A Cast-Off Coven (15 page)

Wendy also happened to be a high priestess in Bronwyn’s friendly Wicca coven.

Not long ago the sometimes surly baristas had decided that I was cool enough to acknowledge. I felt a little thrill, as though I had been invited to sit at the popular kids’ table during lunch.

“Lily, you’ve got art deco stuff at the shop, don’t you?” asked Wendy as she prepared my drinks. I had ordered a cayenne mocha for myself, a blend of espresso, chai, and soy milk called Flower Power for Conrad, and three bagels with avocado and jalapeño peppers.

“Some, yes,” I said. “I’ve got several flapper costumes and a couple of 1930s-style evening gowns.”

“Perfect.”

“What’s up?”

“There’s this dance called the Preservation Ball. It’s put on every year at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, sponsored by the Art Deco Society.”

“There’s a society for art deco?”

“Cool, huh? Anyway, I put Aunt Cora’s Closet in the newsletter.”

“There’s an art deco newsletter?”

“You bet.” Wendy placed my drinks on the counter and started to prep the bagels, fresh from the toaster. “These folks are organized.”

“What do they do?”

“Throw parties, mostly. Everybody dresses up in period costume and there’s music from the era, lots of big band stuff. The Preservation Ball raises money to save old art deco buildings.”

“So it’s just a group of people who like the style?”

“Pretty much. I mean, I don’t think they have a social agenda or anything like that. But it makes for some kick-ass parties.”

“I can imagine.” I pondered the idea of a social club that existed simply to enjoy a particular historical and stylistic era. Sounded like fun. Maybe Max and I—maybe we could go sometime? Did he even still like me, or had he decided he’d had enough of spooks? I shook my head and brought my thoughts back to the current conversation. “So what does it mean that we’re in the newsletter?”

“It means you’re sure to have your deco wardrobe scouted, and soon. Competition for really great costumes is fierce. I’ll make it over in the next day or two myself.”

“You go?”

“Sure. You should join us.”

“Really? Would I need . . . a date?”

Wendy laughed. “It’s San Francisco in the twenty-first century, sweetheart. Going stag is considered cool, not lame.”

“Good to know. I’ll think about it. And thanks for putting our name in the newsletter. That was thoughtful.”

“Any time.”

I loaded the food and drink into my basket and returned to Aunt Cora’s Closet, offering Conrad his breakfast and scootching down to sit with him on the curb. Oscar joined us; I had brought him a bagel, too, even though he’d already eaten a peanut butter sandwich up in the apartment. The morning was surprisingly sunny—uncommon in coastal San Francisco, where most mornings come in gray and overcast, with the sun making a leisurely appearance after noon. The changeable weather made dressing for a day out a constant challenge and was famous for driving unsuspecting tourists into the welcoming arms of the sidewalk sweatshirt vendors.

We ate in companionable silence. Afterward, Conrad helped me unload the newly cleansed clothes from the van—we carried in the black trunk, the bags and boxes of clothes, and the music box. I looked around for the letter from France that Luc had been looking at. I checked the back of the van and amongst the clothing. No sign of it. I must have left it in the closet.

Rats. I didn’t relish the thought of going back into that chamber of horrors without having a better handle on what was going on.

The bell tinkled as Bronwyn walked into the shop, coffee in hand.

“Good morning, Lily, and blessed be,” she said.

“Morning, Bronwyn,” I said, slipping a Pink Martini album onto the little CD player behind the counter. “There’s still time to escape. Are you sure you want to spend your day off up to your elbows in sudsy water?”

She gave me a huge, generous smile. “But I’m spending my time with one of my favorite people. What could be better? And you know me; I love to learn something new every day.”

I returned her smile as I started sorting through the new Victorian-era acquisitions. Bronwyn truly was one of a kind, and I wasn’t sure what I’d ever done in my life to deserve her steadfast friendship.

“Those look like bloodstains.” Bronwyn frowned, pointing to the brownish streaks on the ruffled ivory petticoat I was holding. “Is that normal or creepy?”

“Both,” I answered. It wasn’t all that unusual to find all kinds of stains, including bloodstains, on old fabric. And whatever had happened, it took place long ago. I had faith in the power of the spell I cast last night—no one would be hurt by anything here. Still, it gave a person pause.

“My mother always got bloodstains out with a little peroxide on a cloth, wiping it out,” Bronwyn said. “But I don’t know if it would work on such old stains. You can also leave salt on top to draw the blood out.”

“We could try that. Sometimes I use lemon juice or a little white vinegar.”

“Oh hey, Max stopped by yesterday afternoon,” Bronwyn said.

“Oh?” My head whipped around at the mention of his name. Very cool witch. I caught myself and tried to make my voice sound nonchalant. “What did he have to say?”

“He said he was in the neighborhood and wanted to apologize to you for acting like an ass.”

“Really? He said that?”

Bronwyn nodded. “Eventually. We chatted for a while, and he confessed he hasn’t been sleeping well. I told him he might have been visited by mares, and that you could probably help with a spell, but he insisted there was a logical explanation and that he’d find out what it was. I told him to come by this morning.”

I felt that now-familiar fluttering in my belly, and momentarily considered changing into something more flattering than the stained T-shirt and simple patterned cotton skirt I was wearing. But it was Wash Day, and somehow I thought Max was a strong enough man not to be put off by a sloppy T-shirt or two.

Bronwyn and I had our work cut out for us. Waiting to be laundered were not only all the Victorian items from the school, but everything else I had acquired over the past week. Maya gathered old clothes from the elders she met through her oral history project, and I usually hit at least two or three garage sales or estate auctions each weekend. And by now Aunt Cora’s Closet was developing a reputation; I paid well for good items, and news traveled fast.

We started by separating the clothing into four piles: dry-clean only, machine wash, hand wash, and hard cases. As usual, the machine-washables pile was the smallest. Into this pile we tossed only the most recently manufactured items: vintage T-shirts, classic jeans, and cotton-blend shirts made later than the sixties. Because Bronwyn had come here to learn, I explained the process as we went along.

“As a rule of thumb,” I told Bronwyn, “nylon goods or mixtures were introduced after 1940, acrylics after 1950, and labels marked polyester after 1960. Some fabrics from the sixties have specific registered trademark names such as Crimplene. They’re usually clearly marked on the tag.”

“What is Crimplene?”

“It’s a kind of high-bulk polyester. With lukewarm water and a cold rinse, it washes and drip-dries beautifully.”

“Is lukewarm a specific temperature?”

“Blood temperature.”

“Again with the blood,” Bronwyn said with a smile. The CD had finished, and Bronwyn started humming the song from last night. “Dee dee dum dum dum . . .” I glanced at the music box I’d found in the closet. It sat upon the sales counter, but it was not playing.

“Where did you hear that tune?” I asked.

“What?” Bronwyn threw a voluminous plaid skirt into the hard-case pile.

“That song.”

“What song?”

“The one you’re humming. The French naked lady song.”

Bronwyn’s expression suggested I was nuts. Was it possible that I was thinking about the tune and projecting it? I looked over at Oscar. Could he be doing so?

Any danger locked within the clothes had been bound and cleansed, I felt sure. Still, there was a powerful force at work if any of those vibrations came through.

I scooped up several of the Victorian dresses and petticoats and concentrated on their vibrations. They were calm, serene. Foreign, but that was normal.

“Lily, is everything all right?” Bronwyn laid a hand on my shoulder, startling me.

“Yes, just fine,” I said. “Would you mind putting another CD on the player?”

Bronwyn chose classic Jimmy Hendrix, and we continued sorting.

The wash-by-hand pile included cotton, linen, and wool items, especially those mixed with nylon and acrylics.

The largest pile by far was the “hard cases.” These were silks or wools likely to “shatter” with washing, quite literally falling to pieces. Any garments decorated with old lace or ribbons also needed special treatment; improperly treated lace would lose its crispness. Taffeta or other stiff material that rustled when it moved, as well as antique items with whalebone cages, celluloid inserts, or special finishes like watermark moiré, also had to be handled with particular care.

A few pieces weren’t candidates for traditional washing at all. They could be “valeted” by hanging in the fresh air.

“But don’t hang white or creamy wools or silks in the sun. They yellow in direct sunlight,” I reminded Bronwyn.

“I thought sunlight bleached fabrics?”

“It does with cottons, but wool and silk fibers contain cystine, which is sulfur bearing and causes a discoloring reaction in direct sunlight. I hang them in a room with a bowl of white vinegar for a few days and let the vinegar absorb any smells. On a breezy day, open the window and let fresh air into the room.”

“Did you get a degree in home economics?” Bronwyn asked, awed at my knowledge of fabric.

“School of Hard Knocks, I’m afraid,” I said, thinking ruefully of a number of pieces I had ruined when I first began. “You should see the meticulous method I saw a clothing conservationist use once. I’ll spare you the details.”

Sorting finished, we started on the hand-wash pile. After cleansing the garments with low- alkaline flake soap in a large zinc tub, I placed them, one by one, on a white towel and blotted them dry or rolled them in the towel to soak up the excess water. We let the items air dry on wooden racks, or used a blow-dryer set on cool, finger-blocking and coaxing the garments into shape. The goal was to keep the amount of ironing to a minimum.

“Okay, now I’m sorry I volunteered to help,” said Bronwyn. I noted the sheen of sweat on her brow. Slogging wet clothes was great for the upper arms, but it did make one’s back ache.

I laughed. “It really makes you appreciate modern fabrics, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll say.”

I felt a tingle and glanced at the front door where the Closed sign was displayed. It was Max.

“Sorry to bother you on your day off,” he said, his eyes flitting over my soaked T-shirt as I opened the door. “Catch you in the middle of something?”

“Washing clothes. The backsplash is an occupational hazard.”

We exchanged smiles. He looked tired, with dark rings under his eyes, but he was still handsome. It made me wish I had called him last night after all—if we weren’t going to get any sleep, we might as well have been wide-awake together. Neither of us spoke for a long moment.

I sighed inwardly—I was a goner.

“Morning, Max,” Bronwyn shouted from the back room, hands up to her elbows in rinse water.

“Morning, Bronwyn. Doesn’t your boss give you a single day off?”

“Not hardly,” she twanged, mimicking my Texan accent. “She’s a real rhymes-with-bitch.”

“Very funny,” I said. “Did you stop by for a reason, or just for the wet T-shirt contest?”

“I am a man of reason. In this case, several. First, I wanted to apologize for the way I acted yesterday. I was out of line.”

“Apology accepted,” I said. “I wasn’t at my best, either.”

“Second, I wanted to set Bronwyn straight on something.” He turned to address her. “The sensation of being visited by entities while sleeping is a recognized physiological condition, a form of sleep paralysis called ‘hag syndrome.’ I looked it up. A perfectly plausible scientific explanation.”

“That’s correct, dear,” Bronwyn said. “But did you ever wonder
why
you’re experiencing sleep paralysis? What if the ‘hags’ for which the syndrome is named are making you enter that so-called physiological state?”

Max grinned. “Why do I bother arguing with a true believer?”

“Because you’re stubborn?” I suggested.

“Must be.”

“Besides,” Bronwyn added, “
witches
are called hags, did you know that?”

A bang on the front door signaled someone else trying to open the locked front door. It was Luc, the sculpture professor from the School of Fine Arts, carrying two cardboard cups of coffee. He spilled some coffee on himself, jumped and swore, and shook his hand.

“Luc,” I said, opening the door. “What—”

“The hell are
you
doing here?” Max interrupted.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Luc said, eyes on Max.

“Lily’s my . . .” Max paused, and I wondered how he’d complete that sentence. What were we to each other, after all? “Friend.”

“I take it you two know each other?” I asked the men.

“You could say that,” Luc muttered.

“Luc’s my brother,” Max said. “My
baby
brother.”

I now realized why Luc felt familiar—the men shared a family resemblance. Luc was the pretty one; Max the more mature, manlier one, rougher around the edges and with those heart-stopping light eyes.

“Who’s no longer an infant,” Luc said. “Lily and I are . . . ‘friends’ . . . as well. As a matter of fact, she and I were trying on corsets together, just last night.”

I rolled my eyes.