The Blue Amber Spell

by Amanda Hartford

  She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “This is what Simon has been looking for.”

  “I don’t get it,” Lissa said defensively. “It’s the twenty-first century. What’s the big deal about owning the book itself? Why not just get it scanned and hand a thumb drive to everybody who wants one?”

  “It doesn’t really work that way,” Mark said in his classroom voice. “Spellbooks are valuable because they contain the recipes and incantations. But they’re also very important as magical objects themselves. Each witch who handles a book leaves behind a little piece of herself. A little sparkle of her magic gets embedded. Some of these books are hundreds of years old, and they are very powerful.”

  “So a non-magical type could just pick it up and do a spell?” Lissa asked.

  I shook my head. “Sorry, no — you still have to have the ability. Think about it this way: Mark has a couple of shelves of sheet music that he’s collected and annotated over the years. Someone who plays cello as beautifully as Mark does could walk into his study and pick up a piece of the music he’s developed and understand all of the nuances and improvements he’s added.”

  I checked to make sure Lissa was following along. “But,” I continued, “if I went in there… Well, we all know that I have trouble even pounding out Chopsticks on the piano. So if I pick up Mark’s sheet music, even though I know how to read it, I couldn’t reproduce it. I just don’t have the talent.”

  It was Hannah’s turn to look confused. “But Simon doesn’t, either. So what’s this all about?”

  “Simon’s been getting some help,” Mark intoned. His voice was dark.

  I heard Lissa suck in her breath. “I didn’t know. I promise — I didn’t know.”

  We all turned. Orion put his arm around her shoulder.

  “Tell me about the tiger,” I said softly.

  Lissa burst into tears. “My mother said…”

  The puzzle was starting to fall into place. “That’s why your mother was so determined to get you a job here this summer,” I said.

  She nodded. “She gave me the necklace and told me to wear it whenever I came to work. I… I didn’t know, I swear. If I had, I would have never…”

  Orion held her closer. She was shaking. It was best just to let her talk, to get it all out.

  “I didn’t mean for anybody to get hurt,” she mumbled between sobs.

  “How did she do it?”

  Lissa hung her head. “I let her in.”

  “You what?” My mind was racing at the scale of her betrayal.

  “She made me do it. We went out to lunch one day, and she made me bring her over here. I added her to the door spell.”

  “Lissa…”

  She was shaking her head. “I know, I know. It was a terrible thing to do. You don’t understand how she is.”

  Oh, I understood all right. I did not doubt that Penelope would bring all of her powers to bear — even on her own daughter —to get what she wanted. Lissa had absolutely no chance of resisting her.

  A terrible thought occurred to me. “Did you allow her into the vault?” It came out as a whisper.

  She shook her head much more vehemently. “I would never! I don’t care what she did to me. But she didn’t need to get down there. Whatever she did, she did it from right here.” She gestured at an armchair across from us. “She told me to take my necklace and leave it downstairs. When I got back, she was in a trance. I know not to disturb her when she’s like that, so I just sat here and watched her. She was doing some kind of very long incantation, and when she finished, she got up and just walked out the door.”

  And then there was a tiger in my basement.

  Lissa had shrunk down very small, curled up in the corner of the sofa as if waiting for lightning to strike her. I studied her for a moment.

  “Lissa, do you want to make this right?” I asked, trying to keep the anger out of my voice.

  She looked up at me, a little hope coming back into her eyes. “Really?”

  “Really. But you’re going to have to be brave, and you’re going to have to do exactly what I tell you. All of our lives could depend on it.”

  The color drained from Lissa’s face. “She’s coming for it, isn’t she?”

  I nodded. “She’s coming for it.”

  Mark looked grave. “She’s coming for us.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ancient Druids are said to have gathered on a windswept plain under crystalline stars to perform their rituals. We live in the city, so we have to settle for the mountain preserve.

  It’s still pretty cool.

  The Scottsdale McDowell Sonoran Preserve is a public park on the north edge of the city. It’s honeycombed with trailheads, and during the day the well-kept paths are jammed with hikers and trail runners wearing ratty jeans or the latest Spandex. Most of the cyclists are hardcore, and I’ve seen a few bikes up there on the mountain that are more expensive than my car. You’ll pass equestrians decked out as cowboys, and others in English riding habits. Everybody is looking their best, representing, getting some sun and hanging out.

  In theory, the preserve opens at sunrise and the trailhead gates are locked at sunset. This, of course, is almost universally ignored. The preserve after dark is a favorite place for amateur drug dealers and teenagers out after curfew. The cops keep an eye on things, but mostly, if you’re cool, they’re cool. Still, vandalism and small-scale pilfering is a problem in every city park, and it’s never a good idea to leave a car—especially a nice car—unattended in the vicinity of the preserve after dark. Our friend Uber Jerry was going to have a busy night.

  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: 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 th
is 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.