We all started giggling.
Then, when I looked over at Chessa, I saw nothing.
Nothing.
Now, I don't mean I saw nothing unusual. I mean I saw nothing.
Where Chessa had been sitting on the white sofa, there was an abyss, malignant and unnatural. Reality ripped apart. It was as though all the world were being sucked into a void, and I sat at the torn, raw edge of it, the precipice of something impossible yet theoretical, like the square root of a negative integer. My breath whooshed out of me, swallowed by the gaping maw of the black hole.
As I stared into the yawning void, it stared back at me.
With eyes.
They were Chessa's pale-blue eyes, yet they were impossibly large and inhuman. As I gazed in horror and reverence upon her face, it brought to mind an octopus, then a dragon, and then a head with no body, and at the same time, a body with no head. Impossible wings sprung from its back, a sharp beak from where it might have had a mouth. This monstrosity, this deity, clung to the seams of the world, at the edge of the void, with long tentacles that hissed like snakes and flashed teeth like razor blades, the silver metal glinting despite the absence of light or goodness or anything else.
My shoulder stung. Words resonated somewhere within my frozen body: Spirits of the Deep.
I whipped my head to the right, a reflex reaction to the pain of my flesh becoming molten lava and then stone.
As I turned, my eyes would not obey, and stayed fixed upon the writhing, soul-destroying vision before me, but then the pain intensified. The monster in the void crawled inside me, through my optic nerves, and into my mind, where it gnawed on my last shreds of hope and humanity.
I heard someone's voice, far away. “Get her some water.”
Another voice, “What did you do?”
“You were the one poking her!”
A baby was wailing.
I could see nothing now. I was, mercifully, blind. My mind turned in on itself, folded, and went black.
* * *
When I became conscious again, my head was throbbing.
Three blondes sat across the living room from me, watching nervously. In tableau, they looked exactly like Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru, the Three Monkeys.
Chloe, as the monkey who sees no evil, covered her eyes with her hands. Charlize had her hands over her ears. And Chessa, whom my brain told me not to look at but I did anyway, covered her mouth. Her mouth. Her terrible abyss mouth with the razors for teeth and the nothingness...
The baby wasn't there, and by the change in the angle of the light coming in the window—not to mention the clock on the river-stone fireplace mantel—hours had passed since my arrival at the party.
Charlize dropped her hands first. “Oh, good. There you are. We were so worried that we'd already broken our new toy.” She elbowed her sisters.
Chloe gazed at me with pouting lips. “Was it Charlize poking you? I told her not to play so rough. Unfortunately, moderation is not my sister's strong suit.”
Chessa folded her hands on her lap gracefully. “I'm afraid it was me. My glamour powers haven't returned to normal yet. The coma weakened my ability to hide myself, and Zara has the perception of a witch.” She looked down at the wood floor between us and whispered, “I could have killed Zara.”
Charlize said, “But you didn't. Don't sweat it. Zara's a tough witch.”
Chessa shook her head. “I could have driven her insane.”
There was a long, silent pause.
Finally, I shrugged and said lightly, “It's not like anyone would have noticed.”
Chapter 33
On Tuesday, two days after the baby shower, I was surprised to see Chet at the grocery store. He stood in front of a display of cantaloupes, looking overwhelmed.
I'd been avoiding him lately, and not just because his fiancée could turn my brain inside out in a flash if she wanted to.
The truth was, he'd been so nice to me ever since we'd gotten Chessa back, and it made me uncomfortable. He was nice in the manner of a stranger at an airport, as though we didn't know each other. But I knew him. Between the monsters we'd battled over the past few months, and the memories I'd held onto from Chessa's spiritual residue, I knew him deeply and completely. And I'd seen him tear apart Dr. Bhamidipati. Even though it had been self-defense, I'd seen him kill a man.
How could we have any sort of normal neighborly over-the-fence small talk now? What could we possibly talk about with any degree of sincerity? How could I look into his eyes and not see the wolf in him, remember the blood dripping from his fangs?
Lately, I'd been leaving my house by the back door and slipping down the side street rather than walk by the front of his house. I'd even been shopping at the grocery store that was two stores away from our neighborhood. The store was inconvenient and had a sub-par produce selection. Chet Moore should not have been there. But there he was, frozen with indecision by the pyramid of cantaloupes. Was he in that store to purposefully avoid me? The nerve.
I might have turned around and left before he noticed me, but he was standing by the cantaloupes. I happened to know the specific spell for selecting a perfectly ripe melon. It was as though I'd been preparing for weeks just for this moment. Was this really a coincidence? My aunt had a psychic sense, and she'd been the one to assign me the cantaloupe spell. If magic had a mind of its own, it certainly had a sense of humor as well.
I approached Chet from the rear. “Not that one,” I said.
Chet fumbled the melon and dropped it. I steadied my instinct to use magic to grab the fruit before it hit the ground. You'd think it would be easy to prevent yourself from performing levitation magic in public, but it's not. That same instinct you have to lunge for something as it falls is still there, in magical form.
The cantaloupe struck the store's tile floor and split open, spilling orange guts.
Guts.
I recalled the wreckage inside the underground coma ward. Dr. Bhamidipati's entrails, spraying the concrete-walled room as a snarling wolf shook the giant bird's body in its jaws. Guts everywhere.
“What a shame,” Chet said, looking down at the smashed melon. “That was a nice ripe one.” He grabbed a plastic bag from the nearby roll and scooped the remains. “I don't know if this store has a you-break-you-buy policy, but I'll bring this up to the checkout.”
“Because you're one of the good guys,” I said.
He didn't reply. What could he say? I'd seen him turn into a snarling wolf and rip another creature limb from limb. Had it truly been self-defense? The doctor had been attacking me at the time, so Chet's actions were deemed, by the DWM, necessary force. But there wasn't going to be a trial. The DWM took care of its own business, buried its own bodies.
Chet tucked the busted melon into his cart, and turned back toward the display. “You look well,” he said without looking directly at me.
“I wasn't hurt physically during the... accident.” I rubbed my temples where the fake soul-transfer crown had dug into my flesh. All that remained was a memory, as my head wound had healed up within hours. “How's Rob?” The poor guy had taken a stray bullet to the shoulder.
“Back to normal.” Chet's mouth twitched into the smallest of smiles. “Normal for Rob, that is. He complains a lot.”
“And Knox?”
“Like a rock. I'll send them both your regards.”
“Maybe I'll drop by your office sometime. I'd like to try that famous cherry cheesecake you have in your cafeteria.”
Chet's smile disappeared. “Zara, you can't—”
“I know.” I glanced around the produce section. The selection wasn't half as nice as the one at the store in our neighborhood.
Two swinging doors banged as a man in a dark-green apron emerged from the back with a rolling cart of bananas. One of the wheels squeaked.
The man gave us a curious look and asked, “You folks finding everything okay?”
I answered, “Yes. Fine. Just bumped into a friend.”
&n
bsp; Chet gave the man a friendly wave, and then said to me, louder than we'd been talking before, “I've been keeping busy.”
“With work?”
“Furniture shopping,” he said. “I had to buy Chessa a new dresser to replace... the other one.”
I nodded. “The mirrored dresser that you smashed with your fist, during your temper tantrum.”
Chet winced. “Oh, and I've got that manual you wanted. It's at my house. The, uh, one you asked for.”
“You mean the one I negotiated for and earned, fair and square.” We were talking about the DWM's operations manual, which promised a wealth of information about magic. Even if it wasn't a treasure trove, there had to be some juicy tidbits in there.
Chet nodded and watched the produce manager, who was pretending not to overhear us while he unloaded bananas. Right about now would have been the perfect time for me to use my sound-bubble spell to give us some privacy, but I didn't want privacy. Not like this.
I reached across Chet and grabbed a cantaloupe. “Did you know there are other ways to choose the perfect cantaloupe, besides smashing them open on the grocery store's floor? You can smell this little indented spot.”
The produce manager cleared his throat and rolled his cart away. Now two, or three, or perhaps all four wheels squeaked without the weight of the bananas.
Chet leaned over the cantaloupe I held. “What am I smelling for?”
“Sweetness.” I glanced around to make sure nobody was within hearing range. “But since we both just happen to be at the same grocery store that's an inconvenient distance from where we live, I might as well pick the perfect cantaloupe for you.” I cast my cantaloupe-ripeness-detecting spell with minimal hand motions. The perfect melon lit up magically, glowing brightly for my eyes only. I plucked it from the display and handed it to Chet. “This one. Eat it within five hours for optimal taste and texture.”
He gave me a suspicious look. “Did you do something to it?”
“No,” I said vehemently, though I couldn't be certain if the spell detected ripeness or facilitated ripeness. I was still learning the language of magic, and some of the syntax was tricky. For every rule, there were dozens of exceptions. In the movies, they often use rhyming verse or Latin for spells. I wished magic were as easy as Latin.
He cupped the chosen cantaloupe gently with both hands. “What are you doing for dinner tonight?”
“This.” I nodded at my shopping cart, which was empty except for a bag of multicolored marshmallows, a jar of peanut butter, and a bunch of celery.
“Let me guess,” Chet said. “Ants on a log with pastel ants?”
“We call them elephants,” I said. “And we pick out the pink marshmallows only, so it's pink elephants on a log.”
“That sounds...” He grimaced. “Why don't you come over to my house for dinner? You can supply the, uh, dessert.”
“That would be fun,” I said.
“Chessa would love to see you again.”
I snapped my fingers. “Oh. I just remembered. I have a big stack of homework. If I don't memorize a bunch of stuff, my aunt will reverse the function of my microwave and make it freeze food instead of heating it up. And I'm not just making that up as an imaginary punishment. She has actually threatened to do that specific thing.”
“I understand,” Chet said.
Did he? Did he understand that when I looked at him, I still felt a combination of Chessa's residual love and longing for him, mixed with my own natural crush on my handsome and mysterious neighbor? Did he know my dreams had only gotten more vivid since Chessa's return, and that when I woke each morning, in that nearly lucid state, I could smell him on me, feel the heat of his skin, taste his kiss on my lips?
Did he know that earlier that day at the library, I'd taken a casual look at the real estate listings and calculated the costs of selling my house and moving to a different street, just so I wouldn't be living next to him, continuously aware of his presence, his comings and goings whenever I heard his vehicle on the street?
He looked me in the eyes and repeated it. “I understand.”
And then, I saw something inside him. The way I was able to see the snakes on Chloe and Charlize. I saw the tenderness he felt toward me, the daydream he was having right then and there, of reaching out and grabbing a handful of my red hair, pulling me close to him, and kissing me passionately as we bumped into the fruit display and cantaloupes rained down around us.
Then he blinked, and it was gone. “I should be going,” he said, taking a step back. “Before we accidentally smash up all these melons.”
“Yes,” I said. “Have a nice dinner tonight with your family.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “Send Chessa my regards.”
Chet made a direct line for the cashiers without glancing back at me.
I took my time lingering over the assortment of cheese and dips to avoid bumping into him a second time in the parking lot. If he had his vehicle with him, he was likely to offer me a ride home, extending the awkwardness to excruciating levels.
The downside to my plan was that I found a dozen types of cheese that begged to come home with me, some of them on the pricey side. I was deliberating over the spicy goat cheese versus the mild flavor when my phone started ringing. I answered it without checking the call display, because I had a feeling it was my daughter, wondering where her dinner was.
“You caught me fondling various types of cheese,” I said into the phone.
Instead of my daughter's sweet-yet-hungry voice, it was a male voice who answered with a mirthful chuckle. “That's pretty much what I expected you to say.”
I knew who it was instantly. I squeezed the soft cheese in my hand so hard, it squished free of its plastic wrap. I tossed the mangled cheese into my basket and looked around me wildly. I didn't see him, but that didn't mean he wasn't there.
“Zara, are you still there? Don't hang up.”
I clutched the phone tightly to my ear and demanded, “How did you get this number?”
“Now, now. Is that any way to greet a beloved family member?”
About the Author - Angela Pepper - Series Reading Order
Angela Pepper's humorous mystery series are each set in different locations, so you can sample the series in any order you wish. All books are complete novels, with one mystery solved per book.
The Stormy Day Mysteries by Angela Pepper are set in the "regular" world, with no magic or ghosts. In this charming series, a young woman is drawn into a private investigation career, with plenty of laughs and twists along the way. Set in the cozy town of Misty Falls, Oregon, this series features a large cast of lovable small town characters. The books are immersive, 300-page novels.
Stormy Day Mysteries - Contemporary Small Town Cozy Mystery
#1 - Death of a Dapper Snowman
#2 - Death of a Crafty Knitter
#3 - Death of a Batty Genius
#4 - Death of a Modern King
#5 - Death of a Double Dipper
Angela Pepper's Wisteria Witches series features a wise-cracking mother and daughter witch duo, and has been favorably compared to Gilmore Girls. This series is set in an alternative urban fantasy setting, with plenty of magic and supernatural elements. There are three full-length novels, with more titles releasing in 2017. These books are packed with laugh-out-loud humor, zany adventure, wildly imaginative mysteries, and supernatural creatures.
Wisteria Witches - Witch Cozy Mysteries / Light Urban Fantasy
#1 - Wisteria Witches
#2 - Wicked Wisteria
#3 - Wisteria Wonders
#4 - to be announced
Eli Carter & The Ghost Hackers Paranormal Mysteries books by Angela Pepper are cozy-ish supernatural mysteries. These are shorter reads with fast-paced stories told through the eyes of a humorous, cheeky narrator, in a style compared to that of beloved storyteller Douglas Adams.
Eli Carter & the Ghost Hackers - Paranormal Mysteries
#1 - The Cat Who Went Bump in the Nig
ht
#2 - The Ghost Who Wasn't There
#3 - The Dog Who Barked Fire
The Restless Spirits of the Southwest books by Angela Pepper are set in the regular world, but with the addition of a ghost or two in each book. These tales range from humorous to suspenseful, with thrilling twists and danger for the main character. The first book in this series, Date with a Ghost, is a shorter read, and subsequent books are full-length novels.
Restless Spirits of the Southwest - Supernatural Thrillers
#1 - Date with a Ghost
#2 - Interview with a Ghost
#3 - Dancing with a Ghost
Girl in the Shadows is the first tale in a private investigation series set in the contemporary world. It follows an insurance investigator with unorthodox methods.
Diamond Files Mysteries (Private Investigator Duo)
#1 - Girl in the Shadows
Look for all these books under ANGELA PEPPER at your favorite bookstore, or click the titles above to find links and descriptions at www.angelapepper.com
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