Starlight Web (Moonshadow Bay #1) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,93
but we had to do two rounds of bleach, and on the second round, some of her hair fell out. It just melted right off, leaving a big bald patch. That was when she told me she had it permed a month ago and didn’t like it, so she used a hair straightener at home. Her hair was so fragile, the bleach melted it.” She groaned, twirling pasta around her fork.
“Uh oh. I dread the answer, but what did she do?”
“She freaked out and didn’t even let me rinse it out of her hair before storming off. She threatened to ruin my reputation. I decided to see if her regular stylist—I know who it is—was around and sure enough, he’s not on vacation. I told him what happened. Apparently she asked him to do the bleach job, but he refused because he knew how fragile her hair was. He’s the one who did the perm. He told me that he realized she had tried to straighten it. He promised to tell people it wasn’t my fault, but that doesn’t negate the fact that she now has it in for me.”
Muffy Flannigan could do a lot of damage with that nasty mouth of hers. “Can you put a binding spell on her?”
“I thought about it, but I’m too upset.”
I licked a spot of sauce off the corner of my lip. “Do it. You need to.”
Binding spells were preventative spellwork. They prevented people who were out to harm you—in one way or another—from doing so. It didn’t negate the need for mundane action, but it was a powerful amplifier.
“I guess there’s no choice. But what will I do if Muffy finds out?”
“If Muffy finds out, she can take a flying leap. She’s already threatened your livelihood, blaming her own mistake on you. You might as well do what you can to keep the rumors from spreading.”
“I guess you’re right,” Ari said, wiping her mouth. “The pasta’s good. So what are you up to?”
I told her about Val Slater and the asylum, filling her in on everything that had happened over the past day or so.
“Vampires… I knew they were here in Moonshadow Bay.” Ari shook her head. “Be careful, please. They’re so unpredictable.”
“Trust me, I know that,” I said.
We finished up the evening by sitting in the dark with just the tree lights turned on, watching an old movie, and savoring a glass out of my father’s best port—it was fifty years old and thick as honey.
After Ari went home, I was about to go to bed when something drew me into the library. It wasn’t just an office. The library was where my mother had performed a number of her spells.
I knelt by the chest she had kept most of her ritual gear in.
Hand carved of cedar, the chest was old and smelled like incense. It was the size of a coffee table—about four feet long and three feet high, and it must have weighed a hundred pounds, given the dense wood. It had first belonged to my grandmother, who had given it to my mother.
My grandparents on my mother’s side had moved back to Ireland years ago, when I was a little girl, and I had seen them twice since then. My grandfather had passed, but Granny was still alive and kicking. It occurred to me that I hadn’t heard from her since I talked to her shortly after the funeral and I needed to call her.
I stared into the trunk at the tools. They had been exquisitely crafted for my mother.
I slowly lifted out her athame—the ritual dagger she used to cast circles and in certain spells. It had a grip carved from holly wood, and the blade was long and curved, with a silver pommel and cross guard. It felt heavy in my hand, like it belonged to me. I brushed my fingers over the flat of the blade. My mother had kept it well polished, and it was sharp.
Setting the blade to the side, I lifted out her crystal ball. She had a number of crystals scattered around the house, but this was her private one—the one she used to scry and divine with. It must have weighed fifteen pounds and was about eight inches in diameter. The quartz was filled with fractures, and rainbows sparkled through it. There were other things in her chest, too, but I finally found what I was looking for—a small wooden jewelry box that contained her ritual jewelry. There, on a