Watchful Wisteria (Wisteria Witches Mysteries Book 4)

by Angela Pepper

  The fox lowered his muzzle to the ground and covered his eyes with one sable paw. He shook. He trembled. His fur rippled.

  And then he changed form, into a man.

  The man was fully clothed, shorter than average, with rust-colored hair. The side of his brown jacket was dark with blood.

  “I knew it,” I said.

  He removed his hand from over his eyes and blinked up at me with gold-green eyes. Those eyes. Now I knew why he’d looked so familiar.

  “Zara,” he said hoarsely. “Did you really know it was me?”

  “All along,” I lied. “Who else would it be?”

  Chapter 5

  I clapped my hands together to keep from zapping the man with more of my spell.

  I’d already hit him with a dangerous amount. Shifters aren’t supposed to change form while injured. Chet had told me it wasn’t so much a rule as a physical impossibility. But when I’d commanded the fox shifter to stop its mischief, my spell must have forced the shift back into a man. I’d broken the rules of nature. Surely there would be a price to pay for my brute force.

  The man, whose name I knew was Rhys Quarry, gave me a sheepish grin.

  “Hello again,” he said. “Can I offer you a hug?”

  “Go hug yourself,” I spat out.

  Zoey, who was still leaning out of her bedroom window, cried out happily, “Pawpaw!”

  Rhys Quarry, my fair-weather father, turned away from me and beamed sunshine up at my daughter. “Zozo! You remember me!”

  “She’s got a great memory,” I said under my breath. “And so do I. An excellent memory.”

  Zoey called down, “Pawpaw, are you really a...” She cupped her hands above her head, imitating fox ears.

  He stammered and kicked at some loose pebbles on the ground.

  I cocked my head and grabbed my father’s arm. “Rhys, do you hear that?”

  He blinked and gave me the hurt look he always made when I called him by his first name instead of Dad. I’d been calling him Rhys since the first time he’d let me down—age five.

  “What? I don’t hear anything, Zara.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “The noise inside the house has stopped.”

  “Ah.” He waggled his rust-colored eyebrows. “Let’s try the front door again.”

  I led the way back to the front of the house. This time, the door opened easily. I stepped in cautiously, looking around for signs of danger. The air was filled with dust, and the hall mirror was crooked, but other than that, everything looked about the same as I’d left it.

  I ran up the stairs to check on Zoey. My foot caught the top step, and I nearly went sprawling.

  What the...? I turned and frowned at the stairs. Rhys was coming up slowly, gripping the railing.

  Something was different. My body had a muscle memory of the staircase and hadn’t been expecting that last step at the top. Was it possible all that groaning and banging was my house growing an extra step on the staircase? For what purpose?

  “Pawpaw,” Zoey cried out. She launched herself into her grandfather’s arms.

  They hugged in the upstairs hallway. He stumbled backward, chuckling. “Easy, Zozo. You’re not so little anymore. I think you might be nearly as tall as me.”

  She pulled back and straightened up. “I’m sixteen now. And I’m at least an inch taller than you, Pawpaw.”

  I raised my hand to interrupt. “Can I just point out the irony that the man you call Pawpaw happens to have four paws?”

  Rhys gave us an embarrassed shrug and a crooked smile. His rubbery features were almost comical in their exaggerated movements. He swept his hand through his rust-colored hair and then stuffed both hands into the pockets of his brown blazer. I stared at the bloodstain on the side of the jacket. Had the blood transferred from his fur to the fabric, or had he been injured first in human form? I had so many questions, I didn’t know where to start.

  “Surprise,” he said, casting his gaze up at me, his gold-green eyes squinting under his rust-colored bushy eyebrows.

  “And what a surprise,” I replied. “You’re a supernatural.”

  “Yep.” Another shrug. “Your dad’s a real catch. You might say he’s a genuine fox.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Rhys gave Zoey a rubbery grin. “And judging by your utter lack of surprise, little Miss Riddle, I’m guessing you two both know all about shifters and goblins and things that go bump in the night.”

  Zoey’s mouth made an O shape. “Goblins are real?”

  “Sort of.” He bobbed his head from side to side. “Mostly, it’s just an expression.” He cast his gaze down and shuffled his feet, scuffing his shoe over the dusty wood floor. “So, how are you finding your new powers, Zoey? Did your witch magic kick in on your sixteenth birthday?”

  I quickly clamped my hand over Zoey’s mouth. “Don’t answer that. Our family secrets are not for him to know. You know what Aunt Zinnia says.”

  Zoey blinked once. I released my hand, and she said, “Secrets revealed are trouble unsealed.”

  Rhys asked, “How is Zinnia these days? I haven’t seen her since your mother’s funeral.”

  “Never mind Zinnia,” I said. “What were you doing running around the forest? It’s amazing you just happened to cross my path right when you had a life-threatening injury. Some might say unbelievable.”

  His eyebrows rose high. “There’s nothing amazing about a life-threatening injury. Sometimes a coincidence is just that. Plus you know what they say. Magic has a mind of its own.”

  “I’ve heard that a lot,” I said coolly. “But recent events have opened my eyes. Sometimes what seems to be a fun coincidence is just the tip of an iceberg of lies.” Like when your new neighbor tricks you into bonding with him over a shared history you never had.

  My father scuffed his shoe over the floor again. “Well, I don’t know what to say, Zarabella. The injury was genuine. I’m still in real pain.”

  Zoey made a sad noise. “You’re hurt, Pawpaw?”

  “Don’t you worry, little one.” He patted his brown blazer right above the bloodstain. “The old man’s on the mend already, thanks to your mother’s quick thinking.” He moved his hand over to his stomach. “Is anyone else famished?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” I said. “How did you get hurt?”

  He reached out and grasped the newel post to steady himself. “I was enjoying some morning exercise in one of your quaint little town’s lovely parks, and a giant bird came at me from out of nowhere.” He let go of the newel post and used both hands to dramatize his story like a master. “I was alone one second, and then the great winged beast was upon me, snarling as it grasped me with its razor-sharp talons.” He shaped his hands into claws and snapped at Zoey playfully while growling.

  “Birds don’t snarl,” I said. “They caw or screech.”

  “Are you sure about that?” His rubbery features twitched between amusement and innocence.

  “Yes,” I said. “Vultures aren’t capable of cawing, so they make throaty hisses.”

  “How romantic,” he said. “I’m sure their throaty hisses are very appealing to the other vultures.”

  “Was the bird really snarling, or would you care to change your story?”

  He made a fist with his free hand and swung it. “I’m sticking to my story, girls. It was a giant winged creature, dark and scary as a plumber’s crack. Maybe it wasn’t a bird, but it was certainly an unprovoked attack.”

  Zoey asked, “Why are you here? Did you come to see us?”

  “I had been hoping to see you.” He fixed his green-gold eyes on me. “I phoned your mother a couple of weeks ago, and she said you were still too busy getting settled to entertain visitors. She said she was busy with cantaloupes, whatever that meant, but maybe there’d be time later this summer.”

  “I told you not to come to Wisteria,” I said. “Not ever.”

  His eyes twinkled. “Semantics.” He snapped his fingers. “Now, which of these rooms is
your guest room?”

  “We don’t have a guest room,” I said. “This house has only two bedrooms upstairs.”

  He walked over to a door and put his hand on the doorknob. “Oh? Then what’s this?”

  Zoey and I exchanged a confused look. The last time I’d observed that section of wall, it had been wall. Not a door.

  He winked at me before pushing open the door. What lay beyond was an entirely new room, one I’d never seen before.

  The guest bedroom was fully furnished, with a bed and a small desk. The linens were neutral and timeless, not unlike those of a chain hotel room.

  Zoey’s jaw dropped open.

  Laid out on the bed was a change of clothes, in my father’s signature style—trousers with a plaid shirt and an old-fashioned tweed jacket that would look right at home on a traveling salesman from a 1960s movie.

  He picked up the clothes and came back without a word, walking past us toward the bathroom. He whistled a catchy tune. Then he closed the bathroom door, and the shower water began running.

  He called through the closed door, “I hope you don’t mind if I freshen up before dinner!”

  “Freshen away,” I said.

  Zoey was still incapable of speech as she stared into the new guest bedroom and then back at me.

  “You sure have a lot of different kinds of shampoo,” he called out. “Any recommendations?”

  “Whatever you want,” I said. “Don’t get your stitches wet. Dr. Katz’s assistant said if you chew on them, I’ll have to put the Cone of Shame around your neck.”

  Zoey raised her eyebrows. “Cone of Shame?” She grinned.

  “I’ll be careful,” he promised.

  Zoey walked down the hall and opened the door to my bedroom. “Uh-oh,” she said.

  I followed and looked over her shoulder. My spacious bedroom had shrunk to make room and was now simply adequate. My closet had narrowed to match. My clothes were so tightly packed they were practically complaining about getting wrinkled.

  Zoey led the way to her bedroom next. Like mine, it was also smaller than it had been the day before, though not by as much.

  She looked at me, her hazel eyes wide.

  “You need to be more careful,” she said.

  “Me?”

  “I think you should have given me notice, at the very least. I was sitting on my bed, reading, when the house started making all these snap-crackle-pop noises. I thought we were having an earthquake, so I tried to get outside to safety, or at the very least into a doorway, but my door slammed shut on its own, and I couldn’t get it open. I couldn’t even get the window open, then a few minutes later, it just opened on its own.”

  “I guess the window opening was my magic, but the extra guest room wasn’t me. Not unless I’m casting spells without being aware of it.”

  She gave me an exasperated look. “A little warning would have been nice.” She shook her head. “Show-off.”

  “Zoey, I did open your window, and I did force my father to shift into human form, but I swear I didn’t cast any sort of make-a-new-room spell on the house.” I looked up at the corners of the ceiling and whispered, “The house must have done this on its own.”

  “Really? That is so...” She trailed off, glancing around the room.

  “Creepy? Disturbing? Downright rude?”

  “Wonderful,” she finished. “What a great house!” She patted the wall next to her light switch. “Good house. Good girl.”

  I snorted. “You wouldn’t be lavishing praise on the ol’ gal if she’d stolen more square footage from your bedroom. I’ll have to sleep standing up tonight. Assuming I can even sleep at all, knowing that my own house might decide to squeeze the walls in on me like a trash compactor inside a big spaceship. How happy would you be if your mother was a small cube?”

  “That depends. Would you be small enough to cart around in my backpack? I think I could work with that.”

  “You’re twisted and strange, just like this house.”

  She grinned.

  The sound of my father whistling in the shower floated into the room.

  “Listen,” I said, invoking my Serious and Wise Mom Voice. “I know your grandfather can be charming and fun, but you can’t trust him. If he asks you about magic, say nothing. Change the topic to school or politics or religion or anything but magic.”

  “But he’s one of us. He’s a shifter.”

  “Apparently.” I widened my eyes and took a deep breath. My father was a shifter. A fox shifter. The knowledge kept hitting me in waves. Folks, meet my father, Rhys Quarry, the red fox shifter.

  Zoey poked me on the shoulder. “That means you’re half shifter, and I’m a quarter shifter. Unless my father was a shifter, in which case I’m three-quarters shifter.” Her normally smooth forehead wrinkled. “And if I’m three-quarters shifter, that would explain why my witch powers haven’t kicked in.”

  She took three steps back and sat limply on the edge of her bed. She held up her hands and examined the palms as though seeing them in a new light.

  Softly, she said, “Mom? What am I?”

  The dust in the air tickled my nose, but I resisted sneezing. My vision blurred.

  Zoey looked up at me, her eyes as wide and trusting of me as they’d always been, even when she was a baby. She was still my baby, my little girl. Everything was happening so fast. I wanted us to both turn into foxes right then and there, so I could curl my body around hers and cover us both with my big fluffy tail.

  The wrinkle on her forehead turned into a furrow. “You don’t even know what I am,” she said.

  “You’re my daughter,” I said. “You’re Zoey. Nothing else matters.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and the frown deepened. “You’re just saying that because you don’t know anything. And you won’t even let me talk to the other people who might have answers for me. Pawpaw wanted to visit before now. He phoned you, and you told him not to come. Now he’s only here by accident. He probably had to hurt himself just so you could give him the time of day.”

  I wagged my finger at her. “There. You just said it yourself. He did stage that accident. He hurt himself on purpose to get access to our family. You need to keep—”

  She interrupted me. “Our family? You mean his family. We belong to him, too. I know he wasn’t the world’s greatest father to you, but he’s the only grandpa I’ve got. It’s not fair of you to keep us apart. It’s not fair.” Her gaze flicked around the room. “This house knows better than you. She made space for him in our life. Literally. This house is a better mother than you.”

  I took a step back, reeling as through slapped. She doesn’t mean it, I told myself. She’s a teenager dealing with hormones, a new town, and magic, all at once.

  “Okay,” I said softly. “If both you and the house want to give him a chance, then it’s two against one. I know when I’ve been beaten.” I bowed my head. “I’ll give your grandfather the benefit of the doubt.” Except I wouldn’t. I would let him stay in the guest room, but I’d be watching him.

  Zoey said nothing. She’d probably been gearing up for a big battle and had nothing prepared in response to me being agreeable. I nearly smirked with pride over having surprised her. Good mothering, Zara. Always one step ahead.

  “Fine,” she said.

  “Fine,” I agreed. “But please, Zoey, please don’t trust that man any further than you could toss his little fox body. Rhys Quarry is an opportunistic man. If he asks you about magic powers, it’s because he’s already got a buyer lined up and waiting.”

  Her face twitched. She didn’t want to believe me. She heard my warning, but it went in one ear and out the other.

  “A buyer?”

  “He’s always called himself a business matchmaker,” I said. “I assumed he was just a traveling salesman who didn’t want to admit he was a salesman.” I came over to sit on the bed beside her. As soon as I sat, she shifted away, just far enough so I couldn’t put my arm around her shoulders. The rejection stung, b
ut I had to keep talking. It was important that she knew the truth.

  “Zoey, I only saw the man once a year. I didn’t have a clue what he did the other three hundred and sixty-four days a year. But now, in light of the whole thing with the whiskers, black nose, and bushy tail, I’m guessing there’s a lot more to Rhys Quarry than I ever imagined. He was never brokering manufacturing space or negotiating corporate partnerships. It must have always been magic stuff.”

  Without looking at me, she asked coolly, “How does a person making a living doing that?”

  “That would be a good question for you to ask your grandfather. Now’s your opportunity to find out. You’re a smart girl. Make the best out of this situation.” And get me some information I can use against him, I thought.

  She crossed her arms. “I don’t like it when you do that thing with your voice. Stop trying to trick me by pretending that I’ve won.”

  “I’m not trying to trick you.”

  “Don’t patronize me.” She leaned even farther away and growled, “Stop talking already and leave me alone. Can’t a person have five minutes of peace and quiet to think her thoughts?”

  As much as I didn’t want the last words of our conversation to be her giving me a bag of heck that I didn’t deserve, I knew better than to pick a battle nobody could win. I got up and left my teen daughter to her thinking.

  I went to my smaller bedroom and pried a jacket out of my closet. I walked back out to the hallway and announced loudly, for the benefit of any family members who might be listening, that I was going out to pick up some food for dinner and would be back in an hour.

  Then I left the house. As I walked down the front steps, I used my phone to send Zinnia a plea to meet me at the Thai restaurant halfway between my house and hers. It’s urgent, I messaged.

  She wrote back: I’ll be there in ten minutes.

  I glanced over my shoulder at my house, a gorgeous three-story Victorian Gothic, painted red. The wisteria vines twisting along the front porch accented the bright gingerbread detail around the windows and eaves. Kids in the neighborhood had been calling it the Red Witch House since long before I’d moved in.