I looked at the library. We had plenty of books about the basics of mechanical repairs, but something told me the solution wouldn’t be in those books.
I looked out at the rain. I could have walked home, but I didn’t have a real umbrella with me in the car, and using a magical one over that distance would have been suspicious.
I pulled out my phone. The previous time I’d been stuck somewhere without a ride, I’d called on Charlize. The thought of seeing her that night gave me a sour taste in my mouth. No more tequila, my body seemed to be saying.
So I called my other top choice.
Aunt Zinnia answered instantly, before the call could have rung. She had limited but unsettling prescient powers when it came to phone calls and text messages.
She said tiredly, “Now what have you done?”
“Can’t a girl call her favorite aunt, just to chat?”
“Your ring had trouble all over it.”
“What ring? The phone didn’t even ring over there.”
“You know what I mean.” She paused, and there was the chatter of her coworkers in the background. Someone was yelling about winning scratch-off tickets. “Do you need assistance with something, Zara? I am almost finished at the office for the day, so I could come over and help you.”
To my surprise, she didn’t sound like someone was twisting her arm while she offered to help me.
“Thanks,” I said, my voice thick with gratitude from her unexpected generosity. “Can you swing by the library and pick me up? The car won’t start.”
“Oh!” She sounded the opposite of put-out. She actually sounded interested. “It might be a message, from you-know-who.”
“Or a message that I need new spark plugs.” I turned the key one more time fruitlessly.
“Give me ten minutes to wrap things up here.” More yelling about scratch-off tickets in the background, plus someone burping. They were having a rowdy day over at the Wisteria Permits Department.
I thanked her and settled in to wait.
As I waited, I carried on an imaginary conversation with Harry, via the car.
After a while, I said out loud, “You’re right, Foxy Pumpkin. We can’t have Harry’s good name being dragged through the mud by those out-of-towners. We need to do something about this whole situation. It’s time to break out the big spells.”
Chapter 27
I climbed into Zinnia’s car, and she parked next to Foxy Pumpkin so we could talk.
My aunt agreed that the haunting had gone on long enough. More and more curious ghost hunters were arriving in Wisteria by the day, and a town like ours didn’t need the attention. It would take only one national news story going viral to put us on the map, and that would not be good for the town’s residents and their secrets.
Also, if Harry the Ghost was willing to sabotage my car, he might be willing to do other destructive things. It was time to break out the big guns, meaning the spirit-summoning spells that took two witches to cast.
“Tandem spells,” I said, rubbing my hands. “No disrespect to Harry, but I’m excited about getting some practice casting tandem spellwork.”
Zinnia looked down at her fingertips as she tapped her nails lightly on the steering wheel. She’d left the car engine idling, and the heaters were making the car interior slightly too warm, but not hot enough to switch them off.
“We need some physical objects that were connected to Harry. Blood or bone would be ideal.”
“I’ll call Dr. Lund,” I said. “He’ll appreciate me asking nicely this time instead of sneaking around.”
Zinnia frowned at her hands. “I’d rather stay off the Department’s radar. Blood or bone would be ideal, but we do have other options. You said some of his possessions were at his residence?”
“Mostly furniture.” I turned and looked through the back of my aunt’s car. “Is this thing a hatchback? I’m not sure we could get more than a coffee table in here.”
She rubbed her chin. “I’d love to get his hairbrush, or his shaving kit, but I suspect it was thrown in the trash.”
“Field trip to the dump?”
She scoffed, “Vincent Wick would love that.”
“Honestly, if it’s between Wick and Lund, I’d take Lund.”
She turned to me and looked me over. “That dress,” she said. “The scale of the stripe is off by twenty percent.”
“You don’t like my dress?” I smoothed out the blue and orange striped skirt across my knees. “I picked it up from the thrift store for a song. I spent ten bucks getting it taken in, but even with that, ten-something is pretty reasonable for a new dress. You don’t like it? Kathy liked it.”
“Did you say thrift store?” Her face was scrunched up, as though she didn’t know what a thrift store was.
“Plenty of people buy secondhand clothes,” I said. “Some would say the thrill of the hunt makes it more fun than buying things new.”
“That’s it!” She smiled. “We can look for Harry’s personal effects without going to the landfill.”
* * *
We visited two large stores, with no luck. My aunt grumbled about calling Vincent Wick.
I suggested we try the town’s smallest yet busiest secondhand store, Mia’s Kit and Kaboodle. Mia always had the best stuff in town. I’d never asked her where the stuff came from, but it could have been from estate sales.
We arrived at the store, and the gray-haired woman at the cash register called out a cheery, “Hello, Zara!” She knew my name for good reason.
The woman at the cash register was the owner, Mia Gianna. She was a dark-skinned woman with a no-nonsense disposition. Her age was impossible to guess, due to the confusing combination of her tightly curled, completely gray hair and youthful, unlined face.
Mia did a double take when she saw my aunt. “Zara, is this your sister?”
Zinnia smiled. “I’m her aunt, actually. But we are close in age.”
I rolled my eyes, exactly the way my daughter did whenever people mistook me for her sister and I took it as a compliment.
After some small talk with Mia, my aunt and I got down to witch business.
We cast a few spells, as we’d done at the previous shops. This time, the spells snapped, and we located some clothes, shoes, and other housewares that had belonged to Harry Blackstone.
For the purposes of our spell, we selected a chipped coffee mug that practically sang with Harry’s energy, plus a pair of broken-in walking shoes that still had many miles left in them, and a tweed jacket. Then, just so our purchase wouldn’t look suspicious, I bought an armload of clothes that caught my eye.
Zinnia murmured to me, “A few items should suffice. We need not go overboard.”
I clutched my haul possessively. “Just because my mother gave you a make-under that seems to have stuck, that doesn’t mean I’m ready to join the Army of the Cream Silk Blouses. Oh, no. That would make my mother way too happy.”
Zinnia, who was wearing a new cream silk blouse with one of her regular floral skirts under her trench coat, stared at me with a perplexed expression. “Zara, is your eccentric wardrobe designed to irritate your mother?”
“Of course not! It’s an expression of my colorful personality, obviously. The fact that it irritates people, including my mother, is just a bonus.”
She looked down at the wildly striped dresses, plaid skirts, polka-dotted hat, and glittering corset in my arms.
“I have an idea,” she said. “We should take a picture of the pair of us wearing all of that, and send it to her.” The edges of her mouth curled up mischievously.
“You’re so bad,” I said.
“You’re the bad one.”
“If you say so.”
I grabbed one last thing—a cute brown belt—and we went to the checkout counter.
Mia said, “Looks like you found what you were looking for!”
“I swear the clothes always find me,” I said.
“What a wonderful shop you have,” Zinnia said to Mi
a. “I usually stop in at the Chintz Boutique, across the street, but now that I know about this place, I’ll have to drop in here again.”
“Yes, you should,” Mia said warmly. “If Mrs. Puddikin lets you leave her boutique with any dollars left in your wallet!” She let out one of her booming laughs that filled the space, drowning out the sound of metal hangers being scraped back and forth on metal bars by bargain shoppers. “That place,” Mia went on, fanning her face, as though the mere thought of shopping there made her sweat. “Let’s just say it’s a bit champagne for my beer budget.”
Zinnia forced out a laugh and focused on extracting something from her purse. As she dug around, there was the clinking sound of containers—probably glass—jostling around within hidden pockets.
I put my hand over my aunt’s purse. “You don’t have to pay for this. I can probably get Kathy to reimburse me for half of it, since it’s for work. We have plenty of money in our petty cash fund.”
Zinnia swatted my hand away and insisted on paying for everything, from Harry’s personal effects to my colorful haul.
We left Mia’s Kit and Kaboodle and headed toward Zinnia’s. Since my aunt was Kitchen Bewitched, her house would be the most appropriate, because we’d have access to all her herbs and supplies.
We drove to Zinnia’s accompanied by the hypnotic wipe-wipe sound of her car’s windshield wipers.
When she turned off the car in front of her house, and there was only stillness and the sound of the rain, the seriousness of what we were about to do hit me. Harry’s shoes, clothes, and mug on my lap suddenly felt heavy.
We were about to cast a spell so powerful it required at least two witches—not because the spell required that much energy. Two witches were required so that one witch could perform magical first aid on the other, should something terrible happen during direct contact with the spirit realm.
Chapter 28
Zinnia’s House
Well Past Dinner Time
My aunt handed me a thick, ancient-looking book. “Take this,” she said. “Open it to a random page. Completely random.”
The book was weighty in my hands, as though filled with ball bearings instead of paper.
“I know this book,” I said, handling it with care. “I haven’t seen it since... that night.” Unless I was mistaken, my aunt had used that same book that night to confirm my powers as a Spirit Charmed witch. It had been the first magic book I’d ever seen. The first magical artifact, assuming my encursed toaster didn’t count.
“Codex Niquitia,” she said.
I cocked my head. “Niquitia, as in trickery?” Learning Witch Tongue had improved my Latin. But then again, it hadn’t taken much to improve my modest Latin vocabulary.
“What else would it be called?” She sounded annoyed. “Do you think there’s some other book of blank pages that shows you the answer to any question you ask?”
“Isn’t that exactly what this is?” Now I sounded annoyed.
“There are limitations,” she said tersely.
“There always are,” I replied, equally tersely.
She sighed.
I sighed.
She huffed.
I started to huff, but checked the time instead. It was nine o’clock at night. Since getting to my aunt’s house, we’d spent hours researching, setting up, and preparing to cast a tandem spell safely. We’d completely forgotten about dinner, and the lack of dinner was causing a problem.
“We need a break,” I said.
“Perhaps you need a break, but I do not.”
I held my hands in the air. “I give. You win. You’re tougher than me. You’re the biggest, baddest witch this side of Tallahassee.” I squared my jaw. “But I, the lesser witch, need a sandwich and pickles. My electrolytes are low.”
“Witches draw electrolytes from their environment. Witches are more adept at doing so than even the regal Himalayan Pink Skunkapus.”
“What about sandwiches? Or pickles? Do we witches draw those from the air around us?”
She pursed her lips. “I suppose we could take a break.” She glanced around her floral-themed, overdecorated living room. It was so dim, the flowers that covered everything from the wallpaper to the throw pillows looked like the dried-out versions of themselves. We’d been working under only the light from a few scattered table lamps, and gloom had gathered in the corners. Zinnia flicked a spell in the air that switched on the remaining lights, and another that opened a window. A gust of rain-damp air blew through the room. At the caress of the breeze, I felt how warm the skin on my neck had become.
The gust of wind fluttered the pages of the book on my lap.
The fluttering had a musical sound.
I looked down, mystified. The book had been closed when my aunt had handed it to me. I hadn’t opened it. I would have remember something like that, given how special the book was.
The pages flipped back and forth, no longer moving on the breeze, but on their own. I couldn’t look away. I was transfixed.
“Psst. Zinnia,” I whispered. “The book.”
“Oh!”
“What do I do?”
“Close it,” she said. “We can always get back to the business at hand after you’ve consumed a sandwich.”
“Forget the sandwich,” I said, the hunger in my belly replaced with a hunger to know what happened next with the book.
The Codex Niquitia!
I hadn’t known its name, but I had been asking about the tome for ages. Zinnia kept giving me excuses about it needing to be recharged. But now that it was on my lap, I felt the power coursing through my body. The book was all powered up and ready to go, and so was I.
I repeated my question. “What do I do?”
“I was going to suggest a test question, but I don’t believe that’s necessary. We ought to get straight to our business and not make small talk with the magic.”
“Let’s do it,” I agreed.
Without disturbing the book, which was still fluttering away on my lap, we arranged Harry’s items and the other ingredients, held hands, and cast the spell to summon Harry’s spirit.
The lights went out at once.
I heard my aunt’s breathing change. It was subtle, like the shift in breathing a person made once they’d crossed the threshold into sleep. I thought of Bentley, missing him suddenly and terribly, but then the thought was gone. Zinnia’s grip on my hands remained steady, holding me in the spell and fixing me to reality.
I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open, but then I saw something.
A glowing man entered the room. It certainly looked like Harry Blackstone.
He tugged one ear and glanced around, seemingly confused about where he was.
I whispered to my aunt, “Has Harry been to your house before?”
“Possibly. It’s an old house, and I haven’t been its only owner,” she said. “Why? Is he here? Do you see something?”
“Sorry. Sometimes I forget you can’t see them. Yes, he’s here, and he seems confused. He’s not looking at us, but he might be getting agitated. He was tugging his ear. Now he’s taken off his hat, and he’s rubbing his head, making his hair stand up.”
“We don’t want him to get angry,” she said. “Keep him calm.”
“You mean with a calming spell?” I started to pull away from her grasp.
She held on with a startling strength. “Don’t break the circle,” she growled, then, “On second thought, forget about keeping him calm. Focus. Let’s try doing the memory access quickly. That is the point of this, after all.”
I sucked in a breath between my teeth. It was time for me to cast the final phase, to draw Harry into myself as a medium. Easy enough. Thanks to my rezoning spell, I was the library, and Harry was nothing more than a new book coming in. He would be cataloged and placed on a shelf, neat and tidy. He would not run amok and make me do strange things, no matter how helpful or entertaining they might be.
“Zara, there’s one more thing,” Zinnia said. “You
must channel him directly into the Codex Niquitia on your lap instead of through yourself.”
“But I can’t do that. The spell doesn’t...” Everything rolled over in my mind. “But I would need to invert... And then that would mean...” I went through the new sequence in my head.
“You can do it,” she said.
Of course I could do it. Who did she think she was talking to?
To my right, a lamp flickered on and immediately burned out, like a flash bulb. Then another. The ghost was getting agitated.
It was now or never.
I cast the final phase of the spell.
The room, still dark, suddenly reeked of rotten fruit.
My aunt squeezed my hands even tighter. “What’s that? Something’s wrong.”
“Hang on,” I said. “The syntax is tricky, and—” Two more lamps flashed on and blazed out with a crackle. My aunt was going to need some more light bulbs, assuming we survived the summoning.
I cast the spell a third time.
Hot wind blasted through the room, and everything glowed orange. My aunt’s face remained steady in the eerie light, but I felt the tension in her fingers and in her energy. She was frightened.
I looked down at the book, which had stopped fluttering. It was open to two pages, each showing a dark handprint.
In an instant, I understood what was happening, and what needed to be done. But now? Right away?
We must be brave and do what ought to be done. That was what Zinnia might have said, if I’d given her time and explained everything.
I yanked my hands free of hers. In the time it took her to gasp, I cast the spell a fourth iteration. This time, I started all the way at the top before incorporating the modified final phase.
The glowing figure of Ghost-Harry lost its human shape. His simmering energy pooled around us like a fog. I grabbed the fog like it was a huge pillow, hugged it to my chest in a bundle, and then slammed it downward, my palms landing neatly on the open pages of the Codex Niquitia.
I tasted metal.
The room was dark and still.
Someone was breathing heavily. Me.
“I think it worked,” I said, gasping.
Wishful Wisteria (Wisteria Witches Mysteries - Daybreak Book 3) Page 16
