“Two waitresses,” I huffed as I shelved books about knitting, and gardening, and origami.
“Two waitresses,” I snorted as I was logging into the computer system to help a patron at the self-checkout.
I probably would have thought about Archer Caine getting the phone numbers of waitresses for my entire shift, except I was finally startled out of my thoughts by the name on the self-checkout patron’s library card: Jasmine Pressman.
Pressman! Alarm bells clanged in my head.
She was the ex-wife of Perry Pressman, and the mother of Josephine Pressman. Both of them were now deceased, thanks to their involvement with Archer Caine and his genie sibling. Before he was getting phone numbers from multiple waitresses, he’d been involved in dealings that lead to several deaths.
I turned toward the woman at the self-checkout slowly. “Jasmine Pressman?” I had spoken to her on the phone once before, but we’d never met—that I knew of. Until now.
“Yes,” she said cheerfully. “That’s my card, all right. Would you like to see my ID to make sure it’s me? You probably do. Here. I’ll grab my driver’s license for you.” She rummaged in her purse, humming a happy tune under her breath, then produced her driver’s license. “That’s me. I know it says Jasmine Carter on the license, but it’s actually Carter-Pressman, with a hyphen. Or at least it is now. After my divorce, I went back to my maiden name, but then,” she paused to inhale rapidly, “earlier this year, after my ex-husband and my daughter both passed away unexpectedly, I decided to add the Pressman back on to keep them alive, so to speak. To keep them with me.”
I looked her in the eyes and struggled for an appropriate response. I couldn’t let her know what I knew, but I wanted to say something.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. There was genuine sadness in my voice, courtesy of my memories of her loved ones.
Jasmine Carter-Pressman, however, only shrugged.
“That’s how things go,” she said, smiling and being quite chipper for someone who’d suffered such terrible losses so recently. Was it medication? Magic? Or was she simply one of those remarkably resilient people?
She was a petite woman, much shorter than her daughter. She had big eyes, olive skin, and acne-scarred cheeks. Her hair was long and dark, and very sparse. She was practically bald at her temples. Her makeup was heavy and her eye shadow was a jarring shade of turquoise that matched the turquoise in her earrings and necklace.
I caught myself staring, and quickly looked down at the driver’s license in her hand.
She followed my gaze down, and her smile broke as she frowned at her driver’s license. “Look at that silly photo of me,” she said, then immediately returned to smiling again. “Such a shame anyone checking my license has to see this dreary old mug looking up at them, don’t you think? Did you know they don’t let you smile? It’s a security thing, they say. It’s hooey, if you ask me. Nobody looks like themselves in a photo if they’re not smiling. They might as well ask us ladies to remove our makeup, too! What are they thinking over there at City Hall, at the DMV?” She waved the driver’s license card between us, then stuck it into my hand. “Horrible, isn’t it? Well, there you go, now you’ve seen it. I suppose it serves me right for not coming in here more regularly!”
I passed back her card and hoped she didn’t notice the tremble in my hand. I’d been pretty tough, emotionally and physically, even before my witch powers kicked in, and I was even tougher now, but I wasn’t made of stone! My emotions caught me off guard sometimes. My hand trembled because I’d had the spirit of the woman’s ex-husband inside me, as well as that of her daughter. I’d been a vessel for their personalities, as well as their memories. I’d experienced their most precious moments as vividly as my own.
Even after my successful rezoning spell, fragments of these experiences were around, like how dust stays around, no matter how well you vacuum. Standing next to this woman who felt like a wife and also a mother threw me for a loop. I didn’t know her, yet I had all these feelings for her. I had genuine love for her.
“You should come in more regularly,” I said, smiling my love at her. “To the library, that is. We’d love to see you.”
She smiled back at me, though it was hard to see her face due to the tears welling in my eyes.
“Sweetheart, you look like you could use a hug,” she said, and then she had her arms around me.
Mom, I thought, even though she wasn’t my mother. I hugged her tightly, then I finally overrode the residual feelings and took a respectful step back.
Jasmine looked me up and down. “You must be going through something difficult right now,” she said.
I had to laugh. “You could say that.” When was I not going through something difficult? Really, when was anyone?
“You should come to a meeting sometime.” She dug around in her purse. “Darn. I don’t have any of the fliers, but we do meet once at week at the community center. It’s a self-help group for people dealing with life changes.” She glanced up and beamed at me. “We don’t say loss. We say life changes.”
“That sounds like a wonderful group.” It did sound like a wonderful group.
She took my hand and squeezed it. “You’re welcome to drop in any time. We call ourselves The Ducklings.” She tilted her head back and laughed. “That’s just a joke. We’re actually called The Awakenlings, but that’s kind of a mouthful, so some of us call ourselves The Ducklings.”
“The Awakenlings,” I said, nodding. “Or the Ducklings. I’ll keep that in mind.”
* * *
I was ready for the weekend.
At the end of Friday, before we went home, Frank and I put on a magic show for Kathy to demonstrate some of our powers.
While our little performance of witch and flamingo tricks was good for a few laughs, the whole thing also felt cheap. As though I’d sold myself out, artistically.
I looked forward to some time away from the library, away from Kathy’s expectations that everything was different now, and that the three of us would share everything with each other.
I liked Kathy, and I respected her, but she wasn’t like Frank. I didn’t want to talk to her about my confusing feelings or petty jealousies.
I told myself it wasn’t because she was a sprite. I had nothing against sprites, no matter how long and weird their tongues were. My discomfort was only due to the fact the woman was my boss. No matter how many times she insisted that the library’s patrons were our only true bosses, we all knew it wasn’t true. The patrons had never scolded me for looking at my phone. I couldn’t stop feeling self-conscious whenever Kathy was looking over my shoulder, supervising. I didn’t want her doing the same with my personal life.
After I left the library, I picked up some Thai takeout from Kin Khao on my way home.
As I walked up the front steps of my house, I heard a dog barking. The sound seemed to be coming from inside a house. My house.
I opened the front door and listened. My senses tingled. Not my witch senses, but my regular mom ones.
The dog barked again. It was almost certainly a dog, though Zoey did make some similar yips when she was in fox form, especially if Boa and Ribbons were successful at getting her riled up.
“Zoey?” I called up the stairs.
There was a scuffling sound from the vicinity of my daughter’s bedroom.
I dropped the takeout bags and practically flew up the stairs. I banged open the bedroom door and found four creatures in a standoff, growling, glaring, hissing, and breathing fire.
They were, respectively, an enormous black dog, a red fox, a white cat, and a wyvern.
I demanded, as any mother would, “What the hell is going on in here?”
The fox shifted back into the human form of my daughter. She gave me a sheepish look. “We didn’t hear you come in,” she said.
“And who, exactly, is we?” I widened my eyes and nodded at the dog.
Zoey settled onto the edge of her bed and said to the dog,
“You can change back now. I promise you won’t get in trouble for the mess.”
The mess?
I surveyed the room. There was a pile of dirt, greenery, and broken pottery in one corner. The cute potted plant that had been growing on Zoey’s windowsill was in bad shape. Next to it was the lamp Aunt Zinnia had given us for a housewarming gift. Alas, the flowered monstrosity had survived the fall and was perfectly intact. Shame.
“Change back,” Zoey urged the newcomer.
The large dog gave me a guilty look, and then shifted into the form of a human. Specifically, the human form of a ten-year-old boy.
“Corvin Moore,” I said.
He looked up at me slowly, his dark green eyes as big as ever. “You were a ghost,” he said in a monotone, staring at me unwaveringly in that creepy way of his. “I saw you.”
Zoey lurched forward and punched him on the arm. “Stop saying that, you little jerk. She might be a witch, but she’s not a ghost.”
Corvin shifted back into dog form and started barking at her. The barks were so loud, I had to clap both hands over my ears.
Zoey shifted into fox form again, and chased him out of the room and down the stairs. Boa ran after them, fluffy white tail in the air, looking anything but frightened.
I turned to Ribbons, who’d remained in the room. He looked guilty, but then again, he always looked guilty. It was the beady eyes.
“I didn’t start it,” he said.
“What happened in here?”
“Is it not obvious?” He nodded his scaled head toward the pile of dirt and broken ceramics. “The hellhound knocked over that plant with his big tail. Unlike some of us, he has no control over his tail.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Corvin may be a bucket full of strange, but calling him a hellhound seems cruel.”
“That is what he is, Zed.”
“What?”
“His kind guards the gates between worlds. That is why he was able to see you in spirit form.”
Corvin wasn’t a wolf shifter? Or even a huge raven, as I’d suspected, based on his name? I connected a few dots. “Does that mean Chet Moore is also a hellhound? He looked like a regular wolf to me.”
“The boy is adopted,” Ribbons said.
“Adopted,” I said. “Huh.”
“Haven’t you noticed how the wolf shifter always seems confused whenever you refer to Corvin as his son?”
My hands flew to the sides of my face as I gasped. “I thought that was out of embarrassment for the kid’s weirdness.” I gasped again. “Now that you mention it, the hellhound thing makes a lot of sense.” I let go of my face, crossed my arms, and glowered at the wyvern. “It would have been a nice family courtesy if either you or Zoey had mentioned to me that our next-door neighbor is the adoptive father of a hellhound.”
Ribbons raised his brow ridge. “I would be happy to trade information with you, Zed, if you brought me something besides your tedious stories about the boring customers at your bookstore.”
“It’s a library, not a bookstore, and you know it.”
He flipped up his wings. “We must go downstairs immediately.”
I jerked toward the door in a maternal panic. “Why? Are they fighting dirty? Do I need to break it up?”
“Let them sort out the pecking order for themselves.” Ribbons flew for the doorway, arced through the hallway, and gripped the balustrade to slide down.
“What’s the hurry?” I called after him.
“The Thai food is getting cold.”
Chapter 6
SATURDAY
So the neighbor’s kid was a hellhound. Just when I thought I couldn’t be surprised, I was. Between Kathy and Corvin, that was two big supernatural secrets revealed in a single week. And, as my aunt always said, secrets revealed were trouble unsealed.
I wondered what trouble would be coming my way.
Whatever fate had in store for me, I didn’t want it to happen while I was still wearing my housecoat and slippers.
I cast the usual outfit-locating spell on my closet. I’d been using the spell so regularly, I’d nearly forgotten it was meant for finding pages within books, not clothes in a closet. A modified spell—home brew, as the other witches called it—could be dangerous. My spell seemed stable enough, but I suspected that had more to do with my house’s own magic than with the syntax of my home brew.
Once, I’d tried the spell on someone else’s closet—Frank’s—and the casting hadn’t gone so well. Instead of spitting out the perfect outfit for Frank to wear for the day, Frank’s closet had twitched and emitted ominous noises. Then one of Frank’s faux-leather belts had slithered off a shelf, hit the floor, and snaked its way across the room, hissing angrily as it hid under his bed. We eventually coaxed the belt back out again, but its color had changed from white to a sickly purple-brown that didn’t go with any of Frank’s pants.
That Saturday morning, my home brew spell worked perfectly, as I expected it would within my own house.
The day’s outfit consisted of a dark blue tank top with a star pattern, a gray pencil skirt, and matching kitten heels.
“This seems overly dressy for a lazy Saturday,” I said to the closet. I had been expecting a pair of stretchy yoga pants to not do yoga in. The navy top with the gray skirt was so conservative. It looked like something Bentley would approve of.
As I stood there, wondering what the day had in store for me, the closet burped out a pair of earrings.
“Thanks,” I said. What else do you say when your closet burps earrings at you?
I shimmied into the pencil skirt and tank top, then tidied the front of my hair with a couple of bobby pins. If I was picking up on the hint from my house correctly, Bentley would want my help on a case today.
The doorbell rang.
“Ding dong,” yelled my daughter from downstairs. “I think it’s Bentley!”
So much for a lazy Saturday of wearing yoga pants while not doing yoga. Aw, shucks.
* * *
Bentley drove his car, and I sat in the passenger seat. I tried not to stare at him in profile, but I was overwhelmed with curiosity about outward signs of his recent life change. I kept sneaking peeks. His hair was darker—still streaked with gray, but not as much gray as before. His jaw looked wider, more square, and more determined.
Back at my house, he’d explained that the day’s assignment was a simple nuisance call. It would take a few minutes for us to deal with, then he’d have the rest of the day off. His silver eyes had twinkled as he’d explained that I might get a kick out of this particular call, which was why he’d invited me along. Also, we could go for lunch afterward and discuss “recent events.”
“Nice weather we’re having,” Bentley commented.
“What did you expect? It’s the last weekend in July,” I said, feeling a little contrary.
“And no forest fire smoke. We can all breathe easier now. Those light rain showers we had during the week certainly helped the firefighters.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “That little spritzing didn’t help nearly as much as a couple of witches on broomsticks,” I said knowingly.
He broke his focus on the road to give me an eyebrow raise. “Witches on broomsticks,” he repeated. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“Bentley, would I lie to you?” I waved a hand. “Don’t answer that. I know I used to pull your leg all the time, but not anymore.”
“You used to steal my donuts, too.”
“That’s all water under the bridge.” I held up my hand. “I don’t lie to you anymore. I mean, I won’t. My word is my bond.” The air shimmered as my pledge took hold. “Honestly, Bentley, there were witches helping the fire crew put out those forest fires. They flew around doing controlled burns on the mountainside. I saw a demo, week before last. I went flying. On a broomstick. Just like a real witch!”
“You never told me that.”
“We were busy with the Greyson case.”
He returned his attention to the roa
d. We turned onto a quiet street, and parked in front of a cute, multi-story house that was similar to my own, except painted a sun-yellowed white instead of Wisconsin Barn Red.
“Speaking of the Greyson case,” I said, “did everything get squared away? Did Carrot Greyson and the rest of the family buy the cover story?”
“What do you think?” His tone was prickly. So much for his big life change improving his sense of humor.
“I don’t know what to think. That’s why I’m asking you, Detective,” I said, also prickly.
He turned off the car engine and turned toward me slowly. “I apologize for my brusqueness,” he said.
“That’s a first,” I said.
“We’ll have plenty of firsts,” he said. “Everything is different now.”
“Because we’re brother and sister, sort of? Your maker is my mother. Your head is all clear now, right? You remember Zirconia Riddle?”
A slow smile spread across his lips. “My head is perfectly clear. Did Zirconia tell you why she wanted to spend so much time with me?” He waggled his dark eyebrows.
“Ew.” I held up my hand. “Gross. No. And I do not want to hear about any of the weird sex stuff you did with my mom.”
Patiently, he said, “The reason she wanted to spend time with me was to program me to protect you, Zara. She knew that if you stayed in Wisteria, you would be getting into all sorts of trouble, and she wanted you to have a guardian.” He glanced out the car window at the white house, then back at me. “She made me your bodyguard.”
I snorted. “Some bodyguard you are.”
“Are you snorting in reference to the incident in the cafeteria? Do you not recall the fact that I did save your life?”
“I remember, all right. But I wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place if you hadn’t dragged me into the Greyson investigation.”
His silver eyes twinkled. “Nobody’s perfect.”
I tore my gaze away from his handsome face, and looked at the white house. My cheeks were hot and getting hotter now that the car’s air conditioning was off. “We should probably deal with this nuisance call,” I said flatly.
My door opened from the outside. Bentley was holding it open, his other hand extended to help me step out.
Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 3 Page 63
