I'd gone too far. I quickly replayed what I'd said. Neighbors. Til death do us part. What had gotten into me?
“Sorry,” I said to Chet. “That was in poor taste, considering your previous neighbor just passed away. I didn't know her, but I'm sure she was a lovely woman.”
“It's fine,” he said with a casual shrug. “Let me give you a hand with these last boxes.”
“We Riddle women can do it ourselves. We're tougher than we look, and we've done everything for ourselves for sixteen years. Plus there are two burly guys around here somewhere, and they're supposed to be helping. I'm not paying them the big bucks to defile my new bathrooms.”
“I insist,” Chet said. “Many hands lighten the load. You'll be saving me time because I won't need to hit the gym today.” He set the box on the edge of the moving truck and reached up to offer his hand to Zoey.
“Chet Moore,” he said. “Let me wish you an early happy birthday, Zoey. It seems like only yesterday I saw you smashing your very first chocolate cake with your baby fists.”
“That was on the internet,” she said coolly. “You don't know me.” She didn't shake his hand. Apparently, the man's knee-melting, heart-crushing, stupidity-inducing charms only worked on adult women.
“Fair enough,” he said with a good-natured smile. “Stack a couple more boxes on here, would you?”
She did, and he left for the front door without another word.
I turned and gave my daughter The Look. Could she try a little harder to make a good first impression in our new town? Could she extend to her mother the tiniest bit of credit that the was a good decision maker? Didn't she see how hard I was trying to improve both of our lives? Couldn't she say just one nice thing about our new house? I squinted hard, putting all of these things into The Look.
She responded by rolling her eyes while sighing.
The Look could be magical at times, but it could only do so much. We would have to talk this through, the way we usually did.
I shrugged and nodded for her to keep handing me boxes from the moving truck.
Zoey was a great kid, and she'd come around eventually. Moving is hard for people, even when it's a positive move. I chose to enjoy the sunshine and the day. Our new life lay before us, the pages fresh and unwritten, awaiting discovery like a brand-new journal.
What I couldn't have known at the time was that my future wasn't exactly blank. Other people in Wisteria had made elaborate plans that involved me, and soon I would be swept up in events so strange I couldn't have imagined them in my weirdest dreams.
And it would all start in just a few short hours. My sixteen-year-old daughter would inform me that our lovely new house—with its gingerbread trim, wisteria-lined porch, and cast iron claw-foot tub—had a ghost. Plus I would discover, in the most shocking way possible, that I, Zara Riddle, am a witch.
Chapter 2
“I totally heard a ghost upstairs in the attic,” Zoey said as she entered the kitchen at six o'clock that night.
“Very funny,” I said.
“The opposite of funny,” she said gravely. “There's a ghost in this otherwise-perfect house.”
“So, you admit that this house is perfect?” I set down the head of lettuce I'd been holding and stuck my finger in the air. “You can't take it back. You said something positive. The streak of doubt has been broken.”
“Mom, I said the house would be perfect, except for the ghost. But it really is haunted.” She sighed. “I guess we'll have to move back home and return to our old life.”
“Already? But we just said goodbye to everyone and went to all the going-away parties. Mrs. Hutchins made us her famous tuna-noodle casserole, and then she prayed for us. The woman prayed. She wished us a bountiful new life full of blessings. We can't go back and tell Mrs. Hutchins her prayers didn't work. We'll just have to stay here in Wisteria to avoid breaking the sweet old woman's heart.”
Zoey sighed and rested her elbows on the kitchen island. “I did hear something, but maybe it was just this house getting used to us. Why are old buildings so creaky?”
“Because the metal parts contract more than the wood, so the nails, pipes, and air ducts rub against the wood.”
She squinted her hazel eyes at me. “You're such a librarian.”
“I've been called worse.” I winked at her.
She gazed up at the ceiling of the kitchen. “Wouldn't it be cool if there was a ghost? I've always wanted something special to happen to me, to make me less boring.”
I stopped my food preparation and circled around the kitchen island to give her a hug. She grunted and tried to escape, but I wrestled her into my embrace using my motherly brute strength.
Once she'd calmed down, I kissed the top of her bright-red head. “You're not boring, Zoey. You excel at everything you try. You're brilliant, and you're the best daughter in the whole universe.”
She made a face. “You're only saying that to boost my confidence and make me feel secure and happy.”
“Stop decoding my motherhood skills and just enjoy them.”
She snuggled in and hugged me back.
I inhaled deeply. Was this the moment I'd been waiting for? Two days earlier, when the movers had loaded everything but our toothbrushes into a big white truck, I'd been hit with a blast of anxiety unlike anything I'd experienced before. The feeling was sharp, like the point of a pin, threatening to burst my protective bubble of optimism and hope. In the two days since, I'd felt as if I'd been holding my breath, waiting to exhale once I felt safe.
Was this it? The moment I could relax?
I felt my muscles tightening, squeezing me with a fresh, new wave of anxiety. I hugged my daughter even tighter. She made a strangled noise and then squeaked, “Can't breathe.”
I threw open my arms and spun her out of my embrace like a ballerina. She twirled and giggled.
I waved my arms around and did a silly dance to keep her laughing. My daughter was nearly sixteen, but when I made her laugh, I saw the sweet little kid who started a plant-watering business so she could spy in other people's apartments and report back about what “normal” people did. Normal people did things like bake tuna-noodle casserole and host dinner parties.
That was it. I could alleviate my moving-related anxiety by hosting a celebration.
I stopped dancing and made the announcement. “Let's throw a housewarming party!”
She twisted her lips to the side and gave me a dubious look. “For all of the many people we know in this town?”
“Good point. We need more prospects.”
“I might make a new friend or two at school next week, but I won't bring them over unless you promise not to embarrass me.”
“I never make promises I have no intention of keeping.”
She groaned.
I rolled a ripe tomato across the kitchen island at her. “Chop that,” I said. “Don't slice it or wedge it. We're making chopped salad for dinner, and everything has to be chopped.”
“Since when do we eat salad?” She squinted at me. “This house might not be haunted, but I think it does have magical powers. We've only been living here a few hours, and you're like a whole different person. A person who makes salad.”
“We're getting a fresh start,” I said. “We can completely reinvent ourselves. I'll be the mom who goes to yoga classes and makes salads instead of licking the icing off ten-day-old cupcakes. Why don't you try something new, too? Dye your hair cobalt blue and be the new freaky kid at your school. What's the dress code there? You can borrow my leather bustier and those sexy boots you won't let me wear in public.”
“Gross,” she said.
“Live a little,” I said.
She wrinkled her nose and started chopping the tomato in the Riddle family tradition—two hands on the knife handle, safely away from the blade. Both of us suffered from a vegetable-slicing phobia. She caught it from me, and I got it from TV and movies. Outside of cooking shows, every time someone on screen is shown chopping vegetables,
they cut themselves. Okay, not every time, but often enough that whenever you see the knife and carrots, you tense up because you know something's coming, right?
Zoey finished chop-smashing the tomato. “I think I'll borrow your boots,” she said. “But everything else is going to be normal.”
There was that word again. Normal. Why couldn't my daughter give up on being normal the way I had and learn to embrace being weird?
“Make a bunch of new friends so they can come to the housewarming party,” I said. “Speaking of new friends, I wonder what our Realtor, Dorothy Tibbits, is up to?”
“Something nutty, I'm sure. She's a bit cuckoo.”
“You're so judgmental. Sure, the woman dresses up like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, but does wearing a blue pinafore make one cuckoo?”
“Not on its own, but carrying business paperwork in a wicker basket is not something a normal person does. Especially not a woman who's over sixty.”
“She might be sixty, but her face is barely forty,” I said. The woman did have the confusing appearance of someone attempting to look younger.
Zoey gave me a blank stare. I'd bought the house on a solo trip to Wisteria, so she'd only met the real estate agent in person earlier that day on the front porch. When Dorothy Tibbits pulled the house keys out of her wicker basket, Zoey had taken a cautious step away from the zanily costumed woman and refused to say two words to her.
If Zoey was going to reject people who were unusual, how long would it take before she abandoned me? I had to hope it was just a phase she was going through.
“We should give Dorothy Tibbits a chance,” I said. “Sure, she smells like incense and camping gear, and she talks to your eyebrows rather than looking you in the eyes, and she's just terrible at selling houses, but she seems nice enough.”
“Super,” Zoey said with the exact opposite of enthusiasm. “Dorothy and her Botox face can be your new best friend.”
Lightly, I added, “Or maybe Chet Moore, from next door. He's not horrible.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Turbo-flirter.”
I pretended to be hurt by the label of Turbo-flirter. Can I help it if I don't like small talk? What's the point in talking about nothing when you can dig into something good? I love asking people about something random yet specific, such as their bowling experience. You can learn a lot about someone if you throw out a good question or two.
Zoey said, “I can see the appeal of Mr. Tall Dark and Green Eyes, but isn't he too normal for you? He was wearing chinos. He looked like a catalog model.”
I hadn't actually noticed his clothes. “The man's got a goat on his roof.”
“But not a real goat. It's just a decoration on a weather vane. Besides, the inside of his house is colossally normal. I can see right in through his windows.”
“Have you been spying on our new neighbors?”
“They started it,” she protested. “There's a little boy with dark hair and big eyes. He was watching me from his window the whole time I was unpacking my bedroom. The way the houses are lined up, he can see right in. I felt like a monkey in the zoo.”
“Do you want to switch rooms with me? I want you to be happy. We moved here as much for you as for me.”
“Mom, stop being such a mom.” She turned her head. “Shh.”
Something thumped somewhere inside the house. It sounded a lot bigger than expanding nails or air ducts rubbing against wood. It sounded like trouble.
Zoey's pale hazel eyes widened. “The ghost,” she breathed. “I told you so. We're being haunted.”
“It's probably a friendly ghost,” I said with a shrug.
She shook her head and pulled out her phone. She tapped away, frowning at the screen for a few minutes before announcing, “This website says we can get rid of the ghost.”
“Is it expensive? Can we use that white chalky stuff that keeps out slugs and silverfish?”
She ignored my questions and kept reading. “We need to go into every room and clap and sing really loud to scare the ghost away. The key is making more noises.” She glanced up at the ceiling. “It's probably the old lady who used to live here. Do you think she died inside the house?”
“Not until you mentioned it.”
“What if she doesn't know she's dead? What if she climbs into bed with me tonight and screams because she thinks I'm the ghost?”
I'd been getting the creeps from the conversation, but imagining a ghost screaming in fright at my daughter made me smirk. “Did you say we should sing?” I shook my head. “That won't work. People adore my singing. That won't drive anyone away. But you could play some of your favorite music.”
My daughter gave me another blank look.
Something in the house thumped again. Whatever it was that made the first noise, it was getting more insistent.
Zoey shrieked and threw herself into my arms.
It thumped again.
A chill ran up my spine. For the first time in my adulthood, I considered the idea that ghosts were real.
My anxiety escalated the thought into a whirling panic.
We were being haunted, and it was all my fault. My bad decisions were catching up with me. I'd been impulsive, taking a job in a new town and buying a house immediately rather than renting and taking things slow. I had been so sure of myself. I'd felt there was a larger entity guiding me toward some great destiny.
I'd trusted that everything would turn out for the best, but now I had a ghost.
What next?
I was as broke as any first-time homeowner, but I'd wisely held some money back from the deposit to cover maintenance surprises. If the old pipes broke, I'd call a plumber. If a tree got diseased, I'd call an arborist. And if ghosts were real, then by the same logic, there'd have to be a whole industry of people around to deal with them. I'd simply consult the internet and call in a spiritual medium. Or a priest. Or Beetlejuice.
There was another thump, followed by a crash. It sounded like dishes breaking.
“My good china,” I said, my hand over my heart. It was a lie. We didn't have any fine china, let alone good stuff.
“The ghost is in the den now,” Zoey said, her voice and body quivering.
“Uh, which room is the den?”
“The one with the smaller of the two fireplaces,” she said.
“We have two fireplaces?”
The crash was followed by rustling noises. Zoey buried her head in my shoulder and whimpered.
“Maybe a cat or a wild animal climbed in through an open window,” I said. “It's not a ghost, because ghosts aren't real.”
“It could be a zombie,” she said.
“Now you're just going through monsters willy nilly. Next you'll say Frankenstein's monster is in the den.”
“Don't let it eat our brains,” she said with a giggle. At least she was laughing through her terror. Having a good sense of humor helps in almost any situation.
With my daughter clinging to me, I grabbed a broom and walked us both out of the kitchen and toward the den, which was a cozy room I planned to turn into a home library.
The den was empty. No zombies or stray cats.
But there was a mess. The welcome gifts we'd been given by the real estate agent had fallen off the fireplace mantel. The leafy fern, which hadn't stood much chance of survival even in the best of circumstances, was now a pile of smashed fronds atop dirt and shattered pottery. Next to the dirty mess lay the shredded remains of a welcome basket and scented bath products.
Zoey crouched over the mess and sniffed. “Smells like vetiver oil.”
I raised an eyebrow.
She explained, “Vetiver is a grass from India. The scent is supposed to be grounding.”
“It smells like a hippie dipped in lemonade.”
Zoey gathered the bath products, examining them closely. “None of these are open,” she said. “Where's the smell coming from?”
“Your butt,” I said with a laugh. Your butt was one of our favorite answers to
dumb questions. Where are my keys? Check your butt. Am I forgetting anything? You forgot your butt. What time are you coming home? Ask your butt.
In a serious tone, Zoey said, “The ghost smashed our welcome gifts.”
“There's no such thing as ghosts. Look at the slope on this mantel.” I patted the wood. “Every time those big mover guys went up and down the stairs, they sent vibrations through the house until this stuff slid off.”
She made a hmm noise, unconvinced but considering.
Since I had a broom in my hands anyway, I began sweeping the dirt into a pile.
“But we were both in the kitchen, not on the stairs,” she said. “Someone pushed these things off the ledge.”
“Why would someone do that?”
She blinked at me, her hazel eyes looking exhausted. “These were welcome gifts, and someone literally destroyed them. The message is pretty clear. We are not welcome here. We are unwanted and unwelcome.”
“This isn't about a ghost,” I said, still sweeping the dirt toward a corner. “You're projecting your fears about moving here onto some imaginary ghost because you'd rather repress your fear than admit you're scared.”
She finished gathering the bath products and stood to face me. She'd grown recently, and we were nearly eye to eye.
I asked, “What's really bothering you?”
She stated simply, “Someone doesn't want us here.” She turned and went to the den's small window. She pressed her forehead against the glass and said, “Look!” She pointed to our yard.
I joined her at the window and looked.
At the edge of our backyard was a slim figure clad in black. The figure climbed over the fence separating our yard from the neighbor's.
“It's that stupid boy,” Zoey said angrily. “The one who was peeping at me in my room. I think he must have gotten inside the house and smashed our things. The nerve!”
I growled some nonrepeatable words. I was having a hard enough time getting my daughter settled in without having to deal with a saboteur. I growled some more, this time about torture devices.
Zoey said, “Mom, calm down. Don't get all lightning-bolts-and-brimstone. He's just a bratty kid.”
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