Wisteria Witches
A NOVEL
Angela Pepper
writing as
Z. Riddle
WWW.WISTERIAWITCHES.COM
Chapter 1
The real estate agent didn't say anything about the house coming with a ghost. You really should get a discount for something like that. Some people would be willing to pay extra to get a genuine ghost, but I'm not one of those people. I already have enough going on with my supernatural powers.
My name is Zara Riddle, and I am a witch. Shocker, right? Tell me about it! I only just found out myself.
I spent the first thirty-two years of my life not knowing I was a witch. Everything changed the day I moved into my gorgeous three-story Victorian Gothic house on Beacon Street.
It was a bright spring day, and the cherry blossoms in the front yard accented the bright gingerbread detail on the adorable red house I'd just purchased.
“Mom, close your mouth and stop staring,” my daughter said as she pinched my arm. “For the millionth time, you're not dreaming. Now move your butt and help me with the boxes before those moving-truck pirates charge us for another hour.”
“Where are they now?”
“Using the washroom,” she said. “The one guy keeps gushing about the clawfoot tub. What's the big deal? It's an old tub with weird chicken feet.”
“People pay extra for tubs with weird chicken feet.”
She scowled. “He'd better not be taking a bath up there and charging us for his time.”
“So much concern!” I ruffled her strawberry-blonde hair. “I didn't know you were funding this operation.”
She ducked away with annoyance and smoothed her hair. “Hurry up anyway. We need to get everything inside the house before I go to school.”
“Zoey, it's Saturday. Unless things are very unconventional here in Wisteria, you don't start at your new school until Monday.”
She rolled her eyes the way only a teenager talking to her exasperating mother can. I'd been seeing the whites of her eyes so much, I'd nearly forgotten the pupils were blue.
“Mo-o-om,” she moaned, dragging it out to three syllables. “I told you. Since we don't have a car anymore, I need to walk to the school today and figure out the best route so I'm not late on Monday.”
“Okay, gotcha,” I said, walking around to the back of the moving truck. “I should count my blessings that I'm the owner of the only sixteen-year-old who actually wants to go to school.”
She jumped up into the truck and started handing me boxes. “You're not my owner, and I'm not sixteen until tomorrow.”
“But people who have cats and dogs are called owners, and you're like a very smart cat. You're certainly not a child. I swear, sixteen years ago you waltzed your way out of my womb, shook hands with the taxi driver who delivered you, and corrected my pronunciation of the name of the hospital we were still ten blocks away from.”
Zoey stopped grabbing boxes inside the moving truck, put her elbows on a stack, and rested her chin on her hands. Flatly, she said, “Gee, Mom, tell me the story about the night I was born. I'll start you off. It was eight o'clock, and the double-length pre-finale episode of Wicked Wives had just started on TV.”
“You've heard this story before?”
She rolled her eyes and continued, “You'd just heard about this internet thing called blogging, so you were live-blogging your reactions to the episode as it aired, and adding in color commentary about your labor pains. At first you were joking, but then you started having real contractions. People were commenting on your blog, arguing about whether you should go to the hospital or fill a kiddie pool with water and go for it at home with your webcams running.”
“Don't stop now,” I said. “This is where it gets funny. You left out the pizza delivery guy. He's the one who helped me get the furniture rearranged.”
Zoey's expression went blank as she stared over my head, at something or someone behind me.
A man with a rich, deep voice said, “You're Zara the Camgirl?”
I turned around slowly. “I'm just Zara now. My Camgirl days are over.”
“Chet Twenty-one,” the man said. He had eyes. I assumed. And possibly a face. A body would have been holding everything up, probably. All I saw was eyes. The greenest of green, with glints of silver and gold.
“You have the nicest green eyes,” I said. “Who are you?”
“I'm Chet Moore. I live next door to you, in the blue house with the goat on the roof. Chet Twenty-one was my internet alias back in the day. I'm sure you don't remember me. You had hundreds of regulars who'd post on your blog.”
I had a box in my arms, so I jabbed my chin over my shoulder in the direction of Zoey. “That charming redhead is not my sister,” I said. “She's my daughter. She says whenever I meet a cute guy, I always pass her off as my younger sister, but it's not true. I hardly ever do that. Besides, if you followed my blog, you saw me go into labor with her, so you'd never believe me anyway.”
He grinned. He had teeth. Eyes and also teeth. Just like a human being!
Chet said, “You're staring at me. Is there something on my face?”
“Nope. It's just that you're cuter than a ladybug picnic. I'd shake your hand like a normal neighbor, but I've got a box in my arms.”
“A box full of XL PMS sweatpants, if the label on the front is to be believed.”
“Once a month, I balloon up to three times my size,” I told him solemnly.
“At least you're prepared.”
“That's a joke,” I said. “I put funny labels on all the boxes to make moving more fun.” I shook the box, which made a non-sweatpants-like clattering sound. “These are actually pots and pans.”
“So, the box your daughter is holding is not full of Nun-Chuks and Nun Habits?”
“No, but you could use the contents to make those things. It's craft supplies, mostly yarn and a selection of glues. Plus those googly eyes that turn any object into a Disney character.”
“You should fit right in here on Beacon Street,” he said. “Welcome to the neighborhood. We should probably shake hands now.”
I jiggled the box in my arms. “I'll be done moving in about an hour.”
He took my box from me, shuffled it to one strong-looking arm, and shook my hand.
“It's official,” he said. “I now pronounce us neighbors.”
“Neighbors,” I repeated. “Til death do us part.”
He abruptly jerked his hand away from mine.
From the back of the moving truck, Zoey groaned, “Oh, Mom.”
“Sorry,” I said to Chet. “That was in poor taste, considering your previous neighbor just passed away. I didn't know her, but I'm sure she was a lovely woman.”
“It's fine,” he said. “Let me give you a hand with these last boxes.”
“We Riddle women can do it ourselves. We're way tougher than we look and we've done everything for ourselves for sixteen years. Plus there are two burly men around here somewhere, and they're supposed to be helping. I'm not paying them the big bucks to defile my two and a half bathrooms.”
“I insist,” Chet said. “Many hands lighten the load. You'll be saving me time because I won't need to hit the gym today.” He set the box on the edge of the moving truck and reached up to offer his hand to Zoey.
“Chet Moore,” he said. “Let me wish you an early happy birthday, Zoey. It seems like only yesterday I saw you smashing your very first chocolate cake with your baby fists.”
“That was on the internet,” she said coolly. “You don't know me.” She didn't shake his hand.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Stack a couple more boxes on here, would you?”
She did, and he left for the front door without another word.
I turned and gave my daughter The Look.
She rolled her eyes.
I ignored her and savored the moment. Our new life lay before us, the pages fresh and unwritten, awaiting discovery like a brand-new journal.
In just a few short hours, my sixteen-year-old daughter would be in the kitchen with me, swearing up and down that our lovely new house—with its gingerbread trim, triple-lancet attic window, and cast iron clawfoot tub—had a ghost.
Chapter 2
“I totally saw a ghost upstairs in the attic,” Zoey said.
“Very funny,” I said.
“The opposite of funny,” she said gravely. “There's a ghost in this otherwise-perfect house. I guess we'll have to move back home to our old life.”
“Already? But we just said goodbye to everyone, and they threw us that party. We should just stay here to avoid the awkwardness.”
She sighed and rested her elbows on the kitchen island. “Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but wouldn't it be cool if there was a ghost? I've always wanted something cool to happen to me, to make me less boring.”
I stopped my food preparation and circled around the kitchen island to give her a hug. She grunted and tried to escape, but I wrestled her into my embrace using a combination of tickling and brute strength.
Once she'd calmed down, I kissed the top of her strawberry-blonde head. “You're not boring, Zoey. You excel at everything you try. You're brilliant, and you're the best daughter in the whole universe.”
She sighed. “You're just saying that to boost my confidence and make me feel secure and happy.”
“Stop decoding my motherhood skills and just enjoy them.”
She snuggled in and hugged me back.
An idea took hold of me so suddenly, I threw open my arms and spun her out of my embrace like a ballerina. “Let's throw a housewarming party!”
“For all of the many people we know in this town?”
“Good point. We need more prospects.”
“I might make a new friend or two at school, but I won't bring them over unless you promise not to embarrass me.”
“I never make promises I have no intention of keeping.”
She groaned.
I rolled a ripe tomato across the kitchen island at her. “Chop that,” I said. “Don't slice it or wedge it. We're making chopped salad for dinner, and everything has to be chopped.”
“Since when do we eat salad? Maybe this house is magical. We've only been living here five hours and you're like a whole different person.”
“We're making a fresh start,” I said. “We get to completely reinvent ourselves. I'll be the mom who goes to Pilates and makes salads instead of licking the icing off ten-day-old cupcakes. Why don't you try something new? You could dye your hair cobalt blue and be the new freaky kid at your school. What's the dress code there? You should borrow my leather bustier and those boots you won't let me wear in public.”
“Gross,” she said.
“Live a little,” I said.
She wrinkled her nose and started chopping the tomato in the Riddle Family tradition—two hands on the knife handle, safely away from the blade. Both of us suffered from a vegetable-slicing phobia. She got it from me, and I got it from TV and movies. Outside of cooking shows, every time someone on-screen is shown chopping vegetables, they cut themselves. Okay, not every time, but often enough that whenever you see the knife and carrots, you tense up because you know something's coming, right?
Zoey finished chop-smashing the tomato. “I'll wear your chunky boots,” she said. “But everything else is going to be normal.”
“Make a bunch of new friends so they can come to the housewarming party. Speaking of new friends, I wonder what our realtor, Dorothy Tibbits, is up to?”
“Something nutty, I bet. The woman dresses up like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz even though she's practically sixty.”
“But her face is barely forty,” I said. “And sure, she smells like incense and camping gear, and she talks to your eyebrows rather than looking you in the eyes, and she's just terrible at her job, but she seems nice enough.”
“Super,” Zoey said with the exact opposite of enthusiasm. “Dorothy and her Botox face can be your new best friend.”
Lightly, I added, “Or maybe Chet Moore, from next door. He's not horrible.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Turbo-flirter.”
I pretended to be hurt by the label of Turbo-flirter. Can I help it if I don't like small talk? What's the point in talking about nothing when you can dig into something good? I love asking people about their bowling experience. You can learn a lot about someone with a topic like that, or, really, any question, as long as you're listening.
Zoey said, “I can see the appeal of Mr. Tall Dark and Green Eyes, but isn't he too normal for you?”
“The man's got a goat on his roof.”
“But not a real goat. It's just a decoration on a weathervane. Besides, the inside of his house is colossally normal. I can see right in through his windows.”
“Have you been spying on our new neighbors?”
“They started it,” she protested. “There's a little boy with dark hair and big eyes. He was watching me from his window the whole time I was unpacking my room. The way the houses are lined up, he can see right in. I felt like a monkey in the zoo.”
“Do you want to switch rooms? There are more to choose from. I want you to be happy. We moved here as much for you as for me. We both wanted this.”
“Mom, stop being such a mom.” She turned her head. “Shh.”
Something thumped somewhere in the house.
Her pale blue eyes widened with fright. “The ghost,” she breathed. “I told you so, and I take back what I said about my eyes playing tricks on me. We're being haunted.”
“Maybe it's a friendly ghost,” I said with a shrug.
She shook her head and pulled out her phone. She frowned at the screen for a few minutes before announcing, “This website says we need to go into every room and clap and sing really loud, to scare the ghost away. It's probably the old lady who used to live here. What if she doesn't know she's dead? What if she climbs into bed with me and screams because she thinks I'm the ghost?”
I couldn't stop smirking at her paranoia. “Did you say we should sing? But people adore my singing. That won't drive anyone away.”
My daughter rolled her eyes.
Whatever it was that made the first noise, it thumped again.
Zoey shrieked and threw herself into my arms.
It thumped again.
A chill ran up my spine. For the first time in my adulthood, I considered the idea that ghosts were real. And I immediately felt ashamed of myself.
This mess was all my fault. I'd been so impulsive, taking a job in a new town and buying a house all on the same day. Everything had felt right at the time, and I'd trusted my instincts, but now I had a ghost.
What next? I was a new homeowner, but I'd wisely held some money back from the deposit to cover maintenance surprises. If the old pipes broke, I'd call a plumber. And if ghosts were real, like really-really real, then by the same logic there'd have to be a whole industry of people around to deal with them. I'd simply consult the internet and call in a spiritual medium, or a priest, or an exorcist.
There was another thump, followed by a crash. It sounded like dishes breaking.
“The ghost is in the den now,” Zoey said, her voice and body quivering.
“Which room is the den?”
“The one with the smaller of the two fireplaces,” she said.
“We have two fireplaces?”
The crash was followed by rustling noises. Zoey buried her head in my shoulder and whimpered.
“Maybe a cat or a wild animal climbed in a window,” I said. “Ghosts aren't real.”
“It could b
e a zombie,” she said.
“Now you're just going through monsters willy nilly. Next you'll say Frankenstein's Monster is in the den.”
“Don't let it eat our brains,” she said with a giggle. At least she was laughing through her fears. Having a good sense of humor helps in almost any situation.
With my daughter attached to me, I grabbed a broom and walked us both out of the kitchen and toward the den, which was a cozy room I planned to turn into a home library.
The den was empty.
There were no zombies or monsters or animals present, but the welcome gifts from the real estate agent had fallen off the fireplace mantle. The leafy fern was now a pile of shattered clay, dirt, and smashed greenery. Next to it lay the shredded remains of a welcome basket and scented bath products.
Zoey crouched over the mess and sniffed. “Smells like vetiver oil,” she said. In answer to my unspoken question she explained, “Vetiver is a grass from India.”
I sniffed, smelling something partway between sandalwood and citronella, deep and woody, but also sweet, like a high-end cologne. As I breathed deeply, a calm feeling washed over me. A vision of neighbor Chet flashed in my mind. He wasn't wearing a shirt in this vision. Whatever this vetiver was, I liked it.
Zoey gathered the bath products, examining them closely. “None of these are open,” she said. “Where's the smell coming from?”
“Your butt,” I said with a laugh.
Your butt was one of our favorite answers to dumb questions.
Where are my keys? Check your butt.
Am I forgetting anything? You forgot your butt.
What time are you coming home? Ask your butt.
In a serious tone, Zoey said, “The ghost smashed our welcome gifts.”
“There's no such thing as ghosts. Look at the slope on this mantle.” I patted the wood. “Every time those big mover guys went up and down the stairs, they sent vibrations through the house until this stuff slid off.”
Since I had a broom in my hands anyway, I began sweeping the dirt into a pile.
“But we were in the kitchen just now, not on the stairs,” she said. “Someone or something pushed these things off the ledge.”
Wisteria Witches (Witch Cozy Mystery and Paranormal Romance) Page 1