The Blue Amber Spell

by Amanda Hartford

  Still, Penelope hovers. Supper tonight was homemade lasagna, which was technically correct: it was made in Penelope’s home by her live-in cook. Lissa attended Arizona State University during the day and worked for me at night, keeping the time available to spend with her mother at a minimum. Penelope soon learned that Lissa had joined my staff, since it is nearly impossible to keep any secret in a community of witches—they gossip like any other small town. Sometime during Lissa’s first week at Pentacle Pawn, Penelope had popped in with a covered dish supper. She’d been here every night since, whenever Lissa worked. I finally gave up and added her to the door spell.

  I grabbed my purse from my desk drawer as soon as I saw Penelope let herself in. I’ve always found her to be a bit much, and she’s not exactly my biggest fan, either. She knows my family from New Orleans days, and she’s always been jealous of their power and their place in the community. I tend to stay out of her line of sight.

  Besides, my steak and eggs were calling.

  ◆◆◆

  Breakfasts are always a problem for me since my days are upside down, but there’s a restaurant around the corner from Pentacle Pawn that serves excellent Western ranch-style meals at all hours. Since I’m pretty much nocturnal, I like to load up with gourmet carbs toward the end of my evening, so I’m nice and sleepy by the time my shift ends at six.

  At 4 a.m. I’m wide-awake and looking for red meat and fried potatoes. My concession to breakfast is to add eggs. In restaurants all over America, steak and eggs means two chicken eggs, fried sunny side up. But, remember, this is Scottsdale. Breakfast eggs in this neighborhood are gourmet frittatas filled with julienned truffles and imported prosciutto. I can’t really afford to eat like that, of course, but the chef is a pal and a client who cuts me a deep discount.

  The food came to the table with the house salsa, available only in autumn when chef goes to visit his extended family in New Mexico and brings back a truckload of Hatch chiles. He sets up a big wire tumbler over the fire pit on the restaurant patio, pours in burlap bags of succulent green chiles and fire roasts them until the pepper skins blister so they can be peeled. The pungent aroma of the chilies and firewood draws people from all over the neighborhood. It’s quite a spectacle and a real crowd pleaser for the tourists from Europe and Asia.

  In this restaurant, you are expected to be able to answer the question: “Red or green?” tourists assume that they are being offered two different kinds of chiles. Here’s the secret: they are the same plant. Red chilies are picked when they are mature; green chilies are the same peppers, picked when they are, well, green. Which one is hotter? It depends on where they are grown, what the weather was like, how much fertilizer and water they got, and a dozen other variables. The only way to find out for sure is to taste them. Diners in the know will respond to the red/green question with “Christmas,” meaning that you’d like a puddle of each on your plate. It’s a southwest thing.

  Chef delivered a gorgeous medium-rare filet with a side of home fries cut from Yukon gold potatoes. The frittata was steaming hot, and I was reaching for the salsa when I looked up and saw Jim Hamilton sliding into the seat across from me.

  Jim had left a message on the shop line earlier in the evening, but I’d been too tied up to call him back. The Scottsdale Police Department does not have that number for obvious reasons, but Jim is not an ordinary cop. He was a Pentacle Pawn customer long before he was a police officer. He’s actually my fourth cousin several times removed, through the Paris branch, which he’s never visited. He has a sort of love-hate relationship with the family and the magical community in general, not having grown up in the craft but seeing it out of his peripheral vision all his life. I suspect that under that skepticism is a very talented practitioner if he’d ever let it out.

  Jim understands that he is welcome at the alley shop at any time, but he’s never been here. He asked to meet me around the corner at the coffee shop. Understand, of course, that a coffee shop in this part of Scottsdale is not just a coffee shop. It caters to the whims of the One Percent, which means that the owners have engaged one of the same designers who have done the mansions up on the mountain, and the chef—and there always is a chef—is up to speed on the foodies’ current fads.

  So, coffee with Jim. He got right to the point.

  “I noticed your declaration on that amber piece from Hannah Carter.” It wasn’t a question. Jim kept an eye on every pawn declaration we filed.

  I nodded. “Nice lady.”

  “I agree. It’s a shame what happened to her mother.”

  “It’s too bad. She was pretty young for heart failure.”

  I could tell by the look on Jim’s face that I had come to the crux of it. I waited for him to tell me. He studied his notebook as the barista set my latte down on the table and hurried off.

  “That’s what the coroner put on the death certificate,” he finally said.

  “So?”

  “You understand, that’s the catchphrase. That’s what they put on the death certificate when they can’t figure out what actually happened. Heart failure is a sure thing. Even when you take off somebody’s head with a shotgun or serve them a cup of strychnine, their heart’s going to fail—guaranteed.”

  “Lovely image. Thanks for that.”

  Jim didn’t even look embarrassed. He knew I’d heard worse.

  “But Deborah was ruled a natural death,” I said after a beat, letting off the hook.

  Jim looked troubled. “It depends on who you talk to. The coroner found no obvious signs of trauma or foul play, even after the autopsy. There was no sign of coronary disease. She didn’t even have high blood pressure. She was barely into middle age, in generally good health. And then she was dead.”

  “So?” I asked again.

  “So, there was one variable that the coroner did not consider because he didn’t know to ask the question. Deborah Carter was a witch.”

  I saw where he was going with this. “And a very talented one.”

  He nodded. “And very talented witches have rivals. They have enemies who can draw down a natural looking death from a clear blue sky.”

  It was something to think about.

  “So, how can I help?”

  Jim consulted his notebook again. “This blue amber you took in—it’s the real deal?”

  I nodded. “Yes, and it’s gorgeous. In the commercial market it’s not terribly valuable, maybe a few hundred dollars, but a stone that powerful is immensely powerful in our community.”

  Jim was connecting the dots. “So that’s why she brought it to you.”

  “We agreed to keep it down in the vault. She said there had been a break-in at her house.”

  “We’re looking into it, but the intruder didn’t leave anything behind or take anything with him. I’m afraid we’re at the point right now where we just have to wait for him to make his next move.”

  “You don’t think Hannah is involved?” I couldn’t picture it.

  Neither could Jim. He shook his head. “We’re more concerned that she might be the next target. She was smart to leave the amber with you. If it’s not in her possession, they’re less likely to come at her.”

  And more likely to come at me.

  Jim saw that I understood. “Keep your eyes open.”

  ◆◆◆

  The shop was quiet when I got back. In my absence, Lissa had waited on two customers. The first was simply redeeming the pawn on his father’s cane, a nice old Napoleonic-era piece with a bumblebee carved into its walnut handle. The cane came with a stinger of its own: with the proper incantation, the handle twisted off to reveal a lethal dagger concealed inside the shaft.

  The other customer had dropped off a small abalone amulet. We see them all the time—nothing special, just a souvenir from somebody’s South Seas vacation. Abalone has a soft vibe because it of its inherent healing powers, but this one had been magically enhanced to be a powerful ward against osteoporosis. A lovely pink pearl was set in the center
of the shell.

  “That’s a really nice piece,” I said when Lissa showed me the amulet.

  Lissa nodded, weighing the necklace in her hand. “It feels very... gentle.”

  I smiled. Lissa grew up with Penelope’s viewpoint of magic. As a girl, she learned spells by rote and practiced incantations until she could recite them without thinking about them—which was hardly the point, as far as I was concerned. I’ve been working with her, trying to get her to bring her intellect and emotion back into her practice of the craft. Lissa was coming along nicely.

  I noticed a glint of silver at her throat. She was wearing a chain of flattened silver links, each engraved with what looked to me like Sanskrit, although I’m no linguist. Dangling from the chain was a pendant the size and shape of an elongated acorn. The chasing on the silver cap of the acorn matched the chain’s links. The acorn was carved from what looked like horn.

  “Pretty,” I said, nodding at the necklace. “Unusual. Is that new?”

  She blushed nicely. “Thanks! My mom just gave it to me. She said she thought I was ready for it now. But I’ve always admired it.” She touched the acorn subconsciously. “My parents brought it back from India when I was little. I’ve always thought it was special.”

  I looked more closely at the acorn. “What kind of horn is that?”

  “Water buffalo, I think.”

  “Nice piece. You may want to leave it up here in the cash drawer if you go down to the vault, though—you wouldn’t want it to react with anything downstairs.”

  She nodded obediently. She put her necklace away, then slid into the Eames chair and took the abalone amulet down to the vault.

  ◆◆◆

  We had a lull between customers at the end of the evening, and I took the opportunity to tell Lissa about my conversation with Jim. She was horrified.

  “Did you know Deborah very well?” I asked her.

  Lissa shook her head. “She and my mother knew each other, like, forever, but they weren’t really friends, I don’t think. When I was little, she was over at our house a lot. Hannah’s dad had died just about the time my dad left.” She put an odd emphasis on the word left, but I let it go. “They worked on spells together a lot, I think.”

  “But they weren’t friends?”

  “I think they were, in the beginning. I’m not sure what happened, but when I was in high school, there was some kind of blowup. Hannah and I had a lot of classes together, and we used to hang out on the weekends. When I was a sophomore, my mother said she couldn’t come over to the house anymore, but she wouldn’t say why. I think it was because she was mad at Hannah’s mom.”

  “That must’ve been difficult,” I prompted. I knew how opinionated Penelope was. It didn’t surprise me that she would enforce her own battles on her daughter.

  Lissa managed a wry smile. “It just meant that Hannah and I couldn’t do sleepovers and that kind of stuff. It’s not like there isn’t any place in this town to go out for an evening. We’ve always stayed in touch, even after graduation. I still got to see her mom sometimes—she’d invite me for lunch on the weekend, that kind of stuff. She was a nice lady.”

  I explained to Lissa that Jim was concerned about our safety in the shop. “Keep your eyes open,” I told her, echoing Jim. “We have no idea who did this, and if it’s someone in the magical community than the door can’t protect us if we give permission for them to enter. Make sure everybody you let in has a legitimate reason for being here. If you have any questions, talk to me before you let them in.”

  Chapter Three

  My condo is on the top floor of a fairly pricey building within walking distance of Pentacle Pawn. The idea that witches live in some rustic hut in the middle of nowhere is rubbish. I like being where the action is, and I like being high above street level. I think of my high-rise as having the same advantages as a tree did on the savanna for primitive humans.

  I’ve always been very conservative with my money, but I consider my condo a necessity. Everything in my home is part of the regular world; it’s my retreat from the world of magic. I don’t often have visitors. I prefer to meet people either at the shop or out in the community. So much of what I deal with in my profession is about artifice and façade, both in the real world and in the magical community. My apartment grounds me, and it needs to feel authentic. I don’t follow trends. The decor is eclectic, my own mixture of classic 19th and 20th-century design to the next issue of Architectural Digest. The condo is not a museum; it’s a small jewel box holding my most treasured possessions.

  I collect art, but there are no reproductions: all of the objects are original, first edition or one-of-a-kind. I’ll save for months, sometimes years, to pick up a piece I want, and I’m willing to wait for something I love to come on the market. For the first few years after I came to Arizona, my place was pretty spare, but over the years I’ve built up a modest, if scattered, collection. A graceful Erté fashion bronze stands on a burled maple table in my foyer, spreading her arms to display her jeweled sleeves. There is a Gustav Klimpt portrait from his late Golden Phase shimmering with gold leaf over my bed, and a dreamlike Veloy Vigil portrait of deer dancers at Taos Pueblo in my dining room. I buy things that call to me.

  I’ve lived alone since I moved to Arizona. Well, not entirely: there’s Frank.

  Frank is a large yellow tabby cat, but he is not a pet. He was a constant presence in the house in New Orleans where I grew up. I inherited him from my grandmother Marie-Eglise, along with some bits of jewelry and furniture. Soon after her death, it became apparent that I was the only one who could hear Frank when he spoke. Under the circumstances, the family insisted that I bring him along when I moved to Arizona. I’m not sure who was more appalled: Frank, or me.

  Frank and I have worked out our boundaries, a sort of negotiated truce. He misses Marie-Eglise, and he hates the desert. I miss my husband John and I love the desert. Frank and I have agreed that these topics are off-limits. That leaves mealtime as our primary topic of conversation.

  It was time for breakfast, part two. I usually scramble up a couple of eggs and throw in some herbs from my balcony pots for a quick snack before I fall into my 500-thread-count cotton sheets. Frank is happiest when he has salmon for breakfast, and a happy cat is a quiet cat, so I indulge him.

  By 8 a.m., I was ready for bed. Getting your full quota of REM sleep during the day is both art and science. My bedroom has heavy silk blackout curtains. I hate the idea of sleeping pills, and it’s not a good idea to use a knockout spell every day, either. I finally came to rely on heavy carbs just before bedtime and keeping regular hours to establish a routine. It was a pretty dull life for a while, but I finally adjusted to the reversed schedule.

  Most days now I sleep through the afternoon. I usually awaken around six, ready for a twilight run in the park or a yoga class before I get ready for work.

  My husband John was dead, but he wasn’t gone. I saw him every night in my dreams. For the first year after he was murdered, I relived the crime scene, hunched over his body, waiting for the ambulance to come. My mind took me again through the empty hours waiting outside the ER. I always awoke tangled in sweaty blankets, so cried out that all I could do was shiver.

  After the first anniversary of John’s death, the dreams changed. I reclaimed some of the good times now. John knew I was a witch—he thought it was funny and wondrous. He was just an ordinary guy, a talented sportswriter with a head for statistics. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. We had both loved living in New Orleans. Our tiny apartment was close to the university where I taught. John’s commute to the newspaper offices was brutal, but I usually spent the time waiting for him in cooking his favorite meals. We did the newlywed thing, and we loved every minute of it.

  Now, I’d wake up in the middle of the night, but I would be smiling. I could almost feel my hand in John’s as we strolled through the French Quarter. I would never get over his death, but I was beginning to celebrate our life. It wasn’t enough, b
ut it was a beginning.

  ◆◆◆

  What finally dragged me out of the house was a phone call from Bronwyn. “Daisy’s here,” my manager said in her very-businesslike voice.

  “What?”

  I heard Bronwyn giggle. She waited for me to catch up.

  “Here?” I stammered. “In Arizona?”

  “In my office,” Bronwyn said.

  “Please offer her a cup of tea—I’ll be right there.”

  ◆◆◆

  It took me twelve minutes to pull on some jeans and a chambray shirt, grab my hair up in a clip and scoot over to the shop. Bronwyn and Daisy were seated at an antique café table in the front of the shop where we sign contracts. My aunt and my manager have known each other since Bronwyn and I were little kids, and they were in the middle of catching up.

  My mother Hazel is the matriarch of my family, but my aunt Daisy is its heart. She is what was my forebears would have called a handsome woman, tall and thin, with dark copper hair shot through with silver. Her seventh decade has not mellowed her much.

  Never married, Daisy devoted herself to me and my cousins. We adored her as a peer, playmate and mentor. She played tag with us, when we were little, and taught us as teenagers how to cheat at poker. She taught us about herbs in her garden behind the Royal Street house and potions at her ancient workbench in the New Orleans shop. Most of all, she taught us to draw our strength and constancy from the ebb and flow of the universe.

  Daisy carefully placed her bone china teacup back in its saucer as I swept in the door. She was on her feet, arms wide open in a big hug by the time I reached her.