She pedaled faster. One more block. One block and another right turn and her driveway would be there.
A blue SUV came into view, slowly backing out of one of the driveways. Claire contemplated trying to beat it, going around in an effort to lose the Rover. After a moment’s indecision, she hit the brakes, stopping as the car reversed all the way into the street. A look back confirmed that the Rover was still there, idling quietly behind her. She saw the shadow of the driver, but she couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.
The driver of the SUV—a woman with a boy in the passenger seat next to her—lifted a hand to Claire before heading down the street. At least someone had been witness to her presence there.
She started moving again, picking up speed, pumping the pedals so hard that she was standing on them as she made the final turn onto her street. She didn’t even look back to see if the Rover was still there. She focused on her house, half hidden by old trees and the bushes that seemed to grow wild near the iron gate. Then she was coasting up the driveway, steering her bike into the shelter of Spanish moss hanging from the giant elm tree next door.
She wondered if it was her imagination that someone stared at her from behind the darkened windows of the Rover as it drove past, finally disappearing beyond the edge of the property.
Claire took a hot shower, washing off the sweat and dirt of the day and changing into loose boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Her parents were at some kind of charity event, so she had plenty of time to go through the family spell and potion books.
But there was something she wanted to do first.
The old group photo was still nagging at her, and she opened her computer, looking for the pictures she’d uploaded from the house on Dauphine.
Scrolling through the photos, she stopped on the group picture. Everyone was standing on the lawn, all of them wearing a mix of clothes that looked slightly out of date.
Not quite retro, but not exactly current, either.
She zoomed in as much as she dared, not wanting to lose too much clarity on the faces, and hit the PRINT button. When it was done, she pulled the piece of paper out of the tray and hopped onto her bed, sitting cross-legged against the pillows.
The picture was definitely older. The faded colors in the photograph, the hairstyles, even the bags the women carried shrieked 1990s. The people seemed to know each other. Some of the couples had their arms around each other. That was to be expected. But even a couple of the men were clasping each other on the back, their smiles communicating trust and friendship.
And now she saw something she hadn’t seen before; a little girl in a wheelchair. She was at the edge of the group, almost omitted from the picture entirely, staring intensely into the lens of the camera. As if she was looking right at Claire.
She heard Allegra, recalling her visions . . . and maybe a little girl or something.
Claire brought the picture closer to her face, studying it more closely, willing her mind to make the connection she knew was there. But nothing was clear, and her subconscious was locked tight.
The problem was, she didn’t know what she was looking for.
She crumbled the piece of paper, throwing it across the floor. Then, she got up off the bed and headed downstairs.
FIFTEEN
The house was quiet without her parents home, the only sound coming from the ticking of the big clock in the foyer. She made her way past it, hesitating at the door to the store before using her key to open it. Despite the fact that the store was an extension of the house, as familiar to Claire as her own bedroom, she descended the stairs cautiously.
It wasn’t the first time she’d been down here at night, but it felt different. She had to force herself to continue, hurrying to the lamp near the counter as soon as her feet hit the floor, fighting the feeling that something was following her into the empty room.
The light helped a little. She stood for a minute, looking around the store, reassuring herself that it was the same as always, that the bolt was down over the private entrance. Once she’d calmed her racing pulse, she turned to the books that lined the shelves behind the counter.
There were three reference manuals on voodoo history. She flipped through them first, looking for any kind of reference to a woman named Sorina. It was a long shot, and she wasn’t surprised when she came up empty. Sorina was probably just a regular practitioner who’d been dealt a bad hand and went a little crazy trying to get revenge for the death of her parents.
Claire scanned the shelves. There were a lot of spell and recipe books.
She was going to be here a while.
She pulled the stool over and started with the top shelf. Working her way down, she skipped over the books geared to specific kinds of potions. Whatever the Cold Blood spell was, she had a feeling it wouldn’t be in African Potions and Recipes for Love and Authentic Haitian Voodoo for Health and Wellness.
By the time she got to the bottom shelf, her vision was blurred and her mind echoed with strange words and phrases. She was flipping through a slim volume titled Traditional Voodoo for Guidance, Insight, and Justice when a recipe caught her eye.
It wasn’t what she expected. Not Cold Blood or anything even close to it, but a potion titled Gaining Wisdom and Insight.
She hesitated as she glanced over the list of ingredients, thinking about the picture, the one she’d crumpled up and thrown across her room. Spells and potions didn’t work. She was almost sure of it.
But there was the truth, admitted only in the privacy of her mind.
The almost.
Could she be sure? Would she bet the lives of the Guild on her refusal to believe, to try? Would she bet Sasha’s life? Xander’s?
She read through the recipe again before moving to the front of the store for a red flannel gris-gris bag. Pulling its little drawstring open, she made her way back to the counter. Then she took several glass jars off the shelves and lined them up in front of her.
She scooped some peach tree leaves out of their container. They dropped into the gris-gris bag with a soft rustle. Working her way down the line of jars, she added sage, verbena, and smartweed. She finished by unscrewing the lid on the jar of Solomon’s seal root chips, scooping them out with the little metal shovel and adding them to the bag, too.
She finally dared to bend her nose and take a whiff. She was relieved to find the scent almost pleasant. Most of the concoctions mixed for the craft were rank, and she would be sleeping with this one under her pillow.
She knotted the gris-gris bag at the top so the ingredients wouldn’t spill out and put the recipe book back on the bookshelf.
She stood there for a minute, contemplating whether to bother with a spell. She could use the gris-gris bag alone. Lots of people did. But her mother and other members of the Guild believed herb and root magic worked together with spellcraft.
Besides, she still had one more book to look through for the Cold Blood spell.
She set the gris-gris bag on the counter and bent down, pulling back the curtain underneath it to reveal a small iron safe.
She vividly remembered the day it had been installed, on the heels of a theft that had cost them one of Marie’s two remaining spell books. Claire had been fourteen when her mother had told her the combination.
“What’s inside is as much yours as it is ours,” Pilar had said. “You never know when you might need it.”
In spite of her impatience to go outside and ride her new bike, Claire had been flattered to learn that the safe had been coded with her birth date. She used it now, turning the knob right, left, and right again.