Tarnished and Torn Read Online Free

stickler for observing her native Mexican and Indian traditions—had been trying to save me the embarrassment of having no one show up at my party.
    “I have a couple of tiaras at my store,” I said to the girls, handing them each a business card.
    “Vintage clothes?” Marisela read the card and nodded. “Cool. Hey, do you have any formal dresses that would work for a
quinceañera
? My sister and I still haven’t found exactly the right dresses yet, and it’s, like, coming up real soon.”
    “I do, yes.” I smiled, thinking of the scads of taffeta, netting, silks, and satins crowding the racks at Aunt Cora’s Closet. Depending on a family’s economic situation, a
quinceañera
can be a lavish affair on the scale of a wedding. The price tag for costuming alone could run into the thousands. Vintage was a fun, relatively inexpensive alternative.
    “Cool. Maybe we’ll come check it out.”
    “I look forward to it.”
    “Those rings look good on you,” Griselda said to Shawnelle. “You have nice hands for rings. Men like that.”
    “I like this one,” said Shawnelle, looking down at a large hunk of turquoise in a setting of tarnished, worked silver. “But . . . I guess I should save my money.”
    Griselda rolled her eyes and, once again sensing she wasn’t going to make a sale, returned to her unpacking.
    Now that the object of their admiration had ducked back behind the blue curtains, the girls’ enthusiasm waned. They wandered off.
    Griselda added several necklaces to the velvet-lined tray, and then set up a little stand that held a jewel-encrusted athame, or sacred ceremonial knife.
    Wait just a gol-durned second.
    An
athame
? Could Griselda be a witch?
    Once upon a time I was confident that I could recognize my own kind. But ever since moving to San Francisco I had met believers of all types, making it difficult to tell who was a self-defined practicing witch, a sorcerer, a Wiccan, a hoodoo, a Feri, or an adherent of one of the myriad other belief systems and magical traditions. There were so many I lost track.
    I had been distracted by Griselda’s wild outfit and funny mannerisms—could I have missed the sort of aural presence that might indicate she was a practitioner?
    “May I see the opal medallion, please?” I asked, in a bid to keep Griselda talking. I supposed it wasn’t really my business whether she was a witch or not—especially if she had taken steps to hide her identity through a cloaking spell or protective charm—but I was always interested in possible kindred spirits.
    Besides, that unsettled,
wrong
feeling I had before . . . I still couldn’t shake it.
    Griselda’s kohl-blackened eyes fixed on mine. I waited to feel a flash of recognition or to sense the aura of a practitioner. I felt nothing to indicate supernatural powers . . . but there was
something
. A vague sense of the sinister.
    Not coming from Griselda herself, but behind me.
    At that moment Griselda’s hazel eyes shifted to something over my shoulder and widened ever so slightly.
    The back of my neck tingled.
    I whirled around.
    No one. Nothing. Although thousands of shoppers mobbed the aisles of the Cow Palace, here in the corner we were, for all intents and purposes, alone.
    I turned back to Griselda. Without speaking, she picked up the medallion and held it out to me.
    I cupped the necklace in both hands, sharing my warmth with it. I waited, concentrated, and felt . . . not much. I really was one sorry excuse for a witch when it came to jewelry. But opals held water within their depths, which was one reason they were so fragile. I wasn’t kidding when I said they were alive. So I did sense a slight, tiny shimmer . . . like when I tried to scry by looking into my crystal ball. Almost . . . but not quite.
    “You know about opals, do you?”
    “It’s my grandmother’s birthstone. She has several. She wears them every day and treats them with oil, keeps them from the sun.”
    “Smart woman. They