Chapter 3
GLINDA WAS LATE FOR brunch.
I couldn’t decide if my queasiness was due to the sweets hangover from the party, or dread that something terrible had happened to my cousin. Or maybe my dress was too tight.
The soft linen didn’t have much give, but the empire waist resting right above the swell of my belly gave my wittle witch plenty of room to stretch out.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t considered the extra cups I’d gained upstairs.
The pregnancy hormones had done a number on my breasts, and breathing was a chore this morning.
But the pattern of little vampire bats and pointy witch hats that dotted the dress was too cute to resist.
“I’ll give her five more minutes,” Zelda said, tapping her lacquered nails on her mimosa glass.
We’d been waiting for over half an hour already, and Zee had rescheduled a spa day after I’d spent half the night following her around the party, begging for her assistance in between stuffing myself silly.
“She promised she’d be here.” I folded my hands together in a grateful, pleading gesture. “Thank you again for doing this for me, Zee.”
“I haven’t done anything yet. And I’m the Shifter Wanker, not the Witchy Wanker,” Zelda reminded me. “Even if she did get herself hexed, I might not be able to do anything about it.”
Zelda’s powers were potent, but they were tied to Assjacket and meant to protect and heal the Shifters of this strange little town. Still, I was hoping she could help if Glinda showed up with a wart or tail. Or worse, bunions. I shuddered.
Who knew what Emmy was capable of these days?
The wind picked up outside, and the door to the Country Club dining room flung open, slamming into the wall.
Tablecloths fluttered, silverware rattled, and annoyed Shifters glanced up from the rude interruption as Glinda landed at the threshold.
A pair of aviator sunglasses perched on her button nose.
She was still wearing her leather riding suit, along with a dramatic cloak that swished behind her as she slid off her broom and sauntered across the room.
“It’s about motherhumping time,” Zelda snapped, giving my cousin’s biker attire an appraising once-over. The Shifter Wanker’s tastes leaned more toward modern designer duds, like the Max Midnights jeans and Jimmy Choo heels she wore today.
“What’s she doing here?” Glinda demanded.
“Well, good morning to you, too.” Zelda snorted.
“No offense,” Glinda backpeddled. She yanked off her sunglasses and gave Zelda a phony smile. “I just have some private things to discuss with Margo.”
“How private?” I asked. “Like back hair? A third nipple?”
“What?” Glinda balked, her bloodshot eyes blinking stiffly. “No! Why would—” Understanding dawned on her suddenly, and she huffed. “For Wizard’s sake, Margo. I’m fine. That was a long time ago. Harmless sibling shenanigans when we were children,” she added, waving her hand dismissively.
Her cartoony villain mustache hadn’t seemed so harmless on picture day. Neither had the oozy acne in my own pictures. Thank the Wizard for photo editing software.
“Welp,” Zelda said, grabbing her Prada bag as she stood, “I guess you don’t need my help after all. Later, witches.” She stalked out of the dining room without a backward glance.
“Thanks anyway!” I called after her, wincing with embarrassment. She threw a halfhearted wave over her shoulder.
Wasting the Shifter Wanker’s time was becoming a bad habit of mine, but I wouldn’t be rude or ungrateful—like my cousin.
“She was here to help you,” I hissed under my breath at Glinda.
“I didn’t ask for her help.” Glinda tossed her broom in the nearest corner and plopped onto Zelda’s abandoned chair. She snatched up the half-drunk mimosa and nearly took a sip before noticing Zelda’s bright lipstick on the rim. “Ugh. The service around here.”
I refrained from reminding her that she was a bartender at the Country Club too, and instead asked, “How was your night?”
“Fine, fine.” Her voice rose an octave, taking my hackles along with it.
When she realized her answer wasn’t going to cut it, she added, “It was a college town, so lots of schmucky dude-bro munchkins who totally deserved the ass-zappings I passed out as freely as trick-or-treat candy. Of course, there were no treats. Just tricks.” She smirked wickedly.
“So... Emmy behaved?” I asked more directly.
“Uh, yeah.” Glinda scoffed. “I told you, we’re not children anymore. She saved her hexes for the villagers. You should have seen the unibrow she put on this neanderthal we ran into at a frat party. You would have thought he was shifting into a werewolf, the way he was carrying on.”
“What’s wrong with werewolves?” I asked, indignant on behalf of Zelda’s husband Mac.
“Nothing. If you don’t mind fleas.” Glinda snickered.
Holy poppy fields, was I glad no one was close enough to overhear her.
“Not all werewolves have fleas,” I whispered through clenched teeth.
Before Glinda could pop off with another insult, Daisy appeared with a fresh mimosa and a pair of menus.
Asher’s mom was usually a hostess, but she’d been picking up some waitressing shifts for the tips.
Not that I didn’t love having Asher at the house, but I felt guilty for all the time his mother was missing with him.
Mama Hermosa was right. We had room to spare, and if Daisy and Ash moved in with us, she’d be able to drop some shifts instead of picking up more.
Once we finished remodeling the nursery, I was betting Asher would help us convince his mother, too.
If that didn’t do the trick, maybe we could knock down a wall on the second floor and merge a couple of the bedrooms into a proper suite with a kitchenette.
After the wittle witch arrived, I planned to have a more serious talk about it with Daisy. I was even willing to forgo my commission if I sold her house, as soon as my testy broom was willing to tote me to and from showings and open houses again.
“G’day, Linda!” Daisy greeted my broody cousin. “We missed you at the party last night.”
“It’s Guh-linda.” Glinda snatched the fresh mimosa from her and downed it. “Keep’em coming, Blondie.”
“Got it.” Daisy grabbed a pitcher of water from a nearby cart and topped off my glass before disappearing to fetch Glinda another drink.
“I don’t remember you being this rude before you left,” I said, sucking in a strained breath to calm my rising ire. The dress was back to squeezing my mangoes, an uncomfortable reminder that I needed to get my mood under control.
“Sorry,” Glinda grumbled then paused to yawn. “I haven’t been to bed yet.”
“You stayed out all night?”
“What’s it to you, Gran?” Her face twisted with malice, but she reined it in quickly. “Sorry,” she repeated. “I really need some sleep. I would have called to reschedule, but I didn’t want you to worry, and I thought I should at least give you a head’s up...”
“About?” I asked cautiously.
Glinda shot a nervous glance across the room at the large window that overlooked the County Club’s massive collection of Olympic-sized swimming pools out back. With the fall weather settling in, the few Shifters who still swam generally waited until midday. At the moment, the pools were empty.
Which is why I supposed my cousin decided it was safe to drop a metaphorical house on me.
“The family knows you’re expecting.”
* * *
“What?” I gripped the table with both hands as the room began to spin.
A spiderweb of lightning streaked through the sky outside, reflecting ominously across the surface of the swimming pools, and the chandeliers in the Country Club flickered. I hardly noticed the collective gasp of the Shifters at the tables around us as my eyes laser-focused on my cousin.
“You told Emmy?” I asked—well, more like accused.
“She already knew. I swear!” Glinda held up both hands in surrender. “She wanted to know about the baby shower and what sort of gift she should bring.”
“I am not inviting that witchy bitch to my baby shower.” I was sure my eyes were glowing red. They felt like they were on fire, and I doubted even the deluge beating against the dining room window could put them out.
“That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?” Glinda’s bottom lip rolled out into an over-the-top pout. “You’re inviting me, and I tried to steal your broom and get you evicted. Emmy’s not done anything to you—recently.”
“She ruined high school!”
“Lots of teens had acne, and yours cleared up by our junior year.”
“She gave you a mustache. A full-on, Burt Reynolds’ soup strainer!”
Glinda greened a little at that one, but she muscled onward, hellbent on excusing her cosmetically destructive sister’s hex-gressions. “Again, that was a long time ago. We’re West witches. Come on! Who else were we going to practice our wicked ways on?”
“I didn’t practice any wicked ways on her,” I snapped back.
“Oh?” Glinda’s brows rose accusingly. “Aren’t you forgetting the dust bunny sandwiches you force-fed her?”
“Those were to muffle her curses so I had time to escape!”
Okay, so maybe I’d been a tiny bit wicked. But it was more out of necessity than proclivity.
“Besides, I’m not a West anymore. I’m a Hernández witch. The Hernández witch. I don’t do wicked—and I thought you didn’t either.”
“I promised not to do anything wicked here,” she corrected.
“Zelda made it clear that Assjacket was off limits. I’m not interested in duking it out with the next Baba Yaga.
Terrorizing normies is more my speed—but that means commuting.
And it gets lonely. Last night...with Emmy. ..was kinda nice. You know?”
I didn’t know what to say. What could I say?
I didn’t have a sister, and while Glinda hadn’t been as cruel as her siblings, my lack of wickedness hadn’t exactly drawn us together as kids.
How we were able to get along as adults was a bit of mystery to me, considering her Wizard-may-care lifestyle.
She was a bartender who enjoyed BDSM antics with her bunny Shifter boy toy and the occasional necromancy ritual.
And, apparently, terrorizing dude-bros in the company of other wicked witches.
I, on the other hand, was a Samantha Homemaker, saving my witchy wiles for domestic bliss and settling in quite comfortably with my new fruit bat Shifter family.
But if Glinda and I could find common ground and be kind-ish to one another, was there a chance Emmy and I could strike a truce, too?
It was a really big IF.
“Here we are!” Daisy chirped as she returned with a fresh mimosa for Glinda and a plate of waffle egg bites topped with bacon bits.
She knew all my favorites. By the time she’d collected our entre orders, Glinda had polished off the second mimosa.
The downpour outside had also faded to a drizzle, and sunlight peeked through the clouds.
The Shifters were still on edge, and more than one group had abandoned their table, leaving half-eaten pancakes and omelets behind.
I hoped they hadn’t forgotten to tip. I made a mental note to write in fifty percent on our ticket, just in case.
And with the way Glinda was tossing back the cocktails, I could tell it was going to be a painful bill.
As soon as Daisy left to put in our order, Glinda picked up where we’d left off.
“Look...” She sighed and chewed her bottom lip. “Emmy and I talked about some other things besides the baby shower.”
I stuffed an egg bite into my mouth, hoping it would stave off any changes in the weather. “Mmm?” I mumbled, prompting her to get on with it. I wanted to get the waterworks over and done with before the Shifters rallied Zelda to hold another town meeting about my disruptive magic.
“Your parents’ divorce was finalized last week,” Glinda finally admitted. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” I said around my mouthful of food. “It’s not like we were a happy family. I haven’t seen my father since Gran’s funeral, and my mother... Well, you remember how that went down. Zelda banished her.”
One more reason I could see myself never leaving this town. Although, the rain had picked up a smidge. I was sure that had more to do with the thought of my parents in general. As awful as Emmy’s acne hexes had been, the real trauma had been their doing.
“Rightly so.” Glinda nodded. “I only mention it because, since then, your father has had a change of heart. He’s considering inviting you back into the fold, Margo.”
“What? Why?” I swallowed hard and stared at her. “I have Gran’s broom and a trust fund. I don’t need anything else from them.”
“Maybe not.” Glinda pressed her lips together and her brows knit into a painful expression.
“But I wouldn’t mind being back in the family’s wicked graces.
I miss Gran’s house and the local villages.
With Emmy’s help, maybe she could convince them to change their minds about me, too.
But I don’t see that happening if I can’t even convince you to invite her to the baby shower. ”
“Dorothy drop a house on me,” I swore.
“Please?” Glinda folded her hands together under her chin. “I know our family is more wicked than you’d prefer, but Gran never gave up on any of us. She must have had her reasons. Right?”
Or maybe our gran was an even bigger pushover than me, I wondered bitterly. I couldn’t be too upset about that though. If she’d disowned my parents for their wickedness, they would have taken me with them, and I wouldn’t have had Gran’s warmth and safety during the worst of my childhood.
“Please?” Glinda asked again, her lashes batting innocently.
My nostrils flared, and wittle witch gave a jab to my ribs, signaling me to cram another egg bite into my mouth. It gave me a minute to mentally go through Roger’s meditation exercise, since the rain had kicked it up another notch.
At least I wasn’t ruining any Halloween parties. Though it looked like scattered showers were in the forecast for the upcoming baby shower.
Possibly a flood.
Wizard, help me.