Chapter 2 #2
“Tell me, Ham, do you know the provenance of these earrings?” I asked, feeling the pinpricks of pain in my hand as the spell struggled to poison me.
“I…they belonged to a very rich man’s mistress.”
I nodded.
“Oh my God,” Brooke blurted out, staring at my hand, that was slowly but clearly turning green. And not a beautiful shade like the emerald earrings, but instead a sickly, putrid decaying shade of olive.
“Xan?” Lorne said my name as a question, concern in his husky voice.
“It’s fine,” I promised him.
“What is this?” Thessaly cried.
“Your earrings have a nasty little curse on them.”
“Xander!” Cass shouted as she came back in the room with a mason jar full of water.
“The bowl, please, Cass.”
“Let me go get—”
“Here,” James said, dumping the crackers out of a clear glass one and onto the charcuterie board. He made sure there were no crumbs, which was nice but unnecessary.
Once Cass poured the water into the bowl, I immediately dropped the earrings in and then flicked the sides of the bowl three times. “I call upon this water, blessed by Selene, to purify the stone and metal within.”
Flipping my hand over, there was fire there and, as expected, all the newbies gasped. James and Cass just smiled at me.
Once my hand felt right, and the normal color returned, I clenched my fist and the fire was extinguished. Interestingly, there was black smoke rising from the water.
“Okay,” I said, getting up and going to the kitchen.
“What the hell’s going on, Xan?”
“It felt like a small curse,” I answered Lorne, opening cupboards until I found all the spices and then the basil I was after. “But it’s not.”
“What can I do?” Cass asked, and I noted how much better she looked already.
“Do you have any rosemary?”
She thought a moment. “In the tea you made me.”
“You have some of the hearth blend left over?” This was excellent news.
“I do.”
“That’s perfect. Bring me that.”
She flew by me to get to the pantry, and I returned to the water and sprinkled cinnamon, dried marjoram, and basil on top.
“Go now, I banish you from this ornament and from this sacred space,” I ordered the curse and watched the water boil as Cass stepped in beside me with my homemade tea blend filled with all kinds of helpful herbs, mainly lavender and yarrow, red clover and sage.
“Go!” I commanded as I covered the top of the water with the tea blend.
The lights went out, and suddenly, standing in a funnel of fire, was a beautiful woman in a green silk brocade dress with organza, satin, and cotton lace, with metal boning. She was stunning, with jet-black hair, dark blue eyes, and alabaster skin.
“He loved me, witch,” she roared, her voice like thunder.
The yelling and screaming from the new people in our midst helped nothing.
“Shut up,” Lorne ordered forcefully.
“He worshipped every smile and touch I bestowed,” the woman intoned.
I nodded. “I have no doubt.”
Quick breath, like my agreement had pleased her, and the fire was gone, replaced by a fog rolling off her and into the room, thick and white. “His wife…she was a mouse of a woman, and every time he came to me filled her with dread.”
“Of course it would,” I granted. “You’re a goddess, I can plainly see.”
Her eyes narrowed. “All wives of faithless husbands who covet my jewels will die as she did, flinging herself into the depths of the Seine.”
This, then, was the curse on the earrings, and now, if she’d been listening, Thessaly knew her husband was not monogamous.
I took a breath. “You must be so tired, lady.” I reached out my hand.
She took several steps forward, and we all heard her shoes on the wood before she grasped hold. “He meant to put me on the street after she died, his guilt making my countenance unbearable to behold.”
“Yes,” I said, squeezing her hand.
“He was going to give my treasure to an ingénue from a wealthy family, someone to restore his reputation. But I bled over my jewels before the dark claimed me.”
“A blood curse of undoing from a powerful witch,” I stated with certainty.
She smiled then. “As are you.”
I sighed deeply. “Go now to Summerland and be at peace. Your people will be there just as mine will be for me.”
Her face crumpled. “What if—”
“They will be there, lady. Think of your mother. Bring all that she was to you, to mind.”
“My mother,” she whispered as her blood tears fell. A last breath as she closed her eyes and was gone.
The lights came on at the same time, all hint of her vanished except for the earrings, now sitting at the bottom of a bowl of herbs and moon water.
All eyes on me.
“This is why…” I began, then turned to Cass, one eyebrow arched in question.
“Oh, oh I know! This is why you must always purify with water or sage anything vintage you bring home before you wear it, use it, or display it anywhere in your house. You never know what kind of bad juju might be sticking to it.”
“Very good,” I praised her.
“I listen,” she told me.
“You do, and I appreciate that.”
Lorne was smiling, James was shaking his head, and all the others were staring at the two of us. Cass was nodding, pleased with my praise from her smile, and I was waiting for the barrage of questions I knew would be coming my way.
“One time,” Cass announced, startling the visitors, “I bought a teacup at an antique store, and before I used it—I mean, I washed both the cup and the saucer—Xan made me sage it and leave it overnight on my selenite plate.”
“Can’t be too careful,” I said, smiling at Thessaly as she stood up, came around the coffee table, and reached for my hand.
An hour later, instead of having dinner at the dining-room table, we were all in the living room.
People who normally ate salad and nothing heavy for their evening meal—those words had apparently been spoken before Lorne and I arrived—had dug into the roast chicken James made, had devoured my mashed potatoes and Cass’s amazing honey balsamic roasted carrots, Brussel sprouts, and sweet potatoes with goat cheese mixed in.
Was it my recipe? It was. Had she improved on it and made it even better?
Yes, she had. There was also a lovely portobello mushroom for me.
Funny how being terrified always made people hungry once the horror subsided.
It took Thessaly a good twenty minutes to be able to let go of my hand. Once James brought her a plate of food, she turned to me and said it felt as though a weight had been lifted.
“I’m sure it does,” I soothed her.
Brooke wanted to know more about being a witch, and Stafford, sitting on the other side of his wife, was busy on his laptop, looking up drownings in the Seine. Willa, across from me, was on her laptop as well, searching for paintings of the woman who’d appeared in our midst.
“Not to be a smart ass,” Lorne began, “but maybe the provenance Hamilton received from the store where he bought the cursed earrings might be a better starting point than you all researching a lot of random crap.”
“Oh shit,” Ham yelled, popping out of his seat and running upstairs.
Everyone was staring at my husband.
“You don’t get to be the chief of police if you can’t figure shit out.”
James nearly choked on his food, and Cass snorted between bites. It was true—the man was, on occasion, quite funny.
“How did you know something was wrong?” Thessaly asked me, her hand on my knee as she gazed into my eyes.
“I had some intrusive thoughts earlier that simply aren’t me, so I knew something strange was going on,” I replied, patting her hand. “With how quickly they entered my mind, I was fairly certain it was a spell, or more likely, a curse.”
“But how did you know it was me and not Brooke or Willa?”
“You were the one who asked me, when I came back from being outside, how I had managed to snag Lorne. Not how we had fallen in love, not how we’d first met, but basically how had someone as lacking as me gotten him.”
Her hand went to her chest, the pearl-clutching instant. “Oh, Xander, I would never…”
“Which I suspected you wouldn’t. That was the curse working through you.”
She shuddered. “I’ve been so tired and bitchy. I mean really, that’s how I’ve felt.”
I smiled at her. “The curse made wives insecure and afraid—that’s what she left, in blood, on all her jewels.”
“I’ve got the folder,” Ham said, returning to the room, sounding excited. “Her name was Eleanor Valois. Check out the picture of her.”
They all leaned forward to look. I got up to get some more carrots and Brussel sprouts from the kitchen. I was almost at my seat when Willa gasped.
“Oh no…” She sounded scared as she met my gaze. “Xander, I have a whole dinner service we brought in from the car and put in our room. I was concerned about the Limoges china breaking in the cold.”
“It’s all antique,” Brett clarified, and I saw how worried he appeared.
“Well, I can certainly go upstairs and check them, but the wards on this house are fairly robust. And a curse, like the one we just encountered, is quite rare.”
She took a breath, seeming relieved.
“There are wards on the house?” Stafford asked me.
“Of course,” I answered softly. “James and Cass are my family.”
“Maybe send the flame to check,” Lorne offered. “You look a bit worn out yourself.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
“You had a curse on you that you were fighting with, and then you performed a banishing, touching a ghost in the process, so maybe you take my suggestion this once?”
I squinted at him. “When don’t I follow your suggestions?”
He got up, crossed the floor to where I was, relieved me of my plate, passing it to James, then took my hands in his. Instantly, warmth and calm rolled through me. “Do me a favor this time, will ya?” His dark eyes made my heart flutter.
“Okay.”
He bent and kissed me, and it was so light, merely a brush of his lips, but still, I felt the craving in me to be alone with him.
When he stepped back, I held out my hand, palm up, and it was immediately filled with flame.
“Incredible,” Stafford whispered.