The North Valley Grimoire

by Blake Northcott

  A vertical groove appeared between Kaz’s eyebrows. He unclamped her two-handed grip and walked her to the couch, gingerly sitting her down as if she were nursing a hangover.

  “She was behind me in the kitchen,” he began, “standing in the bright sunlight. You were here, in the living room. What is that, ten feet? Could it have been a weird effect, like a trick of the light? And the Venari sigil could’ve just disappeared—you said it yourself, they crap out all the time.”

  “But not like this. This one worked.” She unbuttoned her sleeve and rolled it, exposing her forearm. It was a blank canvas. “For the first time since the night we no longer speak of, I could feel it, right down to my bones.”

  Kaz leaned in to scrutinize her skin. “Looks like you scratched yourself … might wanna get some ointment on that.”

  “No!” she said, “You don’t get it. This is where the sigil was. It was itching, and then glowing, and then poof.”

  “It made a poofing sound?”

  “No, like poof, it was gone!”

  Kaz cocked his head. “Was there smoke?”

  “Stop focusing on the ‘poof.’ I’m telling you a sigil was there, and then it wasn’t. It told me someone in this room was about to cast a spell, and it was Maisie.”

  “All right, say she was trying to do something magickal. Could it have been something innocent? Most magick isn’t for combat.”

  Annoyingly, Kaz had a valid point. “So maybe she’s not the killer,” Calista conceded, “but she knows something. And she was asking all these strange questions, like when my Uncle was coming home, and about soundproofing. Who asks how soundproof an apartment is?”

  Kaz shrugged. “Maybe she wanted to put on some music and was worried about bothering your neighbors?”

  “She’s deaf!”

  He doubled up on his shrug. “Deaf people can feel vibrations from music. I read about it.”

  Calista clapped a hand on her forehead. “Oh god, you’re in love with her.”

  “Have you been huffing bath salts? I barely know her! She’s some random hot girl who drifted into our study group.”

  “So you admit it: you think she’s hot.”

  “I don’t … it’s …” He blinked hard, as if to reboot his sentence. “So what if I do?”

  “Because it’s clouding your judgment.” She did a twirly-finger motion at the side of her head, sign language for ‘you’ve clearly lost your mind.’

  Kaz scrunched his face. “My judgment is totally cloud-free.”

  “All right, we’re getting to the bottom of this.” Calista jogged to her bedroom and emerged with a laptop. She sat next to Kaz. “I don’t care if we have to pull an all-nighter. We’re going to find out who this Maisie Niven girl really is.”

  Kaz went to work on his own laptop, exhaling loudly from his nostrils as he typed. They scoured the same pages, which, at first glance, seemed innocent: Maisie in Scotland, enjoying nature, attending class, spending Christmas with her parents; the mundane portrait of a seventeen-year-old girl.

  “Whoa, that’s weird,” Kaz mumbled, only ten minutes into their research. He rotated his screen towards Calista. “Check it out: her social media accounts were opened two weeks before she started at Hawthorne.”

  “See? Maisie didn’t even exist before she got here.”

  “Okay, but there are photos of her family in Glasgow.”

  “Right,” Calista said. “So she’s mastered the ability to channel mystical energy, but it’s out of the question that she’d be halfway decent at Photoshop?”

  Kaz continued to scrutinize her pictures, trying to detect the seams where photographic fakery might have occurred. “It’s suspicious. But what do we do? Aside from breaking into her house or interrogating her, we don’t have many options.”

  “That’s it,” Calista said, pointing a finger in Kaz’s face. He swayed to avoid getting a fingernail dragged across the bridge of his nose.

  “Callie, you’ve got to be kidding. You don’t want to torture her, do you?”

  “Not that, the first thing. We find out where Maisie lives and see where it leads us.”

  “Opening the grimoire was one thing,” Kaz said, reaching out with a clammy hand to clasp Calista’s. “But going after other Scriveners?”

  Her uncle had once explained there’s a nail-biting, time stopping, come-to-Jesus moment when you hand a folder to a client at the end of a surveillance job. It’s the instant that all the evidence they thought they wanted appears in their hands. If you look closely, you can pinpoint the second their life changes when they reach down and peel open that thin flap of manila paper. What they’ve known all along is suddenly confirmed, and most of them—not all, but most—get that look in their eye. They’re no longer living in a warm, hermetically sealed bubble, safe with their own version of reality. They’re faced with a truth that’s sharp, and cold, and slices to the bone. And it’s that moment they wished the folder had remained closed.

  There was only so much they could learn online, but thanks to The Hawthorne Academy’s meticulous record keeping, Maisie Niven happened to have a manila folder of her own.

  Calista was going to open it.

  Revealing magickal knowledge is tricky business. It’s like deep sea diving: once your body is accustomed to the pressure, you have to be careful about resurfacing. Ascend too quickly, and decompression sickness will cause serious damage.

  Our minds work the same way. Some are more equipped than others to take the plunge and soak in the mystical, but even the strongest minds require preparation. I’ve seen the results of rapid exposure firsthand, and it can get ugly.

  – Passage in The North Valley Grimoire

  17. Cure for Obsession

  SHE WASN’T MUCH OF A DETECTIVE, but Calista had figured out this much: a student couldn’t apply to a private school without a mailing address. If Maisie Niven was a regular seventeen-year-old girl, then she lived nearby—and her contact info was in a folder, collecting dust in the admissions office.

  Hawthorne did everything the old-fashioned way—papers, files, cabinets—like they’ve probably been doing since the Cretaceous Period when Calista assumed the school was founded. Obtaining this information would normally present a problem since a student can’t traipse into a locked faculty room and paw through confidential documents. But despite the admissions office being a no-go zone, gaining access wasn’t an issue for Ryan Warner, teacher’s assistant extraordinaire.

  Warner was a corn-fed Iowa boy with a bell-shaped jaw and a tidy brush cut that never went a week without a trim. He was one of those overly polite kids who’d end everything with ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’, and sprinkled dashes of godliness into random sentences, for no apparent reason other than to reaffirm his relationship with The Lord (“Got a flat tire on the way back from the store, but that’s God’s will. Turned out I had a spare in the trunk, so Jesus was lookin’ out for me.”)

  Ryan had unfettered access at Hawthorne, and he was willing to make copies of anything, from personal records to answer sheets, in exchange for a few twenty-dollar bills. It was a wonder he hadn’t been busted. It was a high risk, low reward enterprise, no doubt kept afloat by his trustworthy appearance. He oozed innocence, but most of the students knew better; Ryan’s predilection for partying was his Achilles heel, and it was why quick cash was always too tempting to pass up.

  During her sophomore year, Calista had bumped into Ryan by the bleachers after class. He was uncharacteristically chatty, pupils dilated, frantically asking anyone who’d listen if they could ‘hook him up.’ As it turned out, the ‘hook up’ Ryan sought was not a partner for a rousing night of bible study, but an illicit line of white powder. Since then, it’s been a not-very-well-kept-secret that if you wanted access to Hawthorne’s inner sanctum, Ryan was the gatekeeper.

  The plan was set: before school on Friday, Kaz would track down the teacher’s assistant, slide him some cash, and score Maisie’s home address. It was surprisingly easy. Ryan slipped
into the empty admissions office and emerged with a photocopy still warm from the printer. Money and paper rapidly changed hands as Kaz’s eyes darted wildly; teachers and students ambled in both directions, oblivious to the transaction. He stuffed the sheet into his knapsack as if he were purchasing an illegal firearm in plain sight.

  Kaz scrambled to the bathroom and locked himself in a stall, unzipping his bag. He yanked out the rumpled sheet and texted Calista the address, hands trembling as he typed. Then he ripped the sheet into confetti and flushed it. A sigh of relief burst from his lungs. The hard part was over.

  Five minutes before class, Kaz began phase two: staking out an inconspicuous spot near Maisie’s locker, cell phone poised to his ear. When he saw her wave of ginger locks moving through the crowded hall, he began to dial.

  Calista heard the muffled chime of her burner and yanked it from her pocket.

  “Kaz?” She shouted over the passing traffic, plugging one ear with her finger.

  “You’re welcome,” he grumbled. “Now I can add ‘stealing school property’ to my list of felonies.”

  “I don’t think that’s a felony.”

  “I stole confidential Hawthorne documents. This is on my permanent record if I get caught!” He was yelling and whispering at the same time, like a parent scolding a child in a crowded supermarket while trying not to make a scene.

  “Thank you, Kaz. I mean it.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “Again.”

  She was outside her apartment, shivering in the morning dampness. The week-long snowfall had ceased, and the passing cars were spattering the pristine ivory sidewalks with tiny globs of charcoal. “I’m hailing a cab. I should be there in fifteen.” Her jacket was warm, but cold gusts of wind punished the gap of thigh between her knee socks and the hem of her kilt.

  Kaz sighed. “So now what? You’re going to kick down her front door?”

  “No, I bought a lock bumper key online. It’ll open any deadbolt. But I’m planning to knock first.”

  “What happens when someone answers,” he said, apparently still convinced of Maisie’s innocence. “Like her mom or dad?”

  Please—as if she hadn’t thought it through. “I’ll ask if they want to be Scientologists.”

  A short pause followed. “I don’t think Scientologists recruit door-to-door.”

  “Then I’ll ask if they want to buy a box of Thin Mints. What’s the difference? I’ll make something up.”

  “And if no one answers?”

  “Then I go in.”

  Kaz groaned. “I do not like this, Callie.”

  “That’s why I didn’t invite you.”

  “I like it less that you’re doing this alone. I want to help.”

  “You are helping,” she insisted. After what she’s put Kaz through with Mrs. Walton and The Cobbler, the last thing she was going to ask was that he tag along during a potential break-and-enter. She felt guilty enough about involving him in stealing the address. She’d offered to do it herself, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

  “Can you see Maisie?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’m staring at the back of her head. She’s closing her locker.”

  “Good. Keep staring. And if she leaves class or does something suspicious, text me. I’ll buzz you after I’ve broken in and snooped through her stuff.”

  “Oh my god. Can I say once again how much I hate this plan? If the feds are listening in, I want it to be on the record.”

  If the NSA was recording their call—although Wyatt had assured them it wasn’t possible—then she wanted to throw in some inappropriate humor. Besides, if the transcript of their conversation ended up as evidence, it would lighten the mood during the impending trial.

  “Hey Kaz, when I’m going through her room, do you want me to bring you back a pair of her panties?”

  “Callie!”

  She laughed hysterically. Calista could almost hear his face reddening through the phone. “You hesitated.” She paused for a dramatic beat. “Is that a yes?”

  “I’m hanging up. Pervert.”

  She blurted out another laugh. “I’ve been called worse.”

  The address led Calista down a long, tree-lined road in the south side of town, winding to a stop at the end of a court. The houses were mid-sized for North Valley, but most of the country would consider them McMansions; gauche suburban monstrosities on manicured but undersized lots.

  She considered asking to borrow her uncle’s car, though a cab seemed less conspicuous. In this neighborhood, a slightly rusted Honda Civic was a glowing beacon in a sea of Audis, Teslas, and BMWs. Not to mention that some houses would be outfitted with external security cams, which meant her license plate could be captured. Using a personal vehicle for a B&E seemed like amateur hour.

  Calista paid the driver and stepped onto the sidewalk. She waited for the cab to leave before trudging up the driveway; it had been recently shoveled, with a few inches of snow piled on the lawn. Chunks of salt crunched underfoot with every step towards the porch. She came face-to-face with a cherry red door, inset with a frosted glass window. She knelt and flipped open the metal flap on the mail slot, allowing a better view of the hall. It was empty—no furniture, no mirrors, no family photos on the walls.

  Three knocks and a doorbell ring were met with silence.

  It was time to put her lock bumper to use. It would take care of the lock, but alarms were a different story; if she set one off, she’d have no choice but to run. Strangely, she was more nervous about the possibility of actually making it inside, wandering around, and going through someone’s private property—but honestly, what was the big deal? This wasn’t a real break-and-enter, and she wasn’t going to steal anything. It was purely reconnaissance, more akin to a break-and-look. And there wasn’t any breaking involved, either, so it was more like a bump-and-peek. An innocent poke around. She’d be in and out without leaving so much as an errant fingerprint.

  She slid the lock bumper into the keyhole and gave it a tap and a wriggle, and, as advertised, the deadbolt twisted open with minimal protest. She winced as she turned the knob and cracked the door. The breath she’d been holding escaped her lips when the only sound she heard was a soft creak of the hinges. No alarm. She slid inside and shut the door behind her.

  Calista wiped her shoes on the front hall mat, kicking a pile of letters and junk mail. The house looked bigger on the inside, with mahogany railings and wide-planked hardwood, shining and smelling of lemon Pledge. The neutral-beige paint on the walls was so fresh it still looked wet.

  She tiptoed through the hall and peered left into a sitting room. It was vacant—not a chair, couch, or cardboard box. There was a kitchen with a marble island. A small wooden table and four chairs sat beneath a chandelier, but that was the extent of the main level décor. Maybe they hadn’t had time to fix the place up? The Niven family had been in town for months though, and not a single bauble was on display. They didn’t even own a TV.

  She climbed the stairs and found that three of the four bedrooms were empty. She swung open the double doors to the master and found a lone mattress on the carpeted floor, and a pair of suitcases in the corner. The closet was filled with Maisie’s school uniforms and a few dresses, but not much else.

  An engine rumbled outside, too close to be a neighboring car. Calista raced from the master to a spare room that overlooked the driveway. A cobalt-blue pick-up truck was out front, still running, with the passenger door ajar. From her angle, she spotted a pair of black-gloved hands curled around the steering wheel through the frosty windshield. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat.

  Someone else was on the porch.

  They opened the door.

  She scrambled to the empty closet and pulled it shut. Her heart jackhammered so fiercely she could scarcely hear anything else. She tried to breathe, but her lungs were barely functional.

  There was rustling below, but the footsteps never made their way up the stairs. The front door opened and closed once ag
ain, and the rumble of the engine faded.

  By the time she dared to leave the closet and peek through the window, the truck’s turn signal was illuminating in the distance.

  She blazed downstairs and towards the front door, about to fling it open and run, but she hesitated. It was weird enough that Maisie was squatting in an empty house, but who was just here? She opened the door to look for a package. The porch was clear. She scanned the kitchen and the sitting room and the rest of the main level and noticed that nothing had been taken, and nothing had been left. Not that there was anything to take … except for the stack of envelopes and flyers that had been pushed through the mail slot, which was gone.

  Someone was relocating Maisie’s mail. Probably the same someone who shoveled the driveway, trying to make the house look reasonably lived-in.

  The next day at school Maisie breezed past Calista, exchanging half-smiles as they crossed paths. They hadn’t spoken since her abrupt seafood-related exit, and a frostiness lingered between them.

  Calista couldn’t shake what she’d seen. The sudden appearance of Maisie’s social media accounts was one thing, but the fact that she’d been living in a near-vacant house was something else. She considered asking about her family, seeing if she could catch her in a lie, though it would only confirm what she already knew: Maisie wasn’t who she claimed to be.

  Right now Calista had the advantage, and she didn’t want to tip her hand. This is what detective work was all about: finding different angles. Looking for ins. Maisie might suspect that Calista had a connection to magick, but Calista had something more concrete. She had a plan.

  She decided that whoever was picking up Maisie’s mail, and wherever they were taking it, led to answers. And in recent weeks, answers had been in short supply.

  With a few taps of her phone she was online, ordering a tracking device roughly the size and shape of a candy bar. It was inexpensive spy-tech outfitted with a GPS, and a magnet designed to attach to a car’s undercarriage.