Owen held out his hand. “May I?”
I nodded and handed the mirror over. Owen closed his eyes and held it, then smelled it, then peered closely at the reflective surface before turning it over and licking it.
Ew! “Why’d you do that?”
He wiped off the back with his sleeve and gave it back. “Some magic tastes bitter. Try touching it with the tiniest bit of magic,” he suggested.
I eyed him suspiciously. He knew something, but like the good teacher he was, he wanted me to discover the secret on my own. Fine. Whatever. With a shrug, I took it and did as he said, drawing out my magic and picturing it as a single strand of hair glancing up against the mirror’s surface.
To my shock, the mirror blazed to life, light coming out of the glass like it had a freaking hundred-watt bulb behind it.
“What the frack?” Olivia squawked.
We all peered into the glass. “If we get sucked into this mirror,” I whispered. “I swear…”
I had too much stuff to do to be lost inside a magical mirror. I had a killer to find and a sheriff to seduce. Wait… I had no idea where that last thought came from. But it sounded fun. It’s been a long time since I wasn’t responsible for my own orgasm.
Filing the seduction of the sheriff away for later, I studied the mirror again.
A voice came from the glass, which no longer held my reflection, I belatedly realized. “Who’s there?”
I gasped and my heart jumped in my chest. I knew that voice. “Yaya?” I whispered as tears filled my eyes. “Is that you?”
My sweet Yaya’s face appeared in the reflection of the mirror. Her olive-toned skin was as flawless as it had been before she died. There were only a few fine lines around her eyes, mouth, and forehead. Yaya had been the master of looking young. She’d always told me it was good genes. I had told her it was that and a little magic.
Yaya’s bright green eyes lit up. “Oh, my goodness. Ava. You’re all grown up.”
“How are you in this mirror?” I cried. “Are you real?”
My chest tightened and my heart ached to hug her.
She shook her head. “In a way. I’m an imprint.”
I’d read somewhere about imprints. “So you have the knowledge and personality of Yaya up until the moment she put you in this mirror.”
She nodded. “Exactly.” Her gaze shifted behind me. “Who are your friends?”
“This is Olivia,” I said. “She’s my best friend.”
Olivia stuck her head over my shoulder. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“And this is Owen, he’s been teaching me necromancy.” I twisted the mirror so Owen could wave.
He smiled nervously. “It’s a real honor to meet even the imprint of the famous Yaya.”
My grandmother tittered. “I’m happy to meet you all, but Ava, honey, we don’t have much time. An imprint only lasts so long. When you pull back your magic, the mirror will go dark. You’ll be able to see the imprint again as long as the magic I imbibed in it lasts, but I can’t tell when it will fade until it happens.”
“How long do they usually last?” I asked.
Owen answered. “It varies and depends on the strength of the witch that cast the imprint. Generally several hours.”
“Okay,” I said. “You won’t be like… lonely or anything when I’m not talking to you, right?”
“No, sweet girl. It’s sort of like I sleep. When I made this mirror, you were just a teenager. And now look at you.” Her eyes softened. “You’re just beautiful.”
My bottom lip trembled slightly. “Not as beautiful as you.”
As much as I wanted to spend hours catching you with Yaya, I didn’t have that much time. But I did spare a few minutes to tell her the short version of my life. “Clay and I ran off to Philly after our wedding. We had a beautiful baby boy, Wallace Clayton. We call him Wallie, who is not a baby anymore. He’s going to Harvard to be a doctor. My Clay…he died in a car crash a little over five years ago.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I know how much you loved that boy.”
We were silent for a few seconds, just staring at one another before Yaya asked, “Darling, is there anything you need to ask me? I have all the memories and knowledge up until this point in my life.”
I shook my head and smiled. “No, Yaya, I’m just so glad to see you.”
“Yes,” Olivia said. “We do!”
I looked over my shoulder at her, frowning. “What?”
“Ask her about your mom’s death,” she said.
Well, duh. I wanted to slap my forehead. “Oh, Yaya, yes. Was there any suspicion that my mother could’ve been murdered?” I asked.
Yaya winced. “I always had a feeling of it. But I never had anything more than that. No proof, not even a hint of a spell.”
“What about a coin?” I asked. “Was there a strange coin in her pocket?”
Yaya’s eyes widened. “As a matter of fact, there was. It’s in my jewelry box, dear one. I kept it.”
I nodded. Feelings of dread, sorrow, and hope for being closer to finding the killer swirled inside me. “Okay, Yaya. Thank you. I’ll check it. If I have more questions, I’ll contact you again, but I’m going to let you go for now so that there will be plenty of time for Wallie to meet you, okay?”
She smiled and leaned closer to her side of the mirror. “I love you, my Ava girl. I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become.”
With a sniffle, I pulled the thread of magic back into me and collapsed against Olivia as I cried. My Yaya.
“She had to have made this not long before she died,” I whispered. “She died when I was nineteen.” It was the year before Clay and I got married.
Once the mirror went dark, I wrapped it back in the cloth we found it in. Glancing at Owen, I asked, “Can you grab that box of grimoires and take them to the living room? I’m going to find a safe place for the mirror and search for that coin in Yaya’s jewelry box.”
I kept that jewelry box in my room on the top shelf of my bookcase. I never opened it because I didn’t want to grieve anymore loved ones at the moment.
“Sure.” Owen picked up the books on the table and added them to the box before lifting it in his arms.
Olivia and I followed him down with Alfred and Larry right behind us. The attic stairs ended on the second floor at the end of the hall on the side where my room was, so I darted inside while the guys continued to the first floor. It was close to dinner time, so I figured Alfred and Larry would be starting dinner. I’d told them I could call for delivery, but they’d argued with me.
I opened the top drawer of my dresser and set the mirror inside. Olivia came in and sat on my bed. “Are you okay?”
I glanced at her and nodded. “It was great seeing her, even though it wasn’t really her.”
Moving to my bookcase, I lifted my hands and pushed out magic to lift the jewelry box from its high perch and bring it down to me. I moved to the bed and sat with one leg bent in front of me and the other draped over the side. Olivia turned to face me, mirroring my pose.
Neither one of us spoke as I searched each drawer of the box until I found the coin. My heart thumped crazily loud in my ears and my hands shook as I pulled out the coin. If this matched the one found on Mariam and Lorelai, it would confirm my mother had been killed by the same curse placed on each of the coins.