“It does?” I sniffed, but didn’t pick up on anything. “My sense of smell is terrible these days. What does it smell like?”
“Like... musty, sort of. And kind of like cupcakes? But in a bad way. Burned cupcakes.”
“Like the ones in your drawings?” I asked, concerned.
“How did you know they were burned?”
“I saw some burned cupcakes recently, and they reminded me of the ones you drew. I just can’t figure out what it means. Do you have any thoughts about it?”
“I see things, sometimes, that’s all,” Selena’s tone was defensive, and a blush stained her cheeks. “I don’t know what they mean, but I feel like I want to draw them. Like how you smell things, or at least you used to, and the scents tell you things. It’s not like I’m weird, at least no weirder than you are.”
Selena turned away and ducked out of the changing room.
“Selena, wait.” I followed after her, wrestling with the wedding dress, trying to get it to stay on its hanger. “No one said you were weird.”
The shop phone rang, and Bronwyn answered.
I watched as Selena disappeared into the back room, clearly unwilling to talk. For the third time, the wedding dress slipped off the hanger before I could manage to tie it on. I swore under my breath as I picked it up from the floor.
“Patience, Lily,” said Bronwyn.
“I’m trying, believe me. But I’m so frustrated by—”
“No, no,” Bronwyn said with a laugh. “I meant the phone is for you. It’s Patience.”
“Oh, right. Thanks.”
“I made an appointment with Juna at eleven,” said Patience when I answered the phone. “Pick me up in half an hour. And bring your credit card, ’cause Juna’s not cheap.”
• • •
When I first arrived in San Francisco, I assumed the neighborhood known as Russian Hill would be home to a lot of Russians. While that may have been true atone time, these days “Little Russia” referred to an area of the Inner Richmond, along Geary, where Russian restaurants and bakeries flourished. There was an occasional sign in Cyrillic, and a higher-than-average number of hunched, scarf-wearing elderly women making their way along the sidewalks. But the neighborhood’s most obvious cultural marker was the spectacular Russian Orthodox Holy Virgin Cathedral, also called Joy of All Who Sorrow. Its onion-shaped domes were covered in gold metallic tiles, and tall mosaics of saints adorned the cathedral’s facade.
Geary is a busy commercial boulevard, but the narrower side streets are lined with stucco row houses. We parked on Twenty-seventh Avenue and walked around the corner, where Patience paused in front of the cathedral’s open doors.
“Do you mind if I go in, just for a minute?” Patience asked.
“Of course not,” I said. We stepped into the hallowed space. The ambience was hushed inside, with a few solitary worshippers in the pews. Patience walked toward the front. I lingered near the entrance, taking in the colorful murals and the elaborately carved, gold-leafed woodwork.
In general, witches had a fraught history with traditional churches; my own personal experiences hadn’t been particularly positive, either. On the other hand, some of the best people I knew were believers. People of faith had accomplished some amazing—some might even say miraculous—things for the betterment of humanity. I supposed it was like what Patience had said with regard to the Russian psychics; it was best to take people as individuals, rather than as members of a group.
Patience came back to join me, and we walked out the tall doors together.
“My mother never passed a church without lighting a candle for her mother. It used to drive me nuts. Now I find myself doing the same.”
“Has your mother passed?”
“Car crash on my sixteenth birthday.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Sailor didn’t tell you? My mother was with Sailor’s mother; they both died. That’s why Renna stepped in, tried her best to be our mom. But Sailor... he’s complicated. He distanced himself from the Rom for a while and has only recently come back into the fold. And even then...” She trailed off with a shrug, and pressed her lips together.
This was the first time I had heard about the death of Sailor’s mother. Once again, I realized how many things he and I should probably talk about before we actually tied the knot. Presuming I could figure out how to prove his innocence.
“Did Renna say anything about Sailor’s situation?” I asked. “Any ideas how to get him out?”
“She’s working it on her end. She keeps ‘seeing’ Sailor at the crime scene, just like I did, though she thinks he looks short.”
