Serpent's Kiss: A Witches of East End Novel Read Online Free

found baking pans upstairs in the bathtub, cups and coffee mugs inside the oven, her hairbrush in the freezer, and now it was going to be a hunt for the Chinese soap dish. There were small items that had gone missing altogether: tweezers by the bathroom sink, along with a pair of small scissors, and, later, her sewing kit. Was Gracella busting out—to use an expression of Freya’s—new cleaning techniques? Had she lost it? But that would be very unlike Gracella, who was steady, observant, and almost too thoughtful (in the bathroom, she aligned Joanna’s lipsticks with the color labels facing upward from dark to light).
    Was one of her girls playing tricks with her? But why? Logic dictated it couldn’t have been Freya, who had seemed distracted lately and had been a no-show for several days. Freya always made a point of letting Joanna know she was home, singing audibly as soon as she walked through the door, then greeting her mother with a hug and a kiss. Ingrid wasn’t exactly the prankster type. If Ingrid had been peeved with Joanna for whatever reason, she wouldn’t take it out on her by hiding Joanna’s things.
    “Aha!” uttered Joanna as she scooted a chair out from the table after trying the breadbox and every other unlikely nook and cranny in the kitchen she could think of. The antique soap dish, which she had bought eons ago at a market in Hong Kong and had managed not to break all these years, sat smack in the middle of the chair’s seat. It was clean and contained a brand-new bar of soap. Puzzling. Perhaps Gracella had been forgetful, had had an off day. Everyone did from time to time, even the best of housekeepers.
    Joanna washed her hands, content that everything (or so it seemed for now) had been put back in its rightful place. She pulled the ancient wand out of her loose bun so that her long silver hair fell down her shoulders. She needed a shower.
    As she strode through the living room on her way upstairs, the blinking answering machine caught her eye, and she stopped in her tracks. The red button winked twice at her, then paused and blinked twice again. Ah , she thought, they aren’t as inconsiderate as I thought and are finally learning that a mother does worry even when her girls are immortal .
    She walked over to the machine and flicked her wand at it. She could, of course, press the button, both acts requiring a single gesture, but somehow this felt easier, plus Gracella had taken care to clean the vintage machine: she had seen her doing so with Q-tips and rubbing alcohol.
    “ Uh … this is Norman. Uh … your husband?” the machine said.
    “Oh!” She was caught off guard. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for Norman to continue. Why did he have to announce himself like that? They had known each other for millennia, and she certainly hadn’t forgotten his voice. What was with the upbeat word husband with the question mark at the end? Well, she had to admit that she herself didn’t know what their status was. Being apart this long, would they actually be considered divorced?
    “I’ve been thinking … How to put this? … Maybe this is not the right place to say it, Jo … I probably should speak with you directly instead …”
    Joanna waved a hand at the machine as if to urge it to speed up.
    “Yes, I know, you’re getting impatient with me right now, so I’ll get on with it …”
    Joanna snorted. She couldn’t help but feel a slight thrill at hearing Norman’s soft gruff voice, which suggested a nose-in-the-books-all-day kind of weariness. There was also the pleasure of the deep familiarity of his voice, like hearing from an old friend who anticipated her thoughts.
    Norman continued. “Ever since that little shindig of Ingrid’s—the library fund-raiser—well, even before that, I thought … Well, maybe we can just talk a little?” The latter came out rushed. “I would really like that, Jo. Call me! I was thinking it would be truly terrific if—” Just as