Something dark in the sky caught my eye. I looked up at the biggest bird I'd ever seen. Was it a bald eagle? They did nest in this area. But no, the huge bird's head wasn't white. And if anything, this winged beast was larger. What was bigger than a bald eagle? My librarian brain kicked into research mode. By biggest, are we looking for heaviest by weight or longest wingspan? I'd looked up this exact question earlier today for a patron. The Andean condor of South America is the largest flying bird in the world by combined measurement of weight and wingspan. It has a wingspan of twelve feet. What does the Andean condor eat? Anything it wants!
The giant bird, which couldn't have been the Andean condor given I wasn't currently in the Andes Mountains, flapped away out of my sight.
My fingers twitched. I rubbed my hands together while I kept my eyes on the sky. My hands felt funny, like they were crackling.
The strange tingling sensation was probably my skin getting used to the particular brand of hand sanitizer used at the WPL. There's nothing quite like an alcohol-based lotion to let you know how many fresh paper cuts you've acquired during a day at the library.
The bird didn't reappear, so I continued my walk.
I reached a corner and turned left without thinking, as though I'd lived in the town far longer than three days plus two nights.
Strangely, there seemed to be something pulling me from the inside, guiding me somewhere. I kept walking, following the pull, curious to see what would happen next.
I'd never felt anything quite like this. It was like hunger, but not hunger. I did have a powerful craving for something. Fried chicken? Carrot cake? That Malaysian durian fruit that smells like rotten onions and pungent gym socks? No, this craving was more complex.
The feeling, which was near my stomach but not in my stomach, tugged me down the street. An image of leather boots came to mind.
Wow, I thought. I must really need to buy new boots.
As I passed a store window and glanced at my reflection, I noticed a familiar figure behind me, across the street. Had Zoey finished at school already and come to meet up with me? When I turned to wave at my daughter, though, she wasn't there. Just happy-looking people walking to and fro. I caught a glimpse of the back of a woman who had long red hair. But she wasn't my daughter. Zoey would never wear a big skirt with giant flowers all over it, let alone paired with a floral blouse.
A door opened next to me, and the scent of leather hit my nostrils.
My brain practically screamed, New boots!
I wasn't normally such a shopaholic. I was a little concerned about these new compulsions I was feeling. I had half a mind to go straight home and put my feet up until it passed, but the other half of my mind was already propelling me through the shoe store's entrance.
I decided to roll with it. Even if there was some mystical force compelling me to visit that particular store on that particular street, what was the worst thing that could happen?
I looked around and got my bearings.
Like most of the stores in Wisteria, this was an independent seller, not part of a chain. The decor was old fashioned, but the store had wonderful boots, in every heel height and color imaginable.
A friendly-looking man with a white mustache gave me a cheerful sales pitch. “We're having a special today, since it's Monday. You can try on every boot in the store for free.” He grinned to show me he was joking. “That's the special deal we run on days that end in Y. Left foot and right foot. All test walks inside the store are free.”
I smiled back. “Is everyone in this town so delightful?”
“Yes,” he said with a serious nod. “It's the law, ma'am. See any shoes you like?”
I pointed to some cute saddle shoes with dark laces. “I'd love to start with those if you have them in my size, which is—”
He held up one hand and cut me off. “Don't tell me! Most people don't know their true size anyway, so we'd better get you measured up.” He waved me over to a bench. “Have a seat, please, and remove those horrendous things.”
I gave him a mock-indignant look as I started unlacing my shoes. They were basic and comfortable, but I couldn't defend them. They really were horrendous, and we both knew it.
The door to the shop jingled, and another customer came in. The white-mustached man did a double take as he greeted the new customer. I was curious about who or what had surprised him, but when I turned to look, the customer had already ducked behind a display.
The white-mustached man kneeled before me, lifted one of my feet carefully, and started to measure it. To my surprise, he didn't use a metal or wood device. He placed my foot against his forearm. Sole to skin. He had small markings up and down his forearm, possibly tattoos. The fitting process was more intimate than I'd expected, but after a few days in Wisteria, I was starting to expect the unexpected.
“Interesting,” he said. “You have a foot twin, and she's sitting right behind you.”
“Foot twin?” I glanced over my shoulder. The other customer who'd just arrived had taken a seat on the wooden bench behind me. I couldn't see her face, but her long hair was the same shade of red as mine.
The shopkeeper didn't say more about my alleged foot twin. He winked at me and said, “I'll be back in a jiffy with your new favorite boots.”
When he returned, he had a long box containing boots. He'd completely ignored my request to try on the saddle shoes. He must have known I wasn't serious about buying them. The boots he'd brought out were buttery soft and fit like they'd been custom made. I hadn't even finished lacing them, and they were already my new favorite boots. I reached for the price tag with some trepidation, but the price was very reasonable.
“Perfect,” I said. “I'll take these ones, and I'll even wear them out.”
“Of course you will.” He wore a wide grin below his bushy white mustache. He flicked his gaze up at something behind me, frowned, and looked into my eyes again. “I hope you don't mind me asking, but how closely are you two gorgeous redheads related?”
I turned around just as the woman on the bench behind me turned. We looked into each other's hazel eyes.
I felt my eyebrows rising with surprise. I saw hers rise in unison. I opened my mouth. She opened hers. The effect was like looking in a mirror.
The stranger and I had the exact same coloring, from our red hair to our hazel eyes, and the same oval-shaped faces. She was a few years older than me, but I could see why the store owner pegged us as being related. To me, the woman with the red hair looked like a computer simulation of an imaginary person, halfway between me and my mother. I tilted my head to the side, wondering who I looked like to her.
Without waiting for an answer, the shopkeeper said, “You must be sisters.”
“I don't have a sister,” I said, breaking eye contact with the woman to take in her floral blouse and flower-dotted skirt. She had been the person who'd caught my eye from across the street.
The woman smiled. “Such a shame you don't have a sister.”
“But I do have a few stray relatives,” I said. “Weird ones.”
She gave me a knowing look. “Is that so?”
I folded one leg under me so I could face her squarely. She looked exactly like my mother, the way I remembered her. I reached out and touched my finger to her shoulder to make sure she was solid. She was real.
“I know your name,” I said. “You're Ms. Riddle.”
She smiled. “I am.”
“And you know a man named Griebel. He's a short man who looks like a gnome.”
Her eyebrows rose higher. “Have you been following me around, Zara?”
I looked down at the flowers on her skirt, and it hit me. My mother had always refused to wear anything floral because it reminded her too much of her weird, bratty little sister.
I snapped my fingers. “Aunt Zinnia!”
My mother's younger sister smiled. “In the flesh.”
“Well, this is quite the coincidence,” I said.
She narrowed her haze
l eyes and pursed her lips. “Don't tell me your mother raised you to believe in coincidences.”
Chapter 10
I stared at my long-lost relative.
Aunt Zinnia didn't think that the two of us bumping into each other in a small-town boot store was a coincidence?
Wow. She was exactly as crazy as my mother had always said.
The eager shopkeeper, who'd been listening quietly the whole time, clapped his hands. “How wonderful! A surprise family reunion happening right here in my shoe store. I knew something was afoot, so to speak, when I noticed you were foot twins.”
I couldn't tear my eyes away from my aunt. She looked so much like my mother, who'd been dead for five years. It had been at my mother's funeral where I'd last seen my aunt. Before that, she hadn't been part of our lives.
Since the last time I'd seen Zinnia, she had grown to look even more like my mother. Looking into those familiar hazel eyes was like staring at a ghost.
My whole body was numb. My jaw ached, and my eyes burned.
I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, scream, or put my head between my knees and wait for the nausea to pass. Just when I thought I was going to embarrass myself by exploding into a million sobbing pieces, a cool breeze tickled at the back of my head.
The coolness reached around, pressing on my forehead like a cool hand. My ears and nostrils felt icy, as though the air around me had turned to liquid peppermint and I was breathing it in.
The coolness floated up, through my sinuses.
I sneezed three times.
And then a wave of tranquility washed over me. I was staring into the eyes of my crazy aunt, who I never thought I'd see again, and I knew exactly what to do.
I heard a little voice in the back of my head. Never pass up the opportunity to be a gracious hostess and make the first move!
“Zinnia, darling,” I said calmly. The words flowed from my mouth like liquid peppermint. “You simply must come for dinner at my house. We shall have rack of lamb, and you can meet my daughter. How about seven o'clock? We'll have cocktails at seven and dinner by eight, like civilized people. How does Friday work for you, darling?”
Zinnia's hazel eyes twitched. Her jaw moved a few times, but no sound came out.
We faced off a full minute before she slowly turned away from me, leaned forward over her knees, and began taking off her shoes.
“Friday works for me,” she said without looking up.
The shopkeeper, who had disappeared while I was sneezing, returned with a tissue for me and a pair of boots for Zinnia.
Her boots were a different style from mine, only ankle height, but they appeared to be the same size. We really were foot twins.
Zinnia cleared her throat. “When did you move to Wisteria? Myself, I adore living here, but most of the country has never heard of the place.”
I glanced over at the shopkeeper. He was still grinning and staring but had moved himself over to the shop's front counter to give us some privacy.
I answered, “What makes you think I'm not here on holidays?”
“You invited me to dinner at your house, which I presume is here in Wisteria.”
“Oh, yes. My house. How I've always loved the sound of that phrase. My house. Mine. I'm going to be working that phrase into every conversation I have for the next year.”
My aunt laughed. “You're so much like your mother. She did love having things that were all her own.” She chuckled softly, still leaning over her knees and tying her laces. “I miss her so much.”
I raised my eyebrows. How could you miss someone you never saw in the first place?
I wanted to press her for more, but sitting on a bench in a shoe store was not the place to dig into the intricacies of Riddle family dynamics. Whatever happened between her and the rest of the family, it hardly mattered anymore.
By some strange coincidence—and I did believe it was a coincidence—we were both now living in the same town. And we were family. We'd be seeing a lot more of each other.
I borrowed a pen and paper from the store owner, wrote out my address, and handed the paper to my aunt.
“Beacon Street,” she said, frowning at the paper. “This address looks familiar. It's not a red house, is it?”
“As a matter of fact, the house is a gorgeous shade called Wisconsin Barn Red.” As soon as I'd named the color, a question echoed in my head. How did I know the house was Wisconsin Barn Red?
“I do know that house,” Zinnia said. “I used to visit someone there.”
“Was it a woman named Winona Vander Zalm?”
Zinnia's face lit up and then slowly fell as realization dawned on her. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Is Winnie okay? I haven't seen her in ages. Now I can't remember if she sent me a Christmas card last year.” Her pale face grew even more pale, highlighting the smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose. She looked up at me with sad eyes that reminded me of my daughter's.
“The former homeowner died peacefully,” I said. “Or at least that's what I've been told.”
Zinnia coughed into her fist. “How did she die?”
I held both of my hands out, palms up. “Peacefully, in her sleep. Or so I heard. It all happened long before I arrived on the scene. I only got here on Saturday.”
“The day before your daughter's sixteenth birthday,” Zinnia said.
“For a lady I haven't seen in years, you sure keep close tabs on me.” I reached for my wallet, ready to pay for my boots and leave the store. The quaintness was starting to feel claustrophobic.
Zinnia said plainly, “I have an excellent memory for dates.”
“Did you follow me in here?”
She wrinkled her nose and frowned. “Of course not. Don't be a ding-dong.”
Don't be a ding-dong? Was she making fun of me through imitation? No. Calling people ding-dongs was something I'd picked up from my mother. It had to be a family trait.
I looked at the piece of paper in her hands and wondered if it wasn't too late to retract my invitation to dinner. Family has a way of rubbing off on each other, bad habits and all. There was something very odd about my aunt, and I didn't want it to rub off on my daughter.
The store owner clicked away at his computer keyboard and announced the total for my boots.
Aunt Zinnia piped up, “Please put my niece's boots on my tab, please.” To me, she said, “I know it doesn't make up for missing out on so much of your life so far, but I hope you'll accept this small gift from me. It's the least I can do, considering your kind invitation to dinner.”
“Uh, sure, but you might change your mind after you taste my cooking on Friday.” Had I actually promised to cook? And had the phrase rack of lamb actually come from my lips?
Aunt Zinnia got to her feet and came at me in a twirl of floral fabrics. She grabbed my arm and let out a laugh that can only be described as a cackle.
She squeezed my arm. “Zara, darling, I'm sure whatever you whip up, it will be intriguing!”
She cackled again.
Just like a witch.
That was it! That was what my mother used to call her. Zinnia the Witch.
Chapter 11
Zoey leaned on her elbows on the kitchen island and watched with equal parts of interest and disgust as I wrestled the meat from its cozy butcher paper packaging.
Four days had passed since I'd seen Zinnia Riddle and invited her to dinner. I'd been so busy learning the ropes at the library and trying to get the household in order that I hadn't given much thought to the cooking of the meal. My aunt, who my mother always referred to as a crazy witch, was coming to dinner.
Zoey had taken the news in stride. Her chief concern was over what to call this new relative. She was Zoey's great-aunt, but the woman was only forty-eight, and great-aunt seemed like a title for a much older person. Zinnia was only sixteen years older than me. Other than that, I didn't know much about the woman.
I finally got the chunk of meat free from its paper wrap. Now what? I wondered.
/> Zoey wasn't much help. “Mom, what possessed you to promise you'd cook someone rack of lamb?”
“Funny you should mention me being possessed,” I said. “When I invited Aunt Zinnia to come for dinner, it felt like I wasn't even the person inviting her. The words came out of my mouth like I was in a play, reciting lines. And before that, my feet pretty much walked themselves into the shoe store. I wasn't in control of myself.”
Her light-red eyebrows arched up in amusement. “How's this different from usual?”
“Ha ha,” I said. “Two points for the teenager. Good one.” I gingerly grabbed the meat and plopped it on a pan. “Seriously, though, it didn't feel like me talking. And when we were talking, I told her the house was painted Wisconsin Barn Red. When I got home, I googled it, and,” I lowered my voice to a dramatic whisper, “that's exactly what color this house is painted. Spooky, huh?”
She frowned. “I think you're being paranoid. Dorothy the Realtor must have told you the color. It was buried in your subconscious until you needed a fun fact. That happens to me sometimes. For example,” she picked up the squeeze bottle of honey on the kitchen island, “honey bees control the temperature inside the hive to affect the development of their young. The smallest change in environment can change their programming and determine what job duties their young will do once they mature.”
“Does it work on young humans? What temperature should I program into the thermostat to make you answer the doorbell without being prodded?”
“Ha ha,” she said. “Two points for the mother.”
I went back to poking the blob of meat, and she pulled out her phone to look up more fun facts about honey bee colonies. Zoey was a natural student, always hungry for information about the world around her. We could never finish a trivia game because she'd get distracted looking up facts and history related to a question. When we did play a game, it was usually Scrabble. She was the reigning champion. I knew more words, but she was better at spatial relationships and seeing ways to maximize her score.
Stormy Day Mysteries 5-Book Cozy Murder Mystery Series Bundle Page 127