The next day I went down to Aunt Cora’s Closet, bleary-eyed despite two big cups of strong French roast. I hadn’t slept much last night. I hadn’t made cookies, either, despite Oscar and Selena’s whining.
Instead, I had installed the two of them in front of the TV to watch a movie, and then spent most of the night consulting my Book of Shadows, brewing, and making protective sachets and talismans to pass out to my loved ones. Aidan kept warning me that I had defeated Deliverance Corydon too easily, that part of her had somehow become a part of me. But I hadn’t wanted to believe it.
What did it mean that Deliverance’s sign kept showing up? Was it a harbinger that I would become evil, like she was? Is that what had happened to Deliverance Corydon? . . . Had she once been a well-meaning witch who was seduced by malevolence, until she became demonlike herself?
And why in the world was a busload of elderly coven members making her mark with their path?
A terrible thought occurred to me: Could the grandmas have been kidnapped, somehow? Were they safe? Anyone could have been sending those text messages, right? How could I be sure?
By midnight I had worked myself into such a tizzy I even called and woke up poor Maya, who assured me that the grandmas had indeed sent the pictures of themselves having a grand old time in various locales, and that it was highly doubtful they had been kidnapped. I apologized and urged her to sleep in the next day. After all, I had extra labor in the form of Selena, and Aunt Cora’s Closet wasn’t going to be open for regular business on Saturday, anyway.
Instead, we were going to clear the place out to get it ready for the Magical Match Tea on Sunday. The plan was to move most of my inventory into Lucille’s Loft for the event, then set up small folding tables and refreshment stands here in the store. On the one hand, I could hardly believe we were going ahead with the Magical Match Tea, given everything else that was going on. But the more I thought about it, the more I was sure it would give me the chance to catch Wind Spirit in an unguarded moment.
Speaking of Wind Spirit, seeing her double last night had knocked me for a loop. But in the end, I didn’t think the apparition was anything more than chance. Selena had been fooling around with the silverfish, and happened to be wearing the charm Wind Spirit had given her, so she took on Wind Spirit’s appearance for a few minutes. That was all there was to it.
I was pretty sure.
When Bronwyn arrived—cream cheese and two dozen bagels in hand—I asked her to remain discreet about my suspicions.
“Does this mean you’ve reconsidered? I really don’t think dear Wind Spirit could be—”
“Let’s just say I’d like to keep a low profile.”
“I understand,” she said as she laid the bagels out on a platter. “Oh, how is poor Sailor doing? Has there been any progress on his case?”
“Sort of,” I hedged. “I’m still working on it.”
Duke arrived, and on his heels came Conrad with Shalimar and three other friends happy to work for food.
Every time someone asked how Sailor was doing, my stomach clenched with anxiety. All I could say was that things were still up in the air, but that we might be getting closer to figuring things out. Fingers crossed. I handed out the talismans, and hung the sachets around the store, explaining that we still had to be on our toes, especially if someone showed up looking like Sailor. Or Renee-the-cupcake-lady, for that matter.
I wore an apron over the old cotton dress I usually donned for doing laundry. Bronwyn and Duke were clad in jeans and sweatshirts, and Conrad and several of his “gutterpunk” friends wore their everyday attire. Maya, of course, had refused my offer to sleep in and showed up early along with everyone else, also wearing moving clothes. She waved off my apologies for robbing her of sleep.
“Maya, could I ask you about the symbol you found? You said it was connected to Deliverance Corydon?”
“Yes, isn’t that wild? I found a reference in a book by a Berkeley professor who had done research on the witch hunts. I even tried calling him, but it turns out he’s no longer at Cal.”
“Did the sign have any particular meaning that you could find?”
She shook her head. “Just that it was associated with her, and I guess whoever came up with the Da Pinchi sign based on it.”
“And what does it mean in the Da Pinchi Code?”
“I wrote it down: ‘a rich house, worth burgling, but high risk.’”
“Huh. That doesn’t tell us much.”
“No, it doesn’t. Oh, also, you’ll be glad to hear that Graciela’s coven checked in this morning,” she said as she put a thumbtack in the wall, not far from Napa, as I’d predicted. “They’re going wine tasting today. And their path has definitely formed Corydon’s sign,” said Maya as she looped red thread around the tack. “They said they’d be here tomorrow, for sure. They were in a dead zone for talking, but I texted them about the sign, and whether they were kidnapped.”
“You did? How did they respond?”
“‘LOL.’”
“‘Lots of love’?”
“‘Laugh out loud,’” she said, chuckling. “The thing is, Lily, with you I don’t know if that’s a joke, or you’re serious.”
I smiled in return, but didn’t clarify. Oscar often said, “OMG,” but otherwise I wasn’t exactly up on my texting acronyms.
“So, let’s get to work, shall we?” Maya said.
We trooped next door and, with the help of Lucille and her seamstresses, pushed the sewing machines and worktables to the very back of Lucille’s Loft, opening up space for the racks and the shelf contents we would bring over from Aunt Cora’s Closet. Lucille had already moved the custom orders to the front of her shop, and every once in a while one of her clients would drop by to pick up her dress, excited about tomorrow’s event.
Which reminded me: “Lucille, who is Renee Baker bringing to the tea as her match? You made their outfits, didn’t you?”
“I really don’t know,” Lucille said. “Renee gave me the measurements for her match’s outfit, but she didn’t come in for a fitting.”
“That seems odd,” I said.
Lucille shrugged. “It happens that way sometimes. People get busy.”
“Has she picked up the dresses yet?”
“No, I have them here.” Lucille held out a large dress, along with a smaller one. They were made of matching material, colorful little cupcakes somersaulting across a beige background. Cupcakes. How unexpected.
I tried holding Renee’s dress in my arms, hoping to sense any wayward vibrations. No luck. I doubted she had worn it long enough for me to sense anything, anyway—and the befuddling spell I was suffering under didn’t help.
The smaller dress could have fit Amy—Wind Spirit—though I couldn’t be sure. Would it even make sense that she would come with Renee? Wouldn’t that be an obvious tip-off to me? Or would that even matter? Once Renee allied herself with someone magical, I imagined it wouldn’t remain a secret. So far, her intentions to mount a challenge to Aidan had been surprisingly straightforward.