Wardens of Wisteria (Wisteria Witches Mysteries - Daybreak Book 1) Read online

  I blinked innocently and sipped my third coffee of the morning. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

  “You only clean the plastic thingie when Auntie Z makes you, or when something’s wrong.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have cleaned the plastic thingie.” I smacked my forehead lightly. “Why must I be such an amazing housekeeper?”

  Zoey’s eyebrows arched up high over her hazel eyes. “You think you’re an amazing housekeeper? You must be possessed again.”

  “I’m not possessed.”

  She put her elbows on the kitchen island and leaned forward, peering into my eyes. “You still look like yourself.” She sniffed. “You smell like yourself.” She pulled back and took a seat on the stool across from me. “Whatever’s going on, I can handle it. Hit me.”

  “Boundaries,” I said, using my fingertip to draw a line on the counter between us. “Boundaries are part of a healthy parent-child relationship.”

  “But I’m not a child,” she said plainly, without a hint of the whine or snark a normal kid her age might have. Zoey had always been more like a miniature adult than a child. I often joked that on the night she was born, she’d waltzed out of my womb, shook hands with the taxi driver who’d delivered her, and then corrected my pronunciation of the name of the hospital we hadn’t made it to in time.

  “Sixteen is not eighteen,” I said. “You’re not an adult. It wasn’t that long ago you were putting Barbie dolls under your pillow at night, as a tribute to the Boob Fairy.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Stop trying to change the subject by embarrassing me. I know you’ve got something juicy you’re not telling me. Ever since Castle Wyvern, you’ve been making those googly eyes.”

  “Me? Googly eyes?” I blinked innocently, as I always did when she was onto me.

  “You’ve got a big secret and you want to tell me, but you know you shouldn’t.” She sniffed me again. “You smell more smoky than you should be.”

  “I was outside, where everything smells smoky. Those darn fires in the mountains are getting worse.”

  She jumped off her stool, poured two glasses of pink lemonade, and set them between us with solemn clunks. She took her seat and gave me a serious look.

  “I’m nearly an adult,” she said. “I’m licensed to drive. Plus I can turn into a fox at will. I’m not your average teenager.”

  “No, you are not the average teenager.”

  “So?”

  I squirmed on my seat. She knew me well, and she was right about me keeping a secret. A big one. And it wasn’t about the ghost from that morning, or even about my rezoning spell.

  The reason I’d been staring at her with googly eyes was because I’d been trying to see what aspects she’d inherited from her father. Zoey’s father had never been a part of our lives, not since he’d knocked me up at fifteen, and I hadn’t given him much thought until recently. I had assumed he was just a regular kid, a rich brat who didn’t want to take responsibility for his decisions. I hadn’t known he was a supernatural being. Not until recently. I would never have guessed he was...

  Zoey frowned. “What? What’s going on, Mom? You’re starting to freak me out.”

  I rubbed my clavicle to bring myself into my body, into the present moment. Zoey might be ready to hear the truth about her father, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it. What if she wanted to meet him? She was a good girl, but she wouldn’t stay that way if she had one parent telling her she didn’t need to be good. Come to the dark side, he’d say. We have cookies.

  I took a sip of the pink lemonade. It cut through the taste of coffee in my mouth. The sweetness plus the cold made my teeth sing. Maybe I could tell Zoey about her father. Do it, Zed. I gave myself the command in an imitation of Ribbons’ voice. Tell Zoey, the polite teenager who mopes around the house all summer because she can’t wait to get back to school in the fall, that her father is a genie. A demon. An ancient, powerful creature straight from Hell. What could possibly go wrong?

  “Okay,” I said, keeping my gaze on the glass of pink juice. “There is something going on.”

  “I knew it. Does this have something to do with that new transformation spell you cast on yourself?”

  I grasped at her question like a drowning sailor grabbing a buoy. Pull back, Zara. Now the cheeky wyvern’s voice was gone from my head, and it was only me in there. Look at your daughter’s innocent face. Let her have the summer before telling her she’s demon spawn.

  “Yes,” I said eagerly. “The transformation spell. That’s exactly what’s been on my mind.” The pink lemonade had made my mouth water spectacularly. As I spoke, saliva flew forth, spraying both my forearms and hers.

  “Ew!” She squealed and rubbed her forearms on her jeans. “Say it, don’t spray it, Mom!”

  “Don’t be so squeamish. Witch saliva is naturally antibacterial. Aunt Zinnia says it’s handy for breaking down magical compounds, plus it can deodorize entire rooms.” I grinned. “Rub that on your armpits and you won’t need antiperspirant.”

  There was a flash of white as Boa came to investigate what the squealing was about. She padded across the counter like a spoiled cat despite having been told repeatedly that counters were not for kitties. She investigated our lemonade glasses, her white whiskers angling forward in an expression of do-not-want before moving on to my coffee mug, the contents of which she did like enough to take a few licks.

  When she was done sampling my coffee, Boa jumped onto Zoey’s lap and settled in for petting. She watched me over the counter with suspicious eyes.

  “She’s looking at me funny,” I said. “Do you think she knows something?”

  “She’s just a cat, Mom. Her main concern is cat food. Speaking of which, we need more.”

  “Already? I just picked some up.”

  Zoey whispered, “I think somebody else has been eating it.” By somebody, she meant Ribbons. It was only the two of us, plus our cat and wyvern.

  “Ew. Is there nothing he won’t eat?” I looked around the kitchen for the wyvern. “Speaking of whom, have you seen him this morning?”

  “He sleeps in on the weekends.” Zoey smirked. “And on the weekdays.”

  I nodded. She didn’t know Ribbons had been awake before dawn, alerting me to the presence of a ghost in our living room.

  Zoey looked down at the fluffy white cat on her lap. “Boa feels tense,” she said. “It must be the smoke outside.” She ducked her head down to give the fluffy white cat a kiss on the nose, then peered at me expectantly. “You were saying? Something about that spell you shouldn’t have cast on yourself? Are you going to phone Auntie Z and tell her what you did?”

  “I swear I’ll tell her as soon as she gets back from her vacation.”

  “You’d better. Keeping secrets from your family is unhealthy.” She rubbed Boa’s chin. The cat gave me a smug look, as if to say she was the most beloved creature in the house. And who was to say she wasn’t right? Nobody else in the house got their chin rubbed so lovingly.

  Zoey prompted me again. “What’s going on with your rezoning spell?” My clever offspring was nothing if not persistent.

  “Nothing much. By which I mean I guess it’s working the way it’s supposed to. I’m a perfectly organized library for ghosts now, not a free-for-all ghost disco or whatever.”

  My daughter continued petting the cat with one hand and used the other to indicate I should keep talking. Normally I didn’t need such encouragement.

  “There’s a new ghost in town,” I said grimly.

  She listened as I told her about the morning’s events. Being woken by the wyvern. Finding the ghost on the couch. His bulging eyes and glowing throat. And then the headless body inside the apartment across the street.

  Chapter 3

  After I was done telling my daughter about the new ghost, she held her finger to her lips and asked, “Can we backtrack for a moment?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Backtrack away.”

  “When you ignored Aunti
e Z’s many, many, many warnings about casting spells to alter yourself, did you happen to set up official business hours?”

  I rubbed my forehead. Had I? My memory of that night was hazy. I’d been manic, scribbling notes and calculations in the wee hours of the morning, arguing with Ribbons while I sipped on the cocoa he’d warmed with his personal steam.

  “Hang on,” I said. “Let me get my notes.”

  I ran down to the basement, retrieved my notes from a hidden drawer in the desk, and ran up the wooden stairs quickly. I didn’t like being down there during daylight hours, never mind how cozy and welcoming I found my witch’s lair at night. Zoey didn’t like going down at all, so she’d stayed at the doorway waiting for me.

  When I got upstairs, Zoey asked, “How did this ghost get through the wards on the house?”

  We returned to the island in the kitchen, and I set the notes between us. “My guess is I might have overrode something when I cast my transformation spell.”

  Boa jumped from my daughter’s arms to the counter. She repeated the inspection of the glasses and coffee mug with the curiosity only a cat could conjure up.

  Zoey read over my notes and grew very still and quiet. She hadn’t yet manifested the ability to cast spells, but thanks to her keen intellect, she was able to understand the theory beneath the Witch Tongue language and the syntax of spellwork.

  “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 been 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.”