I cleared my throat and said, “Thanks for getting me this.” I lifted up the paper and nodded at her.
She refocused on her marching herb parade and waved to dismiss me. “Go. Read up in the sitting room. I'll be done shortly.”
I waved goodbye to the slapping tentacle herbs—from a distance—and left the kitchen.
In case you're dying to know about the FAQs for Being “Spyryt Chyrmed,” I'm including here exactly what the Geocities page had. I've resisted the urge to change the Y's to their proper letters or correct the unnecessary capitalization of terms.
Top Five FAQs About Being Spyryt Chyrmed
1. Who are these Spyryts that some Wytches attract?
For now, we will only concern ourselves with the Spyryts of humans. These entities of pure energy come from the deceased (usually but not always). They may be recent or ancient. The age of the city you live in will affect the vintage of your Spyryts, since they usually stay within a twenty mile radius of where they died. Most people, when they die, move on to the next plane of existence without lingering. It seems that only those who had some connection to Magyck stick around. Kinda makes you go hmmm about your own future, doesn't it?
2. What do they want?
What do we all want? To live a little more! Some Spyryts wish to share their wisdom, spend more time with family and friends, or to see and do things they enjoyed when they were alive. Occasionally, you will encounter an entity seeking justice or vengeance. You must NOT, I repeat, you MUST NOT get involved in these errands, as they will be very annoying, not to mention dangerous. The police will not be sympathetic if you are caught breaking and entering into homes. Claiming that a “ghost made you do it" will only get you a stay in the loony bin. Trust me on this one.
3. When will they move on?
When they are good and ready. Some spells can speed up the process. Please consult your Elders before attempting any direct communications with the Spyryts. You don't want to accidentally conjure a portal to a Demon Dymensyon and release Hell on Earth! Nobody likes a Wytch who gets into trouble she can't handle or sets off the Apocalypse.
4. Where do they go in between their Communions with the Chyrmed?
My theory is long naps. Stay with me for a minute while I explain. These Spyryts, like some of our respected Elders, experience memory loss and confusion. Without the concrete structure of their bodies, even time loses its linear nature. While their knowledge seems to stay intact, their short-term memory is as slippery as a handful of tadpoles.
5. How do I make money off being Spyryt Chyrmed?
There are many ways a modern Wytch can earn a living from her powers, without being burned at the stake! Please email Beatrizz Riddle today (click here!) for more details. It's not Amway.
Love and Light,
Bea.
Click here for a list of my favorite World Wide Web links. Happy surfing!
“I wish I could click your favorite links, Bea,” I said to the paper. “But I'm a few years late to the party.”
Aunt Zinnia came into the room, applying a bandage to one finger. “Did you say something, Zara?”
“Just talking to Beatrizz,” I said, holding up the paper. “Her last name is Riddle. Is she related to us?”
“What?” Zinnia grabbed the paper from my hand so fast it nearly ripped. She stared at it, eyes wide. “I swear, this name was blacked out when I got this. Completely blacked out with a felt marker, years ago, long before it got photocopied.”
“Do you know Beatrizz Riddle?”
Zinnia was slow to answer and careful with her words. “She's a cousin of mine. Well, a second cousin. That would make her your second cousin once removed.” She licked her lips. “And that's all I can say for now.”
“I hope I get to meet her one day.”
“In time,” Zinnia said vaguely. She frowned at the sheet of paper. “I had no idea Beatrizz was the author of this.” She shook her head. “Secrets revealed are trouble unsealed.”
I reached for my purse and pulled out the magazine I'd taken from the hairdresser that morning. “Look at this,” I said, showing my aunt the blank glossy pages. “Whatever's been erasing things is still at it.”
“Apparently.”
I stood next to her, peering down at the FAQ in one hand and the blank magazine in the other.
“There has to be a connection,” I said. “The same magical spell that blanked this page must have removed the redacted ink from this paper.”
“This is powerful magic,” she said.
“It also removed something else. The tattoo from my hairdresser's hand.”
“A tattoo? You must be joking.”
“Not this time.” I explained how Zoey and I had visited Morganna Faire at the Beach Hair Shack that morning, where I'd seen Josephine Pressman and been sucked into her mind, right through her eyes.
My voice caught in my throat as I recalled the experience of being in the strange dark place with the living, creepy, crawling, glistening walls. I fought through my revulsion and got to the part where I heard the two people talking about something called Project Erasure. I relayed how I'd been briefly overtaken by the ghost I was now quite certain was the girl's father, Perry Pressman, who gave her a very parental lecture. Then I'd gotten my hair cut, and, finally, I'd learned that the hairdresser's tattoo had been erased.
My aunt nodded and looked up at my hair. “Yes, that would explain your tatty appearance. And here I thought you slept in the woods last night.”
I snorted. That was the part of my day's adventures she was going to comment on first? Did my hair really look that bad? I smoothed out more of the backcombing. So much for my attempt at beach hair. Tomorrow I would be back to my usual smooth style.
After a minute of staring at the blanked-out magazine pages, she said, “We ought to look into this matter further after all. I haven't heard any rumors about anything called Project Erasure. And this Pressman girl is not, to the best of my knowledge, a witch. We should check out this Pressman family so I can make a report, if necessary.”
I was already reaching for the slip of scrap paper with the Pressman address.
* * *
We did the sensible thing and ate our sushi before setting out. We couldn't go sleuthing while hungry and risk getting distracted by one of Wisteria's many bakeries.
I phoned Zoey and checked in. She sounded suspicious and slightly hurt that I was at Aunt Zinnia's house without her.
“You'll come with me next time,” I promised, shoving a California roll into my mouth. “This was just a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“Are you eating sushi?”
“Yes,” I said guiltily.
“If you're having sushi, I'm having Pop Tarts for dinner.”
“Okay,” I said, unsure if that was supposed to be punishment or a threat or both. Zoey was mature for her age, but she was still only sixteen and subject to weird Kid Logic.
We said goodbye, and I finished my sushi. The guilt made the soy sauce taste even more salty.
Aunt Zinnia went upstairs to get washed up while I cleaned the containers for recycling. As I shook the leftover green wasabi paste into the compost bucket under the sink, I thought of its next destination, in the pile outside Vincent Wick's office. What was his connection to all these things that were erasing themselves? The only connection I knew of was Kathy's hunch that the slick-haired man might be responsible. But the two of them had history, so it was possible she thought of him whenever anything in her life went wrong.
Even if Vincent Wick had been erasing the text from the library books with a solvent, he couldn't have removed the tattoo from Morganna's hand—not without her noticing. I would, however, keep an eye out for other connections between this phenomenon and Vincent Wick.
Aunt Zinnia came down the stairs and met me in the sitting room.
I took one look at her and said, “You're not going dressed like that.”
“Why not? Whatever is wrong with what I'm wearing?” She fluf
fed out the voluminous green skirt that was quite similar to the one I wore.
“You look like my twin. If we go to the Pressman house, and you look exactly like me, that Josephine girl is going to know something's up immediately. I probably made an impression on her today when I scolded her about being forgetful.”
Zinnia nodded. “I need a disguise. Don't worry. I know a spell.”
I'd been thinking jeans and a hat or a scarf, but a spell was even better. I rubbed my hands. “Sweet.”
She made a tsk-tsk noise and shook her head. “It's well above your skill level, so I'm afraid I can't teach this one to you yet.”
“Not even a sneak peek? I'll be super careful.”
She gave me a stern look that was reminiscent of one my mother used to give, and just as effective. “Zara, wait right here by the door. Don't do anything or touch anything. Give me five minutes.”
I groaned and did as I was told, albeit with a grumpy look on my face. I leaned back against the wall by the show rack, my hands in my pockets to avoid touching things.
After a minute, I slowed my breathing and tried to listen for sounds coming from upstairs. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear anything but a few floor creaks.
At least the prospect of eventually learning this disguise spell was something to look forward to. The spells I'd been practicing for my novice-level witchcraft lessons were unimpressive yet fiddly.
For example, the most recent one was an ultra-specific spell for checking the ripeness of muskmelon, also known as the North American Cantaloupe. Sounds like a pretty good spell, right? I mean, if you truly love perfectly ripened cantaloupe, it's about as handy as a spell can be. Unfortunately, everything about it, from the phrasing of the words to the intricate hand gestures, is terribly convoluted. The spell takes ten minutes to cast. Ten minutes per cantaloupe. Sure, the spell does identify the sweetness of a cantaloupe using the Percent Sucrose Equivalent scale of zero to fifteen. But a person can do a passable job without magic by sniffing the dimple on the blossom side, and that takes fewer than ten seconds.
This is how I know that despite a few mid-nineties leaks on the internet, the secret of magic has not been discovered by the world at large.
If people really knew, then the expression “it happened as if by magic" would mean that some terribly mundane task took ten aggravating minutes longer than necessary.
* * *
While I waited for Zinnia to get ready, there was a knock on her door. She'd instructed me to not touch anything, but the knock came again, so I went and answered it.
Standing on the front porch was an old man with stooped posture. He had a cane in one hand and a black eye patch over one eye. His white hair was uneven and patchy, as though he was molting. He wore dark green slacks that struck me as familiar, though I couldn't put my finger on why.
Spitting from one side of his mouth as he talked, he said, “You're not Zinnia Riddle. What have you done with her, you witch?”
I took a step back and called for my aunt over my shoulder. “Zinnia? There's a gentleman here to see you.”
The stooped old man thrust his cane forward and stepped inside the house without an invitation. He gave me a dirty look with his one good eye.
“You've done something wicked to my Zinnia,” he spat. “Something evil.” He took a few more steps toward me, moving quickly for someone in his condition. In a blink, he'd raised his cane and pointed it at me. My heart began to pound wildly.
“Witch, I have ways of making you talk,” he said.
Chapter 14
“Talk?” I flashed my eyes at him. “Joke's on you, mister, because I love to talk.”
And then, without touching the cane with anything but my magic, I wrenched it from his gnarled hands and tossed it aside.
The cane clattered to the floor.
“Let's talk,” I said toughly.
The man let out a sigh that sounded surprisingly feminine. He straightened up smoothly, like an elastic being stretched. The air around him shimmered, and he transformed into my aunt. Or, should I say, back into my aunt.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I began to clap slowly.
“Good one,” I said. “Take a bow.”
She didn't take a bow. Her face still bore the angry expression the old man had glared at me with.
“Great disguise,” I said. “I guess you got yourself changed upstairs, went out the fire escape, and came around to surprise me. Well, consider me both surprised and impressed.” I looked down at her dark green skirt, which was the same shade the man's trousers had been. “You know, I thought his pants looked familiar, but you fooled me completely.”
Zinnia pursed her lips into a tight-lipped frown as she shook her head slowly. “And you gave yourself away. You gave away your secrets with such little provocation.”
“I was under attack.” I shook my finger at her. “You're lucky you didn't get a couple of blue fireballs chucked at you.”
“Zara Riddle, don't look so pleased with yourself.” She continued to shake her head. “An old man did nothing more than point the rubber tip of his cane at you, and you let him see your witch powers.”
I hung my head in shame. “I guess when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
“The trick is to never use the hammer unless you need to.” She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a foil-wrapped chocolate Easter egg. “Here. You'll thank me later.”
I unwrapped the egg and tossed it into my mouth. My mouth had been watering for dessert ever since the sushi, and the chocolate went down very easily.
“Never mind later, I'll thank you right now,” I said. “This chocolate is delicious. Do I taste cinnamon?”
“No,” she said coolly. “But the spell in that egg should be taking effect right now. You might feel a bit lightheaded.”
“You drugged me?”
The sheepish look on her face confirmed she had. My aunt had drugged me with a chocolate-flavored spell.
I ran back into the kitchen, spat what was left in my mouth into the sink, and stuck my finger down my throat.
“Don't bother vomiting,” Zinnia said. “The spell is already at work, and you'll only waste perfectly good chocolate.”
I tried to open a cupboard door and grab a glass using my telekinetic powers, but nothing happened. I tried again. My powers were busted.
I wheeled around to face my aunt. Words and anger bubbled up. If I knew how to summon a blue fireball, I might have.
Zinnia's face shifted—not through witch magic, but by something primal.
Time shifted, losing its linearity.
In my aunt's face, I saw her sister. My mother. Throwing me out of the house. Sending me away with nothing but the clothes on my back. And all, as she claimed, for my own good. You'll thank me later, she'd said. Well, I hadn't then, and I wouldn't now.
I opened my mouth to tell the woman standing before me what I thought of her punishment. Before I could get the first word out, she reached up and caught my face softly with both palms. She gave me a look that was tender and disarming, her hazel eyes welling up with tears.
“Zara, I'm sorry,” she said softly.
Sorry? This wasn't my mother. She would never apologize.
Zinnia's face came back into focus.
She said, “The spell will wear off in a few days, and you've got to understand it wasn't my choice.” She blinked away the pooled water in her eyes. “We have these rules for a reason, and you were overdue to face your first challenge.”
My throat was still swollen with anger, and my words came out sounding bitter despite my intention. “Don't be sorry. I'm the one who failed.”
“And I failed as your teacher.”
“But I'm the idiot who flashed her magic around in front of a complete stranger.” I swallowed with difficulty. My mouth felt cottony, and she was right about the lightheadedness. Whatever had been in the chocolate egg was dulling my senses along with shorting out my magical circuits.
<
br /> “That you did,” she said. “And you understand why it was wrong?”
“My impulsive behavior could have put us all in danger.”
She was still holding my face in her hands. We both stood the exact same height in our matching boots, perfect for locking eyes.
“You'll thank me later,” she said again.
I forced my mouth into the approximation of a smile. “We'll see.”
She finally released my face from her hands. The world spun. Without her holding onto me, I felt light enough to float away, to drift elsewhere.
“It won't be long,” she said. “Just a few days, maybe less.”
“What do you mean, maybe less? Time off for good behavior?”
“Not exactly.”
The lightheadedness got worse. “You don't know how long it will last,” I said. “You put a spell on me without knowing the exact effects.”
She rubbed her hands together. They sounded dry, in need of hand lotion. “We really should get going,” she said.
“Going? Where?” I'd forgotten all about our plans to visit the Pressman residence. Our mission came flooding back to me, and the whole thing seemed so ridiculous and pointless. I didn't want to go knock on someone's door and fish for information. I wanted to go home and pull the covers over my pounding head.
“Yes,” she replied. “Let's not dilly dally and waste the light.”
I went to the door, using my hand to turn the knob in the non-magical way, and paused. “Shouldn't you put your disguise back on?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I can still turn the projection on again tonight, but my energy won't last forever. The closer we get to my usual bedtime, the more difficult it is for me to focus.”
“Right,” I said. I knew that. I'd noticed it myself—that my concentration typically waned around nine o'clock. If I was using my telekinetic powers throughout the day, after nine o'clock was when I'd drop teacups and other objects. But a few hours later, if I stayed up past my bedtime, I'd start to get a second wind around midnight.
3-Book Series Bundle: Wisteria Witches, Wicked Wisteria, Wisteria Wonders - Cozy Witch Mysteries Page 35
