She had to read the list twice to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.
Arthur “Chip” O’Connor II and Malcolm Mayhew had been in the same cohort from 1982 to 1983. Or, rather, from 1982 to when Malcolm Mayhew was murdered.
It felt significant, though she couldn’t put her finger on why. The Mayhews were the kind of family known to the Graveses and the Blackwoods, so there was no reason why they wouldn’t have alsoassociated with the O’Connors. But there had to be something she could get out of Stasie’s grandfather that would give her somewhere to start looking for the other person who had been in the library with Malcolm that night. If it had been Stasie’s father, that would be more than enough reason for a cover-up.
Maybe this wasn’t her mystery to solve, but she was too invested to turn back now. It was all connected somehow. She was sure of it. She just had to figure out what the murder had to do with the magic, what the birds had to do with the Old Masters, what the salons had to do with the School for the Unseen Arts. All the research she’d done, all the unrelated pieces she’d gathered, blurred together in her mind without making a sensible picture.
Once again, she wished she could reach Hudson. But he still hadn’t answered her messages.
“Magic,” Aunt Carol said flatly, when Ellory took advantage of the empty dorm room to call. “What do you mean bymagic?”
She had no idea where Stasie was, but her roommate had yet to give her a number to reach her grandfather with. In the interim, Ellory continued to work—or pretended to work—on the newspaper article where Stasie could see: She had taken out library books on the history of the school, she had printed out photos of former deans on which she scrawled legible notes, and she had even gone as far as to act like she was talking to one on the phone. Stasie hadn’t responded to any such silent pressure.
Left to her own devices, Ellory had gone down a rabbit hole about the Lost Eight and ancestral magic that ended with this phone call. But faced with her aunt’s disinterest, she couldn’t imagine trying to explain the absurdity of her life to someone who hadn’t witnessed it. Carol would change fifty years of opinions on mental health just to have Ellory committed to a psych ward.
She slathered leave-in conditioner into the section of hair she was detangling, trying to keep her tone light. “We’re doing a segment on legal protections for folk healers and cultural home remedies. It made me curious if we ever had anyone in the family like that.”
“Your mother had an affair with an obeah man once.”
“Wait, really?”
“No. But that’s how ridiculous you sound.”
Ellory stifled a sigh that would only get her in trouble. She hadn’t expected Aunt Carol to suddenly confess that she was part of a hidden magical dynasty that had passed their abilities down to Ellory, but she hadn’t expected to be outright mocked either.
Not that Ellory could blame her. A month ago, she would have found the idea laughable, too.
“There was no affair,” Carol relented. “Your fatherdidvisit an obeah man when you were young, though. I told him not to mess with things he didn’t understand, but you spent most of your childhood talking about duppies and doctor birds. Your parents thought you’d be cursed or something. He didn’t give me the details, and I didn’t ask. But whatever advice he got from the obeah settled his spirit.”
Obeah, though many practitioners didn’t call it that due to the scorn she could hear in her aunt’s voice, still thrived across Jamaica. Through spellcasting and communing with spirits, obeah followers could heal or harm, see the future for advice, or search the present for lost objects. She’d been told two things about them her whole life. The first was that they were born with their abilities. The second was that they were the last resort of the desperate.
She’d never had cause to think about them before, let alone form an opinion. Now she wondered if her father had sensed her magical potential and gone to the obeah about it. She would callhim and ask if she’d thought there was a chance he would actually answer.
“I talked about duppies?” Ellory asked as she typed that dutifully into her notes. “What duppies?”
“It started after Miss Claudette died in a shop fire, and then suddenly you could name dead people all over town who came just to talk to you.” Ellory had no idea who Miss Claudette was, but she added the name to her notes as well. “Doctor birds are also known as god birds. The Arawak believed they carried the souls of the dead or that they were reincarnated souls themselves. They’re supposed to be quick as a devil, but you could catch one of them in your hands. It wouldn’t fly off until you let it go.” Carol kissed her teeth. “I see why Desmond got scared. But it was all silly superstition.”
“This is really helpful, Auntie,” Ellory heard herself say, turning the page of her notebook until she reached the three bird symbols. The hummingbird—the doctor bird—stared up at her from above EVOCATION. “Thank you. Have you been taking your medicine?”
Carol kissed her teeth again. “I’m not a child, Lor.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Mi wi tek dem now,” grumbled Carol. “Jeezam peas.”
***
On Ellory’s next visit to theCommuniquéoffices, Boone introduced her to the editors, identified the various conference rooms, and told her which snacks in the break room he’d already claimed. If she’d expected him to ask for a progress report on her story, she was soon disappointed. Boone, it seemed, cared little for micromanaging. She’d said she was working on the piece, he told her, and unlessshe came to him for help, he would assume that was what she was doing.
“The woman who ran the paper before me was always up in my business,” he added as he showed her the printers, each of which apparently had names. “I nearly quit so many times, and journalism is my major. If I do that to any of you, you have my permission for a mutiny.”
“I’ll stick a pitchfork in the merch closet,” said Ellory. “Just in case.”
Boone smirked. “Well, there’s certainly room in there now, with how much shit you took home.”
She nodded at the sweatshirt he was wearing, sourced from the same closet. “You’re the one who’s a walking advertisement right now. I’m already starting to miss your tattoos.”
“You like the ink, Morgan?” Boone glanced down at his arms. “You didn’t strike me as a tattoo person.”
