Magic and Macaroons (28 page)

Thank heavens,
I thought, honestly feeling shakier about the fire that afternoon than I had since escaping it. A hefty dose of adrenaline and the necessity to stay in the moment had shoved the enormity of almost dying to
the back of my mind. Now, rested and alone except for my familiar, it came roaring back with an intensity that frightened me nearly as much as the fire itself had.

So, when I heard the knock on the front door, I jumped off the couch. Margie must have come back to check on me, and I hadn’t taken another dose of pain meds yet, so maybe some pink wine was in order after all.

However, when I checked through the peephole, it wasn’t Margie standing on my tiny porch, the amber light from over the door turning the fuchsia streaks in her hair to dark orange. It was Cookie, her cheeks streaked with mascara.

I threw open the door. “Oh, honey! What’s the matter?” I ushered her into my dimly lit living room. She appeared almost frail in oversized cutoff jeans, a shapeless T-shirt draping off one shoulder, and plastic thongs.

She threw her arms around me, almost knocking me over. I winced as she brushed the dressing on my shoulder, but returned her hug. I’d never seen her so upset. She let out a couple of sobs, then took a deep breath and seemed to gather herself. Pushing away from me, she held me at arm’s length and regarded me with a searching, if somewhat soggy, gaze. “I’m so sorry, Katie. I failed you.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” I shut the door, pulled her to the couch, and made her sit down.

“I wasn’t at the hospital when you had to go to the emergency room after that horrible fire.”

“Oh!” I laughed. “Please don’t worry about that. I asked Mimsey to call Jaida and Bianca off, too. I just spoke with them on the phone a few minutes ago.”

She sniffled. “Mimsey called me back, too, after you left the hospital. But you must know I would have come if I’d known you were there in the first place. Really, I would have. Oscar answered my cell phone but didn’t
give me Mimsey’s message. It wasn’t until the second time she called that I knew what had happened to you and Mother Eulora.”

I held up my hand. “Wait a minute. He answered your cell and then didn’t give you the message?”

She nodded, looking miserable.

“Cookie, your husband has some serious boundary issues. That’s not right.”

“I know!” She gulped. “We’ve been fighting about it. About a lot of things, actually, but mostly about how crazy he gets about me helping you find the gris gris.”

“What’s his problem?” I said. “Is it me?”

She shook her head, lower lip quivering. “It’s the voodoo. He says he’s protecting me, that he knows how it upsets me.”

“It does upset you. I know that. I’m sorry I had to drag you into all this.”

Her sharp chin lifted, and her lip stilled. “Oh, Katie. I love Oscar like I’ve never loved anyone. And I know he loves me. It hurts his male pride that I don’t believe I need his protection. And I’m here of my own free will, not because anyone—including you—made me.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “And I’m glad you are.”

“Good. Then let’s get started,” she said and reached into her hobo bag.

“Started?” I asked, confused.

She paused, her hand still in the leather bag. “Jaida told me about the other night. How you located the gris gris with the dowsing rod and then you two went to see Franklin’s landlady. But you didn’t find the gris gris. Yes?”

“Yes. I mean, no, we didn’t. And Detective Quinn left just a while ago after bringing over Franklin’s possessions. The landlady gave them to him.”

Cookie looked speculative. “And the gris gris wasn’t
in them.” It wasn’t a question. She looked toward the shutters and nodded to herself. “Yes. Let’s get started. Katie, make sure the windows are tightly closed and the shutters latched. The lights are fine, down low like this. Mungo, you may help.”

“What do you have in mind?” I asked, jumping to my feet.

“I’m going to try to remove the hex that’s hiding the gris gris from you.”

. . . The object yer seekin’ is hidden between layers of magic.

I grinned and hurried to check the windows. “Let me put on some real clothes first.”

“No need,” she said, pulling out a velvet pouch. “Robes are appropriate attire in most traditions. Are you skyclad beneath?”

“Naked? Uh, no.”

“Oh, well.” She shrugged. “Come sit down. Wait— Do you have a black altar cloth? I didn’t think to bring one.”

“Will a silk scarf work?”

“Perfectly.”

I got the scarf from the wall peg by the back door and spread it on the old trunk. Cookie slid to the floor, kneeled in front of the coffee table, and began placing items on the flat surface: the velvet pouch, a length of shiny red thread, three cloves of garlic, a black candle and lighter, and, to my surprise, a small ball-peen hammer. She lit the candle, returned the lighter to her bag, and then drew out a box about three inches by five inches. It was formed of stained glass, jagged geometric shards in all the colors of the chakras arranged in no particular order, but startlingly beautiful in its primitive way. She placed it by the candle, stroking the side of it with affectionate fingertips.

“It’s lovely,” I said.

“It was my father’s,” she said. Giving a small shake of her head, she reached for the velvet bag.

“What’s inside the pouch?” I asked. My voice was practically a whisper.

“Vervain, curry, dill, and ginger.” Her tone was practical.

“Sounds like you’re a bit of a
grune hexe
yourself,” I ventured.

A wisp of a smile crossed her face. “I double-checked with Poppa Jack for some of the details. But hex breaking is hex breaking, whatever the school of magic. It’s all about—”

“Intention,” we intoned together.

“Okay. What can I do?” I asked.

“We need the picture of the actual talisman!” she said.

I got up and went to the bookshelf where I’d put the photo after showing it to Quinn and Uncle Ben. Sitting down opposite Cookie, I handed it to her.

She studied it for several seconds before opening the delicate box and placing it inside. She carefully nestled the velvet bag of herbs on top and closed the box. Then she picked up the length of red thread and began tying knots in it at roughly two-inch intervals. “The box symbolizes one layer of magic, this cord another.” She finished with the knots, wrapped the thread around the stained-glass container, and tied it with another knot on top.

Then she sat back and regarded me. “Sit back and cover your face.”

“Don’t you want my help?”

“Trust me.”

“Well, okay.” I scooted back on the floor until I was sitting between the two wingback chairs. Cookie nodded her approval. “Your face. And, Mungo, go sit behind Katie.”

Baffled, I did as I was told. So did my familiar. Still, I peeked out through my laced fingers.

Cookie grabbed the small hammer tightly in her fist. Her lips moved without sound for a few seconds. She nodded once, took a deep breath, and raised the hammer.

“What was done is now undone!” she shouted and brought it down hard on the dancing colors of the glass box.

The sound of it shattering was obscenely loud, louder than a baseball going through a plate-glass window, and it reverberated like an ancient gong. I saw the shards fly away from the hammer blow as if in slow motion, the sharp colors floating like so many butterflies in the artificial gloaming of the fringed floor lamp.

A sudden flash filled the room with impossible brightness, a cosmic flashbulb overexposing the world, temporarily blinding me despite my hands over my eyes. I felt my own power surge in response, light meeting light . . .

Only the mulicolored flash was already gone, and Cookie was lying on her back by the couch, legs akimbo, eyes closed.

“Cookie!” I scrambled across the floor toward her, scattering broken glass.

Mungo skipped nimbly between the sharp shards and reached her first. He immediately started licking her face and pushing at her with his nose. By the time I navigated around the furniture to her side, her eyelids fluttered open.

“Cookie.”
I shook her. “Are you okay? What happened?”

She began to sit up, and I pulled on her arm to help. Her eyes were wide, and her breath came in little pants. She blinked and rubbed her face. “Why is my skin wet?”

“Mungo slobber,” I said. “Sorry.”

He nosed her leg. She looked down at him as if she
didn’t recognize him. Then suddenly she snorted out a giggle.

I stared at her. “Cookie?”

She giggled again, covering her mouth with her hand to stop herself. Her green eyes danced behind her long lashes.

She’s hysterical.

“I’m going to get you a paper bag to breathe into,” I said, standing and shaking glass out of my robe. “You’re about to hyperventilate.”

Her hand dropped, and she pushed herself to her feet. “No, I won’t.” She grabbed my arm. “I think it worked. I felt something . . .
pop
. You know?”

I shook my head. “All I saw was a flash of colors, and then you were
unconscious
.” I’d certainly felt the burst of some kind of force, but it had happened so quickly, I didn’t know what to make of it.

She waved her hand as if the backlash from a spell knocking her out cold was of no consequence. “No worries. I’m a bit tired, but nothing more. Oh, Katie! I think it really worked! I succeeded in performing a voodoo spell.” She stretched toward the ceiling like a contented cat. “I feel like I’ve come back home, in a way, after turning my back on my childhood beliefs and practices. And I was able to honor the memory of my father, as well.” Her arms dropped, and she gave me a dazzling smile. “I believe you will find the gris gris now. So, tell me: Where do you keep your broom?”

I stopped her as she turned toward the kitchen. “Cookie, you broke the box your father gave you,” I said. “That was a huge sacrifice.”

Tears gleamed for a split second before she blinked them away. “It was necessary, and I’m glad I did it. He would have been glad, as well. Now, even better than a regular broom would be a besom.”

She seemed so happy that I let it go, but I tucked away the weight of what she had done to think about later. “In the gazebo,” I said. “I keep my ceremonial broom out there.”

Almost skipping, Cookie opened the French doors and went out back to retrieve the rough besom made of oat straw tied around a handle of polished oak.

“Well, Mungo. What do you think? Was that crazy business just now a success?”

Yip!

*   *   *

It was nearly one a.m. when Cookie left, with a spring in her step, to roust her husband out of bed and explain some things to him once and for all. We’d cleaned up all the broken glass that we could with the rough broom, then with the vacuum and microfiber cloths. Still, I knew I’d be finding sharp bits and pieces of red, blue, and green for weeks.

“You be careful,” I admonished Mungo, worried about his tender paw pads. It was a miracle that none of us had suffered so much as a scratch from Cookie’s breaking spell.

Had it broken another spell hiding the gris gris? Maybe. Cookie certainly seemed to think so. I considered trying to use Lucy’s dowsing rod right away, but I didn’t have a map of the city at home, and my injured shoulder was beginning to growl at me for not babying it enough.

So, I texted Declan that I was thinking of him, knowing that at that hour, he would either be on a call or asleep in his bunk. Then I took a pill, and Mungo and I went to bed.

At four-thirty, I was wide awake again, staring at the ceiling and wishing the tumble of thoughts in my brain would settle. Images pelted across my mental movie screen: desperate Dawn, comatose Dawn, her frightened mother, Poppa Jack in the witch’s garden, dragonflies.
Franklin Taite, fierce, balding, and determined to fight evil until he was no longer able. Oscar’s bright smile, flashing brown eyes, and air of disapproval. Connell’s brogue, fire licking at my feet, Declan’s oceanic gaze enveloping me, calming me. His quiet snores, the half smile, and gentle hands. Mungo barking, Lucy’s worried frown, Steve looking away as I tried to catch his attention. Then faster and faster: Mambo Jeni shouting at her son, Samantha smirking, Marie LaFevre pointing to the door, Cecelia riding away on her bike, snakeskin and poppets, Eulora stroking a stuffed hedgehog, Quinn holding up his hand to fend off the very idea of magic, Tanna’s sharp gaze through the stairwell window at the hospital . . .

“That’s enough!” I said, sitting up in bed. Mungo cracked an eyelid, unimpressed with my theatrics.

He changed his mind when he found himself bundled into the passenger side of the Bug and zooming toward the Honeybee. If I couldn’t go for a run to clear my head, at least I could
cook.

Chapter 22

“What on earth are you doing here? Katie!” Lucy stood with her hands on her hips, doing her best to glare at me. It was after six a.m., and the sky in the window behind her was beginning to brighten. Shreds of seashell-peach clouds hovered low on the horizon.

I held up my hands. “I couldn’t stay home one second longer. I’m feeling pretty good, too. Please let me work, Aunt Lucy?” I put some extra whine in the last sentence for effect.

At least Iris laughed. “Glad to see you’re much healthier than advertised.”

“Oh, this little thing?” I said, pointing at where an edge of gauze showed beneath my T-shirt sleeve.

“Let me see your shoulder,” Lucy demanded without so much as a smile. She hustled me into the restroom, where she carefully peeled back the layers of gauze covering the stitches. “Well!” she said after careful inspection. “I must say, you have remarkable powers of recovery.”

I smiled at her.

A sudden grin split her face. “Why, Katie Lightfoot! Did you heal yourself?”

Craning my head to try to see the stitches, I said, “Not
intentionally. It was probably the special tea you made me. Plus, you know how magic tends to energize me, and Cookie came over—”

“What?” she interrupted.

“Um, yeah.” As she put a new, smaller bandage on my cut from the Honeybee first-aid kit, I told her about the hex breaking and the glass and my worries about Cookie and Oscar’s marriage.