3-Book Series Bundle: Wisteria Witches, Wicked Wisteria, Wisteria Wonders - Cozy Witch Mysteries

by Angela Pepper

  The pizza delivery girl cleared her throat. I paid her for the pizza plus a tip. As she left, I realized I'd never had a meal delivered by a female before. Things were different here in Wisteria. Safer, it seemed.

  The neighbors were still standing on the porch. I waved for them to join us inside. "Come in and partake of pizza delights. The internet says this is the best kind in town, but we need an expert's opinion."

  "We don't want to impose," Chet said. "Grampa Don told me what happened today. I only brought Corvin by to apologize."

  The boy-Corvin-squirmed like a fish on a hook. "Sorry," he croaked.

  "Corvin's very sorry," Chet said. "I'll pay for the damage to whatever he broke. How much?"

  "Don't worry about the money," I said. "But I do love a good heartfelt apology. I'll accept your apology if you come inside and join us. It's just pizza, plus we're having lime cordial in martini glasses because that's all the glassware we've unpacked so far."

  The little boy jerked away from Chet's grip on his collar. He flew into the house like an opportunistic housefly on the first day of spring, followed by Zoey with the pizza.

  As they neared the dining room, I heard Zoey say, "Corvin? That's such an interesting name. It means raven."

  "I know that," spat the boy. "I'm not a dummy. I'm a genius. I'm smarter than you. I'm smarter than everyone."

  "You think you're smarter than me?" Zoey laughed and started quizzing him. "How big is the moon in relation to the earth?"

  "Twenty-seven percent."

  "That's a bit high, Corvin."

  "Dummy! You didn't specify," he said. "By diameter, the moon is twenty-seven percent compared to earth, but by volume it's two percent."

  "Very good. Here, have some pizza." A few seconds passed. "Hey! Leave some for the rest of us."

  While the two kids quizzed each other and fought over the pizza in the dining room, I smiled sweetly at Chet. We stood near the front door, where he was examining the carved wood table we'd positioned in the hallway to receive keys and mail. He nodded appreciatively at the dovetail joints visible inside the drawers. He had an eye for detail and craftsmanship.

  "Your son is a clever boy," I said.

  "Corvin? He doesn't get it from me."

  "What does your wife do?"

  "Nothing," he said.

  "Lucky lady," I said with a laugh.

  "She's dead." He quickly added, "No need to apologize. It was many years ago, before I moved in next door with my father. Don was supposed to help me raise Corvin to be a well-adjusted and perfectly normal boy. As you can see, that didn't exactly work out as planned."

  "Boys are tough," I said. "So are girls, but I got lucky. People say Zoey has an old soul."

  Chet finished examining the entry table and glanced down the hall, toward the den. "May I? It's been a while since I've been inside this house."

  "Be my guest."

  He led the way to the den, where he frowned at the dirt and mess on the floor. I apologized for the disaster and started using the broom and dustpan to clean it up.

  "Don't apologize." He knelt near my feet and gathered stray pottery from the corners of the room. "You're not the one who did this."

  "To be fair, we didn't see your son break these things. We only saw him running away from the house."

  "Corvin's supposed to be out of his destructive phase," Chet said. "He's relapsed. The therapist says I need to be firm, but not overreact. How's a parent supposed to do that? We've been trying to come up with a fair punishment, but he keeps lying. He says it wasn't him. He says a ghost knocked over your welcome gifts."

  "Ask him how he'd know about this so-called ghost if he wasn't inside the house. You can't see into this room from your place."

  Chet went to the window and sighed as he leaned on the windowsill.

  "Corvin isn't like other kids," he said.

  "What's wrong with him?"

  "Wrong?" He turned to face me, his green eyes blazing under thick, dark eyebrows. "I try to focus on what's right with him. He's still a person."

  "I've offended you," I said. "I'm very sorry."

  His expression softened. "No. Don't be. We came here to apologize to you, and you're not wrong about Corvin. He's not normal."

  I grabbed his arm playfully. "Honey, there's something wrong with all of us, and thank the stars, because it'd be a dull world if we weren't all a bit bent."

  He looked down at my hand on his arm as though he'd never seen a hand before. Was he one of those people with an aversion to being touched? Earlier in the day, when we'd been shaking hands, he had yanked his away suddenly. What would happen if I kept holding his arm? I got the funniest image in my head of him turning to stone.

  I studied his face while he stared at my hand. He had long, thick, dark eyelashes. His cheeks were smooth, shaved that day, even though it was the weekend. His internet handle had been Chet Twenty-one. Did I remember anything at all about him from my days of internet fame? Nothing came to me, yet I couldn't shake the sensation we knew each other really well. We had history, whether I understood it or not. He cleared his throat and gently pulled his arm from my grasp.

  "We should check on our kids," he said, his voice thick and gravelly.

  I cocked my head. "I hear laughter. That's a good sign. You only have to worry when they're quiet."

  "Corvin is very quiet."

  "Maybe they'll become friends. Zoey always wanted a little brother, but as time went on and I got used to being on my own, that became unlikely. Not impossible, because everything works fine down there-better than fine-but you know what it's like being a busy single parent."

  He seemed amused by my over-sharing. He licked his lips and said, "Zara Riddle, formerly Zara the Camgirl, I'd be shocked by you discussing your plumbing with a man you just met, but I feel like I know you. It's the strangest feeling. Do you know what I mean?"

  "It's not really that strange," I said. "I was famous on the internet for about fifteen minutes, plus you watched me on my webcams and read my journal entries."

  He shook his head. "Life is funny. I can't believe I live next door to Zara the Camgirl. You were all the way across the country then. You're a long way from home."

  "I got a great job offer out of the blue and decided to make a leap of faith."

  "To Wisteria," he said, chuckling. "That's a big leap of faith."

  I grinned at him. "Too late! You guys are stuck with me now. For better or for worse."

  He finished, "Til death do us part."

  "Speaking of which, while we were waiting for our pizza to arrive, I dug up a little information about the previous owner of this house. It's probably stuff you already know."

  "Try me." He flashed a flirty smile. Who was the Turbo-flirter now? Chet Moore. That's who.

  I started spouting my research. "Winona Vander Zalm was a wacky diva socialite who showed up at parties for just about anything. You could open a sandwich shop and she'd be there helping to cut the ribbon. I found photos of her at every event in Wisteria since people started posting on the internet. She was stunning for her age."

  "Ms. Vander Zalm was a very dynamic woman."

  "How did she die?" I waited with breathless anticipation. Was it right here in this house?

  The den filled with a buzzing sound. The lighting brightened. The room got icy cold.

  From out of nowhere, I remembered a line I'd memorized for a high school production of Macbeth. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

  The den got brighter and colder.

  Chet looked into my eyes. "Are you doing this?"

  And then, with a sizzling pop, the two sconce lamps on either side of the fireplace flashed and burned out.

  Chapter 5

  Chet quickly decided the burned out bulbs came courtesy of a problem with the electrical circuits, and left to check on the panel.

  A few minutes after leaving me in the dark den, he returned to find me sweeping the broken plant and dirt into a garbage bag
. It wasn't the easiest task to do one-handed while holding a flashlight.

  "Your electrical looks safe enough," he reported back.

  "No ghosts?

  He snorted. "You should have a certified electrician come in and upgrade the whole panel, but I don't think there's any rush." He stood in the doorway to the den, his face in shadow.

  I finished sweeping up and stood with the flashlight under my chin, pointing up.

  "Chet, you were going to tell me how Ms. Vander Zalm passed. Specifically, whether or not it was inside this house."

  He crossed his arms and leaned casually against the door frame as he chuckled. "Is it that time of the night already?"

  "Do you mean the time of night where we tell spooky stories?"

  He kept chuckling.

  "I do know quite a few spooky tales," I said. "It's one of the hazards of my career."

  "Hmm." He rubbed his chin. "Let me guess. You're a camp counselor?"

  "Close but no prize." I pulled the flashlight away and blinked at the blurry splotches in my field of view.

  Through the haze, I could see his shadowy outline nodding. "Let's leave the ghost stories to our kids," he said. "As for Ms. Vander Zalm, she passed away peacefully in her sleep."

  "Here? In the house?"

  "I did say peacefully. Can you imagine anything more peaceful than passing into the next world from the comfort of your own home?"

  I crossed my arms and sighed. "Chet, I like how you don't give straight answers. I'm sure it drives some people crazy, but I dig it. You're interesting."

  "Are you being sarcastic?"

  "Let's leave that open to your interpretation."

  "Zara Riddle, you are so much more than Zara the Camgirl."

  "I'm also a librarian."

  "Not a camp counselor?"

  "Nope. I'm one of Wisteria's librarians. Starting Monday."

  "Tell me more about this librarian job of yours," he said.

  "Oh, I will," I said. "Let's get some of that pizza before I faint, though."

  * * *

  We found the pizza in the dining room and put a few slices onto plates, which we took to the half-unpacked living room. I resisted the urge to mash the food into my face double-handed. I didn't want Chet to see my monster side just yet.

  Chet took a seat on an upholstered chair and spread two squares of paper towel across his lap. He had another two squares he was using as napkins, and he took careful bites of his pizza slice, holding the plate up under it to catch crumbs.

  He held himself up with excellent posture. I started to feel self-conscious about my slouched position on the sofa. I got the feeling the Moore house next door had a lot of rules about where eating happened, and it didn't happen in the living room.

  The two kids darted in and out while they explored the house together, chatting away about science facts, oscillating between becoming sworn nemeses and the best of friends.

  Corvin seemed very comfortable inside my house—the opposite of his father. Chet had been warm and polite about checking the electrical panel and answering my nosy questions about his former neighbor, but from the minute he'd taken a seat, he'd looked uncomfortable.

  A peal of laughter floated down from the upper floor.

  "I'm glad they're getting along," Chet said.

  "How old is Corvin?"

  Chet winced, looking even more uncomfortable. I started to wonder if there was something wrong with the chair, or with his back. He adjusted the tiny throw pillow on the chair behind him. "Let's say he's ten, give or take a month."

  I laughed at his vagueness. "Those two may be six years apart, but Zoey has the same sense of humor as a ten-year-old boy, so they're not as different as they appear." I didn't add that I also laughed at puerile humor and butt jokes. As my neighbor, Chet would figure that out soon enough.

  Chet took a sip of lime cordial from his margarita glass and asked, "What does it take to be a librarian?"

  I started listing off the requirements on my fingers. "A corkscrew for the wine, a closet full of cardigans, the optimism to assume that all brown mystery stains found in books are chocolate, a desk calendar featuring cats in hilarious costumes, and, um, did I mention the cardigans? Sometimes you need to wear a cardigan over top of your other cardigan, if the library is really cold, or you spilled wine on yourself."

  He smiled, and it was a smile that radiated beams of light into the darkest reaches of my heart. My joke seemed to have relaxed him a little. I looked away quickly, before I started blushing but it was too late. My cheeks were hot.

  I took a bite of pizza and then answered his question more seriously, telling him about the education I'd taken to qualify for a librarian job.

  "That's a lot of schooling," he said. I expected him to finish the thought with, to do what the internet does for free. Bless his heart, he didn't say it. Could he be any more charming?

  "I did put in a lot of long hours," I said. "During the times I was tempted to give up, I pushed on so I could set a good example for Zoey."

  He raised his eyebrows in a look of admiration. "And you did it all while raising your daughter as a single parent." He jerked his head back, frowned, and quickly added, "Oops. I didn't mean to say that. I hate it when people call me a single parent. Labels are so stigmatizing."

  "Labels really are the worst," I agreed. "I wasn't thinking ahead about the label when I got pregnant." I stood up and refilled our glasses with green cordial. "I wasn't thinking at all," I said.

  Chet gave me a sly look. "Thinking is overrated. Life is for living."

  "Yes," I agreed. "And even if I could go back in time and confiscate those Barberrian wine coolers from the younger version of myself before I got in trouble, I wouldn't change a thing."

  Chet picked up his margarita glass and raised it in a toast. "To not changing a thing."

  I raised mine as well and clinked it against his glass. After a moment, I mused, "I wish I could still get those wine coolers, but the company went out of business."

  "What a shame," he said, his eyes twinkling.

  * * *

  While the kids ran around the house, exploring the attic and all the crawlspace storage cubbies, Chet and I continued our chat in the living room.

  His posture remained rigid, and he continued to give off the aura of waiting to escape, but I found him to be a wonderful conversationalist. When I talked, he really listened, and the words flowed. It probably helped that I was so complimentary of his home town.

  I told him how excited I was to be working my dream job in a town that felt like an undiscovered gem. How did Wisteria even exist? The town had just enough of everything, was as pretty as a postcard, and my dream house was totally affordable. How had the rest of the world not packed up their bags and moved there ahead of me?

  Chet didn't have any answers but agreed that Wisteria had to be paradise because people kept telling him that. He'd grown up there, so he knew little else.

  I tried to find out more about him, but he kept skilfully redirecting the conversation back to me, and heaven knows I do love a captive audience.

  We joked around about ghosts and werewolves and things that go bump in the night.

  After we'd finished all the pizza, Corvin and Zoey ran next door and returned with fresh brownies and vanilla ice cream. We invited Grampa Don, but he declined as he was watching something on TV.

  I was so cozy. My body felt like an al dente noodle. I relaxed into the corner of the sofa and reached for my favorite patchwork quilt to draw across my lap.

  Chet was talking to Zoey about her aspirations beyond high school and then…

  A clock began striking midnight with loud gongs.

  I said, "What was that?" We didn't own a clock that made gong sounds.

  The gonging continued, ringing in my head.

  Chet and Zoey continued to talk about careers, as though they couldn't hear the thunderous clangs of the clock striking the time.

  I tried to speak again, but I was frozen, as
if in a dream.

  The room shimmered and wavered around me.

  Was I dreaming? Was any of this real? It did feel too good to be true.

  My eyes felt like they were burning.

  I was falling down a tunnel that was both dark and bright at the same time, a swirling rainbow of star bursts. The gongs of the clock turned to thunder, cracking around me. The world tipped sideways, and I lurched to a stop.

  Everything was dark.

  Chapter 6

  Where am I?

  I opened my eyes. My environment was still dark, but things started taking shape, looking more familiar.

  What happened?

  I'd been sitting on the couch, across from Chet, thinking about taking the last brownie in the pan. Then a clock had started gonging at midnight.

  Midnight?

  Something had changed. Today was Zoey's birthday. My daughter was sixteen.

  But something else had happened, and now I wasn't in the living room anymore.

  I was alone, in a kitchen. My kitchen.

  The room's lights were off, but enough ambient light came in from the street lamps that I could dimly make out my surroundings. How did I get to the kitchen? And why was I wearing my black sleeping dress again? I must have fallen asleep in the living room. How embarrassing. My daughter must have helped me get undressed and changed into the nightgown.

  And now I was in the kitchen. Was I sleepwalking? That was a new one for me.

  A burning smell made my sinuses ache and my eyes water.

  Something in front of me was glowing red. Two rectangular lines. The toaster.

  KERCLUNK.

  The toaster's handle popped up, along with two pieces of blackened toast. The toast was beyond edible, practically ashes.

  I yanked the charred toast from the still-glowing appliance and tossed both pieces in the nearby sink. The blackened squares continued to smolder. I quickly doused them with water to stop tendrils of smoke from reaching the room's smoke detector.

  Think, Zara. What's the last thing you remember? Feeling drowsy on the sofa. Chet's green eyes, watching me as he sat straight-backed in the chair. The familiar comfort of being near him. Being completely relaxed.