Magic and Macaroons (22 page)

His head ducked back down.

“Lazy bones,” I muttered, but hoisted the tote strap higher on my shoulder and set off on foot for Mother Eulora’s little house, the bag of pastries in my other hand.

As I turned the corner, movement on the porch alerted me that someone was home. Approaching, I saw two figures in the chairs there. One was Mother Eulora, and the other was a girl of about twelve or thirteen. Thin and animated, she was chatting a million miles a minute and kicking her heels against the porch to keep the rocker going at a pace to match her words. She wore white shorts and a T-shirt advertising a band called Midnight Red. Her hair was pulled back with a purple scrunchie. She stopped talking for a moment to take a drink from a tall glass on the table between them, then dove back in to her story.

Eulora turned her head, saw me coming up the street, and waved. I waved back, relieved at her welcome. Opening the gate, I skirted the bicycle laid down on the front walk, went up to the bottom step, and stopped.

“Katie,” Eulora said before I could speak. “I would like for you to meet my great-granddaughter, Cecelia Scanlon. Honey, this is Katie Lightfoot. She’s a new friend.”

“Hi, Cecelia,” I said, and went up the steps to the small porch.

Cecelia rose to her feet and stuck out her hand. “It’s very nice to make your acquaintance.”

So polite. I exchanged a glance with Mother Eulora, who appeared both amused and approving.

But as soon as Cecelia spied Mungo, the mature young woman was gone. “Oooh! Puppy! Can I pet her? Please, please?”

“He’s a boy, and his name is Mungo,” I said.

My familiar, ever the ham, stood on his hind legs and wagged his tail so hard, I thought he’d fall out of the tote. Quickly, I grabbed him and lifted him down to the porch. He beelined over to his new fan, who sat on the top step and patted her leg. I winced as he bounded into her lap, wondering how much of his charcoal-colored fur would end up on her white shorts, but she didn’t seem to care.

“Oh, you’re such a cutie! Who’s a good boy? Mungo’s a good boy!”

I grinned and moved over to where Eulora was looking down at both of them with an indulgent smile.

“I hope you don’t mind that I brought him along,” I said, setting the bag of pastries on the table between us.

“Of course not,” she said. “He
is
a cutie.”

Mungo lolled his tongue at her over Cecelia’s shoulder, and Eulora laughed.

I shook my head at his over-the-top antics. “I hope I’m not inconveniencing you, dropping by like this. I know Emily Post would disapprove, but I don’t know your phone number, and I wanted to talk to you about something.”

She moved her hand as if flicking away a bug. “Bah to Miss Post and her ilk. You come on by here anytime you want.” Her eyes were knowing. “After all, we have a lot to talk about.”

Cecelia moved Mungo off her lap and stood. Regret oozed from every pore. “Grammy, I gotta go.”

Eulora inclined her head. “I know, honey. Your daddy’s expecting you.”

“Maybe you could call him? Tell him you need me to stay?” She looked down at Mungo as she said it.

“I’m sorry, child. I have some business with Katie here. Come back tomorrow at the same time, okay?”

The girl’s shoulders slumped, but she nodded. “Tomorrow.” Cecelia looked a little worried. “Tanna?”

“I’ll let her know she needs to run an errand. It’s okay, honey. You’ll be in school soon. We’ve got to take advantage of the summer.”

“Okay, Grammy.” Cecelia went over and kissed her grandmother’s crepe-papery cheek, then nodded to me. “Nice to meet you.” And then to Mungo. “And you, too!”

Yip!

“Oh!” she giggled, then groaned, “He’s too cute to leave.”

“Come by the Honeybee bakery down on Broughton. Sometimes Mungo hangs out in the reading area.” I pointed at the paper bag. “In the meantime, how about a cookie or a muffin?”

Cecelia peered inside and carefully selected a chocolate-chunk cookie. She thanked me, said good-bye to her great-grandmother, and skipped down the steps to her bike. Seconds later, she was sailing away down the sidewalk.

“Come and sit,” Eulora said, fanning herself with a fold-out fan.

I did as she said, sinking into the rocking chair while Mungo explored the not so far corners of the small porch.

“Thank you for the pastries. I should have had Cecelia get you some lemonade before she left.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” I said, then saw the look in her eye. “And I’m not worried that you’re going to do me in with some voodoo drink spell, either.”

“Ha. Well, that’s good.”

“I take it Tanna isn’t here,” I said, hoping I was right.

Eulora shook her head. “She finds errands to run when Cecelia comes to see me. They don’t get along.”

“How could anyone not get along with that girl? She’s adorable.”

She didn’t smile. “Cecelia is my apprentice. So is Tanna,
of course, but Cecelia is family. Tanna is not. It sometimes creates . . . conflict.”

I thought of Lucy and Iris and that tiny green arrow I’d felt when I’d seen them together. I’d brushed it away, but I was Lucy’s family. I knew I didn’t have to worry.

“She’s jealous,” I said flatly.

“She’s . . . overprotective of me, and, yes, perhaps a bit jealous. I teach them the same, or at least the same according to their own strengths and abilities.”

“But your great-granddaughter is only what? Twelve?”

“Thirteen just last month. Poor Tanna. She has no family left, and her husband passed several years ago.”

But she’s the grown-up,
I wanted to say. For once I kept my mouth shut.

“Shall we go inside?” Eulora said, changing the subject. “It’s cooler today, but I’m still a bit overheated.”

I sprang to my feet. “Of course!”

“Bring the little dog, too.” She rose, examining him as she did so. “He’s more than your little dog, though, isn’t he?”

Nodding, I asked, “How did you know?”

“Because you are a lightwitch. You are bound to have a strong familiar, and small though he might be, that one is strong indeed.”

Chapter 17

Holding her elbow, I helped her inside. She seemed frailer than the day before, and I wondered how much our visit had taxed her health. Maybe Tanna wasn’t overprotective after all. I ran back outside and retrieved the empty glass and pastries from the porch and brought them into the kitchen, then began looking through the cupboards for a plate.

“Next to the refrigerator,” Eulora called from her perch on the living-room sofa.

“Got it,” I said. Moments later, I brought in a plate piled with the Honeybee baked goods and the pitcher of lemonade I’d found in the refrigerator. “I changed my mind about something to drink. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Heavens, no,” she said, a smile crinkling the skin around her eyes even more. She reached for a fig muffin. “I see you’re wearing the bracelet. Good. Have you had a chance to look for the gris gris since yesterday?”

I sat in the same chair I’d chosen the day before. “Yes, but not with the best of luck. We—my coven and I—tried a location spell last night. More than one, actually. I found a likely possibility.”

She leaned forward with an eager expression. “And?”

“It was where Franklin rented a room. But he hadn’t paid his rent, and his room has been cleared out and rented. The landlady wouldn’t let us look at what he’d left behind. She’s not feeling very trustful.”

She tipped her head to one side. “Did something happen to make her feel that way?”

“There was a break-in last night. Nothing seems to have gone missing,” I said. “But the timing seems a bit, er, coincidental. She agreed to give Franklin’s possessions to Detective Quinn, however. I have a call in to him.”

Eulora’s took a bite of muffin, looking thoughtful. “I agree that break-in is suspicious, especially since only last night you discovered the location of the gris gris with your spell. Could anyone have observed you?”

My fingers crept to my lips. “You think someone was watching us cast? The blinds in the Honeybee were all closed.”

Her eyes flashed purple. “There are many ways to watch someone. Not all are literal.”

The enormity of the enemy I was up against settled in my stomach. “Mother Eulora, I don’t know what to do.”

She shook her finger at me. “Of course you do. You might not realize you know yet, but you do.”

I stared at her.
What the heck?

“Eulora,” I said slowly. “Franklin said I was a lightwitch, but other than telling me I was unable to engage in black magic, he didn’t tell me what being a lightwitch is supposed to be all about.”

Her eyes went wide. Shaking her head, she looked toward the ceiling. “Franklin, what were you thinking?”

I stood. “What?”

Eulora pushed herself to her feet. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

Obediently, I followed her down a back hallway with
Mungo trundling along at my left heel. But I was fuming. Had Franklin lied to me?

We passed a neat, austere bedroom. “Tanna’s,” she said. “She moved in a few months ago. To take care of me.” She breathed a small sigh.

We moved farther down the hall to what must have been Eulora’s own bedroom. Stuffed hedgehogs were piled on the neatly made bed. More overflowed the top of the dresser, the deep windowsill, and a small bookshelf. When she opened the walk-in closet to reveal a recognizable altar, it threw the collection of fuzzy, sweet toys into sharp relief.

A small table, waist-high and covered with a white cloth, snugged against the wall. It was covered with photographs ranging from old-fashioned sepia daguerreotypes to modern snapshots. A vase of silk lilies, the same dark aubergine of Mother Eulora’s eyes, dominated a back corner. A crystal bowl held water, and a white candle sat in a bowl filled with M&M’s. Another bowl held what looked to be plain old soil—only I remembered the vials of graveyard dirt in Marie LaFevre’s shop and doubted it was plain at all.

The item that grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go was the two-foot length of dried snakeskin curled in the middle of the altar. The red, black, and yellow stripes were faded but still managed to look deadly.

I pointed to it. “Detective Quinn said they found snakeskin in the warehouse where they found Franklin. Feathers, too.”

She slowly nodded. “Voodoo of some kind is no doubt involved in his death, then.”

I couldn’t help but shiver, recalling the slither of snakes in the depths of Mimsey’s shew stone.

Mother Eulora saw my reaction and said, “In our legends, Damballa is the serpent god who created the world.
His coils form the stars, his skin the oceans. He is married to the rainbow, Ayida Wedo. This brings me comfort, but not because it protects me or can keep me from age or illness. It is my heritage, and these things have meaning to me.” She took my hand. “I do not call myself a mambo nor a priestess, but a spiritualist. That is a choice.”

Turning to look up at me with her sweet face and deeply knowing eyes, she said, “Franklin was wrong to tell you lightwitches can’t cast black magic.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “But . . .”

She patted the bed. “Sit.”

I sat on the chenille coverlet. Eulora shut the closet door and sank into the chair by the window with a grateful sigh. Our knees were almost touching. Over her shoulder, I could see a tidy rose garden flourishing in the backyard.

She reached for a stuffed hedgehog on the windowsill and placed it on her lap. “Lightwitches are more powerful than your everyday witch, or sorcerer, druid, mage, houdon—anyone who comes to magic to learn and develop the inherent power we all possess. You were
born
with power, deep power. One or the other of your parents was gifted through the generations.”

“Both,” I said. “Hedgewitchery and Native American shamanism.”

She clapped her hands, delight playing across her features. Once again she reminded me of Mimsey.

“Of course! That explains it. You are, shall we say, supercharged from birth. All magic can be learned, augmented, improved over a lifetime. But you are a magical savant, if you will.”

I looked down at my hands, clasped in my lap. “Sometimes I glow.”

“You . . . ?” She gave a full-throated laugh. “Oh, yes. I remember Franklin telling me. It was what alerted him
to the depth of your power in the first place. But, honey, don’t worry. That’s only when you’re under duress, I’m sure.” She absently stroked the stuffed animal in her lap.

I looked up to find her looking at me with concern that belied her words. “Then why are you looking at me that way?” I asked.

“Franklin lied to you, at least in a way. He had his own agenda, you see. To fight the dark. Once he discovered how powerful you really are, he tried to force you to do only good by telling you that you had no choice.”

“I have no interest in practicing dark magic,” I said.

She held up her hand. “I’m happy to hear that, of course. But you need to understand that the gift of the lightwitch demands choice. Informed choice. Balance and intention are key to power. Even angels can’t be forced to serve the light.”

A grimace crossed my face. “Well, I’m no angel.”

A small smile touched Mother Eulora’s lips.

I sighed. “But I haven’t been like this my whole life. The glowing and all.”

“You’ve had magic in you your whole life, though. You know that, surely.”

Slowly, I nodded. “It took me a while to realize that after my aunt told me about my witchy heritage a year and a half ago. But then I remembered all sorts of evidence of my latent abilities.” I folded my arms over my chest, and my voice rose. “Out of fear, my mother kept that knowledge from me, and now I find out Franklin lied to me, too. I’m getting pretty darn sick of other people trying to control me!”

Mother Eulora’s eyes shone. “Good. Don’t allow that to happen anymore.”

I blinked.

“It’s your choice,” she said.

A door slammed somewhere on the other side of the
house. Eulora rose to her feet, and I did the same. “Tanna has returned. I assume you want to keep this conversation private?”

“Yes,” I said. “But please, before I leave, can you tell me just a little more? What does it
mean
to be a lightwitch? Is there such a thing as a darkwitch?”