Wicked Wisteria (Witch Cozy Mystery and Paranormal Romance) (Wisteria Witches Book 2)

by Angela Pepper

  My daughter was silent. I kicked the leg of her chair.

  Zoey jolted. “Thank you, Auntie Z,” she said with formality, still avoiding my eyes. “This is exactly what I need after a long, difficult week.”

  “But it's only Monday,” Zinnia said with a light laugh.

  “Oh, right,” Zoey said with embarrassment.

  “Are you having difficulties at your new school? I'm acquainted with the principal. I can speak to him on your behalf, if you'd like.”

  “Mmm,” Zoey said around a mouthful of food, skillfully changing the topic. “This is amazing.” She pulled the plate closer to the edge of the table and shifted her chair forward like she meant business. “Never mind me and my school stuff. I'm fine.” She flicked her gaze to me briefly. “Mom, you should tell Auntie Z about your exciting trip to the dump today.”

  “The dump?” Zinnia glanced down at the food and frowned. “If you must,” she said.

  While we ate, I gave her a recap about the appearance of three more books with words missing, and my subsequent visit to the Wisteria Sanitation Management Station.

  After I finished the tale, Zinnia said gravely, “You would be wise to steer clear of Vincent Wick. The man is descended from a very long line of Wicks. The Wick family has lived in Wisteria since before it was even a town.”

  “Is he descended from a long line of shapeshifters?”

  She jerked her head back and dropped her fork with a clatter. “Whatever makes you say that?”

  “There was a round window in his office shack, plus he's got a serious hawk vibe going on. Or maybe an eagle vibe.”

  “Are you thinking...” She trailed off, glanced at Zoey, and then back at me, raising her eyebrows meaningfully.

  “I wasn't thinking about that specifically, but now that you mention it, yikes.” I shuddered and rubbed my upper arms.

  Zoey, who'd been quiet until now, interjected, “You think he's the same monster bird that attacked you and Chet in the woods.”

  I forced a smile. “Oh, that little incident? I'm sure it was just an eagle protecting her nest.”

  “Mom. I might not be a witch, but I remember how shaken up you were that day.”

  “You'd be upset, too, if an eagle swooped at you. Remember when old Mrs. Pinkman's budgie got out of his cage while you were watering her plants and pooped on your head? You were inconsolable.”

  Zoey's eyes widened. “That bird was pure evil. He had it in for me.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “And it was just a budgie. An eagle is much scarier.”

  Zoey smirked. “I still think the thing in the woods that day could have been a shape-shifting garbageman trying to take out the trash.”

  “Ha ha,” I said. “Because I'm the trash. Nice one.”

  We all laughed, though I knew my daughter wouldn't be joking if she'd been there and seen the damage that the winged beast inflicted on Chet's flesh. I had downplayed the injuries to keep from scaring her, and now I wasn't so sure it had been the right decision. The rules of being a parent are so contradictory. You want your child to feel safe and secure, but you also want them to be aware of the sharp-clawed dangers lurking in the shadows.

  Zinnia said, “The Wick family is long-rumored to be involved with dark magic, but I don't know what manner of creature Vincent Wick is, nor what he is capable of.”

  “Are you sure there's no spell?” I asked. “No litmus test for detecting the presence of magical ability?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zoey lean in with interest. “No simple yes-or-no test, like those sticks you use to find out if you're pregnant?”

  The corners of Zinnia's mouth twitched into a smile. “Zara. Are you suggesting you would have Vincent Wick urinate onto a plastic stick so you can ascertain whether or not he has supernatural abilities?”

  “I gotta try something,” I said. “It's pretty obvious he's some sort of villain. He's got a bunch of locked file cabinets in that dump office. Why does a dump need so many files?”

  “These are all very interesting observations. Have you run your wild theories past Chet?”

  I waved one hand dismissively. “Never mind about Chet. Is there any sort of test, pee stick or otherwise?”

  My aunt paused as though struggling to not talk down to me like the dummy I was, with my naive questions.

  Finally, she said, “Of course not. And you ought to be thankful, Zara. If there were such a test, our kind would have been rounded up and exterminated years ago.”

  “But once upon a time, long ago, they did burn witches,” I said.

  She bristled visibly. “It wasn't that long ago.”

  Zoey said, “They used to drown redheaded babies, too. We'd all be toast, back in those days.”

  My aunt sighed and looked mournfully at the remaining bites of casserole on her plate. “So much for a pleasant meal without any discussion of murder, mayhem, and the particular aroma of the town's composting facilities.”

  “You can't say we're a boring family,” I said.

  She started gathering up the used dishes. “In answer to your question, no. There is no reliable test. The trials they subjected so-called witches to during the medieval witch trials were the barbaric measures of the uncivilized and unenlightened.”

  Zoey said, “The thing about history is that it repeats itself.”

  “Let's hope not,” Zinnia said. “Now help me tidy up the dishes and we can whip up a batch of bookwyrm dough.”

  In unison, Zoey and I said, “Bookwyrm dough?”

  My aunt smiled. “Yes. Tonight's lesson will be a practical one. One of my suppliers mentioned she was nearly out of black scarabyce blood, and I realized what we needed for tonight's lesson.”

  In unison again, Zoey and I said, “Black scarabyce blood?”

  “Not the black scarabyce blood, of course. That would be silly. But it made me think of bookwyrms, so I picked up some supplies for bookwyrm dough. Zara, you can put it to use tomorrow at work.”

  “I thought I wasn't supposed to do magic at the library.”

  “That's true,” she sniffed. “Forget I even brought it up.”

  “No, no,” I said quickly. “I'm just giving you a hard time because sometimes you're a bit fast and loose with the rules.”

  She pulled her chin down flush with her neck, looking offended. “I'm neither fast nor loose, thank you very much.”

  I smiled sweetly. “I'm sorry for being a brat.” I stood and walked in place for a moment, angling left and right as I bent at the knees and got shorter, until I was squatting. “Look at me. I'm hiking down from Fool Mountain. I'm coming down to your Womanly Well of Wisdom.” I made a face. “That sounded weirder than I meant.”

  Zoey chimed in. “Please, Auntie Z, can we make bookwyrm dough? She'll behave, I swear.”

  Zinnia threw up both hands. “I'll probably live to regret this, but I hate to see good ingredients go to waste.”

  Chapter 8

  Tuesday morning, I arrived at the library with a ball of bookwyrm dough in a Tupperware container. To any outside observer, it was nothing more than a pale green version of the sort of sculpting clay that children play with.

  First, I located the rock star memoir that had been returned the previous day. It was on the display table with Frank's other Wonder Picks. Whichever employee had received it back into the library must not have done a thorough flip-through, as they hadn't noticed the pages were missing so many words that some pages were practically blank. I couldn't blame my coworker too harshly, though. The flip-through is mainly to release bookmarks and other debris. It would be impractical to have staff painstakingly checking that all words are where they ought to be.

  Next, I took the book with me toward an unoccupied aisle. Along the way, I checked in social sciences—specifically the 332.024 section—for any signs of my ghost. The area was clear. The night before, I'd told my aunt about my new spirit. She'd advised we take the “wait and see" approach, and promised to get me some more information about being Spirit Cha
rmed. How ironic that I worked in a library yet had no access to the witchcraft information I really needed. Back when I'd learned about my witch powers, I'd immediately checked under call number 133.4, Philosophy And Psychology > Parapsychology And Occultism > Specific Topics > Witchcraft - Sorcery. Our witchcraft section was sparse, and the few books we carried had the same public domain information and woodcut illustrations of witch burnings. Not fun reading. Not helpful, either.

  Once I reached a social sciences aisle with no view of the high-traffic zones, I reached down into the pocket of my loose skirt for the container of bookwyrm dough. I took a good look around to make sure nobody was watching.

  This wasn't the first time I'd used magic inside the library. I regularly used my telekinesis to tighten the bows of my lace-up boots without having to bend over. And while I would never float a book down from a tall shelf, I had been using my powers as a power-assist, nudging a row of books to the left or right to free up a book I was retrieving. The telekinesis could speed things up, or make certain book maneuvers less awkward, but using magic didn't save me energy. The power seemingly drew from my body. I'd get just as tired pushing a heavy booktruck using magic as I would be from using my arms and core muscles. The only difference was that the magical tiredness spread more widely through my body. Also, I could rejuvenate quickly with a snack. Thus, my magic was limited by my ability to quickly ingest chocolate—so it wasn't a bad trade-off after all.

  Using the bookwyrm dough would draw little from my body as it was already charmed by Aunt Zinnia. The power was “baked in,” so to speak, though the dough hadn't actually been baked.

  My hands shook as I prepared to use the magical item. I glanced around again, feeling ridiculous. It was still early on a Tuesday morning. The library wasn't at all crowded. At opening, we'd had the usual small rush of people coming in to claim the best workstations, plus a few patrons with small kids in tow, knocking off their first errand of the day, and now it would be quiet until the lunch-time rush.

  I pulled the lid off the container with a small POP. The pop was not loud, but it wasn't a typical library sound. I leaned around the corner of the shelves and spotted Frank at the counter. He was visually scanning the main floor. Had he heard the telltale POP?

  He tilted his head back and his nose up, seemingly sniffing the air. He'd heard the POP and was sniffing for smuggled food. I quickly pulled back into the aisle before he spotted me. Why had I picked a book aisle? I should have taken the book to our repair alcove and hidden in plain sight. Too late now, I thought. I had the dough in hand and could be done within seconds.

  Without looking down, I palmed the ball of dough in my right hand and tucked the container back into my pocket. The ball felt smooth and cool, and weirdly refreshing, like dipping your hand into a bag of white flour. Its ingredients were partly magical, yet included household staples such as cornstarch and finely milled white pepper. Aunt Zinnia said the cornstarch was for bulk and the white pepper was mainly to keep unsuspecting regular people from eating it. I'd asked her why someone would eat a pale green, raw dough. She'd explained that the main magical ingredient—the bookwyrm dust—was an attractor. An attractor is similar to a magnet, but for magic. Attractors serve as binding agents, holding magical compounds together—like how the egg in mayonnaise holds together both oil and vinegar in a suspension.

  I brought the dough to my nose and sniffed. It did have a tangy smell, like vinegar, mingled with a mildew aroma, as well as a hint of something floral. Hibiscus? I wondered what it tasted like. Zinnia warned me not to eat it, which I'd laughed at, but now I really needed to know if it tasted the same as it smelled. Would it be sour, or sweet?

  I touched the tip of my tongue to the dough.

  Big mistake.

  The instant my tongue grazed the dough, pain shot through me like an electric jolt. My head flashed with colors and I convulsed, sneezing once, twice, three times.

  In the silence following my sneezing fit, the library was more quiet than ever. An unseen woman nearby called out a friendly gesundheit.

  My body convulsed and I sneezed three more times.

  The woman, who sounded like she was over in the laptop work spaces, asked sweetly, “Are you okay over there?”

  “I'll be fine,” I called back croakily. I sneezed once more for good measure.

  “That was the last one,” I called out breezily, hoping I was right.

  I looked down at my right hand expecting to see the pale green ball of dough.

  My palm was empty.

  Had I accidentally ingested the bookwyrm dough? I started gagging. This was worse than the sneezing, but I got myself under control before it turned into actual retching.

  My whole body was damp and hot with panic. I'd assured Zinnia I wouldn't eat the thing, so she hadn't covered the side effects. How bad could it be?

  I probed my mouth with my tongue, checking my teeth for signs of the dough, even though I swore I'd barely grazed it with the tip of my tongue. There was a foul taste inside my mouth, but no residue. I decided I couldn't have eaten the dough. Even if my ghost had taken over my body and kicked me out, I would remember the transition happening. The only logical explanation was that I'd dropped the dough while sneezing.

  My hands twitched as I started the spell for locating lost objects. Just as quickly as I'd begun, I stopped myself. Zinnia hadn't just told me not to eat the dough. She'd also warned me to never use other spells in conjunction with it. There could be unforeseen interactions, such as when you take a combination of medications.

  I stepped back and visually searched the surrounding shelves and the floor. I opened the hardcover memoir I'd brought with me and flipped through the pages. No squashed ball of bookwyrm dough. Just a bunch of blank, wordless areas. How would I explain to my aunt what I'd done? Would it be overkill to visit the hospital and request my stomach get pumped?

  Finally, after a several minutes of sweaty panic, I was looking down while turning, my skirt swished out of the way, and I spotted the ball of bookwyrm dough. The pale green blob was on the toe of my right boot. I hadn't felt its landing through the hard leather.

  “You cheeky thing,” I whispered.

  I swear the small bumps and dimples on the dough ball's surface looked exactly like a face, grinning up at me.

  With a sharp kick upward, I whipped the ball into the air, palmed it again, and got back on track with my mission.

  Following Zinnia's instructions, I rolled the dough out into a log shape. Next, I opened the hardcover rock star memoir to a section that was missing words. I took the bookwyrm log and used it like a rolling pin, rolling it up and down over the blank sections.

  Would it work?

  I bit my lower lip as I waited to see a reaction. My lower lip felt numb and tingly, but I quickly forgot about that and the horrible taste in my mouth when the magic started to work.

  Before my witchy eyes, the missing words all reappeared. Not only did the dough work, but it worked better than expected. The magic was so powerful, it didn't even need to contact every page. It was passing through the book on its own, restoring all the words, dozens of pages deep. Faster and faster I worked, flipping the book entire chapters at a time, rolling the dough across to do its work, and watching in amazement as the words appeared.

  The restoration was perfect.

  I closed the book with a crisp, satisfied snap.

  Where was I again? There were so many books. Oh, right. The library. Pull yourself together, Zara.

  Reality came back to me in a swooning rush.

  My mind felt foggy, as though I'd been in a trance—which I technically had been, since using magical objects puts the user into an altered state just as readily as casting a difficult spell. As I returned to the regular world, the shelves around me loomed high overhead. My eyes blurred, and the whole world seemed to be about to topple over on me. I had the book in one hand and the bookwyrm dough clutched tightly in the other. I steadied myself by leaning my back against one bo
okcase. I was breathing heavily, panting, and hadn't noticed until now. My mouth felt like something had used it as a litter box. Why was the horrible taste still not washed away? Was my dry mouth caused by using the magic, or my mouth's natural response to having tasted a mixture of cornstarch, white pepper, and the ground-up body casings of magical bookwyrms.

  Body casings, I thought with horror. That was the ingredient I hadn't wanted to think about. I had actually tasted the dusty old dead body casings of a magical insect or larva or was it eggs?

  I pushed the thought from my mind and put the dough back into the plastic case. I fluffed out my billowy skirts to hide the shape of the container, and walked back toward the library's counter, dropping the perfectly restored book on the table as I walked.

  Mission accomplished, I thought to myself with satisfaction.

  The dough still had plenty of power left in it, so I would simply intercept any books with missing words and restore them as needed. I even had a cover story in case Kathy asked what I was doing. I would tell her the words hadn't been erased or removed at all, but that a white mold was growing on top of the letters, and the dough removed the mold.

  No sane librarian would believe such an absurd tale, of course, but Aunt Zinnia had taught me something new. This spell would increase my ability to be convincing, in almost any verbal situation. The spell was several levels above my current ability. My aunt warned it was unlikely to work very well in my novice hands, but it was all I had. That and my charming smile.

  Frank tapped me on the shoulder. “We might order sushi for lunch,” he said.

  “Count me in,” I replied with a happy grin. Sushi would be just the thing to cleanse my palate.

  He looked directly at my mouth and let out a strangled cry of surprise.

  I covered my mouth with my hand. “Is something wrong?”

  He made a gagging gesture and stepped further away from me, grimacing. “Good one,” he said. “You really got me that time, Zara. I might barf.”