Sorcery and the Single Girl Read online

  I shook my head, dragging my thoughts back to my living room and witchcraft and herb-lore. I felt like I’d spent the entire morning lugging around a gigantic chunk of marble, lifting it like a free weight under the direction of the world’s most sadistic personal trainer. (Neko assumed that role with more relish than I thought strictly appropriate. At one point, he had crouched in front of me and chanted, “Channel your energy. Commit yourselfs! You’re not as weak as you think you are!” The effect was diminished by his setting his hand against his hip like Richard Simmons’s even more fey younger brother.)

  In another reality—in the witchy one, the one that mattered to me more and more as we neared Samhain—I had enrobed my spectral powers around the energy of the marble, cloaking the stone with my unique astral signature. On that plane, no amount of taunting by my familiar or my warder could move me along. I succeeded on the basis of my own power, on the hard and fast limitations of my own strength.

  When I washed the marble with a bath of radish tea, the stone changed. I didn’t expect any scientist to be able to note the difference, but I could sense the transformation. I could tell that a bearer of poison (a scorpion, a liar, whatever) could not move past the invisible barrier I had created.

  I sank back onto the hunter-green couch and sighed deeply, exhaling every pent breath that had haunted my lungs since David had arrived at the crack of dawn. I’d been expecting him, of course, and I had made a point to be ready when he arrived—pear oolong tea brewed, my hair pulled back into a serviceable ponytail, my T-shirt and jeans a testimony to my willingness to work.

  I’ll even admit to a certain sadistic pleasure as I threw open the door to the basement, slamming on the overhead light and calling out in a dulcet alto, “Neeeeko! David’s here to see us!” I pretended not to hear Jacques grunting Gallic obscenities, and I ignored Neko’s scowl as he climbed the stairs, pawing sleep from his eyes. I couldn’t believe that Jacques tolerated the strangeness of Neko’s life—the odd basement room, the lack of a traditional job. And yet the Frenchman seemed more devoted than ever. Could it be love?

  I couldn’t worry about my studies’ effect on Neko’s love life. After all, I was working on being the perfect witch. I was not going to listen to David go on and on about my own romance. I was not going to hear another lecture about jasper or herbs or any other threat to my witchy abilities. I was determined not to give David any excuse to criticize me.

  Even if I had used a beginner’s spell to banish my fatigue. Three times in the past week. Even if I was only pretending to be bright and perky and inquisitive on a Sunday morning when I would have much preferred to have crawled back under my comforter to sleep uninterrupted, dreaming of the incredible man who had kissed me an entire week before.

  “Excellent, Jane,” David said, and his praise jolted me back to the present, wiping a smile from the corners of my lips. “I have to admit that you’ve made major strides this week.”

  Pride burned off my pleasure at his compliment. “I’m not an idiot, you know.”

  He raised his hands, palms out, offering up a peaceful apology. “Why don’t you just take my compliment at face value?” he asked reasonably, settling back on the couch. “So. I’d suggest that you take it easy this afternoon. You might be surprised by the power drain from this morning. I suggest that you read a book, take a nap. Eat a light supper and get a good night’s sleep.”

  Neko nodded helpfully. “At least the museum café should have a light supper. They serve a lot of salmon. Will you bring me some salmon?”

  “Crap!” I had completely forgotten I was supposed to meet Haylee James at the National Gallery of Art. Where had the week gone? Oh, that’s right. I’d spent it with my warder and my familiar.

  I glanced at my watch. It was twelve-thirty now. If I ate a quick lunch, I could still jump in the shower, dry my hair, throw on something elegantly casual and meet Haylee by two.

  David shook his head.

  “What?” I said.

  “What do you and Nate have on the social calendar?”

  “If you must know, I’m meeting Haylee James at the National Gallery of Art for a tour of their Renaissance collection.”

  “Haylee!” I don’t think he would have been more surprised if I’d said I was meeting the president of France. He recovered quickly, though. “What could you possibly have in common with Haylee?”

  “Aside from the fact that she’s a witch? And part of Teresa Alison Sidney’s Coven? And the only friend I have in the entire astral world?” I let the words drip with more sarcasm than a sixteen-year-old could muster when challenging her parents’ most unfair edicts on curfew.

  David didn’t rise to my bait. His voice was deadly calm as he said, “Haylee James is not your friend.”

  “How can you say that? You’ve never even seen us together!”

  “I know Haylee. And I know you. Friendship would be the last thing on Haylee’s mind if she’s making plans with you.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say!” And the more I thought about it, the worse it was. Was David saying I wasn’t good enough to be friends with a witch as accomplished as Haylee? Or was he saying that she was too popular, too close to our Coven Mother to waste her time being friends with me? The options were opposing sides of the same coin, and I liked neither heads nor tails.

  David grimaced. “Let’s just leave it that Haylee has said far more terrible things about me in the past. Said and done.”

  “Aww,” I said, irrationally stung. First, David was trying to keep me from seeing Graeme/Nate. Now, he was interfering with my hard-earned friendship. I mimicked the most annoying baby tone I could contrive. “Did Haywee huwt your widdle feewings?”

  I heard Neko’s jaw drop.

  I had never challenged David so directly. He reacted to my ridicule instantly—his face snapped closed, and his jaw tightened like an iron brand. “Do not come to me when you have problems with Haylee James,” he said, and his voice was so low that I had to lean forward to make out his words. “Do not expect me to clean up the mess you are making.”

  “Fine,” I said. He didn’t know that she was the only witch who talked to me at Coven gatherings. She was the only one of my so-called sisters who bothered to give me the time of day. He didn’t know, because he abandoned me every time we entered Teresa Alison Sidney’s home.

  “Fine,” he repeated. He waited a long moment, as if he thought I would take back my word, but then he shrugged. “And so we’re done for the day.”

  I showed him to the door without making any attempt to smooth things over.

  Okay. So, there was no time to dry my hair. But if I hurried, I could still take a shower. And I could eat the Triscuits as I hailed a cab to the museum. The soda? I was better off without it anyway.

  But I got my soda later that afternoon.

  Haylee and I had wandered through the Renaissance painting sections of the museum. I was astonished by the collection—I hadn’t been to the National Gallery in over a decade. In fact, the last time I’d been there, I’d been on a school trip. The boys had stared at statues of naked babes, and the girls had made unkind comments about the dimensions of Rubens’s models. I remembered standing in the rotunda, looking up at the statue of winged Mercury and wondering why no one ever sent me any secret message.

  Well, I was long on secrets now.

  “So?” Haylee asked, as we sipped Coca-Cola over tiny ice cubes in the museum café. We had poured our beverages from little glass bottles—the nostalgia component seemed almost enough to justify the four-dollar cost. A steady stream of museum visitors filed by the gelato bar, and I reminded myself that I did not need a cup of straccitella to make it through the day. “What did you think?”

  “I think I have a lot to learn,” I said. “I never realized how much information is…embedded in the world around me.”

  There were hints to our witchy powers buried everywhere in the museum. The marble columns that sheltered the artwork were only the first harbinger
s of magic, creating a protective arch around the space, around the temple of humankind’s learning and accomplishments. I could sense further power in the flow of the Mercury fountain—in the round pool that centered the power of the museum’s protective dome.

  And the artwork! Sure, I’d put in my time learning to parse symbolism in paintings. I’d suffered through Art 101 in college, mastering basic vocabulary and belaboring the meaning of the open window behind Mona Lisa’s shoulder. I’d served my sentence with Monet’s water lilies and Dali’s melting clocks.

  But the paintings that Haylee had just shown me…I’d had no idea how much information was being conveyed in each and every brushstroke. “Just that peacock alone,” I said. “I could spend days working out what the artist meant.”

  I was thinking of a round painting, one that had been created in Italy during the Renaissance and attributed to Fra Filippo Lippi. It was intended to be a presentation of the gifts of the Magi, the three wise kings adoring the Christ child. In the center of the panel, though, at the heart of the swirling imagery, a peacock stood on the roof of the manger.

  I smiled at Haylee over my Coca-Cola. “I just can’t get over how wrong I was. I don’t know where I came up with the idea that the peacock was a vain bird, that it was silly because it showed off its tail.” There was more, something I couldn’t quite remember about the peacock. Something that lurked in the back of my mind, in my cluttered closet of academic knowledge.

  “Oh, those stories are told. But that’s because people are afraid of beauty.” She said the words simply, as if she weren’t aware of the effect her gamine hair and her high cheekbones had on half the men who walked by while we drank our soda. No, those men weren’t afraid of beauty. They were attracted to it. Attracted to Haylee. She toyed with her Hecate’s Torch, fingering the charm on its silver chain. My fingers tingled as if I was the one touching the token.

  “People are afraid of the things that they don’t understand,” I said. “The things that they can’t control.”

  Haylee’s lips set in a grim line, and I had to lean closer to catch her words as she said, “That’s why we witches get such bad press. Oh, we’re amusing and fun at Halloween, when people can show us with warts on our noses and cobwebs in our hair. But ask about us at any other time of year, and you’re likely to hear about the evil eye. Spells. Charms. And witches burned at the stake for all the evil things we do.”

  Well. I hadn’t expected the conversation to take quite so grim a turn. I cleared my throat and said, “The evil things we’re alleged to do.” I smiled, so that she’d know I wasn’t chiding her. So that she’d know I was her friend. Or trying to be one.

  She fiddled with the wrapper from her straw. “Alleged.”

  An uneasy silence pooled around us, spreading like a puddle of viscous tar. I reminded myself to breathe. To relax. To say something to break the dark flow of our conversation.

  “Lovely weather we’re having lately,” I said, forcing a laugh so that she’d realize I was making a joke.

  Haylee’s eyes were dark, serious, as she asked, “Do you know how to change the weather?”

  Immediately, I thought of standing on the Kennedy Center terrace with Graeme. I remembered the heat of his arms around me, the warm breeze that I had crafted, wafting off of the chilling river. I thought of the passion that had risen between us, the promise that had mounted until his cell phone had jangled us back to the real world.

  “Um, I can work a few minor spells,” I said.

  Haylee must have seen my cheeks flush. She pounced like a peacock discovering the tastiest of wormy morsels in the gravel at its feet. “What?”

  “What what?” I tried for humor, chiding myself for acting like I was thirteen years old.

  “Why are you blushing?”

  I shook the ice cubes in my glass, wishing that I knew a spell for making more Coke appear. For making minor earthquakes happen. For distracting a witch when she was hot on the scent of gossip. “It’s nothing,” I said.

  “Your lips say ‘nothing,’ but your eyes say more, more.” She laughed at her corny words, and I couldn’t help but join her.

  I stared at her Torch, unable to meet her gaze. “It’s just this guy I met, a few weeks ago.” She arched a perfect eyebrow but remained silent, forcing me to take a deep breath and continue. “We’ve only gone out a few times…”

  Her smile was soft. “But you like him.”

  I let myself nod, and I finally looked away, shy. “A lot.”

  “Tell me all about him!”

  Tell her about the cute boy I liked. That’s what friends did, right? I would tell her, then she’d tell me about some guy she had met. We’d commiserate over past mistakes. We’d remind each other of the good things about guys, warn each other off about the bad things. Share and share alike. That’s how girls made friends.

  I thought of poor Melissa, with her parade of Mr. Wrongs. As miserable as those men had made her, they were one of the key reasons that she and I had bonded over the years, one of the reasons that we continued to get together for mojito therapy and commiseration. Except it had been ages since we’d managed to find time for cocktails and gossip. Almost two weeks had passed since that weird night that David had joined us, and it had been months since we’d spent time alone, just the two of us, catching up. I’d been too swamped.

  “Go on!” Haylee pressed, leaning closer.

  And so I did. I told her how Graeme had come into Cake Walk a month ago. How we had laughed about Almond Lust. How he had left me his card. How we’d been on three dates, and each had left me a little more intrigued. Okay. A lot more intrigued. How we’d teased each other over the phone for the past week.

  “He sounds like something,” she said, when I trailed off.

  “He is,” I said, and I sighed. “If we could only keep from getting interrupted. Maybe I should wear sodalite the next time we get together.”

  “Sodalite?”

  I heard David’s voice in the back of my head, droning on in professorial authority, and I thought about the ancient guide to crystals that even now was opened on the book stand in my basement. “Sodium aluminum silicate chloride.” I might as well have been speaking Greek, given Haylee’s opaque expression. “It’s a crystal that increases motivation. It gives confidence to the wearer, but can reach beyond that person. Maybe that’s all that Graeme needs. Some clarity of vision, to keep us both on track.”

  “Clarity.” Haylee said the word decisively. “Sodalite. Where do you learn this stuff?”

  I was shocked. Didn’t every witch know about crystals?

  But of course they didn’t. Most witches didn’t have the hoard of books that I had in my basement. Most witches didn’t have my librarian’s compulsion to organize information, to pull together facts and details, to memorize, memorize, memorize. Haylee’s strengths must lie elsewhere.

  “I’m not sure where I picked that up,” I said. “Just something I collected along the way, I guess.”

  “I’ll have to remember it. And I’d love to learn more about crystals from you.”

  “Anytime!” I said, and I meant it. Here was a witch—an honest-to-goodness witch, and my first friend within the Coven. I would do almost anything to keep building our friendship.

  Haylee glanced around us, and for the first time, I noticed that the café was emptying. She said, “Well, it looks like they’re about to throw us out of here.”

  I frowned. “I wanted to go back through the painting galleries one more time.”

  “Not today.” Haylee pushed back her chair. “You’re not still thinking about that stupid bird, are you?”

  “It’s right on the tip of my tongue…”

  “Peacocks,” she said, and then started ticking points off as she slung her purse over her shoulder. “They’re symbols in every major world culture. They represent the glorification of the soul. They stand for saints, because medieval people thought their flesh didn’t rot.”

  “Their voice!” I
finally remembered, as we walked out of the museum into the early autumn evening. “Hearing the peacock’s cry is bad luck.”

  Haylee paused on the marble steps. “Isn’t that owls? I heard the owl call my name?”

  “Peacocks, too,” I insisted. “That’s what I’ve been trying to remember all afternoon.”

  “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about accidentally overhearing one in the city.”

  “How did you know all the rest of that stuffs?” I asked.

  “I’m an interior designer, remember? You wouldn’t believe the number of people who want to know the spiritual meaning of the things they put up on their walls.”

  I thought of Clara, and her obsession with harmonic New Age interpretations of every last thing around her. “Oh yes,” I said. “I would.”

  We took another couple of minutes to chat about the paintings we’d seen, and then we promised that we’d get together again. Soon.

  By the time I got home, I was exhausted. I might have impressed David by being ready for that morning’s session, but I had definitely awakened too early. And invested too much energy into the centerstone training. I glanced around the living room, grateful to find that Neko was out, somewhere, presumably with Jacques.

  Dinner was going to be a giant bowl of microwave popcorn.

  I had already changed into my pajamas and burrowed my feet into my bunny slippers, when I realized that the message waiting light was flashing on my answering machine. I pressed the playback button and almost squealed when I recognized Graeme’s voice.

  “Hello there, Lady of the River. I hope you enjoyed the gallery with your friend. If memory serves, I still owe you from last week. I hope you’ll let me make it up to you. Maybe you can even show me a little more of what you can do. Soonest, Jane.”