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I struggled with the odd sensation of recollecting something I couldn’t possibly have experienced, but Jessamine had already moved on. She crossed the room, her determined footsteps muffled by the same Persian rug where my grandmother had once stood. She picked up a photo of my grandfather, fishing pole in one hand, the other resting on an eight-year-old Oliver’s shoulder. Grandpa hadn’t faced the camera in this shot. Instead, he focused, his eyes full of pride and love, on his only son. I didn’t know who took the picture. I assumed my grandmother had. Probably, as Oliver was beaming, his eyes turned up at the photographer rather than the lens. The picture had captured a truly magical moment, and I had always adored it.
Jessamine scrutinized it, holding it out at arm’s length. The corners of her mouth turned down, and she looked down her nose at the picture, like she was viewing something distasteful. “They passed together, didn’t they?” She set the picture down carelessly, letting it fall over face-forward.
Iris smiled nervously at me and rushed over to right the photo. “Yes.” Iris angled the photo into its previous position. Jessamine watched her with an expectant expression. “An auto accident.”
Jessamine’s eyes widened and the corner of her mouth turned up. “Your family seems to be especially susceptible to auto accidents.” She trailed the back of her hand across the headrest of a wingback chair. She blinked slowly and turned her gaze to me. “Perhaps you should invest in a defensive driving course.”
“Perhaps you should tell us why you’ve come?” Ellen said, having entered the room with Martell in tow. Ellen’s face was flushed. She regarded our guest through partially closed lids. Everything on my grandfather’s desk shook and rattled. The table next to Jessamine began to vibrate and lurched an inch toward her. Jessamine cast a nervous glance at the table and stepped back. She had picked the wrong topic to make light of.
Ellen strode up to Jessamine, but Martell made a huffing sound and quickly insinuated himself between his cousin and my aunt. “Someone was messing around Gramma’s grave last night,” Martell said. The shaking stopped, and the room fell silent.
“What do you mean ‘messing around’?” Iris asked, her face blanching.
“Doing magic,” Martell responded. To him, I’m sure it seemed a complete answer, but he had no idea how imprecise a statement he had made. In response to our blank stares, he reached into his jacket and pulled out his cell. “Here, look,” he said and pulled up a photo of Jilo’s grave. I took it from his hand and expanded the picture, taking in the deserted talismans and sigils drawn on her stone and the surrounding plots. I held the phone out to my aunt, and Iris swiped it from me.
Jessamine pushed around Martell, even though she hadn’t fully regained her composure. Her shoulders slumped forward and a bead of sweat rode her upper lip. “Someone—” Her voice broke. “Someone has been attempting a resurrection spell.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Ellen said, and I turned to face her. “Jilo’s been gone too long.” She shook her head. “Resurrections are difficult enough, and by that I mean close to impossible, even when the body is young and healthy.” Her forehead creased. “And fresh. I’m sorry”—she looked to Martell and Jessamine—“but Jilo was too old, and she had taken on too much.” Ellen paused. I knew she was thinking about the toxic magic of blood and sex my mother had collected in Tillandsia. The poison Jilo had willingly taken into herself to save the people of the city she had loved. Ellen stopped just short of sharing this bit of information with Jilo’s family. “More than a matter of minutes is too long. The brain, the internal organs, they shut down,” she continued quickly, trying to cover the lost beat. “The body might be reanimated, but you could never achieve a true resurrection. Let me see that.” Iris handed the phone to her sister. Ellen moved her hand around the screen, examining the remnants of magic. “No. This is not any kind of resurrection spell.”
“No, it isn’t,” Iris concurred and crossed to the shelves that lined the room’s western wall. “But I’ve seen one of the sigils, the big one, before. Could you forward the pictures to me?” she asked Martell, but never waited for a reply. Instead she crossed the room and pulled a heavy leather-bound book from a shelf. Its weight caused her to struggle a bit as she carried it to the desk. She opened the book and held her left hand over the pages. “Show me,” she said, and the pages flipped forward. When they stopped, Iris reached out to Ellen, who placed Martell’s phone onto her upturned palm. “Come,” she said to Jessamine. “Look at this. It’s used as part of a possession spell.”
Jessamine went to the desk and bent over the dusty volume. “A possession spell?”
Iris nodded without looking away from the page. “Also known as a ‘berserker’ spell. It used to be fairly common, at least in connection with battles. Soldiers would use it to invite the spirits of the great warriors or even animal totems to possess them. The other signs, they don’t fit in, but I’m sure whoever disturbed Jilo’s grave was not trying to molest her.” Iris handed the phone to Jessamine, then pulled her hand quickly back like she’d been shocked. The women’s eyes locked—Iris’s widened while Jessamine’s flashed at first in surprise, then glinted with a trace of malice. Something had passed between the two women. Iris’s psychometry had betrayed something I didn’t think Jessamine had planned to divulge, but somehow this revelation had changed the balance of power between the two. Jessamine shook off any sign of insecurity, while Iris looked wounded.
“Then why are they messing with Gramma’s grave?” Martell asked, breaking the moment that had passed between Jessamine and my aunt.
Iris cleared her throat and closed the book. “I suspect they were trying to tap into any residual power that might have been lingering. Could you put this away for me?” she asked, and Martell returned the book to its place on the shelf. “Your great-grandmother was a very brave woman.”
“Perhaps a bit too brave,” Jessamine said, crossing to Martell and dropping his phone back into his jacket pocket.
“Perhaps.” Iris nodded sadly. “In the days before her passing, she opened herself up to some very dark magic.” Jessamine bristled, but Iris held up her hand to fend off Jessamine’s reigniting anger. “If she had not done so, we would not be standing here today. She saved my life. She saved all our lives. Hell”—Iris allowed herself a profanity—“she saved the whole city.”
“And still you witches desecrate her resting place,” Jessamine said. Her voice remained steely, but her eyes had softened. She seemed to be torn between her need to be angry and the realization of how important Jilo had been to us.
Iris did not make an attempt t
o defend witch-kind, even though I surmised she had already chalked the desecration up to magic workers rather than true witches. “I assure you we will deal with whomever committed this abomination, and we will deal with them harshly.” She reached out and pulled Martell into an embrace. “I promise you this,” she said in a near whisper.
Jessamine seemed to be satisfied with Iris’s vow. She stood tall and, after casting another look at Martell, said, “We’ll see ourselves out.” She moved elegantly, her head held high as if she’d just won some great victory. I got the sense this entire encounter had meant something more to her than making sure Jilo’s rest remain undisturbed. Iris released Martell and walked over to my grandfather’s desk.
“Ladies,” Martell said with a bob of his head, then followed his cousin out of the room.
“Martell,” Ellen replied, as we both turned our attention to Iris.
Iris stood stock-still with her back toward us and her arms drawn around herself. She stared up at my grandmother’s portrait. I sensed she was waiting, waiting for the clack of the front door. When that sound reached us, she turned back toward us. Her face had flushed, and the pulse in her temple betrayed a black anger. Tears welled up and rolled freely down her cheeks.
“Good heavens,” Ellen said, then rushed to her sister’s side. “We will deal with this.” She pulled Iris into her arms and stroked her hair. “We will.”
Iris struggled and freed herself from Ellen’s embrace. “It isn’t that,” Iris said, a quiver in her voice. “That woman. Jessamine. She is one of us.”
“A witch?” I asked incredulously.
“No.” Iris clenched her fists. “She’s a Taylor.”
SIX
“Our families got history, my girl. Real history.” Jilo’s words spoken last July had come back to haunt me in November.
