The Dark Glamour

by Gabriella Pierce

  “Seven hells, Jane,” she half-whispered. “Dee said it worked, but this is amazing!” She stepped a little closer, examining Ella’s face. Her scrutiny bordered on intrusive, but Jane reminded herself that her curiosity was natural—and she was entitled to it, and more, after all of the help she had given. “I thought for sure there would be something to recognize,” Misty murmured. “Something around the eyes, maybe. But even when I know it’s you, I can’t tell.”

  “Neither can anyone else so far,” Jane confirmed. “You found exactly the spell I needed.”

  Misty’s un-glossed lips pressed into a smile. “Something tells me that my reward for such good work is another try at a wild-goose chase.”

  Jane blushed a little. “Dee and I were talking about the next few steps of the plan,” she admitted, “and she did suggest that you might be able to help me plan ahead, spell-wise.”

  “Of course I can,” Misty agreed amiably, pouring tea from a cast-iron pot into a waxed paper cup. She folded out the handles and passed it to Jane. “But that’s not why you’re here.”

  Jane sat heavily in one of the wooden chairs. It was a little lower than she remembered, and she was a lot taller, so she had to spend a few seconds wobbling and trying not to spill her tea. “Things are just a little out of control already,” she admitted, “and while I’ve made all this progress in just a few days, I feel like I’m getting dragged along. And then I go home and realize that I’m still so, so far away from getting back to a safe, normal, happy life. Besides,” she added guiltily, sipping her tea, “on top of all of it I’ve got a hangover. So.”

  “You sound like you could use more than a couple of ‘Blessed be’s,’ ” Misty agreed wryly. “I’d offer to spike your tea, but your aura’s not exactly calling out for hair of the dog. What you need, my dear, is a project.”

  “I really just came for a spell,” Jane pointed out hesitantly.

  Ignoring her feeble protest, Misty poked her head around the black curtain divider into the shop’s front room. Apparently satisfied that no one was stealing or waiting for help, she returned her full attention to Jane. “In that case, there’ll be a project for each of us. I’ll look up your spell, and you’ll read these.” She pulled a stack of loosely bound manuscripts from a high shelf.

  When she set them on the table, Jane knew at once whose cramped, vertical handwriting she was looking at. “Rosalie Goddard’s diaries,” she gasped. The pages were yellowed and cracked, and looked exactly as she’d always imagined valuable, old, magic-related documents should look. Rosalie Goddard had literally written the book on real witchcraft before being institutionalized by her horrified family. She had lived and died in the 1600s, but as far as Jane knew, her book still contained the highest fact-to-myth ratio of any that were available to the general public. Some of it was nonsensical and plenty had to be just plain wrong, but enough of Goddard’s claims checked out to make Jane trust the long-lost author instinctively.

  “We’d been using it to find some of her source material,” Misty reminded Jane, “but there are all sorts of interesting things in there that didn’t make it to the published book. It’s not organized at all, but you might find something that helps you. And looking for those bits and pieces will help you to get centered again, which, truthfully, it sounds like you need.”

  Can’t really argue with that, Jane agreed silently, pulling the closest manuscript to her and turning it right-side up. “Thanks,” she remembered to say as the other woman swirled back through the curtain to watch over the main part of the store, leaving Jane alone with the diaries.

  “And if magick is not a tool of the devil or a trick of charlatans, but rather a simple talent of some who walk among us like singing or drawing or shooting?” she read, her mind already settling into the familiar stillness that usually came when Dee talked her into meditating.

  We all know that there’s meant to be marks on witches, to show their evil to the world, but evil is, I believe, usually better hidden than all of that. They say that a witch will show its power rather than die, yet while I know of enough executions, I know of no one who has survived by means of visible magic. I can only conclude, therefore, that we huddle like children in the dark, convincing each other that we will know the strange when we see it. There is undoubtedly magic in the world, but why should those who cannot wield it have the power to detect those who can? Should they not more reasonably be a higher order among us, in plain sight and yet all unseen?

  Mother dislikes this new project of mine, but I think Father secretly enjoys my scholarly efforts. He would never say, much less since it would mean to contradict her, but tonight I found a new sheaf of paper in my writing desk that I know was not there in the morning. Either he wishes to help me a little, or perhaps some witch has already learned of my studies and is guiding me in secret. I hope I have been too discreet in my inquiries thus far for the latter, but time will tell.

  “ ‘Time’ indeed,” Jane huffed under her breath, sliding the manuscripts out in a fan. The dates on them spanned six years, and Goddard was already showing signs of being long-winded. But Jane’s huffing wasn’t entirely sincere: the subject of discovering magic was certainly important to her, and there was something about Goddard’s voice that she liked. The second part turned out to be especially useful when it came to maintaining her new calm, because for most of the first volume of diaries, magic barely came up again at all.

  Rosalie Goddard was still interested in magic, of course, but she was also a young woman with a lot on her mind.

  The preparations are under way for my wedding feast. I know I am of age, and I know John Goddard is a good man and pleasant enough, but even with Mother fretting about the dowry every day I cannot quite believe it is real. My sisters are jealous: Lizzie in particular dreams of being a wife every night, and often during the day while she wakes as well. But this is the only life I have known, in which I am a studious child and John Goddard is the sweet boy down the road who can never quite keep up with us when we run about and play at adventures. He is not even of a height with me yet, although Lizzie feels sure he will grow as tall as his own father. Of course, she also thinks she is a misplaced princess of some faraway kingdom, so—

  Jane flipped a few pages, then moved on to the next book. Rosalie was still talking about her life, but now her life was getting more interesting, and Jane read avidly.

  “Petru” is not a Nordic name, of course: he says his real father isn’t Mr. Thorssen at all, but rather someone from his mother’s homeland. She came from somewhere well east of where my family was from in the Old World, before she sailed here with Petru and married. She won’t talk about it, and makes us all call him “Peter,” which Erica Carter says is because her people are gypsies and she doesn’t want people to know now that she is married to a respectable man.

  Petru loves Mr. Thorssen like a father, but sometimes I think it must make him sad that his mother never wants to talk about her life before. He was too little to remember anything, and if his mother wishes her former life to be forgotten then he may never know even the smallest details. Sometimes he seems so sad and far away that I wish to take his face in my hands, and I have to remember that a far more appropriate match has already been made for me than a fatherless boy from a nameless country.

  It goes without saying that John dislikes Petru intensely, but he is even more baffled by my interest in Sabina Thorssen. She is so lovely and so mysterious, and sometimes I think that even the way she distrusts me makes me more curious about her life on the other side of the ocean. Petru hinted once that her people back there had magic of their own, and Erica insists that gypsies are all just thick with it. I don’t know about that, but if I close my eyes and imagine a person who could command unnatural forces, it would be Mrs. Thorssen. Petru says she prays in a language he cannot understand, that she never taught him. Anyone might pray in their own language, of course, Father Rexford says, but Petru says that sometimes he is almost sure she is saying something
else.

  John jokes that she is a witch all right, but I know he doesn’t mean it the way I do. Perhaps I really am as foolish as he says: perhaps I am using these ideas I have become fascinated with to explain my fascination with the Thorssens.

  “Spoiler alert: she marries lame-ass John anyway,” Jane muttered, a little disappointed. Petru and his mother sounded far more interesting and far less likely to allow their relatives to commit Rosalie to a mental institution down the line when her book tarnished their family’s reputation. Jane remembered when, shortly after she had started working at Atelier Antoine, Elodie had discovered just how restrictive Jane’s upbringing had been and spent three long months catching her up on the pop culture she should have gotten as a tween. She had the same feeling now as when they had screened Titanic in her cozy studio with the (sometimes partial) view of Notre Dame: maybe the story would end differently this time. Maybe Rosalie would live happily ever after; maybe the boat wouldn’t sink. But that’s not the way it happened.

  She skipped a few more volumes and opened to a page at random. A familiar name leaped off the page at her instantly. Ambika. There must be more than one in the world, but Jane knew immediately in her bones that Rosalie was writing about the one whose name was also carved into marble on the Dorans’ wall: the mother of all the witches in the world. The legend was that she had had seven daughters, and left her magic to them when she died. One of those seven had become Jane’s ancestor, another one had been Maeve and Harris’s, and one had begotten Lynne and her cabal. Jane closed her eyes and pictured the family tree in Lynne’s parlor, but she didn’t really need to: the first name below Ambika’s had definitely been “Hasina.”

  Jane’s eyes swept across the pages, trying to pick up the thread in the dense forest of vertical handwriting. Rosalie was married now, to John, just as Jane knew she would eventually be. And Petru was gone. He had grown up angry and increasingly reckless until he had fled the colonies under a cloud of suspicion related to the mysterious death of a trapper. In the privacy of her diary, Rosalie allowed herself to wonder if some of his newfound violent temper had anything to do with her reluctant refusal to have an affair with him, and her guilt tied her firmly and finally to Sabina Thorssen.

  Although Petru’s mother had never admitted to being a witch outright, the myths and stories that she told Rosalie to ease her sorrow over her lost son sounded an awful lot like the true origins of magic in the world. Admittedly, most of Jane’s understanding had come from Rosalie’s own book and source material, but enough of the details had been corroborated along the way by Malcolm, Harris, Gran’s letter, and Lynne’s marble wall to convince Jane that Rosalie had found her first major lead.

  Sabina had taught Rosalie all about Ambika: the only child of a powerful warlord, who faced ferocious challenges from her father’s subjects when he died. But the gods had touched her, Sabina said (Rosalie quailed at the plural), and the shamans had all agreed when she appeared before them glowing with magic that she should be their queen. The lesser warlords had taken a little more convincing, but they had fallen into line quickly enough when Ambika had raised floods and earthquakes to decimate their armies.

  However, old age came sooner back in those days, and although Ambika had had seven sons and seven daughters, she hadn’t been able to choose any one of them as the next ruler. So she had divided her land among her sons and her magic among her daughters, and then she had closed her eyes and died. Her daughters, Sabina Thorssen had explained, were as different as the days of the week. Jane wondered whether she was more likely the descendant of the one who had used all her power to manage the weather around her tiny farm, or the one who had constantly bewitched men into attacking, on her behalf, the lands that her brothers had inherited. One of them was widely known as “Amunet the Vengeful.” Several had adjectives tacked on to their names, in fact, but Lynne’s ancestress’s reputation was a bit of a puzzle. Although she hadn’t lived any longer than anyone would have expected back in prehistory, according to Sabina Thorssen, she had been known as “Hasina the Undying.”

  “But she did die,” Jane argued with the yellowed page. “You said so yourself. Why would people keep calling her that after they’d buried her? Or is it a figure of speech—like Lynne still has to keep a shrine to her memory somewhere in a closet or something?”

  But Rosalie’s words couldn’t rearrange themselves to answer her questions, of course. Feeling a little silly and a lot more poised than she had that morning, Jane pushed away from the triangular table, replaced the journals on their shelf, and headed out to the front room to thank Misty and return to her mission.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two nights later, Jane snuggled closer against André’s solid shoulder as the city flashed by in a neon blur. She inhaled his musky cologne, which made her feel almost light-headed. Must keep watching the street signs, her brain told her lazily, and she forced her eyes to flicker out the window occasionally. They definitely weren’t going to the Dorans’ mansion, she realized with a small pang of frustration; that was only a couple of blocks from the Lowell. But the trip was already long enough for her to really feel the effects of André’s nearness. She straightened her spine a little, trying to shut out her magical attraction and focus on her plan.

  That morning, a note had been delivered to her suite practically begging her to give André something to look forward to by agreeing to accompany to him to a terribly dull work party. Jane had, of course, agreed immediately, although she had waited a cool ninety minutes to inform him of that fact. Playing hard to get for two days while enduring an unexpectedly physical craving for André’s company hadn’t been easy, but it had definitely been worth it. And it’s worth keeping up now.

  She forgot her strategy for a few blocks in the lower Thirties, when his hand found its way onto her knee and then began a purposeful slide upward, toward her spangly silver minidress. It suddenly felt both too short and too long at the same time.

  “You blind, buddy?” their cabdriver shouted belligerently to the driver of a city bus in the next lane, and both Jane and André jumped a little. The bus driver responded by flipping the cabbie off with an exaggerated flourish. Their spat escalated quickly from there, ending in vague threats and the suggestion of a drag race that was so ludicrous André lost his focus long enough for Jane to regain her own.

  She emerged from the taxi in the East Village feeling as though she had just surfaced after nearly drowning, and she pulled the humid city air deep into her lungs as the cab sped away. “This way,” André murmured, his lips brushing her hair, and for a moment she thought she might begin to sink again into the animal scent of him.

  She turned her head away carefully as they made their way across the street: she felt sure she would need her wits about her. André steered her to a nondescript doorway, which opened as they drew close to it. A massive bouncer nodded politely, and then closed the door with a soft but firm click when they had passed. Jane continued forward into the glass-walled elevator that waited invitingly in front of them, and André joined her, sliding his thumb idly along the small of her back.

  The elevator rose smoothly and swiftly, and when it came to a rest, Jane stifled a gasp. They were on the roof, covered only by a glass-and-wrought-iron canopy that would keep out rain. Tucked into many of the iron joints were a number of the cylindrical heat lamps that made Jane think of Parisian cafés. The April air was still damp and chilly, but under the canopy it felt like a sultry summer night. Ivy curled up trellises and around the wrought-iron frames of white-cushioned couches that dotted the flagstone roof. At the center of it all was the epitome of elegance and charm herself: Lynne Doran, in a high-collared garnet dress, her chestnut hair forming a perfect twist, a sparkling martini glass in one hand.

  The air rushed out of Jane’s lungs, and for a brief moment it felt as though André’s hand on her back was all that kept her upright and moving forward. She can’t recognize me, she reminded herself sternly, trying to shake her muscle
s out of their rubbery inertia. She isn’t even looking at me.

  It was true: although a black-shirted waiter had made a beeline for the party’s newest arrivals, no one else seemed to have noticed them at all. It’s my job to notice them right now, she reminded herself, turning slowly until she had taken in the entire roof. Although there were plenty of people whom she didn’t recognize, familiar faces dotted the party like fireflies, each one catching Jane’s attention in a quick flare. Blake Helding, Andrew McCarroll, Rolly McCarroll, Cora McCarroll, Laura Helding . . . it was like the mansion at 665 Park Avenue had turned itself inside-out on top of this downtown club.

  Jane’s glance darted warily back to Lynne, but her nemesis was deeply involved in conversation with a tall, thin woman in a severe black pantsuit, who had her back to Jane. There was something familiar about her posture, but Jane couldn’t place her.

  While André made small talk with a distant Helding cousin, and Jane smiled vapidly at his wife, she sent the tendrils of her mind out toward the woman talking to Lynne. Jane concentrated hard, pushing mentally past the people milling in between, and finally found the woman’s mind. Or, more accurately, found the blank wall where the woman’s mind should be. I keep forgetting other people are witches, she griped silently, and turned her probing attention to the trophy wife directly in front of her. The woman was making an extremely emphatic point about some congressman’s recent sex scandal, but the inside of her mind was as firmly barred as the first woman’s had been.