Chapter 13 #2
Miles touched her arm. “Don’t worry, Ingrid. Boney knew one of the girls working, and we were in and out in, like, five minutes. No one saw us. I promise.”
“You mean Sasha.” She and Sasha weren’t close. Sasha had been Boney’s unofficial girlfriend before he and Ingrid had started up their little arrangement.
“She’s cool,” Boney said. “We were in and out.” He gave Ingrid a suggestive eyebrow lift.
Ingrid sighed. She really didn’t want word getting out that her friends were scavenging the Loefflers’ leftovers.
It felt demeaning and pathetic. And it could affect her reputation with them.
Would anybody trust a psychic whose friends were a bunch of vultures?
She was suddenly sure she wasn’t going to give the red-and-gold pen to Miles. He’d already helped himself to enough.
“Tell us about the bash.” Boney slurped his coffee. “Who did you meet?”
“Just a lot of business types.” Ingrid was determined to keep it vague. Boney always had an angle. Was always coming up with a new scheme to get something for nothing. “Older people mainly.”
“Potential customers,” Miles said with an encouraging smile.
“Hopefully.” She concentrated on her coffee. Miles had put in the perfect amount of sugar and milk. In spite of her irritation, she felt a twinge of affection for him.
Boney was watching her with an amused look. “You simp for the richies, don’t you, little princess?”
“Come on, man—” Miles protested.
“You’re one to talk.” Ingrid stood. “All that dumb stuff you tell them on your tours. Animal sacrifice in the middle of Colonial Park Cemetery? Give me a break.”
Boney’s eyebrows raised. “I’ve seen the puddles of blood. Feathers and bones.”
“You have not, you liar.” Ingrid fixed Boney with a cool look. “And I happen to know your cousin found those finger bones on a road construction project on MLK. There’s no way it’s Tomochichi, so you can just give it a rest, okay?”
“It’s called creating atmosphere, Ingrid,” Boney said. “Set design. Which is what that whole altar room of your downstairs is all about. Don’t act like you’re above it. We all do it for them.”
“I do it for the Goddess.”
Boney crowed with laughter. “Oh my God, you’re so cute.”
She stood, turning to Miles, speaking slowly and purposefully to him and him alone. “I’ll tell you everything later. I have to go down and get my room ready right now.” Even though she didn’t have an appointment.
Boney shoved out his chair. “She’s too good for us now, Miles, my boy. Witch to the richies. Next thing you know, you’re going to be out on your skinny ass—”
Ingrid tried to look bored. “Shut up, Boney.”
“I’ve seen it happen a million times. One of the richies adopts one of us like some toy they can parade around like a freak show attraction at their parties.
To boost their Savannah street cred. Oh, Muffy, you have to meet my nonbinary friend with pink hair and three septum rings who makes sculptures out of cockroach carcasses—”
Miles snorted with laughter. Ingrid just shook her head.
“—and before you know it, the innocent little freak starts to think they’re somebody special.
I’m telling you, it happened to an artist friend of mine.
They promised to put on this big, fancy show of all her work, so this girl painted twenty-six canvases—that she paid for herself, mind you—and then these asshats ghosted her. ”
“Miles,” Ingrid said. “Get him out.” She’d started to flick her hands in that ritual expelling of bad energy. She really couldn’t afford to have Boney’s black cloud envelop the house today.
“Eventually, Ingrid,” Boney continued, “the richies get bored and move on. They drop their new, quirky friend and move on to the next drag queen or tattoo artist … or witch.”
Without a word, she formed devil horns with her fingers and, palm down, pointed them straight at Boney, sending his negative energy back to him.
Boney waved his hands above his head. “Ohhhh, I’m so scared. She’s doing the big, bad finger magic on me.”
She turned her back on him and headed toward the stairs that led down to the garden level.
“The richies are bad people,” Boney called after her. “I’m telling you, Ingrid—”
“—you fucking dick,” she heard Miles say to Boney.
Down in her altar room, she shut the door behind her and locked it.
She turned and breathed in the calm of the room.
She already felt better in here. Already could feel Edie’s spirit hovering in the air.
She took her vial of lavender oil and dotted spots of it on her finger to imprint in each of the four corners of the room.
She put the two chairs off to the side and draped a black silk scarf over the low brass table.
She carefully set candles, matches, and the orange peel in a small glass dish on the table.
In one of the drawers in the breakfront, she found the length of red silk cord that she arranged in a circle around the brass table.
“Green for earth, to the north,” she murmured as she lit the candles and positioned them around the red cord circle. “Yellow for air in the east. Red for fire facing south. Blue for water in the west.”
The candles flickered in the dim room. She usually played music on her phone, through the little portable speaker, while she did a meditation or spell, but after Boney’s nonsense, she decided she wanted the quiet.
It seemed especially holy. She only heard the hum of the air conditioner. The soft, steady beating of her heart.
Today felt full of strong magic of its own.
It felt ready for her.
She knelt before the altar and called the corners, invoked the light and Edie and the Goddess. When she was finished, she thought back to the party, to the moment she had met Scoot Loeffler. She heard the words in her head.
Ever heard of a jade vine …
The rare Filipino flower that Sailor and Scoot wanted for the bridal bouquet. The one they couldn’t find.
Apparently, they’re an exact match for my daughter’s eyes …
It would be the first spell she’d cast to prove herself to Sailor’s parents. If she could find these flowers for Sailor’s wedding, Scoot would see she was a person to be taken seriously. And more importantly, Sailor would know that Ingrid was fully and completely loyal to her.
She searched for an image of the flower in her phone and when it came up, she expanded it.
She laid down the phone and pulled out the curve of orange peel.
Lighting a match, she held it at the edge of the peel.
A thin line of smoke rose, the scent both citrus and something else that seemed ancient and hidden filling the circle.
She stared at the orange and envisioned the Goddess, wreathed in light, seeing this spell that married a mother’s love with a friend’s loyalty.
“I gather every jade vine that blooms in every forest of the Philippines,” she said. “I gather them to the mother, gather them to the mother, gather them to the mother …”
She repeated the steps for the harpist Sailor wanted. Found the girl’s picture on her phone, burned more of the orange peel, and gathered the young musician prodigy toward Scoot.
The clock ticked on and on, and she seemed to fall into a kind of trance.
A dreamy, slippery drifting in the spaces between the seconds.
She felt her body lift up, up from the altar, up out of the room.
She moved with pure intention outside of the house, high above the city.
Maybe she had fallen short of the light in the past because she’d been asking things only for herself.
Now she was working her magic for Sailor. And for her mother.
As she floated above the city, she felt like it was finally hers. A kingdom where she ruled as benevolent queen. But only as long as she used her magic for good. To do good. Just like Edie had said.
You must always stay in the light …
The sunlight crowned her. The moss on the trees was her train. She felt the briny breeze from the ocean. The current of the river giving her power. She alone would say what happened in her city. She would use the moon and the light, the tides and the river to carry out her will.
She wished she could stay here forever, just like this.
But now something was disturbing her. A clanking sound coming from the direction of the front room. The faint sound of the iron door rattling in its hinges. Someone was trying to get in.