Wisteria Warned

by Angela Pepper

  As I turned the pages and read more tales about the Four Eves, I kept thinking about Charlize and her sisters. At that moment, they were gathered in Chessa’s chic white living room, inside her chic white cottage. The woman’s cottage stayed perfectly chic and white because she stayed at the Moore house most of the time.

  I wondered if the sisters were getting along tonight, or if the inevitable bickering had started up.

  Chapter 3

  THE TRIPLETS

  COTTAGE OF CHESSA WAKEFUL

  Across town from the Riddle house, in a chic white cottage, three blonde sisters gathered in a chic white living room.

  “Use a coaster,” said the owner of the cottage, Chessa Wakeful. She was the fairest of the three. Her wavy platinum blonde hair was practically white, and her pale skin was luminous. She was the oldest of the triplets by one hour. Family legend had it she emerged from her mother’s womb, stood up on the birthing table, and reached in to help haul her sisters out by the hand.*

  *It should be noted that family legends in the Wakeful clan were often exaggerated. For example, some people believed that Grandmother Diablo was a time-traveling demon/goddess from another world, and had a brother who could turn himself into a volcano.

  While Chessa was elegant and ethereal, like an elf in a Tolkien novel, Chloe was the more mundane of the sisters. She was always trying to figure out the rules—the rules about how to be the best cheerleader, or the best daughter. After high school, she moved away from Wisteria for a while, but had come back to run a bakery. Naturally, it had to be the best bakery, with the best pastries. Now that she had a baby, she had to be the best mother.

  “Coaster,” Chessa repeated. “Now, Chloe.” There was ancient power in all of Chessa’s commands, even the minor ones.

  Chloe jerked forward and grabbed a coaster as per her elegant sister’s order, but not before shooting an exasperated, she’s-doing-it-again look at their other sister, Charlize.

  Charlize, however, didn’t notice, because she was staring at her phone while chewing her fingernails. As Charlize gnawed away on her short, tattered nails, Chloe felt bile roll up her throat. What a disgusting habit. Charlize was, by far, the least refined of the three. She was like a wild creature who’d been raised by animals and introduced to society too late in adolescence to be properly socialized. At least that was how Chloe saw her.

  Charlize had never been terribly concerned about the rules. Unlike Chessa, who considered herself regally above and beyond such earthly things as rules, or Chloe, who was obsessed with them, Charlize only took enough notice of the rules so she could be amused by the ones she was breaking.

  Of the three triplets, Charlize had always been the most physical, the one most comfortable in her body. Her body was her friend, her ally. It never gained three pounds after she ate a few ounces of pastries, unlike Chloe’s body, which was defying all attempts made by its owner to shed the pregnancy weight.

  Charlize and her body danced through life. She dressed her body in clothes that sparkled and moved without restriction, clothes that could keep up with her whims and energy. And she chewed on her nails as though nothing else in the world could be as interesting as herself and her own body.

  A moment ticked by. Chloe grew more and more irritated that Charlize was chewing her nails and looking at her phone instead of participating in the sisters’ social night. How rude of her! Chloe had made sacrifices to be there, sacrifices that were not being appreciated. To think, she could have been next door, in her large and comfortable house, relaxing and making cookies while Jordan Junior snoozed in his bassinet. He loved being in the kitchen while his mother baked, and Chloe had some new cookie cutters she was dying to use.

  Chloe snapped her fingers, trying to get Charlize’s attention. When that didn’t work, she summoned her powers. Of the three, she was the least powerful, but she could get someone’s attention if she wanted to. She narrowed her eyes and shot her rude, nail-munching sister a special look—the kind that would not be ignored.

  Charlize yelped as her hand turned to stone. Before she could turn it back to flesh, Chloe grabbed the phone from her hand.

  “What’s so interesting on here?” Chloe demanded. She tried to read the screen, but it was, like Charlize’s hand, currently made of marble.

  A few seconds later, when the phone turned back to regular electronics, it requested a lengthy password. Chloe shook the phone accusingly. She didn’t need to read the message to know what Charlize had been distracted by. The phone still resonated with a witch energy. A Riddle energy.

  Chloe demanded, “Were you complaining to Zara about us again?”

  “No,” Charlize said guiltily. “I was just checking in with her. She’s got a lot going on right now, with Zoey’s father back in the picture.”

  Zoey’s father. The genie.

  Suddenly, Chloe was back in high school, back with the cheerleading squad, about to dive into some hot gossip.

  Just like that, her irritation at her sister about the phone usage and the nail biting melted away.

  Chloe sat, leaning forward, and asked, “Do you think they’re going to hook up? A genie and a witch would be quite the power couple. Plus, it would be nice for Zoey to have both parents in her life. Children need stability. If I were in Zara’s shoes, I would want the father of my child living under my roof with me and my child.”

  “Zoey’s sixteen,” Charlize said. “Practically an adult.”

  “Family is family,” Chloe said with an air of smug superiority.

  Charlize rolled her eyes, turned sideways in the white armchair, and dangled her legs over the side, teenager-style. “You’ve had a baby for a couple of months, and now you’re the expert on everything.”

  “Excuse me?” Chloe’s voice pitched up. “I think that having a family of my own is precisely what makes me an expert. What exactly are you an expert on? Besides sparkly jumpsuits and not cleaning out your car, like, ever?”

  Charlize reacted to the criticism on a gorgon level. The magic snakes that resided between another realm and Charlize’s golden curls began to wake up and hiss.

  Charlize hissed back at her sister, “Since when doessss it matter what I have inside a car that’ssss one hundred percent my car and not yours, sissssster dearessst?”

  Chloe retorted, “Since there wasn’t any room for me to safely buckle in Jordan Junior’s car seat yesterday!”

  Charlize’s hair snakes settled down. “You should have thought about that before you asked me to drive you all over town running your stupid errands.”

  Now Chloe’s hair snakes woke up. They twined around each other, still short-tempered from her haircut.

  “Errands? We were spending quality time together,” Chloe said. “I thought that was what you wanted! Besides the trouble with the car seat, we had a lovely day. You have to admit I was extremely patient when you tried on all those weird outer-space jumpsuits at that store you like.”

  “Patient?” Charlize snorted. Three hair snakes snorted as well. “You call that patient? You paced outside of the dressing room the whole time, telling me to hurry up.”

  “I wasn’t pacing. I was walking. To calm the baby. And then I politely asked how long you thought you might be.”

  “I was trying on clothes, sisssster dearessssst. I was only taking the normal amount of time a person takes to try on clothes. I’m not like you, when you’re looking at cookie cutters. Now, that’s something that could take hours.” She tossed a smug look at Chloe. “You’ll notice I’ve started packing a lunch and bottled water whenever you drag me to the bakery supply store.”

  Chessa, who’d been quiet for a moment, giggled and joined in. “She’s right,” Chessa said to Chloe. “You do take forever at your favorite baking stores. And, as for your obsession with cookie cutters, it may be time for an intervention.” Her pale, ocean-blue eyes twinkled.

  Chloe pointed at Chessa, finger wagging accusingly. “Don’t you dare take her side. Not now! Not when I’m barely
hanging onto my sanity by a thread! Not when I’m getting by on three hours of sleep a night!”

  Chessa smiled knowingly—like always—as she picked up the bottle of wine and poured some into a clean wine glass. She handed it to the new mother.

  “Drink this,” Chessa said with gentle authority. “Junior is already sleeping, and I know you won’t have to feed him again for hours. It’ll be fine.”

  Chloe narrowed her eyes at Chessa but accepted the wine anyway. She took a sip, then another, and relaxed back into the sofa.

  Chloe snuck another she’s-doing-it-again look over at Charlize, who caught it that time, and understood.

  Charlize understood how much Chloe hated it when Chessa gave her “permission” about anything regarding the baby. The infant was Chloe’s, born from her womb, yet the egg had come from Chessa. That meant, at least to someone as sensitive to rules and criticism as Chloe, that everything Chessa said about the baby had a double meaning. “That should be fine for the baby,” actually meant, “That should be fine for my baby, who is with you on loan, for now, until such time as I decide to reclaim him for myself, the way I did with young men who struck my fancy when we were growing up.”

  Charlize offered no comment on the giving of permission. It was between the other two.

  Charlize leaned over the mirrored coffee table, grabbed her phone back, and stuffed it into the chest pocket of her favorite silver jumpsuit. She refilled her own wine glass, and settled back into the chair.

  Charlize smiled as she looked at her two sisters. A warmth went through her entire body, and it wasn’t just from the wine. This evening was going so nicely! She’d expected her sisters would be in an argumentative mood, but things were going much better than usual.

  After a few minutes of comfortable silence, in which all three gazed at the television, which was tuned to a baking channel but muted, the fairest and most powerful broke the silence.

  “What do you think about moving?” Chessa asked.

  Chloe’s forehead furrowed. “You mean into the kitchen?”

  “She means away, dummy,” Charlize said. “You really need to get more sleep. Why don’t you just nap when the baby’s sleeping?”

  Chloe’s face reddened. Her short-bodied snakes writhed. “Why don’t I jump across this table and just—”

  “Calm down!” Chessa raised one fair hand and flashed her power through the room.

  Both sisters fell silent and froze. When they moved, it was only enough to sip their wine. Calmly.

  “This is exactly why I can’t move away,” Chessa said, sounding exasperated. “The two of you would kill each other without me around to calm you down.”

  The other two spoke at the same time, sharing dissenting opinions.

  “You can’t move away,” Charlize said.

  “It might be good for you,” Chloe said.

  Charlize narrowed her eyes at Chloe. Of course Chloe wanted Chessa to go away. That would leave her to raise Junior without any interference or the passive-aggressive giving of permission.

  Chloe narrowed her eyes at Charlize. Of course Charlize wanted Chessa to stay. Chessa always took Charlize’s side in the big fights.

  “This town has so many painful memories for me,” Chessa said. Her voice was light, ethereal, but almost weak. She spoke with none of her usual power. The other two took notice and listened quietly.

  Chessa went on. “When I see people who know about what happened, I can’t stop their thoughts from flooding into me. They’re all so curious, their minds prying at mine, clawing to get inside me, desperate to know what happened.” Her ocean-blue eyes glistened. “What is it about the worst things imaginable that makes complete strangers want to know every detail?” She shook her head and went on. “But the worst has got to be the pity. I hear them thinking, ‘Oh, you poor thing. You poor, poor thing.’” Her eyes deepened in color, and her voice took on an edge. “As if I am a thing. As if I am some creature, some pathetic, helpless creature, to be pitied.” She finished with a low, gravelly roar. “As if I am some poor, poor thing.”

  The sisters said nothing.

  Chessa refilled her wine glass and tossed it back in one gulp.

  “But I can’t exactly pick up and move,” she said, her tone more conversational. “I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without my darling Chet. But, like it or not, he comes with the other two. Grampa Don’s determined to stay in that house until he dies, and with the way he’s going, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen time soon. His mind is repairing itself, and his memories are coming back. And then there’s...” She gripped the name in her mouth before releasing it. “Corvin.”

  Chloe let out a nervous giggle. “And then there’s Corvin,” she said. She was doing everything right, by the rules, to make sure her precious Jordan Junior didn’t turn out strange, like Corvin.

  “Shut up,” Charlize warned her sister. “It’s not funny.”

  “Yes, it is.” Chloe finished her wine and shook the last drops into her mouth. She hiccuped, then said, “It’s literally the funniest thing that has ever happened to anyone in our family. Chet went out one day to pick up a stray dog, and he came home with Corvin.” She giggled again. “Surprise! Your new dog is a hellhound. Oh, and it’s also a weird little boy. Congratulations. You’ve got an insta-family.”

  “Shut up,” Charlize said again. “Corvin’s just a kid. He’s not a joke. He’s a kid who wants to be loved, just like any kid. Why don’t you practice some of those maternal instincts you have on him instead of treating him like he’s some stray dog?”

  “You shut up,” Chloe shot back. “I can find it funny if I want to. It’s my business.”

  “It’s not your business,” Chessa growled. The decorative items on the fireplace chattered. Everything in the room was shaking from Chessa’s power.

  The other two both shut up.

  “Forget I mentioned anything,” Chessa said, her voice light again. “As long as Corvin is in our lives, we can’t move away. I know my darling Chet would do anything to make me happy, but I can’t ask him to uproot his father and his child just because I can’t handle a few intrusive questions from the ignorant.” She straightened her back, taking on a regal air. “I’ll have to find another way.”

  The timer on the oven dinged.

  The nachos were ready.

  All three jumped up and ran for the kitchen, bumping into each other and wrestling to be the first through the doorway. One triplet got the giggles, and it became contagious, just as it had in the old days. All three became delightfully and happily stuck in the doorway, giggling as they struggled and wrestled against each other.

  And, just like that, they were sisters again. Although they bickered, it was only because what ran between them mattered, for they were the whole world to each other.

  Eventually, the three broke free of the doorway and gathered around the hot nachos at the kitchen table. They ate and laughed over shared memories of their greatest fights. Oh, the wars that had been waged over things that had seemed so important at the time, but that, in hindsight, didn’t matter at all.

  Chapter 4

  ZARA RIDDLE

  WISTERIA PUBLIC LIBRARY

  TUESDAY

  I picked up another cake Tuesday morning, and everyone at the library enjoyed it as much as they enjoyed the tired jokes about birthday candles, and special permits, and fire alarms.

  At lunch time, Frank and I printed out fresh Cynical Librarian Bingo cards and started our game again.

  Kathy had banned the game previously, but she’d been in a much better mood since sharing her supernatural secret, so Frank and I decided take our chances.

  By the end of Tuesday, Frank had one square filled: patron makes a “check out” pun.

  I had two squares: patron mentions it won’t be long before the internet puts libraries “out of business,” and patron exclaims that librarian jobs must be easy because all we do is “sit around reading books.”

  *

&n
bsp; WEDNESDAY

  I set up a new account for a young woman named Persephone Rose. With a name that unique, I knew she had to be the same Persephone Rose who worked at the Wisteria Police Department and had a girlish crush on Detective Theodore Bentley.

  She had to be at least twenty-five, to be working for the WPD, but her long, dark hair and thick bangs made her look like a young girl my daughter’s age. Peering out from under the bangs were big, brown, sad-looking eyes that drooped down at the corners. She had a round face, pale skin, and rosy cheeks.

  A real English Rose, I thought. How appropriate for someone with the last name of Rose.

  As I handed over her new library card, she asked, “Are you, um, Zara Riddle?”

  “All day, every day.”

  “I think you might be friends with a man I work with. Theo Bentley.”

  “You mean Teddy?” I smiled like the shark on the cover of Barracuda Magazine. Her use of the shortened version of his first name didn’t sit well with me, so I’d one-upped her by calling him Teddy, which I never did. “You could say we’re friends. Why do you ask?”

  “Do you...” She trailed off and fidgeted with her thick lashes. They were false eyelashes, detaching slightly as she tugged on them.

  I glanced over at my pink-haired, narrow-jawed coworker. Frank was watching the interaction with great interest while disinfecting a stack of hardcover books that a patron with a bad summer cold had just returned.

  I turned back to Persephone Rose and asked, “Do I what?” My tone was snappier than intended, and she took two steps back from the counter.

  “Nothing,” she squeaked.

  I held out my hands for the books she was clutching to her chest.

  She slowly came back to the counter and handed me the books she wanted to check out.