I was the first to arrive. My favorite trail had, in fact, been closed since January for “construction of trailhead support amenities,” meaning that the city was already upgrading the restrooms that were just built two years ago at the trailhead. Bigger, better, shinier. Always. It’s Scottsdale.
Not a problem for me, since I had enough common sense to take care of my personal needs before I left home. Jerry dropped me off outside the closed gate, and I started my climb.
I didn’t have much to carry, just a small shoulder bag containing a single candle, a few objects for the ritual and, of course, my water bottle. Only a fool would walk even a short distance in the desert without water. I was wearing my favorite black jeans and well-loved running shoes. I had tied a lightweight track jacket around my shoulders; the temperature in the desert drops rapidly as soon as the sun goes down. It had been in the 70s today, but in a couple of hours, the temperature could drop by as much as twenty degrees. I hate being cold.
Notice that I didn’t mention robes or any other magical garb. I don’t fault those who love a little theatrics in their ritual, but it’s not necessary to get the job done. I can cast a spell in jeans and my old Fleetwood Mac T-shirt just as easily as I can in a robe and cowl — easier, because those big flappy sleeves don’t restrict my movement.
My go-to hiking music is always Beau Jocque and The Zydeco Hi-Rollers. I threw in my earbuds, and the backbeat of Boogie Chillun grabbed my feet and lifted me up the hill. I walked up to the first saddleback on a wide, easy trail designed for middle-aged tourists. From here, the angle and technical challenge of the trail became more serious, but this was high enough for us.
I hadn’t been up here for a while, so it took me a few moments to find the goat trail that led off behind a big boulder. It is against the law to leave the city-maintained main trail because your footsteps damage the delicate ecosystem, and there are serious fines if they catch you. They weren’t going to catch me, and unlike most trespassers, I wasn’t going to be doing any damage. I placed a small protection spell on the goat path to stabilize the soil for the evening.
The goat path took me over a low rise and ended just below the crest of the saddleback. I was invisible to the city hiking trail now, and I knew that I could prepare for the evenings meeting in total privacy.
The only seating here was large boulders, irregularly placed around a dirt clearing about fifteen feet across. A casual passerby — and this was so far off the main trail that such a person is unlikely — would think that this was just a bare patch in the desert. Closer inspection would show that the site had been carefully prepared. The boulders provided seating for as many as ten people. Four enormous saguaros, each with multiple arms, stood watch at the cardinal compass points. Between them, big clumps of Angelita daisies glowed in the setting sun, their yellow daisies lofted on slender stems above the thick sage green foliage.
I sat on a boulder at the north point of the circle. The clearing was a lovely place, and I was grateful that it had been handed down to me by the older women who had taken me under their wing when I first came to town. My life has been solitary since my husband died, and I treasure these moments in community.
Open flames are not permitted in the preserve, so I opened my bag and removed an antique glass canning jar two-thirds filled with virgin olive oil. I flipped open the wire bail and swung the glass lid open on its hinge. I pulled out a piece of cotton wick that had been threaded through a small foil circle and allowed the bottom portion of the wick to sink into the oil. I set the jar in the middle of the clearing, directly on the bare ground to make a connection with the earth. When I lit the wick, the flame cast a lovely small light.
The first to arrive was Mark, leaning heavily on his manzanita staff as he climbed the trail. He placed his own jar next to mine and lit the wick. We shared a boulder and sat in companionable silence, watching the last rays of the sun turn the sky at the horizon first orange, then violet, then deeper blue. Below us, the Valley of the Sun reached out to the horizon. There are more than four million people in the metropolitan Phoenix area, and it looked like every one of them was out in traffic tonight, trying to get home.
We watched Jerry pull into the parking lot and drop Orion off at the base of the trail. He was nearly to the top when I saw movement at the far horizon. A small figure was making its way slowly up the path toward us, hunched over but making progress. Daisy was stumping slowly up the trail with the clawfoot cane she’d bought on the Home Shopping Network.
I felt a little guilty about inviting Daisy to join us because I knew it was going to be difficult for her to get up here, but I also knew she would be hurt and insulted if I left her out. We were happy to wait for her to arrive, and we all enjoyed the moment of calm before the storm as she placed her jar, infused with sprigs of fresh herbs, in the circle. The clearing was filled with the sweet scent of rosemary when she lit the wick of her candle.
We aren’t a coven, and none of us is particularly good with labels. Daisy and I are witches, of course. Mark is a sage and a scholar; Orion is a seer. Each of my friends has his or her own spiritual beliefs — or not — and I consider that to be none of my business. We come together as a practical matter, to quite literally get in tune with each other in preparation for grave events to come. Think of it as a pep rally.
Nor am I their leader, guru, high priestess or grand poobah. We have formed our circles on the beach at Malibu in front of Mark’s snooty beach house, in the Rocky Mountains where Orion prefers the high crags, and on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain near the home that Daisy’s grandfather built. In times of need, we find each other and we help. Sometimes it takes a community.
We were finally all together in our new city. No one spoke. The moon had not yet climbed above the horizon, although we could see a slight glow where it would soon rise. We sat under a canopy of stars, brighter and more numerous than anything we could have seen from the valley floor. I never studied the stars, but I knew that there were people in the circle who knew more about them than the scientists down there at ASU. I suppose I could have studied them, as well, but it came to me that the reason I never had was that I was afraid I would spoil the wonder of it. The sky to me was infinite and unknowable. It was good to remind myself once in a while that I was only a very tiny spark in the vast universe.
A meteor streaked across the sky. In moments, there were dozens of them. It was time to begin.
I requested this circle, so I stood first. Each of us brought his talisman. They are not in themselves magical objects, although if they are made of organic materials they may have intrinsic properties. In this setting, we use them as focusing tools.
My talisman is a simple black pottery bowl. It was a gift from a Navajo friend, made by her mother’s mother and presented to me in honor of an experience we shared. We had been thrown together by accident around the time that both of our husbands died, and an enduring friendship grew. My gift to her was a linen handkerchief embroidered in silk sewing thread by my own maternal great-grandmother.
My bowl is only about the size of half a grapefruit, formed by hand from coils of clay dug from a hillside near their home up near Four Corners. It appears to have a black glaze, matte on the inside and glossy on the outside. It is only under certain light that a fine network of dark brown lines appears on the surface. My friend explained that her grandmother had coated the bowl inside and out with the black glazes and fired it in a very hot kiln. When it hit the right temperature, she pulled it out with tongs and draped strands of horsehair on the hot surface to scorch away and form the patterns.
I value the little bowl as a memento of our friendship, but it’s also the most important talisman I have because of its utility. When I need to really, really concentrate, I fill the bowl with clean water and gaze into the center of it to clear my mind.
In itself, my black bowl has no particular magical properties that I can see. It’s just a pretty little bowl with a sentimental attachment. A cracked teacup from
Goodwill would work just as well, as long as the inside is black. The idea is to focus — or more to the point, unfocus — on the middle of the water, in the same way a crystal ball is used.
I said a short cleansing incantation as I poured a little purified water from my water bottle into the bowl. I maintained my focus as each, in his or her turn, placed their talisman in front of their candle. Daisy brought her tortoise comb. Orion had a beautiful pearl. Mark laid his staff so that it bisected the circle of candles.
Our circle of candles glowed brighter as we poured energy into the incantation. It was rather like that vinegar and baking soda volcano you made for the science fair, a mystical reaction that appears to be much greater than the sum of its parts.
So we bind ourselves in battle; so we bind ourselves in love.
Chapter Eleven
We needed a trap. Now that Lissa had fessed up, she was anxious to help us deal with her mother. Penelope would see it as the ultimate betrayal, but the break had been a long time coming. Lissa was ready. We could use that.
Mark and I met at the alley shop for Chinese take-out and a war council. Frank sat in, hoping a morsel or two might fall his way. The food put everybody in a Sun Tzu sort of mood.
Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak, Frank spouted, pleased with himself.
Mark could not hear Frank, of course, but he caught the dirty look that I flashed in the cat’s direction. Mark snapped his fingers in front of my face to bring my attention back. Frank flipped his tail, his version of a sassy snap.
I was worried; I’d seen what Penelope had done to Michael. I wasn’t sure we were up to taking her on. “She’s one of the most powerful witches I know,” I said — and that was really saying something, considering my family. “How are we going to deal with her without getting ourselves killed?”
“I found something,” Mark said. “I finally figured out why she was so anxious to get her hands on the blue amber.”
He had our full attention.
“It was right there in Hannah’s spellbook. You know that old wives’ tale that if you wear amber, you’re protected from witches?” Mark asked. He looked down at the amber ring on my hand. “Nonsense, right? Except that it isn’t. The spell is a way to amp up the power of a particular kind of amber and use it sort of like a force field. Apparently, it doesn’t work with the regular kind, but when you get this spell going in conjunction with...”
I finally put it together. “Blue amber.”
“If you channel this spell through blue amber,” Mark said, nodding, “you can come up with a heckuva bang.”
“So what does Penelope want to protect from other witches?”
“Can’t imagine,” Mark said. “But whatever she’s up to, she’s willing to kill for it.”
“So what do you recommend?” I asked.
“We use the spellbook for bait. We may not individually be able to take her on, but together we might be able to persuade her to walk away.”
“She’s not going to walk away,” I said. “We’re going to have to do something decisive and permanent.”
Mark snorted back a laugh. “You have been watching too many movies.”
“You want that I should take care of her?” Frank intoned in his best Brando imitation.
I was horrified. “I didn’t mean kill her! I just meant that a unified show of force might convince her to stand down. We need to show her the error of her ways.”
Mark pulled out another hoary old quote from Sun Tzu: Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
There is no place darker than my vault.
♦
Mark decided that we needed some muscle, so he asked me to call Barry.
Barry Alexander and I are not friends. Barry does not have friends, but I would trust him with my life.
Barry is the guy you want on your side in a fight — preferably three steps ahead of you, between you and the bad guys. He has no specialized training and doesn’t usually carry a weapon, although from time to time he’s been able to pick up something from the shop inventory and use it immediately with no learning curve. He’s all about raw power.
I may have given you the wrong impression. You’re probably picturing an archetypal warrior with muscles on his muscles and a frame like a Humvee. Barry is only five-and-a-half feet tall, a skinny little guy with a chip on his shoulder.
What makes Barry very dangerous is that he has no filters; when his fuse gets lit, the fireworks go off until the powder’s all been burned. He’s an unguided missile, and he needs a cooler head to direct him. Barry listens to Mark, and together they are unstoppable.
Barry’s roots in the American Southwest go deep. He was born in South Texas. The family name was once Alejandro, but an ancestor way back anglicized it when Mexico ceded what is now Texas to the U.S. in 1848. Barry once mansplained to me that his family did not cross the border: it crossed them.
The first time I met Barry, I was having a quiet drink with a friend in a bar in Fort Worth. Barry was working security at the stockyards at the time, and he came in with a much larger buddy from work. This is Texas, remember, so the boys were decked out in boots and Stetsons. Barry’s black hat was so big it made him look Yosemite Sam — and if that didn’t quite draw enough attention, he’d stuck a pink feather in the hat band.
I’ll say it one more time just to be sure you’re getting this: this was a cowboy bar in Texas. It was the kind of place where the band is protected from the airborne beer bottles of their audience by chicken wire across the front of the stage.
The band was cranking their way through a Waylon Jennings set when Barry and his buddy came through the — I kid you not — swinging doors. The big guy spotted two stools at the end of the bar and broke trail through the crowd. Barry took off his hat, brushed a little imaginary lint off the brim, squared the hat back on his head and swaggered along behind.
A few steps in, the inevitable happened. Somebody with more beer than sense on board made a crack about the pink feather. Let your imagination take it from there.
I learned later that Barry called that particular Stetson his fighting hat. Whatever he needed to blow off a little steam, he’d dust it off and head for the rowdiest bar he could find.
Enough said.
♦
Mark commandeered the basement as his research space. He began by tossing out a small incantation that dissipated the stale reek of tiger urine, for which I thanked him profusely. It was immediately replaced, though, with the stench of sulfur and ash from his experiments.
Lissa and I were banned from the vault for the duration. Mark said it was for our own protection. When I asked him why he couldn’t just work at home, he reminded me that my vault had concrete walls three feet thick, and the ceiling — which was the floor of the showroom above — was reinforced with steel beams. For two days, they came and went, sometimes carrying large books or mysterious packages. Once, Barry had a small bamboo cage covered with a towel. I didn’t ask.
At the end of the third day, Mark seemed to be in better spirits, but he still wouldn’t talk about his research. “It’s coming along — it’s coming along,” was his standard response as he strode through the front door and dropped into the Eames chair.
Lissa and I went on about our business. She said her mother was still pressuring her about the blue amber, but so far she’d been able to hold her off by promising to get Penelope access to the shop again over the weekend.
I hoped we’d be ready.
♦
Mark’s task was pretty straightforward. If you think of the universe as a computer, then magic is the operating system. Witchcraft is the app you use to get things done. Mark needed to make sure that Penelope and Simon were logged in to that app when he triggered our trap. To do that, he needed to attach them to the spell.
Lissa had provided one of her mother’s favorite handkerchiefs, and Mark had successfully integrated it into the incantation. �
��Now, I need to tie Simon to the spell,” Mark said. “Can Hannah give us something of his — clothing, maybe, or something he’s handled recently?”
I rummaged in the bottom of my desk drawer and came up with the small parchment envelope Simon had given me. I opened it and pulled out the charm.
Mark scrutinized it. “This is not as old as it looks,” Mark said, peering at the vellum with his loupe. “The language is wrong, too.” He smiled. “Do you recognize it?”
I hadn’t paid much attention to the words of the charm, but now they nearly leaped off the page at me. “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,” I read aloud. I looked up at Mark in wonder. “It’s that scrambled Latin that typesetters use as a sample text in mock-ups.”
Mark nodded. “It’s a nonsense take-off on Cicero’s essay on the extremes of good and evil. Whoever made this, he has a sense of humor.”
Mark examined the document more closely. “There’s no charm here, but I think there’s some kind of spell on the paper itself. Come take a look at this.”
Mark held his hands together a few inches above the vellum. “I think it’s ordinary calfskin vellum, nothing exotic, but look at the edges.”
I watched the edges of the sheet as Mark moved his hands apart and back together. When his hands were at the edges, they glowed.
“What’s it doing?” I asked. “Is it sensing your hands?”
“No.” Mark looked grim. “Think of my hands as a camera shutter. When I pull them apart, light falls on the middle of the vellum. That’s what’s making edges glow. When I bring my hands back together again, I’m blocking its vision.”
“Its vision?” I gasped. “It’s watching?”
Mark held the vellum to the light. “It would take some formal testing to be sure, but I’m guessing that Simon put I spell on this to keep an eye on you.”
Okay, now I was seriously creeped out. “Burn it,” I hissed.
“Oh,” Mark said with a grin, “we will.”
Pentacle Pawn Boxed Set Page 18
