Which was to say that the items themselves—all gifts from Edwina to her offspring—were enspelled eavesdropping devices, clandestine portals that permitted her to keep constant, magically enabled tabs on the children's every move.
Wouldn't it be silly to own and run America's only family-operated clearinghouse for magical power and not put some of that power to work spying on your kids?
For that, in a nutshell, was E. Godz, Inc.'s stock-in-trade: magic.
It was not a career path that Edwina had consciously sought out, at first. Rather, it was a by-product of all those years back in the '60s that she'd spent crisscrossing the country in flower-splashed vans, salvaged schoolbuses, or, in a pinch, VW Bugs painted to look like Peter Max's worst nightmare. Like so many of her hippie brethren, Edwina discovered that life on the nation's back roads and byways led a person to consider whether there were also spiritual roads-less-traveled that might bear exploration. The faith of her forebears wasn't a good fit for her new lifestyle: Peyote and Presbyterians didn't mix worth a damn.
She was not alone in this quest for new ways of getting in touch with her mystic side. The '60s were famous for having driven hordes of young people out of their families' churches and into the arms of the "earthy" religions out there. Chanting mantras was in, catechisms were out, and the incessant beating of drums was much more desirable than any silly old Bach mass for organ. It was part of the whole tribal-is-cooler/ethnic-is-in package. And in some cases it was a pretty good excuse to get high, in the name of seeking the One True Path, though heaven help anyone uncool enough to mention that the end-justifies-the-means trip had its roots in the writings of Saint Jerome.