filled with the scent of lily of the valley and something heavy and exotic that stirred sharp, uncomfortable feelings within me: emptiness and yearning, familiarity and dread. Sarah opened a drawer and took out a chunk of something red and resinous.
“Dragon’s blood. I can’t smell it without thinking of Rebecca.” Sarah sniffed it. “The stuff you can get now isn’t as good as this, and it costs an absolute fortune. I wanted to sell this and use the proceeds to fix the roof when it collapsed in the blizzard of ’93, but Em wouldn’t let me.”
“What did Mom use it for?” I said around the lump in my throat.
“Rebecca made ink from it. When she used that ink to copy out a charm, the force of it could suck the power out of half the town. There were lots of blackouts in Madison during your mother’s teen years.” Sarah chuckled. “Her spell book should be here somewhere—unless the house ate it while I was gone. That will tell you more.”
“Spell book?” I frowned. “What was wrong with the Bishop grimoire?”
“Most witches who practice the higher, darker magics keep their own grimoire. It’s tradition,”
Sarah said, rummaging around in the cupboard. “Nope. It doesn’t seem to be here.”
Despite the pang of disappointment that accompanied Sarah’s announcement, I was relieved. I already had one mysterious book in my life. I wasn’t sure I wanted another—even if it might shed light on why Emily had been trying to summon my mother’s spirit at Sept-Tours.
“Oh, no.” Sarah backed away from the cupboard, a look of horror on her face.
“Is there a rat?” My experiences in London had conditioned me to believe that they lurked in every dusty corner. I peered into the cupboard’s depths but saw only a collection of grimy jars containing herbs and roots and an ancient clock radio. Its brown cord hung down from the shelf like Corra’s tail, waving gently in the breeze. I sneezed.
As if on cue, a strange metallic clinking and rolling started in the walls, like coins being fed into a jukebox. The musical grinding that followed, reminiscent of an old record player set to 33 rpm instead of 45 rpm, soon gave way to a recognizable song.
I cocked my head. “Is that . . . Fleetwood Mac?”
“No. Not again!” Sarah looked as if she’d seen a ghost. I glanced around, but the only invisible presence in the room was Stevie Nicks and a Welsh witch named Rhiannon. In the seventies the song had been a coming-out anthem for scores of witches and wizards.
“I guess the house is waking up.” Maybe that was what was upsetting Sarah.
Sarah darted to the door and lifted the latch, but it wouldn’t budge. She banged on the wooden panels. The music got louder.
“This isn’t my favorite Stevie Nicks tune either,” I said, trying to calm her, “but it won’t last forever. Maybe you’ll like the next song better.”
“The next song is ‘Over My Head.’ I know the whole damn album by heart. Your mother listened to it all through her pregnancy. It went on for months. Just when Rebecca seemed to get over her obsession, Fleetwood Mac’s next album came out. It was hell.” Sarah tore at her hair.
“Really?” I was always hungry for details about my parents. “Fleetwood Mac seems more like Dad’s kind of band.”
“We have to stop the music.” Sarah went to the window, but the sash wouldn’t move. She thumped on the frame in frustration. “Let me try.” The harder I pushed, the louder the music got. There was a momentary pause after Stevie Nicks stopped warbling about Rhiannon. A few seconds later, Christine McVie informed us how nice it was to be in over your head. The window remained closed.
“This is a nightmare!” Sarah exploded. She jammed her hands over her ears to block the sound, then raced to the grimoire and flipped through the pages. “Prudence Willard’s dog-bite cure. Patience Severance’s method for sweetening sour milk.” She flipped some more. “Clara Bishop’s spell for stopping up a drafty chimney! That might work.”
“But it’s music, not smoke,” I said, peering over Sarah’s shoulder at the lines of text.
“Both are carried on the air.” Sarah rolled up her sleeves. “If it doesn’t do the trick, we’ll try something else. Maybe thunder. I’m good with thunder. That might interrupt the energy and drive the sound away.”
I started to hum along to the song. It was catchy, in a 1970s kind of way.