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exactly?
    â€œI don’t know what to think, Maya,” I said finally.
    â€œLet’s just hope the police find something out, and soon.”

Chapter 4
    By the time we neared home, neither of us had an appetite, so we skipped dinner. I paid Maya her commission and dropped her at her apartment, just a few blocks off Haight Street. Bronwyn had long since closed up shop, and I was glad for the solitude. I brought Frances’s wedding dresses with me to hang them up, but decided to leave the rest of the bags in the van until the morning, when I could sort through them with fresh eyes and decide which ones needed repair or embellishment, and which a simple cleaning.
    As I let myself into the old two-story Victorian building that housed Aunt Cora’s Closet I breathed deeply, sighing with contentment. The shop welcomed me with the scent of clean laundry, lavender, and sage. A bundle of rosemary tied with a black ribbon hung over the front door, inviting luck to enter, while charms in the form of dried flowers, wreaths, and herbal sachets hung over every doorway and mirror.
    Several precious antique gowns too delicate to be out on the sales floor adorned the walls like gossamer tapestries—their heirloom lace and exquisite hand-sewn ruffles were more suited to decoration than to twenty-first-century lives. The rest of the stock was hung on racks and divided by historic era: I carried clothing from the 1890s all the way up to the 1980s, from white cotton Victorian underthings to fringed leather vests. Though I preferred the older garments, there was a market among the youth for items just twenty or thirty years old, including the ugly polyester outfits I remembered from my adolescence. No matter, they all hummed with the energy and vitality of their former owners.
    Aside from the overflowing racks of everyday skirts, dresses, and tops, I maintained an impressive selection of frothy lingerie, feather boas, hats, wigs, and even a few period stewardess, nurse, and cheerleader outfits. And though I carried only women’s clothes, I liked to interpret that liberally: In the costume corner were several tuxedos and a number of Boy Scout uniforms, sailors’ hats, and cowboy accoutrements. I couldn’t wait for Halloween.
    I love my shop and its contents. No matter how alienated I have felt my whole life, when I’m in the company of old things I sense the human connections through the ages. They have always helped ease the loneliness of my solitary existence.
    A narrow staircase led off the rear storage room to a cozy one-bedroom apartment on the second floor. As in the store below, I had filled my personal space with much-loved used furniture, appliances, and artwork. The lace curtains in my bedroom window had been tatted by a British war bride who made her new home in the Outer Sunset; the soft white sheets on my canopy bed were purchased at a Parisian flea market; even my stove was an old Wedgwood that had nourished three generations of a family in nearby Hayes Valley.
    Unfortunately, like so much in the magical world, my sensitivity to vibrations was a two-way street. I hated the soulless feel of newly minted products that were factory-produced by poorly paid workers, and felt their despair every time I touched them. Even finding toothpaste whose vibrations didn’t rattle my fillings could be a trial.
    I crossed through the bedroom to the bath and took a quick cleansing shower with lemon verbena soap. Afterward, brushing my long chestnut brown hair twenty strokes, I was sure to capture any loose strands before tying it into a ponytail with a black ribbon. I then cleaned the brush carefully and brought the loose hair into the kitchen to burn.
    My grandmother Graciela had hammered this habit into me: Let not a single strand of your own hair fall into a brew, m’hija , for you will change the spell in ways you did not intend. Intention must always reign supreme while brewing. And never forget that