Wisteria Wyverns

by Angela Pepper

  “Of course you can’t,” I said between mouthfuls of my delicious, throat-soothing sundae. “All people in staff uniforms blend together to form one nameless entity that constantly disappoints you.”

  She pointed her spoon at me. “Don’t spill ice cream on the sofa. Why must you eat as though you’re shoveling coal into a steam engine?”

  “Blame it on my new ghost,” I said. “As their host, I pick up their quirks and mannerisms.” I shoveled down more of my sundae even faster. “Josephine loved ice cream more than life itself! I can’t hold her back!”

  Zoey wrinkled her brow and gave me a concerned look. “Josephine is not a very common name,” she said slowly.

  “That’s my clever girl.” I leaned over and ruffled her hair, which was a gesture she only appreciated in fox form but I couldn’t help myself.

  She set her sundae dish on the coffee table unfinished, obviously bothered by whatever she was thinking about. “Josephine Pressman is dead?” The lines in her forehead deepened. “That can’t be good.”

  “I’m sure she would agree.” I shook my head. “Her poor family. First her father, Perry, and now her.”

  “What if it’s all connected? His death, and now his daughter’s?”

  My stomach made a burbling sound. “Are you thinking that something or someone might be tidying up loose ends? Either the department, or whoever was the big boss behind Project Erasure? Your aunt and I were witnesses that night. Do you think we could be next on the hit list?”

  “I wasn’t thinking it before, but I sure am now.” Zoey shook her head. “Either way, this is not good at all. We should call someone.”

  I sighed. “I would call Charlize, but I’m still not speaking to her.”

  “Charlize is the worst,” Zoey agreed.

  “You can’t trust a snake.”

  “Or a computer hacker with a headful of snakes.”

  My mother cleared her throat. “It’s rude to speak of things about which not everyone present is fully aware of.”

  Ignoring her, I kept my eyes on my daughter. “Do you think we can trust her?”

  “How should I know?” She shrugged. “I’m the one who thought Pawpaw showed up just to play mini golf, and look how that turned out.”

  I leaned over and patted her on the knee. “At least you discovered your powers, thanks to him.” I pointed my thumb toward my mother and stage-whispered. “What do you say? Can we trust the undead one over there? She did buy us ice cream.”

  Zoey scrunched her face, giving the matter thoughtful consideration before speaking deliberately. “I think you have to keep trusting people, no matter how many times it doesn’t work out. It’s the only way to keep living. The alternative is to close yourself off and become a hermit, like that gardener woman did. And look how that turned out.”

  “True.” I turned to my mother and smiled. “Zirconia Cristata Riddle, are you ready to be a person who is fully aware of all the various things that may or may not be relevant to this whole situation, up to and including our special in-jokes about ghost dogs and chicken kebabs?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.” My recently undeceased mother set her ice cream aside, barely touched, and folded her hands on her lap.

  I started at the beginning, with the onset of my powers and my first ghost, the extroverted Winona Vander Zalm. My memories of throwing fancy dinner parties felt so distant, despite having happened only a few months earlier. Each Spirit Charmed event since then had gotten so much more dangerous. The story of nearly being electrocuted by a killer toaster seemed downright quaint by comparison.

  We covered my relocation to Wisteria, and how it had been secretly orchestrated by Chess and Charlize so that I could help get their sister, Chessa, out of her coma. My mother already knew about how Zoey and I nearly became plant food for a Droserakops, so I circled back to my second ghost. That had been the not-quite-dead Perry Pressman, inventor of the strange monster-machine that was fueled by his own flesh. According to interviews with the DWM, Josephine Pressman had been unaware of her father’s final invention. She’d been no more than an innocent bystander. Who was now dead.

  My mother, who’d interrupted a few times already, asked, “And what was this machine supposed to do, anyway?”

  “Erase people from their bodies,” I said. “I guess it wiped their memories and personalities from their brains.”

  “Why did it erase words from books? Why did it sometimes erase ink from things around town?”

  I chuckled. “Ever heard of a wacky little unpredictable thing called magic?”

  She pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “Yes, well, the only thing you can accurately predict about magic is its unpredictability.”

  Zoey chimed in. “Magic has a mind of its own. That’s what Auntie Z is always saying.”

  My mother kept nodding. Her hair had air-dried during our conversation, and fell around her shoulders in black, silky waves. No trace of her natural red showed through the new color.

  She took in a deep breath before speaking. “This is exactly the sort of trouble I tried to protect you from.” She waved her hand through the air vigorously, as though swatting at invisible flies. “The unpredictability of magic. The danger. All the rotten reprobates trying to steal powers from each other. And now they’re trying to erase people from their bodies! When will it ever stop?”

  “We can’t stop people from being bad, but we can always try to do more good.”

  She stared at me for a long moment. “You weren’t supposed to get the curse,” she said. “This wasn’t supposed to be your life.”

  “How? When you renounced your powers, was that supposed to stop it traveling down the family tree? If it makes you feel any better, it did work, sort of. But more like a clog in the line than a clean break.” I gestured to my daughter. “As soon as the kid here turned sixteen, those powers busted through your clog and hit both of us. Pow! With a side of Zap.”

  “Pow and Zap indeed.” She lurched forward and plucked something from the couch cushion. A single red fox hair, which she waved at me. “Zarabella, you’re half fox shifter. Zoey’s only a quarter, and she had the good sense to turn into a fox. Why didn’t you, too? You didn’t need to become a witch.”

  “Zoey only turned after she saw her grandfather turn. Maybe I could have, too, if I’d known. But oh, no, you kept it from me. You kept magic from me, just like you kept it a secret from poor Zinnia.”

  She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. “Poor Zinnia is just fine.”

  “What else might I have been?” I asked. “Other than Rhys Quarry, did you bring any other guys back to your swanky hotel room?”

  She stared at me as her eyes widened and her jaw dropped open. A squeaking sound came from her throat but no words.

  Note to self: Questioning your mother about your paternity is not appropriate Sunday-afternoon conversation. I’d broken the poor woman.

  Zara tries to be a good daughter. Zara doesn’t imply her mother was or is a tramp.

  “Sorry,” I said. “My manners slipped again.” I slapped my own wrist and glared at my hand. “Bad ghost! Bad Josephine. Don’t be so rude.”

  My mother’s jaw snapped shut with a click. She didn’t have anything to say, for a change.

  Still sitting beside me on the sofa, my daughter raised her hand. “I have a question.”

  Please, don’t ask about your own paternity, I thought. I know I opened the can of worms just now, and I probably deserve to be grilled about it, but please not now.

  “Josephine Pressman had her body taken over by someone else that night,” Zoey said.

  “That’s not a question.”

  She raised her eyebrows and gave me a think-about-it look.

  Josephine hadn’t been in control of her body that night in the attic. She had been present but also not present. Just like her father had been somewhere between dead and alive.

  I jumped to my feet and headed toward the door.

  Zoey asked, “Are you thinking
what I’m thinking?”

  “If you’re thinking that Josephine’s body has been commandeered by the world’s worst real estate agent, then yes.” I shook my fist. “Damn you, Dorothy Tibbits.”

  “I thought she was dead,” Zoey said. “Didn’t Chet swear that she died in custody?”

  I nodded my head in the direction of my dark-haired mother. “Yeah, well, people don’t stay dead like they used to.”

  Zoey hunched her shoulders and rubbed her forearms.

  My mother pleaded, “What’s going on? This Josephine who works here might not be dead after all? But her ghost came in here and…” She trailed off, dazed, and then her hazel eyes brightened. “Oh! Now I get it. Her father’s spirit visited you when he was between death and life. And so did that girl in the coma.”

  “Exactly.” I reached for the door handle. “Now I need to find Josephine’s body and question whoever’s inside it before kicking them right out again.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” she said.

  “I’m tougher than I look.” I pointed to the sofa. “But you two should stay here.”

  I ran out into the castle’s hallway and toward the stairs.

  The other two Riddles didn’t obey my command to stay safely behind in the room, just as I knew they wouldn’t.

  Since the spirit had come up through the floor, the most logical place to check for Josephine’s body—whether it was dead or had only been hijacked—was in the room directly beneath my mother’s. We reached the second floor. I lifted my knuckles to knock on the door and paused.

  “Let’s get our cover story straight,” I whispered over my shoulder. “We’re investigating a loud thump sound that we heard from upstairs.”

  My mother commented, “It’s interesting to be on this side of your web of lies.”

  “Technically, it’s not a lie,” Zoey said. “Mom did thump when she fainted and fell on the floor.”

  I winked at my daughter. She was the best kind of backup, the kind that really has your back.

  I knocked on the door and put on a concerned expression. Once I was face to face with the person who’d stolen Josephine’s body, my improvisation skills would truly be tested. There was no peep from the spirit inside me.

  The door opened. The person standing in the doorway was not even female, let alone Josephine. I did a double take. The man looked exactly like the older version of a guy I used to know.

  He tilted his head to the side and gave me a quizzical look.

  “Zed?” he asked in a low, gruff voice that most people associate with stoners. “Is that you?”

  Chapter 4

  Was I Zed?

  Nobody had called me Zed in years. Just hearing the nickname made me feel more like my teen self than I had in a long time.

  I started up at him. “Nash?”

  He grinned. “In the flesh.”

  Standing before me was Nathan Partridge, also known as Nashville—or Nash for short—due to his teenaged ambitions of becoming a country music superstar. His dark-brown hair had gotten thinner, and his quick-moving eyes had acquired a few wrinkles, but it was him. Charming as ever.

  “Good ol’ Nash,” I said. The shock of seeing his friendly face gave me temporary amnesia. I forgot all about why I’d knocked on his door in the first place, and about the two other Riddles standing behind me.

  “Good ol’ Zed,” he replied, looking at the top of my head. “I see they haven’t found a cure for fireweed hair yet.”

  I scoffed. “And I see they haven’t found a cure for those massive flaps on the sides of your head. Oh, wait. Are those your ears?”

  “They must be mine. If they were yours, they’d be covered in freckles and girl cooties.”

  “You love my freckles and my girl cooties,” I teased. “What have you been up to?”

  “Oh, about six foot two.” He stood up straight, straining until the tendons on the sides of his neck flared. He wasn’t anywhere near six foot two, but he did have a slim, sinewy build that gave the illusion of height. He wore tattered, broken-in jeans with a threadbare concert T-shirt from a popular eighties band. Seeing Nash Partridge, with his boyish grin now contrasting a receding hairline, made me feel both youthful and ancient at the same time. I’d been twelve when I’d started tagging along with Nash and his music-loving buddies. They’d all ranged in age from fifteen to seventeen—mature and worldly compared to me and my girlfriends. My mother didn’t approve, but she couldn’t do much to stop it, since Nash and his single father had rented our pool house on a yearlong lease. The boys were always hanging out in my back yard, as tenacious as dandelions.

  “Hey there, Zed’s mom.” Nash looked over my shoulder and lifted his chin in greeting. He’d always alternated between calling my mother Mrs. Landlady and Zed’s mom, never Ms. Riddle.

  “Hello, Nathan,” she said coolly.

  “You are totally rocking that black hair, Zed’s mom. I like it.” He turned his head toward Zoey and did a double take. “What? It’s a miniature Zed! Mini Zed. I bet you’re a real troublemaker, just like Original Zed.”

  Mini Zed gave him an innocent look.

  My mission came back to me. I leaned to the side to look around Nash. “Are you here on your own?”

  Nash shifted his body to better block my view into the suite. He scratched his head and looked sheepish. “What did you hear?”

  “Me? I didn’t hear much,” I said. “I haven’t been in contact with the old gang in years. I don’t know what you’ve been up to…” I trailed off. Actually, I did know what he’d been up to. I’d been there, on the tour, by his side. I’d been there when he hit rock bottom. We’d trashed the hotel room together.

  Except Zed hadn’t been there. I’d gotten a full blast of Josephine Pressman’s memories. She knew Nash, because he was the rock star she’d been following around New York. Ah, how her father had disapproved. Which had only made Nash more appealing.

  “Zed, are you okay?” Nash was giving me one of his classic concerned looks. Back when we were both teens, he could easily set girls crying just by asking if they were okay. Now he was staring at me with those sympathetic brown eyes, and it was working. I wanted to unburden myself and let him hold me. Or the part of me housing Josephine’s spirit did, anyway. She wasn’t infatuated with him like she used to be, but he still had some effect on her.

  “I’m okay,” I said. “Just surprised.”

  Nash looked away from me to stare at my daughter. “She’s kinda freaking me out,” he said in a hushed tone, as though she wasn’t standing right there. “She’s really here, isn’t she? Mini Zed? Tell me I’m not hallucinating again.”

  “She’s real,” I said, and I turned to do introductions. “Nash, this is my daughter, Zoey.” They shook hands. “And you remember my mom. She doesn’t go by ‘Zed’s mom’ these days, but I think you’re old enough to call her Zirconia.”

  “Ms. Riddle,” my mother said, correcting me. “Lovely to see you again after all these years, Nash. I always liked you better than the strange boy with the long hair and the cowboy boots.”

  I elbowed my mother. Out of the side of my mouth, I said, “Mom, Nash was the strange boy with the long hair and the cowboy boots. He and his father were our tenants in the pool house, remember?”

  “Ah, yes. The Flamingo family.”

  I coughed up a laugh. “Partridge,” I said. “The Partridge family.”

  “Of course,” she said, as though she hadn’t made a mistake at all. “And how is your father?”

  “Still withholding his approval,” Nash said, grinning.

  “Someone has to do it,” she replied tartly. “Are you still singing those old Johnny Cash songs?”

  “Someone has to do it,” he volleyed back, dealing with my mother’s snarkiness as easily as he always had, even as a teen. He chuckled in his deep, gruff way. His speaking voice had always reminded me of a vehicle engine warming up. His real voice, his singing voice, was like melted chocolate.

  “Hey, do you wa
nt to come in for a drink?” He stepped back, finally giving me a clear view. His suite had the same layout as my mother’s but looked different due to being decorated in dark tones, with wood paneling on the interior walls. All the furniture was dark leather, like that of an old-fashioned gentleman’s study. There was even a huge globe on a brass pedestal. Atop the globe, resting on northern Europe, was an ashtray full of cigarette butts. Typical Nash. Never far from an ashtray. His friends teased him about his messy habit by performing one night under the band name Nash’s Ashes.

  There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the suite.

  “Another time,” I said. “We’re actually looking for someone right now. Have you seen a girl named Josephine around here? She works for the resort. She’s in her late twenties, and has long, dark hair.”

  Nash shrugged and puffed out his cheeks before exhaling noisily. “That could be anyone,” he said.

  I reached out and jabbed him in the stomach with my finger. “Fibber,” I said. “You know exactly who I’m talking about.”

  He opened his mouth and emitted a croaking sound. I would use a spell if I had to, but my aunt always encouraged me to use my wits and wiles before resorting to magic.

  I poked him in the stomach again. “Tell me where she is, you big fibber. I know she was following you around New York. I know all about you two.”

  He held up both hands. “I haven’t seen Jo since this morning. We broke up, I swear. What did she tell you, Zed?”

  “Everything,” I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. I did have all of her memories inside me, somewhere.

  “Jo’s a good girl,” he said.

  “Yes, she is. But she’s been going through a rough patch lately.”

  “No kidding, with her old man dying in that weird gas explosion.” At a softer volume, he added, “If you ask me, I think he was mixed up in something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Beats me,” he said, rubbing his forearms. “Maybe drugs? I wouldn’t know. I’m clean, Zed. I don’t touch that stuff.”

  “I know,” I said. Nash had always enjoyed his booze and his smokes, but nothing harder. “Where can I find Jo?”