Secondhand Spirits

by Blackwell, Juliet

  “Evil be gone from my sight, gone from this place. I have wrought a circle of magical brew, a circle of light against the darkness.”

  The candles on the bedside table blew out. The flames on the circle wavered, but I commanded them to stay lit. Something was fighting the spell, aroused by it.

  “There will be no trespass upon this soul, upon this essence. Evil be gone from here, for the good of all souls. This I compel you!”

  I flinched as a heavy book flew toward my head, but it smacked into the invisible wall of the magic circle and fell to the floor. An insistent thumping began and grew louder until it sounded as though a small army were racing up a never-ending staircase, their footsteps echoing throughout the house. I closed my eyes and let myself relax into my power, confident in the strength of my focused intentions. The power coursed through me, using me as its vessel.

  Suddenly the noise ceased. But then whispers began. A distinct but unintelligible voice murmured and chanted, invoking against me.

  I opened my eyes.

  Someone was there. Someone invisible.

  Not a ghost. Ghosts didn’t have this kind of power. This was an invisible someone.

  And I was looking straight at it.

  Using all my strength, I invoked the spirits of my ancestors, my helpmates, to maintain concentration on the spell. I chanted louder and tried to block out the insistent whispering, knowing the charmed bag on the braid at my waist, the power of the brew, and the magic circle would all work together to keep me safe.

  I chanted, nonstop, until the house was hushed and my voice was hoarse. According to a quietly ticking clock on the bedside table nearly an hour had passed.

  As I gathered my things, I reviewed the spell in my head. That invisible whispering presence had chilled me to the core. Had it really happened, or could it have been my imagination run amok? Though I was in touch with other spirit planes, I had an unfortunate tendency to freak myself out at the worst possible moments. Despite my years of study—or perhaps because of them—I knew only too well that much of the spiritual realm was still a mystery.

  Physically and mentally drained, I left the Potts house shortly after two in the morning and drove to the edge of the San Francisco Bay, near the deserted India Basin Shoreline Park.

  Time for a sit-down with a certain child-hungry demon.

  Hunkering down on a muddy slope, I gazed out over the calm waters of the bay, feeling the effects of the “hangover” hum I always felt after working a spell, all my nerve endings alive, ultrasensitive, but weary. A blanket of fog hovered low over the water, but gleaming lights sparkled in the city of Oakland across the bay. The hills beyond were a sooty black against the deep purple of the night. Overhead, I noticed a red-tinged ring around the moon.

  Blood on the moon. Another bad omen.

  An hour passed. It didn’t seem as though my quarry would be showing up anytime soon. Perhaps Jessica really had been a victim of an all-too-human form of evil—a drug deal gone sour, an estranged relative, a pedophile. Maybe it hadn’t been La Llorona’s wail that Frances and I heard, after all, but just an everyday attic—or basement—ghost trapped in Frances’s home. Clearly there was some kind of presence in that house, and I was the first to admit I wasn’t great with standard ghosts. Though my energy stirred them up, I could never see them clearly or understand what they were saying. I could only feel their presence and note their effects.

  Creatures like La Llorona, on the other hand, were much more malevolent—and straightforward—than your average ghost. I had no problem at all seeing and understanding her ilk.

  A half hour later I decided to pack it in. I stood and turned to brush some damp debris off the seat of my jeans.

  A wave of icy dread washed over me. This chill had nothing to do with the fog.

  Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of white. Someone—something—skittered by. I twisted around, but it was gone before I could focus. Again, on the other side, a cold breeze, as though a butterfly had rushed past. Or a demon.

  I froze, caressed my medicine bundle, and recited a brief protective incantation.

  “Did you see that?” I asked the darkness.

  “What?” Oscar appeared at my side.

  I immediately felt better. Maybe this whole familiar thing wasn’t such a bad idea.

  “I thought I saw . . .” I tried to shake off the willies.

  “Never mind. It was probably just my imagination.”

  Another skitter in my peripheral vision, this time on the other side.

  “La Llorona!” Oscar cried in an urgent whisper. He jumped into my arms, wrapped his scaly limbs around my neck and waist, and trembled.

  So much for comforting me with his presence.

  Then the weeping began: the terrible keening of a mother so tormented and distraught that she would hold her own children, one after another, underwater while she watched the life drain out of them. The sobbing became a palpable energy enveloping us, swallowing us.

  “¿Has visto a mis hijos?” the specter wailed. Have you seen my children?

  The cry sounded far away, which meant that she was near. Demons were strange that way.

  Now I could see her: a long-haired woman in a white gown, scuttling past.

  Unpeeling Oscar from my body, I called out to La Llorona, then started chanting, trying to beckon her to return. It was no use. I was tired from working Frances’s spell and didn’t have the strength to compel her.

  “What’s happening?” Oscar whispered from behind a bush.

  “She took off.”

  “Why? She was attracted to your energy.”

  “Hush, I’m going to try again.”

  I tried for another ten minutes before giving up, swearing under my breath. It had been a stupid move to try to summon the apparition while fatigued from the earlier spell. Caressing my medicine bundle, I took big gulps of the salty, chill bay air as I carried Oscar back to my car in the otherwise deserted parking lot.

  What now? I wondered as I slipped behind the wheel. Go home and be glad that Frances was safe, try to forget little Jessica’s smiling face . . . and try to convince people—children, especially—not to go near the water at night? All this without mentioning demons and ghostly phantoms? An impossible task in the City by the Bay.

  Or should I go further and try to get Jessica back? Was it even possible? And could I then somehow banish La Llorona? Graciela used to tell me that I hadn’t come anywhere near the limits of my abilities; she said I lacked the courage to explore my power. But I left home before finishing my formal training, and I feared unleashing powers I would not be able to control. Now that I was creating a home for myself, and even developing friendships, was I grounded enough to go further with my talents? Or would dueling with a child-stealing demon put everything I had been working for—my “normalness”—at risk?

  Chapter 5

  Back at my cozy apartment, Oscar ate a peanut butter sandwich and then curled up to sleep on top of the refrigerator. He was snoring within minutes. I wasn’t so lucky; sleep proved elusive. I took a long shower, scrubbing myself with a natural loofah and olive oil soap, then tried to clarify my mind by burning a little frankincense and myrrh.

  The incense made my apartment smell fantastic, but my thoughts were as jumbled as ever. Indicative of my desperation, I unearthed my heavy crystal ball from the old black steamer trunk at the foot of my bed. A gift from one of Graciela’s wealthier magical friends, the crystal ball sat on a base of intricately worked gold inlaid with semiprecious stones. It was easily the most valuable item I owned.

  I set it on the coffee table in the living room, sat cross-legged before it, breathed deeply to center myself, and gazed into the crystal ball.

  Divination was not my strong suit. I often experienced a foreshadowing of things to come, as though my spirit guide were warning me, but that was about the extent of my fortune-telling talents. At times I suspected Graciela believed I was faking my lack of such an obvious skill, but it was n
o joke. My life would have been much simpler if only I had been able to foretell the future.

  The art of seeing things in a reflective surface—a crystal ball, a mirror, or even the surface of the water—is called scrying. It’s a classic tool for witches and seers, but I just plain wasn’t any good at it. I concentrated on staying focused but open, willing my mind to concentrate while simultaneously allowing it to wander—no mean feat. This is the kind of skill that anyone can hone with enough training, but some practitioners are much more gifted than others from the git-go.

  As was typical for me, I could see only fleeting shadows, silent and unfathomable, in my crystal ball. Plenty of portentous omens, but not a one gave me any clear sign as to what was going on in the present, much less the future. Nothing to shed light on Jessica’s fate or to explain the presence of the dreaded La Llorona in San Francisco.

  Not a single, cotton-pickin’ thing. Frankly, if the spirits couldn’t clarify things, I’d just as soon they kept their omens to themselves.

  I stifled the decidedly unwitchlike impulse to throw my beautiful crystal ball through the window and watch it shatter on the street below.

  I awoke to a gargoyle with questionable breath perched on my brass bedstead, staring at me upside down.

  “Can I have the pizza?”

  “What?” I croaked.

  “Can I have the leftover pizza in the fridge?”

  “It’s may I have the pizza.”

  “May I?” He rolled his big green eyes.

  “Surely. Help yourself.”

  He bounced onto the bed, then trampolined onto the floor.

  “You really don’t have to ask, Oscar; just make yourself at home.”

  The warmth of my cushy comforter beckoned me, tempting me to roll over and go back to sleep. But once I’m up, I’m up. Besides, bright sunshine streamed through my multipaned windows in San Francisco’s version of a late winter’s morning, and I felt my spirits lift. As my grandmother used to say, despite tragedy and grief, the sun will always rise.

  The great thing about owning my store—and living above it—was that it was like having an enormous walk-in closet. My whole life I’ve been a blue-jeans-and-T-shirt kind of gal, but lately I’d developed an addiction to my own vintage clothes. I sneaked downstairs in the purple silk kimono I used as a robe and started poking around.

  With bits of pizza crust and mushrooms decorating his snout, Oscar trotted along at my heels, in his piggy mode in case anyone was peeking in through the front plate-glass windows.

  After some consideration I tried on a sleeveless late- 1950s pink-orange-and-aqua floral dress with a scoop neck, wide skirt, and a narrow pink belt. It came from a garage sale in Marin, and its vibrations were comforting and mellow. I assessed my reflection in the full-length mirror. The outfit suited me. I’m of average height and weight, nothing special. Dark hair and eyes. I tan easily, but since I never take the time to sunbathe, I tend toward pale. Men don’t drive into lampposts when I walk down the street, but I receive my share of appreciative glances and subtle once-overs.

  I topped the dress with a soft turquoise cashmere cardigan, pulled my straight dark brown hair back in its customary ponytail, and tied it with a butter yellow silk scarf. Oversize pink, orange, and yellow Bakelite bangles finished off the outfit. A sweep of mascara and sheer pink lipstick completed my simple makeup regimen.

  Compared to my earlier globe-trotting life, my current everyday schedule might seem a bit tedious to many. But after years of rootlessness, I reveled in my shopkeeping routine. I loaded an old Billie Holiday CD into the store stereo and sang along to Lady Day, imagining myself to be like any other merchant along Haight Street who started work early, straightened her inventory, washed her windows, and put the cash in the register.

  Unlike most of my neighboring business owners, however, I always took time before opening to cleanse the shop of negative vibrations by sprinkling salt water counterclockwise around the periphery of the store, and then smudging deosil with a sage bundle. Afterward, I lit a beeswax candle, murmured a brief protective incantation at the front doorway, grabbed my usual marketing basket, flipped my hand-painted wooden sign to OPEN, and unlocked the front door to Aunt Cora’s Closet at ten o’clock sharp.

  On the curb directly in front of the store sat a tall, gaunt man-boy. Conrad was a neighborhood fixture who referred to himself in the third person as “the Con,” though as far as I could tell he hadn’t actually done any time in prison. Come to think of it, unlike most of the local youth, he had no visible tattoos at all, prison-inspired or otherwise.

  He turned to greet me.

  “Dude,” which he pronounced, doooooooood. “How you doin’ this fine sunny day?”

  “I’m well, Conrad. And how are you?”

  “Fit as a fiddle and ready to roll. Want me to sweep your sidewalk?”

  This was our unwritten rule: Conrad did an errand for me and kept an eye on the store while I went down the block to the café to buy him breakfast—usually bagels or a couple of cinnamon rolls—along with a drink called Flower Power, a trademarked mix of espresso, chai, and soy milk. I kept hoping the near-daily morning meal would put a little weight on his skeletal frame.

  Since the 1960s the streets of “the Haight” have been a beacon to young men and women hoping to find—or lose—themselves among the open-minded citizens who people this town. They come from the mountains of Wisconsin and the streets of New York City and the suburbs of Kansas in search of a bohemian ideal of music, a non-materialistic life, and an ethos of tolerance. Unfortunately, a lot of them realize too late that high rents mean life on the streets, and many fall under the spell of easily available drugs. A lot of locals refer to them, as they do to themselves, as “gutter punks,” but I hate the derisive tone of the phrase.

  Conrad liked to say he was high on life, but his blood-shot, often unfocused eyes told a different story. I had offered many times to help him get off whatever he was on, but so far he had politely and consistently refused my assistance. I was tempted to hurry the process along by forcing him with magical intervention, but as with so much in life, “the Con” would have to be ready to change before he could succeed in any sort of lasting psychic transformation. The effects of enchantment are not all-powerful; rather, they are limited in the face of the dogged human pursuit of self-destruction. You have to believe, to want, in order to have a dream come about.

  This is true even for us witches. Many’s the time I’ve wished I could just wiggle my nose and make things happen like a certain television “witch” I grew up watching on after-school reruns. But real magic isn’t that simple. A properly cast spell opens and broadens opportunities; it’s then up to each individual to pursue them. Witch or no witch, there was no way around the fact that establishing a vintage clothing shop took a lot of long hours, hard work, and moving outside one’s comfort zone. In some ways I wasn’t so far removed from Conrad; I had to deal with my own daily fears and stubborn addictions.

  Today I asked Conrad to unload the bags of Frances’s clothes from the van rather than sweep the sidewalk. I led him over to the driveway I rented right around the corner from the shop, opened up the van’s sliding side door, and then hurried down the street to the quirky, funky coffee shop called Coffee to the People.

  As its name suggests, Coffee to the People is an unrepentant throwback to San Francisco’s famed Summer of Love. Classic Bob Dylan or Grateful Dead tunes dominate the playlist on the overhead speakers. The walls are plastered with bumper stickers reading: DEMOCRACY IS A MUSCLE; USE IT OR LOSE IT!, HAS ANYONE SEEN MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS?, and YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU. Large posters feature Mandela, Gandhi, Einstein, and Harriet Tubman, and dated pins plastered to the tables read, STOP THE OCCUPATION OF EL SALVADOR, SUPPORT OUR BROTHERS IN VIETNAM, and FREE NICARAGUA.

  Finally, the coffee drinks are made from fair-trade beans, and there are multiple vegan options for baked goods that succeed in making me feel guilty about being an omnivore. I’
m always half expecting Angela Davis to pop out of the bathroom and deliver a lecture on issues of social justice.

  Still, the times they are a-changing: The café now offers free Wi-Fi. As I swung open the dark wood-and-glass front door and walked in, few eyes looked up from the glowing screens of MacBook portable computers, and at least half the crowd wore earphones that attached them to electronic equipment while cutting them off from the people around them in a way I imagined must be anathema to 1960s ideals. This morning four bleary-looking students were already sprawled on the big, cushy couches near the back, while a group of young women sat at a large round table, chatting and knitting. All in all the ca fé’s a bit noisy, some of the people can be rather fragrant, and I wouldn’t recommend leaving your laptop unattended for even a second. But it is just so San Francisco.

  I took my place in line, knowing from experience that it would move slowly. The sometimes surly baristas existed in their own world, involving one another, the music, or their friends leaning on the counter telling loud stories over the noise of the steamer.

  But I bided my time, enjoying the chance to people-watch. Bronwyn and I had started swapping our favorite “overheard” snatches of conversation from the coffee line. Today a tall, lithe wood sprite of a teenager turned to her slouching, purple-haired companion, put her hands on her hips, and declared: “He’s just so unabashed when he talks about the theoretical aesthetics of commercial architecture. After all, it’s just more . . . what’s the word? I don’t know, just I guess essential to live in a world of essence.”

  I tried to commit it to memory.

  “What’ll you have?” demanded the barista, Wendy, when it was my turn.

  “Something chocolate,” I said, hoping Wendy might jump in with a suggestion. Yesterday’s events and three hours’ sleep left me feeling like an emotional punching bag, and the only cure I knew for such a state was chocolate.