Wisteria Wrinkle

by Angela Pepper

  Liza seemed satisfied by the explanation. It certainly didn’t hurt that Zinnia cast a mild version of her bluffing spell while she was telling the cover-up tale. Being a witch could be handy. Zinnia tried not to cast magic at work, but when used judiciously, it did make life a bit easier.

  While Zinnia finished up the tale of the lost-and-found teddy bear, she noticed Liza was stroking a medallion she wore on a necklace. Only the top third of the circle was visible. It was a cream color, like synthetic ivory, and it had an intriguing filigree shape.

  Zinnia leaned forward to take a closer look. “That’s a lovely necklace.”

  Liza pulled the collar of her used-dish-cloth blouse up protectively. “It’s just a piece of junk I found at my grandmother’s house.” She adjusted her blouse, further covering the medallion. The more she hid it, the more curious Zinnia became.

  Jewelry was one of the most commonly encursed or encharmed items. In fact, right after they had returned from lunch, Zinnia and Margaret had cast several reveal spells on Margaret’s new green scarab brooch, just to be careful. If Liza had unwittingly picked up a magical talisman, it could be the thing responsible for her recent nightmares.

  Despite Zinnia’s policy of not using magic on her coworkers unless absolutely necessary, she considered casting a more powerful bluffing spell on Liza to find out more about the necklace, as well as Gilbert family history. It sure would be nice to know. But did she have a right to know?

  Zinnia’s internal debate was interrupted by the sound of the office door swinging open.

  All at once, everyone who’d been missing filed back in, returning from their various errands.

  Margaret clomped over and gave Zinnia an accusatory look. “Your butt’s on my chair,” she said.

  “I know where my butt is at all times,” Zinnia retorted.

  “It shouldn’t be on my chair,” Margaret insisted.

  Zinnia looked over at Liza and said, “See? Margaret’s like that to everyone, not just the new hires.”

  Margaret scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” Zinnia shook her head and got up from Margaret’s chair. Softly, she said to Liza, “My door is always open.”

  Margaret plopped down on her chair and wheeled it around to her side again. She said to Liza in a theatrical tone, “My door is always open, too. Mainly because I don’t have a door.”

  Liza smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

  Zinnia turned her back on her coworkers and headed toward the break room to check on the cream horns.

  She had just bitten into the final surviving cream horn when she heard someone in the main area scream. Two more people had screamed by the time she’d dropped the pastry and run out to see what the fuss was about.

  Something dark and bat-like was flitting around the main office area. It flew from the top of one bookshelf to another, then veered off and flapped into Karl’s office. There was a ripping sound, and then silence.

  Zinnia ran into Karl’s office. Everyone else came in right behind her.

  Karl was seated at his desk, wearing his yellow-lensed computer glasses. His mouth was agape and he was pointing at the window.

  The bug screen that covered Karl’s window—the only one in the office that opened—had been slashed open down the middle. Whatever had been flapping around inside the office had apparently slashed its way out.

  Nobody spoke. They all looked at each other in shock and disbelief.

  Finally, Margaret broke the silence. “It was a bat,” she said. “A big one, but definitely a bat.” The air sparkled as Margaret’s bluffing spell took hold. Margaret flashed her eyes at Zinnia. It had not been a bat, but this was one of those times when magic had been deemed necessary, even by rules-touting Margaret Mills.

  Zinnia silently cast a minor-key bluffing spell that would harmonize with Margaret’s. The air seemed to tighten up around the group, as it always did.

  “That was quite the bat,” Zinnia agreed. “The poor thing must have been nesting in the eaves and flown in the door by accident.”

  Most of the coworkers nodded and murmured agreement.

  Dawna Jones, however, gave the two witches a skeptical look. “Flown in through what door? Nuh-uh. I didn’t see nothin’ come in.” She turned her head and narrowed her skeptical look to just Zinnia. “Zinnia, did you do something when all of us were out on our coffee break? Is this supposed to be a joke?”

  “Zinnia didn’t do anything,” Margaret said. “It was just a bat, or maybe a large robin.”

  Dawna snorted. “A large robin? I don’t think so. I swear that thing had scales. Red ones. Like a dragon.”

  Gavin laughed. “Oh, Dawna. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a dragon, seeing as how dragons aren’t real.”

  Zinnia said, in her most serious tone, “If you’d like, Dawna, I can put in a phone call to maintenance and let them know that Ms. Dawna Jones saw a dragon with red scales flying around the Wisteria Permits Department.”

  Karl, whose office they were standing in, spoke up. “It looked more like a wyvern to me. Dragons have four legs. Wyverns have two legs, and their arms are their wings.”

  Everyone stared at Karl. Everyone except Zinnia and Margaret, who were staring wide-eyed at each other, wondering why their bluffing spells weren’t working.

  Zinnia turned to look at Karl just as his face turned beet red.

  “That was a joke,” Karl said. “Of course it was a bat. Not a dragon or a wyvern. I’m not crazy.” He banged his fist on his desk. “Everyone get back to work!” He got up from his swivel chair with a loud groan. “Any excuse for tomfoolery,” he muttered, waving them toward his door. “If the big, scary bat comes back, I’ll let you know, and you can all go home five minutes early. But it won’t. Because it’s a bat.” He waved at the window. “It’s probably deep in the woods now, where it belongs.”

  Still muttering, the group left Karl’s office.

  Zinnia returned to the break room to finish her cream horn, even though her appetite for pastries had disappeared.

  Margaret joined her, and they exchanged a look while Margaret cast a sound bubble for privacy.

  Karl had been correct about the flying creature being a wyvern. Both witches knew there were a few wyverns living in the area. The creatures occasionally made themselves known to witches when it suited them—particularly when they were bored and in need of someone to share their unique perspective with.

  Both witches knew a wyvern when they saw one, and moments ago they had. That alone hadn’t been too shocking, but the color of its scales had certainly made Zinnia’s heart race. She’d never seen a wyvern with red scales. She’d only seen males, who were blue or green. Female wyverns were extinct. And yet, the wyvern flapping around the office had been as red as that nutty Realtor Dorothy Tibbits’ ruby-red slippers.

  The wyvern had been female. And she had ripped her way through Karl’s bug screen and disappeared into the nearby park.

  Chapter 6

  At 5:45 pm that Monday, Zinnia found herself alone in the office once again.

  Right after the wyvern sighting, the two witches had discussed matters and agreed the situation warranted a call to the secret agency. To be more precise, Zinnia told Margaret she was going to make the call, and Margaret spewed conspiracy rants for ten minutes before finally saying, “Fine! Call the Division of Wacky Monsters! But don’t be surprised if you wake up tomorrow with your clothes on backwards and your brain erased.”

  Zinnia couldn’t help but smirk. Division of Wacky Monsters was a great alternate name for the DWM.

  Margaret had stormed out of the break room while Zinnia stayed behind to make the call from within the sound bubble. An agent who didn’t give his name took the call with bored detachment, and said they’d send someone to check the place around six o’clock, after everyone had left for the day.

  At five o’clock, Margaret had to go straight home to feed dinner to “the goblin hordes.” Zinnia decided to stick around after ho
urs to greet whomever the DWM sent to investigate the wyvern sighting. The agents would have been able to let themselves in just fine, but Zinnia didn’t want to be kept in the dark about whatever was happening at City Hall.

  There was a knock on the door shortly before six o’clock.

  Zinnia unlocked it and greeted two men who introduced themselves as Agent Rob and Agent Knox.

  The men did a double take as they looked at her.

  “You’re a Riddle,” said the smaller, skinnier one—Agent Rob. “What an interesting coincidence.” He waggled his eyebrows at the larger agent named Knox.

  Knox frowned at Zinnia and said nothing.

  Rob said, “The big guy here is the strong, silent type.” He waggled his eyebrows again. “The emphasis being on strong.” He grinned.

  Zinnia asked, “And how is my being a Riddle a coincidence?” Her voice cracked, betraying her nervousness. She hoped her niece hadn’t found herself in another dangerous situation already.

  “We just saw the other one,” Rob said. “Your daughter? Sister? I get all of you mixed up, since you look the same.”

  “My niece,” Zinnia said, even though she shouldn’t have said anything. “Is she okay?”

  Rob guffawed. “Oh, she’s fine. It was her coworker, Frank Wonder. He must have gotten the brunt of that last power surge. Can you believe the guy turned into a flamingo? The bright-pink kind!”

  Zinnia had no problem imagining it. Frank did dye his hair the color of a pink flamingo, plus he had skinny legs.

  “I had no idea he was a shifter,” she said.

  “Neither did he! He freaked out. We had to conduct a high-speed air chase to catch up with him and get him under control before—”

  Knox clamped one enormous hand over Rob’s mouth. He gave Rob a meaningful look and slowly released Rob’s mouth.

  Rob put his hands on his hips and stared defiantly at Zinnia. “Stop with your crafty witcher-i-doo, woman. You won’t get any more top-secret information out of me. Not while I have my secret weapon.” He reached into his utility belt and pulled out what appeared to be an ordinary ballpoint pen. He clicked it. “There. All good.”

  As the pen had clicked, Zinnia had felt the pulse of an anti-magic field pass over her. If she had been using a bluffing spell on Agent Rob—which she had not been doing—the pen, also known as a multi-pulse click generator or MPCG, would have counteracted it.

  “I know about your MPCGs,” Zinnia said. She knew about them from her niece’s dealings with Chet Moore, but didn’t go into detail. All part of keeping up the mystique of the all-knowing witch.

  Knox said nothing. His eyes were already at work, scanning the office from where the three of them stood near the entryway.

  “And I know both of you,” Zinnia said. “You’re the guys who got trapped in that gooey Erasure Machine along with Chet Moore.”

  Rob cracked a big grin. “Word of our fine services travels fast!”

  Knox furrowed his brow. “It’s not supposed to travel fast,” he said in a deep, resonant voice. “It’s not supposed to travel at all.” He gave Zinnia a serious stare. “We’re secret agents.”

  “Lighten up, man.” Rob patted his associate on his large shoulder before turning to Zinnia. “Don’t worry about the big guy. He takes things way too seriously.” Rob said to the large black man, “You gotta learn how to not take everything so literally. Lighten up!”

  Knox continued to look anything but lightened up. “I follow protocol. Our activities are secret.”

  Rob sighed and said to Zinnia, “He’s just grumpy because someone shot him in the leg during that whole Project Erasure mess, so he had to scale back his workouts to only a couple times per day.”

  “That was him who got shot?” Zinnia gave Knox a sympathetic look. She decided to volunteer some information to build rapport. “You know, I was also there that night at the Pressman residence.”

  “No, you weren’t,” Knox said, shaking his head. “None of us were there. None of us. Because nothing happened at the Pressman residence. Nothing except for an ordinary gas leak.”

  Rob waved his hand and said to Zinnia, “Just go along with it. Let’s say that if the two of us look familiar to you at all, it’s because we all happened to be strolling along the beach boardwalk with ice cream cones the night the Pressman residence just happened to burn to the ground in what’s been officially ruled as a completely normal accident.” He winked.

  Zinnia winked back. “That must have been it.”

  Rob rubbed his hands together and looked around the office. “Now, where are the dragons?”

  “It was a wyvern, and there was only one,” Zinnia said. “Also, it’s long gone. It flew out the window.”

  Rob looked up. “If it came in here, that means there might be something else nesting in the ceiling tiles.”

  Zinnia followed his gaze up and shuddered. “I should hope not.”

  “Don’t say that,” Rob said. “Think positive! There could be several nests of things up there.”

  Zinnia caught on. What would be terrifying to a person who worked in that office would be exciting to a couple of secret agents who got their thrills from charging into dangerous situation.

  “Several nests,” Knox agreed.

  Zinnia, who was still looking up at the ceiling said, “I suppose you should at least check, since you’re here already.”

  Rob clapped his hands excitedly. “Oh, yes, we will. That air chase today got me pumped for more action, and I haven’t neutralized a nest of something in ages.” He jumped up onto the nearest desk—Dawna’s—and removed an acoustic tile from overhead. Big clumps of dust showered down.

  Knox frowned. “You’re making a mess.”

  Rob retorted, “Neutralizing hellspawn is a messy job, but someone’s gotta do it.”

  Knox shook his head. “We should have brought the dropcloths.”

  Zinnia asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Not really,” Rob said, tossing aside another ceiling tile and stomping around on Dawna’s desk in his steel-toed boots.

  “Please don’t destroy the ceramics,” Zinnia said. She used her telekinetic magic to lift Dawna’s good luck objects off her desk and move them to a bookshelf, where they wouldn’t be stepped on by enthusiastic Agent Rob.

  “That does help,” Knox said. “We can compensate you for damages, but some personal effects may have sentimental value. Is this your desk?”

  “It’s my coworker Dawna Jones’ workstation. These are all of her good luck charms.”

  Rob, who had his head in the ceiling, said, “That’s common with cartomancers.”

  “You know about Dawna’s abilities?”

  “We have files on everyone,” Rob said. He ducked down, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Sorry about the whole thing with Berman. That was some tough luck.”

  Zinnia pursed her lips. She was less than thrilled about having her personal details in files for anyone at the Division of Wacky Monsters to read. On the other hand, it was nice to get a bit of sympathy from someone who understood the full scope of what had really happened in Jesse’s basement.

  Rob continued to give her a sympathetic look. “That shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “What you have to remember is none of it was your fault.”

  Zinnia stammered, “Who-o-o said it was?” She felt her jaw ache and her eyes sting. The answer was her. Zinnia bore the guilt of feeling that the whole “tough luck” business with Jesse had been her fault. She’d been careless in so many ways. Of course it was her fault.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Rob said. “Everything’s going to work out just fine, Ms. Riddle.”

  She swallowed down the lump in her throat. It did feel good when someone lied to you about everything working out.

  Zinnia cleared away the last of Dawna’s lucky ornaments.

  Rob stuck his head back up into the ceiling along with a device he held up to his eye, apparently to get readings.

  Zinni
a said, “Dawna began using a tarot deck today for readings. She might be activating deeper levels of her card mage powers. Do you think it’s possible she summoned the wyvern?”

  Rob grunted as he pulled his body all the way up into the ceiling. His legs dangled down, along with more streams of dust and decades-old construction debris.

  “Cartomancers don’t summon,” Rob called down. “You’re thinking of necromancers.”

  Knox, who’d been so quiet that his deep voice came as a shock, chimed in. “Necromancers summon the dead.”

  Rob’s legs disappeared up into the ceiling. He called down, “It might have been an undead wyvern. Didn’t you say it was red? There aren’t any red wyverns anymore. Not in this world.”

  Zinnia walked over to stand under the dark hole in the ceiling. “What do you mean, not in this world? Are you saying this wyvern came through from another world? A full, three-dimensional world? Not just that hidden plane that lies over this one?”

  “Sure,” Rob said casually. “There are plenty of worlds besides this one.”

  Zinnia couldn’t see Rob’s face to gauge if he was joking, so she looked at Knox and asked, “Is he serious?”

  “Rob? No. He’s never serious.”

  “I mean about other worlds.”

  Knox’s eyes got big, as though Zinnia’s question had spooked him. He backed up toward the door. “I’m going out to the van to get some supplies.” He left without another word.

  Agent Rob continued to hunt for whatever was living in the ceiling. Agent Knox returned and then excused himself a few times. He was too heavy to enter the suspended ceiling, and seemed bored.

  Zinnia raided the break room fridge to assemble a makeshift dinner, and made sure the falling pieces of ceiling didn’t destroy too much of the office.

  After a while, Zinnia’s cell phone started ringing. She already knew who it was, thanks to her psychic preview, but she checked the screen anyway. It was Zoey, her great-niece, calling.