We covered my relocation to Wisteria, and how it had been secretly orchestrated by Chess and Charlize so that I could help get their sister, Chessa, out of her coma. My mother already knew about how Zoey and I nearly became plant food for a Droserakops, so I circled back to my second ghost. That had been the not-quite-dead Perry Pressman, inventor of the strange monster-machine that was fueled by his own flesh. According to interviews with the DWM, Josephine Pressman had been unaware of her father’s final invention. She’d been no more than an innocent bystander. Who was now dead.
My mother, who’d interrupted a few times already, asked, “And what was this machine supposed to do, anyway?”
“Erase people from their bodies,” I said. “I guess it wiped their memories and personalities from their brains.”
“Why did it erase words from books? Why did it sometimes erase ink from things around town?”
I chuckled. “Ever heard of a wacky little unpredictable thing called magic?”
She pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “Yes, well, the only thing you can accurately predict about magic is its unpredictability.”
Zoey chimed in. “Magic has a mind of its own. That’s what Auntie Z is always saying.”
My mother kept nodding. Her hair had air-dried during our conversation, and fell around her shoulders in black, silky waves. No trace of her natural red showed through the new color.
She took in a deep breath before speaking. “This is exactly the sort of trouble I tried to protect you from.” She waved her hand through the air vigorously, as though swatting at invisible flies. “The unpredictability of magic. The danger. All the rotten reprobates trying to steal powers from each other. And now they’re trying to erase people from their bodies! When will it ever stop?”
“We can’t stop people from being bad, but we can always try to do more good.”
She stared at me for a long moment. “You weren’t supposed to get the curse,” she said. “This wasn’t supposed to be your life.”
“How? When you renounced your powers, was that supposed to stop it traveling down the family tree? If it makes you feel any better, it did work, sort of. But more like a clog in the line than a clean break.” I gestured to my daughter. “As soon as the kid here turned sixteen, those powers busted through your clog and hit both of us. Pow! With a side of Zap.”
“Pow and Zap indeed.” She lurched forward and plucked something from the couch cushion. A single red fox hair, which she waved at me. “Zarabella, you’re half fox shifter. Zoey’s only a quarter, and she had the good sense to turn into a fox. Why didn’t you, too? You didn’t need to become a witch.”
“Zoey only turned after she saw her grandfather turn. Maybe I could have, too, if I’d known. But oh, no, you kept it from me. You kept magic from me, just like you kept it a secret from poor Zinnia.”
She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. “Poor Zinnia is just fine.”
“What else might I have been?” I asked. “Other than Rhys Quarry, did you bring any other guys back to your swanky hotel room?”
She stared at me as her eyes widened and her jaw dropped open. A squeaking sound came from her throat but no words.
Note to self: Questioning your mother about your paternity is not appropriate Sunday-afternoon conversation. I’d broken the poor woman.
Zara tries to be a good daughter. Zara doesn’t imply her mother was or is a tramp.
“Sorry,” I said. “My manners slipped again.” I slapped my own wrist and glared at my hand. “Bad ghost! Bad Josephine. Don’t be so rude.”
My mother’s jaw snapped shut with a click. She didn’t have anything to say, for a change.
Still sitting beside me on the sofa, my daughter raised her hand. “I have a question.”
Please, don’t ask about your own paternity, I thought. I know I opened the can of worms just now, and I probably deserve to be grilled about it, but please not now.
“Josephine Pressman had her body taken over by someone else that night,” Zoey said.
“That’s not a question.”
She raised her eyebrows and gave me a think-about-it look.
Josephine hadn’t been in control of her body that night in the attic. She had been present but also not present. Just like her father had been somewhere between dead and alive.
I jumped to my feet and headed toward the door.
Zoey asked, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“If you’re thinking that Josephine’s body has been commandeered by the world’s worst real estate agent, then yes.” I shook my fist. “Damn you, Dorothy Tibbits.”
“I thought she was dead,” Zoey said. “Didn’t Chet swear that she died in custody?”
I nodded my head in the direction of my dark-haired mother. “Yeah, well, people don’t stay dead like they used to.”
Zoey hunched her shoulders and rubbed her forearms.
My mother pleaded, “What’s going on? This Josephine who works here might not be dead after all? But her ghost came in here and…” She trailed off, dazed, and then her hazel eyes brightened. “Oh! Now I get it. Her father’s spirit visited you when he was between death and life. And so did that girl in the coma.”
“Exactly.” I reached for the door handle. “Now I need to find Josephine’s body and question whoever’s inside it before kicking them right out again.”
“That sounds dangerous,” she said.
“I’m tougher than I look.” I pointed to the sofa. “But you two should stay here.”
I ran out into the castle’s hallway and toward the stairs.
The other two Riddles didn’t obey my command to stay safely behind in the room, just as I knew they wouldn’t.
Since the spirit had come up through the floor, the most logical place to check for Josephine’s body—whether it was dead or had only been hijacked—was in the room directly beneath my mother’s. We reached the second floor. I lifted my knuckles to knock on the door and paused.
“Let’s get our cover story straight,” I whispered over my shoulder. “We’re investigating a loud thump sound that we heard from upstairs.”
My mother commented, “It’s interesting to be on this side of your web of lies.”
“Technically, it’s not a lie,” Zoey said. “Mom did thump when she fainted and fell on the floor.”
I winked at my daughter. She was the best kind of backup, the kind that really has your back.
I knocked on the door and put on a concerned expression. Once I was face to face with the person who’d stolen Josephine’s body, my improvisation skills would truly be tested. There was no peep from the spirit inside me.
The door opened. The person standing in the doorway was not even female, let alone Josephine. I did a double take. The man looked exactly like the older version of a guy I used to know.
He tilted his head to the side and gave me a quizzical look.
“Zed?” he asked in a low, gruff voice that most people associate with stoners. “Is that you?”
Chapter 4
Was I Zed?
Nobody had called me Zed in years. Just hearing the nickname made me feel more like my teen self than I had in a long time.
I started up at him. “Nash?”
He grinned. “In the flesh.”
Standing before me was Nathan Partridge, also known as Nashville—or Nash for short—due to his teenaged ambitions of becoming a country music superstar. His dark-brown hair had gotten thinner, and his quick-moving eyes had acquired a few wrinkles, but it was him. Charming as ever.
“Good ol’ Nash,” I said. The shock of seeing his friendly face gave me temporary amnesia. I forgot all about why I’d knocked on his door in the first place, and about the two other Riddles standing behind me.
“Good ol’ Zed,” he replied, looking at the top of my head. “I see they haven’t found a cure for fireweed hair yet.”
I scoffed. “And I see they haven’t found a cure for those massive flaps on the sides of your head. Oh, wait.
Are those your ears?”
“They must be mine. If they were yours, they’d be covered in freckles and girl cooties.”
“You love my freckles and my girl cooties,” I teased. “What have you been up to?”
“Oh, about six foot two.” He stood up straight, straining until the tendons on the sides of his neck flared. He wasn’t anywhere near six foot two, but he did have a slim, sinewy build that gave the illusion of height. He wore tattered, broken-in jeans with a threadbare concert T-shirt from a popular eighties band. Seeing Nash Partridge, with his boyish grin now contrasting a receding hairline, made me feel both youthful and ancient at the same time. I’d been twelve when I’d started tagging along with Nash and his music-loving buddies. They’d all ranged in age from fifteen to seventeen—mature and worldly compared to me and my girlfriends. My mother didn’t approve, but she couldn’t do much to stop it, since Nash and his single father had rented our pool house on a yearlong lease. The boys were always hanging out in my back yard, as tenacious as dandelions.
“Hey there, Zed’s mom.” Nash looked over my shoulder and lifted his chin in greeting. He’d always alternated between calling my mother Mrs. Landlady and Zed’s mom, never Ms. Riddle.
“Hello, Nathan,” she said coolly.
“You are totally rocking that black hair, Zed’s mom. I like it.” He turned his head toward Zoey and did a double take. “What? It’s a miniature Zed! Mini Zed. I bet you’re a real troublemaker, just like Original Zed.”
Mini Zed gave him an innocent look.
My mission came back to me. I leaned to the side to look around Nash. “Are you here on your own?”
Nash shifted his body to better block my view into the suite. He scratched his head and looked sheepish. “What did you hear?”
“Me? I didn’t hear much,” I said. “I haven’t been in contact with the old gang in years. I don’t know what you’ve been up to…” I trailed off. Actually, I did know what he’d been up to. I’d been there, on the tour, by his side. I’d been there when he hit rock bottom. We’d trashed the hotel room together.
Except Zed hadn’t been there. I’d gotten a full blast of Josephine Pressman’s memories. She knew Nash, because he was the rock star she’d been following around New York. Ah, how her father had disapproved. Which had only made Nash more appealing.
“Zed, are you okay?” Nash was giving me one of his classic concerned looks. Back when we were both teens, he could easily set girls crying just by asking if they were okay. Now he was staring at me with those sympathetic brown eyes, and it was working. I wanted to unburden myself and let him hold me. Or the part of me housing Josephine’s spirit did, anyway. She wasn’t infatuated with him like she used to be, but he still had some effect on her.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Just surprised.”
Nash looked away from me to stare at my daughter. “She’s kinda freaking me out,” he said in a hushed tone, as though she wasn’t standing right there. “She’s really here, isn’t she? Mini Zed? Tell me I’m not hallucinating again.”
“She’s real,” I said, and I turned to do introductions. “Nash, this is my daughter, Zoey.” They shook hands. “And you remember my mom. She doesn’t go by ‘Zed’s mom’ these days, but I think you’re old enough to call her Zirconia.”
“Ms. Riddle,” my mother said, correcting me. “Lovely to see you again after all these years, Nash. I always liked you better than the strange boy with the long hair and the cowboy boots.”
I elbowed my mother. Out of the side of my mouth, I said, “Mom, Nash was the strange boy with the long hair and the cowboy boots. He and his father were our tenants in the pool house, remember?”
“Ah, yes. The Flamingo family.”
I coughed up a laugh. “Partridge,” I said. “The Partridge family.”
“Of course,” she said, as though she hadn’t made a mistake at all. “And how is your father?”
“Still withholding his approval,” Nash said, grinning.
“Someone has to do it,” she replied tartly. “Are you still singing those old Johnny Cash songs?”
“Someone has to do it,” he volleyed back, dealing with my mother’s snarkiness as easily as he always had, even as a teen. He chuckled in his deep, gruff way. His speaking voice had always reminded me of a vehicle engine warming up. His real voice, his singing voice, was like melted chocolate.
“Hey, do you want to come in for a drink?” He stepped back, finally giving me a clear view. His suite had the same layout as my mother’s but looked different due to being decorated in dark tones, with wood paneling on the interior walls. All the furniture was dark leather, like that of an old-fashioned gentleman’s study. There was even a huge globe on a brass pedestal. Atop the globe, resting on northern Europe, was an ashtray full of cigarette butts. Typical Nash. Never far from an ashtray. His friends teased him about his messy habit by performing one night under the band name Nash’s Ashes.
There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the suite.
“Another time,” I said. “We’re actually looking for someone right now. Have you seen a girl named Josephine around here? She works for the resort. She’s in her late twenties, and has long, dark hair.”
Nash shrugged and puffed out his cheeks before exhaling noisily. “That could be anyone,” he said.
I reached out and jabbed him in the stomach with my finger. “Fibber,” I said. “You know exactly who I’m talking about.”
He opened his mouth and emitted a croaking sound. I would use a spell if I had to, but my aunt always encouraged me to use my wits and wiles before resorting to magic.
I poked him in the stomach again. “Tell me where she is, you big fibber. I know she was following you around New York. I know all about you two.”
He held up both hands. “I haven’t seen Jo since this morning. We broke up, I swear. What did she tell you, Zed?”
“Everything,” I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. I did have all of her memories inside me, somewhere.
“Jo’s a good girl,” he said.
“Yes, she is. But she’s been going through a rough patch lately.”
“No kidding, with her old man dying in that weird gas explosion.” At a softer volume, he added, “If you ask me, I think he was mixed up in something.”
“Like what?”
“Beats me,” he said, rubbing his forearms. “Maybe drugs? I wouldn’t know. I’m clean, Zed. I don’t touch that stuff.”
“I know,” I said. Nash had always enjoyed his booze and his smokes, but nothing harder. “Where can I find Jo?”
He shrugged. “Working? She had a shift today.”
“She disappeared in the middle of it.”
A dark look crossed Nash’s face. “That’s not a good sign. If she gets fired from this job, her mom’s going to kill her.”
I glanced over at my daughter, whose hazel eyes were wide open. Zoey asked, her voice croaky, “Did her mom really threaten to kill her?”
I put my arm around Zoey’s shoulders. “I’m sure it was just motherly love.”
“Jo is probably two floors down,” Nash said, stuffing both hands into the pockets of his tattered jeans. “At least that’s where the staff quarters are.”
“Thanks.” I turned away, leading my party toward the stairwell door again. “Let’s catch up later, Nash. I just have to go do a thing.”
“That’s our Zed,” Nash said. “Always on the run, going from one thing to another thing.” He lifted his chin at Zoey again. “Hey, how old are you, Mini Zed?”
I grabbed Zoey by the hand and yanked her to stay close to me. “Too young for you, so never mind.”
He was chuckling as we left the hallway through the fire door leading to the stairwell. We went down two flights. The door to the basement-floor hallway was locked and had a sign reading STAFF ONLY.
My mother brushed imaginary dust from her hands. “Oh well. At least we tried.”
“Seriously, Mom? I know you don’t practice witchcraft any
more, but have you forgotten everything?” I used my telekinetic magic on the other side of the door and pushed down the door handle. “Ta-da,” I said as the door swung open.
She held up her arms in the doorway to stop us. “What are we even doing down here? If someone’s been killed, we should call the police.”
“We can’t report a ghost,” I said.
“Then lie,” she said. “Make something up. You seem to be very good at that.”
I ducked under her arm and walked toward the area that was directly below my mother’s suite and Nash’s. The rooms had evidently been divided differently on this basement floor, and there were two doors to choose from.
Zoey held her finger to her lips as she pressed her ear against one of the doors. “Someone’s moving around inside this one,” she whispered.
I leaned in, cupping my hand around my ear.
“I can’t hear anything,” I whispered. “Your hearing must be much better than mine. Fox powers?”
She immediately shifted into fox form. My mother gasped in surprise before clamping her hand over her mouth. She must have seen my father shift plenty of times, but I could understand her reaction. Seeing a human turn into a fox is pretty amazing no matter how many times you’ve seen it. Like a glorious sunrise, or morning dew on spring’s first flowers, or finding designer jeans in your size on the eighty-percent-discount rack.
Zoey-Fox listened at the door. She held up one paw in a very human gesture.
After a minute, she shifted back to human form, kneeling on the floor. I noted that her shirt was now on backwards. Zoey had mastered the ability to keep her clothes on when she shifted back and forth, but sometimes there were hiccups, such as buttons being unfastened or shirts being on backwards. These wardrobe malfunctions drove her nuts, because Zoey was a perfectionist when it came to the skills she cared about. I had a theory that her perfectionism was exactly why her shirts kept getting turned around. As my aunt always says, magic has a mind of its own. And I’d noticed, thanks to some of the tricks my magical house had pulled lately, that magic also has a sense of humor. Twisted, absurd humor.
Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 2 Page 33
