I winked right back. It felt good to have my situation envied, even if the admirer had it all wrong.
Chet returned to his seat, dug into his melting sundae with renewed vigor, and asked, “How long is your father sticking around for?”
“I don’t know.” I’d been licking my ice cream slowly to make it last. Why must unpleasant things always take so long while good ice cream is practically over before it starts?
With a casually upbeat tone, I asked, “What’s new over at the Moore house?”
“Not much. My house hasn’t shuffled out any new rooms, unlike your place.”
“I meant, how are things with Chessa? Is she recovering from... the incident?”
A darkness overcast his eyes, turning them black. “You mean the incident in which she was held captive and unconscious for a year, having her eggs harvested against her will, as though she was no more than a factory chicken?”
Yeah, that incident.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” I said. “I wouldn’t have asked, except I feel a connection with her. Does she ever talk about her connection to me? I’ve always wondered if it goes both ways.”
“She hasn’t said.”
He kept his eyes on the sundae and ate in silence.
I started biting into my cherries jubilee cone. I’d changed my mind about wanting this moment to last.
He said, “You should have your house talk to my house about this room-shifter stuff. I’d like to get my attic turned into an at-home office. And free sounds like the right price.”
I smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Any new ghosts?”
“Sadly, no,” I said, frowning as I pondered my true feelings as evidenced by my unfiltered response. Sadly, no? I’d sounded disappointed.
“I’m sure another one will be along soon enough.”
“Chet, is it weird that I feel like I’m missing out? I’ve only had one genuine ghost so far. The others were people who weren’t quite dead. I was hoping to get a brand-new one and really do things right, from the start.”
“Like having a second kid.”
I laughed. “Let’s not get crazy.”
“How would you do things differently with a new ghost?”
“I’d try to get more help. I’m told that in their spirit form, they’re just a recording of themselves, basically running their highlight reels, but I don’t believe it. There’s an intelligence present. Perry Pressman helped me renegotiate my mortgage and get thousands of dollars back.”
“You want to monetize your abilities?” He scratched his scruffy chin and furrowed his brow.
“Nothing like that.”
“Why else would you want help from ghosts?”
“I meant help doing whatever it is they’re sticking around for. Help getting them closure.”
“Zara, if you’re lonely, there are plenty of living people around. Don’t try too hard to get close to ghosts. They’ll drag you out of life with them.”
I raised my eyebrows. Was he thinking about my situation or something that was bothering him?
“If there’s a murder that needs solving, getting the victim to communicate directly could be helpful.”
He shrugged. “Some things take time. Don’t rush a process that needs time.”
“Never mind,” I said. “You wouldn’t understand anyway, wolf boy.”
“Fair enough. You’re probably right.” He stared out in the direction of the water.
You’re probably right. What a craptacular way to kill a conversation. It was the most passive aggressive way to say, You’re wrong, while still appearing to be reasonable. It was totally a Chet thing to say, too. I could feel it in Chessa’s residual memories, feel her irritation at him blending with my own.
A moment passed. My annoyance at Chet also passed. It had been a long day, and this moment by the sea was too beautiful to waste on grudges.
He shifted in his seat and said, “In answer to your question about missing out, my answer is no. It’s not weird how you feel. Once you come into contact with such power, it’s hard to care about the things you used to. Everything changes in the blink of an eye once you discover your life’s purpose.”
“My life’s purpose,” I repeated. “For the last sixteen years, I’ve been so focused on surviving from day to day that I haven’t given my life’s purpose a lot of thought.”
“Well, here we are.” He lifted his stubbly chin to point to the sunset hues painting the ocean-side scenery like a watercolor landscape. “A sunset for your deep thoughts.”
He got a wistful look as he stared out over the ocean. The bright light gave his skin an orange hue.
This is new, I thought, watching Chet instead of the pink clouds in the sky. Entirely new.
I searched my memory—including Chessa’s emotional residue—for a memory of this place, and of Chet at this place. I found nothing.
“You never brought Chessa here,” I said.
“It’s out of the way.” He finished his last spoonful of sundae and looked up, locking his eyes on mine. “How did you know that?”
“Lucky guess,” I said, turning to watch the sun’s rays paint the water red.
Chapter 9
After Chet and I finished eating our ice cream and enjoying the sunset, we ordered takeout in insulated pints to bring back to our respective families.
We returned home to Beacon Street in the dark.
Inside my house, I found Rhys and Zoey in the living room, playing a card game. He was teaching her poker. Naturally. I dropped the ice cream off with them and then sequestered myself upstairs to my bedroom—which seemed to have shrunk by a few more inches—to read my book.
I started with a topic I’d experienced firsthand: bookwyrms.
The book confirmed what I’d already learned the hard way about bookwyrms. They love causing mischief. The book had several anecdotes about bookwyrms convincing people to kiss them, which usually resulted in face blackening, paralysis, bladder dysfunction, and memory loss. I’d been fortunate, thanks to my witch strength, to only have my mouth turned black. My coworker Frank had been less fortunate.
Bookwyrms, the editor of the book suggested, might be responsible for some fairy tales, such as the ones in which princesses are convinced to kiss toads and other icky things in search of their prince.
Bookwyrms are creatures who fall somewhere between plant and animal, in a bizarre zone only made possible by magic. You can dry and powder the bookwyrms into dust then add other powders and liquids to form a non-sentient dough that can be used for a variety of purposes. One compound is excellent for removing dried candle wax from textiles and carpets. Another compound restores warts. (Why anyone would want to restore a missing wart is a mystery to me.) However, if a supernatural creature or “dirty witch” lavishes too much praise or affection on a bookwyrm, it can “spoil” and become sentient, which then leads to mischief.
The description of dirty witch made me pause. I wondered if it was a typo. My bookwyrm had become sentient, so did that mean I was dirty in some way?
Zinnia had warned me to be careful with the bookwyrm dough, but she hadn’t given me specifics. The ball of pale-green dough had seemed so innocuous. Had she not known the dangers, or had she intentionally skipped over them? She might have assumed hearing about possible sentience would have made me even more curious. And she would not have been wrong. I mean, really. Who doesn’t love a mischievous pet? Well-behaved creatures aren’t nearly as interesting as naughty ones. The same could be said of humans.
After reading more than I’d ever wanted to know about bookwyrms, it was already two o’clock in the morning. I was getting sleepy, but I’d flipped forward to the section on mammal shifters.
To my surprise, the book contained several sections on shifter etiquette. I thumbed through pages listing all the many taboo subjects you must never broach with your Friendly Neighborhood Shifter. For example, if a shifter is a rideable animal, such as a horse, you must never p
resume that you can ride him or her. And you must not request a shift for entertainment value. The list of What Not To Do was exhaustive. And by my rough count, I’d already broken at least ten of the rules, five of them within hours of discovering Chet was a wolf shifter. I had a chuckle to myself over my blunders. According to the book, the only safe question to ever ask a shifter is, “Would you like some food or drink now?”
On the other hand, the rules for conversing with shifters weren’t vastly different from proper manners. You’d never ask a person to perform a trick, give you a shoulder ride, or explain their mating rituals. Not unless you were very good friends.
One paragraph specific to red fox shifters was particularly interesting:
Red fox shifters, unlike most sensible mammal shifters, do not find witchcraft repugnant. They are morbidly fascinated by redheaded witches in particular. Some academics theorize that the bushier-haired ones remind them of their red-furred mothers and fond memories of the family huddled together inside fox dens. When the distasteful subject of witch-shifter liaisons arise, one must keep one’s pity and curiosity under control. Resist the urge to discuss or even condemn the idea of carnal witch-shifter relations, no matter how revolting.
In spite of my gratitude for the treasure trove of information before me, I found myself despising the person or people who’d put together the book. Who did these people think they were? I checked the front matter. The page glamour kicked in as it did when I turned more than one page, and I was staring at the upside-down listing of the editors of Second Year Intermediate Economics. I relaxed my vision, and the page went blank. No information.
And then I realized, through my sleepy haze, that the back was the front in my upside-down version. I flipped to the other end of the book and relaxed my vision at the appendix.
My view blurred and refocused, and then a single line appeared: Edited by Jorg Ebola.
Jorg. There was no dieresis (double dots) over the letter O. I tried sounding the name in my head. Some people named Jorg pronounced it the same as George, but I had a feeling this particular Jorg had a specific German pronunciation in mind and would correct you if you got it wrong. Jorg was probably pronounced yerg or yerk. Yerk seemed right for someone whose prejudice against witches kept coming up in the text.
I wondered, was Jorg Ebola prejudiced against all witches, or just the particular ones he deemed dirty and revolting? Whoever this editor was, I hoped he was still alive. I wanted to meet up with him some day, wearing my pointiest, witchiest boots, so I could kick him in the shins.
I tried to cross-reference the fox shifter information with witches, but the book had no dedicated section on witchcraft. Were we not considered magical creatures? I was offended about being left out, but perhaps it was for the best. Who knew what hateful things Jorg Ebola had to say in a dedicated section about witches? He probably had another entire volume about us dirty women and our wicked ways.
Eventually, my outrage subsided and sleepiness took over. The text kept blurring into upside-down economics lessons. I continued trying to read. My eyes continued moving while my brain fell asleep somewhere in the midst of a section on chimeras. I fell asleep.
With the book as my hard pillow, I had strange dreams, including one about Steve, the chimera lawyer at the DWM who had the body of a lion and the head of an iguana. In my dream, he was eating all the chairs in my house and then threatening to sue me for “wrongful indigestion.”
Chapter 10
THURSDAY
I’ll say one thing about my new DWM Monster Manual: it’s not much of a pillow.
Even a hot shower didn’t iron out the book-shaped sleep wrinkles on my face.
I left the bathroom wearing a towel and stood at the top of the stairs, listening to Rhys and Zoey downstairs in the kitchen. How unusual to wake up to the sounds of two other people inside my home. And yet it also felt natural. How a family should be. A family with an active male role model, as opposed to the half-family I’d provided for my daughter. Had I already hopelessly screwed her up?
I used magic to tighten the top of my towel-wrap dress while I pushed away my guilt with positive thoughts. Listen to how polite she is. Zoey is turning out great. That’s the proof you’re doing things right. There’s more than one way to make a family.
Laughter floated up the stairs. Pawpaw and his Zozo couldn’t have been getting along better if I’d cast a bluffing spell on them both and declared them best friends. So why was I being such a sourpuss? Why couldn’t I be positive about this reunion? Part of me wanted to play the role of a harried yet blissful mom on a sitcom, smiling through the morning gauntlet, pouring orange juice while nagging about the time. And my father’s visit would go smoother if I could be pleasant toward him. Could I cast a bluffing spell on myself? Could I force myself to be happy?
Downstairs, Zoey kept laughing. “Make a bunny rabbit,” she said breathlessly.
“We could start off with a simple rabbit,” my father replied. “But for the next one, give me something tough, something more worthy of the astounding skills of a Master Pancake Maker.”
“How about a fox jumping over the moon?”
More like a fox selling the moon to the highest bidder. Or a fox shirking any family responsibilities until it’s suddenly interesting or convenient or he needs his side stitched up.
Rhys exclaimed, “Now you’re talking!” There was the clanging of a spoon in a bowl, and then the sizzle of the batter hitting a hot frying pan. Vanilla scent wafted up the stairs. My mouth watered.
I returned to my small bedroom to get dressed. As was my daily routine, I cast a modified book-search spell to have my closet pick out the perfect outfit.
This time, however, my clothes only swayed. The perfect outfit didn’t magically fly out. My spell fizzled out.
I tried the spell again, but again it only fizzled.
When my room had been squeezed, the closet had taken a big hit. My tightly packed clothes could no longer sort themselves at my command. The hangers on the rod could only squeak like frightened field mice.
Using my hands the old-fashioned way, I pried out a striped blouse that had once been part of a clown ensemble—theater costume sales were one of my guilty pleasures—and paired it with a conservative navy pencil skirt.
As I got dressed and combed my hair, I gazed longingly at the new book on my bedside table. I wished I’d been able to read more the night before.
I finished buttoning my striped clown shirt and looked around for a better, more hidden location for my book. Once Zoey left for school and I left for work, my father would be alone in the house, and I didn’t want it to fall into his hands. My closet was packed tight, so I tucked the book into the bedside table’s drawer, along with the nice note that Chet’s coworker Charlize had slipped in for me.
The note read:
Dearest sister Zara,
Don’t fall asleep with your face in this book! It’s so boring. I’ll show you some real action.
Let’s hang out again soon.
Your friend,
Charlize
Her words had turned out to be a prescient warning. I smiled over that and how sweet she’d been to refer to me as her “dearest sister Zara.” I hoped her real sisters, Chloe and Chessa, wouldn’t be jealous.
I closed the drawer. I changed from my navy pencil skirt to the dark-green one. Finally, with nothing else to delay me, I went downstairs for pancakes.
As I entered the kitchen, Rhys yelled out, “Catch!” He lobbed a bottle of syrup at Zoey, who caught it easily.
He turned toward me, grinning like a, well, fox. “Good morning, sleepyhead. Did you fall asleep with your face in a book?”
I rubbed the deep vertical wrinkles on my cheek and grunted one word. “Coffee.”
My daughter was already on the job, serving up a mug for me.
I surveyed the mess in the kitchen. There wasn’t a square inch of counter that didn’t have a dusting of flour or glop of batter. The floor wasn’t any b
etter.
Rhys held up the frying pan to show me a star-shaped pancake. “Zara, does this remind you of anything?”
It did. Years ago, during one of our annual daddy-daughter days, my father arranged for us to get a tour of the back of a fancy hotel’s kitchen. He was buddies with the chef, who was a celebrity figure. This was back in the day before reality TV, when there were only a handful of celebrity chefs.
The chef had treated me like a princess. He promised to whip up anything I could imagine. Since I’d taken an interest in astronomy that month, I asked him to make me “edible stars.” He happily served up star-shaped pancakes along with sliced star fruit, followed by star-shaped ice cream sandwiches made from fresh chocolate cookies and banana ice cream.
I relayed the story to Zoey then asked my father, “How did you know so many influential people?”
“You adored those ice cream sandwiches,” he said, dodging my question. “It might have been the last time I saw you smile.”
I immediately frowned. “Wasn’t that celebrity chef caught up in a big scandal a year later? He wasn’t exactly a good role model for a child.”
“Admit you had fun,” Rhys said. “You had a great time on daddy-daughter days.”
I muttered something unrepeatable under my breath.
“Mom!” Zoey put my coffee mug into my hand. “Drink your coffee, and don’t be mean to Pawpaw. He’s sorry that he wasn’t around much, but that’s all in the past now.”
I shook my head. “Zoey, when you get older and your timeline expands, you’ll figure out the past wasn’t so very long ago.”
“Wise words,” Rhys said in agreement.
I took a seat at the kitchen island and let the coffee get to work.
I noticed Rhys was moving awkwardly, favoring one side while he worked on the pancakes. I wondered how his injury site was healing but didn’t ask. I’d given him the medication, and my house had given him a room. He had been provided with more than he deserved.
My mind floated back to the DWM Monster Manual.
When I got up for my second cup of coffee, I asked my father, “Do you think you were attracted to my mother because her red hair reminded you of happy family cuddles in a fox den?”
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