Watchful Wisteria (Wisteria Witches Mysteries Book 4)

by Angela Pepper

  I crawled out of my shrinking yet warm bed, sniffing for clues about breakfast. I smelled bacon, and something like onions but milder. Shallots, whispered the residual memory of Winona Vander Zalm. Shallots are perfect for breakfast omelets, darling! Not too overpowering for sensitive guests.

  I hadn’t heard from Winona recently, and I found her presence comforting. Her true spirit had moved on to another place, so what I held in my head was just a copy, a simulation, but I enjoyed it all the same.

  In fact, I was fondly remembering Winona’s lavish dinner parties when I walked right into a wall.

  I rubbed my forehead. Walking into a wall was not my favorite way to wake up, but it sure did the trick. The wall now bore a faint oil mark from my face. Last night, I’d had a bedroom door where I was standing. Now I had a wall.

  “Not funny,” I said to my house. “Give me back my door.” I poked the wall to make sure it wasn’t an illusion. It was solid, and the bump on my forehead was certainly real.

  I wondered aloud, “If I don’t have a door, how am I able to smell bacon wafting up from downstairs?”

  There was a creak, like a door opening. A breeze blew over my bare legs. The smell of breakfast got stronger, and I heard the voices downstairs more clearly.

  I looked to my right and then down. The creak had been a door opening after all. The door was similar to the one I’d closed last night—same chipped paint job over square wood panels—but it was a miniature version. My new bedroom door was only four feet high.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I muttered, followed by some less ladylike expressions of my true feelings.

  The house didn’t respond, but I did get the sense she (or it) was snickering.

  “I don’t deserve this,” I told my ceiling. “Am I being punished for something I’ve done wrong?” Zara tries to be a good witch, I thought. She’s always striving to not let everyone down!

  The door squeaked and became smaller by another inch.

  “Not fair!” I cast my convincing spell in the general vicinity of the door. “You’re going to be a nice door,” I said, weaving Witch Tongue words between my regular English speech. “Deep down, you’re a good door, and you want to be big, and normal, and let me in and out of my bedroom with ease.”

  With a squeak, the door shrank another inch.

  “Fine,” I sighed. “You win.”

  I got down on my hands and knees and crawled through.

  By the time I finished getting ready for work, which included no small amount of time spent cursing at my shrinking bedroom door, Zoey had already left for school. The house was quiet, so I assumed she’d gotten a ride with Rhys.

  When I went downstairs, I was surprised to find my father sitting at the kitchen island with a cup of green tea that smelled like grass clippings.

  I started making coffee, feeling self-conscious about being watched. I fumbled with the coffee filters for several seconds. It annoyed me that I couldn’t use my telekinetic powers to fluff out a single coffee filter the way I usually did. Sure, my father knew I was a witch, but there was no way I would be demonstrating any of my powers for him.

  “No buffer,” he said.

  “What?” I whirled around, spilling coffee grounds on my socked feet.

  “Zoey’s gone to school,” he said. “Our conversational buffer is gone. This is the first time you and I have had a moment to talk in private.”

  “I suppose it is.” I forced a smile. “Big plans today?”

  “Just admit that you liked me better as a fox.”

  Had I? His fur coat had been rather soft. Without knowing who it was, I’d enjoyed having a companion who curled around my shoulders and listened with big, pointed ears. Right now in my kitchen, however, I felt no desire to pat Rhys Quarry’s rust-colored hair.

  “You make a cute fox,” I admitted.

  His upper lip curled up to reveal a sharp-looking canine. “And we were having fun that day, you and I.”

  “Before you tried to take a bite out of Margaret Mills. She went straight to the cops and tried to press charges against me, thanks to you.”

  His upper lip curled all the way into a smirking grin. “Totally worth it. You saw the look on her face.”

  “She meant well,” I said. “She was trying to raise awareness about your kind being trapped or farmed for the fur trade.”

  “My kind?” He raised a rust-colored eyebrow. “You’ve been hiding in your room reading that book every night, yet you still know so little about our kind.” He gave me a pointed look. “That’s right. I said our kind. You are my daughter, and that means you’re one of us.”

  “A shifter? If I’m like you, why have I never turned into a fox?”

  “Have you ever jumped out of an airplane?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Maybe you’d sprout wings if you needed to. Your great-great grandfather was a crane.”

  I jiggled the coffee maker in a futile attempt to make it percolate faster.

  “A crane,” I mused. The idea of my great-great grandfather, whose name I didn’t even know, elicited no sense of wonder. I’d have been much more interested in ancestors who were witches. Was I being prejudiced against shifters? Like Jorg Ebola? Probably. But in my defense, being just one thing seemed so much simpler than being a hodgepodge of magical bits and bobs.

  “We could give your sleepy shifter powers a whirl,” Rhys said. “Let’s go up to the mountains and toss you over a cliff.” He grinned. “Let’s see what happens.”

  I snorted. “Over my dead broomstick.”

  “Over my dead broomstick? Mercy!” He wiped the corner of his eyes. “I haven’t heard that expression in years. Where did you hear it?”

  “It just came to me.”

  “The older generations used to say it. Not just witches, but also shifters and... others.” He got a faraway look. “Wow. That brings back so many memories.”

  “I’m listening,” I said. “You can tell me anything. Like, for example, how you and my mother met.”

  “That’s easy. The Riddles hired me to find a suitable husband for your mother. I was working as a romantic matchmaker back in those days. She didn’t like any of the candidates I brought her, which probably doesn’t surprise you.”

  “It does not,” I confirmed. My mother was perpetually unsatisfied. If being unsatisfied could generate electricity, she could have solved the world’s energy problems.

  “The potential mates were either too big and brash or too small and mild-mannered. Too hot or too cold. Too pompous or too common.” His gold-green eyes twinkled. “Actually, most of them were deemed too common.”

  “Sounds like my mother, all right.” I poured hot coffee into a takeout mug. “So, how did the pregnancy happen? The one that resulted in me?”

  “In the usual manner,” he said.

  “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “Your mother tricked me,” he said.

  “Right.” I scoffed.

  “She had me meet her at a hotel to discuss a background check on a candidate. She opened a bottle of something. Not champagne, but something else. It was sweet, and red, and sparkling.”

  I gave him a sidelong look. The beverage sounded an awful lot like the Barberrian wine coolers that had led to my teen pregnancy. But those wine coolers hadn’t existed before I was born. Or had they?

  “Maybe it was sangria,” he said. “Anyway, whatever it was, the drink was effective at removing your mother’s icicles. Her chill melted right off, and I found myself in bed with a warm and vital woman. I forgot how much she despised me.” He cleared his throat. “The next morning, when the sun came up, something dawned on me. I finally understood why finding a match for Zirconia Riddle would be an impossible task. The woman was unmatchable.”

  He looked to me for a response. I had nothing. I was still grappling with the visual he’d painted in my mind. Everyone knows what their parents must have done, but nobody wants to picture it. My fath
er hadn’t described the hotel room, but since I knew my mother’s taste so well, I’d had no trouble conjuring up a detailed image. High ceilings. Gauzy curtains. A huge bed with a dozen pillows. Fresh flowers. Tall champagne flutes for the sparkling pink beverage of seduction.

  “Zara, I loved your mother, but she didn’t make it easy for us to love her.”

  “Don’t lump me and you together into one group,” I said. “You weren’t around. It was just me.”

  He got up from his stool at the kitchen island and began to stretch. He winced with pain and stopped to brace his midriff.

  “Zirconia Cristata Riddle could be a royal pain,” he said

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  He got a mischievous grin. “I just did.”

  I rolled back the conversation and replayed it. Zirconia Cristata Riddle could be a royal pain. Royal.

  “You said royal.”

  His grin broadened. “That’s right, Zara. You’re descended from supernatural royalty.” His eyebrows bobbed. “On both sides.”

  I blinked at him.

  “Princess,” he said mockingly.

  I took a sip of my coffee. I didn’t feel like a princess. Nobody had mentioned royal lineage to me before. It hadn’t been part of the scroll I’d seen at the DWM. No, it was more likely this was another of my father’s games.

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “Duh.”

  He tilted his head and took a long look at me. “Why do you think your powers are so strong, compared to other witches?”

  “My sparkling personality.” The truth was, in the few short months since I’d gotten my powers, I’d only been able to compare notes with one other witch, my aunt.

  “Your sparkling personality is the trait you got from me,” he said, puffing out his chest with fatherly pride. “Now put a lid on that coffee so you don’t spill it in my sweet car. I’m giving you a ride to work.” He grinned. “Princess.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Princess?”

  I shuddered. “That word is extra gross coming out of your mouth.”

  “Does that mean I shouldn’t get you a pink T-shirt that reads Daddy’s Little Princess?”

  “Only if you want to be barfed on.”

  “Noted.”

  “What am I the princess of? Is there a magical kingdom that you access through the back of a closet?”

  His expression sobered. “Oh, no. You wouldn’t want to go there.”

  “Now I want to.”

  He handed me the lid for the coffee cup. “Forget I mentioned anything. It’s been thousands of years since witches held any real power in the underworld.”

  I snapped the lid onto the cup. “You’re such a liar.”

  He grinned. “Had you going for a minute, didn’t I?”

  Chapter 14

  My father spent most of the drive to the library talking about his car, which was a 1986 Nissan 300ZX in a dazzling shade of deep orange.

  “I call her Foxy Pumpkin,” he said. “I won her in a poker game.”

  “And did you paint her this lovely orange hue to match your hair, or did she come this way?”

  “She was an uninspired plain red when I got her, and very depressed about it.”

  “I didn’t know cars could suffer from depression.”

  He patted the dash lovingly. “Not my Foxy Pumpkin. Not anymore.”

  We turned a corner, and my hair whipped around my face in the breeze coming through the open T-top roof. I was enjoying being in his car, but I wouldn’t admit it. My father clearly adored the car, and it made me gag a little when he showed it affection. Was this an ugly streak of jealousy inside me, something akin to sibling rivalry? I’d grown up an only child, so I had no idea what such a thing actually felt like. I certainly hadn’t expected to learn of my jealousy over an inanimate object when I’d accepted his offer of a ride to work.

  “Foxy Pumpkin’s a good girl,” he said. “Very reliable, but also feisty. What do you think of the ol’ gal?”

  “I think... you take excellent care of your possessions.”

  “Maybe I’ll stick around town a while longer. I’ll get an extra set of keys made, and you can borrow Foxy Pumpkin for scenic drives along the coast. You’ve got some spectacular views around here.” His head turned as we passed a trio of attractive young women walking together.

  The girls noticed the flashy orange sports car and looked to see who was driving. One of them, who was barely older than my daughter, gave Rhys a flirty wave.

  He waved right back.

  I slouched down in the passenger seat so they wouldn’t see me.

  “Lots of spectacular views, indeed,” he said.

  We passed the girls, and he smiled as he tapped the controls for the stereo, which was a combination radio and CD player that had probably been state-of-the-art back in 1989.

  “What do you think?” He grinned over at me. “Would you like your old man to stick around and let you borrow the car?”

  “Don’t delay your planned departure on account of that,” I said. “I get by just fine without access to a car.”

  He said glumly, “Way to make a guy feel wanted.”

  Great, I thought. Now I’ve offended him. Should I apologize?

  No.

  He didn’t deserve an apology. He should be the one apologizing to me.

  He sighed. “I suppose I’m just an old fool for thinking I had a place in a real family for once.”

  As we rounded the corner and my hair whipped into my eyes, it all hit me.

  Zoey and I were the real family. Plus Aunt Zinnia, of course. She complained a lot and was reluctant to get involved in my problems, but she always came through when push came to shove. The three of us were the real family. Rhys Quarry could be fun, but he wasn’t one of us. He was just some random shape-shifting trickster who’d knocked up my mother.

  He’d weaseled his way into my life by taking advantage of my compassion for an injured red fox. Then he’d repaid my generosity by nipping at that woman and getting Bentley on my case. Now my fair-weather father was taking over my house—taking over my family—when he didn’t deserve any of those things.

  “Such a shame,” he sighed.

  “What did you expect?” My tone was snappier than ever. “You haven’t been a part of my life since, well, ever. And then you show up out of the blue without an invitation. You hog up all my daughter’s free time just so she can worship and adore you. You’re having the time of your life, for now. But you’ll get bored soon enough, because you always do. One day a year is all you can manage. You’re going to bail on us the moment it suits you, leaving me to pick up the pieces.”

  “Ah. Where’s this coming from? Do your powers extend to viewing the future?”

  “Who needs the future when you’ve got the past and the present? Just look at what my own house is doing. We never had a spare room before you turned up. Now my house keeps reconfiguring itself, making my room and my bed smaller each day. It’s shrinking me out, making me feel like a second-class citizen. I expect that sort of treatment from some people, but not from my own house.”

  “You mean our house,” he said, flicking on the car’s turn signal.

  We’d already reached the library. He pulled into the staff parking lot with practiced ease. He’d been here before, which bothered me, but not as much as what he’d said.

  He’d said our house. Not my house. Ours.

  “Here it comes,” I said through gritted teeth. “You promised me the loan for the house deposit came without any strings whatsoever, but here come the strings.”

  “I also cosigned, Zara. There’s no way a bank would have given you a mortgage given your situation. Not in today’s financial climate, not even in a town like Wisteria. You hadn’t even gotten your first paycheck from your new job. It would have taken years to build up the credit, especially in light of all the debts you’ve racked up over the years.”

  “Those debts have been paid,�
� I said stiffly. “All of them. Student loans. Everything. And I’ll pay you back, too.”

  “I don’t want your money,” he said.

  I pushed the door open. The 300ZX was a small sports car, and it had been well cared for, so the door swung open as though flung by magic. Or maybe I had boosted my power with magic. It was so hard to tell which physics were at play when I lost my temper. I stepped out of the vehicle and checked to make sure no one else was there to overhear us. My boss had arrived in her brown Honda Civic and was pretending to not be watching us.

  He repeated, “I don’t want your money.” He leaned forward to look into my eyes under the T-shaped roof. “Keep the deposit as a gift.”

  “No way,” I said. “You don’t get to buy your way into the family you abandoned.”

  He gave me a hurt look.

  “We’re cheap, but we’re not that cheap,” I said.

  I shut the door with a satisfying slam.

  “You think I’m the world’s most ungrateful daughter,” I said. “You think I’m selfish and spoiled and generally wicked.”

  My boss, Kathy Carmichael, handed me a plate with a chocolate croissant. She hadn’t heard much of my discussion with my father that morning in the parking lot, but she had heard the door slam at the end.

  “Family dynamics are complicated,” she said. “Every family is unique. Family brings out the best and worst in us.”

  I bit into the croissant. Flakes flew out of my mouth as I said, “He brings out the worst in me.”

  Kathy chuckled. “I’m afraid that part isn’t very unique.” She gave me a motherly smile and blinked rapidly, her golden-brown eyes owllike behind her round glasses. Her curly brown hair was swept up in a messy bun that day. Three spiral curls had escaped the bun and framed her round face.