Wisteria Wyverns

by Angela Pepper

  “Hey! I’m single by choice. It’s better to have no relationship than one built on lies.” In the back of my mind, I registered Jo Pressman disagreeing with me. Being alone sucks. No man is perfect, so why not enjoy a cute one who makes you feel alive?

  My pale-skinned hot tub companion shifted forward on the bench seat and leaned forward, avoiding eye contact. She splashed water over her face and slicked back her gleaming black hair. Had her features always been so sharp and angular? The more I looked at her face, the more I saw the differences between us instead of the similarities.

  “I don’t care what you think,” she said with a wounded tone that said otherwise. “Teddy B makes me feel wonderful and young again.”

  “Great. Good for you.” I leaned back and let my legs float up. I wriggled my pale, unadorned toes. A few minutes of calm silence passed, and I started having the deep thoughts about my toes that I usually had when I was in a hot tub. Why wouldn’t my baby toes bend at the joints, anyway? My baby toes had knuckles. They could bend, in theory.

  “You shouldn’t be so hard on people,” she said.

  I snorted at the irony.

  “We’re all doing the best we can. Teddy says the world is full of people who are trying so hard to not let anyone down.”

  “Sure.” I’d heard him say that as well. “So, what’s the deal with his ex-wife, anyway? What happened there?”

  “When did he mention an ex-wife to you?”

  I shrugged, which made a pleasant splashing sound in the hot water, so I did it twice. “Back when Rhys was at the house and Bentley walked me to work one day. Your blue jay spy was there, remember? It flew off after Bentley gave it a peanut.”

  She nodded. “They do get distracted sometimes. What did he say, exactly?”

  My new and improved witch memory brought the exact dialog back. “Bentley said he didn’t pack up and move to Wisteria just for the cupcake bakeries and sunny weather.”

  “He moved to start over. How did the subject come up?”

  “He’d been bugging me about why I wasn’t married. I turned the tables, and he said he’d already been married. I took it from his tone that once was enough for him.” I floated my feet higher as I slid down deeper into the hot water, framing my mother’s face between my big toes. “But I’m sure you knew that.”

  She said something about love being blind, but I didn’t hear her over the bubbling water that was now covering my ears.

  My vision wavered. The heat was making my head swim. I felt my resident spirit stirring inside me. She had been in this same hot tub not long before she died, talking about guys and love with some female coworkers.

  “Love might be blind, but lust sure isn’t,” Jo said through my mouth, echoing a past conversation. “I see a hot guy, and everything else disappears. Then I see a hotter guy, and the guy who used to be hot disappears. They just vanish into thin air, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Vanish into thin air? I waited for more, but she was done. I pushed myself upright in the hot tub.

  My mother’s eye twitched. “Was that the dead thing talking?” She waved a wet hand, spraying droplets across my face. “Don’t answer. I already know. Her voice is so grating, so idiotic. The poor little fool is better off dead.”

  I jolted as though slapped. “That was cruel,” I said. “She heard you. She doesn’t understand what’s happening, but she’s still devastated.”

  “Good. At least she’ll be quiet now, and we can talk without her interrupting,” my mother said.

  “You’ve done this before. Is that how you used to manage yours?”

  She narrowed her hazel eyes and glared at me across the bubbling water. “Zarabella, you need to get control over them. If you let them take over, they’ll ruin your life.”

  “My life isn’t so perfect that it can’t take a little more chaos.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that.”

  “Mom, they need me. I’m helping them. I’m not like you. I can’t turn my back on people who need help. My heart isn’t made of stone. I could never turn someone away when they need me the most, no matter what mistakes they’ve made.”

  She pursed her lips. We both knew I was no longer talking about the spirits. This was about our unfinished business—the business that had started when she threw me out of the house for the crime of being pregnant.

  We stared into each other’s eyes. The heat from the water made my head swim. The arteries on my neck pulsed with a force that made my ears whoosh. My mother’s eyes, which were as fierce and angry as they were beautiful, drilled into me.

  And then she blinked and broke away, looking up, her expression suddenly jubilant. She waved one hand wildly.

  “Over here,” she called out in a cheery tone. “Hello!”

  Her abrupt mood shift reminded me of all the times she’d done something similar during my childhood. She’d be screaming at me in a rage one minute, and then the phone would ring. She’d pick up the receiver, turn away from me, and completely change. Suddenly she was a calm and pleasant woman who was “so pleased” to hear from the caller. As a child, I’d found it maddening and intensely unfair. How could she be so upset with me over something so seemingly unfixable and unsolvable when clearly the outrage could be flicked off at will, like a light switch?

  She kept waving. “Aliyah! Come join us!”

  Aliyah? My mother didn’t know anyone named Aliyah during her first life.

  I turned and looked, followed her gaze.

  A robe-wearing woman with very full lips was approaching. Thanks to her distinctive mouth, I knew she had to be the same woman who’d been approaching us in the ballroom the day before. She’d veered off and disappeared into the crowd at the last minute, seemingly avoiding me. Today, she wasn’t wearing her sunglasses, so I was able to see her eyes, which were an intriguing, not to mention unusual, shade of violet.

  I knew those eyes! She’d had her mouth covered with her mask the night I met her at the DWM, but I’d know those eyes anywhere. She was the new doctor, the one who’d saved my father from a nasty infection. Dr. Ankh. Her first name was Aliyah. And my mother knew her.

  In a hushed voice, I asked my mother, “How do you know Dr. Ankh?”

  “Oh, here and there,” she said through her grin. She thought she was being so clever, but by her nonanswer, I knew exactly who Dr. Ankh was to her. The doctor who’d saved my father’s life had literally done the exact same thing for my mother. Dr. Aliyah Ankh was… my mother’s reanimator.

  Chapter 18

  Dr. Aliyah Ankh approached the hot tub slowly, as though it was teeming with monsters. Technically, the tub was teeming with monsters, for it contained a witch and a zombie. Rawr! The doctor was smart to be cautious.

  Dr. Ankh got to the tub, and rather than take off her robe, she tightened her belt. She climbed onto the edge of our hot tub, took a seat on the ledge, and slowly dipped one foot in the water. Her feet were long and slender, and her toes were extremely long, like fingers. I caught myself staring. Funky-monkey-finger-toes!

  While she slipped both feet and calves in, I looked down at my bobbing knees and tried not to think about feet. Not my feet or my mother’s feet, and certainly not the doctor’s feet, or the amazing massages someone with funky-monkey-finger-toes could give you using her feet.

  Zara tries to be a good witch. Zara doesn’t gawk at other people’s bodies in the hot tub.

  My mother, meanwhile, was beaming her social smile at the newcomer. “Aliyah, what a pleasure to see you here. I didn’t think they were allowing new guests to check in.”

  “They are not permitting new guests,” said the large-mouthed, lavender-eyed, funky-monkey-finger-toed doctor. “I am here as a medical consultant regarding the recent incident.”

  The recent incident. Cold. I shivered despite the heat of the cauldron-like hot tub.

  Dr. Ankh stared across the steaming hot tub at my mother. “You told her everything?”

  My mother laughed loudly. “Aliyah! Sh
e’s my daughter, so she was pretty quick to figure it all out.” She glanced around. “Not that this is the most private place for such conversations.”

  Dr. Ankh swiveled her head and slowly looked around. “We are the only guests in the vicinity.”

  “But sound echoes through these caves,” my mother said.

  Dr. Ankh slipped off her white robe and slid fully into the hot tub. Her swimsuit was white, her movements were fluid, and I was reminded of cream being poured into steaming chowder.

  She asked my mother, “How are you feeling?”

  “Good.”

  “How good?”

  “As good as can be, all things considered.”

  The doctor nodded.

  “Enough about me,” my mother said, for what might have been the first time in her life. “Tell us about the investigation. I heard the poor young thing was poisoned, and that her body deteriorated rapidly.”

  I interjected, “It was rapid, all right.”

  The doctor tilted her head and stared at me. “You’re involved?”

  “Not by choice,” I said.

  My mother clapped her hands together and gasped. “Aliyah, where are my manners? Formal introductions are in order. Meet my daughter, Zarabella Riddle. She goes by Zara.”

  “We have met,” the woman answered in a soft, singsong voice like falling leaves. “We met last month, at the office in Wisteria. I had only been at my new post for a matter of hours when she came in, demanding we treat a red fox with a blood infection.” She turned to look directly at my mother with eyebrows raised. “That red fox was your former lover, a man named Rhys Quarry. He is also the father of your daughter.”

  “As far as we know,” I said. “My mother is full of surprises.”

  My mother looked up at the stone ceiling of the cave and shook her head.

  Dr. Ankh cocked her head again and frowned at me. With those full lips of hers, it was an epic, almost pouty frown. She blinked her lavender eyes. “But your daughter, Zolanda Riddle, is a fox shifter. I know, because Agent Chet Moore filed a full report. If your daughter is a shifter, surely that is evidence enough to convince you of your mixed parentage.”

  “It was just a joke,” I said, splashing hot water as I used my hands to help me talk. “I know Rhys is my father.” I splashed a little more. “Speaking of which, were you able to save the heart? The one that came out of the smaller shoot of the Droserakops? I was busy trying to not die when the department cleanup team arrived, so I didn’t see what happened with it.”

  She blinked her lavender eyes. “That information is not for civilians.”

  “I’m no civilian. I’m a witch. I can take it. We Riddles are tougher than we look.” I bobbed my eyebrows. “As you know.”

  She put her elbows on the rim of the hot tub and tensed, readying to jump out. “I should not be here,” she said. “I should not be talking to you.” She looked at me accusingly, as though I’d been trying to entrap her.

  “Aliyah, please don’t go,” my mother said. “We can talk about something neutral. Ask my daughter about her job at the library.”

  “The library? What is there to know?”

  My mother answered for me. “Plenty! Did you know the competition for a position as a full-time librarian is very high? You wouldn’t think so, considering the education required versus the financial compensation offered, but there must be something to it, or they wouldn’t have so many smart young people applying.”

  “The appeal is in helping others,” the doctor replied matter-of-factly. “Some people have a greater compulsion for altruistic behavior.”

  “Like you,” my mother said. “Being a doctor and all, helping people.”

  “I’m more of a researcher.” She hoisted herself up a few more inches. “I should not be talking to you,” she said to me again.

  “I was just leaving, so you can stick around,” I said. “I insist. I’ll find some way to pass the time while you two catch up on reanimation stuff.” I was met with two blank stares. “Or talk about cute guys. Whatever.”

  I turned and hoisted myself out of the hot water. I could feel their eyes on my butt as I yanked down the bottom of my borrowed swimsuit. Humankind has invented many incredible things, yet they haven’t mastered a swimsuit that doesn’t try to disappear up your crack when you’re leaving the water. Any woman who can get out of a swimming pool without awkward yanking must be a witch who’s figured out the perfect anti-crack-creeping spell.

  Once out of the hot tub, I stood by the bench, dripping on the stone floor while I tried to figure out which one of the identical towels was mine. Did it really matter? I reached for the nearest towel. As I picked it up, a woman’s watch fell out on the bench. So then I had to refold the towel and put the watch back before selecting the next towel. The whole time, I could feel Dr. Ankh’s eyes on me. It was unsettling to be watched by her. I should have been grateful that she’d saved the life of both my parents, and I was, but I also resented her for having held the power of life and death over so many of my family members. Who would be next?

  I didn’t know much about the woman, but I did know she was prejudiced. She had issues with witches and shifters having offspring together. The night we met at the DWM, I could have sworn I’d heard her call me a mutt. And not in a playful, affectionate way.

  I looked over at her. She wasn’t watching me after all, and neither was my mother. They weren’t talking. Just looking at each other.

  That’s weird. Dr. Ankh kept gazing at my mother with a look I would characterize as adoration. Her focus would shift from my mother’s eyes to her mouth, and then Dr. Ankh would smile with her big, puffy lips. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the two of them were dating. So weird.

  I waved goodbye—not that either of them noticed—and went off in search of trouble or entertainment or both.

  Chapter 19

  The hair salon at Castle Wyvern was bustling with activity when I dropped in to see if Morganna Faire could see me for a trim. There was nobody at the front desk when I arrived, so I took a minute to check out the decor. The ceiling was low—so low, in fact, that a tall male stylist in a black apron had to duck constantly to avoid braining himself on one of the beams. But despite the low ceiling and crumbling stone and brick walls, the salon felt bright and airy thanks to the enormous plate glass windows that looked onto an interior courtyard filled with blossoming shrubs and lush ferns.

  I was about to ring the bell for service when Morganna came up to me, stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss right on my cheek.

  “It’s so nice to see a friendly face,” she said.

  “Same here. We Wisterians have to stick together. Do people say Wisterians? Is that even a thing?”

  “I can’t see why not,” she said agreeably. “Come right this way.” She twirled and walked toward the back of the salon, her flowing layers of skirts and shawls billowing behind her like butterfly wings. Her long, rainbow-streaked hair swished from side to side with her dancer-like movements. Her shoes didn’t make any sound at all, giving the impression she truly was a butterfly.

  “Wait! I didn’t make an appointment.”

  Without looking back at me, she snapped her fingers. “Appointment made. It’s for right now.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I followed her back to the hair-washing sinks. She wrapped me in a waterproof cape and paused to look me in the eyes as she fastened the Velcro.

  “You’re pale,” she said.

  “The skin comes with the red hair.”

  “You’re more pale than the last time I cut your hair.”

  “I’ve been taking vitamins.” I tried to sell it with a smile but couldn’t. “Okay, I haven’t been taking any vitamins. But I promise I will pick some up as soon as we all get out of this castle.”

  She reached up and pinched my cheeks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or two.”

  “Maybe I have,” I said in a joking tone. I’d definitely seen one. And it was possible that, technically
speaking, I’d seen two. There was Jo Pressman, and then there was Zirconia Riddle, who’d been dead—to me, anyway—for the last five years. Seeing my mother was like seeing a ghost who walked, talked, hogged the bathroom, and gave unwanted wardrobe advice.

  “At least you still have your sense of humor,” she said. “I can’t wait for those coppers to release us.” She covered her mouth with one finely wrinkled hand. “Do people still say copper? Don’t tell me it’s one of those bad words that gets sweet little old ladies like me in trouble.”

  “Some police officers might not like the term, but the origin isn’t particularly offensive.”

  “It’s because those old star badges were made of copper, right?”

  “Let me put on my librarian hat.” I mimed donning a fancy hat. “The term dates back to England in the seventeen hundreds. Copper means someone who captures, which is derived from the Latin capere. The verb cop is similar to grab. Have you ever heard the expression cop a feel?”

  Her eyes crinkled with secret delight. “I’ve copped a few feels in my day.”

  “I bet you have.”

  Morganna chuckled as she steered me over to the hair-washing sink. I sat in the chair and leaned back.

  She sniffed my hair, which was still wet. “Chemicals.”

  “I was in the most volcanic hot tub before I came here.”

  “Who were you in there with?” She turned on the water and vigorously applied shampoo to my head. Her fingers were surprisingly strong—even stronger than I remembered. She repeated the question. “Zara, who were you in the hot tub with?”

  I had closed my eyes to enjoy the scalp massage, but now I fluttered them open. “My mother,” I said. “Why?”

  “Just asking,” she said, and then she began to hum a melody I didn’t recognize. She kept massaging my hair and scalp, but the pressure moved beyond firm and into uncomfortable. Something was definitely going on with the woman.

  Suddenly, it hit me. Morganna was an old family friend of the Pressman family. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since the girl had been discovered slain. Morganna should have been grieving, or supporting the rest of the family. She shouldn’t have to wash my hair. I tensed my neck and tried to sit up, but she pushed my head back into the sink forcefully.