Peanut Butter ran up to the door as a fluffy and stoic Marshmallow watched us approach from her perch in the window.
“Mom!” Bea shouted as she knocked on the door.
“Aunt Astrid! Open the door.” I shook the handle, but it was locked. “Is she around back? Maybe she’s still at the café?”
“I’m right here,” we both heard her shout from inside. “I just thought this was a perfect time for a nap, but I should have known my daughter and niece wouldn’t let that happen.”
Aunt Astrid opened the door, smirking. She always wore loose-fitting clothes in vibrant colors, and today was no different. Her turquoise dress reached her ankles.
Peanut Butter quickly scooted inside and walked around the door to hop up with Marshmallow in the afternoon sun.
“Sorry to bother you,” I said as I pushed my way past her.
“Mom, something weird just happened,” Bea said.
“What? What’s the matter?” she asked, putting her hand on Bea’s belly.
“No. The baby is fine,” Bea said. “No. Something weird just happened outside my house. Ask Cath.”
After shutting the door, I slipped the chain into place just in case. We all took seats in the kitchen, where Bea immediately opened the refrigerator and pulled out a jar of dill pickles and some hot giardiniera before grabbing a stack of wheat crackers. I wrinkled my nose at her as I started to tell my aunt about Cedar.
“So, what did this symbol look like?” Aunt Astrid asked. I picked up a pen, and on a piece of scratch paper, I drew the same symbol. My aunt picked it up and studied it for a moment.
“You’re sure this is what they drew?” she asked, looking from me to the paper and back to me again.
“Yeah,” I replied.
Aunt Astrid walked to her library at the end of the house. It was a beautiful room with a chaise longue and walls covered from floor to ceiling with books on witchcraft, ranging from The Stupid Person’s Guide to Spells and Magic to The Cold-Forged Grimoire. She came back to the kitchen with a huge book under her arm and my drawing in her hand.
The book she was carrying wasn’t a book on spells or even a book on symbols. It was a recorded history of families dating all the way back to Salem, Massachusetts, where our kind didn’t originate but, let’s face it, were best known.
The book opened with a crackling of the spine. It had that intoxicating smell old books often had, and the pages were extra thin and delicate. We handled them gently with thumb and forefinger alone, one page at a time.
“I know exactly what this is,” Aunt Astrid said with a smile on her face. “It’s a greeting.”
“What? Why not just knock on the door?” Bea inquired after swallowing her third pickle. “I find this a little strange. Why didn’t they go to Cath’s house? This Cedar person talked with you, right? I don’t know who she is.”
“What kind of greeting is it?” I shrugged and looked at my aunt.
“This kind. The Sect of Symmetry.” Aunt Astrid pointed to the official symbol of this group, which was on one of the delicate, thin pages. It was the same as what had been crudely drawn on the sidewalk in front of Bea’s house.
“The Sect of Symmetry?” I asked, shaking my head. That sounded like it had something to do with math and geometry, and I didn’t care for the vibe I was getting from it.
“They are very old. I didn’t think anyone really practiced this anymore. They aren’t like Druids, who are practically extinct. But this was a strict branch of witches, and they had very precise techniques and intense rituals. I often heard stories when I was young about the Sect of Symmetry. They were not the kind of witches you messed with,” Aunt Astrid said.
“Name a group of witches you do mess with,” I said, blowing on my nails and polishing them on my shirt.
Bea chuckled with her mouth full.
“I meant other covens,” Aunt Astrid said and winked at me. “If I had to compare them to something, I’d say they were like the Green Berets of the occult world. You had to be a little crazy to be part of it.”
“Are they dangerous?” Bea asked.
“I doubt it. I think they are just cautious. You know people like us can never be too careful about who we mingle with.”
“How did they know we would be receptive to them?” I asked. “How did they know we are witches too?”
I had been hoping my aunt would give me a simple explanation that maybe this group had a special sixth sense or even knew about us from their own history or family tree. But she just looked at me and shrugged. That didn’t reassure me. Something in the pit of my stomach flipped. There was something about people knowing my business without my consent that felt like a burr under my skin, a pebble in my shoe. I wouldn’t die from it, but it was darn annoying.
“Well, I don’t know how I feel about them leaving their calling card on the sidewalk. I’m going to ask Jake to hose it off tonight when he gets home. If they want to talk to me, they can ring the doorbell like normal people,” Bea huffed as she went back to the fridge and grabbed the milk jug and a tall glass from the cupboard. Just as she filled it, there was a ruckus at the front door.
“You!” I pointed at Bea. “Stay where you are. I’ll see what’s happening.”
Marshmallow and Peanut Butter were suddenly at my side, their hair on end.
“Did you guys hear that?” I asked.
“We were sound asleep on the big couch,” Marshmallow said, staring at the door.
I nodded just as there was another thump at the door, as if someone was trying to climb it instead of open it. I squared my shoulders, not sure what I was going to do exactly, but I walked up to the door. I pressed my ear against it and heard quite a bit of cussing and grunting.
“What in the world?” I opened the door to find Jake and Blake both fighting with a large box that had been delivered. “What are you guys doing?”
“Your aunt’s rocking chair arrived,” Jake said. “We were trying to get it up the stairs. The darn delivery guy left it on the sidewalk.”
I walked up to Blake and patted him on the back. “That was sweet of you.”
“Hey, I helped too,” Jake grumbled as he took one end. Blake, after giving me a kiss on the cheek, took the other.
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved him off. “You’ve got the Queen of Kissy-face waiting for you inside, eating everything in sight.”
The guys clumsily brought the box in. My aunt was thrilled. She had ordered the rocker especially for those instances of babysitting when she’d have a new baby with her to spend the night. Peanut Butter instantly perched on top of it while Marshmallow slunk around all four sides before taking a seat next to the box and yawning.
“What are you doing home?” Bea asked, smiling as if she hadn’t seen Jake in days.
Blake had followed me back to the counter, where he looked at the book Aunt Astrid had been reading.
“A rough day,” Jake replied before kissing Bea as if he’d been away at war.
“What are you doing looking at The Tome of Progenitors?” Blake asked.
“How do you know what this book is?” I asked, somewhat annoyed.
“It’s important that I learn about your family, your history. It will help me to understand you and where you come from, what you are about.”
“You think you can understand me by reading a book?” I asked.
“Maybe a little,” he said. I could see by the twinkle in his eye that he was enjoying teasing me.
“Well, I suppose if I was going to read a book to get to know you, it would be something like the dictionary or maybe an old encyclopedia of the letters Q or X,” I teased back.
“You stop picking on Blake. You’d be surprised how many hours he’s spent here learning about our history,” Aunt Astrid said. She always had a soft spot for him. I had to wonder if, in her visions and dreams, she hadn’t seen us eventually getting together and that was why she always acted sweet to him.
I rolled my eyes then felt Blake’s hand gently rub my back without anyone noticing. Feeling all warm inside, I looked up at him and winked. I’d almost completely forgotten about Cedar and her chalk art on the sidewalk.
“You look tired,” Bea said to Jake.
“Yeah, we had another one.” He shook his head, loosened his tie, and took a seat on one of the stools in Aunt Astrid’s kitchen.
“Another one what?” I asked.
“Domestic dispute. Ended in the death of the woman. Her husband killed himself. We think there might have been drugs involved. If you could have seen the crime scene…” Jake said then looked at Bea and rubbed her belly. “Now’s not the time to talk about it.”
“Another one?” Aunt Astrid said.
“Yeah. The crazy thing is that it was just down the street from the murder-suicide at your Gingerbread House,” Jake added.
“Why does everyone keep calling it my Gingerbread House?” I huffed.
“You’re the one who liked it,” Jake replied. “Even though to me it looks haunted and creepy. Those shutters with the hearts cut out of them and the trim around the roof? It’s spooky.”
I stared at Jake and shook my head. Then I snapped my fingers. “I almost forgot.” I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the business card for Soap Scents. Without looking at it, I handed it to Blake. “What do you think of this?”
“What am I looking at?” Blake asked. “Soap Scents. Sounds wonderful.”
“No, look at the house in the background,” I said, pointing at the card but still not looking at it.
“What about it?” Blake asked.
“Look familiar?” I replied.
“No,” he said, squinting at the picture.
“It’s my Gingerbread House,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” he replied.
I snatched the card out of his hand and took a look. Then I gasped. “Oh, I don’t like this one bit,” I grumbled. “This was not on here earlier.” I stared down to see a business card with the words Soap Scents on it, except instead of the pretty fairy-tale house in the background, there was just a row of soaps. I explained what had been on it before, but it didn’t do me any good. No one believed me, and that made me start to doubt myself.
“I think you might have been under a bit of stress after hearing what had happened at the house. You loved that place,” Aunt Astrid said.
“Yeah, Cath. It probably shook you up more than you knew,” Bea replied. “I should have known to check on you. You are so much more sensitive than you let on.”
“No, I’m really not,” I argued. “But I swear I saw that house. It seemed so real.”
“Of course it did. But now that you’ve had time to relax and the shock has left you, you’re seeing clearly. It’s just the natural progression of things,” Aunt Astrid added. “You poor thing. How about a cup of tea?”
I accepted my aunt’s tea, but I wasn’t convinced I had been in shock when I’d first received this business card. There was something strange about Cedar and her friend, and none of it sat well with me. Just because they knew some ancient greeting didn’t mean they could be trusted.
I kept this to myself, but when I looked up at Blake, I could tell he knew what I was thinking. I was thankful for that.