It Never Rhines but It Pours (26 page)

As briefly as I could, I explained the Pravus spell mistake to her. There was a long silence. “Cecily?”

She sighed. “You can never trust a witch, Piper,” she said sadly.

I grunted. “We’re a little past that point, Cecily.”

“Well,” her voice was back to its normal cheerfulness. “There is one easy solution.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It will instantly reverse the spell on your mom. No harm done.”

“What is it?” I was suspicious.

“Kill the witch.”

I groaned. Back to square one again. It seemed like, no matter what I did, the best solution kept coming back to taking Pravus’ head. Maybe I should just let Cecily do it and be done with this whole mess. I gave myself a mental shake. Snap out of it, Piper! One should never kill someone for convenience. I should trademark that advice. It would make a great Hallmark card.

Why me? Why me?
I silently asked the ceiling.

“Piper?” Cecily was still on the line.

“Yeah?”

“What do you think?”

“About killing Pravus? I’m all for it. Whack him, by all means! Who cares if he’s innocent? He’s really inconveniencing my life right now and the easiest thing to do is get rid of him.”

“Piper?” Cecily sounded unsure. “You don’t sound sincere.”

“It’s called sarcasm,” I groaned.

“So,” she paused. “I can’t kill him.”

“No. You can’t kill him.”

“Well then,” she paused again. “What are we going to do?”

“I was hoping you had some ideas that didn’t involve decapitation.”

“All out,” she said cheerfully.

“Okay. Just hang tight then. I’m going to go check on Mom and Sarah and I’ll call you in a bit. Maybe Pravus will be back soon with the reverse spell.” I hung up the phone. “I knew this was a bad idea,” I said to myself. “I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.”

My phone rang as soon as I shut it. It was Cecily again. “Yeah?” I asked.

“Umm, Piper?”

“Yeah?” I said again.

“We might have another problem.”

I groaned. “Don’t tell me!”

“Okay,” she said slowly.

I waited through a long silence before I realized that she was taking me seriously.

“What?” I snapped.

“You said to not tell you,” she was offended.

“I didn’t mean it!”

“Then why did you say it?”

I gritted my teeth and bit back several less than kind responses. “Just tell me what it is.”

“I happened to look out at your front door,” she said.

“And?”

“Well, there’s a skunk ape with a little boy and a bunch of suitcases sitting on your front step.”

“What!?”

“There’s a skunk ape with a little boy and a bunch of suitcases sitting on your front porch,” she repeated.

“Annabeth?” I guessed the only skunk ape I had ever met.

“Yup.”

“And Harry?” Annabeth’s son.

“Yup.”

“And suitcases?”

“Looks like they’re here to visit for awhile.”

I groaned again. What in the world were Annabeth and Harry doing showing up on my doorstep? I’d given her my address, but really! I didn’t think she would follow us down here! What did she want? There was one obvious way to find out, but it involved driving home and leaving my mother here. I didn’t know how much sanity she had left, how fragile it was, and if the sight of a nine-foot odiferous monkey would drive her over the edge.

“Cecily?” An important question occurred to me.

“Still here.”

“Is Annabeth human or skunk ape?”

“She’s a skunk ape, Piper.” Cecily sounded like she was answering a stupid question.

“No, I mean, does she look like a human right now?” I had visions of the neighbors calling animal control in a panic.

I could have sworn I heard Cecily’s eyes rolling in her head. “She looks human, Piper. What did you think? That she would be sitting on your front step looking like a giant orangutan?”

Seeing as that was exactly what I had just thought, I decided to ignore the question. “Okay. Would you mind going over and letting her in the house?” I asked. “You still have my spare key, right?”

“As if I ever needed it in the first place,” I heard her mutter. Giving her a spare key had been the source of a little contention. Cecily found it insulting to think that she would need a key to enter any house that she had been invited into. I, on the other hand, refused to acknowledge that my paltry locks would do nothing to stop a vampire and insisted that she use a key like a proper human being.

I chose to ignore that remark as well. “Great. You let her in, find out why she’s here, and I’ll be home as soon as I make sure Mom is going to be alright.”

“Remember, we have an interview with suspect number two this afternoon,” she reminded me.

“We do?”

“Well, not really an interview. But we’re running out of time and I thought we should wrap up our Synod hit as soon as possible.”

I made a face at the phone. “Sure, yeah, top of my list. Interview possible murderer. Plan execution of guilty party. Unspell my mother. Kick Pravus out of the house. Find out why there’s a skunk ape on my front porch. Find more human’s with abilities. The list goes on.”

“There’s not really a lot to
plan
for an execution,” Cecily pointed out. “You just decide that the being is guilty and then cut off their head. It’s easy. I don’t think it should have its own spot on the list.” She was serious.

“Fine,” I said. “Go greet Annabeth and I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I hung up before she could say anything else. She was getting on my nerves.

“Piper?” Sarah was standing behind me. “Mom is rearranging all the dishes in the kitchen.”

I raised both eyebrows.

“By size,” she finished. “Largest to smallest. On the counters. Well, it started on the counters; now she ran out of room and is moving to the floor. She’s really bothered that some of them are the same size and it’s all I can do to convince her not to break them into different sizes.” Sarah looked harried. Good. She deserved it. She was mostly to blame for this fiasco in the first place.

There was a loud smash from the kitchen and I heard Mom say, “That’s better!”

Sarah blanched and ran off for the kitchen. I trailed after her slowly. The room was as bad as I imagined it to be. I tried to make myself feel better by remembering that I didn’t live here anymore. It wasn’t
my
kitchen. Oh no. It was just
my
mother.

Sarah was arguing with Mom about bending all the spoons so that when placed end to end they would make perfect circles. Sarah was obviously against this plan. I mouthed, “I’ve got to run,” at Sarah over Mom’s head.

“No!” she mouthed back, eyes wide.

“Take care of Mom,” I mouthed, pretending I couldn’t lip read the easiest word in the English language.

“Don’t leave me!” she whispered.

“Why, Sarah, darling!” Mom said in surprise, “of course I won’t leave you.” She looked serious for a moment, “Unless the aliens come and take me away. But I assure you that it would be totally against my will. That’s why it’s so important to find …” she trailed off.

“Tinfoil?” I offered helpfully.

“Yes!” Mom clapped her hands. “Perfect. We must start on our hats.”

I slipped out the front door without meeting Sarah’s imploring gaze. I had a skunk ape to take care of.

Chapter Twenty-seven:

Uninvited Guests

All was quiet as I pulled into the driveway. I parked quickly in the garage and let myself in through the laundry room. I could hear voices in the kitchen.

“Would you care for a cup of tea?” Cecily was asking as I entered the room.

I took in the scene quickly. A vampire politely offering a skunk ape a refreshing beverage. Not the weirdest thing that has ever happened in my kitchen, but close. My whole life had been nothing
but
weirdness ever since this whole thing started. Perhaps I should be grateful that I wasn’t so blase that I could still appreciate how odd things were.

Annabeth was sitting on one of the bar stools. Harry was sitting at the kitchen table, coloring in a coloring book. There was a mound of suitcases sitting in the front hall.

My first words would probably not pass the Emily Post test of how to best greet unexpected guests. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

Annabeth looked up in relief. “Oh, thank goodness you’re home!”

“What’s going on?” I rephrased.

“I don’t know,” Cecily shrugged. “We were waiting for you.”

I grabbed a diet coke from the fridge and popped open the can. “Okay, I’m here. What’s going on, Annabeth? Is everything okay?”

“We need a place to stay,” she said matter-of-factly, but there was fear in her eyes.

“Why?”

“It’s not safe in the woods anymore. That man has been getting more and more persistent.” She looked extremely tired; at the end of her rope.

“Floyd?”

“Yes,” she nodded, tears brimming her eyes. “Everywhere I go, he’s there. Waiting. Watching. With that horrid camera!”

I gave Cecily a puzzled look, “We erased his memory!”

She too looked perplexed. “That doesn’t make sense. He shouldn’t remember anything. Unless …”

“Unless what?” I asked.

“Unless his desire to find a “hidden animal” is so strong that it has become an obsession. If that is the case it might be so much a part of who he is that …”

“That what?”

“That the only way to make him forget is to completely erase
all
of his memories.”

“All?”

“As in, he would be a vegetable.”

“Oh,” I thought about that for a second. “Not good.”

Annabeth sniffed, “You have to make him stop!”

“Me!”

“Yes! We can’t go on living like this! He’s going to find some proof that I’m not normal and then our lives will be over!”

She did have a point. If Floyd managed to get any kind of video evidence that Annabeth was a skunk ape, then she could kiss her privacy goodbye. Also her life. I swallowed hard. If Annabeth was outed then the nearest Guardian would be sent to take care of the threat. I guess that kind of did make it my problem.

I held up my hands to try and calm her down. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

“You will?” Cecily was surprised.

“Yeah, we have to
clean up our messes
,” I said with emphasis.

I saw Cecily’s brain flash through the same conclusions that I had. “Oh,” she said. “I guess we will have to fix this one way or the other.” She reached up a hand behind her shoulder and looked a little unsettled at realizing that she had left the Sword of Justice at home. I didn’t blame her. Invisible to mortal eyes or not, it couldn’t be that comfortable to lounge around the house in.

“Can we stay with you for awhile?” Annabeth asked. Harry turned huge pleading eyes to me as well. I sighed. I so did not need this right now.

“Cecily?” I gave her a “follow me” jerk with my head. “Can I talk to you a moment? In the other room?”

She followed me into the master bedroom and sat down on the hope chest at the foot of my bed. I closed the door carefully behind us.

“What?” she asked.

“Can they stay with you?” I begged.

“Why me?”

“Because,” I waved my hand around the room. “I’ve got two kids and a husband who know nothing about all of this! How am I going to explain total strangers bedding down in the den?”

Cecily shrugged, implying that it was my problem, not hers.

“Besides,” I wheedled, “You have a guest room! You have a whole house to yourself! They won’t be in your way at all!”

“Piper, the reason I have a whole house to myself is because I
like
having a whole house to myself!”

“It would only be for a few days,” I pleaded. “We’ll get all of this cleared up and then send them on their way. Promise! Three days max!”

I could see her wavering. “Fine,” she said. “Three days. Then I boot them to the curb.”

I nodded.

“And you owe me.”

That sounded a little serious. “Owe you what?”

She shrugged, “Whatever I decide.”

“Like what?” I was suspicious.

“Do you want me to keep them or not?”

“Yeeess,” I said slowly. “But I don’t like making a deal without knowing what the terms are.”

“The terms are, you owe me, and I’ll let you know what and when.”

“That’s a lousy deal!” I was offended.

“Take it or leave it,” she folded her arms across her chest, leaned back on the end of the bed, and glared at me.

“Fine!” I threw my hands in the air. “Whatever! Just put them up for a few days and I’ll owe you!” I put the words “owe you” in finger quotes.