Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 3

by Angela Pepper

  “You didn’t specify hours, but you did use the local library as a reference point,” she said. “Due to the inheritance factor, any specifics not set within the spell could have come from the WPL by default.”

  I checked the current time. “Speaking of which, the WPL will be open shortly, which means I will be open, too.” I waggled my eyebrows. “I’ll be open for business.”

  She groaned and shook her head. “You really know how to take the terror out of something by making it sound gross.”

  “Excuse me?” I put my hands on my hips. “It’s not just me. Having a ghost enter your head through your nostrils is gross.”

  She didn’t react. She continued to pore over my notes. “This subjunctive clause seems unnecessary,” she said, pointing at a scratchy section. “And I can’t make out the words. Did you write it messy on purpose so I wouldn’t be able to read it?” She leaned in and took a closer look. “Does this say what I think it says?”

  I yanked the pages off the counter and held them behind my back. “Thanks for your help with the business hours.”

  “Mom.” She gave me a pointed look.

  “You weren’t supposed to see that part.” In all the excitement of the morning, I’d forgotten about that particular clause.

  “Too late. I saw it.” She frowned. “It had something to do with love. Is this about your crush on Mr. Moore?”

  “That depends.” I turned my head and gave her a coy, sidelong look. “What do you think that clause is supposed to do?”

  She spoke slowly. “Well, I know that you and Auntie Z were studying potions after what happened at Castle Wyvern. You were trying to reverse engineer that anti-love potion that made people fall out of love. And I know that some potions can be re-created as spoken spells and vice versa.” She crossed her arms. “I think when you transformed yourself, you included an anti-love potion on yourself.”

  I slowly brought the notes out from behind my back. I gave the special clause a quick look. It had taken me hours, even in my manic state, to write the anti-love clause. She shouldn’t have been able to decipher it so quickly. Something clicked in my head. She’d been keeping a secret from me, but now I was onto her!

  “Zoey, you’re a brilliant kid,” I started off. “In fact, you’ve been smarter than me for a few years now. But even the smartest and most experienced witch couldn’t have figured out the nature of this clause by only glancing at it for a few seconds.”

  Her cheeks grew pink. Oh, yes. I was onto something.

  “It was a lucky guess,” she said, her voice raspy as she tried to fake a casual air.

  “You’re familiar with this spell... because you’ve been planning to cast it on yourself.”

  The pink on her cheeks deepened in color. “There’s no point,” she sputtered. “It doesn’t work.”

  “What do you mean it doesn’t work?” I looked over the anti-love clause in the rezoning spell. “It must be working. The morning after I cast the spell on myself, I saw Chet, and I felt nothing.” I patted my heart. “Nothing.”

  “It must have been the placebo effect. You felt what you wanted to feel.”

  “If only!”

  “The placebo effect is real, even with magic.”

  I struck my finger in the air. “But it might have worked.”

  She shook her head. “Anti-love is one of those spells you need the potion for. Words alone aren’t powerful enough to cause that kind of change.”

  “If that’s true, then why don’t I feel anything toward Chet?”

  “Maybe because you never actually loved him in the first place. All those feelings you had came from Chessa’s spirit. You were only feeling her feelings, not yours.”

  She had a good point. My neighbor and I had flirted a bit when we met, but any positive feelings he’d whipped up in me naturally had almost certainly been offset by his betrayal. The man had used me as a pawn in his own game, getting me to move to Wisteria so he could use the Riddle family’s powers to get his fiancée back. I couldn’t be too angry with him, not after learning the atrocities that had been done to the woman he loved. If I’d been given the choice to help her, I absolutely would have. No woman should have to suffer the way Chessa had.

  I still had my hand over my heart. I dropped it away. “You’re probably right, kiddo.” I squinted at the clause one more time. “Are you sure this anti-love wording didn’t do anything? I still love my friends and family, but I don’t feel very much when I read fictional romance.”

  “You’ve probably outgrown fictional romance. Aren’t you the one who told me that after forty, lots of women switch over to thrillers and memoirs?”

  I made a choking sound. “Excuse me. I’m a long way from forty.”

  “But you have to admit you’re not that interested in romance.”

  I snorted. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t have time for romance. I’ve been rather busy raising a too-smart-for-her-britches teenage daughter on my own.”

  “What about Leo?”

  “Who?” I knew exactly whom she meant. Leo was the hunky scuba diving instructor who’d dropped more than a few hints that he was interested in seeing me again, with or without my scuba diving suit.

  Zoey rolled her eyes. She knew that I knew whom she meant. “I know Leo has some sort of history with the gorgon triplets, but that was a long time ago. He was cute.” She wrinkled her nose. “For an older guy.”

  “Even if I had time for romance, I won’t be dating anyone who has a history with people I know.”

  “Mom.” She shook her head. “It’s a small town. Unless you start dating teenagers, you’ll have to deal with someone’s baggage. At your age, that means dating guys who have ex-wives and maybe kids.”

  I stuck out my tongue. “Ech. Kids.” I shuddered. “Ex-wives! Double ech.”

  Boa, who was still sprawled languidly on the counter, reached up a soft paw and patted my arm. “That’s right,” I said to the fluffy white cat. “Human beings have yucky baggage, which is why I’m not going to date anyone, let alone fall in love. Love makes you stupid.” I leaned down and kissed her pink nose. “And I only have stupid love for Boa.” I went on, making the baby talk sounds Boa pretended not to like.

  “Love does make you stupid,” Zoey said with a sigh.

  I pulled my face from the white fluff and shook my finger at my daughter. “You’re young. You have to experience stupid love. It’s the curse of being a teenager.”

  “Not if I can get the ingredients for that anti-love potion.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Over. My. Dead. Broomstick.”

  “So, I’m just supposed to learn about magic but not do anything useful with it?”

  “Exactly. It’s like eighty percent of your curriculum at high school. The whole point is to exercise your mind to be able to learn.”

  Her voice got low and gritty. “I bet if I made that anti-love potion, you’d want some.”

  “I forbid you to make anti-love potion. Or any kind of potion without supervision by an elder witch.”

  She shrugged. “What’s the harm in getting better at potions? I can’t cast spells with Witch Tongue. I’m not like you and Auntie Z. I’m not a witch like you two. I can’t do anything magic.”

  I raised an eyebrow. My teenager was less dramatic than most, but she did throw the occasional pity party.

  “You can’t do anything magic? Nothing at all?”

  She scowled. “No.”

  “Except...?”

  “Fine,” she spat out. “I can turn into a fox.”

  “That’s pretty magical.”

  “Not really. It’s just what I am. Any shifter can do it. I’m just a boring, standard shifter.”

  The sadness in her voice finally got to me. I felt the stirrings of sympathy. Gently, I said, “Zoey, you’re so much more than a shifter.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes. You are.” She was half genie. Half demon. From what little I’d b
een able to find about genies in my reference books, their magic wasn’t compatible with the Witch Tongue we’d been learning. However, I suspected my daughter was far more powerful than she could even imagine.

  The sympathy in my heart veered toward panic. What would I do if she managed to cast a spell using the demonic powers she’d inherited from her father? What if the spell went terribly, terribly wrong?

  “Zoey,” I said through clenched teeth. “Don’t mess around with potions out of some misguided teenage angst.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “Stop calling it angst. My feelings are real.”

  “Yes. I didn’t mean to invalidate your feelings. I know being a teenager can be hard, and I know how painful it can be to get your first crushes, but it’s a part of life. Falling in love, stupid or otherwise, is part of growing up.”

  She crossed her arms and huffed.

  I went on. “You can’t protect yourself from growing up. Not with an anti-love spell.”

  She snorted. “But it’s okay for you to cast one on yourself?”

  “I’m an adult. I’ve already been in love.”

  Her hazel eyes blazed with an uncharacteristic fire. “Were you in love with my father?”

  Her father. Archer Caine. The genie. I’d certainly felt something for him when I was fifteen. Was it love? It had felt as powerful as any magic. He’d been a boy then, with a different face and a different name. But he was still the same charming devil. He was nothing but trouble.

  My face burned as though my cheeks had both been slapped. Zoey’s paternity was a topic we didn’t discuss, and she knew bringing it up would only hurt me.

  I kept my tone neutral. “I’ve already been in love,” I repeated. “The details are none of your business.”

  She was watching me intently. “Did you love my father?”

  “Maybe,” I said, surprising myself. Memories of that night came flooding back. I usually made a joke of it, focusing on the too-sweet wine coolers with the ridiculous name, but there’d been more to the night than that. He had been there. Archer Caine. His new name was blotting out my memory of his old name. Had he called himself Andrew? Or Alex? It was all blurring. Even his face was changing. The golden hair and soft, boyish features he’d worn all those years ago were being replaced with those of Archer Caine’s.

  There was a soft pat on my hand. It was the cat, letting me know she was ready to receive more adoration. I moved my hand to pet her, but it wasn’t easy. My memories had ensnared me in another time, and I wasn’t present. My hand looked foreign, like a puppet hand barely under my control. My whole body felt hot and heavy. Something inside me wanted to remember that moonlit night with absolute clarity. But I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t indulge in that fantasy, that false reality. It had all been a lie. He’d promised to love me. He’d sworn that I would be his and he would be mine. Forever. For... what had he said? Eternity.

  There was a warning growl from the white fluffy beast, and then a scratch. The pain of talons on my forearm brought me back to the present.

  I was in the kitchen with my daughter—my daughter who was the product of the night I couldn’t think about. Boa was letting me know I’d gone too far. My hand had strayed into the no-touch zone on her belly.

  “Boa,” Zoey said. “No scratching! Bad kitty.”

  I rubbed my arm. The cat had drawn blood, but the scratch would be healed in a moment, thanks to my powers. “It’s okay,” I said softly. “That was my fault for touching her belly. We have an agreement, and I broke it.”

  “She’s a brat,” Zoey said.

  “Bratty Boa.”

  Zoey grabbed the cat and held her in her arms. The cat went limp and purred loudly.

  A minute passed, and the purring only got louder.

  Zoey said, “You’re not going to tell me if you loved my father, are you?”

  “Do I need to? You’re a smart kid.”

  She pursed her lips. “But I want to hear you say it.”

  “Why?”

  Her hazel eyes burned. “Do I need to tell you why? You’re smart, too.”

  “I...” I shook my head dazedly. “Zoey, I don’t know everything. I don’t know why you’re so upset right now. You’re going to have to give me a hint.”

  She narrowed her still-burning eyes. The air around us crackled. The cat stopped purring with a single hiccup.

  Through gritted teeth, she said, “You do know.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “You’re lying.”

  The pain and anger in her voice did its magic. Something within me shifted, softening. I reached across the counter to give her a reassuring pat on the arm. When my fingers touched her skin, the crackling air between us ignited. Bright blue light blazed. My defensive magic blasted from my palms, through my fingers, and straight into my daughter’s arm.

  The cat in Zoey’s arms erupted, an explosion of white fur. She jumped straight up in the air, landed on the counter, and skittered across it before flying to the floor. Her cartoonish movements would have been funny if not for the frightened look on my daughter’s face as she tipped backward on her barstool, hurtling toward the ground.

  I jumped to my feet and used a web of telekinetic energy to catch my daughter before she hit the floor.

  But there was no need for me to catch her. She’d changed into her fox form mid-air. She would have landed on her four paws. Now, thanks to my magic, there was a fox hovering three inches off the floor, pawing at the air and yipping in protest.

  “Oh, sweetie,” I said. “I didn’t mean to shock you just now. Sometimes the energy builds up, like static electricity.”

  She yipped to be set down. I released her from the web of energy.

  Zoey-Fox stalked around the fallen stool and broken glassware. When Boa had been scared off, she’d managed to knock down not one, not two, but all three drinking vessels.

  Zoey-Fox gave me a hurt look. Deep down, she knew the shock had been an accident, but her fox face had a limited range of expressions. She might only have been surprised, but I read her expression as hurt, probably because of my own guilt. I should have told her about her father. I should have told her so much more.

  Chapter 4

  After the incident in the kitchen, Zoey-Fox skulked off to her bedroom in animal form. She closed her door with a soft thud that sounded, to her mother’s ears, passive aggressive. My lungs ached and my eyelids felt hot. We hadn’t fought, exactly, but it was as tense as things had gotten since our move to Wisteria.

  As much as I wanted to go upstairs, I stayed in the kitchen. I swept up the broken dishes and mentally rehearsed breaking the big news to her.

  Zoey, here’s the thing. Remember how I told you that your genetic father was a bratty rich kid who didn’t want anything to do with us? And that his family whisked him away at the first sign of the trouble brewing inside my belly, never to be seen from again? And how, when I hired a private investigator years later, the guy reported that the boy had never existed in the first place, so I assumed the punk had given me a fake name along with too many Barberrian Wine Coolers? Well, it turns out there never was a rich kid. There was only a demon, wearing a borrowed face and body. These days, he calls himself Archer Caine. Earlier this summer, he got a girl killed at Castle Wyvern, and I’m afraid that if you meet him, something terrible is going to happen to you. Or me. Or both of us. So, can we just forget this whole thing about your father and go back to pretending he doesn’t exist? That’d be great.

  What’s that? I’m all the parent you need? You made it sixteen years without a dad, and your life is perfect, so why spoil it? Oh, great! I was hoping you’d say that.

  * * *

  I gave my daughter an hour to cool off before I called up the stairs, “Are we still going to the museum today?”

  The door creaked open. “Sure,” she said brightly, as though nothing had happened. Since she could speak, that meant she was in human form again. Her fox form could communicate, but only in foxy yips and
barks.

  She came down the stairs walking lightly, wearing a different outfit and a full face of makeup.

  “Foxy lady,” I said.

  She stuck out her tongue.

  “I’m really sorry I shocked you by accident,” I said. “How’s your arm?”

  She looked down at her bare forearms, which were both unmarked. “Fine. I don’t even remember which one you zapped.”

  “That must be your dormant witch powers at work. You heal quickly.”

  She gave me a skeptical look. “Or maybe your zaps are weak.”

  I laughed with relief. If she was teasing me about my powers, it meant she’d gotten over our fight already. Phew!

  I pretended to be offended. “You’re lucky I didn’t hit you at full power. It was just a little... accidental leakage.”

  “All leakage is accidental. That’s what the word implies. Accidental leakage is redundant.”

  I clapped my hands. “Correcting my grammar! I’m so relieved my zap didn’t knock that particular trait out of you.” I tilted my head down and muttered to myself, “I’ll have to shock her a lot harder next time.”

  She stared at me blankly, then asked, “Did your ghost show up again?”

  “No. Unlike some library patrons, he was not pacing the front lawn, waiting for the metaphorical doors to open.”

  “Maybe he got confused about all the various municipal buildings and went to the museum instead.”

  “We’d better get going and find out.” I stretched out my arm and called for my purse. For a while, I had been casting a spell just to find it, then another one to float it onto my shoulder, but lately I’d merged the commands into a sort of macro spell. There was a rustling upstairs, and my pink leather purse appeared at the top of the stairs. Apparently, I’d left it in my bedroom the night before. It careened down the stairs on the handrail, only slightly more graceful than Ribbons, thumped Zoey on the buttocks, then bounced over her head and onto my outstretched arm.

  Zoey shot me a dirty look. “You did that on purpose.”

  I held out both of my hands. “Magic has a mind of its own.”

  * * *