Wisteria Warned

by Angela Pepper

  “I should have gone more subtle,” I said. “Perhaps a smaller spider.”

  Kathy came running into the break room, breathless. We turned to her in alarm. Was there news about the missing woman? A library emergency?

  She closed the door behind her and asked, “What did I miss?”

  Frank and I exchanged a look. Now that Kathy had revealed her secret to us, she wanted to know everything. Everything. All the time. It was a bit much.

  “You missed Zara’s genius prank,” Frank explained flatly. “She glued this giant tarantula inside the lid for my cookies.”

  Kathy gave me a confused look. “Why the glue? Why didn’t you just bury the spider under a couple of graham crackers?”

  I shrugged. “I had glue in my pocket, and I figured it had to be there for a reason.”

  Kathy nodded as she backed away. She slowly opened the door leading out to the circulation desk, stepped out, and left us to the remainder of our coffee break.

  “Poor thing,” Frank said once we were alone again. “She told us her big secret, and for what? To watch you cast that animation spell on the rubber tree and make it dance to ABBA?” He was referring to the magic demonstration we’d put on for Kathy on Friday.

  “She loved that performance, especially when I made all your sock puppets join in.”

  Frank crossed his arms. “I don’t know. The whole thing made me feel cheap and tawdry.” He whispered, “And not in the good way.”

  “I felt exactly the same way,” I said. “Like I’d sold out, artistically.”

  “And you weren’t even the one flapping your flamingo wings around like a crazy bird.”

  I shook my head as I poured myself a fresh mug of coffee. “I feel so bad for magicians. Putting on shows with magic, even if it is real, is awful. Honestly, I’d rather have some smelly creature trying to eat me than have to perform tricks for entertainment.”

  “Cheers to that,” Frank said, and he clinked his mug of coffee to mine. “Speaking of smelly creatures, my sister arrived in town on Saturday.”

  “And?”

  “She’s been dropping a lot of hints about the family, and Uncle Felix.”

  “The one who does the wacky séances with the Spirits of the Deep?”

  “That’s the one. I think he might be some sort of mage. We should probably have a heart to heart soon.”

  “You should. It’s good to connect with family over this stuff.”

  “Anyway, I haven’t told my sister about my new side gig as a flight attendant for Air Flamingo.” He frowned as he dipped a teddy-shaped graham cracker in his coffee. “But I’ve got a bad feeling there’s something big she wants to tell me.”

  “An in...? She’s got powers? No way.”

  “Yes way. When she was getting ready for bed last night, she asked me if I still thought her feet looked weird.” He flashed his eyes at me. “Her feet!”

  “Because she has, as you put it, weird chicken feet?”

  Frank kept frowning. “I told her they looked totally normal. They’re as big as rubber boots, and her bunions aren’t too pretty, but they’re regular enough. But then I was wondering, what if she’s a shifter, too, and this is her way of dropping hints to gradually break the news?”

  “She might be. And what if she is? Don’t you think it would be fun to have that in common with a family member? I felt way less alone in the world after I was reunited with my aunt. She’s quite the woman. A bit of a worrywart, but when you find out why she’s so cautious about stuff, it doesn’t seem so annoying.”

  “I get what you mean, Zara, but what if my sister’s not a flamingo? What if she’s something else?”

  “Like what?” I thought of the hellhound who was currently missing. I mentally linked two seemingly unconnected events to see if they fit. Was Frank’s sister connected to the kidnapping? She’d arrived Saturday, the same day Tate had disappeared. I would definitely mention it to Bentley, when I saw him next.

  Bentley.

  Sigh.

  When would I see him next?

  Frank waved his hands at me. “Are you still listening?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “I slipped away for a minute. What were you saying?” I took a sip of my coffee.

  Frank said, “What if my sister’s a chicken? A shifter chicken?”

  I nearly choked on my coffee. “Chickens aren’t people,” I said, then, “Are they?” I thought of the man I’d seen the day before, walking his dog and his rooster.

  “Not all chickens,” Frank said. “But some of them could be people.”

  “Right,” I said. “I don’t know if my information is accurate, but I understand that all shifters come from one genetic line. Everything from cougars to eagles. A wolf shifter can have a child who’s a crane. But families do stick to certain themes, and when the kids are different from the parents, it is unusual. That’s why Zoey identifies a fox shifter, as opposed to a shifter who happens to be a fox.”

  “But identities can be fluid,” Frank said. “Have you heard about shifters changing forms? Intentionally?”

  “Yes. You’re supposed to carry on like they’ve always been what they are.” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. “Do you suppose your sister chose to be a chicken to keep a low profile? It’s easier to explain a chicken sighting than a flamingo.”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much. Deep down, I love my sister. I should be able to accept her, whatever she is.”

  “Maybe we should get Kathy back in here and find out what she knows about shifter identities and all the politics.”

  He agreed, and so we did.

  Kathy was thrilled to be included in our conversation. She didn’t know much about bird shifter bloodlines, or whether or not they could be chickens, but promised to check some rare books she had hidden under lock and key at an undisclosed location, and then report back to us on Tuesday.

  All three of us got back to work after that.

  I was so busy with patrons and their research questions that I didn’t even think about magic the rest of the day. And I only thought about kissing about fifty-seven percent of the time. I blamed the frilly romantic skirt for half of that.

  At the end of my shift, I was clocking out, punching my card in the un-library-like timecard machine that went KERCHUNK, when I suddenly felt the pull of something magic.

  It was a mild sensation, near the base of my rib cage. If I didn’t have such a robust digestive system, I might have mistaken it for indigestion. But it was a real sensation, a magical one, and it could only mean one thing.

  The object-location spell I’d cast on the missing doll the day before was finally kicking in.

  Hope flared in my heart, making my whole body feel light as air—as light as a witch with a pre-flight buoyancy spell cast on her.

  Was this the break in the case everyone was waiting for? Would Veronica Tate be reunited with her husband and sons? Would Corvin be coming home to his family tonight?

  I grabbed my purse, said goodbye to my coworkers, and rushed out the door.

  Chapter 23

  KARL KORMAC

  CITY HALL - WISTERIA PERMITS DEPARTMENT

  4:50 PM

  Karl Kormac heard drawers being opened and the tell-tale jingle of purses being gathered out in the main office area of the Wisteria Permits Department.

  He hoisted himself out of his comfortable office chair, groaning as usual. He’d tried not groaning as he settled in or out of chairs, but it startled his subordinate employees for him to appear in their communal space unannounced. Giving the underlings some warning about his imminent arrival and wise oversight made for a more relaxed crew, and a relaxed crew was a productive crew.

  He noted the time on the clock on his wall. The clock was lying again. He mentally subtracted five minutes, and stepped out of his office.

  A few heads turned, but the subordinates didn’t stop gathering their things.

  Karl said, “Leaving already?” He allowed a small
percentage of his spritely bluster to leak out with his words. “It’s not five o’clock yet.”

  Liza Gilbert, the young one he still thought of as the New Girl, gave him an innocent look. “It’s not?” She turned and looked at her boyfriend, the one with the name Karl often forgot.

  What’s-his-name said, grinning boyishly, “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

  Gavin Gorman, the gnome, spoke up from his desk to correct the boyfriend. “Actually, that’s not how time works, Xavier. All time zones are an hour apart. The number of minutes past the hour at any given time is the same everywhere.”

  Margaret Mills, the witch, took the bait and charged into the fray like a thirsty rhino at the watering hole. “Actually, Gavin and Xavier, not all time zones are an hour apart. Around the world, there are a number of zones with thirty-minute offsets and even forty-five-minute offsets.”

  “Well, duh,” Gavin said, as though he’d known. He hadn’t. “But there aren’t any time zones offset by five minutes, which is basically what I meant.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you meant,” Margaret said. “What matters is what you said, and you said all time zones are an hour apart.”

  Gavin narrowed his eyes at his coworker. “What’s going on with you today, Mills? Did another witch steal your sense of humor?”

  There was a soft THWAP sound—the tip of a shoe hitting shin. Karl’s good sprite ears picked up the sound easily.

  Gavin, the recipient of the shin-kick, groaned and shot a dirty look across the two-person workstation he shared with his on-again-off-again girlfriend, the card mage.

  The card mage said to the gnome, “Be nice to Margaret. She’s having a tough day.”

  “We’re all having a tough day,” the gnome said. “It’s Monday.”

  The card mage, Dawna Jones, rolled her orange, cat-like eyes. “Be nice anyway.”

  While they continued to bicker, Karl glanced over at the empty office with the floral wallpaper. It wasn’t good that Zinnia Riddle was still away on her vacation. He needed her back at work, keeping a lid on Margaret and the others the way only she could. Sometimes it seemed like he and Zinnia were the only two adults working there.

  Earlier that day, the gang had received a surprise package from Zinnia. She’d included a letter explaining that postcards were stupid, basically the “humblebrag” of mail, and thus she would never subject her supernatural friends and coworkers to such a thing. Instead, she’d purchased a variety of goodies and keepsakes during her travels thus far, and so the box contained an assortment of items they could distribute amongst themselves as they wished.

  The items were simple and of low-value.

  Naturally, bedlam ensued.

  Margaret Mills zapped three people with spells, and one of the couples broke up and got back together again. To everyone’s surprise, it was the younger couple whose love was tested over a trio of herb-infused olive oils, not Gavin and Dawna. Karl had to step in and whip everyone into shape. Literally. He’d extended his extra-long sprite tongue and actually whipped them.

  The mood following the tongue-lashing was much more subdued and professional.

  Best of all, Karl had snagged his favorite pick from the box of items: a hand-carved wooden elephant.

  “Ding,” said the kid—Xavier—getting up from his chair and pulling on his light summer jacket. “It’s officially five o’clock now.”

  Karl made a big show of walking back to his private office, then coming back with a HARUMPH.

  “Barely,” he said.

  Gavin and Dawna exchanged a look.

  Gotcha. The look was enough to confirm Karl’s suspicions that the two of them had been responsible for tampering with the lying clock in his office. For the last two weeks, he’d been monitoring the thing. In the morning, it ran slow, so that all the subordinates made it in on time or even early. By lunch time, the clock would have sped up significantly, so that lunch break effectively started five minutes earlier. Then it slowed for the end of lunch and sped up again for the end of the work day.

  It must have been Gavin’s gnome relative, that repugnant Griebel Gorman, who’d altered the clock. He was one of those low-lifes who would build or alter anything mechanical for the right fee, no matter who got hurt along the way. Karl had been wary of taking on the younger Gorman as a supernatural protegé, fearing he would be as dirty as his uncle, but Gavin turned out to be ethical and honest—or at least as ethical and honest as a gnome could be. The poker nights Gavin “generously” hosted were run mainly to take money from his coworkers.

  This business with the time-hopping clock in Karl’s office had clearly been Gavin’s idea.

  “I know about the clock,” Karl said.

  Suddenly, everyone was very concerned with the contents of their laps, their purses, or something on the floor. Karl reassessed the situation and altered his conclusion.

  “And I know you were all in on it,” he blustered. “All of you.”

  Margaret Mills raised her hand. “I told them not to do it, Boss.”

  Karl stamped his foot. “This department is not a cover. We are a real department, and we do important work here.”

  The New Girl spoke up, albeit meekly. “Are you sure about that, Mr. Kormac? We seem to issue a lot of permits for things that don’t require permits in other towns. This afternoon we had a walk-in client who requested a special permit for putting more than forty birthday candles on a cake.”

  Karl stared her down. “And?”

  Liza Gilbert—that was her name!—scrunched her young face. “Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive?”

  Karl had to fight very hard to keep a straight face. She wasn’t wrong, but he was their boss. The boss of a department that was partly a cover for more important operations, but he couldn’t admit that.

  He dialed up his bluster and responded with more gusto. “More than forty candles constitutes a potential fire hazard.” He walked around to view Liza’s computer screen and asked, “Did you find the Form 40BC on the system?”

  “I did,” she said, sounding surprised as she relived the experience of being surprised hours earlier. “And I issued the permit.”

  “Good work,” Karl said. He addressed the group as a whole. “This is exactly the sort of high-quality, reliable work we do around here at the WPD.” He bared his teeth and added, “During standard office hours.”

  The group murmured.

  Karl continued. “Furthermore, I expect my office wall clock to be restored to its normal function by tomorr—”

  He was interrupted by the door opening.

  Into the permits department rushed one of the mayor’s staff members, his tie askew and his hair ruffled.

  “You’re still here,” the young man said, sounding both surprised and relieved. “Mayor Paladini is putting out an alert to all staff members with special abilities.”

  Xavier said, “Then that means I’m outta here.” He had already been standing, his jacket on, and his bag slung over his shoulder. “It’s past five, and I don’t have any special abilities.”

  Liza admonished him, “That you know of.”

  “Let it go,” Xavier said to his girlfriend. “We’re just the Red Shirts around here. Don’t you get it? We’re expendable, and we can’t even defend ourselves.” He thumbed his chest. “If trouble’s spewing out of some magic volcano, this Red Shirt would rather be at home when the lava hits.”

  The young man at the door said, “You should be more concerned about whatever’s going on.”

  Margaret Mills asked, “Does it have anything to do with this terrible indigestion I’m feeling? I thought it was my lunch going down the wrong way, but this pushing-pulling sensation in my gut keeps getting stronger.”

  Karl asked, “Is it gas?” He was often plagued with terrible gas himself. Not enough natural chitin in his diet. He needed to visit a lobster buffet soon.

  Margaret tapped her solar plexus with a loose fist, then burped. “There’s some gas, but that’s norm
al after I’ve been sitting all afternoon.” She tapped herself again. “Something else is still there. It feels like an object-location spell taking its sweet time to connect.” She frowned. “But I haven’t cast any spells today. I never, ever cast spells at work.”

  “Except for at lunch, when you bit me on the butt,” Gavin said.

  “And mine,” Dawna said.

  Liza said, “That was a spell? I thought I was having a muscle cramp.”

  Margaret huffed. “Well, I haven’t cast any object-location spells today.”

  As though thinking with one mind, the group dropped their quibbling and turned toward the mayor’s sweaty member of staff. Together, they asked the young man to explain what the alert was about.

  The man gulped, then admitted, “We’re not exactly sure. Mayor Paladini was hoping you might know something. We’re picking up alerts from all over, but nothing specific. A retired field agent called in about a warning from the Deep, and we’re trying to connect that to a misplaced book that’s since been recovered, but...”

  They all waited with what Shakespeare first dubbed “bated breath.”

  Fun fact: Shakespeare was a sprite. Most people didn’t know that, but Karl had evidence, being the bard’s descendant. That fact was, of course, beside the point, so Karl didn’t mention it but instead listened with bated breath for the mayor’s subordinate to continue.

  “But nobody knows what was inside the book,” the sweaty young man said. “The words aren’t legible.”

  “Genies!” Margaret exclaimed. “The last time ink was disappearing, it was genies. They had that man who used to run the Penny Pincher Gazette working for them on some atrocity. They cleaned out the local supply of several magical items. I thought someone was trying to make flying monkeys.”

  “This case is quite different from that one,” the young man explained. “The book’s pages have all been blackened, not erased. And, before you ask, we brought in our best sniffer hounds, and there were no bookwyrms in the vicinity.”

  Margaret muttered under her breath about genies being to blame, regardless.

  Dawna cleared her throat and noisily shuffled a deck of cards. Everyone looked at her, then went silent as the card mage prepared to do what only she could do.