Churches had unpredictable inversion effects on spellwork. Sure, we were only inside the chapel of a funeral home located within a strip mall, but a chapel was still a church, and I couldn’t risk a spectacle. The town of Wisteria didn’t need another “curious small-town incident” making the national news. Especially not right on the heels of their titillating tales about the spooky haunted library with the great coffee.
He took in a breath and started, “Zara, you need to know I—”
“Shush.” I quieted him with a pat on his leg. A pat that might have been interpreted as a downward punch. “Whatever you have to say, it can wait until after the service, Dad.”
He jerked his head and gave me a wide-eyed look, his rubbery features practically going BOING!
He asked, “What’s that again?”
“It can wait. I’m sure you had your reasons to do what you did. The more I go through in my own life, the better I understand all the mistakes my parents made.” The many mistakes.
He had the good sense to say nothing.
“You can be part of our lives,” I said, “on one condition. No more slinking around. If you’re coming to town, give me a call. Don’t just show up and spy on me.” I tilted my forehead toward his, all the better to look directly into his eyes. “Don’t hide in the bushes under my kitchen window listening to my private conversations.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You know about that?”
“I have protective wards on the house for a reason.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “That’s my girl.”
“Now shush for real,” I said, nodding at the person taking their place at the dais. “Let’s be quiet and pay our respects to our old friend Harry.”
“Zara,” he said softly.
“What?” I didn’t turn to look.
“You called me Dad.”
I snorted and kept my gaze forward. “No, I didn’t. You need to get your ears checked, Rhys.” I wriggled my back, trying to get comfortable on the hard wooden pew. “All of your ears,” I added.
“Will do,” he said.
* * *
The eulogy was delivered by Harry’s identical twin brother, William, a.k.a. Bill, Blackstone.
The eulogy was also secretly delivered by Harry himself.
And here’s the big surprise that no living soul at the funeral that Saturday could have guessed in a million years: The twins were co-presenting the eulogy. Harry’s spirit had been successfully transplanted into Bill’s body, and the brothers were now sharing the body equally. A certain local coven had helped with the transfer.
As Bill/Harry delivered the eulogy, there were moments he/they seemed genuinely surprised by what he/they were reading.
At one point, Bill/Harry rubbed his chin and muttered, “Well, that’s all wrong. Bill, you messed up these dates, you half-wit.”
The friends and family members gathered in the chapel let out some grief tension with a ripple of chuckles and guffaws.
Bill/Harry snapped his fingers on one hand while the other hand flailed wildly. He/They made eye contact with one of the Abernathy family’s attendants—Ambrosia, dressed in black with a yellow belt—and said, “Ambrosia, do your old pal Harry a favor and grab us a pencil, will you?” Bill/Harry smiled crookedly at the crowd and apologized for the delay. He declared that it would take a few minutes to make the corrections, but it had to be done, because there might not be another funeral for Harry.
By now, the crowd had been worked up enough that the tension and grief all but evaporated. Everyone laughed heartily.
Bill/Harry continued cracking jokes as he/they corrected the eulogy using a pencil provided by Ambrosia.
I looked over at Margaret Mills, who was there representing the coven. I tried to catch her eye so we could share a secret knowing look—the best part of pulling of some high-grade magic—but she wouldn’t look my way. She couldn’t tear her eyes off the man/men giving the speech. She was staring at him the way my cat stared at plates that were suspected to contain ham.
Margaret Mills, you naughty girl, I thought.
Her head whipped suddenly, and she was looking at me, with full force. I felt her focus strike me with the PANG of a shovel hitting rock in the dirt. I tasted metal in my mouth.
I quickly shielded any further thoughts from the witch. She narrowed her eyes. I offered her a tiny wave, using just my fingertips. She slowly turned her head away, and returned to gazing with adoration at Bill/Harry.
The eulogy ended, and we bowed our heads for more prayer—or silence—our choice; It was that kind of chapel.
As I closed my eyes, I remembered how Margaret had gawked at Bill Blackstone the night we met with him to perform the soul transfer. Zinnia had suggested we bring an extra witch to help perform the ritual, and I’d been thrilled to have the support. The spell could have been performed with two witches, but, like many spells, it was more stable—not to mention fun—with three.
Bill had flirted with the recently single Margaret Mills throughout our preparations. And then Harry had done the same. As Harry’s first act of physicality after being transferred into the shared body, Harry had asked Margaret on a date on behalf of both of them.
I’d laughed then, thinking it was all a wacky joke to break the tension of an awkward situation, but it turned out the joke was on me.
Margaret Mills was dating twins. Twins who shared one body.
It was strange, but... stranger things had happened.
Chapter 38
Monday Morning
Wisteria Public Library
Frank Wonder was staring at a mountain of burlap sacks full of coffee beans.
“We need to hustle if we want to use this up,” he said to me as I entered the break room. “We have way too much coffee.”
“There’s no such thing as too much coffee,” I said. “Just like there’s no such thing as too much bacon, or sleep, or love.”
He gave me an exaggerated dirty look. “Zara Riddle, you just had to be a do-gooder, didn’t you? Harry the Ghost is gone, gone, gone. Thanks to your good work.”
I grinned sheepishly. “Zara tries to be a good witch.”
Frank tousled his pink hair. “I wonder if Harry ever takes breaks from his brother’s body. Maybe he could float by here occasionally for a nap. Just to keep up appearances.”
“Harry can’t leave the body,” I said. “It’s not allowed.”
“Why? If he did, would he not be able to get back in?”
“That’s not the reason.” I tucked my purse into a cubby, and grabbed a mug for coffee. “Their girlfriend, Margaret Mills, wouldn’t allow it.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. That’s not fair. She should share him with the world.” He waved a hand at Coffee Mountain. “We’ll never get through this pile. The weekend staff left a note that they heard rumblings.”
“Rumblings? This is new.” I felt a little breathless suddenly. “Rumblings might have something to do with the tunnels.”
Frank shook his head. “Rumblings as in rumors. The ghost nerds are saying that Harry’s spirit has moved on. They say he finally found peace after his memorial service.”
“And he did. Sort of.”
“Did you see that a few of the sneaky ones were there at the memorial?”
I shook my head. I’d been busy with my father, among other pesky people.
Frank said, “Well, I certainly saw them, and I gave them a scathing look. Attending the funeral of someone you don’t know is generally frowned upon, according to their group culture.”
“Isn’t it frowned upon in general?” I held up my hand in a stop-sign gesture and bowed my head. “Wait. I spoke too soon. Don’t jump all over me for misspeaking. I know it’s common for people to attend funerals for people they didn’t know, to support the friends and family of the deceased.”
I looked up to find Frank giving me a mystified, bemused look. “Why would I jump all over you?” He fluttered his fingers to his chest. “Do you take me for some
kind of monster, Zara Riddle?”
“My bad,” I said. “I’ve got coven reflexes now. Whenever I say something slightly stupid, I have to immediately correct myself and beg forgiveness.”
Frank arched an eyebrow. “Fun bunch you’ve gotten yourself involved in.”
“Oh, they’re mostly harmless. I’m going to try turning the group into an actual book club. There’s no such thing as bad energy, as long as you have an appropriate outlet.”
“Wise words,” Frank said. “Speaking of which, how are things with your father?”
“Surprisingly good,” I said. “Being in the coven has given me a whole new measuring stick for how much irritation I can handle.”
“Rhys and I spoke for a few minutes after the service,” Frank said. “We had proper introductions.”
“Aww. I’m sorry I missed out on that. I went looking for an egg salad sandwich and got cornered by Helen Highbury. She told me about her new Yoga for Seniors classes at the community center. Can you believe she invited me to a class for over-sixties?” I kept going, before Frank could answer my rhetorical question. “Helen also told me how wonderful and unusual the eulogy had been. She said it felt as though Harry was right there, in spirit, speaking through his brother.”
“Yes,” Frank said, his eyes twinkling. “It did seem that way, but of course such things are impossible.”
“Impossible,” I agreed.
Kathy walked in. “What’s impossible?”
“Two souls sharing one body,” Frank said.
She snorted. “Yeah, right.” She winked at Frank and then whispered, “Are you talking about Bill/Harry? I hear they’re dating Margaret Mills.” She looked at me. “Can you confirm?”
“I cannot betray the secrecy of my coven. One of the coven members, a woman who is currently dating twins, would kick my butt if I did, so I trust you’ll understand that I cannot confirm nor deny that salacious rumor.”
My phone buzzed.
I checked the messages, read them quickly, then summarized the news for my coworkers.
The coven had decided it was best for the ghost hunters to move on quickly, rather than linger around Wisteria looking for other mysteries to occupy them now that the library hauntings had ceased. As I’d said to Frank, there was no such thing as bad energy, only energy that needed a more appropriate target. And the new target for the ghost hunters would be a fresh haunting, not too far from Wisteria, but just far enough.
With the help of the coven and local police, I had located a charming Bed and Breakfast that was looking for out-of-the-box ideas to expand their business. The owner was a shifter herself, and well-versed in magic. She was the open-minded type of shifter who was willing to work with witches.
We witches weren’t going to summon an actual ghost to the premises. That would only create more problems than it solved. Instead, we were going to create the illusion of a haunting, through witchcraft.
And who was going to perform this witchcraft? Why, it would be Little Miss Fireball-First-Ask-Questions-Later herself, Ambrosia Abernathy. The coven agreed that such community service would be a suitable punishment for the novice witch’s insouciance.
Actually, the other witches had wanted much harsher penalties, but I had weighed in on behalf of the young witch. Being a little hair-trigger with the magic myself, I could relate to her so-called insouciance. I begged for clemency on her behalf, and got it.
Ambrosia would be driving her personal vehicle—a retired hearse—up to the Bed and Breakfast two or three nights a week to perform the spells. I had laid out a strict program of simple spells, and she’d been warned against straying from the program.
I was the right witch to lay out the haunting program. Having spent some time around the ghost hunters, I’d become intimately familiar with all of their detectors and recording equipment. Thanks to that insider knowledge, I was able to design a routine of spells that would give the enthusiasts just enough positive readings to keep them intrigued, but not enough to provide any hard evidence that would blow open the world of the supernatural.
Of course, the latter might not have been possible anyway, since magic had a mind of its own, and tended to go on the fritz whenever a high-resolution camera was pointed toward it. Modern technology was a little like the witchbane that had been infused inside Reyna Drinkwater’s air freshener.
As for the air freshener, it had been taken by the DWM for further testing and a “full investigation.” I had a bad feeling their investigation was more in the name of developing more anti-witchcraft tools for themselves and less about protecting witches in the community, but what could I do?
I should have hidden the unit before calling for backup at the Blackstone residence. Unfortunately, I hadn’t considered that in the heat of the moment. I’d been focused on keeping a certain real estate agent alive, so she didn’t become Ambrosia Abernathy’s first manslaughter victim.
Once summoned, the DWM agents took Ms. Drinkwater away to the “hospital”—wink wink—and later gave us the good news that the patient was stable.
The next day, I’d learned the woman had already received a liver transplant.
I asked, out of curiosity, where the liver had come from, and the agents fed me the usual line about that information being confidential and none of my concern.
Later, when I told Charlize about the liver transplant, her pale blue eyes had widened with an alertness I hadn’t witnessed in weeks. I actually witnessed her depression lifting. It was beautiful.
She immediately grabbed the nearest available laptop to begin work. The laptop in question belonged a young fellow who’d been using it to write a novel at the table next to us in Dreamland Coffee, where we’d been sitting. Charlize typed furiously on the stolen laptop, much to the laptop owner’s shock and horror. I managed to get the laptop away from the gorgon, and returned it to the aspiring novelist, along with a fresh mocha with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles.
Charlize wanted a mocha, too. We got a couple to go, and I drove her to Beacon Street. She ran into the house next to mine, the Moore residence. Once inside, she began furiously bashing away on two laptops at the same time. Her hair snakes elongated, and soon they were typing as well, and clicking the mouse buttons. I’d never seen anything like it.
As the gorgon worked on hacking through the same security system she’d put in place herself, I saw the life return to the woman. Her hair snakes undulated with tentative excitement, and the dreadlocks and matts in her hair unwound themselves.
Twenty-four hours later, Charlize was completely sober and back to her old self. Her blonde hair was radiant.
She reported to me that while she had not discovered the source of the donated liver, or what the Department had done with Ms. Drinkwater, something wonderful had happened. The Department had detected a breach of their network by “an army of high-level hackers.” They had contacted her, asking—no, begging—their favorite programmer to return from her leave of absence.
“That’s great news,” I said. “But are you sure you want to keep working for them?”
“What else can I do? I’m not qualified for anything else.” She glanced around at the tequila bottles and fast food debris scattered across the house. She brought her tattered fingers to her mouth and chewed two fingernails at once. She repeated, “What else can I do?”
“You can do anything,” I told her. “But if you want to go back to the Department, I support that one hundred percent. They need more good people like you working for them.”
She looked me dead in the eyes. I shivered. Even though we were best friends now, her gorgon stare still made my blood feel icy.
Softly, she asked, “You think I’m a good person?”
“Of course I do. I wouldn’t be friends with you if you weren’t.”
“But...”
“Nobody’s perfect,” I said.
“But you are,” she said.
Me? Perfect? I’d never laughed so hard.
* * *
When I told my daughter that Charlize had declared me perfect, Zoey barely mustered an eye roll. She was focused entirely on her phone.
“What’s on there? What’s more interesting than your mother?”
“More of a who than a what,” she said, smiling enigmatically.
“Ooh. A new person? Some cute guy at school who’s finally gotten your mind off Griffin?”
“Huh. I forgot about Griffin.” She frowned and swiped her screen a moment. “We haven’t talked in days. I think maybe we’re broken up.”
“Congratulations?”
“Thanks. I feel fine.” She rubbed her chest, rearranging the ruffles on the cute blouse she was wearing. She had recently upgraded her wardrobe, from drab sweatshirts that spoke of depression, to cute, fitted garments that spoke of better times. “My heart feels okay. Actually, it feels kind of happy.”
“All thanks to this new fellow, named...?” I pointed to her phone.
“Not a guy,” she said. “It’s just Ambrosia. I think we might be friends now.”
“That’s great,” I lied. “I’m so excited about having Ambrosia around,” I lied some more.
“Your lies would be more convincing if you didn’t clench your teeth, Mom.”
“Oh?” I played dumb.
“If it’s okay with you, I’m going to drive up with her to the Foxclaw Inn and help with the haunting.”
“Won’t you be embarrassed if people see you riding around in Ambrosia’s old hearse?”
She gave me a pointed look. “You really think I embarrass so easily?”
“No,” I said. “I suppose not.”
I took a moment to pat myself on the back for some excellent parenting. Thanks to me, my daughter could handle friendship with anyone.
Chapter 39
On Tuesday, a story emerged on the internet about a spooky, haunted Bed and Breakfast not far from a certain spooky, haunted library.
The story hadn’t yet broken wide and made national headlines. How could it without Frank Wonder’s charismatic presence in interviews? But the news did reach the dark corners of the World Wide Web that mattered to the most dedicated paranormal enthusiasts, the ones who actually ventured out of their homes and visited allegedly haunted locations.
Wishful Wisteria (Wisteria Witches Mysteries - Daybreak Book 3) Page 22
