Herringbones and Hexes, page 7
I fed her and freshened her water and then headed out to pick up Violet. Normally, I would have taken Nyx along with me to alleviate her boredom. She was my familiar, after all. But after a rather unfortunate incident when Margaret Twigg had catnapped Nyx, I never took her near the place.
So I grabbed a large roll of breath mints and headed out.
When I got to Violet’s cottage, I suffered a shock. Two more Band-Aids decorated her face, but the one on her cheek wasn’t big enough to cover up the profusion of bright red pimples that stood out on her skin. And her left eyelid was swollen and half-shut and seemed to droop down towards her mouth. Her mouth itself was swollen, but I suspected that was something to do with the broken tooth and whatever the dentist had done to fix it.
I didn’t say a word. She must know she wasn’t looking her best. She glared at me as if daring me to comment on her appearance, so naturally, I didn’t.
“Ready to go?” she snapped at me.
I nodded and got back into the car. Brightly I offered her a mint, and she glared at me. “I’ve just had dental work,” she snapped at me again.
Being in this close proximity in the car, the burst of halitosis made my eyes water. I didn’t care that the January evening was freezing. I unrolled my window and determined to drive as fast as I possibly could. Fortunately, Violet’s cottage wasn’t very far from Margaret Twigg’s.
Margaret Twigg’s cottage was exactly what a witch’s cottage should be. Made of stone, set back from the road, sitting on its own. It had once been in the middle of the great Wychwood Forest, but now there wasn’t very much forest left. Still, it was isolated, and even though it was a charming cottage, it had an atmosphere. Even if you didn’t know Margaret Twigg was a witch, you’d probably suspect she was.
I had called ahead to tell her we were coming, and she flung the front door open before we even got to it.
“What a welcome surprise,” she said, ladling sarcasm over the words. “I’d begun to think you’d forgotten all about me, Lucy.” No doubt she’d have continued for some time in that vein, except she caught a glimpse of Violet and recoiled. “Violet. Whatever have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything.” It didn’t come out quite that clear because of the tooth and swollen mouth problem.
“You’ve been cursed, my girl.”
Aha. I had been right.
Violet acted like that possibility hadn’t occurred to her. “Not me. Lucy. Someone put a hex on Lucy, but I was the one who picked up the skull they left outside the front door of her shop.”
Margaret Twigg’s piercing, blue eyes moved rapidly from her face to mine. “Have you got it with you?”
I shook my head. “It’s at Rafe’s. Locked away in a shed. It was only in my shop for a few hours, and it scared away all the customers.”
“Naturally. Look what it’s done to Violet. I suppose that’s why you’re here? To get me to do your work for you.”
She wasn’t the most gracious of witches. “Could we come in?” I didn’t really feel like standing out in her garden talking about the curse.
She didn’t seem best pleased to let us inside. She looked at Violet as though my cousin might be contagious with a deadly disease. “Don’t touch anything.”
“What have I done?” she said again.
“It’s not what you’ve done, my dear, it’s what’s been done to you. And why. You’ve made an enemy.”
Violet mumbled an answer, and Margaret Twigg stared. “No one’s offering you an enema, you odd girl. Have you been drinking?”
“She said she doesn’t have any enemies,” I said, feeling like an interpreter at the UN.
“Her face tells a different story.”
“We’re trying to figure out who it was.” I told Margaret Twigg about the Witch Date. “He calls himself Forest Sprite. But his first name might be Leo.”
Margaret Twigg looked like she might spit cockroaches out of her mouth, she was so mad. “You went on Witch Date?” She glared at Violet, who in turn glared at me.
“Hanks nor rabbing.” Which I interpreted as “Thanks for blabbing.” Oops.
Before Margaret could berate Violet any more, I said, “We have to get rid of this hex. And the dark witch from the dark net sounds like the most likely culprit.”
Margaret Twigg looked both annoyed and slightly amused. “I have never known anyone who has worse luck with dating than you, little sister.”
Violet hung her head, and two more strands of long, black hair floated down onto the flagstone floor of Margaret Twigg’s kitchen. The fire was burning away in the enormous fieldstone fireplace, and a mid-size cauldron was steaming with some mixture that was bubbling away. I could smell mint and licorice, and I was fairly certain I smelled cannabis.
“Tell me about this skull then,” Margaret Twigg said to me.
I glanced at Violet, but I wasn’t having a lot of trouble recalling the object. It was imprinted on my memory. “It was the bleached skull of some kind of goat, we think, with magic symbols drawn on it and some feathers hanging down from it.”
“What symbols?” Margaret Twigg snapped at me. It reminded me of the way a fourth grade teacher had snapped multiplication table questions at us. I still got startled if anyone asked me what five times four was.
“One was a pentagram. One was something that looked like a thumb; a crow, I think; and a message written backward.”
“Interesting.” She walked over to stir her cauldron and then took a glass jar of white powder from a shelf and sprinkled some into the bubbling liquid, whereupon it boiled furiously before she murmured a few words and it quieted again.
“Did you make it, Margaret?” I asked it in a casual way. It was a technique I’d seen Theodore use. Throw in the pointed question as though it was perfectly benign.
It didn’t work on Margaret, of course. “I sell any number of hexes, Lucy. I couldn’t possibly say.”
Oh, and that told me.
“Have you sold any recently? To a guy with bleached hair who calls himself Forest Sprite?”
She shuddered visibly. “I can’t imagine I’d sell anything to anyone calling themselves Forest Sprite.”
She hadn’t answered the question though, had she? More significant, she hadn’t asked what the message on the skull said.
Violet made a furious sound, and we both turned in time to see her spit her broken tooth into her hand.
“Can you fix it?” Violet asked, holding out the once more broken tooth. She sounded desperate.
Margaret shook her head. “It’s the curse. The easiest solution is for the person who hexed you to remove it.”
“But we don’t even know where Leo is. He took his profile down.”
“Then you must reverse the hex yourselves.”
“You’re a powerful witch. Can you reverse it?”
She crossed her arms under her meager chest. Her gray, corkscrew curls seemed to dance in front of my eyes as though she’d stuck a finger in an electric socket. Her eyes grew sharper and bluer.
“Lucy. You don’t take your training seriously. You don’t respect your own power or the coven or the fact that I keep warning you dark forces are on their way. And now you expect me to reverse a hex? This is an excellent test for you. Do it yourself.”
I felt my jaw drop as my mouth opened.
Violet would have done the same if she could have. “But what about me?” The bad eye was closed all the way now and drooping even more. And the way her hair was drifting off her head, she was going to be bald soon.
Grow ugly, wither and die. I hadn’t told Violet about that nasty little backwards-printed phrase, but she was definitely growing ugly. How long until she began to wither?
“Yes. You can certainly work on it. And preferably while Violet’s still got one good eye and a bit of hair left.”
“What do we do?” I asked, feeling desperate.
Margaret Twigg rolled her eyes. “You’d know how to reverse a hex by now if you’d been keeping up with your lessons. That’s why they’re so dangerous. A powerful witch can turn the hex back on the person who sent it. If you’re really annoyed, you can double its power.”
“Cool.” Not that I wanted to cause anyone misery, but someone had definitely tried to cause Violet misery, and she might be a bit annoying, very competitive and a lackadaisical employee, but she was my cousin. I was definitely fond of her.
“I suppose you’re not going to tell us how we reverse a hex?”
She gave me that thin, superior smile that always made my teeth grind together. “No. I’m not. Go home like a good witch and read your grimoire. And you can read some of those books I’ve been recommending for your library. And you can set yourself a magic circle and meditate within it and see what comes to you.”
“Fine.” Then I looked around her well-stocked pantry. If you ever needed eye of newt or bat wing or milk of a slug collected under a full moon, this was the place to come. “Is there anything I’ll be needing that you have here?”
She glanced at Vi, looking worse by the minute and with her hand clasping her tooth, then went into the back room and returned with a small bottle of black powder. “That’s soil from the grave of a hanged witch. You’ll need it. Have you black candles?”
I nodded.
“Then you’d best get started.” Naturally, nothing was ever free when Margaret Twigg was involved. She wanted twenty-five pounds for this tiny vial of what was probably dirt from her back garden, but Violet was in a bad way, and I was willing to try anything to help her.
Margaret Twigg hesitated and then crossed to where she had a planter of herbs growing in the windowsill. She picked several and handed them to Violet.
“Chew them well. Swallow the juice but not the leaves.”
Violet took them, looking rather surprised. “Will that help my tooth heal faster?”
She shook her head. “No, dear. But hopefully it will help that dreadful halitosis.”
She put a hand in front of her mouth. “I’ve got bad breath?”
“It’s not your fault. It’s the hex. But unless you want Lucy passing out while she’s driving you, I suggest you chew those. And perhaps breathe out the window.”
Before we left, I had one more question. “Can’t we just remove the hex?”
Margaret Twigg gave me that sarcastic, superior look she so often cast my way. “Not unless it was you who cursed your cousin. Besides, reversing a hex is so much more satisfying, don’t you think?”
“What about our oath to first do no harm?”
She gave me her thin smile. “I like to finish that with an unspoken codicil. Do no harm unless provoked first.”
I was pretty sure that wasn’t in any witch’s manual I’d ever seen. However, since Margaret Twigg was so easily provoked, I didn’t inquire deeper. Instead, we thanked the older witch and left.
“I can’t believe I’ve been hexed,” Violet said. I didn’t like to tell her, but another horrific-looking pimple had sprung out on the end of her nose.
“I know. What an awful thing to happen.”
“I am never dating again. That’s it.”
I felt so bad for her. “You don’t know it was Leo. Not for sure.”
“Who else is mad at me?” She shook her head, which she probably shouldn’t have done because a cloud of hairs drifted away from her scalp. “I shouldn’t have been so mean to Leo. That’s what comes of angering another witch.”
While I thought she could have handled Forest Sprite a little more diplomatically, I also thought he was a real jerk to make her suffer like this, and I told her so.
“I’m going to go home and study the family grimoire. Hopefully there’s something in there about reversing a hex. In the meantime, talk to your grandmother. Lavinia’s been a witch a lot longer than we have. Maybe she’s got some ideas.”
“I don’t want to tell her. She’ll be so upset.”
I didn’t say it, but unless she wanted to be bald and toothless and covered in pimples, with only one eye to be able to survey the damage in the mirror, we really needed to pull in every helper we had. And that was before she got to the wither stage of the hex.
Ultimately, I was even willing to go back to Margaret Twigg and beg for help. But not until I’d given hex reversal a good try myself. Much as Margaret annoyed me, she had a point. If I was going to accept my powers and be a part of this local witch community, I was going to have to try a little harder.
Before Violet got to the final stage of the hex.
The bit that said Die.
Chapter 11
I dropped Violet off at her cottage and then returned home in a pensive mood.
I drove my little car around the back of the building, so I entered my home through the back entrance in the stairway that led up to my flat, thus avoiding the shop. However, I’d barely climbed two steps before I knew I was not alone. This wasn’t as unusual as it should have been, considering I was an independent adult and this house belonged to me. Gran or Sylvia or really any vampire who felt like a visit seemed to think it was perfectly okay to waltz in and out of my home.
They usually at least rang the bell first or knocked if coming by way of the shop. However, if I wasn’t home, they’d come on in and settle down to wait.
I hoped it was Gran waiting for me, as she’d been a witch in life. Though, now that she was a vampire, her magic had faded, and I sensed she was increasingly vague about the spells she had once known so well.
But it wasn’t Gran waiting for me. It was Theodore, and with him was Hester. Sitting together on my couch, they made the oddest couple. Theodore was serene and chubby and always had a cherubic look on his face. Hester was a perennial angry teenager with long, black hair who usually dressed all in black, and her most normal expression was a scowl. Her mood had improved lately though, now that we had a young vampire who she seemed to enjoy spending time with. But Carlos was a university student busy with his studies. He hadn’t embraced knitting the way the rest of them had.
He was a beginner like me, which made me really warm to him, and Hester got quite patronizing when she showed him where he’d gone wrong and corrected his stitches. Still, if it wasn’t the grand romance Hester was hoping for, at least she had a friend closer to her own age.
Even more surprisingly, she’d recently started to team up with Theodore in his private investigation practice. She was a whiz on computers, and she had absolutely no compunction about breaching people’s privacy. She hacked into systems for fun when she was bored. I supposed it was better than a steady diet of soap operas in the afternoon.
She no sooner saw me than her scowl deepened. “There you are. We’ve been waiting ages.”
As though we’d had an appointment and I’d stood them up. Theodore hastened to say, “I hope you don’t mind us dropping by, Lucy, but Hester’s found your mystery man.”
I’d been about to snap at Hester. Now I quelled the impulse, irritation turning to surprise. “You did? Already?”
My astonishment made her preen. “It wasn’t very hard. Silly fool’s using the same IP address. So I had no trouble at all linking Forest Sprite’s closed account on Witch Date with Robin Goodfellow’s brand-new one.”
I rolled my gaze. “This guy’s not big in imagination, is he?”
“Just as well for us, I believe,” Theodore said. “It made Hester’s job tracking him down much easier.”
She glared at him as though he’d dealt her the most appalling insult. “It wasn’t easy. You try it, you old git. You couldn’t even find your arse in the dark, never mind the dark web. Then try tracking someone down who’s doing business there.”
He immediately set about trying to make her feel better. “My apologies, Hester. You’re remarkable. I couldn’t possibly manage without you. I wasn’t criticizing your skills as a computer expert so much as Robin Goodfellow’s lack of them.”
She settled her back once more against the cushion of the chintz sofa in the living room. “He could have given me a bit more challenge,” she conceded.
I added my mite of praise. “That’s great, Hester. We think he’s the guy who put the hex on Violet.”
“What are you going to do? Now we’ve found him.”
Hester had me there. I hadn’t imagined they’d find him so quickly. And now that they had, I didn’t have a step two of the plan. I needed a crash course in how to break a hex. I toyed with the idea of asking Hester to search on the dark web but stopped myself. The thought of Hester mixing it up with witchcraft sent chills down my spine.
I’d been standing all this time, so I put my car keys in the little bowl where I kept them and placed my bag on the floor. Nyx must have heard me come in, as she made her stately way down the stairs from where she’d no doubt been sleeping on my bed. After rubbing herself against my legs, she graciously allowed me to pick her up, and I settled, with Nyx on my lap, opposite the other two.
Nyx didn’t say a lot, but somehow just being with her seemed to sharpen my wits. I was pretty certain some of my thoughts were actually planted by my familiar. Either that or I was a lot smarter than I’d ever believed myself to be.
So even as I sat there, the solution popped into my head. Margaret Twigg had said I could reverse the hex, or the person who put it on Violet could remove it. Seemed like door number two was going to be both quicker and easier. “The site’s called Witch Date. I’m a witch. I’ll send Forest Sprite, now Robin Goodfellow, a message and see if he’d like to go out with me. Then I’ll convince him to remove the hex.”
Even Hester looked impressed. “Not bad, Lucy. You’ll never be as good as me and Theodore, but you’re not a completely hopeless amateur.”
“Thank you,” I said, hoping I sounded truly grateful for the compliment and not sarcastic.
Nyx purred loudly as I stroked her from the top of her head to the end of her back in long, smooth motions.
Anyway, I couldn’t afford to annoy Hester. I needed her cooperation. The way Violet’s condition was deteriorating, we probably didn’t have a lot of time. “Can you help me set up a profile?”
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