Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 2

by Angela Pepper

  If they only knew the full story. The house had a mind of its own, and had conjured up a guest room without my permission.

  Two blocks later, I stopped abruptly and stared at my hands. The news about my father was still hitting me in waves. I was half shifter. Could my hands turn into paws? If Rhys Quarry was a fox shifter, did that make me less of a witch?

  No wonder Zoey was confused. I was the adult in our relationship, the one who was supposed to have all the answers, and I didn’t even know what we were.

  Chapter 6

  Perhaps I was projecting my own jumbled-up emotions, but the owner of the Thai restaurant looked like she’d also had a taxing day.

  May Meesang stood slumped over the restaurant’s counter, with her cheek propped up on one hand and her elbow on the counter. She didn’t notice me walk in and offer her usual cheery greeting. I couldn’t see her eyes. Either she was staring down at the piles of paperwork on the counter, or she had fallen asleep standing up.

  I cleared my throat and shuffled my feet on the bristles of the restaurant’s welcome mat so as not to startle her. She didn’t move.

  “May, is everything okay?”

  The petite woman startled, her chin falling from her palm and nearly hitting the counter before she caught herself. She looked up with wide eyes and flashed me a welcoming smile.

  “Zara! Everything is okay now that you’re here.”

  I looked down to see what she’d been snoozing over. It was a pile of half-opened mail.

  “Lots of bills in there,” I said. “A stack that big would put me to sleep, too.”

  May groaned and pushed the pile aside. She got a mischievous look and kept patting the edge of the stack, like a cat in a funny internet video, until the papers fell off the edge of the counter and into a drawer she’d opened with her other hand.

  As I watched this, I remembered the description I’d gotten from the veterinarian’s assistant. Fatima said that a petite Asian woman with short hair had paid for the bill. She’d been staring at the poster for a Siamese cat, but she could have been describing May.

  May had a triangular face with a pointed chin, and small, wide-set eyes that were probably naturally brown underneath her blue contact lenses. She’d shaved her head a few weeks back in support of a family member going through an illness. Her dark locks had grown back quickly in an adorable pixie cut with a spiky tuft on the crown from her swirling cowlick. She was a few years older than me, but the cut made her look as young and energetic as a teenaged skateboarder.

  As I wondered about this, she leaned sideways to look behind me. “Where is your daughter?”

  “At home.”

  May straightened up and looked right at me. “You two must have had a fight.”

  “How did you know? May, are you a psychic?” I gave her a playful, sidelong look.

  “Your child is sixteen, and she’s full of fire, like her mother and her great-aunt. It doesn’t take psychic powers to make a lucky guess.” She closed the drawer containing her mail with a solid shove.

  “That’s a good trick,” I said, nodding at the now-clean counter. “I leave my mail on a hall table so it can give me dirty looks when I accidentally make eye contact.”

  May ran her small finger across the fringe of dark hair along her brow.

  “The mail isn’t so bad these days,” she said.

  “How’s your cousin?”

  “Very good, thank you.” She clasped her hands together girlishly. “In fact, my cousin is doing so well that I want to celebrate by going dancing, but my husband is such a mean grump.” She frowned dramatically. “He won’t take me. He doesn’t like my hair this way. He says I look like a little boy.” She flicked at the spiky tuft at her crown. “I wish someone would talk some sense into him.”

  I laughed. Was she just making conversation, or did May believe I could convince her husband to take her dancing? Her small blue eyes twinkled at me knowingly.

  I kept thinking about the vet assistant’s description, and how well it matched both the Siamese cat and May. The woman’s family was from Thailand, which had been known as Siam prior to 1939.

  May tapped a blue ballpoint pen on a pad of paper. “Ordering takeout tonight? If you bring that fiery daughter of yours some Kai Pad Med Mamuang Himmapan, that sour teen attitude of hers will turn so sweet.”

  “Can’t hurt,” I said with a smile. “How’s your day been? Did you get up to anything interesting?”

  “That depends on if you would call shopping for spices and preparing marinades interesting. How about you?”

  “Just librarian stuff, plus a few trips to a vet clinic.” I watched her for a reaction.

  She handed me a takeout menu. “Sounds expensive. I didn’t know you had a pet.”

  “Me, neither.”

  Someone in the kitchen attracted May’s attention with a question. I looked over the menu, and when she returned, I ordered way more food than three people could eat, as usual. I didn’t know what my father liked, but I figured chicken was a safe bet. Foxes love to snatch farmers’ chickens—at least if children’s picture books are to be believed.

  “No rush in the kitchen,” I said. “Zinnia’s meeting me here for a visit so I can fill her in on the latest family drama.”

  May winked in her friendly way. “I’ll get two tall glasses of Thai iced tea ready. Take a seat anywhere you’d like.”

  I walked into the Thai restaurant’s small dining area and chose a table for two in a quiet corner. I would be able to cast a privacy bubble spell while my aunt and I talked, but I still retained my normal human instinct to seek privacy the regular way. And for good reason. There was no need to attract the attention of people who might wonder why they could see our lips moving yet not hear our words. Smart witches keep a low profile and try not to attract attention. Parading around town with a live fox on one’s shoulders is a good example of what not to do.

  Zinnia arrived at the same time as the milky, sweet Thai iced tea.

  I jumped up from my chair and gave her a hug. She didn’t so much hug back as receive the hug neutrally, as was typical for my aunt. As I took my seat again, I recalled telling my father to go hug himself. I could have been nicer, but in my defense, it had all been such a shock.

  Zinnia cast the sound bubble spell and gestured for me to go ahead. I filled her in on everything that had happened with my father, starting with his surprise phone call a few weeks earlier.

  When he’d called, I’d reacted poorly to hearing his voice. The first thing I’d done was demand to know how he’d gotten my new phone number. My human defenses must have been on high power due to my grocery store interaction with Chet Moore, and I’d taken it out on my father.

  Did he deserve such poor treatment? I’d been much nicer a few months earlier, when I’d needed something from him. That probably painted me in a bad light.

  Why did I feel how I did? Why did hearing his voice or seeing his face make me tense with anger? My heart told me I couldn’t trust Rhys Quarry, yet my head wasn’t so great at putting it into words.

  “It’s a complicated situation,” Zinnia said sagely. “Sometimes the past is a ghost who takes up residence in the dark closets of your mind.”

  I tapped my forehead. “This place gets a bit crowded sometimes.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “At least you’ve solved the mystery of the fox.”

  I gave her a suspicious look. “You knew,” I said. “You already knew who it was, because you’ve always known my father was a fox.”

  She gazed into my eyes and tapped her fingers on the table. She was a mirror of me, reflecting my suspicious expression right back. Zinnia was only sixteen years older than me, the same gap as between me and my daughter. Most people mistook us for sisters. Some even took us for twins, which she pretended not to take delight in. She and I had the same thick, red, wavy hair, the same hazel eyes, and the same pale, slightly temperamental skin. But she had an air of old-fashionedness that made me think of her as bein
g a full generation older than me. She didn’t swear, not unless you considered floopy doop as a curse.

  “You knew,” I repeated, my voice tinged with accusation. “You knew about Rhys, and you never told me. This explains what’s happening with Zoey. Or, should I say, what’s not happening with Zoey.”

  Zinnia’s mirror-like reflection of me softened as she sighed. She spoke softly. “How long?”

  I held up my hands. “How long? Uh, since forever and always?”

  “No,” she said crisply. “I mean how long will it take you to forgive me for my sins of the past and stop accusing me of keeping secrets every time something new presents itself in your life?”

  I frowned. The sweet taste of the milky tea in my mouth turned cloying.

  “Floopy doop,” I said. “Now you’re angry, too.”

  “I am?”

  “Now everyone’s ticked off at me. First Zoey, now you. I can’t win. I knew it, right away this morning, that I was being tested. I just didn’t think it would be like this.”

  “Stop talking nonsense,” she said. “I can see you’re upset, Zara. You haven’t even said a single word about my new vest, so I know it’s serious.”

  “Your vest!” The mention of her clothing was as good as a slap on the face. I did a cartoonish double take and took in her outfit. “Does the Rose Petal Tea Room know you’ve stolen their curtains?”

  She swirled her milky tea with a long-handled spoon before taking a delicate sip.

  “No, wait.” I snapped my fingers. “That’s the chintz fabric from their seat cushions. From the one by the window seat for two.”

  “For someone who claims not to love florals, you certainly have a knack for spotting pattern similarities.” She took another sip and set the glass down an inch closer to me than it had been before. “Now that we’ve gotten your tantrum out of the way, let me assure you, whether you believe it or not, I had no idea your father was a supernatural being.”

  “Fair enough. I know you and my mother weren’t very close, and she and my father could barely tolerate being in the same room together. She would grit her teeth nonstop on the mornings she handed me off to him for the annual daddy-daughter day.” I made the gagging face I always did whenever I heard or said the phrase daddy-daughter day.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Zinnia said. “That must have been very hard for you.”

  I rolled my eyes, the way I do when someone uses those therapist-approved empathy-handbook phrases on me. That must have been very hard for you. Ugh. I wanted to be heard, not managed.

  “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

  “I was looking at the ceiling. A person can still look at the ceiling, right?”

  In a patronizing tone, Zinnia said, “You’re smart enough to make the best out of whatever life throws at you, Zara.”

  I opened my mouth to say something cranky but stopped myself. She was sounding an awful lot like how I’d sounded back in Zoey’s bedroom. And I was sounding a lot like a petulant teenager.

  “Sorry for acting like such a ding-dong,” I said, bowing my head. “Rhys brings out the worst in me, but you bring out the best in me, which is why I both need you and appreciate you.”

  “Apology accepted. What do you need?” She reached for her purse.

  I eyed her purse, which I knew regularly contained enough narcotics to knock out a full-grown man.

  “That depends. What are you offering?” I licked my lips. “Do you have anything that will knock me out until the family reunion is over?”

  She made a tsk-tsk sound and pulled out her phone. She didn’t usually check messages in front of me, which meant she was excited or worried about something. I remembered her mentioning the associate who was late for their meeting that morning.

  “How’s your friend?” I asked. “You were worried about the lady who grows the eleven secret herbs and spices. Any news?”

  Zinnia frowned at the phone and then returned it to her purse.

  “Well, she’s not dead,” she said.

  “Is that what you tell people when they ask about me?”

  She fought a smile, but the smile won. “Sometimes.” She waved her hand between us. “Don’t worry about Tansy. She’s always getting herself into trouble. I have a feeling she’s up to something dangerous yet again.”

  “Sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”

  “Soon,” she said. “Back to the issue of Rhys Quarry. While he’s at your house, see if you can’t do a little digging for information.”

  “About shifters?”

  She made a face like she’d eaten something bitter. “No. I mean figure out where your mother’s money went after she passed. I’m not interested for myself, of course, but I did find it unfair that you and Zoey didn’t get anything substantial.”

  “Mom died broke. She spent her last penny on those experimental treatments that didn’t pan out.”

  Zinnia raised one eyebrow. “You would do well to treat everyone with the same suspicion with which you treat me.”

  A smiling man with a shaved head approached our small table. “And what are you two whispering about over here?”

  Zinnia and I both popped the bubble spell at the same time.

  “We’re talking about you, August,” I said. “Why won’t you take your lovely wife dancing? Are you too embarrassed to be seen with May and her little-boy haircut?”

  August, who was far too nice to deserve such harassment from me, wrung his hands together nervously.

  “No, no,” he said. “It’s the opposite. With her hair cut that way, May looks ten years younger. Me, I have two left feet and no rhythm. If I take her out dancing, someone’s going to steal her away from me.”

  I looked across the table at Zinnia and raised my eyebrows. “Should I do my best to convince this man to take his wife out dancing?” Using magic, I implied with a knowing look.

  She pressed her fingers to her chin then nodded, giving me the go-ahead to use magic.

  I silently cast one of the “bread and butter” witch spells I’d learned—the one for bluffing. I’d learned a number of new spells in the last few weeks, but Zinnia’s prediction about the Pareto Principle held true. Eighty percent of the time, you only had use for the same basic spells.

  Once the spell sparkled to show it was active, it only took me a minute to convince August he should take his wife dancing.

  After he walked away, Zinnia complimented me on my speed and accuracy.

  “Not bad for a novice,” I said with a shrug.

  “You’re no longer a novice,” she said. “I’m happy to see you gaining more control over all of that raw power.”

  A moment later, we heard May shrieking. We both turned to see her throwing her arms around her husband’s shoulders.

  “August was an easy one,” I said. “Deep down, he wanted to go.”

  I watched the happy couple together. When I returned my attention to Zinnia, she was staring blankly past me. I turned to follow her gaze. There was only a wall and some simple posters of Thailand.

  “Hello?” I waved my hand in front of Zinnia’s face.

  Nothing.

  The color drained out of her lips, making them as white as her face. The effect was startling.

  I reached across the table and grasped both of her shoulders, shaking her gently. “Aunt Zinnia?”

  Her white lips parted, and she said with a croak, “The bones. Spit out the bones.” The voice was not her own.

  I shook her harder. “What?”

  Her lips gradually turned pink again, and she tilted her head as she looked at me curiously. I released her shoulders and leaned back in my chair. I glanced around the half-full restaurant. Nobody was staring—not openly, anyway.

  I recast the sound bubble spell and described to her what had just happened.

  “It’s probably nothing,” she said. “I get these snippets sometimes. When you cast a spell, it opens a crack, and other things leak through.”

  “Things from the o
ther side?”

  She waved her hand. “More like the crackle you get on your car radio when there’s another signal nearby.”

  “Do you think it came from May?” I relayed my suspicion that the restaurant owner might have been the one who paid the veterinary bill.

  Zinnia explained that she’d known May and August for a few years, and she doubted they had anything to do with magic.

  “It was merely a blip,” she said. “They increase in strength as you get older, and during certain phases of the moon.”

  “Like PMS,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Oh, Zara. You have such a way of putting things.”

  “What does ‘spit out the bones’ mean?”

  “Zara, if I knew, I would tell you.” She blinked her hazel eyes twice. “Honestly.”

  Chapter 7

  “Is this all the food you got?”

  My father raised one rusty red eyebrow and gave me a rubbery smirk. I was reminded of the German compound word backpfeifengesicht, translated as a face in need of a fist.

  I shook my head and continued setting the table with our best dishes; the plates were different sizes, but all were the same shade of white.

  “We can always order more,” I said in a high, stretched-thin voice. “Let’s see how we do with all of this first.”

  “My eyes may be a touch bigger than my stomach,” he joked.

  “I’m starving,” Zoey said. “I could eat all of this myself. I wonder what you’ll eat, Pawpaw?”

  He held his hands up in a paw-like gesture. “Juicy field mice.” He licked his lips with an irritating smacking sound. “Have you ever eaten juicy field mice? They’re delicious.” He lowered his voice to nearly a whisper. “But there’s just one problem with juicy field mice. And do you know what that is, Zozo?”

  Zoey leaned toward him on her chair, hanging on his every word. “No. What?”

  In a high-pitched voice he declared, “They wriggle around in your tummy!” He lunged forward with his paw-like hands and tickled my sixteen-year-old’s sides playfully.