“Can you do that?”
“Your mother did what she pleased.”
“Yet she was never pleased,” I said. “How ironic.”
My aunt glanced up at the blue sky. “I hadn’t even gotten my powers yet when she decided she was done with hers. Did you know I was a late bloomer?” Zinnia’s voice pitched up girlishly. “I didn’t find out I was a witch until I was nearly seventeen.” She frowned at the sky as she bit at her lower lip. “Not until I nearly killed someone by accident.”
“That must have been awful,” I said.
She looked at me with a tight expression and spoke with bitterness. “My big sister might have seen fit to make the minimal effort to warn me about my own powers before she decided to no longer be a witch.”
“How does one stop being a witch?”
Zinnia looked down at the concrete beneath our feet, at the blades of grass pushing up through the cracks. “It’s not recommended,” she said softly. “There were side effects.” Her eyes flicked up and met mine. “Deadly side effects.”
Her words were like a spell that shot ice water into my veins.
Deadly side effects.
I had to ask. “Is that what killed her?” The doctors had been confused about my mother’s illness, right to the end. Right to her final raspy breaths.
Zinnia didn’t have to answer. The glistening in her hazel eyes told me. My mother’s decision to no longer be a witch had made her sick. It had made her... dead.
I felt a hand on mine. Zinnia held my hand, holding me steady. Everything was happening so fast.
A few moments earlier, we’d been joking around in the kitchen about playing badminton with her perfectly round melon balls, and then we’d stepped out into the yard, and now we were speaking of death. I could smell the disinfectant scent of the hospital, worming its way through my nostrils and into every cell of my body. My hands were funny. I could see Zinnia’s hand on mine, but I couldn’t feel it.
I was turning translucent, turning into a wisp of smoke, turning into a ghost again.
“Your mother did what she thought was best,” Zinnia said, startling me back to the physical realm.
I wasn’t a ghost. I was still there.
A buzzing housefly clumsily flew right into my cheek and bounced away. Why do houseflies do that? What is it about a human being, standing perfectly still, that invites midair collisions? My mind raced through insect trivia. Anything to not be there, the recipient of news I probably should have been sitting down for.
“Zirconia didn’t want anyone to know,” Zinnia said. “She didn’t want anyone to know that it was her choice, her fault.”
From a long way down inside me came my voice. “I thought we were done keeping secrets from each other.”
“We are,” Zinnia said. “You asked me the question, and I answered you honestly.”
I looked down at the grass growing through the cement cracks. She had been honest. She just hadn’t volunteered a bunch of secrets retroactively. Was it fair to hold that against her? Probably not.
“I still don’t understand,” I said with a thick voice. “Was it a spell? A ritual? Or did she just stop using magic one day, cold turkey?” I glanced over at my father, the fox shifter. “Is that why she had a baby with one of his kind?”
“All of that and more,” Zinnia said. The seams of her lips kept sticking together as she talked. Her mouth had gone as dry as mine.
“What a waste,” I said. “What a waste of this beautiful gift.”
Zinnia’s eyes widened. She was surprised by my reaction.
We stared at each other. Her face shifted, the edges losing cohesion as I stared into those eyes that were a perfect mirror of my own except older and wiser.
Zoey ran up and tugged on our hands, urging us to join the garden party before she fainted from hunger.
Zinnia and I both sat in the seats bearing our place cards.
My card bore my full name, written in calligraphy: Zarabella Diamante Riddle. I ran my fingertip over the swirling letters, remembering the sweeter things my mother used to say. One time, when she was tipsy from an afternoon of wine tasting at a fancy vineyard, she made me swear that I would never accept the imitation of anything. Zirconia Cristata Riddle was named after zirconium dioxide, a white crystalline oxide used to make artificial gems, but I was the real thing; I was a diamond, and it said so right in my name.
Had she been talking about my witch powers, or about something else?
It was a shame she’d passed away before I could ask her about any of this.
Zoey chattered away about how much fun she’d had the night before with her grandfather, and how her new friends thought he was the coolest adult they’d ever met.
I passed the food around the table. Zinnia did the same, glancing over at me with a worry line on her forehead that let me know she was equally troubled by our discussion of my mother’s choices.
Such a shame, I kept thinking.
Such a shame Zirconia Riddle couldn’t be with us that Saturday morning in the garden, squeezed in between the overgrown bushes and a gussied-up card table, having brunch with all the people she’d once loved. It had been her choice to leave us, though. Her choice. I respected her decision, and yet I also hated her for it, among other things.
My mother had let us all down.
* * *
“Come with us to the zoo,” Rhys said. “I know one of the zookeepers, and I can get us into the staff-only areas. Don’t you want to cuddle a baby hippo?”
My father and I were currently alone together in the kitchen. We’d been cleaning up from brunch, and I had both hands in hot, soapy water. I was never the most domestic of people, but I found washing dishes by hand surprisingly soothing. For the past few months, I’d used telekinesis for such tasks, so I’d forgotten the mundane pleasures of rinsing bubbles off squeaky-clean glass bowls.
I did not, however, like the idea of sneaking around the non-public parts of a zoo.
“Baby hippos,” he said teasingly.
“No, thanks,” I said. “And you stay away from the staff-only areas with my daughter.”
He made a rubbery innocent face. “But, but, but! These particular baby hippos are pygmy hippos. They get damp and covered in bits of straw. You know the ones. They’re rubbery and wet and the exact opposite of cats.”
“Rhys, I don’t care if the baby pygmy hippos do a circus act with baby giraffes and purple unicorns. Don’t you dare pull your sneaky tricks. Pay the admission, stick to the walkways, and stay out of trouble.”
“Wow.” His rust-colored eyebrows rose even higher. “You sound exactly like Zirconia, telling me to stay out of trouble with you.”
I glowered. “Not that you respected her wishes.” I yanked the plug from the sink, rinsed off my hands, and wiped them on a towel. “Since we’re talking about my mother, can you answer a question for me?”
“Okay, it wasn’t just the one night in the hotel. There were several nights.”
I scrunched up my face. “Not that.” I hung the dish towel on the stove handle to dry. Everything took so much more time without magic. “Why did she stop being a witch?”
He looked me straight in the eyes. “She never told me.”
Too much eye contact. He was lying. “Not even a hint?”
He maintained the intense eye contact. “I would imagine it was the same reason anyone leaves a career or a relationship. The benefits don’t outweigh the costs.” He tilted his head to the side in a foxlike movement. “Haven’t you noticed a few glitches along with your magic powers?”
I paused before answering, careful not to admit to being a witch. “You’re the only glitch around here.”
“A glitch and a witch. What a great duo.” He smiled. “Come with us to the zoo today. We’ll have fun like old times. Remember when you got to ride the racehorse?”
“That actually happened?” I stared at him in disbelief. “Whenever I told people about that, they said I must have confused a drea
m with reality. I can’t believe you let a four-year old ride a galloping horse around a racetrack.”
“It was your idea,” he said defensively.
“I was four!”
“You were a natural rider.” His gold-green eyes twinkled. “And the horse wasn’t a regular horse, anyway. He was an old friend.”
I shook my head. Even a shifter horse was still a horse. “On second thought, maybe you should stick around the house today, where I can keep an eye on you. Watch a nature documentary on the TV. No zoo today.”
Zoey entered the kitchen, heard the tail end of what I’d said, and started whining. “Mom, you promised me we’d go to the zoo. We’ve lived here for months, and we haven’t even gone once. I think it’s important for my education that I experience a broad range of educational activities.”
I snorted. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Mom, I’d never do anything bad. Don’t you trust me?” She widened her eyes and pouted, making the innocent face that scaled her age back to the single digits.
“Fine,” I relented. “Enjoy the zoo with my blessing.”
Zinnia appeared in the entryway to the kitchen. I’d banned her twenty minutes earlier for being bossy. She ducked her head and made a beeline for the microwave. She opened it up and grabbed the plastic dome that she’d bought for us to use when reheating leftovers. Even with all the witchcraft stuff, the state of our microwave interior was a big deal to her.
“Filthy, filthy, filthy,” she exclaimed as she surveyed the crusty interior of the plastic dome. There was a maniacal gleam of excitement in her eyes.
Zoey and I exchanged a knowing look. Together, we’d done a fine job getting an artistic spray of spattered food all over the dome’s interior. Zinnia’s reaction had been worth the effort.
Zinnia made a tsk-tsk sound as she scurried over to the sink with the filthy plastic dome and got to work scrubbing it under the tap. “You do have to clean the plastic thingie on occasion,” she lectured. “Some of this doesn’t even resemble food.” She turned and gave us a suspicious look. “Is this craft glitter?”
I caught Zoey’s eye and held my finger to my lips. The craft glitter was our little secret.
My father smiled as though he’d been in on it all along.
We all watched my aunt scrub the lid. After you’ve eaten your body weight in brunch goodies and the tryptophan coma is setting in, it doesn’t take much action to entertain you.
After a few minutes, Rhys clapped me on the shoulder. “I guess we’ll be on our way. Can I pick up anything for the house while I’m at the zoo?”
“Please don’t bring home any monkeys.”
“I can’t make any promises,” he said, and he turned to go.
Zoey raced along behind him, zigzagging with youthful energy.
Once they were gone, and Zinnia had finished making a big production out of putting the clean plastic dome back inside the microwave, she and I headed upstairs to spend some quality time with my new book.
Unfortunately, my house had other plans.
My bedroom door, which had been cupboard-sized that morning, had become even smaller—way too small for a person, let alone an adult, to squeeze through.
“Oh, dear,” Zinnia said. “Only a Barbie doll could walk through that door.”
“Not without ducking. Barbie is eleven and a half inches tall.” I crouched down and used my hand, which I knew had a span of exactly eight inches, to measure the height of the opening. “Ten inches,” I said, and then, “Doctor, the cervix has dilated to ten inches.” I stood up, grinning. “Get it? Cervix is another word for neck, as in opening.”
Zinnia gave me a quick nod and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “And the book you’ve been calling the Monster Manual is still inside your room, hiding in the closet?”
“It flew right in, like a bat, and started sulking,” I said. “Let’s witch up some spellcraft! Tell me you have a spell to make my house behave. Or a spell to bash a new doorway through the wall. Maybe right here.” I rubbed my hands in eager anticipation. “A magical sledgehammer, if you will.”
She dug around in her purse, pulled out what appeared to be a three-hundred-page paperback mystery novel, and knelt by the room’s entrance. She opened the tiny door with a tiny creak and then pushed through the paperback. As the book disappeared from sight, I heard fluttering, the sound of pages flapping, and then silence. I took a step back and watched for a sign.
The door didn’t get bigger. The wall didn’t open up. The only thing that I noticed was my stomach shifting food around just enough that I considered the possibility I might be hungry again at some point in the future.
After a minute of nothing, I asked, “Is it one of those things that doesn’t happen if you’re watching?”
My aunt patted the wall. “Zara, we won’t be doing anything to counteract the powerful magic of your house. A smart witch knows better than to take on a task at which she will certainly fail.”
I groaned. “That’s the weakest thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t preemptively quit something just because you think you’ll fail.” I rapped on the wall with my fist. “Bust this wall down, Aunt Zinnia. I know you can do it!”
Shaking her head, she turned and headed to the stairs.
I followed her downstairs, asking, “Why’d you feed my bedroom another book?”
“I wasn’t feeding the house. What I did was for the benefit of your new book.”
“Oh! Like cloning a hard drive. You’re making a copy?”
“Not at all. That wasn’t even a magical book. It’s just a mystery paperback, for company.”
“Your master plan was to give my Monster Manual a little buddy?”
“Magical volumes get lonely if they’re on their own too long. They have nothing to do but talk to themselves, and they become rather mad.”
“Rather mad,” I repeated.
She looked at me as though I was choosing to be dense just to annoy her.
“Yes, Zara,” she said. “Lonely books can become quite mad.”
“We’re all mad here,” I said in a low, booming voice, quoting the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. “I’m mad. You’re mad.”
Zinnia stopped at the foot of the stairwell and quoted Alice. “How do you know I’m mad?”
“You must be,” I said, using the cat’s voice, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
Zinnia smiled. “Very clever,” she said. “Since we can’t examine the book today, grab your purse and accompany me on an errand.”
“Is it a mad errand?”
“Let’s find out.”
“Purse!” I cast the spell to locate my purse and also have it come to me. After having to restrain myself and not use my powers all morning, my Witch Tongue was snappy, and my purse flung itself at me with enough force to send me reeling into my aunt’s arms.
“Life with you is never dull,” she said as she caught me, which I decided to take as a compliment.
And off we went on her errand, which would turn out to be quite a mad errand after all.
Chapter 18
“Zara, don’t sulk. It’s unbecoming.”
I pointed to my face. “If you think this is sulking, you need to spend more time around a teenager.”
Zinnia gave me an exasperated look before returning her attention to the road ahead. We were in her car, driving to her friend Tansy’s house.
We’d been talking about the Riddle family and its many secrets. Zinnia had told me the truth about my mother earlier that day, but what if I’d never asked? Would she have ever brought it up?
“I’ve tried my best to balance my privacy with what’s in your best interests,” Zinnia said tiredly, her eyes on the road. “If you must know, I found it terribly difficult to divulge my secrets to you and your daughter.”
“It didn’t seem that difficult from my perspective. We bumped into each other at the shoe store, then you came over for dinner, where you dropped all sorts of hints about curses and s
uch—which I should have paid far more attention to now that I think about it. Then the ghost of Winona Vander Zalm electrocuted me with the toaster, and when I woke up, I was at your house, and my daughter was fawning over your book collection. She breathlessly informed me that we are all witches. I had to hear it from my barely-sixteen-year-old daughter, not even straight from my mentor. You showed everything to Zoey while I was circling the drain. I could have died. You didn’t even take me to a hospital.”
“You were in no danger of dying.”
“Not that time, anyway.”
She stared straight ahead at the road. There was a chill in the air that didn’t come from the car’s air conditioning alone. Observing her stiff posture gave me a twinge of guilt. Zinnia was right about one thing. I did continually bring up that time she accidentally killed me.
“Secrets are bad,” I said. “I’m part fox shifter, and I had no idea. What if I suddenly turn into a fox one day? Will I be stuck that way forever if I don’t have any training in how to turn back? That’s no way to live a life. No offense to foxes, but it’s no way for me to live my life. People deserve to know what they are.”
“I didn’t know your father was a fox,” she answered coolly. “Don’t misdirect your anger at me.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Do you think my mother slept with him as part of renouncing her powers? Or to get back at her family?”
“Probably the latter,” Zinnia said with a chuckle. “It’s a shame she took so many secrets to her grave.”
To her grave. The words echoed in my head.
She slowed the car as we turned onto a gravel road. We had entered the nicest, richest quarter of Wisteria. This area connected onto Pacific Spirit Park and resembled the countryside with its large estates, ample lots covered in trees, and driveways so long you couldn’t see the houses from the main road. Most of the driveways were blocked with gates and had multiple signs warning against trespassing.
“Your friend Tansy must be rich,” I said. “Good for her. Assuming she pays her fair share of taxes.”
“Oh, Zara. Please don’t say anything like that when you meet her. I beg of you.”
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