I pushed those thoughts aside for the moment and concentrated on the suitcase in front of me. I placed my hands on it and took a moment to ground myself before opening it.
The suitcase’s old metal fasteners popped open with a loud snick. I splayed the luggage open to reveal several tightly packed pouches and small boxes, many of which were bound with magically knotted string, as well as a manila envelope containing loose papers and newspaper clippings. I had traveled the world for many years before coming to San Francisco, and this suitcase was filled with items I needed to keep from each locale. Not the fun souvenirs that I picked up in my wanderings, such as my Bavarian cuckoo clock or stash of antique Chantilly lace. And don’t get me started on the vintage clothing I had started to collect and which was one of the main reasons for opening Aunt Cora’s Closet. No, this suitcase was filled with mementos too important to discard, even if I wanted to.
“Whatcha doin’?”
I jumped at the sound of Oscar’s gravelly voice, right behind me.
“My Lord in heaven, Oscar, you scare me when you do that!” Oscar had an uncanny ability to sneak up on me.
He cackled and waved one oversized hand. Goblin humor.
“Whatcha doin’?” he repeated.
“I don’t know if you noticed,” I said, slamming the suitcase shut, “but the bedroom door was closed.”
He stared at me.
“That usually means something,” I continued.
He shrugged.
“A desire for privacy?” I suggested.
“Wasn’t locked.”
“That’s true, but you could have knocked. What if I had been dressing?”
“You weren’t.”
“No, but—”
“So what’s the problem?”
I gave up. One day I would have to write a book: Etiquette Lessons for Gobgoyles.
“What’s in the suitcase?” Oscar persisted, and once again I was reminded of how intelligent he was. He didn’t fall for my attempt at diversion.
Keeping things to myself was a lifelong habit, and a hard one to break. It wasn’t my default to be open and trusting with others, like Bronwyn was. But I was trying to change.
Besides, the little guy and I had been through numerous adventures together, and he had saved my life more than once. And the truth was, Oscar was probably more likely than I to figure out whether something in the suitcase might be what Tristan Dupree was looking for.
So despite my misgivings, I opened the suitcase. Oscar perched on the bed and leaned in.
“Ooooh! What’s this? What’s that?” he asked excitedly, poking at one object after another. “What’s this?”
“Tea from Sri Lanka . . . seashells from a beach in Peru . . . lava rocks from a volcano in the Philippines . . . a handful of wool from Iceland.”
“How ’bout this?” His knobby index finger landed on a bundle of postcards.
“Those are postcards I wrote to my mom.”
“But you didn’t send them?”
I shook my head. Oscar’s face was covered in scales and didn’t express much emotion, but his big green eyes were another story. At the moment they were filled with sympathy.
He nodded and let out a long sigh. “Mother issues. Those are the worst.”
Oscar had been searching for his own mother for years. She suffered under a spell that turned her into a stone gargoyle most of the time. I didn’t know many details—I didn’t know much at all about my familiar’s life before he met me—but I did know Oscar would never stop searching for her. Gargoyles lived a long time, he’d informed me.
“What’s with all the newspaper?” he asked.
“Those are articles about a fire in Germany a while back,” I said.
“What is it with you and fire?” Oscar asked, shaking his head. “’Member what happened at the wax museum?”
Did I ever. I still had vivid memories—and the occasional nightmare—of the wax figures melting, turning into hot molten puddles on the floor, swirling and pooling and streaming as if reaching out to capture us as we tried to escape the inferno. I shivered. I was not looking forward to going back there to visit Aidan in his newly renovated digs.
“And what’s this?” Oscar asked again, poking a little leather pouch that looked a lot like the medicine bag I kept tied at my waist.
I picked it up, weighed it in my hand for a moment, felt for vibrations.
“This is my land bag. I put a little earth from each place I spent more than a few nights.”
He held his hand out and I set it on his palm. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Cool, you went all over. What was Madagascar like?”
“You can sense that?”
He snickered as though I were making a joke. I had known my familiar for quite a while now, but still wasn’t clear on the extent of his abilities.
“There’s no San Francisco in there,” he said.
“That’s because I haven’t left—” My stomach did a strange little flip. I really needed to speak to Aidan to address the threat posed to my adopted city by Renee-the-cupcake-lady. If we weren’t able to defeat her . . . would I have to leave? Would I become a wanderer again? If so, would Sailor come with me? Would Oscar? What about my friends?
Oscar pointed to a battered cardboard shoe box, sealed with duct tape and twine. It was wrapped in long-dried loops of rowan—a plant common to protection spells—and covered with hand-drawn symbols. My teenage attempt to keep evil at bay.
“What’s in there?” he whispered.
I lifted the box from the suitcase. This was what had come to mind when Tristan accused me of stealing something from him.
The shoe box held the remnants of my meeting with my father in Germany, many years ago. When I was just seventeen and unsure of myself as a person, much less of my abilities as a witch. I had only vague memories of the reunion, lingering, disconnected flashes of images, like the snippets of a vivid dream—or, more aptly, a nightmare.
I hesitated. If I opened this box, would I learn something about my father, or our encounter, or myself, that I had suppressed so long ago? Some memory that would be best left in the past, unremembered?
There was a reason I hadn’t opened it all these years. But I sensed it was time to deal with it, whether or not it was connected to Tristan.
I took a deep, calming breath and steeled myself. I wasn’t a teenager anymore but a grown woman and a powerful witch. The past months in San Francisco had taught me that I was stronger, and more in control of my magic, than I’d ever thought I could be.
“Hand me the pair of scissors on the chifforobe, will you?” I asked, sniffing loudly.
“You’re catching a cold.”
“I don’t get colds.”
“I didn’t think you were immortal.”
“I’m not immortal—I just don’t get colds. If my throat gets scratchy, I take garlic and lemon, or a spoonful of honey with turmeric, and then I’m all good.”
“’Kay. Maybe you should do that, because you’ve got a cold.”
Oscar leaned over and grabbed the scissors, then slowly, solemnly handed them to me.
His eyes remained on me, steady and wide. I started chanting as I cut through the rowan and the knotted threads, feeling the faint resistance from my teenage spell. I had been only partially trained when I was forced to leave my grandmother at the age of seventeen, but clearly I had done my darnedest to cast a binding spell over this otherwise innocuous-looking shoe box.
I sliced through the heavy packing twine, and finally snipped at the duct tape. The process took several minutes, and my chanting never faltered. Oscar watched intently, his mere presence adding strength and calm to the flow of energy through me . . . though to tell the truth, I felt something resisting my magic. Could the contents of the box be fighting against me, or could it be the remnants of my teenage spell?
Nonetheless, I completed the charm.
Taking one final deep breath, I lifted the lid off the box.
Chapter 4
Something inside slithered.
Oscar let out a screech and leapt onto the top of the armoire.
I managed to slide the cover, still looped in rowan, back into place and jumped back. I grabbed a few crystals and a tiger’s-eye talisman from my nightstand and slapped them down on top of the shoe box. From inside the box came a distinctive thump.