Wisteria Wrinkle

by Angela Pepper

  “Yes.” She blinked at them with her honey-brown, wide-set eyes. Her eyes were so similar to Liza’s that looking at her was like seeing Liza in movie special-effects makeup and a white wig.

  “Can you tell us about those days?” Zinnia asked.

  “I was there when they built the place,” she said. “When all of the exciting things happened.”

  Margaret slipped into the chair next to the bed and leaned in close. “What kind of exciting things?” Margaret couldn’t conceal her excitement. “Do you mean flying things that look like bats but aren’t bats because bats don’t glitter?”

  “A few of those,” Queenie said. “Mostly people saw ghosts. Especially the fellows working on the third floor.”

  Zinnia asked, “Did anyone get hurt?”

  “Goodness, no. Ghosts don’t hurt the living, dear.”

  Ghosts didn’t hurt the living? Margaret and Zinnia exchanged a look. They both knew otherwise.

  Margaret said, “What about the construction manager, Angelo Wakeful? What can you tell us about him?”

  Queenie’s eyes lit up. She pushed herself so she was more upright in the bed. “Angelo was a wonderful man. He was a handsome one, all right! If my friend hadn’t fallen for him, I might have...” Her expression clouded over. “If she hadn’t loved him, I suppose I might have, and then everything would have been ruined. If she hadn’t crossed over...” She broke into a coughing fit.

  Zinnia poured a glass of water from the nearby pitcher and handed it to Queenie. The elderly woman struggled to get the water down, but seemed eager to continue the conversation.

  She licked her lips and said, “Angelo was just mad about my friend, Diablo.”

  “That’s such an unusual name,” Margaret said. “We read in some old log books that one day a beautiful blonde showed up on the construction site, from out of nowhere. No memory and no idea who she was. She picked her own name and called herself Diablo. What did you mean about her crossing over? Do you know where she came from?”

  Queenie’s eyes twinkled. “Far away,” she whispered. She straightened up even more, and craned her neck to look behind them. “Is he with you? Did you bring him?”

  Margaret asked, “Who? Are you expecting someone?”

  “The fellow. The one who tries too hard to be handsome,” she said. “You didn’t bring him? But we’re running out of time!”

  The witches exchanged a look. They knew one man who tried too hard to be handsome—their coworker, Gavin Gorman.

  Zinnia asked, “Are you talking about Gavin Gorman? He’s someone we work with.”

  Queenie’s dry fingers rustled as she made a snapping gesture. “That’s the name. Yes, I believe he’s the one.”

  The witches exchanged another look.

  Zinnia asked, “The one who does what? Is Gavin responsible for the recent events at City Hall?” If this mess was all Gavin’s doing, Zinnia was going to cut off her supply of the gnome’s favorite potions. If there was one thing she hated, it was being used and getting played for a fool!

  Queenie’s eyes kept twinkling. “You don’t know,” she said playfully. “You don’t know, and I’m not allowed to tell. It would mess up everything. Diablo made me promise. It’s all part of the Big Plan.”

  Margaret turned to Zinnia and said flatly, “She doesn’t want to tell us. Don’t you hate it when people won’t tell us stuff?” She gave Zinnia a double eyebrow raise. “Perhaps we’ll have to sit here for a spell and see if she changes her mind after a spell.” More unsubtle eyebrow raises.

  “We ought not,” Zinnia said, giving Margaret a stern look. They couldn’t responsibly cast any spells on a woman whose health was already so fragile. Not even a relatively harmless bluffing spell. All spellwork had side effects, which could put a strain on the body of both its spellcaster and recipient. Witches were highly resilient, so they barely felt it, but a strongly worded spell could kill the frail woman sitting in the hospital bed.

  Queenie tilted her head to the side and gave them a curious look. “Why are you asking about Diablo and Angelo? Have you two found my key?”

  The witches asked in unison, “What key?”

  Queenie coughed some more, then looked around the room, her curiosity replaced with confusion. “Where am I? Who are you?”

  “You’re in a hospital,” Zinnia said. “We’re visitors. We both work with your granddaughter, Liza.”

  Queenie wrinkled her nose. “I don’t have a granddaughter. Stop fooling around, you two. I’m the queen. I’ll have you both executed.”

  Zinnia leaned over and hissed at Margaret, “Did you do something?” She didn’t sense a spell in the air, but Margaret could be sneaky when she broke the rules.

  Margaret gave her an innocent look. “Not this time. I swear. My word is my bond.”

  Zinnia gently asked Queenie, “What were you saying about a key?”

  The white-haired woman gave them both a wide-eyed look as she scrambled backward in her bed, clutching her covers over herself and generally making Zinnia feel like a monster. Her voice trembled along with her hands. “What’s happening? Are you a nurse? Is it time for lunch already?” Her gaze flicked up to someone who was entering the room. It was a nurse, dressed in pink-sherbet-colored scrubs.

  “Two more visitors,” the nurse cooed. “Aren’t you lucky today, Queen Bee!”

  The patient looked around, still visibly rattled. “Who’s Queen Bee? I’m Elizabeth. Everyone calls me Beth.”

  The nurse said to Margaret and Zinnia, “Let’s call it a day, ladies. She might be up for visitors again tomorrow, but our patient needs her rest right now.”

  Zinnia, who was still feeling like a brute, said to the nurse, “We both work with her granddaughter, Liza. I’m afraid Queenie doesn’t know us very well. It’s our fault she’s upset.”

  “It’s still good of you to stop by anyway,” the nurse said. She not-so-subtly nudged them toward the door.

  They left. As they walked down the hallway toward the elevator, Margaret said glumly, “So much for our mission. We didn’t find out anything.”

  “What’s with your mood swings today? Are you having a mid-life crisis?”

  “No.” Margaret pouted and kicked at a stray plastic bottle cap littering the hospital floor.

  “Well, cheer up,” Zinnia said. “Our mission was a success. We found out plenty.” She counted the facts on her fingers. “We saw the mayor here, so we can assume she’s connected. We know that Queenie was friends with the triplets’ grandparents. We know that the strange events of 1955 were concentrated on the third floor. And best of all, we know that there’s a key of some kind. A key that may unlock this whole thing.”

  “I bet Mayor Paladini is already after the key.”

  “So, we’ll just have to get to the key first. What do you think about asking her directly what she knows? We could see if she wants to hitch up to our wagon, so to speak. I mean hitch her wagon to our horse. Is that right? I’m so sleep deprived. Anyway, maybe she wants to join forces with us. Just me, you, and Cruella De Vil.”

  Margaret squealed in horror.

  Chapter 11

  After leaving the hospital, Margaret and Zinnia went for lunch at Kin Khao, then picked up some groceries before returning to Zinnia’s house. Margaret was planning to stay overnight again, which was fine with Zinnia. Perhaps they would get to the root of Margaret’s mid-life crisis.

  Later that afternoon, Zinnia spoke to her great-niece, Zoey, on the phone. Zinnia was surprised to hear that the teenager’s mother would also be attending a sleepover that night—with the two Wakeful gorgons, Chloe and Charlize.

  Upon hearing the news, Zinnia felt a pang of jealousy. Charlize had been her friend first, not Zara’s! Had it been so easy for Charlize to cast aside Zinnia for the younger model of Riddle? As Zinnia considered her petty emotions, she suddenly felt empathy for poor Margaret. No wonder Margaret’s nose had been out of joint. The same thing had happened to her.

  Zoey said into t
he phone, “You don’t think they’ll turn her into stone, do you?”

  “If they’d wanted to, they would have done so by now. They’re both very powerful women. They don’t need to invite someone over for a sleepover before stoning them.”

  “I think you may be right, Auntie Z.” There was a clinking sound. “At least we found out the secret behind all those tiny pebbles we kept finding in the back yard. The ones that look exactly like hornets.”

  “Gorgon pest control,” Zinnia mused. “Where did you say this sleepover is taking place?”

  “At the coma lady’s house. I haven’t seen it, but Mom says it’s an adorable cottage that sits behind one of the sisters’ houses.”

  “Since you seem worried about your mother’s safety, I ought to stop by and check on her,” Zinnia said. She could also question the gorgons about their grandparents and what exactly happened back in 1955.

  Zoey gasped. “Don’t do that! I shouldn’t have even told you she was going. Mom will kill me if she finds out I blabbed to you. Well, not kill me, because she’s a pretty good mom, but she’ll make that face.”

  Zinnia knew the face. It was the universal I’m-so-disappointed-in-you parental expression that induced shame without fail.

  Zinnia really wanted to ask the gorgons about their ancestors as soon as possible, but she didn’t want to humiliate her entire family by showing up to a party uninvited. It was a shame she hadn’t been included, but she had only herself to blame. If only she’d accepted her niece’s Friday invitation to the post-scuba-lesson gathering, she might have been invited to the next social event. She’d made her own bed, so to speak. Zinnia resolved to try being more flexible about socializing.

  “What are you doing tonight?” Zoey asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Zinnia looked across the living room at Margaret, who was sprawled across the couch, fast asleep. “I have a few options,” she said.

  “You could come over and watch scary movies with me. Nothing with gorgons, though.”

  Zinnia frowned at Margaret. Even unconscious and snoring, the woman was effectively blocking Zinnia from spending more time with the family members that Margaret was so jealous of. Two points for Margaret.

  “I shall have to take a rain check,” Zinnia said. As she spoke, she received one of her rare distant premonitions. In the vision, she was staying at the other Riddles’ residence, the Red Witch House, and cooking dinner with Zoey while Zara was... the vision was less clear, but Zara seemed to be in a hot tub with two other women. “Is your mother planning a spa weekend soon?”

  “Not that she’s told me about, but I could see that happening. Thanks to Mom’s Mr. Finance Wizard ghost, I think there’s more money in our budget these days.”

  “That’s wonderful news,” Zinnia said, keeping her tone cheerful to cover for her revulsion at the ghosts having so much influence in Zara’s and Zoey’s lives. “And how are you? Any changes?”

  “If you are referring to the W word, the answer is a resounding...” She made a raspberry sound with her tongue.

  Zinnia thought about her great-niece’s lack of witchcraft powers. They still hadn’t manifested, and her sixteenth birthday had been months ago. Zinnia’s feelings on the matter were mixed. On the one hand, she wanted Zoey to be a witch so that they had more in common. On the other hand, the young redhead’s life might be better without magic. Being a witch wasn’t necessarily a fortunate thing in everyone’s eyes. The girl’s own grandmother had renounced her witchhood, after all.

  Zinnia left Margaret sleeping on the couch and walked upstairs, where she spoke to Zoey a while longer about regular, non-magical matters.

  That Saturday night, Margaret kept Zinnia awake late once again while they pored over Zinnia’s magical reference books. They were looking specifically for information about creatures that came through from other worlds.

  Some of the older books acknowledged that it was, indeed, a thing that happened from time to time, but they gave no information about how to deal with such incursions. The witches did find a diagram for building a surge detector, similar to the one that sat on the bookshelf in Zinnia’s office, softly glowing blue and green. The book stated that when rifts between worlds occurred, the glowfish were part of the first wave of creatures to come through. They could be captured easily, using special traps baited with peanut butter. Zinnia was surprised to find that the glowfish swam through air, not water. What had appeared to be liquid inside the glass globe was actually air.

  Sunday morning, the witches both rubbed sleep sand from their eyes. It was not the typical dried thin mucous, also known as rheum or gound, that might be found in a non-magical person’s eyes. It was actual sleep sand, a magical ointment that refreshed the eyes and attention after a late night of reading.

  While the witches were making breakfast, Zinnia received a phone call from her niece. Zara Riddle excitedly informed her aunt that she’d had a major breakthrough with the Wakeful spirit, and was going scuba diving with some people from her class. Zinnia told her to be careful—not that it would do much good.

  After the phone call, Margaret announced, “I’m ready to meet your niece.”

  “I’m not sure she’s ready to meet you.”

  Margaret snorted and pulled the breakfast quiche out of the oven. Witches didn’t need oven mitts in their kitchen, thanks to their telekinesis powers. Margaret floated the hot pan over to a trivet. Witches still needed trivets to protect their counters.

  “I don’t know what you’re implying,” Margaret said. “I’m utterly delightful.” She sniffed over the dish. “And I do make a lovely quiche.”

  “True,” Zinnia said. “But as soon as Zara meets the whole coven, they’ll inevitably want her to help them with the spirits they encounter. And Zara has so little control over the spirits that already come to her.”

  Margaret frowned thoughtfully as she sent a parade of dishes and utensils sailing around the kitchen, performing a synchronized dance before settling on the table. Margaret enjoyed using as much levitation as possible whenever she was away from her family. The children’s father had no supernatural abilities, and so far nothing had manifested in the children. They were all blissfully in the dark about magic. When it came to matters of marriage and secrecy, and whether or not a witch told her spouse about her powers, opinions were mixed. It was up to the individual. Margaret had chosen to keep her powers secret from Mike.

  The toaster popped, and Margaret made it appear as though the toaster had ejected the toast in a perfect arc aimed at the side plates. The quiche itself had a hearty crust, but Margaret had insisted they needed extra carbohydrates that morning. She sounded a bit like Gavin Gorman, with all his talk about macronutrient ratios, except Gavin would never double up on carbs.

  “Such a shame about your niece’s specialty,” Margaret said finally. “I wish I had a solution, but there’s not much a witch can do to protect herself once the spirits know they have a way in.”

  “Not much, no, but I have been working on something.” Zinnia retrieved a jar from her hidden cupboard and set it in front of Margaret as they both took their places at the kitchen table.

  Margaret clapped her hands. “Ooh! Delicious homemade jelly?”

  Zinnia smirked. Despite appearances, the substance in the jar wasn’t delicious homemade jelly. If anything, it was the exact opposite.

  “Don’t put that on your toast unless you want to be sick,” Zinnia said. “It’s actually something I’ve been working on for Zara. I thought of it when I was whipping up the last batch of brainweevil repellent. It should, in theory, block ghosts from infiltrating via the nostrils.”

  Margaret removed the jar’s lid and took a sniff of the gel. She immediately made a retching sound and frantically replaced the lid.

  “That’s nasty,” Margaret choked out. She pinched the tip her nose. “It smells exactly like the stuff you get on dental floss after you’ve skipped flossing for a few days.”

  “As it should. It contains period
ontopathic bacteria from the banded tree-hoppers.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that banded tree-hoppers had teeth.”

  “They don’t,” Zinnia said, making a squeamish face. “It’s extracted from a set of glands.”

  Margaret made more retching sounds.

  Zinnia tightened the lid on the jar and tucked it away again. “I have a few things I can use to lighten the compound. I could turn it a pretty lavender shade, and we all know a pretty color makes everything smell better.”

  “A pretty color can only do so much.” Margaret rubbed her nose. “I can still smell that stuff. Ugh. The molecules are way up in my sinus cavities now.”

  “I’m sorry if I’ve put you off your breakfast.”

  Margaret dropped her hand from her nose. “Nonsense,” she said, reaching for her fork. “I have four children I dine with regularly. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, can put me off my food.”

  It was true. The very next day after Margaret had nearly eaten a brainweevil that resembled a crinkle-cut French fry, Margaret had ordered the same fries for lunch.

  On Sunday night, after Margaret had returned to her own house, Zinnia called her niece to get an update on the scuba diving adventure. It had sounded as though Zara was on a quest to find something at the bottom of the ocean.

  The call went to voicemail.

  Zinnia called her great-niece next. Zoey sounded both deeply concerned about her mother and bored at the same time—the way only a teenager could.

  “She’s doing something tonight with Mr. Moore,” Zoey said.

  “A date?”

  “There’s absolutely no chance of them dating,” Zoey said. “Not since Mom found out about the coma fiancée and all that sneaky stuff.”

  “Good,” Zinnia said.

  “Why? Is there something wrong with Mr. Moore?”

  “Uh...”

  “There’s something wrong with shifters, right? Nobody will come right out and tell me, but I get the sense that witches and shifters don’t play nice together.”