| |
A long shower followed by the hearty dinner Oz had sent up, rounded out the rest of Keturah’s night. There were no further insights following the vague details he’d given when she correctly guessed the tragic outcome of what he was still too uncomfortable to address.
She got an early start that morning, hoping to have breakfast with Agatha down in the restaurant. Agatha apparently had plans for an early day herself. Keturah got no answer when she knocked on the door to her aunt’s suite. She didn’t linger. Her stomach was growling horrendously despite the decadent supper spread from the night before. Keturah had decided to make a pitstop at The Tribe before continuing the search for Agatha.
The visit turned out to be a great idea. Except for the staff, the place was empty when she arrived. Keturah requested an introduction to the cookstaff and was granted one as well as a tour of the facility. Soft tunes piping in overhead made her think of a quiet evening beneath African skies generously sugared by large glittering stars.
The cookstaff was a gregarious bunch with ready grins and hearty laughter. They seemed genuinely pleased when Keturah commended their culinary skill and raved over how much she and Agatha were enjoying all the dining choices. Drawn in by their comradery and good humor, Keturah teased that she was sure the chefs were used to swarms of compliments from all the Generals’... guests. Laughter roamed from the large, barrel-chested men.
“Oh Miss, we rarely speak with any of the Generals’ lady friends,” Mbasa assured her, his grin gleaming a striking white against his smooth onyx skin.
“From time to time one may visit the restaurant,” Bakr, a dark man of shorter stature corrected his colleague and then shrugged. “They rarely make a point of thanking us for a meal, however.”
“Well that’s what I came for- and to eat, of course!”
The burly group broke into more laughter.
“You’ve come to the right place, then!” Tute, the head chef, assured.
“But I don’t want to be in the way,” Keturah quickly added when the men set a place for her at one of the wide cooking islands in the kitchen.
“We insist!” They seemed to say in unison.
Keturah didn’t argue further. The air was a haven for the nostrils. Fragrances laced with honey, cinnamon, brown sugar, coconut and a host of additional fruits and spices swarmed like a seductive mist. Keturah didn’t believe she’d ever feel more pampered than she had during her spa visit. She was wrong.
The Tribe kitchen had all that beat by a mile. The chefs promised a change from her usual breakfast routine and they delivered. Keturah all but convulsed with pleasure upon tasting the first dish they presented. La Bouillie was a recipe from Chad. A kind of hot cereal, it was made with lemon, millet, and a creation that was the taste and consistency of peanut butter along with a few other ingredients the chefs refused to divulge.
It didn’t matter, Keturah thought it was wonderful. Served warm and topped with milk and sugar, it was a dish she intended to make a point of ordering many times during her stay. She was already gearing up to request another helping, when she was presented with a platter that had her mouth watering as her nostrils flared in approval.
“This contains favorites from Morocco and Egypt,” Mbasa explained.
Keturah smiled as her fierce protectors came to mind. Ahouifi M’semmen was a Moroccan dish. The griddle cake, once done, was brushed with honey and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. Keturah thought it was a fitting accompaniment to the Fava Bean Egyptian Breakfast that filled one side of her plate. In addition to the beans, the recipe called for tomato sauce, onions, ground cumin and a few other secret ingredients. A small bowl of African Fruit Compote completed the dynamic meal.
Keturah feared she’d not be able to finish the food even as she cleared the platter with such gusto, the chefs grinned wildly and cheered when she was done.
“I don’t know how to thank you guys for taking time to do something so special,” she said.
Bakr looked to his colleagues, who nodded. “It is we who should be thanking you, Miss,” he said.
Confused, Keturah frowned and waited.
“You are good for Osmium,” Bakr supplied the clarification.
“He shouldn’t be alone,” Tute added.
“I um,” Keturah tried to keep her tone light to mask her surprise. “I wouldn’t think he’d have trouble finding women.”
“Women find him, Miss,” Bakr noted, and then sighed. “Some good. Some...otherwise.”
“None, who have affected him the way you have, Miss,” Mbasa confided.
Keturah accepted the comment with a nod and soft smile. Inwardly, the words jabbed at some part of her. The effect she had on him...some part of Oz’s argument finally began to seep in. She didn’t know how she felt about that affect being a potentially artificial one. She was starting to understand Oz’s reluctance to be with her until he could be certain her desires were truly her own.
Keturah snapped from her reverie, grateful the jovial chefs hadn’t noticed her mental departure from their chat. She talked with her new friends for just a little longer before saying her goodbyes and making her way to the next destination.
***
Keturah played a strong hunch and had it pay off when she found Agatha in the library. She didn’t alert the woman to her presence straightaway, preferring to study her in her element.
Agatha was curled on a long, heavily cushioned sofa in the farthest corner of the grand space. She sat with her dark, lovely face all but hidden behind a book so wide it shielded her shoulders.
“How are you holding that thing?” Keturah teased, waving when Agatha’s head shot up from behind the covers.
“Very impressively, if I do say so myself.”
“Anything good?” Keturah headed into the room.
“Good? Yes. Helpful... Remains to be seen.”
“Where’d you find that thing?” Keturah tilted her head as if attempting to read the spine. “How’d you heft it all the way out here to the reading area?”
Agatha took a moment to wave out over the vastness of the room. “There are tons of libraries here. Many of the books date back centuries. Fortunes could be made many times over with such a collection.” She smoothed her hand across the page she’d been reading.
“The largest books are kept in a kind of... vault, you could say.”
“Vault,” Keturah moved into the room. “Vault of books, huh? Sounds right up your alley.”
“Mmm...” Agatha agreed. “It’s equipped with tables and there are pulleys that move the books into reading spaces throughout that area and across the entire residence even.”
Keturah curled on the far end of the sofa Agatha occupied. “What’s that one about?” she peeked at the cover.
“I’m hoping it’ll be about finding better ways to protect you.”
“Isn’t that what the Generals are for?”
Agatha grimaced. “The best protection is what you can provide for yourself,” she slanted her niece a wink. “Minus the nausea.”
“Thanks,” Keturah settled deeper into the sofa. “Anyway, I thought you had spells of your own.”
“Yes, but these,” again Agatha ran her palm over the pages, “are from another time and place- the ones I learned are child’s play compared to these,” she looked to Keturah then and her gaze sparkled with determination. “We still don’t know what we’ve stumbled onto here, Ket. You should be fortified as powerfully as you can be.”
“Do you think there’s anything there to explain the mark on my arm?”
“Perhaps,” Agatha considered the page. “I’ve always found it strange that there were no notes among all the family spells to explain it.”
“My parents never mentioned it- any of it. Not with me, anyway.”
“I’m sorry, honey.” Agatha heard the regret in Keturah’s voice. “No one ever mentioned it to me either. I’d never heard a thing about it until the day I talked with the Generals’ ‘associate’.” She dragged in a deep breath. “I do know that all of this frightened them- your parents. When Dura came to speak the words over you when you were born...that was the last straw. It frightened your father tremendously- had him putting his foot down about keeping you away from magic.”
“What did she say?”
Agatha smiled quietly, thinking of her grand aunt. “No idea...I’d never seen the words written down anywhere. When I asked my mother about them, she said they were part of the Epic Poem. She was very vague about it, so I never got a real explanation.”
“Why do you think that was?”
Agatha shrugged. “I grew up understanding when not to ask a question. ‘All in good time Aga Sula’, she’d say.”
Keturah smiled, remembering the woman’s vague image in her long ago memory.
“I’m sorry Ag. All this being laid at your feet- you’ve spent your life serving as the steward of the family secrets.”
“Do you think I resent that? You’d be wrong if you do.” Once again, Agatha looked to the ancient title she held. “For a book lover, there’s nothing better than uncovering secrets that speak to history. My career affords me the time and resources to unearth them.”
“Have you found anything worth sharing yet?”
“Ah honey, I’m sorry,” Agatha finally set the book aside. “I just didn’t think it’d be fair to lay all this on you and explain it as being ancient family history. I wanted more to back it up.”
Keturah smiled, giving a small but knowing shake of her head. “You never need to apologize to me, Ag. You’ve been an aunt, sister and mother to me.”
Pleased, Agatha returned Keturah’s smile and then sighed. “What you said about having anything to share, I just might.” she returned to leaf through the book’s pages. “I think Dura’s words over you might’ve been part of a Woven spell.”
“Woven spell?”
“I can't explain further. Not yet,” Agatha heard the query in Keturah’s response. “I only know the term, but I think something in here might explain it. All I’ve ever uncovered about such spells has been in books where the term was referred to as if the reader had prior knowledge and required no further explanation.”
“Sort of like a textbook-an advanced one,” Keturah supplied.
“Exactly,” Agatha sent her niece a pointed look. “A certain level of mastery on the subject is required before the reader can even comprehend it. According to this,” she thumbed the pages again, “certain charms contain masking capabilities and allow spells to be woven into them.”
“Are the charm and spells the same?” Keturah asked.
“In a way, but they work differently. The charm is the foundation-words, a song-”
“A poem?”
“Yes,” Agatha’s eyes were bright. “If a charm had masking capabilities, then a spell could be woven into it,” she offered an airy wave. “The spell is what makes the charm magical.”
“But why?” Keturah curled into a new position on the sofa. “I mean, what purpose does all that serve? Why not just use the spell? Are the charms needed to make them sound pretty or something?”
Agatha laughed. “Precisely.” Her laughter grew when Keturah looked surprised by her own accuracy.
“You’re so preoccupied by the beauty of the words, you totally miss what’s going on between the lines.”
Keturah straightened. “Charms can be used to hide messages.”
Agatha nodded, looking then as if she’d been waiting on her niece to reach that conclusion. “Remember your history now. Our earthly history. The hymns of our ancestors were often used to conceal messages about revolts, meetings, anything they wanted to keep from the masters. The way these charms were used could have been the seeds that planted those ideas.”
“But why would such a spell have been spoken over me?” Keturah asked after several silent moments.
“To answer that, I need to know what spell it was,” Agatha said. “If the poem was, in fact, a charm then its accompanying spells may be listed with it. That’s one of the things I’m hoping to find here.” She spared another glance at the book.
“One of?”
Agatha leaned back, observing the heavy book with a more wary gaze. “If slave hymns concealed messages from the masters and spells represent messages inside the charms, then who represents the masters?”