Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 2

by Angela Pepper

  What she didn’t do was apologize for grabbing my wrist in the first place. Nope. It was all my fault. Oh, this dark-haired woman was my mother, all right. No doubt about that.

  I kept rubbing my hands together as the plasma dissipated. “We followed your blue jay here. The one you were using to spy on us.”

  “Yes, I imagined as much. Well, you were bound to catch up with me sooner or later.” She held her hands out at waist height and smiled gamely. “Surprise!”

  I rubbed my chin. “You know, some advance warning in the form of, say, a postcard might have been nice. Not even a fancy postcard with a high gloss photograph. Just a cheap ol’ gas station postcard with two decades’ worth of truck stop dust on it. Or, here’s an idea: Did you know you can mail all sorts of things that aren’t paper? As long as it’s properly addressed and has enough stamps, you can mail someone a flip-flop, or a coconut, or even an inflated beach ball.”

  She gazed at me steadily, gradually lifting her chin until she was looking down her nose. “I’d forgotten how much you do love to ramble.”

  I crossed my arms. “Rambling over. Let’s get straight to the point. What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here at Castle Wyvern?” She pulled the top of her white spa robe closed and gripped it beneath her chin protectively. “Missing my afternoon massage, apparently.” She turned her body sideways and nodded for me to enter her room. She looked down at Zoey and gestured for her to come in as well.

  I turned and made eye contact with Zoey-Fox. Her eyes were still hazel in her shifted state, but with vertical pupils. Most ambush predators have vertical pupils—all the better for gauging distances, or so I’d been told. I’d never been a fox myself, despite having a fox shifter for a father. The trait could skip a generation, and it had with us.

  I asked my daughter, “Would you like to go in for a visit with your zombie grandma? Or, if that sounds too Halloween-y for you, we could leave now and get that ice cream.”

  Zoey-Fox cocked her ears, tilted her head, and yipped. Her yip was soft and noncommittal, more of a stalling tactic than an answer.

  My mother, meanwhile, crossed her arms and sighed. I wondered if creatures of the grave even needed to breathe. She’d probably sucked in air specifically to make that annoyed sound. Since when did she have the right to sigh about this? She could have saved us all the drama by dropping me a note to let me know she was alive. She could have scrawled it on a postcard, or a flip-flop, or a coconut, or an inflated beach ball.

  “Well?” Zirconia Riddle raised her thin, black eyebrows—which had been the same shade of red as mine the last time I’d seen her—and sighed again. “Are you two going to stand in the hallway like a couple of ding-dongs? I hereby officially invite you both into my room.” She looked at me pointedly. “Zarabella, please demonstrate that you haven’t forgotten all the manners I taught you.”

  I edged forward by one step.

  Zoey-Fox sniffed the air and walked past me, entering the converted castle’s guest room cautiously on her four sable paws.

  I followed my daughter in.

  I felt the urge to run away down the hallway, screaming at the top of my lungs about the undead and the coming zombie apocalypse, but I did have some manners.

  Chapter 2

  The room was luxurious. Knowing my mother, it was the most expensive one in the castle and had its own name that included the word Suite. When I was a kid tagging along on my mother’s travels, I would complain about places like this, about how the furniture was too fussy and the whole atmosphere was stifling. But things had changed over the years. I’d grown to appreciate life’s finer things—mostly by never getting access to them. As I entered the seating area, I looked around with new-found appreciation. Now this was an atmosphere I’d like to be stifled in.

  The exterior walls were exposed stone, showing off the authentic origins of the building. On the drive up, Zoey had told me how the castle had been shipped, stone by stone, from Europe. The interior walls, such as the one separating the bedroom from the sitting room, were of modern design, and covered in a delicately patterned wallpaper. The furniture was formal, tightly upholstered in Easter-egg tones of pale purple, green, and gold. Despite the rustic appearance, the air was fresh, scented with fresh flowers and citrus.

  “Have a seat,” my mother said. “I need to call the front desk to cancel my massage.”

  “Or change it to three,” I said.

  “I doubt the spa could make those changes on such short notice, not to mention that one of us is a fox.”

  “Fair enough,” I said with a shrug. “I didn’t want a massage anyway. Plus you never know when these spa people are going to jump you with a surprise manicure.” I shuddered at the thought.

  She gave me a puzzled look and picked up the phone.

  While she made her call, my daughter and I took a seat on the very firm love seat. The furniture wasn’t as soft as what we had at home, but the foam had a zesty bounce. Zoey-Fox curled up next to me, resting her long muzzle on my knee and glancing up as she gave me a soft, chatty yip.

  “You can stay in fox form as long as you’d like,” I said softly. She was new to shifting, having only recently discovered her abilities, and had trouble returning to human form, especially if she wasn’t completely relaxed.

  She softly yipped a thank-you. Red foxes have dozens of different vocalizations, and those are just the normal animal ones. Zoey-Fox was always treating me to new noises. Some of them weren’t much different from the nonverbal sounds she made in human form on the mornings it was my turn to be the annoying morning person.

  I petted her between her pointed ears. “You haven’t seen your grandmother since you were ten, so I can’t blame you for feeling awkward. Plus there’s the whole zombie thing.”

  She turned her muzzle and watched her grandmother, who was pacing back and forth while talking on the room’s old-fashioned, brass-handled telephone.

  Zirconia Cristata Riddle had changed since I’d last seen her, and not just the big stuff such as no longer being dead. She seemed to be taller. Now that I really studied her, I could see she’d only grown by about half an inch, if that. Had she grown or just stretched? Her posture had always been excellent, but now her spine was noticeably straighter. I would have thought becoming a zombie would compress a person, like how the food in a compost bin is always shrinking. My mother, the creature of the grave, had the lithe, stretched-upward appearance of a lifelong yoga practitioner. Had she taken up the practice? The idea made me smirk. Zirconia Riddle would never participate in any activity that involved her bare feet coming into contact with surfaces that had recently contacted other people’s bare feet. Even now, she was slipping on a pair of satin house slippers while grilling the woman on the phone about the spa’s equipment sterilization protocols. Her hair might be black now, and her freckles bleached away, but some things never changed.

  She snapped her fingers to get my attention.

  “Huh?”

  She gave me a disapproving frown. “A lady doesn’t say ‘huh,’ Zarabella.”

  I tried again. “Yes, Mother? Wouldest thou-est be awaiting a response of some manner?”

  She blinked three times. “What would you and your daughter like room service to bring up for you?”

  “Oh, I’ll have whatever you’re having,” I said. “Unless it’s brains, in which case I’ll have ice cream. And so will Zoey.” I waved my hands emphatically. “Just so we’re clear, all we want is ice cream. Not brains. In fact, we were on our way to get sundaes when I saw your blue jay and traced him back here to you. We were in such a rush that we—”

  She cut me off with a wave of the hand. My mouth snapped closed obediently. I’d forgotten how effective she was at shutting me up.

  “Please send up three ice cream sundaes,” she said into the phone. “Yes, with the usual toppings.” She wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean, there are no usual toppings? Do I have to come up with a recipe on the spot? Just put s
ome ice cream in a bowl and sprinkle on an assortment of nuts and fruits.”

  I waved my hand to get her attention. “No brains on mine.”

  She shot me a withering look.

  “Thank you,” she said into the phone and finished the call. She dropped the antique phone headset with a clatter then adjusted the heels of her satin house slippers before walking past me into the adjoining bedroom.

  “She’s getting changed,” I said softly to Zoey-Fox. “Zirconia Riddle doesn’t entertain guests in her bathrobe. Not even immediate family.”

  I was still smiling down at my daughter when a shadow passed over the room. Something was flying across the window set into the thick stone wall. Whatever it was, it disappeared by the time I turned my head to get a better look. Probably one of her creepy blue jays, I thought.

  Ten minutes later, my mother emerged from the bedroom dressed in simple tan slacks and a crisp white blouse. She was brushing her black hair, which was still wet.

  I whistled. “Only ten minutes to pull on a pair of plain brown pants and the same shirt you have a dozen of,” I said. “You’re getting faster, Mom. Good for you!” I swung my hand in a sporty, go-champ gesture.

  She perched on the edge of a chair across from us and continued brushing her hair. Flashes of red glinted in the blackness, as though the black I was seeing wasn’t real.

  I craned my neck, looking around the room. “Nice to see that the big inheritance I didn’t receive is being put to use.”

  “Do you need money?”

  I snorted. “Not from you.”

  She kept brushing her hair, slowly now. “Zarabella, I understand that this will be a shock to your system for a while, but you have no right to be angry with me.”

  “Who said I was angry?”

  She pinched her lips and said nothing, except with her eyes. They were the same hazel eyes the rest of us Riddle girls had, but hers had a special way of seeing me. I could feel her powerful, all-knowing-wizard-like gaze peeling away my feeble attempts to mask my emotions.

  “Fine,” I admitted. “I guess I am angry. But you can’t blame me for feeling how I feel. And no, it’s got nothing to do with the money. It’s always been your money, not mine. Go out and buy a gold-crusted elephant for all I care. Buy six of them and rent your gold elephants out to wealthy rappers for their parties and music videos.”

  She said nothing. Her eyes continued to peel away at me. And had the room been that hot the whole time? I shifted my legs as much as I could without disturbing Zoey-Fox.

  I tried to keep my words tightly compressed inside me, but they came gushing out at top speed. “It’s just that when you and I finally made peace again after all those years we didn’t talk, we both swore we wouldn’t let it happen again. We promised each other. And now it’s been five more years of silence. We’ve almost spent more of our lives not talking to each other than we have talking.”

  She looked thoughtful for a long moment before answering. “I understand that you feel hurt, but you make it sound like I abandoned you. I didn’t. I was sick, and then I died, and I didn’t believe I could come back until I did. But I’ve always been around, keeping watch over you, as a mother does.”

  I shook my head slowly. “Using blue jays as magical eyes to spy on people is not the same as staying in touch.”

  She’d stopped brushing her hair. She lightly lifted and then dropped both hands limply on her lap, as though admitting defeat. “I did what I felt was best for you and my only grandchild. I wanted you both to live normal lives.”

  Normal? There was that word again.

  I used my telekinetic powers to yank the hairbrush from her lap. I twirled it in a variable-speed spiral toward my outstretched hand, caught it without looking, and then used the brush to comb through my daughter’s fox fur from shoulder to tail.

  Dryly, I said, “It’s a bit late for either us to be normal. Or hadn’t you noticed that I’m a witch, and the kid here is a vixen?” I patted Zoey’s head. “That’s not an insult, by the way. Vixen is the name for a female fox. But I suppose you knew all about that when you mated with a fox to have me.”

  She lifted both eyebrows and kept her gaze trained on the hairbrush, which I’d released from my hand but was still combing through Zoey’s lush fur using magic.

  “You have excellent fine motor control,” she said.

  “Thanks.” I flipped the hairbrush into the air, did some aerial acrobatics, and returned it to the dresser in the adjoining bedroom. Then I made a finger gun with my right hand, emitted a pink glittery cloud from my index finger, and blew the cloud away in the manner of a gunslinger. “As for being normal, it’s way too late for that.”

  “Yes,” she said. “The proverbial cat is out of the bag.” She moistened her lips and leaned back in the chair, recrossing her thin legs. “Speaking of which, how is your new cat? Fitting in with the family?”

  “Boa? You tell me, since you’ve been spying on us. In fact, now that I think about it, you’re probably the person who dumped that poor little white fluffball at the vet clinic, knowing I’d feel compelled to adopt her. You probably did it when you paid the bill for Rhys. The whole thing was a setup, wasn’t it? Is the cat also one of your spies? Acting as your ears, perhaps? Mom, did you bug my house?”

  “I did no such thing with the cat. I practice no magic involving felines.”

  “But you paid for my father’s vet bill, right?”

  She nodded. I’d been ninety-nine percent sure it had been her who’d paid the bill and glamoured the vet assistant, but it gave me a crisp sense of satisfaction to get her acknowledgment, like writing something on a to-do list just so I could check it off.

  Zoey-Fox climbed all the way onto my lap, curled up, and covered the tip of her nose with her tail.

  I asked my mother, “Why’d you pay for Rhys’s vet bill, anyway? If you wanted to stay hidden in the shadows, why did you create a loose thread that you had to know I’d keep yanking on?”

  She frowned, furrowing her pale, unfreckled forehead. “Your earnings aren’t that generous, and the medical fees incurred by your irresponsible father were rather costly.”

  “You think that was costly? Hah! He nearly got me killed.”

  “I heard all about that scuffle,” she said. “You must believe me: I had no idea why your father was in town, or what he was up to. When I spoke to him at the vet clinic, it was to tell him to leave the Riddles alone. That man has been nothing but a source of irritation to us all.”

  I wanted to say something about him also being the source of me, and thus Zoey, but I stopped myself.

  Her expression gradually relaxed. “This is nice,” she said. “How is Zinnia these days? She looks well, from what I’ve seen.”

  “Your little sister? She’s fine.”

  There was a trolley sound in the hallway outside the door. Both of us looked at the door expectantly. Where were those sundaes? The trolley rolled away again.

  My mother looked down at her nails and pushed back her cuticles absently. “Your aunt always was a loner. It’s a shame she never had any children. I do worry about her.”

  “Zinnia can hold her own.” I lifted my chin, feeling protective of my aunt. “She’s plenty busy.”

  My mother moved on to the cuticles on her second hand. My own nail beds ached in sympathy pain for how rough she was with the thin layer of skin.

  “Yes, well, being busy and being a busybody are two entirely different things.”

  “Ouch,” I said. She’d rarely said positive things about her sister, but that seemed needlessly cruel.

  “The truth is the truth.”

  “Go easy on Zinnia,” I said. “She lost a friend recently. Tansy Wick. Did you know her?”

  My mother shook her head. “Not personally. By reputation only.”

  She’d finished with her cuticles and was now looking at my hands with an eagerness that I found unsettling. I hid my hands behind my back. My mother and her desire to annihilate cuticles was
the reason I got the heebie-jeebies whenever a well-meaning friend suggested we get manicures together.

  “At least Tansy Wick died doing what she loved,” she said.

  “Mom.” I gave her a wide-eyed look of incredulity. “Nobody loves being eaten by a carnivorous plant.”

  She shrugged. “Live and let live. To each their own. That’s my new philosophy, anyway.” Her hazel eyes twinkled. “You might be surprised to discover the many ways in which your dear mother has changed.”

  “Besides getting yourself down to zero percent body fat? Why are you so skinny, anyway? I thought brains were dense in calories.”

  She gave me a dead-eyed stare. She’d always been good at the dead-eyed stare, even before becoming a creature of the grave. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. She wasn’t quite as skinny as I was making her out to be. Only about the same as she’d been after one of her juice cleanses. Even so, her knees cut sharp angles under the thin material of the tan slacks.

  “Never mind about my changes,” she said. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Sounds ominous.”

  “How about you? I’m sorry to see you haven’t been feeling up to putting any effort into your appearance.”

  I looked down at my clothing. She wasn’t wrong about how I looked. My jeans were frayed, and the shirt was one that kept getting a stay of execution on closet-purging days because I imagined that if I ever took up pottery—a hobby I assumed was inevitable—I’d need clothes that could get messy.

  “It’s my day off,” I said defensively. “When I left the house, it was just for a drive to…”

  I trailed off, staring at something strange on the floor. The something strange was halfway between my feet and my mother’s satin house slippers. The something strange was a hand. How had I not noticed a hand lying on the floor until now?

  “Finish your sentence,” my mother said. “If you insist on speaking before you’ve worked out what you’re going to say, at least make an effort to finish.”

  “Sorry,” I said reflexively. “Do you see a hand on the floor?” I pointed. “Right there. The fingers just moved.”