Wicked Wisteria (Witch Cozy Mystery and Paranormal Romance) (Wisteria Witches Book 2)

by Angela Pepper

  “Vintage clothes never fit right,” I said. “They had different proportions back in the day. And they were shorter.”

  “Well, these ones have been aging in my own attic, so the only person I can blame is myself.” He looked down at the teddy-bear shaped graham-flavored cookie in his hand. “Or maybe I should blame these cookies. Over the thirty-some years I've owned these corduroy trousers, I must have gained at least two and a half pounds.” He shook his head. “Disgraceful.”

  I didn't point out that gaining only two and a half pounds over thirty-some years was wildly aberrant.

  I heaved myself from the bean bag chair and walked over to the sink to get a glass of water. “How long was I asleep? I have zero memory of coming in here to lie down.”

  Frank snorted. “If I were you, I'd claim amnesia, too.”

  “Have I been misbehaving?” I played it off as joking, but I really needed to know what I'd done while possessed.

  “You were so mean to that patron,” Frank said. “The poor old gal just wanted a book about the best designer shopping destinations in the world, and you gave her a lecture about social responsibility and saving for her future.”

  “I did?”

  “She was practically in tears when I took over and shooed you in here for a timeout.”

  “Sounds like I had a low blood sugar moment. Now I feel terrible.”

  He waved one hand. “Don't worry. I covered for you. I told her it was your lady time.” He made a gagging face.

  “Frank, that's not appropriate.”

  “I'm not appropriate?” He arched one pink eyebrow. “Is it appropriate for a certain redheaded woman who recently had her electricity cut off to lecture other people about money?”

  That wasn't me, I wanted to tell him. It had to have been the ghost who'd zipped his way up my nostril. This new fellow certainly was passionate about financial responsibility. It was probably no coincidence I'd encountered him in the money section. Come to think of it, I'd practically invited him into my head. I'd casually said, “I wish there was some way to download all this financial wizardry directly into my brain.” And then there he was.

  What's that old saying?

  Careful what you wish for.

  I was still sipping my water when the head librarian, Kathy Carmichael, came in breathing heavily.

  Frank and I exchanged a look.

  Kathy usually breathed like that when we got a new batch of crafting books in, or when she was irate about the library's budget being threatened. But the tight little rosebud formed by her mouth told me she wasn't worked up about a mere crafting book.

  I asked her, “Everything okay, boss?” I hoped the guy hanging out in my head—Mr. Finance Wizard—hadn't shared any brash opinions with the head librarian using my mouth.

  “Who knows,” Kathy said, shaking her head. “Whooooooo knows. Just when you think you've seen everything, there's a new one.”

  I relaxed a little. At least she wasn't angry at me.

  Kathy laid three hardcovers on the lunch table next to Frank. “Look at this. Some vandal has been ruining our books. At first I thought it was just one book, but now two more have been brought to my attention today.”

  Frank looked down at the stack of three books. He carefully pushed his graham cookies out of the way and wiped the crumbs off his fingers before leafing through the pages.

  “I've already taken them into the alcove,” Kathy said. “I tested the cleaners we use, and none of them lifted the ink. This wasn't done by one of us.”

  “These are misprints,” he said with certainty. “This happens at the printer when something falls on the page between the paper and the ink.”

  “Not in this case,” Kathy said, still breathing heavily. “This isn't one isolated patch. It's throughout the books, and it goes line by line, straight across. Whoever did this was very deliberate.”

  Frank scratched his head. “It could have been shredded paper, caught on a gust of wind at the printing house.”

  “But no two of those books came from the same printing house.”

  Frank continued to not look convinced we had a serious problem. “Can you even call this vandalism? They haven't drawn or scribbled anything in here. It's just been erased or something.”

  “Exactly,” Kathy said. “The books have been censored.”

  I decided that this was the point in which a normal non-witch librarian who didn't already know about the disappearing words issue might join the conversation. Evenly, I asked, “Censored? How do you mean? Is there a specific type of content that's being erased?”

  “Not that I can see,” Frank said. “And I'm a wizard at word puzzles.”

  I reached for one of the books and took a close look. Unlike the time I'd held the hardcover at the sundae shop, this time I felt nothing buzzing or magical when I touched the book. It was a non-fiction title about deck building with local materials. The passages had been erased at seemingly random intervals.

  Kathy said, “Who would censor a book about deck building? Who?”

  Frank suddenly struck one finger in the air. “Ah-ah! I've detected a pattern.” He fanned out the books. “Deck building with local materials. Arts and crafts with regular household objects. And a coffee table book about found notes. Do you see it?”

  I guessed, “Recycling?”

  “Exactly,” Frank said. “Two points for Zara.” He handed me two of his graham cookies. He offered the container of cookies to Kathy, but she didn't seem to notice.

  I asked Frank, “Now what?”

  “We order replacements for these books and write them off. Then we carry on.”

  “But don't you think this is strange?”

  He gave me a patronizing look. “Stranger things have happened.”

  Kathy spoke as though in a daze. “Recycling,” she said softly. “Wick.”

  I replied, “Wick?”

  “This is a message,” Kathy said to Frank.

  He nodded seriously. He knew what she meant by Wick, whereas I was new there and didn't know a fraction of what they did.

  “You could pay Wick a visit,” Frank said. “Speed this whole thing up.” He patted the stack of three books. “The longer we let it play out, the more expensive it gets on our holdings.”

  Kathy wrinkled her narrow, pointy nose. “But he's always so mean to me. Can one of you go with me?”

  Frank smiled in my direction. “I think Zara's the most in need of fresh air, so please take her. I'll hold down the fort here. Don't take too long, or I might change us over from Dewey Decimal to color coding by spine. We'll have blue shelves and green shelves and red shelves. It'll be so refreshing.”

  Kathy didn't laugh. She always laughed at Frank's jokes about reorganizing the library. This disappearing-words mystery had her riled up. No sooner had I found out the problem was spreading than I had another person on the case. How was I going to find out what magic was being done and fix it with my boss also sniffing around? At least we had another clue. The theme of recycling apparently pointed to a man named Wick.

  Frank said, “You two can head out on your errand any time. I swear on a stack of all our holy books that I won't get into any mischief.”

  Kathy blinked at me, her eyes tiny and bird-like behind her horn-rimmed glasses. “I'm ready to go when you are.”

  I grabbed my purse and followed her toward the side door that led to the staff parking area.

  Hey, Mr. Finance Wizard, I thought to the new occupant in my head. Do you know anything about our library books erasing themselves?

  No response.

  I made a mental note to flip through all the financial planning books I'd been holding earlier. Checking those titles for missing words might confirm a connection between the ghost and the blank pages.

  Outside, in the staff parking lot, I was opening the passenger side door of Kathy's car when I noticed someone walking by. It was the hat-wearing hipster girl from the sundae shop. She had a book bag on her shoulder. I watched as she
went toward the library's front door while withdrawing a hardcover copy of the rock star memoir from the bag. I should have known. The copy I'd checked that morning was actually one of three we had in circulation. How could I have jumped to such a silly conclusion that the book returned that morning was the one I'd seen Saturday? We always carried multiples of popular new titles.

  Now I'd have to snag the actual copy when we returned to the library.

  Shaking my head and silently admonishing myself for being a lousy witch detective, I climbed into the passenger side. I didn't notice the clutter on the seat. Luckily, Kathy yanked some yarn and crochet needles out of the way just in time.

  “Kathy, don't tell me you crochet and drive,” I said.

  “That would be illegal,” she said, which wasn't the same as saying no.

  She threw the car into gear, and we were off. Off to see a man named Wick who was always mean to Kathy. I wasn't looking forward to it. Who could be mean to Kathy?

  Chapter 6

  Kathy drove us past the outskirts of town before turning onto an unpaved road. We passed rolling meadows, farm fields, low fences made of weathered wood, and tall fences made of netted wire designed to keep wildlife on one side. It was a gorgeous day for a drive, with blue skies above and warm breezes all around. Kathy's old car had no air conditioning, so we had the windows rolled down. Her brown, curly hair swirled around her face, occasionally getting stuck in the delicate gold filigree on the sides of her horn-rimmed glasses. Kathy's glasses were always spotless, and the horns at the edges of the frames made her look an awful lot like a specific type of bird. An owl. All it takes is for her to draw out the word whooooo like a hooting owl, and I'm hurting my face muscles trying not to crack up. Maybe if her nose wasn't so pointy and her wide-set eyes weren't so golden orange, I might stop seeing our head librarian as a sweater-set wearing owl. I've even gone so far as to ask Chet if my boss is secretly a shapeshifter, and he swears she's not, to the best of his knowledge.

  But how can she not be an owl? The woman actually refers to her beat-up old brown Honda Civic as her “nest on wheels.” To quote Kathy, whooooo doesn't love having all their crafting supplies with them at all times? I wondered, was resembling another creature just another strange side effect of living in Wisteria?

  Anthropomorphism is the ascription of human attributes to non-humans. Zoomorphism is the ascription of animal attributes to humans. (No, there won't be a test on this later.) I wondered if Wisteria caused zoomorphism in its residents. As much as Kathy reminded me of an owl, my coworker Frank, with his skinny legs and dyed pink hair, certainly resembled a flamingo.

  As Kathy and I drove along the pitted, bumpy gravel road, the breezes in our hair, I considered that zoomorphia could happen to me the longer I lived there. And what animal would I turn into? No sooner had I wondered the question than the answer came to me. A red fox. Vulpes vulpes. Because of their red fur, playfulness, and ability to adapt to new environments. And also because the females are called vixens. How cute!

  My daydreams about my life as a red fox dissipated when the smell of our destination wafted into Kathy's car. Even with the windows closed, the stench permeated the compact car's interior. We passed through a pair of tall, iron gates and into the Wisteria Sanitation Management Station. That's fancy municipal code for the dump.

  I manually pinched my nose and said, “Frank's going to be so sad he missed out.”

  Kathy frowned at me. “It's not too bad. Years ago, it was much worse.” She returned her attention to the road and turned down a side road.

  “This is the kind of bad smell you can taste in the back of your mouth.”

  “Oh, Zara. Is it really so bad?”

  “I guess my sense of smell has become more sensitive since...” since becoming a witch. “Since moving to a small town with such clean air.”

  “That's probably it,” she said. “Then again, I raised three boys who played every sport they could and crammed all their sweaty equipment into duffle bags, which they left to marinate for days at a time, so my sense of smell might not be as refined as some people's.” She fidgeted with all the dials and knobs on the car's console.

  I dropped my hand from my nose. “Oh, I've smelled things,” I said ominously. I didn't know what I meant by that, but I do have a tendency to keep talking and saying odd things when I'm around people who are clearly stressed.

  After a moment, I said, “So, why are we out here? What's the deal with Wick?”

  “All you need to know is he's a quarrelsome man who enjoys baiting women into arguments. I believe the term is gaslighting. He's a gaslighter.”

  “And is that gas methane?” I waved my hand under my nose. “I definitely detect some methane in the local environment.”

  Kathy's mouth relaxed into the smallest of smiles. “It's probably a wild goose chase that we're heading out here, but I've got to trust my intuition, and my intuition is telling me he's up to something.”

  “What do you mean, intuition? Have you got special powers?” I let out a laugh, pretending to be joking even though I was truly fishing.

  “Don't tell Frank or anyone else at work, but my grandmother had the Gift,” Kathy said, her curls swirling around her face as she kept her eyes on the road. “Grandma Kay would get feelings about things, and more often than not, it would turn out she was right. I haven't predicted half the things she did, but I swear sometimes I feel her near me.”

  I glanced over my shoulder into the backseat, just to be thorough. There was no grandmotherly ghost. Just a huge pile of yarn and crafting supplies.

  “But this trip is about more than your intuition,” I said. “The vandalized books did have a common theme of recycling, which made you think of your friend Wick.”

  She inhaled sharply. “He's no friend of mine.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “What's the plan when we get there? Are you going to throw the books at him and bluff your way into getting a confession?”

  “Actually, I'm going to ask for help. Wick is the town's top ink and paint expert.”

  “He's a sign painter?”

  “Oh, he's in charge of all sorts of things, from garbage pickups to street cleaning. But most importantly, he's the removal guy. If you ever see graffiti on city property, you call Wick. He's got all sorts of chemicals for removing stains and graffiti.”

  “And you think he's got some chemical that removes the ink from pages, and he's been erasing books with recycling themes to give you a hard time?”

  Kathy made an anguished noise. “It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, but you've got to know one thing: Wick is a genius. His mind doesn't work like yours or mine.”

  “He's some sort of criminal mastermind?”

  She coughed. “Don't let him know I told you anything about what he does.”

  “Pretend I know nothing?” I grinned. “Easy peasy.”

  “Here we are.” Kathy parked the car in front of a corrugated metal building.

  We got out and headed toward the metal structure, which appeared to be an office for the dump. The building itself was actually cute in its own way, like a cottage but made of galvanized metal. I'd seen houseboats with a similar structure, right down to the round window positioned at the peak of the A-framed front. Round window? Aunt Zinnia had told me shapeshifters loved living in houses with non-square windows, but when I asked Chet about it, he claimed it was a silly stereotype. But was it the sort of stereotype based on truth?

  Kathy knocked on the door. A man's voice came booming from exterior speakers like the voice of Gandalf. “ENTER!”

  We entered the metal shack. Inside, on the other side of a desk, was a man who didn't match my expectations of someone running a municipal landfill. Shoot me for jumping to stereotypes, but I'd expected someone with a gray beard and a cigarette dangling from cracked lips. The human equivalent of an old seagull.

  This guy looked more like the top man in charge of a casino. He was about fifty, clean shaven, and wide shouldered
. His hair was shiny black, slicked back and receding on the temples. His eyes were dark and hooded, his nose narrow like a hawk's, and his teeth were small and crooked but very white. Despite the warmth of the day, he wore a lightweight dark sweater over a collared shirt.

  When we'd entered, he'd been seated on the other side of a sizable oak desk, facing the door. He didn't get up when he saw us, nor did he invite us to sit—probably because he had only one extra chair for visitors and there were two of us. The office interior was a single room of about three hundred square feet. What it lacked in guest seating it made up for in filing cabinets. The walls were lined with at least a dozen of them.

  Kathy made eye contact with me while waving to the man as though introducing a museum piece. “Meet Vincent Wick,” she said.

  Vincent Wick gave her a thin, sneering smile, flashing only the top row of his crooked, gleaming-white teeth. “I see you brought backup, my dear Kathy.” His voice was thick with a substance I can only describe as smarm, which is a word I'd never had a use for until I met Vincent Wick.

  Kathy took off her horn-rimmed glasses and fidgeted with them. “We're here on official library business, Vincent.” Her tone was exasperated, but her voice quivered slightly. These two had history.

  “I'm sure you are,” he said with a smirk. He flicked his gaze over to where I was standing and scanned me from head to toe. “And you've brought one of your fellow book pushers.”

  I squared my shoulders. “I've been called worse things,” I replied. “As I'm sure you have been, too.” Such as Mr. Stinky, or Trash Man, or Lord of the Flies.

  His thin smile curled with amusement. “Not really.”

  Nobody spoke.

  His prolonged stare made me uncomfortable. I glanced over at the large picture window, which perfectly framed the dump site in a way that made it appear almost beautiful. From a distance, all the colored bits of compost were like confetti.

  “Indeed, it is beautiful,” he said, seemingly reading my mind.