The Sea Turtle Spell Read online

  The family would probably still be in Metairie, and the pawn operation would still be in the front parlor, had it not been for the killer hurricane of 1947. Hurricanes didn't have names in those days, and nobody measured its category of strength. The newspaper photos of the time tell it all: floodwater seven feet deep backwashed out of the lake, killing several dozen people, destroying a bridge and drowning 5,000 homes. One of them was ours. The family evacuated to New Orleans and never went back.

  Daisy and my mother were the first Flournoys to be born in the Royal Street house. Marie-Eglise brought the full weight of the family history with her, and she instilled it in her daughters. The shop feels very European, honoring the family's Huguenot roots. The room is furnished with 18th and 19th-century antiques salvaged from the flooded-out mansion in Metairie.

  In the corner of the showroom stands an enormous bank safe that predates the Civil War. A side parlor houses my great-great-grandmother's séance table, now my mother's domain, and a similar room on the other side of the showroom has been set aside for my grandfather's old roll-top desk that now serves as Aunt Daisy's workbench for her herbal potions.

  Both my mother and my aunt speak multiple languages and are versed in the magical traditions of many cultures. Hazel tells the occasional fortune and my Aunt Daisy does a brisk business in herbs and potions, but the main business of Pentacle Pawn is to safeguard magical objects. The pawn shop was never intended to make money at ruinous interest rates; it exists only as a business model for safely managing items that can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

  Most magical items only obey their owners, and for everybody's safety, we need to maintain control of the objects while they are on the premises. So, if someone will be, say, traveling in Europe for three months, they may not consider it wise to leave a powerful amulet lying about in their master suite. They bring it to us, where we "pawn" the item for safekeeping. We accept a flat fee for our services, based on how long the item will be with us and what security is required.

  My cousins and I all served apprenticeships in the shop, learning how to create pawn slips that temporarily transferred ownership to my family and – most important – how to safely store the items entrusted to our care. We only accept objects that are rooted in organic materials. We don't do crystal balls, for example, because they require an entirely different system of magic to contain them.

  Once objects are accepted and pass our safety standards, they are placed in secure containers. When I mean secure, I mean a small spell and a very large lock. The containers are then, themselves, secured. Some objects are stored in display cases in the shop, especially antique pieces that are no longer used in modern craft. But the really gnarly ones are kept in that hulking big safe in the corner. We're not fooling around here.

  ♦

  Precisely at 10, the front door admitted Philippe, a small gentleman in a very expensive bespoke suit. He admired the back garden as he came through the alcove, then made his polite introductions to the sisters. Of course, they already knew who he was, since he had been referred from the Paris shop.

  "So, how may we help you?" Hazel asked.

  Philippe held up his left hand, and we saw the chunky sterling silver ring on his middle finger. At first, I thought it was set with a smoky stone, but then I realized that the centerpiece was an operculum, a button from the foot of a sea snail that seals its shell from predators. Some call it a cat's eye. It had a dark green center surrounded with white, shaded with a gold crescent on the left side. The shell was inset into an elaborate mounting embossed all the way around with realistic reptile scales. The top of the mount was hooded with a delicate silver eyelid. The effect was unnerving. I expected the ring to blink at any moment. It was a powerful talisman against the evil eye.

  "I'm in New Orleans on business this week," Philippe said. "Normally, the ring never leaves my hand, but for this particular meeting, I prefer not to have it with me. There's no one else I trust to leave it with."

  "But if you are embarking on such a perilous undertaking, is that not the precise time you need to have your ring with you?"

  Philippe shook his head. "This is a secular matter, but it will take me into a part of the city that is not necessarily safe. My ring is very powerful against magic, but less so, I suspect, against a .45. It would be comforting to know that it is safe in your hands while I conduct my business."

  "Fair enough," Hazel said. Daisy brought in a tea tray and we sat down to do the paperwork.

  "May I see it?" Hazel extended her hand. Philippe removed the ring, and the eyelid closed. The ring now appeared to be a simple silver signet. It was off duty.

  Philippe placed it on the table in front of Hazel. "Late Victorian," she said, picking it up. "Excellent workmanship." Philippe beamed.

  Hazel turned the ring over and inspected the inside of the mounting. The third eye of Shiva – the swirl on the bottom of the shell – had been drilled in the exact center and a tiny black cabochon had been glued in the middle.

  "Obsidian," he said.

  "Of course," Hazel said. Whoever had made this ring had gone first class all the way. Obsidian was a powerful stone of protection. The maker was covering all of his bases.

  Hazel noted the details on the pawn document. "Let me explain the terms of our agreement," she said. "Along with our storage fee, we ask you to pawn your object to us while it is here so that it is under our control."

  Philippe started to object, but Hazel cut him off. "This is not about money; it's a safety issue. I'm sure you're aware that magical objects can only be directed by their legitimate owners. Unsupervised objects can be dangerous." She shot Daisy a warning glance. There were stories to tell, but this was neither the time nor the place. "So, we pawn it for a single dollar, and that transfers control to us while it is in our care. It's for everyone's protection."

  Philippe lounged back in his chair and sipped his tea, considering, then leaned forward.

  "Seems reasonable," he said as he signed the pawn document. Hazel handed him a crisp new dollar bill.

  Daisy fetched a small lead box, and Philippe nestled his ring into the red satin lining. Daisy locked the box in the safe, and they shook hands all around.

  Hazel walked him to the front door.

  "Until Friday, then," Philippe said.

  "Until Friday," Hazel replied as the door opened for him.

  ♦

  Growing up, my cousins and I learned spells and incantations, and we were trained in the safe handling of magical objects in preparation for the time we would inherit the shop.

  I was barely into my teens when I decided it wasn't for me. I was good at science – real science, not hocus-pocus, I said – and I was pretty smug about separating myself from what I saw as scams and superstition. I'm not quite sure where this snotty attitude came from, except maybe it was my version of teenage rebellion. I grudgingly trained in the shop in the evenings next to Aaron and Adam, but my heart was in the classroom.

  Anyway, while my cousins were easing into the business operation, I was getting a Ph.D. in physics. Science suited me. I had an analytical mind and a head for numbers. I also had a smart mouth and a bad attitude, traits that I have nurtured to this day. I wasn't afraid to take on what was, in those days, a male occupation. I was going to force the boys to let me play.

  Two things happened to change that scenario: tenure, and John. I was teaching graduate seminars, and I thought I had found my place in the world. The give-and-take with my students delighted and challenged me. I had been hired into a one-year tenure track position, with the understanding that I would find grant money to support myself going forward. All I needed was a great research idea and I'd be set for life.

  Ah, there's the rub. Physics is a theoretical science, and no idea is too far out if you can sell it. Unfortunately, that requires people skills. I found my idea, a twist on string theory that actually had real potential, and I wrote it up. I even had a PowerPoint. One of my mentors offered to introduce me to
an angel investor who might underwrite my project, but I needed to write an elevator pitch, one of those single sentence summaries you can spit out on the run if you manage to corner somebody who has money.

  Writing? Not my thing. My mentor saw my panic and offered to introduce me to a sportswriter who had been one of his students a few years earlier, someone who might be able to coach me through the elevator pitch. And that's how I met John.

  ♦

  Is there such a thing as love at first sight? John and I thought so. We met in a cafeteria in the basement of the physics building on campus, not exactly a romantic setting for a first date. But then, neither of us thought that it was a date; we thought it was a business meeting.

  We managed to stay on task with the discussion of my research proposal for ten minutes, maybe less. I thought John was the most amazing-looking man I had ever seen. He wasn't particularly handsome, and there was nothing about him that would make him stand out in the crowd. Average height, average weight, average looks: that was John. But he glowed.

  From the moment he started talking, I realized this guy was the real deal. He asked me about my project, and he actually listened. The men I knew would ask one polite question and then talk for twenty minutes about themselves. John really seemed like he wanted to know about me, and that made me want to know about him. It was intoxicating.

  I didn't hex him, I swear. The power of his personality drew me in, and he said later that he never met a woman who was willing to just say what she wanted instead of blushing, flirting or giggling. I wondered who he had been dating to make him think that all women were like that, but I wanted to send her flowers.

  It took us three cups of coffee to settle down, but that first evening we were able to get my research proposal back on track. Four months later, we were married.

  The thing I liked best about John was that he was so uncomplicated. He was just an ordinary guy. Unfortunately, I am not an ordinary woman. I had to tell John about my special talents.

  He thought it was funny when I first told him that I was a witch. I could tell he was humoring my delusion. It's a natural reaction, I guess. Ordinary people (that's what my family calls those who do not have a talent for the craft) would much rather believe in delusions then magical powers. It didn't take long to make John a true believer, though.

  He used to carry this rabbit's foot key chain. I thought it was kind of nasty, actually; I mean, carrying around the desiccated foot of an actual rabbit? I asked him to take it out of his pocket and hold it in his hand. A moment later, a live rabbit was sitting in his lap. It nibbled on its reattached foot and looked at him accusingly.

  John had the presence of mind not to leap to his feet. He just thoughtfully petted the rabbit, not quite daring to make eye contact with me. Then he got this funny little smile on his face. He saw the possibilities.

  After that, he was fine with the whole magic thing, which was good. This was not some old TV sitcom, and I had absolutely no intention of curbing my use of the craft. John understood: it is part of who I am, just like the color of my hair or the fact that I stutter when I lie. For the first few months, I constantly had to remind myself that he was still in the learning curve with what was essentially a foreign culture to him. But he was game, and he loved me. We made it work.

  My family's reaction to my sudden elopement with John was mixed. My mother Hazel was horrified, of course. Aunt Daisy and John had an instant connection; she became his protector and guide, just as she had been mine growing up. My grandmother Marie-Eglise, the grande dame of our extended New Orleans family, adored him.

  John and I set up housekeeping in a tiny condo near the university so that I could keep teaching. It made for a bear of a commute for John to get back to the newspaper offices in the central city, but he insisted. That's how he was.

  But the whole family was thrilled when we gave up the condo and moved back to Royal Street at Christmas last year. My university job had ended, and we were trying to figure out the next chapter. Whatever might come, we knew we would tackle it together. Our marriage was something rare: a loving partnership. John and I balanced each other, yin and yang.

  When I found him crumpled in front of that door, I lost half of my soul.

  Chapter Three

  John was not from Louisiana and had no family connections of his own here. I took him home to his family.

  I buried John in an unadorned bronze casket next to his mother and father in the old city cemetery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was the last person to be buried in that graveyard; all the plots had been sold out before he was born. I knew that his parents had purchased theirs at the time of their marriage, but when I called to make arrangements for John, I was told that there was no more space available.

  I spent that afternoon crying in the room we had shared when we visited Royal Street, wondering what to do next. Before bedtime, I worked a small spell to give myself focus, knowing that hope or peace were out of the question.

  The next morning, I got a call from the city clerk, saying that she'd done a little research. The plot next to John's parents had been owned by a couple who bought it for themselves before World War II. Unfortunately, said the clerk, the husband was an aviator who had gone down over the Philippines during the war, and his body was never recovered. The clerk had remembered a newspaper story about it just last year when the wife, then in her 90s, finally passed. The wife had never remarried. She was buried in her half of the plot, with no family left behind to mourn her. The clerk thought it was a shame that the space beside her would remain forever empty. Would I like to have it for John?

  The New Orleans mortuary made all the arrangements. There had been no funeral; New Orleans was my hometown, not his, and the only people he knew there were in no mood to celebrate his life. I flew out the week after the cemetery workers put him in the ground in Cedar Rapids.

  Now I stood at the foot of the new grave. John's parents shared a single headstone, spanning both graves like the headboard for an old-fashioned bed. John had talked about coming to this cemetery and finding reassurance that they were together forever. I had no such illusions; I knew way too much about life and about death to be so sure, but I was glad that he found solace there.

  His own grave was spanned by a double headstone with the name Halvorsen. To his right, the name Mabel had been inscribed. The other half of the stone would be blank for whatever eternity there was. Instead, John's own name was on a simple bronze plaque set into the grass at his feet.

  I glanced across at his parents' headstone, only a foot from their son. I'd done my best.

  John's wedding ring and mine had both gone to his grave with him. I never had an engagement ring – we were at the beginning of our careers when we got married, and dead broke. The day that John proposed, he'd been wearing his grandmother's simple gold band on his little finger. Together, we picked out a plain band for him at a jewelry store in the mall, and those were the rings we were married with. Later, we talked a few times about getting matching custom rings with diamonds, but somehow it never happened. We were both content with the ones that had sealed our vows.

  John was the end of his family line; there was no one left to whom I could pass down his grandmother's ring. I placed it back on his little finger before the funeral director closed his casket. John would always be in my heart, but he was no longer in my life. I had to let him go.

  Standing now at John's grave, I pulled John's onyx signet ring from my pocket and placed it on the middle finger of my left hand. The ring had been a gift from his father when he graduated from high school, and John wore it every day of his adult life. It made me smile, and I knew that my wearing it would bring back only good memories. I was sure that John would approve.

  I'd thought a lot about how I might mark John's passing. Placing a pebble on his headstone didn't seem to be enough to remember a love that rare. Before I boarded the plane out of New Orleans that morning, I went up to the second-floor gallery and found the big plastic bucket th
at Daisy kept filled with Mardi Gras beads. She was known to throw them down to the tourists all year round; it made her so happy. I pulled out a few strands and stuffed them in my coat pocket.

  It seemed right to me. Carnival is a joyous time, one last big blowout before the austerity of Lent. That's what my time with John had been. Now, at his grave, I pulled the beads from my pocket. They glittered even in the thin Iowa overcast. The purple, gold, and green glowed in my hand. I had six strands, one for each year of our marriage. I pulled the black silk ribbon from my hair and tied the strands together, then placed them on John's nameplate.

  I left the cemetery without looking back. I was determined not to mourn any more until I could name my husband's murderer.

  ♦

  In those dark days after I came back from Iowa, my world tunneled down to a single purpose. I needed to find out what had happened to John. Whoever killed him set in motion a search for the truth that would draw on both my magic skills and my analytical nature.

  Because of my scientific background, my approach to magic is a bit unorthodox. I understand that there are forces in the physical universe that bind everything together. Humans have believed this for thousands of years, and being human, we have always wanted to not just understand it, but to control it. We crave the Force, the karma, the One Ring to Rule Them All.

  This governing energy has been the font of both formal religion and pop culture, from Buddha to George Lucas. As a physicist, I've studied the interrelationships between matter and energy on a scientific level. I haven't found proof positive, but just because I can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. There are glimpses and glimmers, those tantalizing clues that kept me in the lab until the wee hours. I consider Pentacle Pawn to be just another research opportunity.

  The New Orleans house has always had a bit of a buzz to it, something to be expected when that many witches live in close proximity. But now the aura of the house had turned dark. John's death on our doorstep was clearly an assault by magic, and the most likely perpetrators lived within.