by Mara Webb
The spreadsheet had names down the first column, then dates in the column next to it. I assumed that these were the dates that each of these people disappeared. I scrolled down to the bottom and found Cody’s name, the date next to it was a few weeks ago, confirming my assumption. The names and dates were color coded and looking again at Cody’s entry I could see that his color matched the one assigned to Sage and Arnold. The colors grouped the missing by which town they had disappeared from.
The column next to the date of disappearance also contained dates, but not as many. There was no title to signify what the relevance of these dates was, but each date was a few weeks after the final disappearance from each town every year going back for four years.
“Why does he have this?” Quin mumbled from the floor. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or to me.
“What?” I asked.
“He has a page torn out of The Shevton Gazette that has ads for upcoming events. Everything else here is about missing people but this…maybe he was planning a trip there or something. It must have just been caught up in the papers you grabbed from his desk.”
“Let me see.”
Quin passed the page up to my open hand. It was jagged along one edge where it had been torn and made a crinkle sound as I grabbed hold. There must have been at least fifteen events advertised here, all of them had dates that were a few weeks after the Shevton disappearances. Among the adverts I could see something familiar.
‘The Top Dog is coming to Shevton!
Join an amazing community of people who share the same love of animals. Bring your own furry friends along and enjoy performances, competitions, exhibits and dozens of vendors and enjoy a great day out that is suitable for the whole family.
Tickets are available on the day. 10% discount for online bookings.’
Accompanying the information was a drawing of luscious rolling green hills covered in trees surrounding a central field on which stood a circus tent. Silhouettes of dogs and their owners performing tricks surrounded the tent and a food truck with a giant hotdog on the top was parked alongside.
In the top right of the advert was a photograph of a border collie wearing a first prize ribbon, the dog’s face was as black as ink with a white stripe running down it’s snout from the top of its head, spreading out so that the nose was floating in a patch of snowy fur.
“Well I think we have the connection then; the reason Joseph was looking at both of these things. Right?” I said to Quin. “I will have to check the dates of their tour to confirm, but why else would he be looking into this animal show so aggressively?
“He must have found all this stuff about the mistreatment of animals as a byproduct of his investigation into missing people. I still don’t understand how they are connected, but it must be in here somewhere.” I gestured towards the haul of stolen materials from The Sucré Sun.
I looked again at the advertisement for The Top Dog and read the website address out loud as I began to type it in to the computer. I hadn’t gotten far before the autofill completed the address for me, Joseph had clearly looked on here numerous times. It wasn’t the main page however; it was the page containing the tour dates. I shrank the size of the browser so that I could see the spreadsheet at the same time. The dates for this year’s tour for The Top Dog were the dates that Joseph had typed into the unlabeled third column.
I searched online for previous years of the animal show and found adverts they had published with tour dates. There was a pattern. It was just as I had heard Joseph say on the phone.
One or two people went missing in an area, then within weeks The Top Dog show arrived in town. The ‘about us’ page on the website gave a brief history of the organizers and how the company was established, they had been running for four years. That was also how long people had been disappearing for.
I had more pieces of the giant puzzle now, but I still couldn’t fit them together. Why would a touring animal show be kidnapping witches and wizards? Where were these people now? If I had looked around in the backstage area for longer, would I have stumbled upon them trapped in cages? It made no sense.
“Joseph thought it was the animal show, Quin. I think he was looking at their involvement in this national kidnap epidemic and that got him killed. I don’t know how they are doing it, or why, but we have to follow his notes here and finish his work. I don’t see anything so far that indicates as to whether he thought the victims were still alive or not, I can only hope.”
“So, what now?” he asked. I turned back to the screen and could see that there were several windows open that potentially provided us with the answers we were seeking. I checked the time; it was slipping away at a frightening speed and I thought back to Jen downstairs. I contemplated if I had enough time to go and check on her, I didn’t know what the severity of her wound was, was that type of attack spell survivable?
I took a deep breath and shifted my weight onto my feet as I stood. I arched my back slightly to loosen up the stiffness that had developed from sitting in one place for too long and turned towards the door.
What happened if the attacker found a way in and killed us all? What if we never figured out what was going on at the animal show? What if we never found Cody? Just then a loud howl pierced the air, like a jet tearing through the sky.
I ran to the window of the bedroom opposite my own and saw a dark creature in the backyard.
13
“Nora, are you out of your mind?” Quin paced up and down, wearing the carpet thin as he turned and walked back and forth, back and forth. “It is a bad idea, it’s a dog, it’s dangerous, it’s a dog, we don’t know who sent it, it’s a dog. How many more reasons do you need?” he asked.
The dark creature howled again. What little light shone done onto the back yard had allowed us to see that there was a four-legged animal waiting there, mostly whimpering. It had one leg raised slightly and I suspected it was injured. I had suggested we let it inside, and Quin had given be a brief lecture about why dogs are the worst creatures on the planet and that ‘over his dead body’ was a dog coming into his home. It howled again.
“Quin, why would it be here? It would be weird to send a dog after us when you are capable of the dark magic that killed Joseph and wounded Jen. I don’t think the dog was sent here; I think it has come here by itself. It might be a stray or something.”
“All the more reason for it to stay outside, it is used to the outdoors. It would be confused and, and maybe even frightened to come in here to a nice warm house and have all my meat and sit on my chairs.”
“Quin,” I shot him a look.
“Look, you pierce the fortification spell to let that dog in and whatever dark force sent it will rush in through the door and that would be the end of us. Why are you even considering it? Why not wait until the ten hours is up, if the dog is still there then maybe throw some of your food out into the yard?”
“My intuition is telling me to do this. I can’t explain it.” At least, I hoped it was my intuition and not my obsession with dogs that was putting us all at risk. I had a very stressful night ahead and part of me thought that having a nice little dog to cuddle, fuss, and talk to would be great. Like an emotional support animal. A nice emotional support animal that didn’t talk back or complain all the time about daytime television or how the size of chocolate bars has decreased year on year “but they stay the same price, that’s how they get you”.
I would need to have the cats fix the tear in the fortification spell as soon as the dog was inside. Even as I started to plan it out, I could hear how crazy it sounded. I was willing to put everyone in the house at risk to let a stray dog in. But I had to. I could just sense that it was the right thing to do. Quin was adamant that I had gone cuckoo bananas and wanted no part of it but agreed to take over from the others with the healing spell so that they were free to help me.
I walked down the stairs, the sound of Jennifer’s wails no longer echoed and as I walked in it appeared that she
was now able to talk. The wound on her shoulder was now small enough that it could have been caused by a bullet, instead of the fist sized crater that had been there a few hours ago.
“Nora, any luck?” Jen asked. Amber walked back into the room with a cup of something hot in a mug and passed it to Jennifer who quickly took several gulps. The howling from the back yard seemed louder now. Then a scratching. The creature was up against the back door. The spell would prevent it from getting in, but it was still able to fill the house with the sound of its claws scrambling at the wood.
“I need to let that dog in, I can’t explain why and I’m not exactly sure how to do it either, but you all need to trust me. Please.” I cast my eyes over the sea of cat eyes that looked resistant to my suggestion. Jen and Amber looked at each other and then back at me, they gave a synchronized nod. After a brief explanation from Delphi on how to sneak the ‘disgusting beast’ into the house, I walked with the cats towards the back door with my wand in my left hand. Delphi gestured for me to do as she had instructed.
I opened the back door and thrusted my wand into the faintly glowing wall of light around the house. The delicate, soapy fortification bubble swirled, and I saw my face mirrored in the colors. The bubble burst in slow motion, as a gap appeared in the soap-like barrier the dog ran through the open door. Before the tear in the fortification bubble allowed it to completely collapse the cats began to repair it. It was like all the times I had messed around with bubbles as a kid, trying to poke a finger into one without it exploding. Experimenting with catching the bubble on my hand without causing damage.
I had been so caught up watching the oily swirls collide again into one seamless, fragile mirror that I hadn’t noticed the dog take off running. Jen. Doubt poured into my mind and threatened to spill over, I ran towards the lounge, drowning in the thought that I had let in some awful monster that was about to tear us all apart. When I reached them though I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The lights in the house made it easier to see the animal that had entered the house, it was a black and white border collie, face dark as ink with the white stripe down the snout. It was the dog from the advert for the animal show. It was licking Jen’s face over and over and I could hear gentle cries and whimpers escape its throat. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing, but Jen seemed to figure it out almost immediately.
“Well this is a friendly little guy! Hello! Oh, you are so sweet, yes you are. Yes, you are such a good boy,” she said, nuzzling behind his ears with her one free hand whilst trying to find a safe surface to deposit her mug so she would have a second hand free to fuss the dog. Once both hands were available, she placed them either side of the dog’s face. The dog calmed down, the whimpering stopped, and its breathing fell into a slower rhythm. They stared into each other’s eyes and then Jen let out a gasp.
“Cody? Oh Cody! No, what happened?” she cried, pulling the dog into a tight embrace. I watched from the doorway, convinced I was watching my friend lose her mind in real time. Oh great, another one of those classic situations where your friend thinks that a dog is their lost nephew. But…wait. This is the dog from the advert, it had to have come from the animal show. All that screaming in the parking lot on the day I found Joseph’s body, that was because a prize dog had been ‘stolen’, and Joseph was in the middle of investigating a link between the show and all the missing witches and wizards. Could this actually be Cody? Had he somehow been turned into a dog?
“Amber, do something!” Jen spluttered through sobs. I didn’t know what was being suggested, but Amber grabbed my arm and pulled me to one side, away from the dog-human family reunion.
“Just so we are on the same page,” she started, “she has either gone mad or…or there has been a transformation spell. I am not qualified to fix it; I haven’t had the training. If I even try then I could mess it up, and if he isn’t her nephew and we just turn a random dog into a human…well that’s a whole other mess. I will need to look through your library upstairs if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, but what do I do about this?” I said, gesturing to Jen who was now asking the dog a series of yes or no questions to which the dog was nodding or shaking its head.
“I can restore a voice, but that is as much as I know how to do. That way at least we can find out what has happened here and plan our next moves.” She walked to the dog and after a few strokes of its glossy fur shouted ‘communicare!’ before turning to run up to the attic library.
I wondered briefly why Jen hadn’t performed this spell herself but then remembered something Quin had told me once about how dangerous it was to try operating your magic while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or while hysterical. The dog coughed as if trying to clear its throat before some grand speech, then spoke softly as if the words were only for its ears, before looking straight at Jen.
“Jen. I’m not Cody. My name is Arnold Shepherd. I know where Cody is though,” the dog said. What? This new puzzle piece was more confusing that anything. I leaned against the wall to try and stitch my ideas together. My arm knocked an end table slightly and the sound got Arnold’s attention.
“I’m sorry to have barged into your home like this. I’m sure you have a million questions. I was running through the forest to try and get as far away from Sucré as I could, I didn’t know what to do. Then it occurred to me that if anyone can help us, it’s the council. I went out to the council building and tracked the scents, this house seemed to be the strongest for some reason.” That made sense, there were three of us in one place.
So, the animal show arrives in a town a few weeks after a witch or wizard disappears, and there is now a dog claiming to be one of those missing people. A dog that was on the poster for the show. Did that mean they were all animals now?
“Where is Cody?” Jen asked, climbing to her feet. She looked ready to fight.
“He’s probably still at the event hall with the rest of them. They won’t roll out until midday tomorrow. This won’t be easy, it’s not just a case of sneaking a dog or two out of travel crates. There are a lot of us, kidnapped wizards and witches that have been trapped by these people. That’s a fortification spell right, over the house? How long’s left?” he asked. I looked at my watch.
“We have about five hours left, something like that,” I replied.
“I need to tell you everything I know; we need a plan going in. I don’t know what they will do once they realize we are coming for them. As Jennifer has been attacked like this, I assume that at least one member of the family is on to you.”
“Family?”
“The organizers, hosts, trainers, admin, most of the vendors that tour around with them, they are all part of the family that is doing this. They are all in on it. It needs to end. I want to be back with my family, we all do,” Arnold said, dropping his head to face the ground.
I thought for a moment about what he had said, most of the vendors? Did that mean that even sweet little crochet-teapot-cover-making Judith was involved? I couldn’t believe it.
“Should we figure out how to turn you back first?” I asked.
“No, when Amber comes back down, she will tell you herself, it’s impossible. Not without getting to the event hall anyway. I know how to fix this, but we will need the whole council. I have a lot to explain.”
I shouted for Amber to come back downstairs. When she returned, she was struggling under the weight of several thick books that she had deemed useful. The other familiars had finished repairing the fortification spell and they rejoined us in the lounge also. Arnold began to tell us exactly what we were facing. He was right, we would need all the help we could get.
14
“I think the timeline is still confusing me, how are people disappearing weeks before the show arrives?” I asked. Jen and Amber nodded in agreement with me, it felt good to not be the only one completely lost by all this. The black and white dog sitting in front of us had been patient, he had calmly explained the story of his kidnapping and the p
roceeding events, but it was a lot to take in. I would have been angrier and much more frustrated in his position. He had obviously had more time to think things over, this was new to all of us.
“When the show has a date booked it is the responsibility of one of the team to travel ahead to gather information about the venue, even if they have used it before. The show is constantly evolving, they need to know where to park the truck for the best access. The equipment can be heavy, so they need to have the most efficient route to get it unloaded and inside. It’s very boring and not really the point,” he said. His frustration was simmering below the surface. “The point is that this is common practice for the show and venue owners aren’t surprised by it anymore. In this case though, that person is kidnapping a local during this visit.
“I’m not sure why this became the most effective way to do it, but I think having one person in the area attracts less attention than a whole fleet of vehicles rolling into town and then having someone disappear. I was in the parking lot of the grocery store across town when they got me. My wife and I had a movie night planned, she was setting up the film and I ran out in the car to grab some snacks. A stranger asked if I could help her load her bags into the car, she looked old and frail. I bent over to get her bags into the trunk, and she pushed me inside and put some sort of sleep hex on me. Next thing I know, I’m on four legs.”
Their strategy for kidnap reminded me of a serial killer I had seen a documentary about last week. It’s not that uncommon really, pretend you are weak so that the victim puts their guard down. I had read through the articles about Arnold’s disappearance and his car had never been found, they must have moved it. That made it easier for the police to jump to the ‘runaway’ conclusion.
“Like I said,” he continued, “I woke up in a metal cage. The stranger I had helped in the parking lot was gone, but I was greeted by the trainers. It happened to me and I’ve seen it happen with newcomers too, they train us up to perform the way they want. I’ve been kicked, had my paw stomped on, my tail pulled. They wear you down until you comply, all the while muttering in your ear that they know where your family live. It’s a threat, obviously, and I don’t know what they would do if we disobeyed, but the fear of it is enough.”
