and went to the coffee table, taking one of the untouched glasses of tea and sipping from it. Letting Mother Eulora know she trusted her. She sat back down and placed the glass on a coaster. “Do you know anything about a gris gris, Mother?”
Eulora’s eyes flashed a smoky purple. “Franklin came to me when he first began his quest against darkness. He had seen too much as a policeman—more as a homicide detective—and had come to realize how often black magic was involved. I gave him a gris gris then, to help him.”
“How?”
“It was charged with the ability to identify magic in the first place, and then to determine whether it was a threat. It could also be used to help defeat magic under certain circumstances.”
I passed my hand over my face. “Franklin’s niece sought me out only hours before I learned his body had been found.” I brought my eyes back to hers. “She lost consciousness before she could tell me much. She’s in the ICU at Candler Hospital right now, in a coma, and the doctors can’t figure out why. But before she passed out, she told me to find a voodoo queen. I think that’s you.”
Eulora looked shaken at this new information but nodded. “Go on.”
“She also told me the gris gris was gone. That I had to find it. Do you think she meant the one you gave Franklin?”
Eulora pushed herself to the edge of the sofa and put her feet on the floor. Tanna rushed to help her, but the older woman shrugged her off. She stood and walked to me, standing in front of my chair and looking deeply into my eyes. “It can be no other one. When Franklin came to see me last, he asked me to recharge it. He was going up against someone very powerful, he said. So I did.” She put her hand on my shoulder, and it felt blazing hot even through the cotton of my shirt. “If it is gone, you must find it. You must.”
I put my hand on top of hers, mesmerized by her gaze. “Tell me why. And tell me how.”
“In the wrong hands, the gris gris can be flipped. Reversed so the magic it holds can be used to augment black magic. If it was taken by whoever Franklin was challenging, that would be very bad news indeed.”
I took a shaky breath and dared to blink. Her gaze softened, and she patted my shoulder twice before moving back to perch on the edge of the sofa. “But in your hands, Katie Lightfoot, it can tell you if Franklin was murdered—and who did it.”
“How do I find it?” I breathed.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” Then her face brightened. “I can show you what it looks like, though. Tanna, please bring my album.”
Eulora’s apprentice’s mouth turned down in disapproval, but she left the room.
“This niece of Franklin’s,” Eulora said.
“Her name is Dawn,” I said.
“Dawn.” She tried the name out on her tongue, then nodded once. “How did she look when you saw her?”
I described her pale thinness, her fright.
“Hmm. Yes. I’m afraid she might be suffering from a curse,” Eulora said thoughtfully.
“Poppa Jack thought the same thing. Can it be reversed?”
“Possibly. It would be best to have the gris gris in our hands first, though. Its absence is most alarming. I’d also need to know who cast the curse, and the reason.”
Tanna returned with a large book bound in dark red leather. She handed it to Eulora, who pushed aside the bowl of apples and opened the book on the coffee table. She turned a few pages, then gestured for Cookie and me to come see. We got up and took seats on either side of her on the sofa. She pointed to a picture. “That’s the gris gris I charged for Franklin.”
“The exact one, or one like it?”
“The exact one. I keep track of all the powerful spells I’ve released.”
I bent forward, drinking in the small details. It was not a bag filled with herbs and magical items like I had expected, but a pendant on a simple chain. It was a dark gray metal rectangle about one and a half inches by two. Figures and designs had been etched into the surface, some geometric, but others swirled like conch shells or like the petaled design nature carved on the backs of sand dollars. Tiny rivets of a different metal, possibly copper, were driven into the corners. White fringe had been tied into two holes drilled near the bottom.
Eulora fussed with the archival corners that held the picture in place. Tanna reached down, removed the photo, and gave it to her charge. Eulora handed it to me.
“Mother,” her apprentice began. “Let me make a copy for her.”
“No,” Eulora said. “Katie needs this more than I do.” Her eyes bored into mine. “She will return it when she’s done with it.”
I nodded my agreement. “Of course. Thank you.” I could tell her energy was fading. I patted her hand and stood. Cookie followed suit. “We have to be going,” I said. “But I’ll be in touch.”
“Wait. Tanna, get the box.”
With a sour expression, Tanna went back down the hallway and came back with a simple wooden box with a hinged lid. Eulora opened it to reveal several compartments inside, each holding a small cloth bag or piece of jewelry. She selected a bracelet and handed it to me.
“If Franklin’s niece is cursed, you must take great care. Wear this for protection.”
“From . . .” I licked my lips. “From a voodoo curse?” I thought of Dawn’s gaunt face, her frightened eyes, her breath stopping in her chest.
Mother Eulora just looked at me. After a second’s hesitation, I took the bracelet with a trembling hand. It was a simple thing constructed of mother-of-pearl beads strung on a piece of waxed twine.
“Thank you,” I said. “May I pay you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Put it on, and don’t take it off until this business is finished.”
“I promise.”
Eulora looked up at me but didn’t stand. “Tell me if you find out anything about what happened to Franklin. Anything at all. Or if you find the gris gris. Or if his niece . . .”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Thank you so much for your help, Mother Eulora.” I took a few steps away, then paused. “Did Franklin happen to tell you where he was staying when you saw him?”
She nodded. “He rented a room not far from here, down toward the park.” She waved her hand in the direction of Forsyth Park, which was only a few blocks away. “I don’t know exactly where, though. And I don’t know how long he stayed. He only came to visit me the one time on that trip to Savannah. I thought he’d left town in pursuit of more wicked sorcery.”
He would have come more often if he could. How could anyone resist this amazing lady?
I thanked her again and joined Cookie at the door. Tanna hurried to show us out without bothering to hide her relief that we were leaving. Following us out to the porch, she stopped me.
“Mother is in poor health, Ms. Lightfoot. I don’t care a whit for that Franklin Taite or for his niece, only for Mother Eulora. Do not tax her,” she warned.
Cookie said, “She’s lucky to have you, M
iss Tanna. I assure you, we mean no harm to her.”
Mollified, Tanna nodded at us and went inside, shutting the door firmly behind her.
“To quote Mimsey, ‘Lord love a duck,’” I said, peering at the photo of the gris gris as we stood on the sidewalk. “We hit the jackpot with Mother Eulora.”
A wide smile blossomed across Cookie’s face.
“I never could have done it without you. Thank you!”
“It was my duty,” Cookie said as we walked to the car.
I started to protest, then saw she was laughing.
* * *
“At least you were able to find the voodoo queen Franklin’s niece told you about,” Lucy said without looking up from where she vigorously stirred flour into hot butter and water on the stove. “That’s certainly progress.”
As soon as I’d returned to the Honeybee, I’d related everything Cookie and I had learned to both Lucy and Ben. They, in turn, had told me Detective Quinn had stopped by with news that Dawn Taite was still in intensive care. She remained in a coma, and the doctors remained baffled. Then a group of teenagers had come in, and Ben had returned to take their orders while Lucy and I went back to the kitchen. It was Iris’ day off, so we could talk freely, as long as we kept our voices low.
“Mother Eulora must be the one Dawn meant,” Lucy went on. “After all, she knew Franklin—and she knew about the talisman.”
I peered over her shoulder. “Yeah. Spooky what she said about the gris gris, though.”
She reached for a bowl of grated cheese and dumped it into the flour mixture before glancing up at me from under her furrowed brow. “Spooky is a mild way of putting it. Terrifying is more like it. Whatever voodoo magic is at work here, the idea that someone could augment their dark magic with that talisman scares me half to death, Katie. And Franklin wanted you to get involved in a situation like that? What was he thinking?”
I grimaced. “I wish I’d had a chance to talk to Eulora more about that—and about being a lightwitch. I suspect she might be the one who can tell me what Franklin never did. But we wore her out with our visit as it was.”
Still, I had every intention of going back and asking her. She had called me a candela, so surely she knew what that meant.
“Gougères?” I asked, eyeing the contents of the pan.
She shook her head. “Pão de queijo.”
“Ah,” I said. Similar, but Brazilian rather than French, and gluten-free. Pão de queijo was made with tapioca flour, and the bite-sized puffs ended up crispy-chewy on the outside but tender and airy inside.
“Yum,” I said. “We need to put those on the regular menu.”
“These are a special order for Mrs. Standish,” Lucy said. “Appetizer for a fund-raising cocktail party she’s hosting this evening. It’s for the animal shelter, I believe.” She scraped the smooth, shiny dough into one of the large standing mixers and reached for the eggs.
“Bless her for thinking of us,” I said. “I hope there will be a few leftovers for us, though.”
She smiled and cracked the first egg into a ramekin before transferring it to the mixing bowl. “Don’t worry—I’m making a double batch.” Once the first egg was blending into the dough, she turned to me, the next egg in her hand. “Seriously, what are you going to do about that talisman?”
“Try to find it—goddess knows how, though. Eulora gave me a picture of it. Cookie was going to ask her for a spell to find it, but Eulora said I didn’t need a spell from her. Being a lightwitch and all.”
Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? What about a spell from us? Or, rather, with us?”
“The spellbook club?”
“Of course!” She added another egg to the pão de queijo. “I can call the ladies as soon as I’m done here. We can meet here, right after we close. Remember the location spell we did for Mavis Templeton’s murderer?”
“Yeah, that didn’t really work very well . . .”
“Bah,” she said and cracked another egg. “You were too inexperienced to help us then. Now you’ll be in the circle with us, and heaven knows you add oomph to our spell work.”
I reached for a stack of silicone baking mats and began placing them on metal sheets in preparation for the little cheese puffs. “I’d sure love to try. Getting a hold of that talisman would put the kibosh on someone using it for dark magic, but as important—at least to me—is that Eulora said it could help me figure out what happened to Franklin. And if I can find that out, I might be able to help Dawn.”
“I hope so.” Lucy flipped off the mixer. “Poor thing. You get these in the oven,” she said, rinsing her hands in the sink. “And I’ll start making phone calls.”
“Make sure Mimsey brings her shew stone,” I said.
Chapter 14
The evening was overcast, and the heat wave seemed to have broken. Mungo trotted happily beside me, his leash loose in my hand. Lucy was setting things up back at the Honeybee. She’d shooed me out for a walk, saying it would help clear my head for the location spell. Mungo hadn’t been getting much exercise, either, so I’d brought him along.
As we walked along Bay Street, I dwelled on Dawn Taite, still lying unconscious in a hospital bed. Beware of someone new. Connell’s warning, cryptic as anything. Even the not-quite-dead seemed determined to confuse the living.
Well, I certainly didn’t suspect Mother Eulora of having any nefarious intentions toward Franklin or Dawn. Not only was she his mentor and the origin of the gris gris that helped him ferret out magic, but she had also been genuinely devastated to learn of his death.
Tanna, on the other hand, I just didn’t like. That didn’t mean she was evil, of course—I was unable to read her at all. Eulora obviously trusted her, and Tanna appeared devoted to her mistress. Could that be an act? Or could her worry about Eulora’s health have caused her to dip into darker arts, and Franklin found out? She would have known him from his association with Mother Eulora, and indeed would have known much, if not everything, that her employer knew about him.
We strolled by Emmet Park. The Spanish moss hanging from the trees above waved in the slight breeze caused by a passing transit bus. Once the loud engine had faded into the distance, I detected another rumble to the east. A flash in my peripheral vision made me turn my head. Dark clouds piled on the horizon, and the still air buzzed with the subtle flavor of metal.
“Come on, buddy. Better head back before it starts to pour,” I said. We took off at a light jog.
Mungo and I turned into the alley behind the bakery and entered through the unlocked back door. I heard Mimsey’s excited voice, then Jaida’s deeper tone. I unleashed Mungo, and he bounded around the corner. I followed to find the two ladies helping Lucy to move a table in front of the espresso counter. The window blinds were already closed, and soft yellow light shone down from three ceiling-fan fixtures above.
“Hi! You’re early. Or am I late?” I looked at my watch.
“We’re a little early,” Mimsey said, eyes twinkling. “I wanted to help set up. It’s been far too long since we’ve cast together!”
Jaida grinned at the older woman’s obvious delight. “Too bad we can’t all be here.”
Mimsey looked crestfallen. “Someone can’t make it?”
My shoulders slumped, too. I wanted the power of the full coven for this spell.
“Cookie said she and Oscar have plans she can’t break,” Lucy said, looking at me with sympathy.
I rolled my eyes. Oscar. I was happy for Cookie—I really was—but her new husband sure threw a wrench into things.
“And Bianca couldn’t get a sitter for Colette on such short notice,” Lucy said.
“She should bring the little one with her,” Mimsey said, her brow furrowed in frustration. “My daughter started learning the Craft before she was ten.”
I muffled a flare of envy. My mother had done her best to
shield me from any knowledge of magic, afraid of being ostracized in the small town of Fillmore, Ohio. I’d been twenty-eight before Lucy had stepped in and told me about my witchy heritage, and until then I’d felt like an outsider in every aspect of my life except baking.
“Colette is only seven, and it’s Bianca’s choice,” Lucy said in a mild tone.
“Well, of course,” Mimsey agreed, but she sounded pretty cranky, at least for Mimsey. I didn’t blame her. Getting the spellbook club together in its entirety had been like herding cats lately.
Jaida unfolded a cloth of rich brown velvet. I hurried over and helped her spread it on the table.
Mimsey’s face cleared, and she nodded in approval. “The perfect color for finding lost objects. Lucy, do you have the map?”
My aunt moved behind the counter and drew out a map of Savannah I recognized from the previous location spell we’d tried. She laid it on top of the brown velvet, and Mimsey reached into her capacious handbag and drew out a small bronze stand decorated with green stones. She set it on the map and retrieved her scrying stone from the bag. It was a smooth sphere of pink quartz crystal about five inches in diameter—literally a crystal ball. She set it on the stand.
We pulled over four more bistro tables, arranging them at east, south, west, and north. Jaida set four black votives on them and actually pulled out a compass to make sure they were spot-on the four directions. Lucy added a drop of ginger oil to each wick, and the air filled with the potent, spicy scent. I went into the kitchen and came back with the canister of salt.
Jaida eyed the industrial-sized container. “Fancy.”
I examined it, then looked up at her. “Not good enough, huh?”
Slowly, she shook her head. “Respect the elements, Katie, if you want them to work with you.”
I went back into the kitchen, got out the marble bowl of the mortar and pestle set we used to grind herbs and spices. I debated whether to wash it, but decided the many incantations that Lucy and I had muttered over it would add magical energy rather than contaminate our good intentions. I wiped it thoroughly with a soft cloth and filled it carefully with salt.
