A Vision in Velvet: A Witchcraft Mystery

by Juliet Blackwell

  “Do you see a lot of hereditary curses active today?”

  “No, not at all. Especially not in these parts. I’m from New England originally. Same country, different world. My family traces its ancestry back multiple generations. There it’s more common to find an obsession with pedigree.”

  I had to smile. “Did you ‘come out’ at a debutante ball?”

  He chuckled. “No, that’s for young ladies. But I was the next-best thing: an escort to a deb. Not as much fun when it comes to wardrobe selection, sorry to say. But I looked pretty snazzy in my rented tux.”

  We didn’t have debutante balls back in Jarod, Texas . . . though most of the girls in town would have given their eyeteeth to have taken part in one. Instead, we had regional beauty contests. As a young woman, my mother had been crowned Miss Tecla County; she was photographed wearing a rhinestone tiara and a silk sash, carrying a huge gold trophy inscribed with her name. The photo was published on the front page of the local weekly newspaper, the Jarod Journal. It was her moment of glory and the highlight of her life.

  Needless to say, I had never been invited to participate.

  “Anyway, if you’re wondering about the curse Bart claims he has been carrying around, it was supposedly cast by Deliverance Corydon. It was recorded in the family Bible, which Bart still has—I’ve been angling to take a look through it, but he hasn’t yet allowed me to. But this Deliverance is a bit of a mystery, to be honest. I’ve looked and looked but haven’t found any reference to her or her family, which is odd. As I said, the Puritans were excellent record keepers, and her birth should have been recorded in the church and town records.”

  “Maybe she came to town as an adult.”

  “Maybe so. Still, she should appear somewhere. Tax records, census records . . . But I haven’t found anything. Apparently, she lived alone on the outskirts of town.”

  “That was the case for many women accused of witchcraft, wasn’t it?”

  “Not all, but many. A woman living independently was not the norm at this time. Deliverance was also accused of fornication with several of the town elders.”

  “‘Fornication’? I haven’t heard that term in a while. Was she . . . a prostitute?”

  “Doesn’t appear to be the case. She was, by all accounts, a beautiful, powerful, independent woman who kept herself apart from others—just the sort the devil would go after.”

  “Which made her vulnerable.”

  Will gave a simple nod. “Which meant she didn’t have many friends—and that made her vulnerable. Stray too far outside the bounds of what is socially acceptable, and you might as well paint a target on your back.”

  I sighed. Too often this was still true today. Would we humans ever learn from our mistakes?

  “Anyway, what we do know is that Deliverance Corydon was accused of witchcraft, tried and convicted in a court of law, then sentenced to death by fire. As the flames roared higher, it is said she looked at her primary accuser, the magistrate in her case, Jonathan Woolsey, and cursed him and all his male descendants, declaring that they would never find true love or domestic happiness.”

  “She only cursed the males?”

  He nodded. “Maybe because men had the authority in her society?”

  I pondered that for a moment. “So, were there other women killed in Dathorne?”

  “Yes, several.”

  “But Deliverance was the only one burned?”

  “As far as we can tell. But there was another woman who was put to death not long after Deliverance. She was charged with stealing Deliverance’s ashes.”

  The back of my neck tingled. “That’s a charge?”

  “As I said, the people of the time were concerned with the effects of earthly remains. There’s also an illustration of the woman, who was called the Ashen Witch. Let me see. . . .” He looked up at his orderly bookshelves, rubbing his chin absentmindedly. “Yup, here it is. . . .”

  He took out a large book labeled New England Ghost Stories.

  “She’s said to haunt the town still, especially the site of Corydon’s burning.”

  He turned the book around to face me. There was a full-color illustration of a dark-haired woman in a gold cape, kneeling before a pile of gray-white ash. I studied her image and swallowed hard.

  “Hey,” said Will, glancing at the picture, then at me. “You know, ever since I met you, I thought you looked familiar. You’re the spitting image of the Ashen Witch!”

  He was right. I looked just like her. Not as pale, perhaps, but that could be due to the fact that she was, after all, a ghost.

  “No one knows her real name, but according to the lore, she was a newcomer in town—already a big mark against her since outsiders were suspect—and was tasked with gathering up Deliverance’s ashes. She started too soon after the burning and singed herself, but applied a poultice that healed her miraculously. And then she was found applying the marks on the box, and she tried to run away with it. The townspeople found it all very strange and accused her of being a witch as well. Further cementing their suspicions was that she and Deliverance Corydon were said to ‘have the impression of one another’—meaning, they looked alike. Both had dark hair and pale faces.”

  “Seems there’s a lot of that going around,” I said. “So you’re suggesting I look like Deliverance, too?”

  Will shrugged.

  “And so they killed the newcomer because she was a quick healer and wrote a few symbols?”

  “And because she looked like the witch they’d just burned, yes.” He nodded. “It made sense to them at the time.”

  I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

  “Here’s an interesting tidbit,” said Will as he read through the story. “The Ashen Witch is shown here in her cape and was always referred to as wearing one—but she was not hanged with it. In fact, upon her arrest, the cape was nowhere to be found. According to the arrest warrant, ‘said garment, perhaps enchanted, was assumed hidden upon her foreseeing her arrest.’ Huh. Where do you suppose it went?”

  * * *

  I meandered slowly back through the campus, enjoying the scenery. It surprised me that the UC Berkeley grounds were so bucolic. Located as it was in the middle of an urban area, I expected big ugly gray buildings; there were a few, but the overall impression was of a graceful, historic site of higher learning. I passed by Hearst Mining Circle, and gathered eucalyptus branches to hang in my shower; the aroma they released with the steam was great for one’s skin and lungs.

  In front of Bancroft Library a group of five students bounced a Hacky Sack with their feet, laughing and chatting. As usual when I’m on a college campus, I couldn’t keep from looking around at the students and thinking how lucky they were to be here, studying. I was willing to bet that most of them had families that loved them and homes to go for winter break, where they could sleep in to all hours and then awake to delicious-smelling pot roast and potatoes and bicker with their parents and siblings. Normal homes with normal problems.

  I had begun to feel so good about myself and my situation in San Francisco. The success of Aunt Cora’s Closet, Maya and Bronwyn and all our friends who hung around the shop; Sailor, and even Carlos and Aidan and Max . . . I had people here who accepted me, more or less, for who I was. And I felt that I was in a unique position to help my community, from time to time, by looking into magical murder and mayhem.

  But then something like this came along and suddenly I found myself linked across the centuries to an ancient crime against women. Had the velvet cape come to me on purpose? Was it meant to be a tie to those long-ago women, a connection that I was intended to discover? And who were these women? Were they simply caught up in the brutality of the time, as Will suggested, or could they have been bent on destruction?

  And thinking of that . . . was Deliverance Corydon all that bad? She may have been a bit randy, and perha
ps she ran around with other women’s husbands . . . but was that enough to put her to death? And then to cast a love curse upon the house of Woolsey . . . Again, maybe it wasn’t very nice, but it wasn’t along the lines of cooking children, as witches were accused of in parts of Europe—or even in fairy tales, like Hansel and Gretel.

  And who was the other one, the Ashen Witch?

  My fingertips tingled. I looked down at my hands and rubbed the pads of my fingers with my thumbs. I couldn’t forget the feel of those ashes searing my outstretched fingers.

  I arrived at my car and climbed behind the wheel, but hesitated before starting the engine. I wasn’t sure I was ready to face the folks at Aunt Cora’s Closet, all those well-meaning people looking for my missing familiar. I pined for Oscar so; it was like a physical ache. If Oscar were with me now, he would be haranguing me to search for gargoyles on the Berkeley campus. He was always on the lookout for his mother, who apparently suffered under a curse that had transformed her kind into stone.

  I wasn’t up for such a quest without my little guy by my side, but there was something else in Berkeley that interested me. Bart’s niece, Hannah, had mentioned she worked at the Vivarium, near the busy shopping district of Fourth Street. She loved all the “creepies, crawlies, and critters.”

  It wasn’t far, and it would serve as a distraction. Why not?

  Parking was why not, I realized as I circled the block for the second time. Berkeley’s Fourth Street shopping district used to be a series of old factories, but it now featured upscale foodie restaurants and several small, very chic boutiques. A parking space was hard-won, but I finally found one without having to resort to using a magical charm I kept in my glove box for emergencies.

  A block off the main drag, the East Bay Vivarium was tucked discreetly back from the street, surrounded by old Victorians and sweet clapboard cottages. A huge mural showing a lizard with its tongue extended, eating a fly, made it clear I was in the right place.

  Before I even got through the door I noted the strange, dry smell of reptiles . . . and the distinct odor of rodents that, I guessed, would serve as dinner. All around the shop glass-fronted cages held snakes and lizards, frogs and spiders. I read signs as I walked toward the central counter: There were sunbeam snakes, Indonesian tree snakes, yearling green pythons, emerald tree boas, uromastyxes, rainforest frogs, and a variety of chameleons.

  I spied Hannah toward the back of the store. Today she was wearing slightly more formal athletic gear: black stretch pants, a stretchy bright yellow yoga top, and a hoody tied around her muscled, slim waist.

  But the most interesting piece she was wearing, by far, was a large, oh-so-albino snake. I didn’t much care for serpents, but of all animals—with the notable exception of one potbellied pig—they were the only creatures that could understand me. Snakes had saved my life—at least once, maybe twice—but nonetheless they still weirded me out. There was something deeply disturbing about the way they moved. This is where we derive the word “creepy,” after all.

  “Hi, Hannah . . .” I trailed off, trying to think of something nice to say about her snake. Happily, she beat me to it.

  “Oh, wow, hi. I didn’t really expect you to actually come! I invite people all the time, but they never actually come. Meet my friend Zelda.”

  “Zelda’s the snake?”

  “Isn’t she beautiful?” she asked, and ducked her chin to give Zelda’s yellow hide a kiss. “She’s an albino Colombian boa. Very rare.”

  “Um . . . yes. So unusual.”

  “You don’t like snakes?” she asked, half accusation and half question. “Then why are you at the Vivarium?”

  “I actually came to see you,” I said. “And I don’t dislike snakes, I just . . . I have a lot of respect for them.”

  She laughed. “Well, that makes sense. And it’s a better attitude than those folks who come in here thinking they’re buying an instrument to strike terror into the hearts of their neighbors. Matter of fact, I think some of our customers go for the tarantulas because they’re hoping to kill off a mother-in-law or something.”

  Hannah was still smiling, but the thought gave me pause. What was to keep someone from buying one of these critters with the express purpose of hurting someone? Then again, I’d heard that tarantulas weren’t as venomous as people thought. Not that I wanted to find out.

  “We also have iguanas and dragons.”

  “Dragons?”

  “Bearded dragons. They’re a kind of lizard,” she said with a gesture toward large lizards with ruffles around their neck. “They puff up if they feel threatened, make a big show. Aren’t they cute?”

  I smiled and nodded. Lizards were better than snakes—once creatures had legs, they didn’t seem nearly so creepy. Still . . . “I think I’m more of a frog person.”

  “We have a bunch of those, too. Have you been to the new frog exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences?”

  “No, I haven’t. Is it worth seeing?”

  “Oh, definitely. In fact, tomorrow night they’re having a cocktail party. You should totally come! It’s adults only. My sister works there so I can get in free, and I totally love going, but sometimes you can barely walk because of all the schoolkids. It’s cool to be there with just adults. You should go.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  I thought back on what the professor had told me about Deliverance Corydon being accused of having a frog familiar. Frogs were popular as witches’ familiars in the old days, probably in part because of their transformational abilities. Not that familiars were usually able to shift—Oscar was a rarity where that was concerned. Oscar. His absence had become a constant ache. How I wished he were snuggled in his cubby over the refrigerator at home. I could hear him now: “A cocktail party? Awesome! I love frogs! And I’m a real museum booster, you know. I’m a card-carrying member.”

  But right now everything depended on what happened with Oscar. I wasn’t about to make plans until I had that little guy back in my apartment, eating and making a mess and talking loudly through movies.

  “Anyway, what did you want to see me for? Is it about my uncle?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. I—”

  “He’s harmless, really,” she interrupted, talking while the snake curled around her arm. “He just . . . can’t stop talking about that curse, so everyone thinks he’s crazy. But he managed the family finances just fine most of his life.”

  “He said he’s spent most of his fortune?”

  “That’s what he says.” She nodded, her eyes shadowed. “If you want to know the truth, I think that’s the biggest reason people in the family are angry with him. Like they thought they were going to inherit his money or something.”

  “But not you?”

  She shrugged. “I figure it was his money in the first place, so if he wants to spend it all to dig up information on his family and this supposed curse . . . well, my dad spent his at the racetrack and in bars. At least the apartment Bart lives in is paid for, and he was sensible enough to set aside a dedicated account for the taxes and condo fees, so he won’t be homeless.”

  “Well, that’s good, then.”

  “As long as we can get that place cleaned up, that is, so he’s not thrown out by the homeowners association. Which, frankly, I think is pretty bogus. I don’t really get condos. Don’t you think it’s strange to pay for a place and then have the condo committee tell you what you can and can’t do?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it, but I suppose so,” I said, thinking that close neighbors wouldn’t much enjoy my middle-of-the-night incantations or the smells of my brews, the more exotic of which could be a little noxious. It was best I lived by myself, with no immediate neighbors to bother.

  “Then again, I’m not a homeowner, so what do I know? Anyway . . . is there a problem with the clothes? We could negotiate on the money if they aren’t wo
rth what you paid. You were really generous, but to tell you the truth, it was a help just to get them out of there.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. A deal’s a deal. But could you tell me about selling things to Sebastian Crowley? What made you reach out to him in particular?”

  A shadow passed over her eyes. “Oh, Uncle Bart told me about . . . what happened. That is so odd, isn’t it? That I could be talking to someone one day, and the very next day he’s shot? It’s . . . disconcerting. Really sad.”

  I nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  “So, I tried a few antiques dealers in Jackson Square, but they’re pretty snooty. Really, I didn’t know anything about how to go about selling something like that. . . . I asked Uncle Bart, but he didn’t want me to sell the items anyway, so he’s not a lot of help.”

  “So your uncle didn’t mention Sebastian to you himself?”

  “I mean, Bart’s known Sebastian for a while, but like I said, he’s not up for me selling his things, or giving things away.” She petted the snake. “It’s a battle every time I go over there—you know, he’s pretty upset about the trunk.”

  “He can probably have it back as soon as the police release it.”

  “What are they doing with it?”

  “They were checking it out, in case it served as evidence in Sebastian’s death.”

  “Really? So it’ll be one more piece of junk for his apartment. Think how gorgeous that place could be if he’d let me clean it up.” She shrugged, which gave the effect of Zelda-the-yellow-snake levitating on her shoulder. “But as they say in mindfulness training, you can’t control anyone else. We all make our own choices.”

  “I’m sorry if this is a personal question, but . . . You’re the only family member who is in contact with your uncle?”

  “Pretty much. I mean, my sister goes over every once in a while, when I drag her there. She always claims she’s too busy with work, because she’s a scientist over at the Cal Academy, and I’m just a lowly clerk in a reptile store. But I always tell her that working here has taught me lots about . . .”