A Vision in Velvet: A Witchcraft Mystery

by Juliet Blackwell

There was a commotion at the front door. Bronwyn and I looked over to see Maya in a brief tussle with Conrad right outside the front door. We could hear her explaining to him that she wasn’t a customer and so should be allowed to enter. Finally, he acquiesced and she dashed in.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s all this about a missing pig?”

  I swallowed but seemed unable to speak. Luckily, Bronwyn stepped in for me.

  “Oscar and Lily took a walk through Golden Gate Park this morning. And Oscar appears to have gone missing.”

  “When? Where? And what’s been done to find him?”

  “We’re just working that out now,” said Bronwyn, her voice overly composed, as though afraid to set me off again. “Look, among all of us, we’ve got a lot of friends. We’ll send out search parties, put up flyers. How long could it take to find a lost pig, for heaven’s sake? And Oscar’s so smart. And adorable, and . . .”

  Her chocolate-brown eyes took on a faraway look, and I realized that it just hit her: Oscar was missing. Her little Oscaroo, the piggy she doted on.

  “I don’t understand how this could have happened,” said Maya. “He wasn’t on a leash?”

  I shook my head. “He always stayed with me.”

  “Did he see something, chase something? Did he smell food, maybe?”

  Everyone was clear on exactly how far Oscar would go for food. In some ways it made perfect sense that he had chosen his piggy form as his normal form.

  I shook my head.

  “Well, I’m not going to just sit around here,” said Maya. “Let’s go find him. He’s a pig; how hard could it be to track him down?”

  “You used to call him ‘the other white meat,’” Bronwyn pointed out. We were all upset.

  “That was before. Now . . . well, now he’s just . . . he’s Oscar,” Maya said with a little hitch in her throat. “I’ll call my friends, my cousins. We’ll cover every inch of that park. He can’t have gotten that far.”

  Actually, searching every inch of Golden Gate Park was a bigger job than it might have sounded. Similar in shape to New York’s Central Park, it was a full twenty percent larger. Three miles long, half a mile across. It was more than one thousand acres of public ground smack-dab in the middle of the city, stretching from the Haight to the Pacific Ocean. There were lakes, playgrounds, museums of art and natural history, a Japanese tea garden, an AIDS memorial, soccer fields and baseball diamonds, botanical gardens. And plenty of people sleeping under trees. It was even said to have its very own ghost, a traffic cop who would occasionally stop people for speeding. It was a glorious, vast park.

  With, apparently, one very nasty tree.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll go check with the city, and then I’ll go back to search in the park. Maya, if you want to search as well, Conrad knows where he disappeared. Bronwyn, would you please stay and watch over the store? We don’t all need to panic, and for all we know, he might just walk right back in here.”

  Bronwyn was crying by now, her eyelashes spiked with tears. She nodded and sniffed. “Yes, he’s such a smart pig. So smart, he’ll probably be trotting in any moment.”

  “I’ll go start telling people,” said Maya.

  “And I’ll make some calls,” said Bronwyn. “And get the coven involved.”

  “Great,” I said, trying to quell the guilt I felt at accepting the help of so many well-meaning people when I knew full well there was something entirely supernatural going on. “I . . . I’ll check in, let you know if I find anything.”

  I slipped out. As I turned to close the door behind me, I could see Maya and Bronwyn with their heads bent low over the counter as they wrote up a list of people to contact for help and places to look. They might as well have been planning the Invasion of Normandy.

  “Dude,” said the Con. He was sitting in his usual spot on the curb, but now he was holding his head in his hands. “Dude, I am so, like, bummed about poor Oscar. I was thinking, Lily, you know how I told you I was having nightmares? Like, when I slept under that tree? And not just because I thought a branch might fall on me, but like, real nightmares?”

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t suppose . . . you don’t think the nightmares could have had anything to do with the little guy going missing, do you?”

  It stunned me that Conrad, dear, vague, out-of-it Conrad, was the person closest to understanding the truth. Because yes, I did think that those nightmares had something to do with Oscar going missing. And with those strange visions that I’d had when I put on that cloak.

  The cloak. Could it help me somehow, tell me something? So far all I had seen was the memories attached. But if those memories were somehow related to Conrad’s nightmares, which were connected to the tree and to Sebastian’s murder, then . . . what? What did any of this have to do with Oscar’s disappearance? And how could I use it to get my pig back?

  I didn’t know, exactly, but I was fixin’ to find out.

  I had lied to my friends—I wasn’t headed to check with the city or to search Golden Gate Park. Instead, I hopped in the car and headed for the San Francisco Ferry Building, which housed the temporary offices of Aidan Rhodes, witchy godfather, occasional friend, and Oscar’s former master.

  * * *

  I parked downtown near the temporary Transbay Terminal and walked the several blocks to the Ferry Building. Along the way the city’s siren blared, long and mournful. I never got used to it—it went off every Tuesday and always put me in mind of old WWII movies about Londoners running for air raid shelters. One of these days I was going to ask a native why it blew. Probably it was some obscure local reason, like the way everyone thought Lombard Street was the crookedest street in the world when, in fact, Vermont Avenue between 20th and 22nd Streets, near McKinley Square, had even more switchbacks.

  The Ferry Building stood right on the shore of the bay, at the base of busy Market Street, and was marked by a tall clock tower. Built long ago, it had been one of the busiest hubs in the country before the Bay Bridge was built, connecting San Francisco to the East Bay. Afterward, it had fallen on hard times. But following the 1988 Loma Prieta earthquake, a freeway was demolished and the dilapidated building was transformed into a series of kiosks and small stores specializing in local products, from oysters to honey to ceramics—all of which were extraordinarily attractive and phenomenally expensive. It was also known for offering plenty of interesting dining options, from trucks to stands to permanent restaurants. Whether early in the morning or right before they closed, I had never seen the Ferry Building less than packed with people and buzzing with happy energy.

  A few months ago, Aidan’s office in the Wax Museum had burned down. It was a shame that the museum had to shut down for repairs—I was sure people lost jobs and money—but happily no one I cared about was hurt, and the neighboring businesses were saved. But since Aidan liked to be in the thick of things, he found temporary office space in the Ferry Building.

  I was just glad not to have to brave a gauntlet of wax figures in order to visit him. I had never enjoyed them, but now the nightmarish memories of those characters liquefying, their slippery wax flooding the floor and pouring down the stairs, burning our feet, their features melting and slipping . . . ugh.

  Passing by flower vendors and mobbed food trucks was far preferable.

  The offices were on the second-floor mezzanine, where an open walkway looked down over the crowds below. A security guard sat at a dais set up at the top of the stairs, but she was usually absorbed in whatever she was reading on her smartphone. I never paused, and she never tried to stop me.

  Aidan’s was one of many nondescript offices, distinguished only by the pure white long-haired cat that often sat outside his door. But not today.

  I lifted my hand to knock, but the door opened before I had the chance.

  “Lily! It is always such a pleasure.” He spoke
with warmth, as always. Aidan is impossibly good-looking, with brilliant periwinkle-blue eyes, gleaming golden hair, and just a hint of manly whiskers. Being near him, I found it hard not to notice his looks, but also his aura, which glittered so brightly even nonsensitive types tended to stop and stare when he walked by.

  As always, I felt mixed emotions when in Aidan’s presence. To be absolutely honest, it was easier to dislike him when I wasn’t caught up in his aural spectrum. I wasn’t sure how to interpret the feelings I had for him; they were complicated, a muddle of kinship and fear, gratitude and wariness. And even, let’s face it, attraction. He had come through for me in the past, and I believed he was fond of me . . . in his way. But I wasn’t foolish enough to think he wouldn’t throw me under the bus if he needed to. Aidan wasn’t one to let anyone stand in his way.

  And he was powerful in more ways than one.

  “Oscar’s missing,” I blurted out. At my own words, I felt the panic rise like bile in my throat. A leather-bound book flew off a bookshelf and landed in the center of the room, narrowly missing him. “Sorry!”

  Aidan looked alarmed. I wasn’t sure whether his reaction was due to the book or the news of Oscar missing.

  “Come in, come in. Have a seat.”

  He made a gesture to the security guard at the top of the stairs and closed the door behind me.

  “You need to calm down,” Aidan said unnecessarily. “Someone like you could wind up taking down the bridge if you get too out of control.”

  “You’re exaggerating.” I hoped.

  A crystal ball crashed to the floor and the cat yowled and jumped to the bookcase.

  Aidan raised an eyebrow.

  I collapsed onto a red leather chair that seemed to be an exact duplicate of the one in his old office. In fact, the entire office seemed to be a re-creation of that former locale: the same plush furniture, velvet curtains, Oriental rug. Dark woods, sumptuous fabrics, all very Victoriana. I noticed his bookshelf was becoming increasingly crammed with a rare collection of volumes and ephemera regarding magical history.

  “I thought your collection of books had burned?” I said, by way of distracting myself for a moment. I had to get control of my emotions if I wanted to be of any help to Oscar. Oscar.

  “Indeed it did,” he said with a shake of his head. “Such a shame. But I’ve been working at rebuilding my library. It’s amazing what a person can find for sale on the Internet these days. Most people don’t even realize what they have.”

  “Isn’t most of this information available online anyway?” I was no expert, but lately Maya had been showing me just how much information was available via the Internet, if a person was so inclined. I didn’t much care for computers for the same reason that I didn’t carry a cell phone: I don’t trust all that energy charging over electronic wires, all those electrodes or ions or whatever, rushing around. I feared there were ghosts in those machines. But I had to admit, when the alternative was coming begging hat in hand to Aidan to look at his printed Goetiea, it was much easier to look up random demons by way of a search engine. Especially when I could just ask Maya to do it for me.

  “Are you here to borrow something from my library?”

  “No.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Do you know anything about Oscar disappearing?”

  “When and where did he disappear?”

  “This morning in Golden Gate Park.”

  “I don’t know anything about it, no.”

  “Do you have any way of tracking him?”

  “I’m no psychic; you know that.”

  “True, but you always seem to know where I am. . . .”

  He smiled.

  “I guess I was hoping for some witchy form of a LoJack chip,” I continued.

  “Sorry.” He shook his golden head. “Tell me what happened.”

  I gave him the short version, including acquiring the trunk with the suspicious cloak, learning about Bart’s supposed curse, and finding Sebastian under the tree.

  “The woodsfolk must know something about this,” said Aidan.

  “Oscar was trying to make contact with them right before he disappeared.”

  “So he’s probably with them now. They have a way of taking people into their world temporarily. And time is different there, so he might think he’s been there only a few minutes.”

  “But Oscar seemed to think he saw, or heard, something in the tree. He went up after it. I lost sight of him in the branches, and then he just . . . disappeared. Wouldn’t the woodsfolk have taken him down into the ground somehow?”

  He nodded. “At the base of the tree, yes. And they prefer redwoods around here.”

  “That’s what I thought. I really think something’s wrong, Aidan. There’s something about that tree. . . .”

  “You’re telling me you think this tree is haunted somehow?”

  “Not haunted per se,” I said, only realizing it as I spoke. “But . . . possessed, maybe? Is that possible? Oscar seemed to have a bunch of stories about trees seeking vengeance, that sort of thing.”

  “Possible, certainly. As living creatures, trees can be used as stand-ins. Not possessed, exactly; they act more like holding cells. If a creature wasn’t able to maintain human form, for example. Or, if something were somehow captured and imprisoned.”

  “Imprisoned. How would that work?”

  “Typically, something essential about a creature could be fed to the roots of the tree, with the proper spell casting, of course. The tree could soak up the powers, essentially holding the creature within.”

  “Until . . . ?”

  He shrugged.

  “What if the tree died, or was cut down?”

  “The creature would die as well.”

  Well, that seemed easy enough. Except . . .

  “If . . . if Oscar is in the tree somehow, then if the tree is cut down . . . he would die?”

  Chapter 11

  Aidan nodded.

  I felt myself losing control again, my heart pounding.

  “How is this even possible?” I demanded. “How would Oscar have been absorbed by the tree?”

  “I don’t really know, Lily. And we’re still not sure that’s what happened. But I will look into it.”

  “It’s Oscar, Aidan,” I said, and another book flew off the shelf. “I can’t stand to think of anything happening to him. . . .”

  “And I just told you, I will make inquiries. I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I suggest you try to fill in the history of that cape you mentioned and maybe get to know the cursed man.”

  His familiar jumped on the desk, strutting along, and I leaned back. Noctemus and I didn’t get along that well. For one thing, I was allergic to cats. For another, I didn’t much like her attitude. Also, I feared we sparred a bit over Aidan, which I found rather disturbing. After all, I didn’t want Aidan like that, did I? And besides . . . Noctemus was a cat. It was just plain weird to be vying with a fluffy pet, familiar or no.

  “Listen, Lily,” Aidan said, coming around to stand in front of the desk, half sitting on it in front of me. His voice was low and very gentle. “Oscar probably went somewhere to speak with the Good People. Like I said, time is different there.”

  “How different?”

  “There are stories of people reappearing after two, three centuries.”

  I blinked. “You have to get him out, Aidan. I’ll do . . . I’ll do anything. Really.”

  “Oooh, those are dangerous words, my rash little witchy friend. You should know that.”

  “If Oscar’s with the woodsfolk, though, that means he’s okay, right? They wouldn’t hurt him, would they? I mean, isn’t he sort of one of them?”

  “Sort of . . .” He pushed out his chin and tilted his head.

  “And so you can go and speak with them, and they’ll release him. Right
?”

  “Just as long as . . .”

  “As what?”

  “As long as he doesn’t eat anything. It’s like Persephone and Hades. She was okay until she ate those pomegranate seeds.”

  What were the chances Oscar would eat something if it were offered to him?

  Another book flew off the shelf.

  “Simmer down, Lily. We have no idea what happened—for all you know he might have simply wandered off, looking for new adventures. Did you have any indication he wasn’t happy?”

  I thought back. “He was . . . bored sometimes. But he seemed happy enough. He likes my cooking.”

  Aidan smiled. “I’m sure. But these creatures are quirky, unpredictable.”

  “You’re the one who gave him to me in the first place.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t assume you, as a smart witch, would fetishize the poor little guy.”

  “I just want to make sure he’s all right. If he doesn’t want to stay with me, well, that’s his choice.”

  “Here’s someone who might be able to help fill in some of the history surrounding the curse and the cape.” He wrote something on the back of a business card. “Go talk to him. And in the meantime, for the sake of us all, try to stay calm.”

  That was a lot easier said than done.

  * * *

  Once, when Aidan had given me the name and contact information of someone who could help me, I had hesitated. When I found him, he was a brooding man in motorcycle boots, scowling at everyone in the bar. He had intimidated me. But I had gotten to know him. Sailor. My Sailor.

  So even though part of me, trained through a difficult childhood not to ask strangers questions about the magical world, still held back, another part of me decided to look up the name Aidan had written on his card.

  And this time, it turned out I already knew the man. I had met him the other day at Bart’s apartment. I supposed it made sense that circles of acquaintances would start to overlap; after all, how many experts in witchcraft history could there be in the Bay Area? I found a pay phone and placed a call to Williston Chambers, professor of religion, UC Berkeley. He seemed happy to hear from me; he told me he had class in fifteen minutes but suggested I come by at four during office hours.