Spellcasting in Silk: A Witchcraft Mystery by Juliet Blackwell Page A

inspirational quotes, and my memories. I was unsure what I was looking for, but sometimes the book helps me out by showing me something I didn’t know was there.
    Not this time.
    After several frustrating minutes, I slammed the book shut and started to pull the ingredients for jambalaya out of the refrigerator. I had stopped eating pork when Oscar came into my life, so I was substituting andouille chicken sausage for the traditional pork sausage called for by the classic Cajun recipe. And because I had also gotten into the habit of spoiling Oscar since his disappearance, I was going to make a side dish of cheesy garlic mashed potatoes. As far as Oscar was concerned, it wasn’t dinner unless there were plenty of carbs smothered in cheese.
    “You’re not gonna keep that doll
here
, are you?” Oscar jumped up to sit on the edge of the counter, his favorite spot in the kitchen. From here he could “help” me cook, which mostly meant being an enthusiastic taste-tester. “I mean, if your Book of Shadows doesn’t say anything, that’s no good at all, is it? It prob’ly means there’s something wrong with it. Not our kind of magic.”
    He reached for the hunk of cheese I had set on the counter, but I gently slapped his hand away. He rolled his eyes.
    “Good point,” I said, bringing out an old wooden cutting board and the sharp knife to chop onions. “I should probably go talk to Hervé.”
    Oscar shivered dramatically. “I don’t much care for the voodoo folk. You should ask Master Aidan.”
    “He’s not your master anymore, remember?” I’d been giving Aidan a wide berth since our little showdown, during which I freed Oscar from him. I feared one day soon I would have to face the debt I owed that powerfulwitch, but so far I had been avoiding the subject. And interestingly, he had not yet come after me.
    “Besides,” I continued. “Hervé’s a good guy. He’s helped to save my butt more than once. And by extension,
your
butt.”
    “
Heh!
You said ‘butt.’” Oscar cackled and waved his hand, as if to say
stop
.
    “Your green, scaly butt,” I continued.
    Oscar laughed some more, and wiped his eyes. Goblin humor.
    I handed him the chunk of cheese, along with a grater and a bowl. “Make yourself useful. And make sure most of that ends up in the bowl, not your stomach.”
    For the next half-hour, we cooked together companionably, Edith Piaf crooning in the background. Oscar kept joining in; he had been working on his impressions of both Piaf and Billie Holiday, and he wasn’t bad, though he kept forgetting the lyrics. The good thing about singing along with Edith Piaf is that as long as you sounded even vaguely French you could get away with it, at least to an American audience. Lady Day’s repertoire was tougher.
    “Hey,” I said a while later when the jambalaya was simmering gently on the stove, filling the apartment with a delicious, homey aroma. We were letting the flavors of the jambalaya mingle—my mother used to say “to marry”—and playing a game of gin rummy while we waited for Sailor.
    “Do you know a woman who owns a shop in the Mission called
El Pajarito
?
” I asked. “Her name’s Ursula Moreno.”
    Oscar shrugged and snuck two cards, instead of one, from the top of the pile. Oscar was a terrible card cheat. Somehow this did not come as a surprise.
    Sometimes I let him get away with it. Today I was notin the mood, and fixed Oscar with the stink-eye. He gazed at me, unblinking, the picture of innocence.
    “Time for another round of Let’s Make a Deal,” I said. “I’ll pretend I didn’t see that you just took two cards if you tell me what you know about Ursula Moreno.”
    Not that Moreno was any of my concern, I reminded myself. Carlos had been clear: Having checked out the store and told him as much as I was able to, my part was done. Period. End of story.
    Still . . . Oscar knew an awful lot about an awful lot, and was plugged into the local magical grapevine in a way I