Nora moved away from the decks before she bought all of them simply to stare at the artwork for hours on end. She wandered to a table of jewelry, but it wasn’t the gems and beads that caught her eye.
A newspaper article had been cut out, framed, and hung on the wall in a back corner. Time had yellowed the paper, which was dated November 1984. Nora skimmed the article about a woman named Doreen Goode, a local New Orleans witch, who had helped the police recover a missing child. Though the image was grainy, Nora could spot the resemblance to Mercedes in Ms. Goode’s face.
“My mother,” Mercedes said.
Nora glanced over her shoulder and found Mercedes standing behind her at a respectable distance.
“She rescued a little girl?” Nora asked.
“She helped the police whenever they asked her.” Mercedes held out her hand and Gmork strained against his leash to reach those extended fingers. Nora loosened her grip so Gmork could reach Mercedes and get petted.
“Do you?” Nora asked.
“I would if they asked me. City’s not what it once was. But nowhere is.” Mercedes had gone down into a squat to meet Gmork eye to eye. She stroked his head, his long ears. If Gmork had been a cat, he would have purred.
“What do you mean ‘nowhere is’?”
“Ah, cities are self-aware now. New Orleans used to be a little strange and wild because it was strange and wild. Now it’s strange and wild because tourists expect it of us. Internet makes it hard, too. In ’84, a missing child in New Orleans wasn’t national news. No Facebook or Twitter to make it national news. Nobody around here batted an eye at the police asking a witch for help. Now you don’t want to be the police chief that’s made a laughingstock on the world’s stage by admitting you believe in the occult.”
“Guess not,” Nora said. “How did your mother find the girl? Did she, ah, ‘see’ where she was?”
“She would chew moonflower to put herself into a trance,” Mercedes said. “She said it took her ‘into the deep.’ Where the ‘deep’ really was, I don’t know, but she never went into the deep without bringing something or someone out with her. She went in and saw the girl through a little window lying on a bed of bare wood, sunlight streaming in, beams like a church roof.”
“An attic,” Nora said. The girl had been found in her own home, the newspaper article had said. Found half-dead from hitting her head while hiding.
“She’d thought she was in trouble,” Mercedes said, rising up from her squat but still keeping her fingertips on Gmork’s dark head. “She’d broken the grandfather clock in the house by playing with it. So she’d hid. Tripped over a box or a beam, knocked herself out. Couldn’t hear everyone screaming her name. She was up there over twenty-four hours in the attic heat, passed out and dying of thirst. If Mama hadn’t found her, she would have died in a couple hours. Now she’s thirty years old. Two kids. One girl named Doreen for my mother.”
“You have a daughter, right?”
“Just the one girl,” she said. “Got it right the first time. Had her at eighteen. She’s a freshman in college now.”
Nora did quick math. Eighteen plus eighteen meant Mercedes was thirty-six years old. Maybe thirty-seven. About Nora’s age.
“Around here?” Nora asked.
Mercedes shook her head. “In Boston.”
“Boston? She’s at Harvard?”
“We’re not supposed to brag about that,” Mercedes said. “So Rosemary tells me. But we do. My mother used to wear peasant blouses every day. Now she wears Harvard t-shirts.”
“So your mom’s still alive?”
“Oh yes, the Goode women are long-lived. But she’s in Savannah, taking care of my grandmother.”
“How did you know my mother was dying?” Nora asked.
Mercedes lifted her hands. “I just saw it.”
“Did you see me coming to see you today?”
“I can’t see my own future,” Mercedes said. “It’s like trying to read a book pressed to your face. Too close to make anything out.”
“Well, that’s a bitch, isn’t it?”
They laughed companionably. Hard to believe she’d been terrified of this woman only last night.
“My grandmother always said that our gifts came from the Goddess, but the Goddess was far off. We shouldn’t be surprised when our gifts arrived banged up and battered. Like getting a package from Siberia, it’ll be a little worse for the wear. But better than nothing.”
Mercedes beckoned Nora to follow her with a wave of her hand. She pushed the curtain to the reading room aside and switched on an antique lamp with a green shade.
The floral scent in the shop had been coming from this room. Instead of Mardi Gras beads dangling from the ceiling, bundles of herbs were tied to crossbeams to dry.
Gmork seemed unusually alert in the reading room. He didn’t want to sit or lay down. He stood, sniffing, his ears straight up.
“Gmork? What’s wrong?”
“He smells Hestia.”
“Is that some kind of herb?”
Mercedes smiled. “She’s my cat. She’s supposed to stay upstairs, but somehow she always manages to come down here and sleep on my reading table.”
Nora noticed little black hairs on the lacy white tablecloth, where a dozen tarot decks lay in a neat row.
“You aren’t in the market for a black cat, are you?” Mercedes asked. “I have a spare. People dump them on my doorstep. Either a joke or they really think all witches have black cats as familiars.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue, tut-tutting the ways of fools.
“I’m not sure I could handle a weird dog and a weird cat. But if I change my mind, I’ll let you know.”
“Please. Hestia is much happier as an only child.”
Mercedes pulled a chair out for Nora. She sat, still studying the reading room. Shelves were stacked with books stuffed with loose papers. Impressionistic paintings of hares and harts hung on the walls.
“I like it here,” Nora said, not meaning to. The words just came out. Mercedes nodded like she wasn’t at all surprised to hear that. She took a seat opposite Nora.
“Every four days I charge the whole place, stem to stern, with good energy. I just did it yesterday, focusing on welcoming. The Goddess must have known I’d have a special guest.”
“How do you do that?”
“How does your pope bless rosaries?” Mercedes said. “Same way I imagine. You hold it, you speak words of power over it, sometimes you sprinkle it with water. I don’t know if your pope puts magical herbs in the water, but the Church used to sprinkle holy water with bunches of rue.”
Nora couldn’t deny it. She’d seen Søren himself using flowers to sprinkle holy water.
“My priest used basil,” Nora said.
“Basil’s good,” Mercedes said. “I use it in love spells. Maybe your priest wanted his people to love God more.”
“I think he just liked the scent of it.”
“Would your priest approve of you being here?” Mercedes sat back in the chair and crossed her legs. She wore an ankle-length floral-print skirt, sandals, and a white blouse embroidered with flowers at the low neckline.