Chapter 32
He walked her, in silence, back to the house.
In the narrow front hall, a meowing Litha rubbed up against her leg and she set the framed photo face-down on a table.
Ingrid picked Litha up and buried her face in the cat’s thick, velvet fur.
A headache had bloomed in her right temple and was throbbing dully.
Miles rubbed the carved newel post with his palm. “I’m sorry, Ingrid. It was wrong, speaking to you like that back at the cemetery. You were great to come tonight and help me out, and I really appreciate it.”
She focused on Litha, who had settled into a contented purr. “I can text people, you know. Men. Guys.”
“I know you can.”
“It doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”
He nodded. “It’s just … I can’t lose you, Ingrid. You’re my best friend. You’re the only one who understands me. The mother thing, I mean.” He shifted. “Dumping us off on other people. Leaving us.”
“I know,” Ingrid said. “And that will never change, no matter who comes into our lives.”
He let out a sound of frustration.
“What, Miles? You have other friends. You see other girls.” And she saw Boney, not that that was a subject she was going to get into now. “Why is this any different?”
“Cas Loeffler is just so …”
“What makes you think it’s Cas Loeffler?”
“Boney. He said you pretty much admitted it to him at the party at the Tybee cabin.”
“What?” Her eyes held a challenge. “You think Cas Loeffler is out of my league?”
“No! No. That’s not what I meant.”
“What, then?”
“Nothing.”
But she understood what he was trying to say, even if he didn’t have the guts. Cas belonged with the other Savannah. The rich, the powerful, the ones who existed above all the rest of them. If Ingrid ended up with him, she would, in many ways, leave her old life behind. Maybe even Miles.
The truth was, though, she didn’t want to lose Miles. He was her best friend, almost her brother, in some strange way. But right now she didn’t have time to untangle that particular knot of feelings. She had another, much bigger, problem to deal with.
“Sailor wants me to do baneful magic,” she said to Miles.
Miles gaped at her. “What? Are you serious?”
She propped up the framed photo of Scoot on the table, observing it with a worried frown. “She wants me to hex her mother.”
He blinked at Ingrid, at the framed photo, then back to her. “But you don’t do that. It’s black magic, right?”
She shook her head impatiently. “I do black magic. Miles, I’ve explained this to you.
Black magic reverses. It pushes away, subtracts.
White draws in.” She sighed, suddenly exhausted.
“Baneful magic is something altogether different. It’s performed to harm someone.
Like a curse or a hex. Sailor wants me to hex her mother. ”
“Are you going to do it?”
Litha, bored now, struggled out of her arms. Ingrid’s head was really hurting now. She just wanted to go to sleep. “I promised I would.”
Miles frowned. “What about the Law of Three you’re always talking about? You said the energy a person put out into the universe returns to them triplefold.”
Annoyance flared. “I know.”
“You can’t do it. You just can’t. It’s wrong.”
“Well, it’s not that simple, okay? Sometimes you have to do the wrong thing for the right reason.”
She pushed past him into the sitting room, plopping down on the thick, down sofa. She still could not get over how rich people had somehow figured out a way to get nicer, softer sofa cushions than regular people.
He followed her into the room and sat, too. He was still giving her that reproachful, sad puppy look.
She tilted her head back and stared at the freshly painted ceiling. “Stop looking at me like that.”
He looked away, then spoke carefully. “Why would Sailor want you to do something like that?”
Ingrid addressed the ceiling. “Scoot’s a monster.
You should’ve heard her, insulting her daughter like was she was nothing more than dirt under her feet.
” There was more, obviously—what she’d said about Edie and about Ingrid—but she wasn’t ready to tell him that.
Not until she had a clearer picture of what she was going to do.
“Is there anything else you can do instead of a hex? Something that’s like maybe half the strength of the heavy-duty thing?”
She rubbed her temples, fingers circling, pressing so hard it would hurt worse than the headache. “I don’t know.”
“What about a binding spell? Or a karma spell? I’ve heard you talking about one of those. Then she just gets what she deserves, nothing more.”
With her texting secrets with Cas and the secrets with Rill, she wasn’t sure if she was all that keen on a karmic spell coming back on her threefold, but at this point, she didn’t have that many options.
“A karma spell puts it all back onto Scoot. You’re not doing anything to her that she hasn’t done to other people.”
“Okay.” Ingrid wilted. “Yeah. That makes sense.”
He reached over and put a hand on her knee. “I’ll make us tea.”
Just then her phone trilled.
Are you doing it yet?
Sailor.
I need you to do it now, Ingrid. Now.
Mom actually just left the house. I don’t know where she went, but I’m not going after her.
She washed her face, drank two glasses of water, and then went into the Daffodil Room to find one of Edie’s old nightgowns, a flannel with a rosebud print, that she put on in front of the full-length mirror.
Feeling an unaccountable chill even after dressing, she pulled the lavender mohair sweater around her shoulders. Back on the main floor, the lights were all turned off and front door locked, but she didn’t see Miles. He must’ve gone back out or gone to bed.
Good. She needed some space for what lay ahead.
She retrieved the photo and went downstairs.
In the altar room she turned on her one lamp, leaving the room dim and cozy.
She put music on, a soothing cello instrumental that always settled her nerves.
She arranged the red cord, set out her candles, and lit them.
From a drawer she pulled out a small gift box, yellow with a sticker on the lid that read COTILLION.
It was the shop where Sailor purchased the scented candles she was always giving Ingrid.
Once Sailor had told her it was Scoot’s favorite shop.
Above the breakfront, she removed a small, oval mirror from where it hung on the wall, and in another drawer, she found a hammer.
She laid out all the tools on her altar and did a quick centering meditation.
She chanted softly, lifting up a prayer for her own purity of motives.
She knew that the Goddess, the Light, the One True Will of the Cosmos, desired that Scoot Loeffler move in compassion and love for her daughter.
If Scoot refused to do that, the Goddess would be aware, and there would be consequences.
Ingrid was only here to align with the cosmos and the Will.
Align with those consequences and call them into being.
She took extra care with her preparations, getting her mind and body in the proper alignment.
Then, when it was time, she knelt and sprinkled salt in the bottom of the Cotillion box.
She removed the picture of Scoot from the frame, then laid it flat in the center of the box, on top of the salt, and focused on it, letting the image of the cat eyes, razor-sharp cheekbones, and haughty lips meld into her vision.
Imprint themselves on her consciousness.
“As I will, so mote it be …”
Her mind reeled backward, remembering a time long ago when she had asked Edie to do another karma spell. It was when she was sixteen years old and feeling particularly angry at her mother, Tess, for dumping her in Savannah.
“What you put out shall return to thee …” she said now.
It wasn’t that Ingrid didn’t love Edie, but it wasn’t easy to be the only girl in school who lived with her grandmother instead of her mother and father.
Not to mention, having that grandmother be a witch had put Ingrid on the bottom rung of the social ladder.
So she’d begged Edie to cast a spell on Tess, thinking any misfortune that befell Tess would make her feel better.
“Let karma be your teacher …”
Edie had refused, and made Ingrid promise not to do it herself, but still, in the end, Tess got what she had coming. Four years later Edie learned Tess had run afoul of the law down in Jacksonville and had been incarcerated for writing bad checks. Then a few months after her release, Tess died.
When Ingrid had asked Edie if it was her fault Tess had gone to prison then died, if her wishing misfortune on her mother had somehow persuaded the Goddess to act, Edie had said no, and then she’d told Ingrid that there was no magic stronger than a person’s own regrets.
Now, as Ingrid held the mirror over the picture of Scoot, catching the reflection, she wondered if that was true.
Maybe she had aligned with the Cosmos back then and just hadn’t realized it.
She laid the mirror back down on the altar, on a hand towel, then wrapped the towel securely around the mirror.
She lifted the hammer and smashed it with three, small, sharp taps.
Lifting the towel, she poured the shards on top of the photo in the box.
Taking a short black candle, she wedged it into the broken glass, then lit it.
She watched the flame stretch high. “Three by three by three …”
This time was different. This time, Ingrid didn’t have four years to wait for Scoot’s regrets to do their own work.
Sailor needed Scoot taken care of immediately before the woman wrecked the most important day of her life.
That’s where the cayenne came in. She sprinkled the red spice over the candle’s flame, and she could swear the fire licked it up, like a cat licking milk droplets from the floor.
“As I will, so mote it be.”
She sat back on her heels and continued to chant in the glow of the burning candle, and after a while—she didn’t know how long—she realized she was keening. Crying for the little girl she’d once been. Crying for the little girl she saw in Sailor.
She had come too far and learned too much. She would not stand by and let her friend suffer at the hands of this vindictive, jealous woman. Ingrid would fight for her friend—and she would fight for Edie. She would right the balance. She would win.
Let Scoot Loeffler beware.
She was about to get her comeuppance.