Crystal Cove (Friday Harbor #4)(67)

“Because every time you break up with a woman, you tell me to buy some expensive jewelry and have it wrapped up for her. Your Tiffany’s bill caused the economic bubble in the precious metals market.”

Jason scowled, keeping his gaze on the road. “Justine’s different from the others.”

“Why? Because she’s a witch?”

“Because she’s Justine.”

Priscilla stared down at the Triodecad, smoothing circles over it. “Is she in love with you?” she asked carefully.

“I think so.” Jason swerved slightly to avoid a vulture feeding on roadkill. “And I’d like to live long enough to try and deserve it.”

“Then I’d better find an extra-strength spell” came her tart reply.

After a thirty-minute drive, they took the exit for Toad Suck Park. Priscilla directed him along a series of turns, the roads getting narrower and rougher, until they reached a private drive lined with eroded gravel, the car wheels dipping into deep potholes. They pulled up to a double-wide tucked into a grove of dogwood trees. The trailer home was fronted with a patio improvised from a sheet of buckled plywood and a set of plastic lawn chairs. A dog of indeterminate breed lazed on the corner of the plywood, his scraggly tail thumping as he saw the car approach.

“They’ll probably seem a little crazy at first,” Priscilla said as Jason stopped the car. “But after you get to know ’em … they’ll seem even crazier.”

“No judgment,” Jason assured her. It was one of the things he’d learned from living in San Francisco for nearly ten years. A person with rainbow hair and multiple piercings could be a millionaire, or someone who’d dressed as if he’d harvested his clothes from a Dumpster, a respected community leader. Preconceptions were useless, not to mention foolish.

Getting out of the car, Jason was struck by the serenity of the area. All he could hear was the tapping of a woodpecker in a nearby thicket of pine and cedar, and the trickle of a creek. The air steamed as if it had been freshly ironed. A flat, languid breeze was stitched with the smells of cooked grass and stewed pine pitch.

The silence was shattered by the cacophony of a pair of elderly women emerging from the trailer, both of them clattering with jewelry. Neither of them was a day under eighty. They were dressed similarly in flip-flops, brightly colored tunics, and cropped pants. One of them had hair swirled like a vanilla cone from Dairy Queen, and the other, a shock of flamboyant red. Whooping and chattering, they both hurried to Priscilla and hugged her between them.

“Prissy, honey, you’re all skin and bones,” the red-haired one exclaimed. “Don’t they feed you out there in California?”

“’Course they don’t,” the other woman said before Priscilla could reply. “All them West Coast hippies eat is kale chips.” She beamed at Priscilla. “We cooked you up some real food, girl. Hot dog casserole and fried apple biscuits.”

Priscilla laughed and kissed her leathery cheek. “Granny, Aunt Bean … I’d like you to meet my boss, Mr. Black.”

“He own that computer company you work at?”

“Video games,” Jason said, walking around the car to reach them. He extended a hand to the red-haired woman. “Please call me Jason.”

“Computers will be the ruination of this world,” she said, ignoring his outstretched hand. “We don’t bother with handshakes, honey, we just do hugs.” She threw her arms around him, enveloping him in a bewildering mixture of scents: hair-styling product, perfume, deodorant, body cream, and a distinct tang of bug spray. “I’m Priscilla’s granny,” she told Jason. “You call me that, too.”

The vanilla-haired woman came to hug Jason, as well, her torso strong, short, and barrel-round. “I used to be Wilhelmina, but folks took to calling me Bean when I was a kid and it stuck.”

Since neither of the women seemed inclined to release his arms, Jason went to the trailer with Granny and Bean on either side of him. Priscilla followed with the spellbook. A blast of icy air hit them as soon as the front door was opened. An air-conditioning unit hummed in a window space, chilling the interior of the trailer to an arctic level. They entered a living room, the main wall covered with tin license plates.

The home was clean but packed with tables and shelves of collectibles; figurines, vintage hook and flies, bottle caps, cookie jars. It made Jason, who preferred spare and uncluttered space, feel vaguely claustrophobic. As he saw that both kitchen windows were fully blocked with rows of beer glasses and metal thermoses, he was forced to take a calming breath.

“Now,” Granny said to Priscilla, “let’s have a look at the spellbook.”

“It’s very old,” Jason said, uneasy at the sight of Justine’s treasured grimoire being set on the same dining table as a foil-covered casserole reeking of hot dogs and ketchup. “I can’t let anything happen to it.”

“We’ll be careful.” Granny gave Jason an astute glance. “Never thought I’d see one of these, specially not one with a name.”

“We never learnt our magic from a grimoire,” Bean said, following Jason’s gaze to the casserole. She took the dish from the table, turned to set it on a kitchen counter, and wiped her hands on her tunic. “Only the elite-type crafters have those. We’ve always kept our spells and formulas on recipe cards.”