Zinnia blotted her lipstick and applied it a fourth time.
Two women came into the washroom, chatting about what a mess things were. They paid her no attention before disappearing into two toilet stalls.
Zinnia made up her mind. She was going to break her vow to not do magic on people at work. Again.
She left the washroom, detoured by the cafeteria to get two cups of coffee, and returned to the lobby.
She found the woman she’d spoken to fifteen minutes earlier, and offered her a hot drink.
The woman yawned and reached for the coffee but stopped herself. She looked down at Zinnia’s clothes.
“Those flowers,” Ruth said. “Are you the crazy lady who put up the wallpaper in her office?”
Zinnia swallowed hard. Now was not the time to be offended by being labeled a “crazy lady” simply for having some style.
“That’s me,” Zinnia said through a forced smile. “I’m the crazy lady with the wallpaper in my office.”
Ruth smiled through her apparent exhaustion. “I like that room. It’s my favorite.” She snapped her fingers and pointed at Zinnia’s chest. “And you have that funny thing. The snow globe that glows in the dark.”
Zinnia’s lips pinched at the notion of this relative stranger being in Zinnia’s private office when she wasn’t there. Of course Ruth was only doing her job, cleaning the dust from the shelves and vacuuming up muffin crumbs, and yet there was something about it that felt violating. As Zinnia considered this, she heard her conscience in her head. Violating? You mean like dosing someone with magical mind-control potion so you can dig around in their head?
Zinnia shook the thought away. She was doing this for the right reasons. And she would inform Margaret about everything the minute she got to the office—to ease her conscience, and also to prevent Margaret from casting a second spell on petite Ruth, thereby causing all sorts of spell interaction trouble.
Ruth was saying, “I like your snow globe. Very relaxing.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Zinnia said. “That little wallpapered office is my whole department. Just me. I’m not really management.”
Zinnia lifted both cups of coffee again. Come on, she thought. What good was being a witch if people wouldn’t take the bait?
The woman licked her lips and stared at the cups hesitantly. She had layers of puffy bags under her eyes. She’d been there all night with no sleep, so the coffee shouldn’t have been a hard sell. Zinnia wondered if she should have gotten tea instead, or tried with another one of the cleaners.
“Sure,” the woman said at last. “Thank you.”
Bait taken! Zinnia raised one cup and then the other. “Cream or no cream?”
“Black,” the woman said, and accepted the second cup.
“Perfect,” Zinnia said, even though either choice would have been perfect. She had dosed both cups with a liquid potion that would compel the woman to open up her mind for about ten minutes. The potion was similar to one of her bread and butter spells, the bluffing spell, but in liquid formula. Most Witch Tongue spells could be cast via a compound, but not the other way around. There were many, many potions and compounds that couldn’t be re-created verbally—not even with a dozen witches and a solid week of rehearsal.
Zinnia pulled from her purse what appeared to be a packet of artificial sweetener and shook it into her own cup. It was actually a general antidote to potions. The powdered compound was also a rather good low-calorie sweetener, though a witch wouldn’t want to use it too frequently as it could cause the growth of nose warts.
As the woman took enough sips for the potion to take hold, Zinnia squashed the last of her lingering moral objections.
Ruth asked, “What’s inside that snow globe of yours, anyway? It looks like bugs swimming around in there. My kids got sea-monkeys once. They didn’t look anything like they did on the package. Have you got sea-monkeys inside that thing?”
Zinnia could see by the shape of Ruth’s pupils—they were slightly oblong, like those of a goat—that the potion had taken hold.
“You’re not concerned by the contents of my snow globe,” Zinnia said.
Ruth didn’t blink. She repeated back, “I’m not concerned by the contents of your snow globe.”
“That’s right. But you do want to tell me about what happened here last night.”
“I do want to tell you.” Ruth nodded. “Everybody saw ghosts last night. On the third floor. It was full of ghosts. They had a campfire, and there was a giant snake, and an ugly statue of an angry lady.”
“The cleaning crew saw the ghosts of people, plus a snake, a campfire, and an ugly statue?”
Ruth nodded. “I didn’t see it myself, but that’s what the others said.”
“How can a campfire have a ghost? Ghosts are usually people.”
“The fire was there and also not there. They walked through it and it didn’t burn.” Ruth’s pupils were completely horizontal now, like sideways keyholes. Even if Ruth’s coworkers had been fibbing, Ruth wasn’t. No one could lie when under the potion’s spell.
Zinnia asked, “What time was this?” She had been on the third floor with Margaret, and they’d left around sundown.
“At midnight.” Ruth closed the space between them and clutched Zinnia’s forearm. Hoarsely, she said, “But that wasn’t the worst thing. I would be glad if I was them and all I saw was the ghost of a campfire and a statue.”
“Oh? What did you see?” Now they were getting somewhere.
“This week, I’m supposed to clean the top floor. That includes the mayor’s office. You know her?”
“Mayor Paladini? I know who she is.”
“Normally it takes a few hours to clean up there if you do a good job, and I always do a good job. Thirty-five years working here and nobody complains about my work.”
“That’s good,” Zinnia said. “And did you see something unusual on the top floor?”
“Not the first time,” she said. “But the whole time I was cleaning, I felt like someone was watching me.” She took a timid sip of her coffee while her free hand mimed clawing at her throat. “That feeling, like I was being watched, it made me move so fast. I worked up a sweat. And I got everything done in less than two hours.”
“And then what?”
“Then I came downstairs. Right here. The lobby. I thought since I was done so early, I would lie down on the couch and rest for a bit.” She blinked. “You won’t tell anyone about that.”
“I won’t,” Zinnia said.
The woman craned her neck, looking around the two of them to make sure nobody was paying attention.
Zinnia prompted her to go on with the story. The spell’s effectiveness would wear off soon.
Ruth took a few more gulps of her coffee and continued, her voice sounding less hoarse now. The caffeine in coffee dried the vocal chords, but the potion had a nice side effect of lubricating them.
“I was just about asleep on the couch when my supervisor came by and yelled at me. Oh, he was mad. I told him I finished the top floor, but he was so mad. He said there was no way I could clean the whole floor in five minutes. I thought to myself, oh, he is the crazy one! I was up there for two hours, not five minutes. What is he talking about? Five minutes?” She shook her head. “So I took my cleaning cart, and I took the elevator up to the top floor. I thought maybe I could lie down on the couch in the mayor’s office. The mayor’s couch is the best place for napping. You won’t tell anyone about that, I hope.”
“I won’t tell anyone who would get you in trouble,” Zinnia assured the woman. Margaret would be delighted to hear about all the couch naps that happened after hours.
“So I get to the top floor, and I hear something.”
Zinnia’s neck was starting to ache from leaning down to better hear the short cleaning lady. “And?”
The woman’s face abruptly went pale and ashy.
“It wasn’t a ghost,” she said. “It was me.” She thumped her chest. “It was Ruth.” An
other thump. “I’m Ruth. I was watching myself.”
Zinnia had been prepared to hear about ghosts or monsters, so this revelation took her by surprise.
“You were watching yourself,” Zinnia repeated back. “Are you saying you floated out of your body? As though you were a ghost, and someone else was in your body?” Something similar had happened to Zinnia’s niece recently.
“No, I was there,” Ruth said. “I was here, inside of me, and I was also there. Two places. Two of me. That’s why I felt like someone was watching me. It was me.” Her eyes grew big and round, which made the magically flattened pupils look even more strange.
“What did you do? Did you talk to yourself?”
Ruth shook her head vehemently. “No. I crouched down. Oh, you better believe I didn’t talk to myself. Oh, no. I crouched down and I stayed where I was in that hallway with the glass walls. The lights weren’t on there, so she didn’t see me.” She thumped her chest again. “I didn’t see me.”
“I understand, and I believe you, Ruth.”
“I stayed there for two hours, and I didn’t make a peep. I watched myself dusting all of the desks, and emptying the recycling. I stayed crouched down there the whole time, watching myself from the shadows.”
“And then what?”
She blinked. “And then I woke up on the couch in the lobby.”
Zinnia straightened up and gave the woman a frown. So much for the bluffing potion as a truth serum.
“So, it was just a dream?” She shook her head.
“No, ma’am. It was not a dream. I know what dreams are. When I woke up, it was my supervisor shaking me. His eyes were so big. I’ve never seen him like that. He was scared, you know? And he’s a big man. He doesn’t get scared over nothing. He said he was just sitting on the couch a minute ago, and he didn’t hear me or see me come in. Then he turned around, and there I am. Oh, he was mad again. He yelled at me and said I was a witch. He said I cast a spell to get back at him for yelling at me.”
“Are you a witch?” Zinnia asked. It was the height of rudeness to inquire about another supernatural person’s powers, let alone dose them with a truth-serum-like potion and ask, but Ruth was already under the spell, and it had been her supervisor who’d first accused her of being a witch.
“Am I a witch?” Ruth’s pupils snapped back into circles. She blinked and stepped back. She made the sign of the cross. “Of course I am not a witch. How could you say such a thing? Disgusting!”
As Ruth got louder, a few of the other cleaners in the lobby looked their way with mild interest.
Zinnia ducked her head forward to let her hair cover her face, muttered a thank-you to Ruth, and quickly made a beeline for the permits office.
Chapter 15
When Zinnia entered the office, she found Margaret pretending to do her computer work while actually staring, goggle-eyed, at her deskmate, Liza Gilbert.
Liza had her earbuds in, and was paying no attention to the gray-haired witch. Liza was sipping coffee from her favorite office mug—a pink, chipped cup that read World’s Best Secretary—while looking over her email inbox.
Zinnia tapped Margaret on the shoulder. “Looks like you could use a refill,” Zinnia said, even though Margaret’s plain white mug was three-quarters full. Margaret sucked back the coffee in one go, and followed Zinnia into the break room. They entered as Karl Kormac was leaving. He made one of his signature HARUMPH sounds, which he often used to cover fart bombings. Sure enough, the break room had a malodorous presence.
Margaret said in a low tone, “That man is not human. I don’t know what he is, but those blasts he lets out are a side effect of some unholy inner combustion.”
Zinnia cast a sound bubble spell for privacy.
Margaret made a choking sound and waved her hand under her nose. “Ugh. You’ve trapped us in here with Karl’s infernal gases. Are you trying to kill us?”
“The sound bubble doesn’t hold in odors, and you know that, Margaret.” Zinnia pulled out a chair. “Now sit down and brace yourself. I have news. I believe the power surges and monsters are all connected to something powerful.”
Margaret pinched her nose with her fingers. “More powerful than Karl Kormac’s noxious winds?”
“Yes. What do you know about...” she paused for dramatic effect, “time loops?”
Margaret dropped her hand from her nostrils and took a seat, the smell forgotten. The truth was, it had dissipated almost immediately anyways.
“Time loops?” Margaret grabbed the single gray curl that poked out over the center of her forehead like a horn, and twirled it nervously. “Like from science fiction movies? Is that what’s going on? How do you know?”
“Did you happen to come in through the front and see the cleaners gathered in the lobby? The ones threatening to go on strike?”
“I came in through the side door. Is that what that noise was? It sounded like the local scouts and guides were selling cookies in the lobby.”
Zinnia thought that was an odd conclusion for a person to have jumped to, but not that odd for Margaret. The woman prided herself in being keenly observant, even though she wasn’t. In January, she had walked past the dead body of a coworker without noticing.
“The cleaning staff were all spooked last night,” Zinnia said. “Some very strange things occurred around here after we went home.”
Margaret pouted. “I miss all the good stuff.”
“I detoured by the lobby on my way in, and I spoke to a woman named Ruth.”
“I know Ruth,” Margaret said. “Tiny lady? Eyes like a rat?”
The description was as unflattering as it was true. “That’s her.”
Margaret smirked. “Maybe she’s the one who’s been eating bags of grain in the cafeteria.”
“Would you just listen to me for a minute? Ruth didn’t want to talk to me about what she saw, but I, uh...” Zinnia looked down at her shoes.
“You broke your rules,” Margaret said, her voice jubilant. “Zinnia Riddle! You broke your little rules about casting magic at work, and now you can’t stop yourself.”
“Stop your gloating. It’s okay to break the rules when it’s necessary.”
“You mean when the end justifies the means.”
“Yes, Margaret,” Zinnia said in the tone of someone admitting defeat. “You’re right. I’m a rule breaker. Shame on me. Now, do you want to hear what Ruth saw or shall I keep it to myself?”
Margaret leaned forward over the table, resting her chin on her hands. “Tell me quickly before someone comes in.”
Zinnia relayed the story about Ruth sensing that she was being watched as she cleaned the top floor, and then looping around to be in two places at once, watching herself while being watched. And then how she’d skipped back to sleeping on the lobby sofa with no recollection of traveling there, only to be yelled at by her supervisor and accused of being a witch.
“And?” Margaret blinked expectantly. “Is she? We could use another member for our,” Margaret winked three times, “book club.”
“She’s not a witch,” Zinnia said. “Ruth responded to the bluffing potion the way any normal human would.”
“Did her eyes do that creepy goat-eye thing?”
“Exactly.”
Margaret rubbed her cheeks with both hands, making her lips smack noisily against her gums. After a dozen smacks, she said, “There is some seriously bad juju going on in this place. We’re talking messed-up, science-fiction, Stargate-meets-Dr.-Who, comic-book-movie stuff. Time loops? Seriously?”
“That’s what Ruth told me, and she believed it to be true.”
“Maybe Ruth is a demon. She is weirdly small.”
“Demon or not, she was telling the truth. I gave her a strong dose of the potion.”
Margaret rubbed her cheeks and smacked her lips some more. “What do we know about time loops?”
“Not much. I’ve never seen anything in any of my magic books about time loops.”
“Do we happen to k
now any genius physicists?”
Just then, their coworker Gavin Gorman came into the break room.
Both witches popped the magic sound bubble, exchanged a look, and said nothing.
“You two,” Gavin said, shaking his head. “You’re clearly up to no good.”
Margaret asked him, “Do you know anything about physics? Or about time travel?”
He poured himself a cup of coffee, shook his head at them, and left without a word.
Margaret shrugged and said to Zinnia, “It was worth asking. He’s a gnome, so he can do that teleportation thing, which is sort of like time travel, in the sense that it’s also impossible according to the laws of physics.”
“Some physicists do believe time travel is possible, but only to the future, not the past.”
Margaret got a far-away look in her eyes. “Ah, the past,” she said dreamily. “If only we could go back and get a do-over.”
“Be careful what you wish for. Ruth didn’t seem very thrilled with her experience.”
They were pondering Ruth’s experience when Liza came into the break room.
Margaret snapped to attention and gave Zinnia a furtive, desperate look. If they wanted to uncover the mystery of the key and the third floor, they had to swap back the original key and place the tracker on Liza so she could lead them to the exact location.
Oblivious to the witches’ plotting, Liza hummed a somber tune as she retrieved one of her bananas from the refrigerator. Nobody liked seeing Liza’s bananas inside the communal fridge become gray and zombie-like, but Liza insisted refrigeration didn’t harm the bananas’ taste at all, while preserving them at peak ripeness.
Margaret gave Zinnia the signal, and they swapped Liza’s fake key with the original. Margaret adeptly planted the tracking device, which was either a magical twig or an electronic-magic hybrid device disguised as a twig. Either way, if Liza discovered the tracker, the worst she could do was toss it in the nearest trash.
Chapter 16
All morning, rumors buzzed around the office about the City Hall cleaning crew and what they may or may not have seen.
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