“Corvin showed me a shortcut,” she said, pulling out her phone. “I just need to check something.” She angled her body so I couldn't see her screen.
I stopped and waited, admiring the purplish colors of the sky as she looked up her secret map, or whatever it was.
“This way,” she said brightly, leading me past the Moore residence. I glanced over at the blue house. It was a lovely old Gothic Victorian building, similar to mine, but with a circle window in the attic. I admired their funky, goat-topped weather vane, as I usually did.
A few blocks later, Zoey said, “People don't get engaged unless they're in love, right?”
“These days, in this country, that's usually the case. But you're a clever girl and you knew that, so you must be driving at some point. Spill it.”
“Have you ever noticed that whenever we walk by the Moore house, you sigh like a lovesick teenager?”
I let out a low laugh. “I do not.”
She stopped walking and blocked my path on the sidewalk, facing me.
“Proof,” she said, holding up her phone so I could see the screen.
It was a video from a few minutes earlier—a shaky video—of me, walking. On the bumpy video, my face tilted up. It showed me looking at something, and my whole expression changed from a pleasant one to a look of pure sadness. My lips parted, and I sighed. Audibly.
Busted.
I pushed the screen away. “Zoey, this is just proof that you're a ding-dong.”
She huffed, “You're the ding-dong. Look at yourself.” She started the video playing again and waved it in front of my face.
I looked into Zoey's eyes. “What's this supposed to prove? I'm envious of their weather vane, because it's got a cute little goat, and I've half a mind to get one for our house.” I shoved my hands in my skirt pockets. She played it for a third time, and there was no denying what the video showed.
“Fine,” I said, exasperated. “You got me, Director McDing-Dong. Great filming. I do sigh whenever we walk by Chet's house, but only because I have a crush on him.”
“You're in love with him.”
“Zoey, you're still young, but if some boy manages to pry your adorable, freckled nose out of your textbooks, you'll soon discover that love is a very complicated emotion. There are many varieties of romantic feelings, like that soft serve ice cream place with the fifty different flavors, only with an infinite number of flavors.”
“If love is like soft serve ice cream with an infinite number of flavors, then Chet is strawberry swirled with coconut, which are two out of three of your favorite flavors, and the ones you always ask for, even though you believe you're mildly allergic to both.”
“You're right,” I said lightly. “I'm mildly allergic to Chet. Just talking about him like this is causing my chin to itch.”
I rubbed my chin as I circled around her on the sidewalk, and continued walking along the street. “Let's talk about something else. I'm your parent, not your girlfriend. Remember the lectures about boundaries? The ones you regularly give me about how normal mothers should be?”
She caught up with me and linked her arm with mine. As we walked, she leaned her head against my shoulder.
“Mom, I'm just trying to look out for you.”
I reached up with my free hand and patted her head. “I know.”
“It's just that—” She made her adorable worked-up noise and cut herself off with her own emotions before spitting it out. “It's just that Chessa was Chet's fiancée, which means she was in love with him, so if her spirit gets into you, wouldn't that make you feel like you're in love with Chet?”
I stumbled over a tree root in the sidewalk. Zoey's linked arm steadied me.
“You make a good point,” I admitted. “The spirits affect me in ways I can't predict.” I turned to her and forced a grin. “You're worried my crush on Chet is going to get even stronger after she visits me. I'll become unbearable to everyone around me. I'll be looking out our windows at his house and sighing tragically, all hours of the day.”
Zoey's cheeks reddened. She tugged my arm to turn left, and we walked diagonally through a park, past well-maintained slides and swing sets. I knew she had more to say, so I waited.
Finally, it came out in a single outburst.
“Mom, maybe Chessa has already been inside you, but she's weak, so you didn't notice. You've been different since we decided to move. And don't say that everyone's different after a move and how that's the whole point of moving. You pitched coming to Wisteria as being purely for economic and career reasons, but what if there was something else going on and you didn't see it? Remember, you didn't even know you were a witch, let alone Spirit Charmed, so you wouldn't have been expecting to get possessed. Meanwhile, this Chessa lady has been floating around without her body for a year now. What if she found you back in February, got into your head, and convinced you to find a reason to move here, all so she could use you for her own agenda?” Zoey paused long enough to inhale. “And furthermore, I'm not worried about her spirit increasing your crush on Chet. I'm worried that you never had a crush of your own in the first place. What if everything you feel about Chet, all your emotions and reactions, from the sighing to the joking around to today's yelling session in the front yard, has always come to you from her?”
Chapter 9
After my daughter's bombshell of a theory, we walked in uneasy silence.
Chet Moore belonged to another woman, a woman whose love might have infected me like a spiritual virus.
What if everything I felt about Chet—my girlish crush, my sensual daydreams, and even my outrage at his secrecy—also belonged to her?
Even more alarming, my decision to abandon my old life and move to Wisteria might have been guided by this woman's invisible hand.
I tried to recall the exact moment I made the choice to move, but I couldn't remember any details about where I'd been or what I'd thought. Entire weeks of my life now felt distant and dream-like.
At the time of the decision, whenever friends and coworkers asked about the move, I'd given them all the same answer. “It's just something I have to do at least once in my life, and why not now?” I'd explained that it wasn't so much a strong desire to move as it was a certainty that if I didn't move, I'd always wonder about that other life not lived. Most people understood about the special type of regret for roads not taken. My words, once spoken, felt reassuring, but underneath my practiced speech there was a lingering fear I'd made a terrible mistake.
During the weeks before the move, I'd been disturbed by anxious thoughts about accidents and illnesses. Every single bad thing that happened in the future would happen due to my move. If I stayed where I was, I'd never be crossing a street at the exact moment a truck driver in Wisteria lost control of his brakes. But as soon as I moved, I'd be setting in motion a chain of events that would eventually come back around, correcting the wrongness of me being somewhere I wasn't meant to be.
These thoughts were intrusive and constant. They wore me down. I knew it was just anxiety, but knowing the name of the beast wasn't enough to banish it.
The day the movers loaded all our earthly possessions into a big, white truck, my fear turned sharp, like the point of a pin, threatening to burst my bubble of hope. I was practically vibrating that evening, pacing the apartment of our kindly neighbor, Mrs. Hutchins. She'd invited us over for one last tuna-noodle casserole. Zoey and I would spend the night on her pull-out sofa, since our beds and sheets were already on their way to our new home.
At dinnertime, Mrs. Hutchins ordered me to stop pacing and wearing out her rug, and sit at the kitchen table. Then she opened her copy of the Bible to a dog-eared page and read, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” She set the book on the table between us and gave me a meaningful look.
In response, I'd said something sassy. I couldn't remember what, exactly, but Zoey had kicked my shin und
er the table. I apologized for my sass, thanked Mrs. Hutchins for her wisdom, picked up the Good Book, and read the passage myself. Over and over.
Later that evening, before bed, Mrs. Hutchins had sat with me and prayed. With her kind words and the touch of her wrinkled hand on mine, her small, sparse apartment became the most wonderful, welcoming place. I couldn't imagine leaving the comfort of her home, let alone the city in which I'd raised my daughter.
Once the lights went out, I cried silently into my pillow, careful not to disturb Zoey, who lay on the squeaky pull-out bed beside me.
I reached for the bible Mrs. Hutchins had left on the side table, and clutched it to my chest. The tears stopped flowing. I slept deeply, and in the morning, I trusted that something bigger and wiser than me was directing my path.
I had no idea it might be a gorgon.
* * *
“This way,” Zoey said. “The beach is right on the other side of the path.” She pointed to a gap in an old wooden fence and sniffed the air. “We're so close, you can already smell the ionization of the waves.”
I hesitated and looked around. I hadn't been paying attention to my surroundings. We were in the middle of an alley—an alley belonging to wealthy people, judging by the size of the estates and height of the mansions.
“As your parent, I can't condone trespassing,” I said, my brain switching into parenting mode. Compared to being manipulated by the wandering spirit of a gorgon, trespassing was the least of my worries, but sixteen years of being a single mother had created its own set of instincts.
“Mom, this is an official path to the beach,” Zoey said, a note of contempt in her voice as she looked up at the nearest mansion. “We're still technically on city land. This is a public access point that these”—she waved at the two mansions that stood like gates on either side of the trail—“greedy private owners have tried to imply is theirs. They put up this fence without permission, and they're hoping people will just go around and forget about this way.”
“They're trying to take over public access to resources?” I was already feeling worked up, but now my ire had a scapegoat. The wooden fence made me as angry as people who try to shut down library funding. I gave it a kick, knocking loose another plank. These selfish mansion owners deserved much worse. Manipulating others for their own gain? You can tell a lot about people when they try to hoard communal resources for themselves.
“Hold onto that outrage,” Zoey said, leading the way through the gap in the fence. “One day when I run for mayor, you can vote for me.”
“Already planning for a career in politics?” I let out a low whistle. “Your mother had better keep her reputation clean.”
She chuckled. It was way too late for that.
We passed through a woodsy trail and emerged at the ocean. The sea at sunset lay before us, pretty as a postcard.
“Look at that view,” Zoey said proudly. “What do you think?”
“You're talking to me like I've never seen the ocean before, but I've been to this beach thousands of times.” I pointed at a small island in the distance. “That's the rocky island where the black oystercatchers—the birds with the long red beaks—hang out.”
She looked at me, her eyebrows rumpled with concern. “Mom, are you trying to freak me out? You've only been to the beach two or three times since the move, and it was always cloudy or rainy. I don't think you've seen that island before.”
I kicked some pebbles by my feet. She was right about my lack of beach visits. I'd been busy since the move, and while proximity to the ocean had been a deciding factor in the move, I hadn't exactly made the most of it. Yet I had the feeling I'd been to this specific beach countless times already. And now, standing at the wet edge of the gentle blue waves lapping at the shore, I felt a powerful urge to shed my clothes and dive into the water.
I caught myself unbuttoning my blouse and slowed myself. Something was happening. The invisible hands were guiding me again, leading me to the water. Was this Chessa? I heard nothing inside my head, nothing but the soft lapping of the waves. The sound of the water grew stronger as I listened. The ocean called to me, inviting me to bury my secrets within its dark waters.
I could resist the urge if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. Why not go with the flow and see where it took me?
“Something's happening,” I said to Zoey calmly. “Keep an eye on me.”
“As always,” she joked, and then, when she realized I wasn't playing around, “What's happening? Is it the spirit?” She tilted her head and watched me unbutton my blouse. “You're acting weird. I think we should call Auntie Z.”
“Not now,” I said. “There's no time.”
“No time for what? Are you going to take off your clothes and dance around a bonfire?” She snorted. “So much for my future career in politics. Nothing says witchcraft quite like dancing naked around a bonfire.”
“No bonfire,” I said, looking around. We were alone on the beach, within a cozy, protected cove. Nobody was there to see us, and the water was so lovely and light beneath the darkening sky. I finished unfastening my buttons and shrugged off my blouse. “Just could keep an eye on me and see what happens.”
And something was happening already. The center of my chest fluttered, and the sides of my neck tingled. The tension in my neck muscles melted away, and then melted some more. I hadn't realized how much tightness had been in my body until it was gone, and my body felt limber and pliable. Deep within my mind, the pilot light for my worry furnace blinked out. I should have been concerned, but I wasn't. Serenity washed over me like a sweet candy coating made of rainbows. Everything was as it should be.
“Mom, are you still you?” Her voice was distant, and I sensed it with more than my ears. I could taste her worry inside my own mouth, as a metallic tang.
“Zoey, you should relax and enjoy the beautiful sunset. Come into the ocean with me.”
“You and who else?”
“Just me,” I said. “But I could be changing shape, shifting into a dragon, or a serpent, or a monster. Does my hair look snaky?”
She took a lock of my hair and examined it closely. “It looks normal. What are you doing now? Are you seriously going to take off all your clothes? Mom!”
I was already kicking off my boots and skirt. I stripped down to my underwear, and held out my arms to feel the ocean breeze on my bare skin. My skin tightened, and not just from goose bumps. Every inch of my skin felt tougher, like a neoprene suit. The sand beneath the soles of my feet turned as soft as talcum powder.
I looked down at myself, expecting to see scales all over my body, but I was still human, still flesh. Just a redhead on the beach in her underwear. My typical underwear was pink or white, to match my pale skin, but as luck would have it, I'd put on a set of black bra and panties that morning. To any casual observer passing by in a sailboat, I would appear to be a normal woman going for a sunset dip in her bikini.
And that was exactly what I wanted to do.
But I didn't walk toward the water yet. I stood still and wondered, why was I in Wisteria? Who or what guided my decisions? Did my feelings belong to me? Did Chet...
Oh, shush. Just shush, a cool voice in my head said. No more worries. Shhhh.
And then all I heard was the water before me and the breeze in the trees behind me.
My thoughts about the past and the future were silent, as though someone had clicked the mute button on my worries. There was only now, this moment, purple and blue and aquamarine—the sky and the ocean and me, merging into the blue. I walked forward, toward the waiting waters.
My daughter cried out in embarrassment, “Skinny dipping? Really, Mom?”
She wouldn't have to worry much longer about being seen with me. I would disappear soon.
I waded into the crisp, cool water. The sand here was dotted with rocks, but I knew they wouldn't cut my feet. The water lapped up my toes, my ankles, my shins. It was cold at first, then nothing. The blue ocean welcomed me like a long-lost friend.
When I reached waist-high water, I tilted forward and dove under.
I opened my eyes. The water didn't sting. I saw through it as easily as air. Below me, bright-orange starfish were doing their wiggly starfish maneuvers on the craggy rocks. Seaweed floated by, tickling my legs and arms. I kicked my way along, five feet below the surface and then twenty feet. The pressure increased with depth, yet it was no problem. I could go down, down, down, as deep as I wanted.
A tiger rockfish, banded brown over a pink body, peeked out from a crevice to say hello in its fishy manner. I waved hello, catching sight of my own hand, which was not a hand, and yet I could not say what it was. Only that it was not a hand. I glanced over at my shoulder, which was no longer a shoulder, but something else. Something as soft and green as seaweed, yet hard to focus on. I was smoke. Ink. Closer to plasma than solid matter.
The tiger rockfish seemed to see something behind me, then swished away in a hurry.
I rolled in the water to see what had scared the fish. I caught a glimpse of a long, undulating arm, like that of a squid or octopus, and then it was gone. There was nothing chasing me, only me, and I was Zara, yet I was also something else. My heart might have pounded in terror, if I'd had a heart. Or arteries.
Brightness flicked around me. A Starry Flounder flashed his diamond-shaped body at me. Tag, you're it, he seemed to say. He flicked his tail and fled. I gave chase, my body like a flaming underwater comet.
This is fun, I thought. What's around that rock?
* * *
I eventually turned toward the surface for fresh air, even though my lungs hadn't been burning at all. As I neared the boundary between sea and sky, my body took form once more, no longer plasma or smoke or inky seaweed or whatever indescribable thing it had been.
I was me again, Queen of the Ocean, Ruler of the Sea.
I was... what?
The sky was purple, and the setting sun was a smoldering ball of orange. I kicked steadily, treading water, and wrapped my arms around myself to check that I was human. I was Zara again. Perhaps I'd been the Ruler of the Sea for a few minutes, but now I was a Very Wet Witch in Her Underwear.
3-Book Series Bundle: Wisteria Witches, Wicked Wisteria, Wisteria Wonders - Cozy Witch Mysteries Page 52