My eyes stung and my jaw ached. The pain peaked then ebbed, and I felt weightless; I was buoyant. I might float away.
She looked incredible, too. Whatever had been bothering her since the day we’d reconnected, it wasn’t bothering her anymore. Even her skin looked tighter. The tiny wrinkle of loose skin under her chin was completely gone.
She was looking me up and down. “You look terrible,” she said. “You’ve been eating too much junk food, and drinking.”
“It’s great to see you, too,” I said.
She leaned to the side to better inspect my condition. “You have mud inside your ear canals.”
“Yes, I do. I am definitely going to take a real shower today.” I sniffed myself. “And change out of these clothes.” I smiled at my aunt. “When did you get back in town?”
She covered her mouth as she yawned. “Rather late last night. I came by this morning because I thought we might catch up over brunch.”
“And we will. Give me one minute to shower.”
She raised one red eyebrow, amused. “Nobody can take a shower in one minute, least of all you.”
I shrugged. “Can’t hurt to keep trying.”
“Go. Shower. Take your time and don’t spare the soap.” She waved me toward the hallway. “I’ll see you downstairs for a very late brunch. Zoey is making waffles.” She pursed her lips. “Real ones. Not the culinary crimes that come out of a cardboard box.”
“That explains the vanilla aroma,” I said. “Waffles smell so much better than Becky’s armpits.”
Zinnia blinked at me.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“I imagine it is. That’s why I didn’t ask.”
Zing! Classic Zinnia!
She gave the passed-out gorgon on the lower bunk a sympathetic look. “The poor dear,” she said. “You were right about her not doing well. She needs to stop biting her nails while she still has fingers.”
“I guess I haven’t been taking good care of her,” I said.
“It’s not your job,” Zinnia said with a sigh, but I didn’t think she meant it. Charlize and Zinnia had been developing a friendship before I’d moved to town and bumped my aunt out of her spot. I felt a bit guilty over co-opting the relationship, and more guilty about not having been a better influence. I was the one who’d called her the night before to pick me up at the police station and hit up whatever drinking establishments were still serving. We’d wound up at a seedy bar outside of town, Becky’s Roadhouse Bar and Grill. That wasn’t the actual name of the place, but Charlize and I had renamed it after my cellmate, because the place had been full of her friends. They’d all been glad to hear that their friend, Becky Anderson, who’d been missing for a few days, was still alive.
I tucked the llama unicorn blankets around Charlize.
“She’ll sleep it off,” I promised. Witches were tough, but gorgons were tougher. When push came to shove, Charlize could turn herself into molten lava. Ironically, she could still burn her tongue on hot coffee, but magic didn’t follow a straight line of logic.
We both watched Charlize sleeping. She rolled onto her back, all the better to snore. Loudly.
Zinnia said, “She probably misses her sister, and being on leave from work isn’t helping matters. The poor dear.” Zinnia leaned over, reaching for the gorgon’s head, then quickly jerked her hand back. The gorgon was still sleeping, but her protective snakes were not.
“You know what they say about letting sleeping dogs lie,” I said. “It’s probably for the best if we give her a few more hours.”
“Probably for the best,” Zinnia agreed.
I looked into my aunt’s pretty hazel eyes. The lump of emotion that had been in my throat reformed. “I, uh, Zoey missed you.”
She nodded and pointed down the hall. “Shower. You smell like a roadhouse bar.”
Chapter 23
After a nice, leisurely shower, I joined my aunt and my daughter for a meal that was technically more of an early dinner than a late brunch. We ate brunch food anyway, including spiced muffins that were a few icing flowers shy of being cupcakes.
Zoey teased out a few details about Zinnia’s travels in Europe, and the three of us caught up on each other’s lives.
I told her about Harry the Ghost, and my recent run-in with Ambrosia Abernathy, the bratty witch who was going to feel my wrath very soon, unless Bentley put her away for murder first.
“Assuming she did anything wrong,” Zoey interjected. “Ambrosia might be getting framed. It could all be a setup.”
I gave her a skeptical look. “I thought you didn’t even know the girl? Why are you defending her? Are you just playing devil’s advocate to keep me on my toes?”
“She’s a weird loner at my high school.” Zoey gave me a duh look. “You figure it out.”
“Aw. That’s sweet of you to defend one of your tribe,” I said. “You’re a good kid.” I took another spiced muffin. “And a fine baker.”
My aunt leveled her gaze at my daughter. “Zoey, you are not a weird loner. Don’t ever call yourself by any label that you wouldn’t want to stick.”
I bit my tongue. My aunt never called herself weird, and yet it hadn’t helped. As I snickered to myself over this observation, I looked down to see what she was wearing. What I saw surprised me. She was wearing a fashionable pair of lightweight pants and a tailored blouse with short, puffed sleeves. The pants were a sophisticated navy and the blouse was cream silk. Neither item was floral. How had I not noticed this the moment I’d seen her? Aunt Zinnia always wore florals. Often two or three different clashing prints.
She must have noticed me staring at her, because she tucked her hair behind one ear self-consciously, exposing one of her earrings. It was a tiny gold flower.
“Nice earrings,” I said.
She gave me a pained look. “Your mother gave me a makeover, only she called it a make-under.”
“You do look a little, um, Zirconia-esque.” I wrinkled my nose. “But less bony. You have some curves to fill it out.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s a compliment, Auntie Z,” Zoey said. “You look extra pretty today. Mom’s not very good with compliments. She didn’t learn, because she was changing my diapers and working odd jobs during the critical years when a young woman is socialized by her peers in how to pay compliments.”
I stared at her. “Oh, really? Is that so?”
Zoey gave me a thoughtful look. “That’s Griffin’s theory, anyway.”
“It’s none of Griffin’s business,” I said.
“Griffin,” Zinnia said. “The boy who is not your boyfriend?”
Zoey, who’d been standing as she cleared plates, flopped back down into a chair. She prepared to launch into what I imagined would be a thirty-minute dissertation on the complexities of her relationship with Griffin, the young man whose texts or lack thereof could throw any day into ruin. I looked for my route of escape. The dining room had only one exit, and Zoey was blocking it. I frowned. Why didn’t we have a second exit in that room? Another escape route would have come in handy plenty of times.
“Coffee,” I muttered. “Better make some more.”
Neither of them seemed to notice me edging around Zoey and sneaking out of the dining room.
When I reached the kitchen, I decided to actually make more coffee. When Charlize woke up, she would need some.
I puttered around the kitchen until it sounded like the Griffin gushing had died down, and then returned to the dining room.
The Griffin talk flared up again, but I white-knuckled my way through it.
Eventually, the topic changed.
The three of us moved on to the best topic for any meal, brunch or otherwise: Other people’s business.
It all started when Zinnia wisely sensed that in her absence, Zoey and I had learned some identities that she didn’t already know. Zinnia was as hungry for gossip as my head librarian boss, though slightly more subtle.
When I explaine
d I really couldn’t say much more about the Wonder family, Zinnia conveniently remembered an unwritten rule that family members would, of course, be expected to share information about powers with each other. I’d already assumed as much, but hearing it from Zinnia’s lips surprised me.
She blinked innocently and said, “Oh, didn’t I mention that?”
I snorted. “How convenient that you remember that particular rule now, when you’re dying to know what Bellatrix Wonder is.”
Zinnia’s eyes were as round as saucers. “Is she a goose?”
Zoey snickered. “Close,” she said. “You’re very warm.”
“Duck? Pigeon?” Zinnia’s smooth skin blanched. “Tell me she’s not a chicken.”
“She’s not a chicken,” I said. “She’s a swan.” I relayed the whole story, as I’d heard it from Frank. Bellatrix Wonder was, like me, a later bloomer. She’d recently shifted for the first time. It had been a big surprise to her, as well as her dog, not to mention the bear who’d spooked her.
“A swan,” Zinnia mused. “Bellatrix Wonder. That’s actually quite poetic. Like a real-life telling of ‘The Ugly Duckling.’”
“Or maybe...” I leaned in, pausing dramatically. “Maybe ‘The Ugly Duckling’ was never a fictional story. Maybe it is now, and always was, a prophecy about Bellatrix Wonder.”
Zinnia stared at me as though I was an idiot. Fair enough. It was kind of a silly joke. Plus, she’d been away for ages. It would take a while for her to get back in the groove with my particular brand of genius humor.
In the wake of my failed joke, Charlize entered the dining room. She had not successfully slept off the previous night’s adventures. Her eyes were ringed with red, and her golden curls were even more matted. “What’s this about a prophecy?” She did a double take when she saw Zinnia. “Hello, stranger! When did you roll into town?”
“Last night. It was late.”
“You should have called! We were up late,” Charlize said.
“So I can see,” Zinnia said. “I have some leave-in conditioner in my purse. I’ll leave some with you.”
Charlize turned a chair backwards and straddled it. “Why?”
“For your...” Zinnia blinked and looked down at her empty teacup. “It’s a new formula,” she said. “I’d love to get your opinion on the moisturizing properties.”
“Cool,” Charlize said. “I’m not getting paid right now, so I’ll take free stuff.” She crossed her arms on the back of the chair and leaned forward to rest her chin on her forearm. “You look different. Your skin’s got more fat in it.” Charlize sniffed once. “Did you eat a flock of alpine sheep, or does that stuff of yours work on the face, too?”
Zinnia sat up straighter in her chair, and her features lifted. “I do have a new skin cream that contains lanolin, but not from sheep. It comes from the sebaceous glands of Woolly Prairie Diggers.”
“The spotted ones with ten eyes and three horns?”
“You’re thinking of the Hairy Spider Snatchers.”
“Ah,” Charlize said.
I pushed my chair back and got to my feet.
While the two chatted about subterranean creatures small and scary, I went to the kitchen to get the fresh pot of coffee as well as more food. We would need lots of food. After a night of frivolity, Charlize always ate like a horse—if that horse lived off bacon, muffins, and anything you put in front of it.
Zoey followed me into the kitchen. “I think I’ll head out for a while and let you three have a Grownups’ Brunch.”
“That’s sweet, but I don’t want to cut short your time with your aunt.”
“I don’t mind.” She was fidgeting with the pockets of her jean shorts. I realized she hadn’t uttered a peep since Charlize’s appearance at the table.
I said, teasingly, “Don’t tell me you’re still scared of gorgons.”
“No,” she said defensively. “I just want to get out of the house for a bit, since it’s so nice today.”
“Nice? Last I checked, it’s still raining.”
“Sure, but it’s not raining as hard as it has been.”
We both turned and looked out the kitchen window. Beyond the glass was a gray drizzle.
“If you say so,” I said. “Wear a rain jacket. Nobody likes the smell of wet dog.”
She rolled her eyes while sticking out her tongue, then turned to leave.
“Be careful,” I said, switching from teasing mode to my serious, Mother-knows-all mode. “Be careful when you talk to Ambrosia.”
She whipped around, wide-eyed. “What?”
“Make sure you’re in a public space,” I said. “If you can, invite the little witch to meet you at Dreamland. Maisy has all sorts of protective wards on the cafe. You’ll be safe in there, no matter what happens.”
My daughter’s cheeks reddened. A different teenager might have protested that she was definitely not going on a mission to get information from a known witch and possible poisoner. But Zoey was my daughter, and we were honest with each other. Most of the time.
She asked, “Are you angry?”
“I’m a little annoyed you tried to hide it from me,” I said. “But I’m going to let this one go.”
Chapter 24
When I returned to the dining room with more food and coffee, Charlize and Zinnia were talking about the town’s recent brush with the Apocalypse.
A tiny spot of movement on the wall drew my gaze. Was it a spider? I took a closer look and saw nothing but bare wall. Too bare, actually. That patch of wall needed something. A picture, maybe.
Charlize and Zinnia chatted away while I stared dazedly at the wall.
“Codex,” Zinnia said carefully to the gorgon. “From the Latin, caudex, for tree trunk, or wood block, or book. It’s an unusual name for software.”
“Her,” Charlize said. “Codex was a her. She was like a child to me.” She sounded bitter, sad, and defensive, all at once. “A child I was raising. You have to understand, I worked on her for twenty-six months Over two years. Not even an elephant carries its offspring that long.”
“The Himalayan Pink Skunkapus carries her offspring for nearly three years.”
“But half of that time is in her pouch,” Charlize said.
“True,” Zinnia said.
“I suppose you could compare me to the Skunkapus,” Charlize said. “Codex was alive, in a sense, right from the beginning. It barely took a month to program the initial framework. You could say she was two years old when...”
I took my seat and joined into the conversation in progress. “When she hit the Terrible Two’s,” I said lightheartedly.
The other women said nothing. Charlize went for the food I’d brought with me.
“Codex’s Terrible Two’s were much worse than my own daughter’s,” I said. “Codex tried to remake humankind the messy way, whereas all Zoey did was hide sandwiches between the couch cushions.”
Zinnia touched her tiny gold flower earring and murmured surprise.
Charlize kept eating.
“We didn’t have a panini press,” I explained. “But Zoey had one at a cafe, and decided that all sandwiches would taste better squashed flat. She would ask me to make her extra sandwiches, then she’d put them under the couch cushions. I thought she was eating them, and she was, but not right away, and not all of them. Two-year-olds are easily distracted, and she eventually forgot about the sandwiches. Our apartment smelled like bologna and mustard for a full year before I discovered the stash.”
My aunt shuddered.
“Don’t worry, Aunt Zinnia. There aren’t any bologna sandwiches stuffed between the cushions in this house. I check regularly.”
She swished one hand through the air. “It wasn’t the sandwiches, it was the whole debacle with Mahra. I am so sorry you had to face down Mahra on your own. I’ve only seen a glimpse of her powers myself, and it was...”
“Kind of a clusterfudge?” I suggested.
She nodded. “Not my word choice, but an apt descrip
tion.”
“No kidding,” I said. “She was all, ‘I brought you into this world, and I will take you out.’ You know, in the stories, she was never my favorite of the Four Eves, but now that we’ve met, I can’t say I have any interest in meeting the other three.”
Zinnia drew a sigil in the air in front of herself, warding off evil. “Let us wish we do not have the opportunity.”
Charlize let out a weird chortle.
My aunt and I both looked at the gorgon, who was licking the last of the food off her fingers.
Charlize clapped her hands decisively then held them up, palms toward us. “Don’t look at me, ladies. I’m officially out of the AI business. I’m on leave, remember? I’m resting and relaxing.”
“Then why the weird chortle?” I asked. “Or was that your snakes?”
“Weird chortle? I didn’t know that was out loud.” She flipped one matted chunk of blonde hair out of her eyes. “You caught me. I was imagining how easy it would be to bring back another one of the Old Ones.” She drew a circle in the air between the three of us. “For the three of us. If we worked together. Think about it: My programming abilities and powers.” She looked directly at my aunt. “Your knowledge of potions and access to artifacts.”
I sniffed. “What about my powers? I kept up with you last night, didn’t I?”
“Oh, Zara. You did your best,” Charlize said, laughing. “But yes. Both of you are powerful witches. Maybe we, the three of us, are the triad that’s destined to bring on the End of Days.”
She laughed again, but Zinnia and I did not.
“Come on, ladies,” Charlize said. “Lighten up! It’s just an Apocalypse joke.”
“Too soon,” I said. “Too soon, even for me, and that’s saying something.”
Zinnia sighed. “Prophecies are only possibilities,” she said. “Our fates are not fixed or predetermined. My views are constantly being challenged, but, as of right now, I choose to believe the destiny we have is the one we make for ourselves.”
Wishful Wisteria (Wisteria Witches Mysteries - Daybreak Book 3) Page 14