“Zoey, we ought to keep our voices down when we say things such as seer for the dead. We’re already attracting a lot of heat just being in this car.”
She giggled. “You sounded just like Auntie Z.”
I made a gagging face as I finished spreading the viscous gel over the sunglasses. When applied to a specific brand of polarized sunglasses, the magical compound allowed the wearer to see certain kinds of magic, such as the tracer lines connecting a seer for the dead with, well, the dead. Just like the tracer that the DWM had placed in the back of my father’s neck, this blue jay could lead me to the other person involved in the Project Buttercup puzzle.
If this accomplice had been smart, he or she would have fled without a trace, like my father. Rhys Quarry had apparently removed the tracer from the back of his neck and put it in a postage-paid envelope. The tracer had traveled halfway around the world by the time a DWM agent intercepted it from a confused mail carrier in Madagascar.
My father was long gone, and Tansy’s bones had been laid to rest, yet I kept seeing blue jays around. Peering in the window at the library. Hopping around on the roof of my house. Flapping overhead as I walked through the park. I couldn’t chalk up all the sightings to simple coincidence. The bird was watching me.
My aunt had helped me prepare the vision spell. She didn’t like me going after someone so powerful without her, but the blue jay could be long gone by the time she drove up to Westwyrd to meet up with us. She would want me to learn the identity of the accomplice. She feared it was someone she knew, and that was why they’d been tipped off by her old-man disguise and evaded her the night she’d followed Bentley. Both of us were keenly interested in finding out what person—or thing—was watching us.
I donned the sunglasses.
Two thin blue lines traced north from the blue jay in the tree above us.
Ziggity!
The spell was working perfectly. I must have gotten better at casting the verbal spell. Either that, or the bird’s master was closer.
I hurriedly explained everything to Zoey, and we switched seats so she could drive while I followed the lines. She didn’t grumble once. In a pinch, I could always count on my daughter.
Chapter 40
We followed the tracer lines five miles up the highway, to a luxury resort inside a tall stone building that looked like an old castle from Europe. A European castle? How could that be?
No sooner had I asked the question in my mind than my daughter was answering.
“This is Castle Wyvern,” she said. “We learned about it at school.”
“It looks like a real castle,” I said.
“It is. I mean, it’s a luxury spa now, but the main building was once a castle. The story is, an eccentric countess had her family’s castle taken apart, stone by stone, and shipped over here. She didn’t get to enjoy it for long, though, because she died tragically before the decoration was complete.” With a campfire-ghost-story tone, she said, “People say her spirit still haunts the building.”
I rubbed my neck, where I’d gotten a crick from craning up at the thin blue lines we’d been following.
“Castle Wyvern,” I said. “I thought Wisteria was wacky, but the town of Westwyrd is certainly full of surprises.”
We parked the car in a lot marked as visitor parking and turned off the engine.
“Mom, we drove here in a straight line, with the lines visible the whole way. That can’t be a coincidence. What if this is a trap? We can’t walk right in, unarmed.”
“What do you mean, unarmed? I’ve seen those teeth of yours in action. And let’s not discount the fact I’ve learned dozens of spells. Sure, half of them are related to food preparation, but I’ve got some skills.”
“You sure showed the Droserakops who was boss,” she said snarkily.
“Hey! I softened it up to make it easier for you.”
“Sure, you did.”
I knew she was rolling her eyes, but I didn’t dare take my focus off the glowing lines that cut through the sky. The signal terminated in one of the luxury spa’s third-floor windows.
“Third floor,” I said. “Time to storm the castle.”
Zoey said, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Because of the ghost of the countess?”
“The whole thing.”
“But maybe the countess could be my next spirit guest,” I said. “At last, I’ll finally learn me some of them highfalutin manners I’ve been hearin’ about.”
“I think we should call Auntie Z for backup. Or at least Mr. Moore. He’s been really helpful with my questions about being a shifter. He wants to be more than just a neighbor to us, Mom.”
I snorted. I didn’t need Chet and his wolf breath. I was a strong, confident, powerful witch, and I could get into trouble just fine on my own, thank you very much.
I opened the car door and headed for the castle.
My daughter tried to talk me into waiting while she made some phone calls, but the farther away I got, the less convincing she sounded. Soon she was chasing after me as I jumped over fences and elbowed my way through perfectly manicured shrubs.
The spell on the glasses was finally fizzling out. There was only the blue summer sky, but it didn’t matter. I had seen which room the seer for the dead spell was emanating from, and as soon as I could find an entrance, I would be confronting the person who’d conspired with my father.
I found a side exit door. Locked. I almost laughed. A locked door was no match for a witch. I visualized the door handle from the other side and gave it a twist. The door popped open.
My daughter trailed along behind me, muttering about all the laws and bylaws we might be breaking.
“Put it in your report for Bentley,” I teased as I raced up the old stone stairs to the third floor.
We pushed open the interior fire door, which had to be a modern addition and not part of the old stone castle. I counted my paces until I reached the door connected to the room that held the person with whom I had a bone to pick.
I lifted my fist to knock and then paused.
I was panting and sweaty. So was my daughter.
I wore a pair of slime-covered sunglasses.
I whipped off the sunglasses and handed them to Zoey.
She stared back at me, her hazel eyes wide. She whispered, “You’re going to bang on the door? Just like that?”
I looked down at our feet. A shadow between my feet was moving, yet I was perfectly still. The person on the other side of the door knew we were there. The person was standing there, waiting for us. Waiting for me.
A curling, twisting, tickling sensation of fear snuck into my body. I hadn’t felt this hesitant since the morning I’d stood outside of Chet’s house, desperately wanting the book I’d been promised. I’d worried about what Chessa might do to me, but then she hadn’t done anything at all. I had been hurt by a new friend I trusted, plus my own father, and a hungry plant.
What good was being afraid if you were afraid of the wrong things?
Whoever was on the other side of this door, they might be my salvation or my downfall, but I wouldn’t know until I knocked.
In the pit of my stomach, I felt the pull of something stronger than my own curiosity. A powerful entity waited on the other side of the door. A being who wanted me to make the first step. Knock on the door, Zara.
No!
Please? For me?
I took a step back.
That last plea had sounded eerily familiar. It can’t be.
Zoey’s whole body was tilted, leaning toward the door. Her red hair fell loosely to one side only. She felt the attraction, too. I grabbed her hand and yanked her back, back toward the stairwell.
“We’re leaving,” I whispered in her ear.
The voice called to me again. Just knock on the gosh-darned door, Zara. Don’t keep me waiting.
Knock on the gosh-darned door?
I knew that voice.
No! It can’t be!
Rivul
ets of sweat trickled down my back. I turned and shoved my daughter toward the fire door.
“Move your butt,” I whispered. “We’re leaving.”
The door to the room swung open.
My eyes seemed to move in slow motion, turning away from my daughter and toward the person standing in the doorway.
Scratch that.
Not the person.
The woman.
She was in her early fifties, but I didn’t need to assess the fine lines around her eyes and mouth to know her age.
She had long, flowing hair, as black as a raven’s wing. She wore a terry-cloth luxury robe, probably the resort’s, judging by the insignia on the pocket. The woman’s feet were bare, as though she’d just stepped out of the shower. Inside the doorway was a pair of familiar-looking boots, like the kind my aunt and I wore.
On her face, the dark-haired woman wore a smile as beautiful as it was horrific.
Zoey spoke first. “Gigi?”
Gigi was my daughter’s name for her grandmother.
For my mother.
Standing before me was Zirconia Cristata Riddle. Even with the strange black hair, I knew her. But it wasn’t just a hair dye job that was new. She looked taller and thinner. Her freckles were gone, replaced with creamy-white unfreckled skin. Yet I would know her anywhere.
She smiled that beautiful yet horrific smile that could not be and prompted me with a raised eyebrow. “Well?”
“It’s been a while,” I spat out.
“Too long,” she said. “When was that, exactly? The last time we saw each other?”
“At your funeral,” I said. “The last time I saw you, you were lying in a coffin. Dead. Quite dead.”
Silence passed for several seconds. Were any of us breathing?
“Your eyes were closed, so I don’t know if you saw me that day at your funeral,” I said. “Also, as I mentioned already, you were dead.”
More silence passed. More horrific smiling.
And then, improbably, I used a name I never thought I’d use again, except when referring to myself in third person. “Mom? Is that really you?”
She kept smiling.
* * *
Author's note from Angela Pepper
Hello again, you! You reader of exquisite taste!
I hope you enjoyed reading Watchful Wisteria. After that shocker of an ending, you'll be glad to hear that as soon as I finished the final chapter, I started writing book 5, in which we find out what the heck is going on with Zirconia Riddle. No spoilers in this note!
In addition to writing the next book, I've also tackled some gardening. You might say Tansy Wick's spirit inspired me. Or possessed me? Last week, I found myself hacking away at overgrown bushes in the dark. The sun had set but I hadn't noticed, because I was in the groove. My husband called me in, or I might have fallen asleep in the dirt with only the neighbor's aggressively affectionate ginger cat as my blanket. The next morning, I stood at the kitchen sink looking out at the wreckage in the yard. Had I gone too far? I did some internet searches about, ahem, bush trimming, and affirmed that sometimes pruned shrubs will look worse before they look better.
Soon, I will be an expert on poisons. You see, if you happen to live (as I do) in an area populated by Bambi and Thumper, your ornamental plant choices are limited to those the grazers and browsers won't touch. That means a yard full of bitter and/or poisonous plants. I will familiarize myself with my inedible garden's dangers, and I will practice “safe gardening” with gloves on every time. But absolutely no Droserakops. Not in my yard. Those things are notoriously untrustworthy.
Speaking of things that are growing faster than expected (but in a good way) I must thank you for helping the Wisteria Witches Mysteries series become more popular than ever. It hasn't yet been two full years since I began writing Zara Riddle's story, and already some pretty huge things are happening. I've never had a thousand preorders on a book before, but as soon as Watchful Wisteria went online for preorder, over a thousand people clicked the preorder button. Wow. And then another thousand. And so forth! All I can say is thank you for trusting me to keep on entertaining you. I will keep working hard to serve the story and the characters. It's an honor for me to see my name in the top 50 mystery authors on Amazon, right up there with my literary heroes. And, thanks to record-breaking borrows in Kindle Unlimited for the last two months running I have earned “All Star” status on Amazon. What does that mean? A little bonus from Amazon, but more importantly, I get to sing that Smashmouth song inside my head whenever I'm feeling blue. “Hey now, I'm an All Star!” And why not? Writing is a solo pursuit, and the more dedicated an author is to craft and production, the more in danger we are of withdrawing inside ourselves. A little music brings us back out again.
My antidote to overworking is time outdoors, in nature. This summer I've built up my arm muscles so that I can kayak out to the small islands off the coast and get back home again without requiring the towing services of a tugboat. I also pulled out the bright green cruiser bicycle I hadn't been on since 2009 and gave it a pedal. The brakes were a bit gummed up, but I got it rolling and squeaked along by the beach. It's true what they say about riding a bike. Your body remembers. After an eight-year hiatus, I was wobbly, but honestly I'd never been that steady in the first place. My husband and I have since gone for a leisurely bicycle ride in the same place a dozen times, and the lightness I feel in my heart with those first few pedals has not been diminished yet.
I have big plans for the Wisteria Witches series. My secret weapon is a huge spreadsheet with major plot twists. My strategy is to keep approaching it one book at a time, being open to wherever the characters take me (which is often not where I planned for them to be!) and keeping the excitement for adventure no matter what happens next. This might sound strange, but having a successful series take off can be a bit terrifying for an author in a way that failure is not. I am grateful for all the experience I have writing all those books that didn't take off, mostly under my young adult and romance pen names, because I appreciate the opportunities I have now even more.
Thank you for reading and supporting the series. If you'd like to help out even more, please post a reader review on Amazon. Posting a review is something only about one in a five hundred readers will do, so if you are one of those rare and lovely people, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE A ROCK STAR / HERO! It should only take a couple of minutes and your review doesn't need to be fancy – even a single sentence is fine! If you'd ever like to see a screen adaptation of the series someday, reader reviews will show Hollywood (or Netflix or HBO) there's a visible fanbase for the books. Dream big, right?
Until we meet again at the end of the next book (which is called Wisteria Wyverns),
much love,
Angela Pepper
WISTERIA WYVERNS
WISTERIA WITCHES MYSTERIES - BOOK 5
Angela Pepper
WWW.ANGELAPEPPER.COM
Chapter 1
A witch really has to wonder, what good is being afraid if you’re afraid of all the wrong things?
Like most people, I’ve had nightmares about public nudity, or having to write the final exam for a class I’ve neglected to attend, or both things at once. And, like most people who are also mothers, I’ve had countless bouts of paranoia concerning my child being abducted or harmed or simply brokenhearted.
But not once have I imagined opening a door on the third floor of a castle that’s been converted into a luxury spa, and seeing my mother in a white terry cloth robe, five years after her death. And so, because I’d never prepared for such a thing, I just stood in the hallway like a ding-dong. Not quivering in abject terror, but quibbling with her over whether or not she was, well, herself.
“Of course it’s me,” she said impatiently. “I’m Zirconia Cristata Riddle. I’m your mother.” She turned her hazel eyes toward my sixteen-year-old daughter, Zoey, who stood mute by my side. “And I’m your grandmother. Though, as you may recall, I do prefer being called Gigi. G
randma makes me feel old, and I feel much too vital to be old.”
I stammered, “Bu-bu-but how can you feel vital? You’re dead.”
She blinked at me. Her eyes looked lively enough. Not red and bloodshot. Moist but not too watery.
I started peppering her with questions. “How did you get here? Why is your hair black? Does your hair suddenly go dark when you become a zombie?”
“A zombie?” Her hazel eyes flashed with anger. She grabbed my wrist and started to yank me into her room. My body remembered this maneuver. Next would be a swat on the butt—usually a swat I deserved, but not today.
I twisted from her grasp and shot a single, perfectly round, blue fireball straight into her chest.
As they say in the comic books, POW. With a side of ZAP.
She staggered backward into her room while I stepped back from the doorway, into the hallway. I nearly tripped over my daughter, who had transformed into her red fox shifter form. Since Zoey wasn’t a witch, turning into a fox was her defense mechanism. She hadn’t seen the woman she called Gigi in five years, and she was right to be suspicious. You should always be suspicious when something you buried in the ground turns up again.
Zoey-Fox growled at the dark-haired woman. The red fur on her haunches rose, and she puffed up her white-tipped tail to appear larger. She’d evidently been picking up skills from our new cat. Zoey-Fox puffed up and prepared to run, yet she didn’t bolt. Neither did I.
The woman claiming to be my mother rubbed her chest and groaned. “I might be a creature of the grave, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel pain.” She gave me a pitiful, woe-is-me look. “Will you agree to a cease fire?”
She didn’t appear to be on the attack.
“Fire ceased,” I said, clasping my hands together. “Sorry I blasted you in the chest. It’s kind of a witch-reflex thing.”
“Apology accepted,” she said.
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