Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 2

by Angela Pepper

  He blinked his big gold-green eyes innocently.

  “Play cute and innocent all you want, but we know about the dogs. I’ve got a few friends who have a bone to pick with you for trying to blame it on a bird attack, too. Keep playing mute if you want, but it’s only a question of time before we figure out everything.”

  He lowered his head to the seat and put one paw across his eyes.

  I wanted to be angry, but I couldn’t. Why did he have to be so adorable?

  Charlize patted my shoulder. “Let’s get you home before you draw a crowd.”

  A few people walking their dogs were watching from a distance with interest.

  The back of Charlize’s car was too full of junk for my father to sit anywhere else, so he had to sit on my lap for the ride to my house.

  I gave him a pat on the head and scratched his chin anyway. He was still in trouble, but some instincts you can’t control.

  Charlize squealed out of the parking spot. “How was your day?”

  I told her how I’d been troubled by nightmares the previous night, but at least I hadn’t imagined anyone was stalking me in the library today.

  She said, “Stress has many adverse side effects on the unconscious mind. When my sister was trapped in her coma, I kept seeing her everywhere. Whenever I went out on the ocean, she seemed to be there, just far enough below the surface that I couldn’t make eye contact. But she was always watching me. Of that I’m sure.”

  “Maybe she was. How powerful is she?”

  The fox on my lap whimpered.

  “You don’t want to know,” Charlize said grimly.

  We pulled up in front of my house.

  “I really owe you,” I said. “You’re already the best friend I’ve ever had, even better than Hannah Gerber, who loaned me her gym shorts in the first grade when I went down the big kids’ slide and landed in a big mud puddle. If she hadn’t done that, the other kids would have called me pee-pants the whole year.”

  Charlize shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat and flicked at the plush octopus on her key ring.

  “Zara,” she said in a we-need-to-talk tone.

  Here it comes. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just that I care about you, too,” she said. “Whatever happens, you need to know I’m on your side.”

  “You’re scaring me. Are you in trouble?”

  She turned her plush octopus toy to granite and then back to orange fabric again. She didn’t make eye contact with me.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said with a grit that didn’t inspire confidence. “Take care of yourself.”

  “Would you like to come in? Cuppatea? You can see how well the white fluff ball is settling in.”

  She shook her head stiffly. “I’ve got work to do.”

  I opened the door, and the fox sprung out ahead of me. He walked easily toward the house, glanced back to see me watching, and began to limp. You rotten little faker.

  “Wait,” Charlize said.

  She pressed a plastic baggie into my hand. It was the yellowing fang we’d gotten from the veterinarian.

  “Maybe you can use this for some witch stuff,” she said, spitting out the words as though talking against her will. “I don’t know much about witchcraft, but maybe there’s a way for you to use this to find Tansy’s body. That would help the investigation a lot. You can call the police department once you find her. Don’t touch anything.”

  “You sound pretty confident that I’ll be able to help.”

  She looked me right in the eyes. Her pupils were so red and raw, I wished she hadn’t.

  “Zara, I can’t do much until we find Tansy’s body,” she said plainly. “That part’s up to you.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do some witch stuff. Or, as Vincent Wick calls it, witcher-i-doo.”

  “You do that.” She leaned over and called out the window, “And you, be a good boy,” she said.

  Too late for that.

  * * *

  A pair of green-gold eyes with oval pupils stared mournfully at the glass of red wine I was drinking.

  “This sure is a fine bottle of Valpolicello that I’ve been saving for a special occasion,” I said from my lounging spot on the sofa. “Oh, isn’t that your favorite type of wine, Dad?”

  The fox whimpered and licked his lips. The green-gold eyes flicked from the wine to the assortment of fancy cheese, stuffed olives, spicy dips, and crackers spread out on the coffee table. More lip licking.

  “Sorry, fox. This is people food. For people.” I sipped the wine. “Mmm, this people wine is delicious. It’s a shame we can’t give this delicious Valpolicello wine to foxes.” I took another sip and smacked my lips. “And it’s a crying shame that you’re still injured and it’s not safe for you to shift back to human form.”

  He let out a heart-breaking whimper. He could have easily swiped whatever food he wanted. I wasn’t about to shock him or harm him, but something about him being in fox format must have made him believe me that he wasn’t allowed to partake of people food.

  Boa, however, didn’t see the distinction. Or simply didn’t care. She jumped on the coffee table, grabbed a three-quarters-full wheel of Brie with her feline fangs, and was gone in a heartbeat.

  The fox barked like a dog and skittered away on the wood floor, chasing after the cat.

  I called out, “Bad fox! We don’t chase kitties!”

  Animal nails skittered over the kitchen floor. More hissing, yowling, and yipping. Boa let out a bone-chilling howl that was ten times the cat she was.

  Zoey, who’d been watching the whole scene with interest from her seat in the comfy chair, raised her eyebrows at me. “I thought getting a pet would make us more normal,” she said.

  I waved one hand. “You and your obsession with being normal. Have you had any allergic reactions, by the way? When you were little, cats and dogs made you sneeze.”

  “I haven’t sneezed once.”

  “That's what I figured. You must be cured, which is good, because you had a cat-tail mustache this morning.”

  “Boa must be one of those less allergenic cats. I was reading that certain colors of cats produce fewer allergens.”

  “Or your lack of sneezing could be a sign of your powers kicking in,” I said. “A very positive sign.”

  She wrinkled her nose adorably. “Mom, give it up. I’m just a regular kid. If I really was a witch, something would have happened by now.”

  “All you need is the right motivation, or stronger stimulus. I didn’t know I could shoot lightning bolts until Dr. Bob swooped down from the sky and tried to rip me to ribbons.”

  A white blur swished onto the coffee table, nearly knocking over the bottle of red wine before I balanced it with magic. Boa nabbed a chunk of aged cheddar cheese and dashed off with it once more.

  “She must be building a cheese nest,” I said to Zoey. “That’s something cats do, right?”

  “Oh, yes. The Felis catus is valued for its companionship as well as its ability to build elaborate nests out of cheese.”

  Boa dashed through the room with the cheese. The fox wasn’t far behind, yipping his head off. Both of them scrambled up the stairs, their sharp nails putting even more dents and scratches on the old wood.

  Once they were above us, my daughter looked up at the ceiling, which emanated scuffling sounds.

  “Mom, are you sure that fox is really Pawpaw and not some random red fox?”

  “Uh...” I hadn’t considered that. Charlize had been acting strange. Had she made a swap?

  Zoey locked her hazel eyes on mine. “It could be a DWM agent sent undercover to spy on us.”

  “You never know around here,” I said. “How do we know Boa’s not a spy? She could be deep undercover, like the you-know-what in Harry Potter.”

  Zoey smirked. “The you-know-what? Mom, I’ve read that series multiple times.”

  I shrugged. “My librarian’s instinct to avoid spoilers runs deep.”

  The doorbell rang, and Zo
ey ran to let in my aunt, who we were expecting. The two of them chatted in the entryway for a few minutes before joining me in the living room.

  “What a lovely spread you’ve set out for us,” Zinnia said. “Only a half glass of wine for me. I need to stay sharp for spellwork.”

  “What about me? We can’t let the bottle go bad.”

  “Zara, you’re a natural. You’ll be surpassing your mentor in no time.” Her lips puckered. The compliment was bitter on her taste buds. She was a witch, but she was still human.

  “I don’t get it,” Zoey said. “If Mom is such a genius witch, why did her house lock her out of her own room?” She pointed at my leopard-print dress, which I’d borrowed from her closet. “Don’t stretch out my Audrey dress with your adult hips.” We’d picked up the brown-and-black-spotted form-fitting dress at a theater’s costume department sale. She had never worn the figure-hugging dress but was still weirdly possessive about it. “And don’t stretch the top out with your adult boobs, either.”

  Zinnia and I exchanged a knowing look. My daughter was sensitive about her late-blooming powers and sometimes took it out on me. But... adult hips? Adult boobs? Ouch. Low blow.

  “Don’t do that,” Zoey said.

  We answered together, “Do what?”

  “Don’t talk about me with your eyes. I can see you.”

  The cat tore through the room like lightning, followed by the fox. They tipped over a wooden chair and skittered their way back up the stairs.

  Zoey gave me a dirty look, as though everything in the entire world was my fault suddenly, and followed the animals upstairs.

  “Zara, your house is getting more crowded each time I come over. Was that a cat or an animated feather duster?”

  “It’s a cat who resembles an animated feather duster. Her name is Boa, and... Let me get you that wine.”

  She was already pouring her own, levitating both bottle and glass gracefully.

  “Valpolicello,” she commented. “Your mother’s favorite. I believe Rhys was the one who introduced her to it.”

  “Not a coincidence,” I said. “I’m using it as incentive to get my father to turn back into a person, or as much of a person as Rhys Quarry can be.”

  “He does strike me as the type who is motivated by rewards, and not deterred by punishment,” she said.

  I made her promise not to give any wine to my father until he turned back in his smug-faced Rhys Quarry human form. I caught her up on the rest of the story while we sipped wine and nibbled the cheese that had not yet been stolen for Boa’s cheese nest.

  I also told her about Bentley’s suspicion that she’d been spying on him. The past two days had been so hectic that I hadn’t had the chance to talk to her about my Sunday-afternoon coffee date with the detective.

  “Nothing came of that,” Zinnia reported. “I had hoped to learn the identity of Bentley’s indescribable new friend, but he was alone all night.”

  “You should have taken me with you. It’s been ages since you disguised me as a bush.”

  “Zara, you were in no condition to do spellwork. I’m still not sure what happened to you outside the police station. One minute you were fine, and the next you were writhing around on the grass, moaning about being absorbed by the darkness, being consumed.”

  “I broke the news to Tansy that she was dead, and she didn’t take it well.”

  Zinnia pursed her lips. “To be expected.”

  “Is communicating with spirits always like that? She didn’t just make me feel sad. She fire-hosed me with anguish. If I’d been standing next to a cliff, or on a subway platform, I don’t know what I might have done.”

  “Direct communication is extremely dangerous,” she said. “That’s why we’re doing this spell in tandem, to split the flowback energy. Even so, it could be tricky.”

  “Great,” I said with an enthusiastic swing of the arm. “Let’s get to it.”

  She reached for her purse and started pulling out potions.

  We planned to summon the spirit of whichever one of Tansy’s dogs had lost the fang. We would use the fang as an anchor to communicate with the dog. If our spell worked as planned, we’d have the dog lead us to Tansy’s body. Then the police and the DWM could take over the investigation, and I would putter around in the garden with Tansy until she’d been avenged and buried properly so her spirit could move on to a greener greenhouse. Easy peasy.

  And so, while my fox-shifter father chased a white cat around the house, and my daughter sulked about not being a witch yet, my aunt and I drank wine and set up the ingredients to perform a tandem-witch spell to summon a pair of dog ghosts. Just a typical Tuesday night for the Riddles.

  Chapter 34

  Either the ritual was working, or I’d accidentally sat on an electric eel.

  My body hummed with power, and tooth-colored sparks circled over the dog fang on the silver platter. Zinnia let out an unselfconscious witchy cackle. She felt it, too. We were successfully summoning the spirit of a ghost dog using its fang. What witcher-i-doo!

  A dog spirit appeared. The darkness entered through a wall with a lumbering gait.

  Boa sounded the alarm, hissing at the spectral presence. The white cat, who’d been curled up on the back of a sofa, watching us with one sleepy eye, was fully alert now. She arched her back, making herself taller. Her feathery tail twitched like a whip. She yowled at the translucent dog, who eyed the cat warily and gave me a guilty look.

  Zinnia still couldn’t see the ghost dog, but apparently the cat could. Based on what I knew of cats, this didn’t surprise me much.

  “Is it Coco or Jasper?” Zinnia asked me. “Jasper had a white diamond on his forehead.”

  “Coco,” I said. “And now that I’m looking for it, I can see she’s missing an upper fang.”

  Coco lumbered her way over to my feet. She warily kept her big brown eyes on hissing Boa, who was doing a fine impersonation of a snake.

  “She’s enormous,” I said to Zinnia. “Is she part hellhound?”

  “Neapolitan Mastiff,” Zinnia said with a chuckle. “Coco’s most evil traits are drooling and snoring.”

  “That’s not very evil.”

  “You haven’t been kissed by her.”

  “I take it you have?”

  Zinnia made a funny face and mimed using her hand to squeegee drool off her face.

  “Good girl,” I said to Coco. “Thank you for coming to help us.”

  The Neapolitan Mastiff had a beastly appearance, with her heavy-boned frame draped in an oversized skin. Her abundant hide hung in wrinkles around her head and under her chin in a dewlap. She was beautiful in her own magnificent way. She glanced up at me and sat obediently. Her relatively small ears twitched between me and the hissing cat.

  “She’s not interested in chasing the cat,” I said.

  “Coco’s got better manners than your father.”

  I reached out to pet the dog. “Coco tries to be a good girl.” My hand passed right through, but she perked up visibly at the praise, so I continued. “Coco doesn’t chase kitties, does she? No. Coco is better trained than some foxes.”

  The fox in question was upstairs in the guest room. We’d put him there to keep him from chasing Boa through our spell ingredients. I’d taunted him to turn back into human form so he could work the doorknob. So far, he hadn’t. But his ploy to avoid questioning wouldn’t last forever. With any luck, we’d have a breakthrough tonight that would force a full confession from him by morning.

  The huge, wrinkly dog remained before me, her face the same height as mine and her comically small ears twitching with alertness. Yes? You summoned me?

  Zinnia handed me our pointing tool, which was a modified hand-held compass. I pressed Coco’s fang into a chunk of poster adhesive, affixing it to the bottom of the compass. Following Zinnia’s instructions, I leaned forward and held the compass inside the ghost dog’s head. It seemed a very rude thing to do to a ghost, but Coco didn’t seem to mind me scooping my hand throug
h her ghostly brains.

  “Find Tansy,” I said. “Take us to your owner.”

  The dog cocked her head and pawed my knee with one ghost paw.

  “She’s pawing my knee,” I reported to Zinnia.

  “She’s not wrong. Tansy’s spirit is inside you.”

  “Perhaps. She’s been awfully quiet today. As dormant as tulip bulbs in the dead of winter.”

  “Tulips? Sounds like she hasn’t crossed over yet.” She leaned over to look at the compass. She couldn’t see the ghost, so she had a clear view of it. “The needle’s still spinning. Ask Coco to take us to Tansy’s body.”

  “Coco, can you do that? Take us to where your master lies, um, physically.”

  The dog blinked. She remained silent, as before.

  “Her bones,” I said, and I conjured in my mind an image of a woman with long gray hair, dressed in green, lying down. I let her clothing and flesh fall away so that all that remained was her skeleton. I beamed this image at the dog. “Find her bones,” I said.

  The dog backed up, rolled onto her side, and tipped back her head, possum style.

  “You’re playing dead,” I said. “You are such a smart dog, Coco. You do understand me.”

  Her tail wagged.

  “Now take us to where Tansy played dead.” I got down on my knees. Instead of holding the compass in the dog’s skull, I held it where the dog could see the face. “See this pointy thing? You can talk to us if you try really hard. Make the arrow on the compass point to where your owner played dead.”

  This can’t possibly work, I thought.

  But then the arrow on the compass slowed its spin.

  Someone squealed and clapped. It was Zoey, who’d come downstairs soundlessly to watch.

  “It’s really working,” Zoey said. “You’ve poked a hole through to the other side, and now a ghost is talking to you. Just like when Ms. Vander Zalm wrote on the bathroom mirror!”

  “This is nothing like that,” Zinnia said defensively.

  I gave my aunt an oh really look. This was exactly like that, except she’d been terrified because she’d attempted the tandem-witch spell on her own.