Pea-Soup Woman made ack-ack-ack sounds.
My mother said, “Looks like your friend swallowed a bug.” She stroked the amber pendant on her collarbone.
Pea-Soup Woman wheezed. “A bug,” she agreed, her voice still croaky. “It flew right in my mouth.”
Someone in the crowd of onlookers said, “I saw the bug. It was a fly, or maybe a ladybug.”
“Definitely a ladybug,” said another onlooker.
The strangers murmured in agreement. The woman who’d suggested it was a ladybug just happened to be wearing a pretty dress with a ladybug pattern.
I gave my mother a look of appreciation for her use of the enchanted necklace, assuming that was how she projected her glamour.
“Very impressive,” I whispered.
She acknowledged my compliment with the smallest of nods and then fixed the two loud-mouthed women with a powerful stare. It was the dead-eyed sort of stare that only a furious zombie could make.
Robe Woman was fanning Pea-Soup Woman’s face.
My mother said, “I’d like to personally thank you both for finally showing some basic human decency.”
They both nodded their heads like marionettes on strings.
She continued, “And I’d like to thank you both for taking a vow of silence for the rest of your stay at the castle, speaking only as necessary to answer questions when spoken to directly. I believe you both will find it very illuminating to turn your gaze inward.”
The two women bowed their heads, averted their eyes, and hunched their posture. Both of them slowly backed away, lips sealed tight.
My mother, the alpha zombie.
I expected some sort of response from the curious onlookers, perhaps a cheer of approval, but they all turned and walked away as though sharing one mind.
My mother looked pleased with herself.
“You’ve still got it,” I told her, elbowing her in the side. “Who needs witchcraft when you’ve got your cool necklace?”
She winced and stroked the pendant again. “This little bauble? Why, yes, I suppose it does the job well enough.”
“I’ll say. Can I try it out sometime?”
She closed her hand over the pendant protectively. “Never,” she said.
* * *
The ballroom was filling up. There were about two hundred people in the elegant space, mostly guests, plus staff and police.
I kept my mother occupied with small talk so she didn’t throttle any more guests, whether they deserved it or not. She was interested in how Zoey was fitting in at her new school, and how she was managing the shifter powers that had skipped a generation and found her.
“She chases the cat around the house,” I said. “Then they trade off, and the cat chases her.”
“They say the smartest people are often amused by the simplest things.”
“Then my daughter must be brilliant, because I’ve seen her chasing her own tail.”
My mother smiled. “I’d like to see that sometime.”
“You will,” I said. “Assuming you don’t disappear on us again.”
She didn’t say anything.
I grabbed her forearm. “Mom. Promise you won’t ditch your granddaughter again. After what happened with Rhys, the poor girl was heartbroken. She loved him, and he left us for dead. If you disappear from her life, it could harm her ability to form attachments with people.”
“You want me to stick around for the benefit of your daughter?”
I hesitated to answer. She was digging for something. Did she want me to beg her to stay? She did. She wanted me to get down on my knees and plead with her to not go. That’ll be the day.
Instead of giving her what she wanted, I tugged at the hem of my baggy T-shirt, letting some air between the fabric and my damp skin. The ballroom was getting warmer as it filled with people.
“Sheesh,” I said. “You’d think they’d turn a fan on or something. I guess castles weren’t built with air conditioning.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noted a woman striding toward us purposefully. She had a dark scarf covering her hair and tinted eyeglasses concealing her eyes. Her skin was white, and as she drew closer, I noticed she had the fullest lips I’d ever seen. Her mouth took up the entire lower half of her face. Cosmetic injections and fillers? Whether the big mouth was natural or not, she fit right in with the Botoxed clientele at the luxury resort.
She had her face pointed at my mother. Then she adjusted so that her nose pointed at me. Her full lips parted, as though she’d been surprised to see me. Did I know her? No. I would have remembered a mouth like that. She turned on her heel and walked away, disappearing into the crowd. I was curious, but not curious enough to chase after her.
I turned to my mother and asked, “Was that woman with the trout pout a friend of yours?”
“Trout pout? Zarabella, why must you be so vulgar?”
“Is that a rhetorical question, or do you want an answer?”
She shook her head. “I suppose it doesn’t help my case very much that when you describe her that way, I know exactly who you mean. She’s a friend of mine. A doctor. I will introduce you two soon. You won’t like her, though. She’s not a jokester like you.”
“Few people are,” I said. “What kind of doctor is she? Wait, let me guess. She specializes in using a needle to draw the fat out of your buttocks and then put it in your lips.” I leaned to the side, looking my mother up and down. “Is that what happened to you? Did she liposuction out all of your fat and put it in different places?”
She gave me an amused look. “You tell me.”
“I can’t tell what’s different,” I admitted. “At first I thought you were too skinny to be healthy, but you’re lean and strong. Whatever you had done, obviously it agrees with you. The way you grabbed that rude woman by the throat, that was some serious Darth Vader stuff.”
She beamed. Apparently, my mother took being compared to Darth Vader as a compliment.
“Thank you,” she said, as though she’d been waiting all day to have her throttling skills be recognized. She leaned in and whispered, “If you must know, the treatment was a series of medical injections that included muscle growth hormones, among, uh, other things.”
“Among other things?” I grinned. “Just say brains, Mom. Come on. Say it.”
She frowned, wrinkling her forehead enough so that she looked her age of fifty-something for the first time that day.
“Please stop imagining me eating brains,” she said bitterly.
“How can you know what I’m imagining? Are you a mind reader? Is that one of the perks of your new condition?”
“Zarabella, I can read you like a book. I’ve always been able to. How else do you suppose I always knew exactly what you were up to?”
“Okay. What am I imagining right now?” I widened my eyes, as though that might help her to see into me better, and I pictured a big, yummy bowl of brains.
“You’re thinking about food.”
“That’s uncanny. I was thinking about a certain type of food. A type of food that only certain kinds of people might enjoy.”
She gave me a dead-eyed look. I took a step back and covered the front of my neck with my hand jokingly. She looked exasperated, which was my intent. Ah, how I had missed exasperating my mother. It was even more fun than embarrassing my daughter.
“If you must know, I took very few treatments by mouth,” she said in a businesslike tone. “Hardly any. The transformation and rejuvenation was achieved largely through injections, all performed in a safe, secure, clean medical facility.”
“And by safe, secure, clean medical facility, do you mean the undertaker’s?”
She didn’t respond.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I should have known something was up when you changed your last wishes to a traditional coffin and burial instead of cremation.”
“You did pick out a lovely coffin.”
“I’m glad you liked the coffin I picked out for you.” I gave he
r a confused smile. “This is a very strange conversation, and I’ve had some strange ones these last few months.”
“We have a lot to catch up on.” She glanced around at the crowd in the ballroom. There were more people than when we’d arrived—closer to three hundred now. People milling around us were now bumping into our hips and elbows regularly. “Perhaps when we have more privacy.”
“Already taken care of,” I said. “I’ve had a sound bubble around us since we left the room.”
“Oh.” She looked dismayed. Was she troubled by my ease with magic? Or that she couldn’t beg off giving me any answers about her condition? Or just generally dismayed about being a creature of the grave?
“Since we have privacy now, and the announcement hasn’t yet begun, how about you tell me a little about these treatments?”
She seemed reluctant to answer, but finally she said, “It was science, not magic.”
“Science?” I didn’t believe her for a second. I was a huge fan of science, but as far as I knew, even the top scientists couldn’t reanimate human beings.
“Have you heard of water bears?”
“Water bears,” I said. “Also known as tardigrades.” I read an article about them in a science magazine. The details immediately popped into my working memory. I’d always had good recall of information, but it had gotten much better since I’d become a witch.
She smiled. “So, you do know about water bears.”
“I know there are over nine hundred species of tardigrades. And one day, some wacky scientists attached some of them to satellites and blasted them into space with no protection. Totally naked. Exposed to space. And they survived! Well, not all of them, but many. And a few of the females even laid eggs while they were up there. The little monsters are virtually indestructible.”
“Very clever,” she said, still smiling. “So, you do understand the value of studying such creatures, in the name of science.”
“Sure. Anything for science. When do we shoot you into space?”
She waved one elegant hand. “Joke all you want, but I assure you my condition is all in the name of scientific advancement. Nothing sinister or unseemly.”
“Not sinister at all,” I agreed. “Except have you seen a photo of a tardigrade? They’ve got big, blobby heads coming out of a body that’s sausage shaped, except with fleshy folds. Imagine a less photogenic Jabba the Hut. Hey, how’s that for two Star Wars references in one afternoon?” I pretended to acknowledge a round of applause. “Tardigrades have teeth like daggers, and eight claw-tipped legs. I bet a large version of that creature could rip out a human being’s throat, if it wanted to.” I thought of the body in the staff apartment, and by the look on my mother’s face, she was thinking the same thing.
She swallowed hard. “But tardigrades are smaller than fruit flies. They’re perfectly harmless. Barely visible to the human eye.”
“And thank goodness for that, right?”
My phone buzzed with an incoming barrage of text messages. I took it out of my purse, reviewed the messages, and relayed them to my mother.
“I guess Zoey and Zinnia decided to drive back here to the castle, despite my orders for them to stay away.”
“Are they here now?” She stood up on her tiptoes and surveyed the crowd.
“No dice,” I reported. “They’re already back in Foxy Pumpkin, driving back toward Wisteria. Don’t worry. Zinnia’s at the wheel. Zoey says the police turned them away. They wouldn’t even let them come in for a minute to tell us in person. The whole castle’s under lockdown. Nobody in or out.”
“That seems rather extreme for just one unexplained death. They’re imprisoning us? That’s got to be illegal.”
“We’re material witnesses, Mom. We can be held as long as it is necessary to”—I made air quotes with my fingers—“‘prevent a failure of justice.’ And I can see their reasoning.” I gestured at the crowd around us. “I hear Cantonese being spoken, and German, too. Or is that Dutch?” I waved a hand dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. My point is that all these international guests would jump on their jets back to their own countries and never look back. That’s why it’s not unreasonable for the police to detain us here for a few hours.”
“A few hours? Have you seen the size of this crowd? It could take days for them to get everyone’s statements.”
“I thought you liked it here.”
“Everything’s different when you know you can’t leave. Heaven can be Hell and vice versa.”
“If you want out so bad, then get your boyfriend to pull some strings.”
As if on cue, there was a crackle over the ballroom’s speakers. Everyone turned toward the stage, where the boyfriend in question, Detective Bentley, was preparing to address the crowd. He tapped the microphone. “Is this on?” His amplified voice reverberated around the ballroom, immediately answering the question.
“Speak of the devil,” I said. “There’s your boyfriend now.”
She sniffed. “A woman over the age of twenty-five doesn’t have boyfriends.”
“Then there’s your lover.”
She sniffed again.
“What? Is he not your lover? You two haven’t, uh…”
Her hazel eyes widened. “We are not having this conversation.”
“Too late,” I said, smirking. “This conversation is happening. What’s the deal with you using the glamour necklace to make him unable to describe you? Now that I know it’s you, will you let him know exactly who he’s dating? He’s going to be so surprised when he finds out you and I are related.”
“I might not tell him,” she said airily. “I’m not sure if I’ll continue seeing him at all.”
“Why not? Don’t tell me you were only hanging out with Bentley to spy on me and Zoey.”
She twitched her mouth from side to side.
I frowned at her. “You were using him?”
More mouth twitching. She had been using him. Poor Bentley.
I turned to watch Detective Bentley fidget with the microphone. The poor guy had no idea. It wasn’t fair he was always being kept in the dark. Bentley was sweet. Who doesn’t like a guy who carries peanuts in his pockets? I’d seen him use the peanuts to bribe downtown Wisteria’s most notorious sidewalk cafe thief, a squirrel named Petey. Bentley had a good heart, and he cared about all of the town’s residents, large and small. I sure didn’t like him being used as a pawn. Sure, he could be a bit of a dweeb, but he was my dweeb.
The crowd around us shifted with restlessness.
He tapped on the microphone again. Someone yelled, “Get on with it!”
Bentley, unperturbed, tapped the microphone a third time before stepping up and saying, “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.” The sound system immediately squealed with feedback. A long-haired man in a ball cap scrambled across the stage to adjust the position of the mike stand. The sound man then gave the detective the all clear to try again.
Bentley continued. “As you may already be aware, there has been an unfortunate incident on the basement level of this building. A member of staff has lost her life. I’m not at liberty to disclose the full details, but the death is being treated as suspicious.”
The crowd, now over three hundred people, erupted with noises, ranging from surprise to panic. Some people waved their hands in the air.
“Please save your questions until the end,” Bentley said. “This is a difficult time for all of us, but I assure you that members of the Wisteria Police Department are working in conjunction with your local state authorities to—” He broke off as he made eye contact with me.
I waved for him to continue talking.
Bentley looked from my mother to me and back again. The crowd started to get restless again. They were one or two missed meals away from a riot.
After an awkward moment, Bentley looked down at the microphone before him and got back to the announcement. “I hesitate to use the word detained, but you are all advised that you are hereby requested to remain here at t
he castle as material witnesses, regardless of your planned checkout time, until you are dismissed.” He paused to let the shocked exclamations settle down. “Please proceed to the bar in an orderly fashion to make an appointment for your interview. The time slots will be randomly assigned, so please don’t bother stampeding because it won’t do any good.” He stepped back from the microphone. Someone at the side of the stage said something in an urgent tone. He stepped forward again. “And when you’re in the bar, please enjoy a complimentary beverage of your choice. On behalf of the owners and staff at Castle Wyvern, we apologize for your inconvenience.” He frowned before adding, “Your inconvenience is mild compared to what happened to the victim, I assure you.”
A ripple of fear shot through the crowd.
Behind me, I heard a familiar voice string together swear words in a particular way.
I turned to see my old friend Nash, his beat-up vintage suitcase in his hand.
“They can’t keep me here,” he muttered to no one in particular, and he turned for the exit.
I knew from personal experience that Nash had ways of getting into or getting out of any place he wanted. He was a bit like my father that way, except cool and not embarrassing.
Don’t go, I heard a voice in my head plead. Nash, don’t leave me here in this big scary place by myself. At least leave me some taxi money, will you? No? You jerk!
Josephine’s spirit fell quiet again, the remembered conversation from their personal history done playing out.
Like the ghost, I also didn’t want Nash to leave. I knew in my heart that he hadn’t been the one who hurt Jo Pressman, yet he had known her. He might have some clues about what happened and not even know it.
I patted my mother’s shoulder, told her I’d be back in a jiffy, and chased after Nash.
Chapter 9
I was rounding a corner quickly to catch up with Nash when I bumped into a different man. I steadied myself using his forearm and looked up into the familiar face of my neighbor, Chet Moore. I hadn’t heard back from him since I’d sent him a text message about an hour earlier. He must have stopped whatever he was doing in Wisteria and driven straight up the coast to Westwyrd.
Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 2 Page 37