“Sorry to barge in on you,” said Maya. “I thought the planning meeting was supposed to be over by nine thirty.”
“Actually, it was,” I said, grateful for the excuse to wrap things up. “We need to bring this meeting to a close for today, I’m afraid. In fact, I think we’re just about set. We have a task force ready to move my inventory into Lucille’s shop on Saturday, the flyers are approved, and the refreshment committee has put together more food than we’ll know what to do with.”
“That reminds me,” ventured Starr. “Do we think we should find a larger venue for the brunch? No offense, Lily—your store is darling, but it may be too small. We’ve sold so many tickets already!”
I sneezed again, prompting several suggestions for natural cold remedies.
“Thanks, but it’s probably just allergies. I don’t get colds. So, back to the agenda . . .”
Wendy—my best ally in keeping the group on task—nodded. “You may be onto something, Starr. But it would be tough to find someplace at this juncture; the event’s coming up in a few days.”
“What about Aidan’s place?” suggested Bronwyn.
“Aidan . . . as in my Aidan?” My voice scaled upward.
“Yes! The wax museum would be perfect!”
Aidan Rhodes was an important person in the Bay Area’s witchy community. He and I had had a few skirmishes in the past, and I still owed him a magical debt. Big-time. Aidan had been nice to me lately, but I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him and had been avoiding him, even though he and I were theoretical allies in the fight against a looming threat to our beloved San Francisco.
Besides, I found wax museums a little . . . creepy. All those human-sized poppets, just begging to be brought to life. I shivered at the thought. Not long ago I darn near burned the whole place down. Not on purpose, of course—but still, I had played a pivotal role in the conflagration. Aidan had only recently moved back into the museum from his temporary quarters in the iconic San Francisco Ferry Building.
Apparently, the coven sisters didn’t share my opinion of wax museums. “What a great idea!” was the overwhelming response.
“Bronwyn, would you be willing to ask Aidan?” asked Wendy.
“I’ll do it,” I offered, a little too loudly. “I mean, I have to see him about something else today, anyway. But I doubt he’ll be much help; Aidan doesn’t own the wax museum, after all. He just keeps an office there. Besides, we’re talking about an event happening in four days.”
“Roger that,” Wendy said. “Okay, Lily will talk to Aidan, but if that doesn’t work out, we’ll just have to make do right here. Everything’s set to move all the merchandise next door to Lucille’s, right?”
“She’s ready for the onslaught,” said Maya.
“One final thing before we go,” said Starr. “We need to take a formal vote on whether all are welcome to the brunch, or just mothers and daughters.”
I’m no mind reader, but I could have predicted the outcome of this vote: Yes, all were welcome as long as the spirit of the mother-daughter bond was in some way honored. The women stood, gathered folding chairs, and swept up muffin crumbs, chattering excitedly and thanking me for hosting them. I assured one and all that I was pleased to offer my hospitality, and gently shooed them out the door, waving good-bye as they departed and nodding my thanks for several more suggestions of home remedies to stave off colds.
“Pay no attention to what they say,” Bronwyn said as she started gathering her things. “All you need is eucalyptus oil, hot honey lemonade, and the right attitude.”
I laughed. “It’s all about attitude, is it? Anyway, I don’t have a cold. I don’t get colds.”
“Yes, just like that! Perfect attitude.”
Bronwyn gave me an enveloping vanilla-scented hug and swept out to meet her boyfriend, Duke, who was driving her to Petaluma for a day of antiquing, with a quick stop at the seed bank for heirloom tomato starts.
Amy—Wind Spirit, I reminded myself—lagged behind. “Lily, I hope this isn’t too presumptuous, but I came across this wedding dress the other day, and I thought, just maybe . . .”
She handed me a huge paper bag. Poufy clouds of white satin, netting, and lace spilled out from the top.
“Oh, aren’t you just the sweetest thing?” I said.
Bronwyn must have mentioned that I had been searching for the perfect wedding dress for my upcoming nuptials. As owner of a vintage clothing store, I was feeling even more pressure to find just the right dress than the average jittery bride.
“It’s probably not what you’re looking for, but Lucille’s so good with alterations, and you should feel free to change it any way you see fit. It was my aunt’s, but she got divorced years ago and it’s just been sitting in the back of the closet, so no worries at all about cutting it up.”
“This is so thoughtful of you. Truly.”
“No problem. See you later!”
As the door closed behind her, blessed silence descended over Aunt Cora’s Closet. I leaned back against the door and sighed. Maya met my eyes and smiled.
“They’re wonderful,” I said as I brought the bag with the wedding dress over to the counter.
“They are,” Maya replied.
“And it’s a great cause.”
“It is.” She nodded, spraying the glass countertop with my homemade vinegar and lemon verbena all-purpose cleaner. A lovely citrus fragrance filled the air.
“And they wear me out.”
“They do.”
We shared a laugh.
“Do you think the wedding dress will work for you? It was so sweet of Wind Spirit to bring it.”
“It looks a little . . . eighties,” I said as I extracted the wrinkled heap from the bag. It was made of inexpensive materials that felt unpleasant to the touch.
“Not exactly your favorite fashion era, the eighties,” Maya said with a nod. “Still, it was thoughtful.”
“It was. And you never know. . . . Your mother’s pure magic with a needle.”
“So, where are the grandmas this morning?” Maya asked, stashing the cleaning materials under the counter and turning to the large paper map of the western United States that we had tacked up to a bulletin board behind the register.
What had started out as a joke had developed into a morning ritual: putting a tack in the map to indicate the progress of the busload of witches heading to San Francisco from my hometown of Jarod, Texas. We traced their zigzag route with red string, linking one thumbtack to the next. I told Maya their most recently reported location was Salinas, and she pushed another tack into the soft cork.
“I can’t wait to meet them.”
“Yes, they’re . . . characters, all right,” I said, applying the nozzle of the steam machine to a 1950s ecru linen blouse and watching the wrinkles miraculously disappear. Stifling yet another sneeze, I concentrated on my breathing and tried to project an air of calm, because, deep down, I was nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof.
As if the imminent arrival of my grandmother and her coven sisters weren’t enough, my mother was also on that bus.
My mother and I had . . . issues. First, she had sent me away to live with my grandmother Graciela at the age of eight. Then, when I was seventeen, she tried to “save” me during a nightmarish snake-handling revival meeting designed to drive out the demons she believed to be responsible for my strange powers. Things got out of hand, people got hurt, and I was essentially run out of my small hometown on a rail.
I sent my mother a check every month to help with her expenses, and very occasionally we exchanged an awkward phone call. But I hadn’t seen her since that awful day.
“Did you figure out where everyone will be staying?” asked Maya.