Wisteria Wonders

by Angela Pepper

  “You've been underselling your apartment building,” I said, gesturing up to the avant-garde chandelier at the peak of the lofty entry. “The way you talk about your low-maintenance place, I pictured something more modest. This place isn't ostentatious, but you have to admit it's fabulous.” I ran my hands over the exposed bricks of the interior wall. “And it was a candy factory?” I licked my lips. “Just imagine all the delicious caramel and sugar treats that were made inside here. If these walls could talk, they would say, 'Here, have a candied apple.'”

  Frank snickered and nodded for me to follow him into the stairwell.

  “I'm glad that's what you hear the walls saying,” he said. “Because 'Have a candied apple' is much better than 'Die, die, die!'” He gave me a knowing look and paused for drama before continuing up the stairwell. “This old building did house a business that made candy, at some point, but it was also the base of operations for a pest control company for nearly two decades. You could say the poison of choice was actual poison. It was owned by the Wick family during that time. And before that, well, let's just say the developer who converted it into lofts was smart to downplay that particular period of Wisteria history.”

  I stopped caressing the exposed brick walls. “Was it a leper colony?” I shook my head. “No, it's too grand a building, and there are plenty of small islands off the coast that would have served better for a leprosarium.”

  “You're getting warmer.”

  “And you're really going to make me guess, aren't you?” I touched the wall again, and experienced a sensation of loneliness and gloom, along with a feeling of claustrophobia. I suddenly wanted out, and feared I'd never escape. Underneath that, I feared what I would do if I did escape. “It was a prison,” I said coldly. “A prison for the criminally insane.”

  “Correct.” We'd reached the door of Frank's place, on the third floor. He gave me a look of admiration as he ushered me in.

  Once he'd closed the dark wooden door behind us, he said, “That was wonderful, Zara. It must be so exciting to be a witch, and such a powerful one. I don't throw many parties, but I've had a few visitors over the years, and not one of them has inferred the building's original purpose without a plethora of hints.”

  “It was a lucky guess.” I rubbed the chill off my forearms as I looked up at the exposed wood beams, half expecting to see a ghostly noose and semi-transparent skeletons hanging from the rafters.

  But there were no ghouls on the ceiling, or anything upsetting about the inside of the lofted apartment. Frank's decor was thoughtful and minimal, a mix of country-style antiques and clean-lined modern pieces. The foreboding I'd experienced in the stairwell was gone. Frank Wonder's personal living space was downright cozy, a reflection of his warm personality.

  Frank was at the stove, standing over a sizzling pan. “Omelet?”

  “If that's what I'm smelling, yes, please.” I took a seat at the bar-style counter where I could watch him cook. As he offered me a coffee, I realized I'd forgotten my half-full takeout mug in the taxi. This forgetfulness was cause for concern. Was Chessa a tea drinker? Had she been possessing me during the taxi ride over? It wasn't like me to lose coffee.

  Frank served me a lovely breakfast that was only diminished slightly by his joke about producing the eggs for the omelet himself. I pretended to gag, we both laughed, and we got down to discussing the proverbial elephant in the room.

  I held back telling him about my underwater swim and possible shifting ability. This morning's social call was all about Frank, and his new shifter powers. I wouldn't be rude and overshadow his excitement with the idea that I could be a real-life Ariel the Mermaid.

  Frank was eager to talk about his newly discovered flamingo shifter abilities. He told me it hadn't hurt at all to shift back and forth, and once he'd calmed down and gotten back to human form, he'd changed back one more time under the supervision of Dr. Bob at the DWM. He'd been discharged with a clean bill of health, and now, after a good night's sleep, he'd never felt better. I told him I was so happy for him.

  “Before this, I dreamed about flying every night of my life,” Frank said. “And yesterday, after I actually did fly, I dreamed I was bowling.”

  “Uh. Congratulations?”

  “I bowled a perfect game,” he said proudly. “And I had other dreams, too, which is new for me, because it's usually just flying.”

  “Your subconscious is moving on to new things.”

  “I'll say. Who knows what I'll do next?” He took a break from eating toast to fidget with his dyed-pink hair. “The creature inside me has been dormant for so long, dreaming about getting free, but it took a good shock from a witch to break me out of my shell.” He gave me an earnest look. “I can't thank you enough, Zara.”

  I retrieved the feathers from my purse and placed them on the counter. “I found these on the floor at the library,” I explained. “Since then, they haven't shifted back or disappeared. I kept them out of curiosity, to see what would happen.” I felt myself blush. “Nothing happened, and now I feel creepy about bagging parts of your body as evidence.”

  Frank snorted a laugh and picked up the plastic bag. “Nonsense. These are wonderful souvenirs of my first time shifting. I might get them framed.” He held the bag up to the light streaming in through an overhead skylight. “Yes. I will have these feathers framed, and I will proudly hang them on my wall.” He looked at me. “Do you have any souvenirs of your own, from when you first turned into a witch?”

  “Nothing you could frame,” I said. “There was the Murder Toaster, but I turned that over to the police.”

  “Murder Toaster?” Frank sucked in a breath excitedly. “We don't have long before work, so talk fast, Zara. Talk fast!”

  I rose to the challenge, and—after the reassurance of secrecy—filled him in on all spirit-related shenanigans from recent months. I felt bad about hogging the conversation when I wanted to hear more about his time at the DWM, but he insisted nothing interesting had happened beyond a physical examination and a few hours of talk therapy with the staff doctor.

  We agreed that we were both glad to have someone to talk to about our secrets.

  As he tidied up the kitchen, Frank said, “Since we're being completely honest here, I want to know how you got the librarian job. Did you cast a spell?”

  I swore to him that I hadn't, and couldn't have, because my witch powers hadn't activated until my daughter's birthday. I'd gotten the job the regular way. There weren't any librarian postings at my local libraries, so I'd done a national search online and seen the listing for Wisteria. I'd never even heard of the town before, but I applied anyway.

  “Impossible,” Frank said. “We have a huge waiting list of applicants, so we don't advertise at all, let alone in national databases.”

  “Weird,” I said, and then I thought of my first “accidental” meeting with Zinnia, and her insistence that she'd had nothing to do with my move, other than writing the reference letter when asked about me by the head librarian.

  I looked down at the silver-wire-and-sea-glass bracelet on my wrist. Magic has a mind of its own.

  Frank leaned over his kitchen counter and examined the bracelet. “This bracelet belongs to the other woman? The tragically moribund Chessa?”

  “She's not dead yet. But yes, it's hers. And it's possible she was the invisible hand guiding me here, to Wisteria.”

  “You think a ghost made a national job posting on the Internet just for you?”

  I pursed my lips and swished them back and forth, processing. “It sounds crazy when you say it out loud. But then again, so does pretty much everything that's been happening to me lately.”

  “Well, however or whatever or whomever it was leading you here to Wisteria, you need to be careful.” He glanced up at the skylight, smiled at the blue sky, and then slowly lowered his chin. He gazed at me with a peaceful expression. “Be careful of this sea devil, this snake-haired seductress.” His words of warning didn't match his relaxed expression, wh
ich made it all the more disturbing.

  I swallowed hard. Frank was gullible enough to open a can of spring-coiled fake snakes, but he also had one of the sharpest minds of anyone I'd known. If he also suspected Chessa was behind my cross-country move, it wasn't such a crazy stretch.

  “You really think she's a sea devil? Did you meet her sister, Charlize, when you were at the DWM?”

  “Briefly,” he said. “She didn't show me her shifter form, though.”

  “Consider yourself lucky.” I fidgeted with the loose bracelet. “Did you learn much about how the shifter trait runs in families?”

  “No, but I was only there for a few hours. Dr. Bob said he'd be in touch soon. Why?”

  “On the taxi ride over here, I noticed an interesting graphic on the driver's shirt. He'd been to Singapore recently, and was wearing a souvenir T-shirt with a merlion on it—that's a mythical creature with a lion's head and the body of a fish.”

  “You think Chessa might turn you into a merlion?” He picked up a bag of coffee and pointed to the familiar Starbucks logo. “What about a mermaid? As far as sea witches go, at least mermaids are beautiful and alluring.” He paused and narrowed his eyes at me. “There's something you're not telling me. Come on, Zara. No more secrets.”

  I grinned and nodded. I was lucky to have such a sharp-minded friend. I hurriedly told him about my adventure at the beach the night before, how I'd been drawn to the ocean, disappearing from Zoey's sight for several minutes.

  Frank squinted at me. “Why didn't you look at yourself and see what you were? As soon as I turned into a flamingo, I knew what I was.”

  “I don't know.” I shrugged. “My arm looked like smoke, and I think I saw some tentacles behind me, but it might have been a passing squid.”

  “Weird. You need to get the skinny on Chessa's abilities, either from her fiancé or her sisters.”

  “They're so secretive,” I said. “But I'm going to demand some answers before I help any more.”

  “Good. You need to know if you're going to suddenly turn into a merlion.”

  “Or something worse,” I said. “There are so many sea-based creatures. There's Charybdis from The Odyssey, who causes massive whirlpools. Or, the Inuit Myths talk about Qalupalik, a humanoid creature with green skin who lives in the sea. This baddie makes a creepy humming sound before showing up to steal children. Then there's the Dobhar-chú, a primitive beaver, or a dog-otter combo thing from Irish Folklore. Sounds cute, but you won't like the Dobhar-chú when it's hungry... for your meaty flesh.”

  Frank clutched his hands to his chest with a theatrical gasp. “You wouldn't devour your friend!”

  I shrugged playfully.

  His eyes widened. “But I'm so old and sinewy. Yuck. You'd have to cook me for two days in a pot of wine, like coq au vin.”

  I nodded at the mermaid logo on the Starbucks coffee. “Don't worry. If Chessa's not a gorgon after all, she's probably something sweet and alluring. A woman with a house so lovely wouldn't be an icky monster.”

  “Don't be so sure of that. She could be overcompensating.”

  “Or she could be a beautiful, kind mermaid.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows. “Or she could be the evil seductress type of siren who sings, calling sailors to their deaths.”

  “I'm hoping for more of a clumsy redheaded princess who sings happy songs about life under the sea.”

  “I'd pay good money to see that,” Frank said.

  He and I discussed sea creatures of lore and legend while we finished tidying the kitchen.

  I did my share of the dishes the traditional way, using my hands. I'd showed Frank my levitation skills, but I could see he wasn't entirely comfortable being around flying utensils. Not yet.

  We were about to leave for work when Frank stopped me at the door.

  Hesitantly, he said, “Do you trust me to try something?”

  I took a step back. “Go ahead. Shift away.”

  “Not that.” He smiled sheepishly. “I was thinking about trying something for your problem.” He shuffled his feet. “Growing up, I had an uncle who called himself a shaman.”

  “You come from a supernatural family? That explains a lot.”

  He scrunched one side of his face. “Not exactly. Uncle Felix usually announced he was a shaman somewhere between drink five and drink seven. He would gather the family around, get everyone worked up, and then put on a show, summoning spirits. The thing is, a few times, it seemed to work. Silverware would rise up into the air, chandeliers would swing, and doorbells would ring on their own.”

  “Spooky,” I said, rubbing my forearms. That explained why my floating spoon demonstration had made him uneasy. Even being a witch and having the ability to do all those things myself didn't take away the tingle I got from hearing ghost stories.

  Frank reached for the door handle. “Never mind,” he said. “My uncle's been dead for years, and while I do a hilarious impression of him that cracks up everyone in the family, it's a stupid idea for me to try to talk directly to this sea-witch spirit that may or may not be haunting you.”

  I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “No, Frank. It's not a stupid idea. And even if it doesn't work, I'd enjoy this supposedly hilarious impression of your uncle.”

  “Okay, then. Brace yourself for Uncle Felix.” Frank rubbed his hands, and then mimed tossing back a drink, followed by four more. I had to admire his commitment to the impression.

  He took my hands, closed his eyes, and let out a low, guttural moan.

  “Spirits of the deep,” he intoned. “I call upon you to visit the living, here in the mortal realm.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

  He continued. “Spirits of the deep, I call upon the one named Chessa, the one who walks between the living and the dead, the one who has been missed by her beloved sisters and beloved beau for twelve long months.” He trembled. His eyelashes fluttered, but his eyes remained closed. “Spirits of the deep, I ask you for an audience. If Chessa is the reason why Zara Riddle was drawn to Wisteria, show us a sign.”

  The floorboards around us squeaked. Neither of us had moved an inch from where we stood, just inside Frank's door. Something at the edge of my vision moved. Was it the door handle, turning? If it had been, it stopped.

  Frank moaned again.

  The hairs on the back of my neck, as well as on my forearms, could not be more upright.

  “Chessa,” he hissed. “Chessa, show yourself!”

  The fierceness of his command startled me, but not as much as the icy sensation on my wrist. Something cold gripped me tightly, to the point of pain. My bracelet unclasped itself and fell to the floor with a clatter.

  “Don't trust him,” Frank whispered, his voice hoarse and otherworldly. “Be afraid.”

  Frank's eyes flew open, and he yanked his hands from mine.

  Chapter 12

  The icy chill on my wrist spread throughout my body.

  I repeated Frank's words as a question. “Don't trust him? Be afraid?”

  His wide-open eyes were blank. “What? Did I say that?”

  “Don't joke around,” I said.

  “I swear I wasn't joking around,” Frank said. “That must have been our sign from the Spirits of the Deep. Unfortunately, I have no idea what I meant by it.”

  The chill in my body was already dissipating. I cleared my throat self-consciously. What were we doing?

  I looked down at the bracelet on the floor. “That might have been a sign, I guess. Or a loose clasp.”

  “Do you feel anything?”

  I put my hands on my waist and adjusted the waistband of my puffy black skirt with the pink poodle embroidery. “I feel overdressed.”

  “Besides that,” he said patiently.

  I rubbed my wrist, recalling the chilly sensation I'd felt. “I did feel something where the bracelet was, like an icy cold hand, or a metal handcuff.”

  “A sign.” Frank nodded gravely. “Uncle Felix would take anything, even
the smallest draft that flickered a candle, as a sign from the other realm. Or as a sign that his drink needed a refill.”

  “It's too early for drinking, right?” I gave him a sidelong look.

  “Sadly, yes.”

  “We should be getting to our jobs at the library. I'll keep wearing the bracelet, unless you think this was a sign she doesn't want me to borrow her stuff?”

  He knelt and picked up the silver-and-sea-glass bracelet. “It might have been a coincidence. This clasp is loose, and you were fussing with it for a while before I called upon the Spirits of the Deep.”

  “Speaking of Spirits of the Deep, isn't that a song?”

  Frank stood and helped me fasten the bracelet back onto my wrist. “You're thinking of 'Rolling in the Deep,' by Adele.”

  “I love that song.”

  “Me, too. We can listen in my car on the way to work.”

  * * *

  We left the apartment, took the elevator down to the underground parkade, and started out for work in Frank's car.

  It was another beautiful summer day in Wisteria.

  Frank asked, “Shall we roll back the convertible top and crank the Adele tunes?”

  “Actually, if you don't mind, I'd love to phone Chet and see if I can get more information about his fiancée.”

  “Good idea. We can research gorgons and sea monsters at work today.”

  “Assuming she is one. Just because her other triplet sisters have snakes for hair doesn't mean she does, too.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Frank stopped the car and checked both ways before making a left turn toward the library. “Oh! This must be intuition from your psychic connection with coma girl.”

  “Hold that thought,” I said, turning to show him the phone at my ear. “It's ringing.”

  Three rings later, Chet answered his phone with a gruff sound that passed for hello.

  “Did I catch you in the middle of something, Mr. Moore?” I didn't know why I was calling him Mr. Moore, but it made me smile.

  He hesitated before answering. “I've got some time.” He added, seemingly as an afterthought, “For you.”