Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 3

by Angela Pepper

  Improvised theater is a challenging art form for any individual, and on top of that you're also dealing with other people and all their dreams and insecurities. The potential for miscommunication is high. That's where the comedy comes from! But it's also incredibly painful to be stuck in the middle of it while it's happening. I apologize for sounding like a Butthurt Complainy Complainer-pants, but I like to give full disclosure, since you're putting in the time to read this note and you deserve honesty: I leave about half of the sessions feeling lousy. Nobody's fault. Just how life is, and how I am, with my high sensitivity. I don't necessarily understand my feelings, but I have a lot of them. I can do a neat acting trick where I cry on command. Why? Because the tears are always there, right below the surface. Always there. Since forever.

  One thing that's universal with us humans is the desire to be understood. That's why it's so painful to be misunderstood, to have people assume you have different motives than you do. Many moons ago, I was involved in a national public radio show. It was a hard job, and I had zero training, and yeah, I was on the air. Like a total small-town hick with no fancy ed-u-mucation busted into the soundproof studio and just started yacking with her slight lisp, mispronouncing “Bach” and the names of cities and sounding like a very good excuse for government to cut back arts funding. I had only a minor role in the show, but I was on the air nonetheless. Now, some teachers try to instill confidence above all else, but I firmly believe that no amount of confidence can make up for actual competence. I had no competence. So, I would finish each week's show buzzing with anxiety and exhaustion. Back at my apartment, alone, I had to dim the lights, put on a soothing TV show, and pile heavy blankets on top of myself to calm down. I tried so hard to do a good job, despite my lack of training.

  Fast forward to fifteen years later. I was having dinner and a catch-up with the person whose show it was, and he paid me the “compliment” of saying I had “naturally” played such a good foil for him on air because I simply “didn't give a flip.” (He didn't use the word flip.) I was stunned. I had to laugh, because it was so absurd. Deep down, I liked his personal narrative of my experience better than my own. How cool and rock star would I be if I'd truly not given a flip?! Everyone loves the don't-give-a-flip character. We secretly want to be them. They don't have any of those gushy feelings that hold the rest of us back. So, I laughed and laughed, and for the rest of that evening, I told myself the story that I had once been the diva performer who waltzed in, stunk it up real bad on air, collected a paycheck, and didn't give a flip. Time passed. I never did set the record straight with the friend. I mean, I tried. He just wasn't listening. He preferred his own narrative about me and my motivations, perhaps because he was riddled with his own anxiety and liked the idea that there was an alternate way of being, and perhaps I could serve as some kind of stop-giving-a-flip role model for him. I don't know. See, there I go, guessing at another person's motivations and probably getting them wrong. And isn't that the worst?

  I'm at this weird mid-point in my life where I don't know how to deal with frustrating things. When should a person keep going with something that doesn't make that person happy in the moment? When is it better to fold your cards and walk away—from a hobby, from a business, from a relationship, from another living, breathing person? Is quitting a sign of laziness, foolishness, selfishness, or a logical decision to pivot and be open to better opportunities? These are rhetorical questions. I could probably pay a lot of $$ to have a therapist or life coach or benevolent talking starfish untangle it for me, but I'm a writer, so I write. Here it is. There is no one-size-fits all decision guide. I'm more of a feeler than a thinker, so only time will tell me if I made the right choice. Still, I worry. I have an ambivalent attachment style, so it's entirely too easy for me to clean house, shut the door, and walk without looking back. (My friends like getting my help to declutter closets because I'm unsentimental and great at letting go.) But is this detached way of living serving me? Is it serving my community, or the people I care about? I do not want happiness at the cost of another person's happiness (except maybe sometimes if they were deeply, deeply wrong, ha ha). The other day I read that hell is meeting up with everything you could have been, on the final day of your life. As in, when it's too late to change course. That's a chilling thought.

  Whenever I ponder quitting something, which is frequently, I picture myself in the future and try to feel around for any regrets. My heart usually has the answer, if I only stop to look inside and ask. I just wish life lessons could be a little more pleasurable. Ah, if only humans could learn from pleasure. From pleasure we tend to develop addiction (darn you again, dopamine and neural pathways!). And a lot of us have mixed up pleasure and happiness, which gets us in trouble. Pain, however, is even more challenging. Pain is where the real growth comes in, but who the heck wants it?

  What I'm trying to do now is make myself comfortable on the razor's edge that is my ambivalence. I don't have to decide everything now. I balance on the edge, I move ahead, I keep an open mind, and I continue trying.

  The struggle is the point.

  The journey is the destination.

  The obstacle is the way.

  ...and other new-agey sayings.

  One might wonder, what point is there worrying about one person's sensitivity and feeeeeelings when the whole gosh-darned world is on fire and there's inhumanity and injustice everywhere? That's a good question. Sometimes I remind myself, mid-wallow, about the umpteen million things there are to be upset about. Funnily enough, it never cheers me up. But I know that feelings do matter, for all of us. Every one of us needs to keep something bright burning inside, or else when some new horror pops up, there'll be nothing good worth fighting for. It matters that people can gather with each other and be open and authentic. It matters that people have enough love and forgiveness inside that they can afford to give some away freely, even to people who don't necessarily “deserve it,” according to society's current values. I heard someone wise say that those who need our compassion the most are not the poster-perfect subjects who naturally tug at the heart strings. This is precisely why they've fallen to such a state already. The concept stuck with me.

  As for improv, I would recommend improv or acting classes to every author or writer, and to anyone else who thinks it might be fun. If you're more extroverted than I am, you might not have to replay every minute in your head for hours afterward! It's definitely made me a better listener and a more mindfully present person. Another unexpected benefit I've gotten from improv is the miming aspect. Pretending to use imaginary objects isn't that hard to pull off. Even an amateur can do it well enough to get across the idea. And it brings so much joy to people! It's pure playfulness. If my husband and I are at a restaurant and the food's taking a while, I will mime pulling out an old-timey lunchbox (like the one in this book), pretend to unbuckle it, take out the thermos, unscrew the lid, and sip some soup. My husband cracks up. Yes, the world is on fire, but I'm pretending to sip imaginary soup, so it can't all be so bad, right? I should tell you—full disclosure again—that I don't always use my mime abilities for good. I will sometimes pretend to take out a mime pack of cigarettes and smoke one. It drives my husband nuts. He grabs the imaginary cigarette and angrily stomps it out on the ground. Talk about an excellent way to defuse any situation! I'm sure there are huge volumes of work about the value of play, for all ages. It's one thing to know this, intellectually, and it's another thing to actually learn how to play, how to work things out in a safe testing environment the way children do. We can't make the right choices if we don't know how it feels to make the wrong ones.

  Speaking of playfulness...

  I've considered writing some short stories set in the world of Wisteria, but I try not to bite off too much. Getting the main books done is pretty challenging. I hope I'm not spoiling the magic for you. It's fun to play, but it's also very hard work. Believe me? No? Okay. Let's just pretend I waltz into my office and the words pour onto the page fa
ster than I can type. Please don't picture me talking to myself like a madwoman, drinking imaginary cups of coffee, losing all sense of time and reality outside of the book, and asking my husband to smell-check me before we go out because I'm not sure what day I last showered. Hahah! And on that note...

  Until the next time.

  Xoxo, Angela

  WARDENS OF WISTERIA

  WISTERIA WITCHES MYSTERIES - BOOK 8

  Angela Pepper

  WWW.ANGELAPEPPER.COM

  Chapter 1

  “There’s a ghost in the house, Zed.”

  I cracked open my eyelids to find a sight that would send most normal people into a screaming fit. Staring down at me was a mythical beast with green scales and gleaming black eyes. It was Ribbons, the telepathic wyvern who lived in my basement.

  Unlike the monstrous wyverns of storybooks, it turned out the real ones weren’t much bigger than a housecat. Ribbons’ body, not including the tail, was only seven inches long. That morning, he sat comfortably on my second pillow, with his bat-like wings at his sides and his green-scaled legs tucked under himself. He flicked his long purple tongue over one black eyeball and then the other.

  “There’s a ghost in the house, Zed,” he repeated. He rarely called me by my real name, Zara.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” I said, my voice croaky from sleep. “Who knew you were such a good watchdog?”

  He snorted in my face, emitting a puff of minty steam. Ribbons didn’t appreciate being compared to a watchdog. Actually, he didn’t appreciate being compared to anything that might be helpful to humans. He considered humankind unworthy of assistance by wyverns. That was what he claimed, anyway. His actions, however, spoke louder than his telepathically delivered words.

  “The ghost is downstairs,” Ribbons said in his vaguely Count Chocula accent.

  “Any idea why the protective wards didn’t keep this one out?”

  He snorted again. “I didn’t let it in.”

  “I never said you did, Pint Size. Do I have to drop my telepathy shields and let you read my mind all the time just so you don’t get offended?”

  He sniffed. “No need.”

  I rolled out of bed, grabbed a loose T-shirt dress, and pulled it on over my sleeping camisole. The bedroom was bright with pre-dawn light. It was mid-July, and the sun wouldn’t be up until 6:00 am, but the house already felt hot. We were in the midst of a hot, dry spell, and the whole town of Wisteria was cranky from not sleeping well. I could have used a few hours more myself, but ghosts didn’t stick to office hours.

  Ribbons followed me, doing his duck-like waddle over to the edge of the bed. His green scales gleamed like miniature daggers in the golden light.

  “The spirit must be benign,” he said. “A malevolent entity would have triggered the alarms when it entered the house.”

  I bit back a sarcastic comment about the alarms never being triggered by a certain malevolent entity with green scales who regularly raided the kitchen and drank all my maple syrup.

  Before heading downstairs to face the ghost, I checked on my daughter, Zoey. She was sleeping soundly, sprawled sideways on her bed like a starfish. She looked younger than her sixteen years, with one hand clutched to her chin and her fingers curled childishly. I wished I could take in the sweetness for one moment longer, but the ghost was waiting.

  Ribbons led the way down the stairs, gliding with his wings outstretched and the sharp talons of his feet curled around the handrail for balance. I paused to assess the damage his claws were doing. At the rate the wyvern was shredding the wood, I would need to replace the handrail annually. He was spectacularly destructive, surfing to the lower floor that way, but what other choice was there? He couldn’t fly down the narrow staircase without the claws on his wingtips gouging the walls, and he refused to take the stairs on foot because it was undignified, given his stumpy legs.

  I followed Ribbons to the living room. He was right about there being a ghost in the house. A semitransparent man sat rigidly on the couch. He faced the TV, which wasn’t on. He didn’t stir when either the wyvern or I entered the living room.

  My mouth went dry and my skin prickled. I wiped my sweaty palms on the bottom of my T-shirt dress. Despite the many ghost encounters I'd had, they still gave me the chills. In the four months since I’d become a witch, I’d been possessed by, on average, a ghost a month. That figure didn’t tell the whole story, since I’d also been possessed by the spirit of a coma patient, as well as an evil genie, plus one of the four ghosts I counted into my average hadn’t been entirely dead, but, long story short, a ghost a month.

  At the start of July, however, I’d done something drastic to prepare myself for the next spirit. With the help of—if you could call it help—my telepathic wyvern housemate, I’d engineered a powerful spell and cast it on myself. I had, in laymen’s terms, “rezoned” myself as a library. Then I’d classified any ghosts who entered me as books. In theory, the rezoning would let me control the ghosts and access their memories as easily as flipping through the pages of books. That was the theory. In practice, well, I didn’t know yet. In practice, I might end up with scrambled eggs for brains. This was my first haunting since the transformation spell; it was time to find out.

  “Hello,” I said to the semitransparent man in what I hoped was a soothing tone.

  The ghost didn’t react. He continued facing the dead television.

  I walked around the couch and took a seat next to him.

  “My name is Zara Riddle. I’m a witch, and I’m Spirit Charmed, which means I help people such as yourself.” I laughed nervously. “Or at least I try to.”

  He blinked and tilted his head slightly.

  “Hello,” I said again, and then repeated the full introduction.

  He turned his head slowly, ever so slowly, until he was facing me.

  He was a young man, in his mid-twenties. He had fair hair, pale eyebrows and eyelashes, and close-set blue eyes that bulged like those of a flat-faced dog. His face was skinny and angular, with a jaw that began as two sharp corners under his ears. He had the hungry look of a street kid, yet his clothes—a button-down shirt and suit trousers—were tailored, pressed, and clean. I scanned him for signs of injury. Some ghosts manifested with their death wounds visible whereas others appeared as they looked on an average day. There was no blood visible, yet there was something unusual near his shirt collar. His throat glowed slightly brighter than the rest of him. Had he died of strangulation? If he’d been choked, that might have explained the bulging eyes.

  The young man’s eyes widened further, as though he could read my thoughts and was horrified about being strangled.

  I glanced away, feeling ashamed about assessing him so dispassionately. He was a person. A young one. And his life had been cut short, presumably through foul play. The victims of everyday accidents and disease didn’t come to witches as ghosts.

  When I looked up again, the young man was frowning. He wrinkled his nose, sniffing the air between us, and then lifted one hand. The translucent hand traveled slowly through the air toward my face. I braced myself for what might be coming next: him turning into smoke and swirling up into my head through my nose.

  But he didn’t turn into smoke. His outstretched hand passed through my face and arced down. Now his arm was submerged, elbow-deep, in my upper chest. He met my gaze with narrowed, suspicious eyes. His mouth moved, and he uttered a single word. I heard nothing but the hum of my house. He was mute, like all the ghosts I’d encountered. He repeated the word, and this time it was clear by the shape of his lips what he’d said. Ghost.

  I actually laughed out loud. The ghost thought that I was a ghost. Me!

  I turned to Ribbons, who was watching from his perch on the back of the recliner. His talons dug deeper into the upholstery, making little pops as each sharp talon passed through layers of fabric and foam. The beast was trying very hard to seem disinterested, but I knew him too well. One of his tells was tightly gripping whatever perch he was
on. The more damage he did, the more interested he was. I dropped the shield from my mind and asked Ribbons telepathically if he knew anything about the young man on my couch.

  “Nothing,” the wyvern replied. His speech was always sent directly to my mind, where I heard it in his cartoonishly Old Europe, Count Chocula voice. He continued with a sigh, “I’m bored now. This is boring. Are you sure it’s a ghost? All I can see is a bit of shimmering light.”

  I told him it was a ghost, and I described what I saw. Then I asked how he’d detected the ghost in the first place if he couldn’t see it.

  “Ask the fluffball,” Ribbons said. He lifted his elongated, boxy chin in a pointing gesture, indicating the upper corner of the living room.

  I followed his gaze. Sure enough, there was a fluffball up there. A white one. Boa, our cat, was perched at the very top of a bookshelf, perfectly still, watching the ghost on the couch with eyes as big as saucers. I didn’t bother asking Boa what she saw. The cat was, as far as I knew, just a regular cat.

  The ghost man on the couch suddenly leaned forward, got to his feet, and glanced around the room.

  I got to my feet as well. “Leaving so soon? I hope it wasn’t something I said.”