Midnight Exposure (Midnight #1)(73)
“May I help you?” A short sixtyish woman hurried from a back room, brushing her hands onto her jeans as she spoke. She looked entirely too normal to be running a Wicca supply store. No black robe, no pointy hat, no warts. She tucked a hunk of her limp beige pageboy hair behind her ear. Instead of old-lady perfume, she smelled like lemon and rosemary. “I’m Ellen Dean.”
“Are you really a witch?” The words popped out of Jayne’s mouth like a rude burp as curiosity hijacked her common sense. In her peripheral vision, Reed’s eyes did an exasperated roll.
Ellen cocked her head and indulged Jayne with the tolerant smile of a nursery-school teacher. “Not in the fly-on-a-broom, turn-people-into-toads sense. But my sister and I have been practicing the Craft all our lives. Our coven meets at the senior center. I used to be a high-school librarian. Glenda and I opened this shop when I retired. This is so much more fun than shushing teenagers and shelving books all day.”
“We’re trying to identify a couple of symbols. We thought an expert on the occult might be able to help.” Reed smoothed over Jayne’s flub with a Southern-gentleman routine. His accent thickened and his manners went to antebellum formal. The old lady practically simpered as he introduced them, turning his masculine charm on full blast and clasping her fragile, blue-veined hand between his strong palms.
Flattery will get you everywhere, Jayne thought as Ellen blinked up at his handsome, significantly younger face. There was no denying Reed’s hottie factor. For the AARP set, he’d be a boy toy.
He drew the five photos from his pocket and laid them on the glass counter.
“Sure, let me take a look.” Ellen picked up the first picture and tapped on the image.
“What is it?” Jayne asked.
“A torc.” The storekeeper pointed to the metal circle with her forefinger.
“Huh?”
“A necklace of sorts. The Celts wore them, so did a few other European cultures in the same time period.” In full librarian mode, Ellen pulled a pair of glasses from her pocket, set them on her face, and snapped on a light next to the register. She squinted at the photo. “This looks real. Where did you find it?”
“It was a gift.” Reed smiled. Ellen smiled back.
“Does it have any meaning?” Jayne asked.
“It was a sign of nobility. Warriors also wore them. This one looks like gold. If it is, it would have belonged to a person of high social rank.”
“Does mistletoe have any significance?” Reed flashed her the pearly whites one more time.
Ellen responded with a flush, as any normal woman with a beating heart would have. “Mistletoe was sacred to the Celts’ priests, the Druids. It stood for life and fertility. Our custom of decorating with mistletoe at Christmas comes from the Druid tradition of cutting mistletoe at the winter solstice. It’s still used in many pagan ceremonies.”
“Wow.” Reed beamed. “It looks like we came to the right place.”
A blush spread across Ellen’s crepe-paper cheeks as she pointed at the photo. “The winter solstice ceremony isn’t as nice as the summer celebration. The weather in June is much kinder to these old bones. We do the whole ritual sky-clad.” She leaned closer to Reed and lowered her voice to a whisper. “That’s in the buff.”
“Errr.” Reed coughed. “Really?”
Ellen’s penciled-in eyebrows did a little shimmy. “It’s liberating.”
“I bet it is. Sounds like fun.” Jayne swallowed a snicker. “Doesn’t it, Reed?”
Reed shook his head like an overturned Etch A Sketch, no doubt trying to erase the image of a baker’s dozen Social Security recipients dancing around the woods in their birthday suits.
“Don’t get me wrong, tonight’s ceremony will be lovely. You’re welcome to join us.” Ellen directed her invitation to Reed, of course.
Reed’s smile was noncommittal. “I thought tomorrow was the solstice?”
“We actually start the celebration tonight at sunset.” Ellen’s mauve-tipped finger lingered on a close-up of the torc. “What’s this?”
Reed leaned sideways to view the picture with her. Their shoulders brushed. Behind the horn-rims, Ellen batted her frigging eyes. Jayne fought the urge to roll hers. But Reed was in full get-information mode, working the old lady with shameless and, Jayne supposed, harmless flirting. Ellen was going to have quite a story to tell ol’ Sis over supper.
“Hmmm.” Reed flattened his lips thoughtfully and gave the storekeeper the undivided attention of those intense green eyes. “We’re not sure. Some kind of bread or cake. It was very grainy and a little burned. These black feathers were stuck in there, too.”
Ellen ripped her gaze off Reed’s eyes and concentrated on the picture. “Crows and ravens are omens to modern Wiccans. Dark omens. To the ancient Celts, a crow or raven foreshadowed death.”
Reed’s face flickered with brief alarm. “What about the bread?”
“I imagine it’s oatcake, or bannock, a traditional celebratory dish. The torc, the cake, and the mistletoe all point toward a Christmas or winter solstice holiday celebration, likely Wicca or Druid. But the crow feathers. I don’t know how they fit in with the rest. Doesn’t make sense. The winter solstice is a time of rebirth, of coming from the darkest day into the light. Crows signify the opposite, darkness, misfortune, bad luck.” Ellen turned her palms up in logical defeat. “Who knows?”