Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 3

by Angela Pepper

  * * *

  I woke to find a wyvern’s face hovering inches above mine. I started, but not as much as the first dozen times it had happened. They say you can get used to anything, and it’s true. You can get used to peppermint breath and black eyes watching you sleep.

  “That other witch stole your fire from you, Zed.” Ribbons’ green, scaly eyebrow ridges formed a deep V. “We must seek vengeance.”

  “Easy now. If Maisy had asked, I would have shared. Happily. I’m the one who wanted to get home fast.”

  “But she didn’t ask.” His frown deepened, and he repeated, “She. Did. Not. Ask.”

  I rolled away from the wyvern and rubbed my eyes. Judging by the amount of the light in the room, I’d been asleep on my daughter’s bed for about four hours. Judging by the rumble in my stomach, it was time for dinner. Judging by the aroma of baking cheese in the air, leftover pizza was being reheated in the oven. Everything was right in the world. With the prospect of pizza on the horizon, how could I be upset about a little borrowed magic?

  “We will teach her a lesson,” Ribbons said.

  “Actually, I’d prefer that we let this one go,” I said. “You must have heard the expression ‘Choose your battles wisely,’ right?”

  “Yes, but that’s not how we say it, Zed.”

  “Okay. I’ll bite.” I jumped off the bed and cast the spell for the bed to make itself. “How do your people say it?”

  Instead of answering in my head, Ribbons jumped in the air, unfurled his wings to their maximum span, and let out a fearsome roar.

  “That’s also good,” I said. “I promise to jump up and roar at Maisy if she ever borrows my magic again without asking.” I turned to the bed and finished straightening the blankets. My magic reserves were still low. The simple spell hadn’t gone well. The pillow was circling underneath the covers like a restless, confused slug. I snapped my fingers to let the poor thing rest, then manually fluffed it and placed it at the head of the bed.

  I turned to say something else to Ribbons, but he was already gone. I heard another scratch being added to the staircase’s wooden handrail as he surfed his way downstairs, presumably drawn by the scent of leftover pizza.

  * * *

  We set the table in the formal dining room for dinner. Tonight we would dine in high style. It was Sunday, after all.

  In addition to the reheated pizza, we would be eating fresh coleslaw that Zoey made with the food processor. Ever since we’d gotten the appliance as a belated housewarming gift, she’d become a bit of a coleslaw wizard.

  While we placed the napkins, and then a dozen candles of various heights and scents, I caught her up on my day’s activities.

  Even with a big nap in the middle, my Sunday had been nearly as busy as Saturday. I was looking forward to getting to the library on Monday for some rest and relaxation!

  First, I’d walked around town with Ishmael Greyson’s ghost. He’d led me to Dreamland Coffee, where I’d had my first witch-to-witch meeting with Maisy. Everything had been going well enough, until I spotted a karambit exactly like the one used to kill him. After clearing up my “little misunderstanding” with Maisy, we’d moved on to more fun things. My first broomstick flight. From the air, I’d gotten a sense of her impressive work fighting the forest fires. Then Ribbons had located me, and Maisy had flown me home.

  When I was done retelling the day’s events, Zoey commented, “She witch-glued you to a table, then she sucked all the magic out of you?”

  “When you say it like that, she sounds awful.”

  Zoey raised an eyebrow. “Maybe she is awful.”

  “She might be awful. But you know how I am. I give people a few chances. That’s why I’m still friends with Charlize.”

  “Why do you do that? Aren’t you worried people are going to take advantage of you?”

  I looked down at the candles on the table and rearranged while I thought. I remembered a recent conversation with my mother, in which she had accused me of being too picky about friends. She felt I had a history of getting rid of people too easily. Zirconia Riddle had been wrong about many things, especially when it came to me. This was yet another example of how she’d never understood that her daughter wasn’t the exact same person she was. Yes, I had ditched friends, but only after giving them about a million second chances. I could be incredibly forgiving... right up until I wasn’t. I took a deep breath and answered my daughter's question truthfully.

  “Zoey, at the end of the day, I’d rather be the person who gave too much than the person who gave up too easily.” I looked into her eyes. “People who give up too easily don’t have anyone at their funerals.”

  She crossed her arms. “Life is more than a contest to see who gets the biggest funeral.”

  “You’re right.” I grinned. “There’s also the wedding. You want to have a lot of people there, because that’s the one where you’re still alive to enjoy it!”

  She rolled her eyes. “You are so corny.”

  “If you think that’s corny, wait ’til you hear my speech at your wedding.”

  She blushed. “Mom! I’m only sixteen.”

  The oven timer beeped, and she ran to the kitchen to pull out the pizza.

  When she returned, she said, “I’m still concerned about Maisy Nix. Just because someone’s a witch doesn’t mean they’re a good person. Auntie Z might have been keeping you away from her and the coven for good reason.”

  “I guess we’ll find out when she gets back from her vacation.” My magic wasn’t fully recovered, so I used matches to light the candles.

  After a moment, Zoey asked, “Does he know about me?”

  I sucked in air between my teeth. This new development, of Zoey knowing about her father, was new, and questions about him kept catching me off guard.

  Rather than fill the room with pink fog, tempting though it was, I answered honestly. “I can’t say for sure either way. I’ve been going over everything he said to me, and I don’t know.” I sighed heavily, making the candle flames flicker. “I don’t think Ribbons knew about your paternity until recently, until after I knew. I believe the little syrup guzzler pulled it from my mind. I had a hard time keeping him out when he first came to live with us.”

  There was a flapping sound, and the wyvern entered the dining room flying.

  Zoey and I grinned at each other. In unison, we said, “Speak of the devil.”

  “There’s nothing like a good day of flying to work up one’s appetite,” the wyvern said. He was not at all insulted by being compared to the devil.

  Zoey disappeared to get the rest of the food.

  When we got ourselves seated, my daughter and I sat across from each other while Ribbons took a spot at the head of the table. As usual for those nights the wyvern dined with us, we turned his chair backwards so he could perch on the back of it and still reach his food. We’d joked about getting him a children’s high chair, or even a booster seat, but neither of those ideas had gone over well. And that’s why we had one dining chair with deep talon scratches across the back of it. If anyone asked, I’d claim that our secondhand furniture must have belonged to a family with a parrot. A fat parrot.

  We ate and talked about genies.

  Ribbons was now able to speak telepathically to both of us at the same time. His connection with Zoey had been weak at first, which he’d blamed on her shifter blood. When I’d pointed out that technically I had a greater percentage of shifter blood than she did, since it was my father who was the fox, suddenly the wyvern’s connection had strengthened. Whether it was the power of positive thinking, the placebo effect, or another of the wyvern’s mind games, we Riddles would never know.

  Even once he became able to, he didn’t talk to Zoey much when I wasn’t around. If anything, he was on edge around her. He’d flit into the air nervously if she moved quickly. Once, she’d shifted into fox form without warning and he’d made such a ruckus we thought he’d laid an egg!

  Now that I knew he’d been aw
are of her genie lineage, his wariness made sense. According to Ribbons’ stories, genies and wyverns had a long and complicated relationship in their home world. During the world’s many wars, genies and wyverns had always been on opposite sides.

  Thanks to Ribbons’ access to the collective memory of his ancestors, he “remembered” being killed by genies. Or, even worse, being kept in a cage. Genies used the various body fluids and even the scales of wyverns to make powerful potions. There was one potion in particular, made with the venom of the female wyvern, that could kill gods and demons, melting them into goo. I knew about that one first-hand, and had seen it in action. Twice. Not a pretty sight.

  When my daughter and I reviewed that detail, she became flustered. “If anyone kills my father before I get to meet him, they’ll have to deal with me.”

  “Anyone?” I snickered. “Remember, your grandmother did take a chunk out of him,” I said. “Via the neck.” I gave her a double eyebrow raise. “You should take it up with Gigi next time you see her. That’ll be fun.”

  “Right,” she said flatly. “Fun.”

  “So much family drama,” Ribbons commented.

  In unison, Zoey and I said to him, “You love family drama.”

  He paused, his cutlery in midair—he’d taken to using a fork and knife to eat human meals for reasons unexplained.

  “No,” Ribbons said defensively. “Human family drama is boring, because all human affairs are boring.”

  Zoey and I exchanged a look. She rolled her eyes. For someone who complained how boring we were, Ribbons spent a lot of time hanging out with us.

  “These cabbage entrails are not entirely unpleasant,” Ribbons said, changing the subject. He preferred to make up his own terms for human food. Cabbage entrails sounded more fierce and wyvern-y than coleslaw.

  We continued eating and talking about genies, then about sprites. I’d broken our no-books-at-the-dinner-table rule and had the DWM Monster Manual open next to me. I pictured my boss, Kathy, the head librarian, as I paraphrased the information to Zoey.

  “Sprites aren’t in this book at all,” I reported. “Under sprites, it says ‘see trolls.’ The trolls page is pretty short. I guess our book editor, good old Jorg Ebola, didn’t think much of them.”

  Zoey asked, “Are there pictures?”

  “There’s a bridge with a pair of eyes gleaming from the darkness underneath.”

  “Are you joking or is it really that offensive?”

  “I’m not joking. I’m not even a troll or a sprite, and even I’m a little offended.”

  Zoey pouted. “I wish I could see it myself.”

  But she couldn’t see it. I had to describe the glamoured contents of the book to her. Even though she had manifested some witch abilities, such as her telepathic connection with Ribbons, she wasn’t yet able to see through the fake text. To her eyes, the Monster Manual was a textbook entitled Second Year Intermediate Economics, and I was reading it upside down.

  “Ms. Carmichael doesn’t seem like a troll to me,” Zoey said.

  I winced and held my finger to my lips. “Not so loud,” I said, feeling guilty. “Maisy wasn’t supposed to tell me, so you knowing about it is wrong on two counts.”

  Zoey waved her hand impatiently. “More information about trolls, please.”

  “Sprites.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Words matter. Would you want to be referred to as a werefox? A carnal beast who changes whether she wants to or not with the waxing and waning of the moon?”

  “Gross.”

  “Exactly.” I scanned the page before summarizing. “This creature’s strongest talent is its digestive system. They can eat practically anything.”

  Zoey snickered. “We Riddles must be part troll. I mean sprite.”

  “Please. Don’t even joke. Our family tree is already complicated enough.”

  “What else? Can they cast spells?”

  “No. But their tongues are prehensile.”

  “Like monkey tails?” She stuck out her tongue and waggled it. “My tongue is not prehensile.”

  “They can also use their tongues like whips.”

  Ribbons chimed in. “They can regurgitate potions.”

  Zoey shot me a stunned look. “Is that true?”

  “The book says their three stomachs produce different kinds of compounds.” I rubbed my chin. “It doesn’t say anything in here that would explain Kathy’s weakness for stale birthday cake.”

  “That could just be a librarian thing,” Zoey said.

  “True. I’ve never met a librarian who could turn down...” I trailed off, distracted by the ghost who’d entered the dining room. Ishmael Greyson had come in, casual as could be, and taken a seat at the foot of the table. I cleared my throat. “Cake,” I finished. “Speaking of which, what’s for dessert?” I kept an eye on Ishmael. His throat was glowing, but he appeared to be calm enough, content to watch us eat.

  “Dessert is apple pie,” Zoey said, and she went to get it.

  Ribbons sent me a private message. “Is the ghost back, Zed? Something is glowing.”

  “It’s our friend,” I whispered. “He’s sitting at the foot of the table.”

  “That means the human detective hasn’t finished his task, Zed.”

  “It hasn’t even been forty-eight hours. Give Bentley a break. The guy’s only human, after all.”

  “Puny human,” Ribbons agreed.

  Zoey returned with the pie. The scent of cinnamon filled the air.

  I calmly informed my daughter that a certain house guest, wink wink, was sitting at the foot of the table, and that it would be polite to set a wedge of apple pie in front of him. She may have suspected I was playing a game to get an extra piece for myself, but she played along anyway. Whatever genie powers she had, they didn’t give her the gift—or the curse—of seeing ghosts.

  My daughter and I kept talking, acting as though nothing was wrong.

  As we were finishing our second helpings of apple pie, Zoey said, “I think I’m lucky to have two powerful parents.”

  “Oh? Because of what you might inherit?”

  “That, and also because if anything bad happened to me, both a witch and a genie would take vengeance!” Her voice took on a dramatic flair. “If someone messes with me, they’ll have to deal with my family!” She hit the table with her open hand. The candles rattled. “Vengeance will be swift!”

  She was sounding a lot like Ribbons. “My daughter the avenger.” I shook my head.

  “Speaking of The Avengers, that gives me an idea,” she said. “Movies are a great way to do research. I’ll hit the books, of course, but first, I’m going to watch every movie that has a genie in it, starting with Aladdin.”

  “Sounds fun,” I said. “We could finish the weekend with a mini film festival.”

  “I’ll come if there’s popcorn,” Ribbons said.

  Movement at the foot of the table drew my eye. I turned to the ghost, though I didn’t need to see him to know he was upset. I could feel his emotions affecting me. Thanks to his inner turmoil, I suddenly had muscle tension in my entire body. And the urge to grab the dining room table and flip it.

  Ishmael’s mouth was agape. His usually-buggy eyes were threatening to pop out of his head again. He got to his feet slowly, looking left and right with a panicked expression.

  Ribbons sent me another private message. “What’s happening, Zed?”

  “He’s freaking out,” I replied. “I can feel it. He’s angry and scared, all mixed together.”

  “Be strong,” Ribbons said. “Look at me. Look into my eyes.”

  I turned to the wyvern. He had dropped his utensils and fanned out his wings. He curled his talons around the back of the chair, digging into the wood.

  His black eyes bore into mine, and I felt a wave of serenity flowing from the wyvern and washing over me. I unshielded my mind and thanked him. I felt I could withstand the ghost’s emotions now that I was prepared.

  Now a quest
ion rose to my mind.

  What had upset the ghost? We’d been enjoying a weird yet peaceful Sunday family dinner. Everything had been going well, but now something had changed.

  I studied Ishmael. He got up from the chair and started pacing. He paced faster and faster, until he was practically running in circles, like a dog chasing its tail.

  I tore my gaze away and looked at Zoey. She couldn’t see Ishmael, but she could read my body language well enough to know something was up.

  Zoey asked, “Is the ghost doing something?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Did he take his head off?”

  “Ew. No. He’s pacing.”

  “That’s not so bad.” She went back to eating her apple pie. “Let me know if I should be concerned.”

  “Will do.”

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. The rubbing of the temples wasn’t magic, but it did help my memory.

  Images from the weekend’s investigation came to me in flashes. The twin streaks of blood on the wall. The head in the trophy cabinet. Family. Vengeance. Fire. Flying. Curved knives. Green busts made of gelatin. A Jersey cow chewing buttercups in an alpine meadow. The tattoo of a cougar. A car charging toward me. My hands, stuck to a hot table. Glowing eyes beneath a bridge. Family. My thoughts kept returning to family. And vengeance. That was what Zoey had been talking about a moment earlier.

  My eyes flew open.

  Zoey, who’d been looking at me, startled in her chair. “You scared me,” she said, then, “Mom? You’re not possessed again, are you?”

  “I’m only possessed by a really good theory,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  Ribbons chimed in, “Tell us, Zed!”

  “Not until I’m sure,” I said.

  They both groaned.

  “On the positive side, our dinner guest has just given me the information I needed.” I pushed my chair back from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to do something.” I got to my feet. “I have to find Bentley and tell him the killer’s been under our nose this whole time.”