It had been a long day. He’d been down to the storefront on Essex Street where the Left Hand Path had once been located. The whole first floor was deserted now. Though pop-up costume shops, cheesy haunted houses, and psychic reading studios opened here every year at Halloween, no one ever took a permanent lease on the space, and it was showing signs of neglect.
The place had recently been swept clean. There were no clues to be found, and, even if there had been, it would have been difficult to tell what was left from the shop and what was detritus from a temporary Halloween business. He was, however, able to talk with the property owner about the Left Hand Path.
“It was a strange place,” the owner said. “The woman who ran it gave everybody the horrors. She used to conduct spells in the back alley, and the noises were terrible.”
“I heard there were animal sacrifices,” Rafferty said. It was in the police complaints. “That’s why the town wanted to shut them down. Is it true?”
“I don’t know,” the landlord said. “Someone once left a dead cat on the front steps,” he admitted. “I remember because I was the one who had to clean it up.”
“That must have been pleasant.”
“All I know for certain is that the other witches in town took an active part in trying to close the shop. They started rumors that drove customers away, and they kept them up until the owner packed her things and left in the middle of the night. Owed me two months’ back rent.”
Rafferty had a growing pile of books sitting on the table in his home office. He’d borrowed some on Celtic mythology from Ann and had bought some books on black magic from Pyramid, amid stares from some of the patrons. He could just see what they’d be posting tomorrow. Chief of police signs the devil’s book.
He’d tried to get all the information he needed online, but what he found was limited and contradictory. Ann told him it was unreliable as well. “If you want in-depth information about Celtic gods and goddesses, Rafferty, you’re going to have to open a book.”
Luckily she had an extensive library, and Pyramid Books had even more. He’d read the Celtic books looking for more information on Dagda and Uaithne, the killer harp. There wasn’t much. Dagda was a prolific god, both sexually and in battle. After one skirmish, Dagda’s enemies stole the magic harp. But Dagda had bound the music until he alone summoned it, so the harp wouldn’t play. When the god finally called for the harp, legend said it “sprang from the wall, killing nine of Dagda’s enemies” on the way back to its master. The story was vague; it never detailed exactly how the “Oak of Two Blossoms” committed its lethal act. When he looked up “The Four-Angled Music,” the other title of the painting Callie mentioned she had seen at Ann’s house, he found almost nothing; the term was another name for the harp.
He had the books lined up on his bedside table. He’d started reading the ones on black magic. Both Ann and Towner had warned him against spending too much time with those books, for different reasons. Ann said she was afraid it would give him ideas. She was kidding, of course, but you could never tell with Ann. As for Towner, the books gave her the creeps. “Can’t you take them to the office?” she asked. “They’re giving me nightmares.”
Towner was right, the books were a little creepy, especially their covers, which were darkly dramatic. So he’d taken them to his study, where she wouldn’t have to look at them. There, he’d finally turned up something useful. In one, The World History of Black Magic, in the section on Africa, he’d read a chapter about the magical powers of the “hair of the unpigmented human.” It was said to be a powerful ingredient in spells, especially love potions. He thought about Susan’s white hair, one of the trophies taken from her body.
Evidently superstitious beliefs about albinos were a problem to this day in sub-Saharan Africa. They led to murders and brutal mutilations. Albino skin was often used by believers to make an amulet to produce wealth and success. Something the ostracized shop owner had sorely needed for her own spells. The second trophy had been a piece of Susan’s skin.
When he’d first received Mickey’s pronouncement that none of the others were related to Sarah Good, Rafferty had inked in Leah’s name on the fifth petal, under Sarah Good’s. Now, if he could only find some trace of Leah or her sister…
The tree is a mediator between the living and the dead. Where a limb is malformed, where her branches twist and weave into one another, or where a wound on bark remains unhealed, all these imperfections are sacred pathways between the realms.
—ROSE’S Book of Trees
“What are your plans for Christmas?” the social worker asked when Callie visited the shelter. “Generally, our guests join their families for dinner…”
“Well, I don’t know yet,” Callie stalled. Towner and Rafferty were traveling to New York to spend Christmas with his daughter, Leah, so the tearoom would be closed. And taking Rose to their house, even for a few hours to cook her a holiday meal, was not an option.
“Rose can come to Pride’s Heart for Christmas dinner,” Paul suggested, when Callie told him about her dilemma.
“I don’t know.” Callie imagined Rose in a fancy dress, sitting through endless courses and telling the area elite about conversations she had with talking trees.
“Our Christmas dinner is not like Thanksgiving,” he assured her. “It’s a quiet meal, just family and a few very close friends.”
“Still,” Callie said. “We don’t know how she’ll…behave. Maybe I should take her out somewhere?”
“Where?” Paul said. “Where could you possibly take her that you’d both be comfortable in public together? She’s been through enough. You’ve been through enough. Let’s give her a nice Christmas dinner.”
“I’m happy to report that Rose has been sleeping inside,” the social worker said the following day. It had been raining, off and on, for the last few nights. “Whatever you said seems to have worked. She must feel good to be out of the rain.”
Callie smiled noncommittally, and Rose, dressed in dark slacks and the red sweater that Callie had given her during their last visit, grunted. Callie would never say it aloud, but she could understand why Rose had preferred to sleep alfresco. The shelter was anything but inviting. It was a converted industrial space, and someone had convinced them that Aztec white was preferable to institutional green, so the place was almost blinding in its reflective brightness and fluorescent lighting. The big factory windows were too high to allow for any outside views. The small artificial Christmas tree at the far end of the “family room” was the only nod to any of the December holidays, and it was dwarfed by the cavernous space.
“The bed is lumpy,” Rose complained. “It’s full of marbles.”
“It really isn’t,” the social worker said, smiling. “She’s doing well.”
Rose rolled her eyes.
When the social worker left, Callie repeated the verdict. “You’re doing well.”