Chapter 28
Despite her reluctant excitement, Ellory managed to prioritize the salon list over the student-assistant details.
The offer still didn’t feel real, and part of her worried that she would open the email to find Colt had simply written an apology for his impulsiveness, that it had been a cruel test she had failed by accepting.
Besides, she couldn’t deny the hum of excitement that she felt as she downloaded the salon list, the feeling of making progress, of having a random suspicion confirmed.
With a notebook open on the bed beside her hand, she combed through the names for any she recognized.
She had to read the list twice to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.
It felt significant, though she couldn’t put her finger on why.
The Mayhews were the kind of family known to the Graveses and the Blackwoods, so there was no reason why they wouldn’t have also associated with the O’Connors.
But there had to be something she could get out of Stasie’s grandfather that would give her somewhere to start looking for the other person who had been in the library with Malcolm that night.
If it had been Stasie’s father, that would be more than enough reason for a cover-up.
Maybe this wasn’t her mystery to solve, but she was too invested to turn back now.
It was all connected somehow. She was sure of it.
She just had to figure out what the murder had to do with the magic, what the birds had to do with the Old Masters, what the salons had to do with the School for the Unseen Arts.
All the research she’d done, all the unrelated pieces she’d gathered, blurred together in her mind without making a sensible picture.
Once again, she wished she could reach Hudson. But he still hadn’t answered her messages.
“Magic,” Aunt Carol said flatly, when Ellory took advantage of the empty dorm room to call. “What do you mean by magic?”
She had no idea where Stasie was, but her roommate had yet to give her a number to reach her grandfather with.
In the interim, Ellory continued to work—or pretended to work—on the newspaper article where Stasie could see: She had taken out library books on the history of the school, she had printed out photos of former deans on which she scrawled legible notes, and she had even gone as far as to act like she was talking to one on the phone.
Stasie hadn’t responded to any such silent pressure.
Left to her own devices, Ellory had gone down a rabbit hole about the Lost Eight and ancestral magic that ended with this phone call.
But faced with her aunt’s disinterest, she couldn’t imagine trying to explain the absurdity of her life to someone who hadn’t witnessed it.
Carol would change fifty years of opinions on mental health just to have Ellory committed to a psych ward.
She slathered leave-in conditioner into the section of hair she was detangling, trying to keep her tone light. “We’re doing a segment on legal protections for folk healers and cultural home remedies. It made me curious if we ever had anyone in the family like that.”
“Your mother had an affair with an obeah man once.”
“Wait, really?”
“No. But that’s how ridiculous you sound.”
Ellory stifled a sigh that would only get her in trouble. She hadn’t expected Aunt Carol to suddenly confess that she was part of a hidden magical dynasty that had passed their abilities down to Ellory, but she hadn’t expected to be outright mocked either.
Not that Ellory could blame her. A month ago, she would have found the idea laughable, too.
“There was no affair,” Carol relented. “Your father did visit an obeah man when you were young, though. I told him not to mess with things he didn’t understand, but you spent most of your childhood talking about duppies and doctor birds.
Your parents thought you’d be cursed or something.
He didn’t give me the details, and I didn’t ask.
But whatever advice he got from the obeah settled his spirit. ”
Obeah, though many practitioners didn’t call it that due to the scorn she could hear in her aunt’s voice, still thrived across Jamaica.
Through spellcasting and communing with spirits, obeah followers could heal or harm, see the future for advice, or search the present for lost objects.
She’d been told two things about them her whole life.
The first was that they were born with their abilities.
The second was that they were the last resort of the desperate.
She’d never had cause to think about them before, let alone form an opinion. Now she wondered if her father had sensed her magical potential and gone to the obeah about it. She would call him and ask if she’d thought there was a chance he would actually answer.
“I talked about duppies?” Ellory asked as she typed that dutifully into her notes. “What duppies?”
“It started after Miss Claudette died in a shop fire, and then suddenly you could name dead people all over town who came just to talk to you.” Ellory had no idea who Miss Claudette was, but she added the name to her notes as well.
“Doctor birds are also known as god birds. The Arawak believed they carried the souls of the dead or that they were reincarnated souls themselves. They’re supposed to be quick as a devil, but you could catch one of them in your hands.
It wouldn’t fly off until you let it go.
” Carol kissed her teeth. “I see why Desmond got scared. But it was all silly superstition.”
“This is really helpful, Auntie,” Ellory heard herself say, turning the page of her notebook until she reached the three bird symbols. The hummingbird—the doctor bird—stared up at her from above EVOCATION. “Thank you. Have you been taking your medicine?”
Carol kissed her teeth again. “I’m not a child, Lor.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Mi wi tek dem now,” grumbled Carol. “Jeezam peas.”
***
On Ellory’s next visit to the Communiqué offices, Boone introduced her to the editors, identified the various conference rooms, and told her which snacks in the break room he’d already claimed.
If she’d expected him to ask for a progress report on her story, she was soon disappointed.
Boone, it seemed, cared little for micromanaging.
She’d said she was working on the piece, he told her, and unless she came to him for help, he would assume that was what she was doing.
“The woman who ran the paper before me was always up in my business,” he added as he showed her the printers, each of which apparently had names. “I nearly quit so many times, and journalism is my major. If I do that to any of you, you have my permission for a mutiny.”
“I’ll stick a pitchfork in the merch closet,” said Ellory. “Just in case.”
Boone smirked. “Well, there’s certainly room in there now, with how much shit you took home.”
She nodded at the sweatshirt he was wearing, sourced from the same closet. “You’re the one who’s a walking advertisement right now. I’m already starting to miss your tattoos.”
“You like the ink, Morgan?” Boone glanced down at his arms. “You didn’t strike me as a tattoo person.”
“I’m not, really. It’s just weird to see you without them.” Beside them, a printer spit out an article draft. “I guess I have favorites of the ones I’ve seen?”
“Yeah?” Boone rolled up his sleeves until his forearms were bare. “They all tell a story, if you’re that interested. Hit me.”
He told her about the anchor on his extensor carpi ulnaris and how it was a reminder that, even when he thought he’d hit rock bottom, there was still further to go.
He told her about the constellation on his biceps, which represented Orion’s Belt (“or, as we call it in Mexico, Los Tres Reyes Magos”).
By the time she worked her way around to the sun with the line bisecting it, he’d made her laugh so many times that she almost regretted asking.
“Oh, that?” he said, glancing down at his inner wrist as though the tattoo meant nothing at all.
“That’s the alchemical symbol for salt. According to Paracelsus, it’s one of the tria prima—three primes—of alchemy.
It represents earth and the material body, the fixed principle of existence, the purification of matter.
And salt itself is said to protect from evil spirits and bad luck. ”
“I thought I’d seen that symbol somewhere.” Ellory made a thoughtful sound before her eyes met his. “Does it have anything to do with divination?”
“Like alomancy? That’s when you toss salt in the air and read the patterns it falls in.”
He didn’t pause, didn’t blink, didn’t flinch.
Ellory stared him down, connecting his tattoo to the very label the hidden museum had given it, and Boone seemed for all the world like they were just exchanging fun facts.
Should she push him in such a public place?
Or should she retreat, glad that he didn’t seem to suspect her of anything for now?
Just when she was about to back off, an inscrutable smile crossed his face.
“This is starting to feel like an interrogation,” Boone said. “Do you want to grab a conference room?”
Ellory paused. “I’m good out here, I think.”
“Oh, come on, Morgan.” His eyes sharpened. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
It wasn’t about fear, she wanted to point out, but that would give him the upper hand. Instead, Ellory squared her shoulders and followed him to one without glass walls, tucked into the corner of the space between the windows and a kitchen.