Secondhand Spirits

by Blackwell, Juliet

  “I can’t decide between a cayenne hot chocolate and the Chocolate to the People,” I tried again when Wendy remained mute. “What do you suggest?”

  Wendy tapped her black-painted, chipped fingernails on the counter, barely refraining from rolling her eyes. She didn’t share much in common with her Peter Pan namesake. She was big and tall, her bangs cut straight across, the rest of her thick dark hair slightly curled under and cut to brush the top of her shoulders. A brave young woman who seemed quite at home in her own oversize-for-current-fashion body, she had a tendency to wear black satin bustiers and other lingerie items as everyday clothing.

  “I’ll just go with the Chocolate to the People, then,” I said when it became clear Wendy wasn’t going to be of any assistance. “And I’ll take one Flower Power, two cinnamon rolls, and a bagel with cream cheese and avocado . . . and jalapenos.”

  My personal goal was to come here often enough so Wendy and the other regular barista, Xander, would recognize me, smile in welcome, and maybe even ask, “The usual?” as they did with their friends. Complicating this plan was that I never ordered the same thing twice. Still, a witch can dream.

  Ten minutes later I emerged into the sunshine balancing my goodies in my handwoven Brazilian basket, and crossed the street.

  “Lily!”

  I looked around to see a neighboring merchant, Sandra, trotting out of her storefront and waving me down. A petite, pretty woman in her mid-thirties, she stopped when she reached me on the sidewalk. As usual, she stood just a little too close and stared just a little too intently.

  “Good morning, Sandra. How are you?” I asked.

  “I’m so glad I caught you outside your shop! I’ve been trying to get you over here for days! I believe you simply work too hard. Staffing the store every day plus buying and then preparing all the clothes—it’s too much!”

  “I’m sorry I can’t really talk; I’m actually bringing this food back to Conrad—”

  “He can just come right over and get it from you; you buy it for him, after all. Conrad!” she yelled before I could stop her. For a small woman, Sandra had some impressive pipes. “Come on over and get your breakfast from Lily. We’re going to visit for a few minutes!”

  Unfolding his lanky frame, Conrad stood from his spot on the curb and trudged toward us with his hands stuck deep into the front pockets of his grimy jeans. I handed him his food and drink and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but Sandra beat him to it.

  “What do you say?” she demanded, as though he were a child.

  “Thank you ever so much, ma’am,” he said in a truly terrible Texas accent, lifting an imaginary cowboy hat in my direction. I tried not to laugh.

  Bowing to the inevitable, I asked Conrad to watch the door of Aunt Cora’s Closet for a few more minutes and stepped into Sandra’s shop, called Peaceful Things.

  Like Coffee to the People, her store was exactly what tourists from around the world expected to find when they visited the Haight. Smelling strongly of patchouli, the inventory was a hodgepodge of tie-dyed classic rock ’n’ roll T-shirts and paraphernalia, cheap but appealing Asian imports, brass hookahs, blown-glass ornaments, and inexpensive jewelry featuring peace signs and yin-yang symbols. She also carried what I secretly referred to as the lighter side of the supernatural—crystals, candles, pyramids, goddess figurines of all stripes, and a wide selection of New Age-inspired self-help books.

  Peaceful Things, despite its name, made me uncomfortable. In the first place, I couldn’t stifle the feeling that Sandra trivialized the mystical world, and second, I was afraid some of her customers might unwittingly invite unwelcome powers into their home. It was one thing to carry a protective quartz crystal around in your pocket, quite another to bring certain items—like the richly beaded and embroidered pakets kongo juju bag I held in my hand—into your home without understanding their nature and how to treat them with the respect they demand and deserve.

  I put the bag back on its glass shelf and sipped my mocha while Sandra chattered on, nonstop, about the merchant association and how I really should get involved with the community and link together in an alliance, just as she had with her own residential neighborhood association. Of course, she had lived in her area forever and knew anyone who was anyone.

  Sandra was the type of talker who rarely required a response. Still, just being in her presence tired me out. Since Sandra did not have her own energy centered, she tried to feed off others. Not intentionally draining, but with the same results.

  “Just listen to me, rattling on and on. I brought you in here because I wanted to show you what I just bought off the Internet,” Sandra exclaimed. She leaned down below her counter and brought out a large, flat cardboard box. Lifting it onto the glass surface, she opened the flaps and pushed back some rustling white tissue paper to disclose the contents: a large volume the size of a coffee table book.

  I felt as though I had been doused in water: first hot, then cold. There was a bitter, burning smell.

  The tome in front of her was the Malleus Maleficarum . . . the witch-hunters’ bible.

  I looked up at Sandra. Was that malice in her wide, searching, celadon eyes? Or merely excitement?

  “Why do you have this?” I asked.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “How could anyone like it? It’s a vicious, misogynistic handbook for torture and murder.”

  “Lily, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to offend you! Did I offend you? Is it because your friend Bronwyn is a witch? Or a Wiccan, as she calls herself?”

  I swallowed hard and spoke in a measured tone. “I’m not offended, Sandra. I just think it’s an evil book. I’m sure there are scholarly reasons to read it, just as there are for reading the Nazi propaganda that explained how to exterminate Jewish people. But I don’t want to be the one to study it. Do you?”

  “Well, I . . . I didn’t realize. I mean, it’s fascinating reading in a historical sense. It was published in 1487—”

  “By the Dominican friars Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, for the purpose of rooting out and destroying witches, as well as those who did not believe in them, through the use of standard ‘tests’ that were essentially torture. Yes, I know all about the book, Sandra.”

  “They say witches can’t cry. And they can’t drown.”

  “They also said witches stole men’s penises.”

  She started flipping though the pages. “I didn’t see that part. Penises?”

  I slapped my hand down on the book, closing it. It hummed under my hand, and the burning smell once again assailed my nostrils.

  “Why did you want to show me this, Sandra?”

  “I just thought it was interesting.”

  I watched her closely, but for all her flightiness she was surprisingly difficult to read. Sandra was my neighbor on Haight Street, and I wanted to maintain a good relationship. But I had a hard time liking her.

  “I have to get back to my store,” I said.

  “Could I come over with you and look through your new inventory?”

  “You were just in yesterday morning. We don’t have anything new up—”

  “Maya mentioned you were getting some new clothes last night.”

  “We did just acquire a bunch of stuff, but we haven’t prepped it yet. We still need to sort through it, wash everything, and make some repairs.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, moving out from behind the counter to join me.

  “Really, Sandra, it’s not ready—”

  “Don’t be silly—I can wash clothes just as easily as you can. It’s no problem.”

  “No, Sandra,” I said as firmly as I could. “I have a process I like to follow.”

  Just then two college-age girls came into the store, wearing the uniform of the Haight Street youth: tie-dyed T-shirts over long skirts, faded zippered hoodies, their long hair tied in loose knots at the backs of their heads, worn backpacks slung over thin shoulders.

  “Oh, okay,” Sandra relented, pee
ved. “If it’s like that.”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as we put the new stuff out. I promise,” I said as I slipped out of Peaceful Things, breathing a sigh of relief.

  Making friends wasn’t as easy as it looked.

  * * *

  I returned to find Aunt Cora’s Closet blessedly free of customers. Weekday mornings are typically slow, which I enjoy. It gives me a chance to catch up on processing the clothes, and I had several Hefty bags full of new inventory awaiting my attention in the back room. I needed to sort through them carefully, making notes of the sewing repairs needed and setting them aside to send with Maya to her mother, Lucille, who did piece-work for me at home. The rest I separated by laundering need: Some could be washed in the delicate cycle of my jumbo clothes washer in the back room; others needed to be sent out for “green” dry cleaning—our bill was terrible—and still others had to be washed by hand. Happily, I had a magical leg up when it came to stains: I could usually figure out what the offending article was, and therefore was better suited to deal with it.

  But first things first. Determined to get to know my adopted city, I tried to make time to read the local paper every day. I grabbed the San Francisco Chronicle from the stoop, laid my bagel out on my horseshoe-shaped counter, and took a big bite. Staying up half the night casting spells and hunting demons gave a girl an appetite.

  The bell on the front door rang, and for the second time in as many days I looked up to see a man stride through the front door of Aunt Cora’s Closet. We get our share of transvestites wandering into the store—they love the old prom dresses—but since we carry only women’s clothing, by and large ours is a female clientele. Men are noticed. Especially this one.

  He was tall and broad shouldered, with shaggy dark hair, olive skin, and a five-o’clock shadow. He wasn’t pretty like yesterday’s male witch; quite the contrary. He reminded me of a painting I had once seen in the Louvre of a battle-weary medieval knight who had just removed his armor. I studied him as he stood inside the doorway and glanced around the shop, his piercing gaze taking in Bronwyn’s herbal corner, the diaphanous lingerie on display along the back wall, and the hat stand full of feathers, bows, and net veils. He couldn’t have been older than his late thirties, but his face displayed the lines and scars of an interesting life. His light gray eyes, startling in such a dark complexion, held a deep trace of sadness.

  I tried to smile around the huge bite of bagel still in my mouth. My heart fluttered just a tad, and I was glad I had bypassed my comfy jeans this morning.

  Finally able to swallow, I slid off my tall stool and stood.

  “Good morning. May I help you?”

  “I hope so.” He took a notepad out of the back pocket of his faded jeans, leaned one elbow on the counter, and flipped it open. “I guess I need mugwort, something called Dead Men’s Bells, and . . . what’s that say? I can’t read my own writing.”

  He held the dog-eared notebook out to me, showing a scratchy, intense script that tilted to the left.

  “Elderberry shoots?” I ventured.

  “Right. Elderberry shoots.” He flipped the notebook closed and shoved it back in his pocket.

  “I’m afraid Bronwyn’s not in at the moment, but let’s see what she’s got on her shelves.” I came out from behind the counter and headed toward Bronwyn’s corner. I don’t share my own potent herbal stash with anyone.

  “Cute pig,” the man commented as he trailed me across the store, squeezing his broad shoulders through racks of lacy negligees and poodle skirts. In his potbellied-pig guise, Oscar lay snoring on the purple silk pillow Bronwyn had given him for a bed. “You’re not the resident witch, then?”

  “Me, a witch?” I laughed, hoping my voice didn’t ring false. “I repair and sell vintage clothing.”

  “Good. You’re far too pretty to be a witch.”

  “Thank you, I guess.” I slipped behind Bronwyn’s counter and pulled a couple of neatly labeled mason jars down off a wooden shelf. A painted sign hung prominently on the wall with the amiable golden rule from the Wiccan Rede: AN IT HARM NONE, DO WHAT YE WILL.

  “Real witches don’t have green faces and warts, you know,” I felt compelled to point out. “They’re perfectly normal.”

  “Except for the fact that they think they’re witches.” He smiled and his face was transformed. The sadness was still there, but muted. His light eyes held mine, and for a moment I had a strong, inappropriate desire to try to control him. I forced myself to look away and started wrapping his purchases in a plain brown wrapper.

  “You’re looking for protection?” I asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mugwort, Dead Men’s Bells, and elderberry shoots. They’re used in protective spells.”

  “I thought you specialized in clothing.”

  “I overhear things.” I shrugged. “That’ll be fourteen dollars and fifty-two cents.”

  He let out a little whistle. “They don’t come cheap.”

  “These are very special herbs. You’re not exactly making vinaigrette.”

  He chuckled. “If you want to know the truth, I’m going on a ghost hunt, and the ghost hunter, Gosnold, told me I needed this stuff. He told me I could get it here.”

  “Charles Gosnold?” I asked. I called him Charles the charlatan.

  He nodded. “You know him?”

  “A little. He’s a friend of Bronwyn’s.”

  “That would explain the recommendation. Anyway, that’s what the magic herbs are for. Crazy, right?”

  I returned the man’s smile. Charles would no doubt take him to some rickety old building, figuring that age was the equivalent of ghostly goings-on. Ultimately they wouldn’t see anything beyond figments of their own imaginations. What could it hurt?

  “Where are you hunting these ghosts?” I asked.

  “Out on the bay. Supposedly there’s ‘spectral activity’ over the water lately.”

  Uh-oh.

  “You shouldn’t go out there with Gosnold.”

  “I’ve got to. I have a whole film crew lined up.”

  “I’m serious; it’s not safe. Charles is all hat and no cattle.”

  “He’s what?” the man asked with a quizzical half smile.

  “He’s a phony. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. You must have figured that out if you’ve spent more than five minutes with him.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. “I’m Max, by the way. Max Carmichael. And you are . . . ?”

  “Lily Ivory.” I reached out a hand, and we shook. The vibrations jumped between us, almost like a spark. His eyes flew up to mine and I snatched my hand back and smiled. After a moment he smiled back.

  I couldn’t help but notice that his spirit was completely on guard. Human, but tested. A lot of war veterans are like that—even normal humans can’t experience repeated trauma without learning how to build a psychic shell to protect themselves.

  “So, why are you going out with Charles, exactly?” I asked.

  “I ‘out’ people like him.”

  “Like Charles Gosnold?”

  “People who prey on other people’s superstitions and fears.”

  “Ah. You’re a . . . ?”

  “Mythbuster, for lack of a better word.”

  “Is that like a professional skeptic?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Someone pays you for that?”

  “I even get benefits,” he said with a crooked smile.

  “But the bay . . .”

  “What about it?”

  Okay, Lily, get hold of yourself. It was true that I suspected something untoward was going on out near the bay, but La Llorona stole children, and this was a grown man. Still, the specter had been known to seduce handsome fellows, luring them to their doom when it struck her fancy. And, truth was, there was something out of the ordinary about this Max Carmichael, a distinct energy that was attracting me and might draw spirits. . . .

  The bell tinkled as a tall, lithe brunett
e opened the door. Smartly dressed in a chic dove gray designer outfit that probably cost more than half my inventory combined, she hovered on the threshold as though afraid of catching something.

  “Max? You about ready?”

  “Be right there,” he said over his shoulder. He looked back at me and winked. “We’ll be careful.”

  Before he turned away to go I snapped the medicine bundle from around my waist and pressed it into his palm, cupping his hand with both of mine. I fixed him with my gaze. I felt his guard go up against me, but I was strong enough to make him listen, if not obey.

  “Do me a favor and carry this with you? Just stick it in your pocket and forget it. Think of it as a lady’s favor.”

  “Max,” the woman in the doorway urged, annoyed.

  Ignoring her, Max dropped his gaze to my hands holding his, then back to my eyes.

  After a moment he blew out a breath and nodded.

  “All right. But I want to talk to you about this.”

  “You know where to find me,” I answered just as a premonition hit me. My eyes flew to the front door.

  The bell tinkled as the woman left in a huff, and in her place entered two men, one of whom flipped the sign on the door to CLOSED.

  Yikes.

  Chapter 6

  Out of habit I grabbed for my medicine bundle, only to remember that I had just given it away.

  The two men hesitated in the foyer, just as the woman had. My daily protection spell gave a lot of people pause, especially if they weren’t well-intentioned toward me or the store.

  “Well, if it isn’t Max Carmichael.” The smaller man was the first to cross over to us, a shadow of a smile on his lips. Not much taller than my own five-foot-five, with a shaved head, trim mustache, and near-black eyes, he was attractive in a not-so-tall, dark, and handsome way. He wore black running shoes, khaki chinos, and a thigh-length black leather jacket. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”

  “Carlos, good to see you,” Max said with a nod but not much warmth. They shook hands.

  Carlos turned to the man standing by his side. He was of medium height, husky, and so blond that his eyebrows disappeared against his pale skin.