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

by Angela Pepper

  “If I see food, I eat it. So, yes.”

  “Great,” he said, without any acknowledgment of my joke.

  Tough crowd, I thought.

  The waiter arrived and asked if we were ready to order. At least that's what I assumed he was asking. I couldn't hear him through the spell.

  Chet was reaching for the clicker again.

  I gave him my I've-got-this gesture with one hand while I used the other to surreptitiously disarm the spell.

  We ordered dinner, with both of us getting the seafood fettuccine.

  “No thanks,” Chet said of the wine menu. “But I'd love a tall glass of iced tea, no herbs.”

  Our meals arrived quickly, and we began to eat without talking.

  Seated to my right was a young couple who appeared to be on a first date. The girl was eating slowly, cutting her breaded chicken into tiny cubes smaller than dice—specifically, small dice or macédoine, with sides measuring approximately a quarter inch. The boy kept asking her if everything was okay, in between clearing his throat nervously. I watched as they shyly made eye contact, freezing in place until one of them blushed and looked away. I didn't have powers of prognostication (not yet, anyway), but I could see some awkward kissing in their immediate future.

  I looked across my table at my own date. At least he looked happier. By the blissful smile on his face and half-lidded eyes, he had apparently come here to make sweet love to a plate of cream-drenched pasta.

  Had I misjudged Chet's interest in me, or had something suddenly changed between us? One week earlier we had been holding hands and making goo goo eyes at each other. Granted, it had been an act, a dramatic ruse to convince someone we had spontaneously gotten married. (Long story.) I knew the affection was all pretend, but I could've sworn there was a glimmer of truth beneath our newlywed routine. Chet had gazed into my eyes with sincere, heart-felt adoration. In fact, it was the exact same look he was now lavishing on his remaining forkfuls of fettuccine.

  “You must really like pasta,” I said. “Either that or you've been starving all day.”

  He grunted without looking up.

  I cleared my throat. “I'm feeling voyeuristic over here. That fettuccine sure wants to be inside you. Maybe I should leave the two of you alone to be fully intimate with each other.”

  Without so much as looking up at me, or my barely touched plate of food, Chet called for our waiter. “Two orders of tiramisu,” he said. “And two cappuccino.”

  The skinny young waiter looked down at my unfinished dinner and gave me a sympathetic look. “Need more time with that?” he asked.

  “I'll take mine to go,” I said. “When you bring out the take-home box, put it here.” I tapped the table to my immediate right. “My date over there is a real animal, and if you get this delicious pasta too close to his snout, he's liable to wolf it down.”

  The waiter took my plate with an uneasy smile.

  Once he was gone, Chet growled at me, “Zara, you can play with fire all you want, but don't take me down with you.”

  I sighed the way Aunt Zinnia does when she feels put-upon, which is nearly as frequent an occurrence as Zoey rolling her eyes. I reached for my glass of wine and tossed back the last sip.

  The next course arrived.

  Chet fidgeted with his remaining utensils and craned his neck, looking left and right—anywhere but at me.

  Finally, I asked, “What's with you tonight? Are you in a rush to get somewhere else? You've barely even looked at me.”

  He jerked his head to attention and stared right at me.

  His voice low and rumbling, he asked, “Are you feeling ignored, Zara?” Without breaking eye contact, he dabbed his mouth with a cloth napkin in a refined gesture.

  “More like invisible.”

  “That wasn't my intention.” He continued to stare at me, his face blurring around those intense green eyes.

  I could feel myself blushing, no different from the nervous teen girl seated to my right. My whole body warmed. So what if Chet wasn't eager to discuss the intimate details of his supernatural status? He was probably unused to being around people who knew his secret. At least he was a handsome man, with his thick dark hair and hyper-intelligent green eyes. This date could still be salvaged. If he paid me even one small compliment, I could forgive him for cheating on me with a plate of noodles.

  The waiter arrived with our dessert. He set the two tiramisu plates in front of us, and obediently placed my leftover pasta to my side, out of Chet's reach.

  Chet glanced down at the takeout box then back up at me. I smiled. It was a beaming, huge grin, like that of someone who just won a seven-hour game of Monopoly. I didn't know what type of game Chet and I were playing, but I had the distinct impression I was winning.

  “As a matter of fact, I do have to be somewhere tonight,” Chet said. “For work.”

  He had my attention. “When you say work, you mean your super-secret job that's not with the FBI?” I winked twice. “The paranormal division?”

  He answered in an equally hushed tone. “Zara, I keep telling you. I don't work for the X-Files, because that's not a real thing. And I definitely don't work for the FBI.”

  “What about the pen gadget?” I pointed to his jacket's breast pocket. “The clicky thing! It looks exactly like something Will Smith would get issued in Men in Black.” I gasped. “Men in Black is for real?”

  “We're not called the MIB.”

  “But you do have an acronym.”

  His eyes flashed with unconscious agreement. “Maybe.”

  “Don't be stingy with the intel,” I said. “At least tell me the acronym. Then, if I happen to guess your secret, shadowy organizations name correctly, just wink like this.” I clicked my tongue in the side of my mouth as I gave him a corny, theatrical wink.

  “Not allowed,” he said.

  I slumped theatrically in my chair. “Fine. Let's eat our dessert.”

  Chet picked up his fork and paused. The table in front of him was empty. “Where's my tiramisu?”

  I blinked innocently. A moment earlier, I'd used my powers to put his dessert somewhere safe.

  “I've taken a hostage,” I said matter-of-factly. “If you want to see your billion-calorie Italian dessert again, you'll give me the acronym.”

  “We don't negotiate with witches,” he said. It sounded like a phrase he uttered all the time.

  I shrugged, picked up my fork, and took a bite of my own dessert. Mine was not currently floating ten feet above our heads, hidden between the restaurant's factory-style exposed ventilation system.

  “Mmm,” I said as the feather-light zabaglione mixed with mascarpone and whipped cream melted on my tongue.

  After a moment, Chet said, “I'll trade you my dessert for one letter.”

  I swallowed, held my breath and waited for my clue.

  “W,” he said.

  “Wisteria,” I said without hesitation.

  “No.”

  “Weird? Wild? Wonderful? Werewolves? Wizardry?”

  He tapped the table impatiently. I checked to see that nobody was watching, and floated his tiramisu back down without incident.

  While we ate dessert, I kept guessing W words. “Wands? Witchcraft? Wildflowers? Weirdness?”

  He refused to give me any more clues.

  “Warblers? Warfare? Walkabouts? Wannabes?”

  He scraped the last crumbs onto his fork.

  “Watchers,” I said. “Like the British guy, Giles, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

  Chet shook his head and signaled for the waiter to bring the bill.

  * * *

  Later, when we were driving back to Beacon Street, he chuckled. “Watchers,” he said with amusement. “That's not it, but you get points for creative thinking.”

  “Wicked? Wranglers? Walruses?”

  He chuckled softly and stared at the road ahead.

  As I studied his smiling face in profile, I tried to relax in the passenger seat. The muscles between my shoulder b
lades ached with tension, but I was relieved to have Chet behaving more like the man I believed he was—the charming single father who'd helped me lug heavy boxes on the day Zoey and I moved in next door. We'd shared plenty of meals so far, from a casual pizza delivery hangout with our kids, to the multi-course dinner party extravaganza that the ghost of Winona Vander Zalm helped me create. Tonight was our first real date, with no family members present or business to discuss. It hadn't been entirely bad. Despite the awkwardness, a so-so date with Chet was still more fun than no date at all on Saturday night.

  I looked around the interior of Chet's vehicle. It was spotless and tidy, and still had that new-car smell despite being a few years old. Chet took good care of his things, unlike me. I sold my old car to finance the move to Wisteria, and it took several price reductions for the right buyer to see past the chips and dents, as well as the ever-present Cheetos odor.

  Chet's vehicle was refined, sensible, and grown-up, just like him. Was that what I wanted in a man? They say opposites attract. Lately Chet had been guarded with his emotions, but that might make him a good complement for me, a person who constantly makes inappropriate comments to cover the fact she doesn't quite understand how to act like a regular adult.

  We turned onto Beacon Street, and he parked on the street in front of the Moore house. The late evening spring sky was pink and red, making our picturesque street of Victorian Gothic houses look more lovely than ever.

  “I guess I'll walk myself home from here,” I said with a sniff.

  He snorted softly. “Hang on. I'll drive you all the way there. It's the brick-red one?”

  With my best Winona Vander Zalm impression, I said, “The paint color is Wisconsin Barn Red.”

  “You mean the Red Witch House.” He put the vehicle in gear, pulled forward one house, and parked again.

  “We don't call it that, dear,” I said snootily. “Just like we don't call the blue house next door with the strange little goat weather vane and the round attic window the Shifter Shack.”

  He snorted. “I'm glad you don't, because I'd hate to have my cover blown.”

  “The Men in Black wouldn't like that, would they?”

  He leaned over toward me, inside the car. I was surprised at how quickly he was coming in for the goodnight kiss. I readied my lips. But then he didn't kiss me after all. He popped the button to unlatch my seat belt.

  “Have a good night, Zara,” he said. “I'd walk you to the door, but I really don't have the time.”

  “Your loss,” I said airily.

  “Thanks for coming out tonight. I had fun. It felt good to laugh. I can always count on you to make me laugh.”

  “You can count on me to be hilarious,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay,” I echoed as I let myself out of the vehicle.

  “Hey,” he called out, but the vehicle door was already swinging shut.

  I walked up to the house without looking back because I didn't want him to see the disappointment on my face. He didn't get out of his vehicle. I heard it click into gear as he prepared to drive off.

  I kept going until I was through my front door.

  Inside, I went straight to the kitchen, grabbed a fork, and opened up the boxed leftover fettuccine I set the food on the counter next to a shiny, silver, ballpoint pen.

  Silly Chet had been so eager to give me the bum's rush out of his vehicle, he hadn't noticed me pickpocket his multi-pulse click generator—whatever that was.

  Chapter 4

  I woke up Sunday morning to silence. Too much silence. Something was wrong with either my ears or the world. Sound was missing. I couldn't explain what sound I expected to hear, exactly, but it was all gone. Was it a spell? Ear wax? A spell that increased production of ear wax? Who would do such a thing?

  I checked my ears with my pinkie fingers. My ear canals felt normal enough, slightly sticky but no more in need of cleaning than normal. More importantly, I heard the rustling of my quilts and sheets as I shifted in my bed. For good measure, a spring in the mattress groaned. My ears were working fine.

  Physically, the only thing wrong with me was the dull ache in the center of my chest. That was probably heartburn, caused by my late-night eating binge, which was in turn caused by the other kind of heartburn—the one you feel when the guy you're falling in love with dumps you off at your front door without so much as a fist bump, let alone a romantic sunset kiss on the porch.

  But I'm not one to moon over a little romantic kerfuffle. My priorities in life have always been first about looking after my daughter, then myself, my career, etcetera, with dating far down the list, somewhere in the vicinity of shoe shopping. Fun but not necessary.

  I rolled over to check the time. The screen of my old-fashioned LED clock radio was black.

  The power was out.

  That explained the eerie silence. My portable air purifier wasn't making its pleasant white noise, nor were any of the appliances downstairs.

  Was this absence of power a side effect caused by the multi-pulse click generator I creatively “borrowed" from Chet? I hadn't clicked it the night before, not even once. He'd said it had a limited number of charges, and I didn't want to waste them and get into even more trouble. I pulled open the bedside table drawer. The pen was right where I'd left it.

  I got up, dressed, and went to wake Zoey.

  “We've got a huge problem,” I said.

  She pulled her pillow over her head. “Can't we go a whole week without having a huge problem?”

  “It's a non-magical problem. The power's out. I don't know if it's just the block or the whole town.”

  She sat up and gave me a sleepy look. “Were you sleep-toasting again?” She leaned forward to look deeply into my eyes. “Winona? Are you back?”

  “It's just me. I'm not possessed, I swear.” I looked up at the ceiling and shook my head. “This is my life now,” I muttered. “I have to tell my daughter I'm not possessed.”

  She yawned. Just another normal day in the Riddle household.

  I nodded toward her bedroom door. “Come downstairs and help me find something wooden that you're not too attached to. I'll make a fire in the backyard, and we can roast some frozen waffles over an open flame for breakfast. Plus marshmallows.”

  “Color me intrigued,” Zoe said as she slid out of her bed, her pajama bottoms wrinkling up to her knees. She yawned again, stretched, and pulled back the curtains.

  Directly across from her window was the Moore residence, and the window for Corvin's bedroom. And there he was, with his round face leaning in close to his window, his nose nearly touching the glass. His expression was utterly blank, like an appliance with the power unplugged. He saw Zoey, and his eyes lit up. As though he'd been waiting for her to wake up.

  Zoey lifted her wooden window open with a groan. A fragrant spring breeze came in as she waved. “Good morning, Corvin!”

  His round, pale face split with a huge, gap-toothed grin that bordered on maniacal. He waved back frantically and wordlessly.

  “That kid is not right,” I whispered to Zoe.

  “He grows on you,” she said sweetly.

  “Like black mold,” I said.

  She leaned down to the open window and called to Corvin across the gap. “Any word on when the power's coming back on?”

  Instead of answering, he backed away from the window and disappeared from sight, which didn't surprise me at all. With Corvin, you learn to expect the unexpected.

  The light inside his bedroom flicked off and on repeatedly.

  “It's Morse Code,” Zoe said excitedly.

  I patted her on the shoulders. “Not so fast, Detective Overthinker. He's got light, which means he's got power, which means maybe I should have opened those orange envelopes from The Wisteria Electric Company.”

  Zoe looked at me, then rolled her eyes so hard that her disdain afflicted her entire body and she had to collapse back onto her bed limply, wailing, “Mooooooooooooom,” which, incidentally,
is my second-least favorite rendition of my title. My number one, least favorite rendition is the whining “mo-ho-hooo-whaaa-whaaa-herk-herk-whaa-whaa-whaaaaaa!” Luckily for me, Zoey never sang that tune, but I hear it often enough in shopping malls and it turns my blood to ice every time.

  I looked over to see Corvin's pale face and big eyes staring back at me. I wondered if he ever wailed for his absent mother. Had the boy even known his mother long enough to throw temper tantrums in crowded malls?

  As I wondered about his past, he slowly shook his head. As though he could hear my thoughts. Could he read minds?

  There was his strangely wide, maniacal smile again.

  Well, maybe it was good that my romance with Corvin's father had been nipped in the bud. I could help the kid plenty as a neighbor without having to explain his behavior to teachers and other parents.

  I forced a pleasant wave and backed away from the window. Corvin and all his creepiness could be wondered about any time. I had to get the electricity running again, or else learn how to make cold-brew coffee, and the latter did not appeal to me at all.

  * * *

  We got through most of Sunday without power, and rejoiced at dinner time when it finally came back on.

  My suspicion that the outage had something to do with the unopened orange envelopes turned out to be correct. Yay, me!

  On Monday at work, I told my flamboyant, pink-haired coworker all about my problems with the hard-bottomed, by-the-rules billing administrators at Wisteria Electric.

  Frank Wonder responded to my anguished tale with equal parts sympathy and sarcasm.

  “That must have been very difficult for you,” he said in a mock-soothing tone. “How dare those jerks at the electric company demand money in exchange for services?”

  I glanced up from the book-return bin to shoot him a dirty look, crossing my eyes and sticking out my tongue.

  “Careful you're not making that face when a clock chimes, or it'll get stuck that way.”

  Innocently, I asked, “Is that what happened to you?”

  Frank ruffled the front tuft of his dyed pink hair and screwed his face up into a grotesque mask.