Page 54 of Sigils & Spells

“Claudette, you’re a member of the Ladies Auxiliary, aren’t you?”

This chicken thing was really bothering me. I was desperate to find out more, even if that meant asking to be invited to a meeting. I gave her a weak smile and my gut twisted. What had I done? I had basically just signed myself up to be on some committee. I would certainly end up on one if I went to one of their meetings.

She shook her head with a little laugh. “No, you couldn’t pay me to go to one of their meetings while Maisie Hepple is the president. Why? I thought that community involvement wasn’t your bag of wax.”

I started shaking my head before changing it to a nod. “Yeah, it’s not. But…”

How did I tell her I just needed to listen in on some local gossip? I needed access to Nan Weiss, that woman was the pulse of the town. She was a Weiss as in the W. in W. Duchamp. She was a Weiss as in Weiss Library. And if anyone knew what was going on, it was her.

She was something, I could sense it. She wasn’t a witch, at least not in the traditional sense, not one that I could easily identify. But I still wasn’t sure what she was other than omniscient. At least omniscient when it came to all things Belvoir County, and that meant Duchamp as the county seat.

“Ball of wax, you mean ball of wax,” I said absently, putting Claudette’s malapropism back in order.

“Whatever, why you interested in the Auxiliary?”

“Truth? Gossip. Have you heard anything happening to the chickens around here? I just overheard Ash and Darren talking like they didn’t want anyone to overhear—”

“Oh.” She leaned forward on her desk, conspiratorially. “Darren Halpern,” she sighed.

“Really? Darren? I would have pegged you for an Ash Weiss kind of girl.”

Claudette snorted through her nose. “Ash is hot, but he’s been weird ever since Amber left town. I think she broke his heart. He used to be a total horn dog too. And one I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole and prescription for antibiotics. I went to school with him. No, thank you. But Darren, now he is fine.”

She took a moment to get lost in her thoughts. She was probably thinking about Darren’s abs. They were good abs, but they were one-thousand percent non-committal abs. I’m sure Claudette thought she would be the woman to get Darren to commit.

“I can’t say I’ve heard anything recent about chick— oh wait, I did hear that one of the ranches over in Milton County lost like half of their flock. Something got in and tore them up.”

There it was again, ‘tore them up.’ I don’t know why that phrase was tripping alarms in my brain, but it was.

Milton was north-east of us. Far enough away that their local gossip didn’t impact us, but not so far that something killing off their chickens couldn’t come into Belvoir and make problems.

“Oh, really?”

“Look, if you want to get the good gossip, you need to go to the Guild. They have a stitch and bitch every day.”

Claudette meant the Craft Guild. It was a fiber arts shoppe on the triangle.

Duchamp was a small town, college population notwithstanding. Duchamp was so small it didn’t have a town square, it had a central triangle. The college took up all of one side from Duchamp Presbyterian at the northernmost point around the southwest point and along the south side to City Hall. The other half of the triangle from City Hall around the southeast point and back to the big church was downtown and the shops.

The Archives were located behind the college president’s house on the south-west point, and technically not on campus. The row of shoppes, all with two Ps and a finale E, were quaint and the closest thing to boutique shopping in the entire county. We had a lingerie shoppe, Les Unmentionables, a shabby chic interior decoration shoppe, Coop Décor, and The Craft Guild. Kaffé Coffee took over the corner across the street from the church. There were other stores along the street, but they were just that, stores.

The Craft Guild was a fiber arts source for quilters and knitters. And Claudette was right, there was always a circle of good town folk sitting around making things with their hands. And good town folk gossiped.

I neither sewed nor knitted. I wouldn’t even know what to do in that shoppe. How would I go in and look like I belong there while I eavesdropped on the circle’s conversation?

“You don’t knit, do you?” I asked.

An hour later, Claudette was leading me into the shoppe. She was on a mission. I needed to learn how to crochet, and she was going to make it happen.

“Claudette, what brings you in this afternoon?” A silver haired lady with her hands full of small fabric bits asked as we walked in.

“Pan wants to learn how to crochet. She said she saw a yummy yarn in the window, and it would be a beautiful scarf, but she wouldn’t know how to make that happen. So here we are. Everyone, this is Pandora. Pandora, this well, everyone.”

Claudette waved her arms around.

I smiled and waved. I recognized a few of the faces. The only person I knew by name was Nan Weiss.

“You’re Professor Bronson’s assistant at the Archive, aren’t you, dear?”

---