Yet, there was something I wasn’t taking into account, some little detail I was missing.

  I pulled up in front of Wanda’s house. Sure enough, her car was sitting in the driveway.

  Not that Wanda and I were close by any stretch of the imagination, but seeing the old Vega and knowing she was just a doorbell away suffused me with a relief that surprised me. For as prickly and difficult as Wanda could be, I liked her.

  As to whether or not she liked me? I wasn’t sure. But, I was fairly sure she wouldn’t want to get mixed up in Fifi’s dilemma. Wanda had her own priorities, and helping her fellow supernaturals out of the kindness of her heart wasn’t one of them.

  Still, she was the only person in town with the magical chops to help—even if she was crap at brewing potions. If she didn’t want to help Fifi, maybe she would see her way to helping me instead.

  I knocked on her door and nearly jumped out of my shoes as she ripped the door open and practically dragged me inside.

  “Oh, thank Hecuba you’re here! You’re the answer to my prayers.”

  I groaned as soon as I realized what this meant. It wasn’t going to be me involving Wanda in my affairs, but the other way around. “Not again.”

  She hauled me down the hall to the living room and parked me in the middle of the floor. She waved toward the couch and two armchairs. “There! For the love of all that’s unholy, will you please do something about this?”

  I blinked.

  Darla and Libby sat in the living room, getting on the Domestic Goddess Championships. Libby was parked in front of a sewing machine and running turquoise polka-dot fabric through it, one yard after another.

  Darla, meanwhile, perched on the edge of the couch playing Father Knows Best with a pair of scissors and a Houston-sized pile of paper scraps. She finished clipping and held up a long string of interconnected hearts.

  “Whoopee! It worked. See? Just in time for Valentine’s Day!”

  “Valentine’s Day was last week, honey,” Libby called out. She removed her fabric from the machine, turned it backward, and started driving it through again.

  Wanda’s familiar, Hellcat, busily walked in between the two, complaining about something, but the noise of Libby’s sewing machine drowned out his obnoxious English accent. Not that I was complaining…

  I looked at Wanda. “Everything looks fine to me. What’s the problem?”

  “What’s the problem!” Wanda bellowed, shaking her head. “They won’t leave me alone! That’s the problem!” I felt like telling her ‘welcome to motherhood’ but decided against it.

  “I’m supposed to be making garments for the store and Libby won’t get off the machine!”

  “I told you I’d be finished soon,” Libby explained in high-pitched voice.

  “You said that seven hours ago!” Wanda rounded on me. “And Darla is driving me nuts with whatever the heck she’s always going on about!” She threw her hands into the air again. “It’s always ‘bee’s knees’ this and ‘cat’s meow’ that! If I never hear another word about ‘Chicago lightning’ or a ‘Clip joint’, it will be too soon! I can’t remember what the spell any of it means!”

  That’s right—Wanda had lived through the roaring twenties.

  “Chicago Lightning is gunfire,” I supplied.

  “An’ a Clip Joint is one o’ them nightclubs where the prices are too high and all the customers are fleeced, dollface,” Darla answered with a cheeky smile. Her lipstick was bright red and all over her front teeth.

  “And I can’t keep her away from my makeup!” Wanda said as she faced me, and her expression was one of desperation. “Please tell me you came to take Darla back with you?”

  “You know I can’t take her back with me,” I answered. Even though Darla had originally haunted my house, as soon as Wanda accidentally turned her corporeal, she became Wanda’s problem. Apparently, when reanimating someone, that someone can’t bear to be parted from her maker.

  “Please tell me you have come to remove me from this obscene household?” Hellcat demanded as he leapt onto the sofa and started scratching it, before Wanda swatted him away. He landed on the floor indelicately, and then glared up at me. “I have had my fill of these dimwitted females!”

  “I didn’t come here to take anyone back with me,” I announced to everyone and anyone who was listening.

  “At least tell me you brought some of the hard stuff? Vodka or rum?” Wanda continued as I shook my head and she plopped onto the couch, staring at her two roommates with a depressed expression. “These two loopy corpses are going to be the death of me. They keep coming up with one summer camp project after another, each one messier than the last.”

  “I’m sorry,” I started.

  “It’s like Camp Wanda… all… the… freaking… time,” she finished as she shook her head again. “And I’ve drunk everything I can in the house.” She pointed at the trash can, which was piled high with glass bottles.

  “I told her she should be recycling those,” Libby pointed out.

  “I’d love to encourage Libby with a nice little encounter with a rabid dog… or maybe a Mack truck,” Wanda prattled on. “I haven’t decided yet which would be more satisfying.”

  Libby barely looked up. She murmured in her stickiest Don’t Talk Back To Your Mother voice, “That isn’t nice, Wanda. You shouldn’t say things like that.”

  Wanda slapped her palm against her forehead with another aggravated roar as she faced me. “Will you PLEASE do something with these walking cadavers? I’m about to lose it completely, and if I do, I won’t be responsible for the consequences.”

  I had to laugh, even though I did my best to keep it concealed. Then I remembered I hadn’t come here for a laugh, even though it felt good to do so. I needed to talk to Wanda, preferably alone. I pulled out my phone and called the man who would provide a solution to this particular problem.

  “Poppy! Please tell me you have another ghost for us to hunt,” Henner asked, after picking up on the first ring.

  I laughed again. “Sorry, Henner. Just a couple of…” I looked over at Libby and Darla.

  “Cadavers,” Wanda filled in, loud enough that Henner could hear. I wasn’t so much worried about that because Henner, the grandson of the original Blood Witch of Haven Hollow, Betanya Tayir, had read her journals (which he later gifted to Wanda) so he already knew about the supernatural goings-on in Haven Hollow. He knew Wanda was a witch and that she’d raised Libby from the dead. And he happened to be sitting in my living room when Wanda managed to make Darla corporeal again. But, RJ wasn’t in the know and I didn’t want him finding out, owing to the fact that I’d signed a contract with the Council of Haven Hollow, swearing me to secrecy.

  “Ladies,” I corrected. “For you and RJ to babysit.”

  A long silence echoed down the phone and then I overheard RJ asking, “Did I hear the word ‘cadavers’? Last I checked, they don’t really need babysitting. They just lie there.”

  “Wanda was just joking,” I told Henner, hoping he’d relay the message. “I’m talking about Darla and Libby. Wanda needs a break and I need to talk to her about something important. How about you and RJ take the ladies out for a little while? As a big favor to me?”

  Just then, RJ’s voice cut in again. “What’s this about cadavers?”

  “It was just Wanda making a weird and poorly timed joke,” Henner answered. “Pops wants us to take Libby and Darla out and show ‘em a good time.” Apparently, Marty’s nickname for me of ‘Pops’ was spreading. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, because ‘Pops’ sounded like an old grandfather. Jeez, between that and Sandy from the beginning of the movie, I was really batting a zero.

  “Who are Libby and Darla?” RJ asked.

  “Friends of Wanda’s,” Henner supplied—he’d also been sworn to secrecy by the Council and he’d been keeping his secrets from RJ all these years.

  “Oh, cool.”

  “We’d love to,” Henner got back to me. “But we can’t. RJ and I have tickets to a wrestling match tonight.”

  “Actually, I don’t really like wrestling,” RJ said.

  “You do too!” Henner retorted. “You said you were as excited as I was.”

  “I only said that to make you happy. I wouldn’t mind hanging out with ladies instead.”

  “Great, then it’s a date!” I said with a nervous smile.

  “RJ, those tickets weren’t cheap,” Henner started.

  “Right—they were free!” RJ responded as Libby looked up at me and stopped sewing.

  “What exactly are you doing? You aren’t setting me up on a date are you, because I’m a married woman, you know.”

  “Cool your jets, babycakes,” Darla called over. “It isn’t the 1950s anymore an’ your husband’s been pushing up daisies for years!”

  “You shouldn’t speak of the dead so discourteously,” Libby reprimanded her.

  “Speak of the dead?” Wanda called out. “You are the dead!”

  “Libby, you should live a little,” Darla continued, then started laughing. “Get it? Live a little? I’m a scream, I tell ya.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do?” Henner interrupted.

  “Let’s bring the gals with us,” RJ suggested.

  “Yeah, because ladies are just going to LOVE wrestling,” Henner responded.

  “Actually, Darla loves wrestling,” I told him. “She likes to ogle all the scantily clad men in their spandex outfits.”

  Darla’s head shot up. “Wrestling! Oh, it’s just the—”

  “Bee’s knees,” Wanda filled in, rolling her eyes.

  “Darla’s on board with the wrestling match,” I told Henner.

  “Great, only problem is there’s only two tickets,” Henner responded.

  “I’ll take Libby out,” RJ said.

  “What in the name of all that’s decent is going on?” Libby demanded.

  “You’re going to be spending some time with RJ,” I answered.

  “And who is that? A man? You know how I feel about being left alone with a man!”

  “Great, Libby’s happy to hang out with RJ.”

  “Poppy Morton, do you hear me?” Libby called.

  “When’s the soonest I can drop them off?” I asked, ignoring the ruckus behind me.

  “You sound frazzled, Pops, why don’t we come and pick them up?” Henner asked.

  “You’re a life saver,” I responded with a deeply grateful sigh. “Thank you.”

  “Can you ask Henner to bring some booze?” Wanda asked.

  I did as she asked and then hung up the phone as another subject occurred to me and I faced Wanda. “By the way, how was Valentine’s with Lorcan?”

  She smiled from ear to ear. “Oh, it was just great.”

  Of course, that struck me as odd, considering she couldn’t stand Lorcan at the best of times. “Start splainin’, Lucy.”

  “Well, thanks to you warning me about the Amore’ Oil he’d purchased from you, I was ready for him and I pretended like you’d never called to warn me. And then I did my best impersonation of a stage five clinger.”

  I laughed. “And did that freak Lorcan out?”

  She shook her head and appeared a bit perplexed. “Well, not exactly. He actually seemed to like it which is weird because I thought for sure my impersonation of Fatal Attraction would have scared him away, but apparently, that vampire is like trying to get rid of the clap.”

  I didn’t know anything about ‘the clap’ but I did know that Lorcan had never actually used the Amore’ Oil on Wanda. I didn’t have the heart to tell her Lorcan had changed his mind and decided to return the potion a day or so later, saying our little heart to heart had had the intended outcome.

  I decided to keep that little juicy morsel to myself.

  “Wanda, what’s ‘the clap’?” Libby asked.

  Wanda shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe crabs?”

  “Why would they call crabs ‘the clap’?” I asked.

  Wanda shrugged again. “Who knows why they call anything what they do?”

  “Baloney!” Darla piped up, waving us both away with a frown and drawn brows. “Everyone knows ‘the clap’ is another term for the butter and egg man!”

  “The who?” I asked.

  “The what?” Libby asked at the same time.

  “I hate my life,” Wanda muttered, also at the same time.

  “You know—the money man, the man with the bankroll, the yokel who comes to town to blow a big wad in the nightclubs—he’s ‘the clap’,” Darla finished.

  “You females are a bunch of brainless morons,” Hellcat responded from his perch on the couch. “As any informed individual knows, ‘the clap’ is a colloquial term for gonorrhea.”

  “Oh,” we all answered in unison.

  Chapter Six

  Wanda turned to me while we counted down the seconds for the guys to clear Darla and Libby out of the house.

  “What are you doing here in the middle of a business day, anyway?” she asked, eyeing me suspiciously. “And don’t tell me you didn’t have any customers.”

  “I took the day off because I’ve been working on this….”

  Wanda held up her hand to silence me. “Wait. I have another problem I need you to deal with first.”

  “What now?”

  She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Henner and RJ showed up. Darla was eager to get out of the house, but tearing Libby away from her sewing project and convincing her RJ had no hopes of ‘getting up her apron’ took another half-hour.

  Henner and RJ didn’t look too disappointed at having the deceased-until-recently as dates. In fact, all four were smiling by the time I shut Wanda’s door on a blissful silence. We were finally alone.

  “You’re a maestro at match-making,” Wanda said as she turned to face me while pouring herself a Captain and Diet Coke, which Henner had been kind enough to drop off.

  “Yeah,” I grumbled. “Now if only my own love life could be that simple.” Not wanting to discuss my crappy relationship, which was probably quickly becoming ‘or lack thereof’, I changed the subject. “So what’s the other problem you want my help with?”

  Wanda led me away from the living room, down the hall to one of the other bedrooms—not her own. She knocked on the door once and then opened it wide, to reveal a sulking teenager on the bed.

  “Second problem, thy name is Astrid,” Wanda said, frowning first at Astrid, then at me.

  In all the fuss with Henner, RJ, Darla and Libby, I’d completely forgotten the fact that Wanda’s witch cousin, Astrid, was now also living with her, owing to the fact that she’d been kicked out of her coven.

  “You’re the only person who can talk sense into her. She’s been in this room for almost a week and won’t come out,” Wanda explained in a near-whisper.

  I already knew none of Wanda’s family would have anything to do with Wanda since she became a Blood Witch. Apparently, Astrid was following in Wanda’s rebellious footsteps so Wanda’s mother, Celestine Depraysie, kicked Astrid out, too.

  “Hi, Astrid,” I said with a smile as the teen looked from me back to her phone. She was just missing a yawn to show me how unimpressed she was to see me. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  I think I got a grunt.

  “She’s caused me nothing but trouble since she got kicked out of the Crescent Circle Coven and came to live here. She refuses to go to school with the mundanes and now she won’t come out of her room at all,” Wanda informed me as she downed the remnants of her rum and diet.

  I frowned. Astrid was only sixteen or so—I figured that was pretty normal behavior for someone her age.

  “How long has she been in there?” I asked, keeping my voice down.

  “Only four days, but that isn’t the point! She thinks I should be grateful to her for sticking up for me in front of the coven, which is what got her kicked out in the first place.”

  Wanda’s voice grew louder until Astrid stared at her with narrowed and angry eyes.

  “You should be grateful I stood up for you!”

  “Here we go again,” Wanda grumbled as she shook her head and folded her arms across her ample chest, looking inside her glass like she’d forgotten she’d just drained it.

  I shrugged as I faced her. “You could show a little understanding, Wanda. It must be hard for someone Astrid’s age to lose her whole family and community.”

  “What about me?” Wanda demanded, glaring at me. “What about a little understanding for my situation? I don’t see her giving me any of that.”

  “You’re an adult.”

  Why did I even bother? Considerate, adult behavior was definitely not in Wanda’s repertoire of emotional intelligences.

  Wanda chopped her hand toward the door. “You deal with her! You’re a mother and I don’t know how to wrangle these things like you do.”

  “By things, I’m assuming you mean children?”

  Deciding this conversation shouldn’t be had in front of the child in question, I escorted Wanda back into the hallway, closing the door gently behind me. “For a start, the first thing you need to understand is that a full-frontal assault won’t work.”

  “I don’t care! I don’t want a lesson in psychotherapy. Just get her out of that room, get her fed for the next four-day internment, and talk some sense into her about going to school. She’s a red-headed witch and you know what that means. She’s impossible!”

  I laughed to myself. This scene was Wanda all over the place—she couldn’t negotiate with her cat, much less a recalcitrant teenaged witch with red hair. The red-headed ones were famous for their fiery attitudes. They could kick up trouble like no one’s business, but Astrid had one thing going in her favor. She cared about Wanda.

  I knocked on the door and then opened it as I offered the teenager a big smile. “Where were we?” I asked as Astrid frowned at me, but didn’t say anything.

  Wanda hunched her shoulders and fumed while she waited for me to work my maternal magic. This was way above my pay grade, and potions wouldn’t do the trick.

  Thinking about potions gave me an idea and I called on that one sure-fire remedy for all child-related maladies. “Did you have lunch?” I asked as Astrid shook her head. “You must be getting hungry. How about you come down to the kitchen and we’ll make some brownies and spaghetti.”