Sylvie shook her head, confused.
“About the tree,” Lilac said. “That’s an odd saying.”
“Oh. It’s a silly thing she used to say when I was little. She used to tell me the best place to hide secrets was in a tree out back or under a . . . rock . . . in the garden.” Sylvie sank down on the nearest surface, which happened to be an armchair in my living room. “I can’t believe I’d forgotten that.”
“Maybe you didn’t. After all, you did put that rock in your garden.” Lilac shrugged. “Maybe that wasn’t an accident. Maybe that was your subconscious at play.”
Tamara pulled the rock out of her bag—we hadn’t wanted to leave it vulnerable, sitting on my kitchen table—and handed it back to Sylvie. “See if it’s ready to give up its secrets.”
Sylvie grasped the stone with both hands. “How do I do that?”
“Not a clue,” Tamara replied. “I didn’t know your grandmother, but you did. I’m going to be busy throwing together some protections for us, so get to it. Lilac can help you.” She wagged a finger at me. “And you—you’re just lucky Clive didn’t want to hurt you. Ginny’s intent and his weren’t in agreement, or I wouldn’t have been able to stop him so easily.”
I hated to state the obvious, but that wink was making me a little crazy. “What intent? Clive’s a ten-inch iron statue.”
“If you say so.” Tamara made a beeline for my kitchen table, then dumped the entire contents of her bag on the surface.
Why was I—former soul collector, a retired death, and not exactly a regular guy—the only one in the room who thought her comments about Clive were odd? The relatively normal people—relatively in Lilac’s case and completely in Sylvie’s—weren’t giving it a second thought, so I carried on as if iron statues commonly had opinions and intent. I also sent Clive another thank you. For all I knew, the little guy could communicate telepathically.
While Tamara worked on protection charms and Sylvie and Lilac tried to pry the stone’s secrets from its swirling red and green surface, I retrieved the stack of papers Clarence and I had been putting together. Work histories, credit reports, phone records, bank statements, most of which I was certain had been obtained illegally.
Flipping through, I retrieved the background check on Mrs. G and her nephew, Nicky. Or Nicolas P. Granger, as he was identified in Clarence’s documents. A quick scan revealed Nicky’s mother as Mrs. G’s sister. So, if Tamara hadn’t erred in her evaluation of Mrs. G, and she truly had no magic, that meant the juice was on Nicky’s father’s side of the family.
Although, now that I thought about, I wasn’t sure how much good that did us. It wasn’t like the aristocracy or something, where a finite set of well-catalogued families held power. Magic was slippery. It skipped and jumped around. There was also a geographic component. Different regions had different beliefs, which, some theorized, led to different kinds of magic. That left a lot of uncertainty. Then again, rumor was that witches had an eye for genealogy and a head for names, so maybe Tamara would recognize one of these names.
I scribbled down three family names, in the hopes that one would ring a bell and maybe we’d know what kind of magic was waiting for us at the other end of our meeting. Assuming we were even waiting for the meeting. For all I knew, Tamara was out there getting ready to raid Mrs. G’s house.
At which point I saw explosions in my future, so I grabbed the stack of papers and the note and booked it back to the kitchen.
Lilac and Sylvie had their heads ducked together, sitting next to one another on a sofa in the living room. They didn’t even notice me as I passed. Tamara looked up from a small mortar and pestle where she was grinding some mysterious concoction together.
“Is that my mortar and pestle?”
“Of course. You think I keep something heavy like that in my travel bag?” She continued to grind the coarse powder in the small stone bowl using smooth, even strokes. “I like this one. You have good taste, Geoff Todd.”
“Clarence ordered it on the computer, actually. But since you like it, I’m sure he’d want you to have it.” Especially since I would never use it for edible substances again.
Her eyes twinkling, she said, “He would, would he?” But she didn’t call me out on my fib. “What’s that you’ve got?”
“Three family names attached to Nicky. His last name is Granger, but I’ve also got Nettles and Ainsworth.”
Before I could ask Tamara if any of them sounded familiar, maybe even if one were a witch family, Sylvie called out, “Ainsworth? That’s my grandmother’s maiden name.” She and Lilac joined us at the kitchen table, returning the rock to its spot as centerpiece. “How did Ainsworth come up?”
“Nicky’s paternal grandmother’s maiden name, making her your grandmother’s sister, perhaps? Just a moment.” I flipped through the stack of papers. “I don’t have anything here on Nicky’s grandmother, just her name—Prudence Ainsworth Granger.”
“Oh.” Sylvie frowned. When she saw us waiting for clarification, she said, “Maybe it’s nothing? My grandmother’s name was Constance, and her little sister who died when she was a baby was named Temperance.”
“Prudence, Constance, Temperance?” Lilac asked. “That’s an awfully big coincidence, given the circumstances. But your grandmother never mentioned a third sister?”
“She did, but only to say they didn’t get on. I never knew her name.” Sylvie touched two fingers to her temple. “Please tell me this isn’t actually an inheritance dispute. I know what you said before, Geoff, but I couldn’t believe it.”
Everyone at the kitchen table was conspicuously silent.
Sylvie groaned. “Over a rock?”
“It’s clear it’s more than a rock,” Tamara said. “Your grandmother imprinted such a strong signature on it that it awakened Lilac’s latent psychometry talent. That’s no ordinary rock.”
Lilac’s eyes widened. “Is that what happened?”
Tamara
