I’d stuffed the purse into a small box that we’d found at the Goodwill, and her eyes widened when I pulled the box out and opened the lid. I reached into my backpack again and pulled out my gloves. Before I could hand them to her, tendrils of strange magic flowed through the air.
“Wow,” she said after studying the purse for a few moments. “When you told me you had a doozy, I didn’t expect anything like this. It’s like a curse wrapped in a curse wrapped in a curse. Whoever did this meant for the magic to stick.”
“Can you teach us how to cleanse it?” I asked.
She pressed her lips together and rubbed her chin as she stared at the purse. “I can, but this probably isn’t the best one to start with. I’ll be happy to walk you through as I do it, though.”
“That works,” Eli replied.
Three hours later, the purse was free of magic and I was exhausted. Charity’s magic was strange but strong just like the magic on the purse, and though it had been a struggle picking the strands of the curse, I felt like I’d gotten the gist of it. That didn’t mean that I’d feel comfortable doing the next one by myself, but at least I understood how the curse worked.
We spent a few more minutes with Charity, who looked much less fresh than she had that morning. She didn’t linger long before admitting she needed to go take a nap, but she gave us her number and promised to help us whenever we needed her.
“How do you feel about the magic?” I asked Eli as we watched her drive away.
He shrugged. “I don’t feel like I got it, but I do feel like I learned at least a little bit about it.”
“Same,” I said, and at that point, I realized that if nothing else, we were better prepared to recognize the magic once we finally found the diadem, and that, at least, was something.
Chapter 17
Eli and I had split off to our own rooms to recover from the magic we’d used. Though we hadn’t done much, the magic had been such a strange experience that it felt like we’d run a marathon.
“Imagine how we’d feel if we’d tackled those curses alone,” he said once we were up and back in the car again.
“I’m afraid we’d feel nothing because we’d be dead,” I replied. Though I was kidding for the most part, there was a note of honesty in there, too.
“I’m glad we have help,” he said. “I’m no good at that part of things, and I was worried about you trying to do it alone.”
“I wouldn’t have been alone,” I pointed out. “We have Luther and Sybil to help us.”
He lifted a shoulder as he pulled onto the main road. “Maybe, but I feel better knowing we have an actual specialist on our side. And she’s not nearly as intimidating, or maybe I mean suspect, as Sybil is, either.”
That was a fact. Even though I’d gotten more comfortable working with Sybil than I had been the first time we’d gone to her house, she was still a little intimidating, and I suspected that was because she was so mysterious. Powerful people didn’t intimidate me, but not knowing somebody’s agenda made me suspicious.
“I agree. I like Sybil and believe that she wants to help us, but she’s not exactly an open book, and that makes me leery.” Rather than turning toward Old Town and the shop, he flipped on his blinker and turned toward the dock. “Where are we going?”
He scratched his jaw. “I thought you wanted to stop by the Clam and see if we can determine who’s been ripping Maris and Ezra off.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, feeling a little guilty that their issue had completely slipped my mind. “That whole situation sucks. It pisses me off that somebody’s stealing from them, but it makes me sad that it’s a person we know and like.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But she wouldn’t say that if she wasn’t sure.”
As we drove past the docks, I was excited at the sight of the carnival going up. “How are we not prepared for Pirate Day this year?”
Even though it attracted a ton of tourists, it was a hometown event at its heart. The whole town came together and featured exhibits and plays and celebrated our history. Of course, we knew that they were missing significant chunks of it, but it was still something that drew us together as a town.
He arched a brow at me as he maneuvered around a semi parked at the edge of the fairgrounds. “Uh, we’ve been too consumed by the guilt brought about by releasing cursed artifacts into the general public?”
There was that, but I was a little sad that we hadn’t already made our costumes for the annual costume ball that officially kicked off events. Plus, he was the one who made plans to bring us and a few of our friends together to go to the carnival, and we didn’t even know what eating contests were featured, let alone have the schedule nailed down.
“We have to at least go to the arts and crafts show tomorrow,” I said.
He shot me a sympathetic smile. “Of course we will, Shmoo. We’ll do all the fun stuff, but first, let’s track down that diadem before it kills somebody else, okay?”
I looked out the window at all the smiling, carefree faces, and my gaze caught on a sailboat in the far distance out on the Gulf that was the backdrop to the whole shebang. We hadn’t been diving in almost three weeks. The last time we’d gone had been when we’d found the trunk, and I was a little heartsick. The sea soothed me, and I missed our weekly outings, especially now.
I was a little surprised to see that the restaurant wasn’t busy when we pulled in, but a quick glance at the clock on the dash cleared it up
