by Harper Lin
“They are both okay. Under a mountain of paperwork and some loose ends but safe at the station,” Bea said.
“What kind of loose ends?” I asked.
They were, after all, looking into these witches, albeit from a different angle than we were and completely unaware of what they were getting into. But it made a lot of sense now that I thought about it. If these women were willing to do what they were doing to Aunt Astrid, what did they care about some strangers killing themselves? Still, what did the houses have to do with them, if anything?
“Jake said the injuries to the victims didn’t match up with what they originally thought had happened.”
“That’s strange,” I replied but didn’t go into it with her. After what I had read in the book that was under my arm, I wouldn’t put anything past this group. And just because the guys were at the station didn’t mean they were safe.
16
Watermelon
Bea was fixing herself some calming tea when I had an idea. I held the book close to me, and Treacle came to stand at my feet.
“We’re going to go back to that house—Treacle and me. What I want you to do is stay here and keep an eye on your mom. Don’t open the door for anyone but us. I’ll be back.”
I was sure the authority in my voice would be enough to get Bea to fall right in line and just say no problem. Of course, she didn’t.
“You can’t go back to that house alone. I’ll go with you.” I saw Bea swallow hard.
“What? In your condition?” I pointed to her big belly. “Sure. It’ll be no different from running a race carrying a full-sized watermelon under your shirt. No one will see or hear you.”
“But you can’t go alone,” she pleaded.
“Why? I’ve done lots of things alone. Bea, I live alone. I am fully capable of handling those witches alone. In fact, I’ve dealt with scarier things than them alone. Remember Darla from high school? She was scarier than them. How about Tom Warner’s mom? She was scarier than them. That spider in the café? Much, much scarier than them.” That one made me shiver.
“No. It’s not a good idea,” Bea insisted.
“Yeah, and you coming with is?” I snapped before softening my glare at my overly emotional pregnant cousin. “Bea, someone has to stay with your mom. Plus, you’ve got that baby to think about.”
Just then, we heard footsteps on the porch, a knock on the door, and the jingle of keys. The door opened, only to be held fast by that tiny, flimsy chain.
“Hey. What’s going on in there?” It was Jake.
“Oh my gosh!” I shouted as I stomped to the door to open it. “You gave me a heart attack!” I put my hand over my chest and slipped the book onto another bookcase by the door, hoping Bea wouldn’t pay any attention to it as Jake and Blake came in.
“I gave you a heart attack? We went home and found the door unlocked, no one home, and no food in the fridge. How’s my two favorite babies?” Jake said as he sauntered up to Bea, who smiled with tears brimming in her eyes as she wrapped her arms around Jake for a long hug. She was so pregnant.
“What’s the matter?” Blake asked me quietly.
“We’ve got a problem,” I whispered and looked deeply into his eyes. “Jake, can you stay with Bea and Aunt Astrid for a while?”
“Yeah. We were coming home to get something to eat before going over to the Gingerbread House to do a little snooping around. There are some things about those domestic violence incidents and suicides that aren’t matching up,” Blake said in his usual monotone.
“That’s funny you should say that. That is where I was going too.”
I told him about the book and Aunt Astrid and my hunch that there was a lot more going on than just a group of women living together and selling their pitiful wares at the art fair.
“So, what is your plan?” Blake asked.
“Hold on tight,” I replied. “Jake, would you mind staying here with Bea and Aunt Astrid while Blake and I go run an errand?”
“Cath, don’t even think about it,” Bea said.
“Think about what? Blake needs some… um, plastic baggies, and we’re going to the store to get some. We’ll be back later.”
I didn’t wait for her to reply before I grabbed Blake’s arm and pulled him out the door. Just before it closed, Treacle slipped out and came to my side, meowing.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Blake asked.
“No,” I replied matter-of-factly and looked at him as if he had just asked if I wanted pineapple and ham on my pizza. “But it’s all we’ve got, and if my hunch is right, we don’t have a lot of time.”
“I love how you look when you start to get witchy. Your cheeks glow and your eyes twinkle,” Blake said in his straitlaced, stoic sort of way without a trace of a smile on his face. “I’m sure it’s just the increase in blood being pumped when you decide you’re going to do something dangerous, maybe even life-threatening, but I can’t help but think danger looks good on you.”
“Maybe I should join the police force,” I replied.
“I don’t know if you meet the height requirement,” Blake replied without emotion.
“I’m not that short,” I muttered before pointing to Treacle, who was heading off ahead of us. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’ll meet you at the house. Good luck,” Treacle said before he slunk out of sight into some bushes.
“Stay out of sight. You know what they think about cats!” I replied before getting into Blake’s car. I was hopeful none of the witches would recognize his car.
Within fifteen minutes, we were positioned down the street from the Gingerbread House. Crouched in the seats like a couple of Peeping Toms, Blake and I spied on it.
“Hey, that For Sale sign in front of that house,” I whispered as I pointed across the street. “That wasn’t there yesterday.”
“So?” Blake asked as he reached across me to the glove box and pulled a pair of binoculars out. “People put their homes up for sale all the time.”
“Yeah, but I was just here yesterday, and it wasn’t. And how many houses have gone up for sale on this street since these women moved into my Gingerbread House?” I whispered. “And you said something was fishy with the deaths that had occurred here too. It’s like the houses were already bought before they were even listed for sale. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound odd.”
“You are correct.” Blake cleared his throat as he looked through the binoculars. “And that doesn’t include the death we were informed of this morning. Jake and I were on our way out here to talk to the neighbors. He wanted to check on Bea.”
“Another death? What house?” I asked, looking down the simple, stereotypical suburban street.
Then I was hit with an idea. I grabbed a crumpled receipt from the side console and pulled a pen from Blake’s breast pocket. I drew a rough map of the street, labelling the houses where there was either a death or a For Sale sign.
“We’ve got the Gingerbread House. The one across the street. The new For Sale sign you just pointed out. And now the elderly man at the house two doors down from that.” He pointed to a quaint ranch-style home.
“Elderly man?” I said, feeling bad. It was one thing to pick on people who might be able to defend themselves, but these witches had a thing for seasoned citizens like my aunt and this man Blake was talking about. It was as bad as their dislike for cats. Something was wrong with a person if they didn’t have a soft spot in their heart for animals and old people.
“He was a bachelor by the name of Bob Zarowny. Like a lot of older people, he contacted the police every once in a while when he heard a strange sound or thought he saw something suspicious,” Blake said. “But we got a call from the neighbors that his garage door had been left open for two days.”
“Oh no,” I said, feeling my throat tighten.
“It just didn’t seem right,” Blake said. “When we got there, the man had already been dead for over twenty-four hours. At first, it was thought his
heart just wound down, even with the expression on his face.”
“Expression?” I asked.
“Yeah. He looked like he was scared. Terrified, actually,” Blake said before launching into some scientific reason the muscles in the body move independently during a stroke or heart attack and can cause the deceased to look like they’ve seen a walking nightmare before finally succumbing to the Grim Reaper. But I didn’t buy it. Not in this case.
“What made you think there was something more sinister going on?” I asked.
“Well, the fact that the neighbors had heard him shouting the night before. They said it sounded like he was having a fight with someone. But he lived alone. There was no car in the driveway. Nothing,” Blake said and put down his binoculars.
I didn’t know what to say. Maybe the old man had just died of a heart attack. Maybe he’d had a bout of dementia at the end, although I’d never heard of such a thing happening. No one ever just had a touch of dementia all of a sudden out of the blue. For some reason, hearing about this old man being all alone to possibly deal with those witches made me feel bad, like something had sunk deep in my chest.
I looked down at the paper and pen in my hand to see if there was any kind of pattern. My Aunt Astrid and Bea both lived across the street from me, making a simple triangle if anyone was to have a bird’s-eye view. When I included the new house for sale and the old man’s house that didn’t have a sign in the yard yet, at first I didn’t see anything. But then I drew a line from the Gingerbread House, the first one occupied by this group, and drew a line to the next house where a death had occurred.
“Oh my,” I said.
“What is it?” Blake asked.
“Well, If I’m looking at this right, it looks like a crude image of an old Masonic symbol.” I swallowed hard. “You know how some kids in high school think they are cool when they scribble pentagrams in their notebooks? Everyone knows what a pentagram stands for, or thinks they do. It’s evil, dangerous. Okay, if they really knew anything, they’d know that a pentagram was no scarier than a smiley face compared to this Masonic symbol called a Kly.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Blake said.
“No. Of course you haven’t. They don’t teach this in schools. I learned about it from my aunt.” My chest tightened as I thought about what was happening to her and hoped she wasn’t giving Bea and Jake a hard time. “Just like normal parents frown on their kids having anything that looks like a pentagram in their possession, that is what witches think of the Kly.”
I was just about to go into detail about why this symbol was right up there with swastikas and the number 666 when we both froze. The witches were on the move.
17
Diabolical Reasons
As the sun inched closer to the horizon, setting off a beautiful sunset, Blake and I inched down in our seats so as not to be noticed. We watched as Cedar led the witches out of the Gingerbread House. She stood at the edge of the driveway as the others scattered in all directions, reminding me of the anthill Treacle had said he watched. They didn’t bother looking around. Peabody Street was rife with the activity pouring out from that house. This was the perfect time to go see what was happening in the shed.
“Okay, I’m going around back. There’s something I need to check,” I said as I rolled down the car window with one hand while reaching back into the glovebox for the tiny LED flashlight I knew was in there. It fit snugly into my pocket.
“What are you talking about?” Blake took hold of my wrist. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“They are all out of the house. There is something in the backyard I need to check out. I’ll be perfectly safe,” I said. “I’m going to crawl out the window so I don’t have to open the car door. Your doors squeak.”
“Cath, you aren’t doing any such thing,” Blake insisted.
“Blake, I know we are dating, and I couldn’t be happier, but that doesn’t mean you get to step in and tell me what I can or can’t do,” I whispered. “I want to make you happy, and I want you to know that I value everything you say. But if my family needs my help, neither you nor anyone else can stop me from doing what I can to help them.”
“You want to make me happy?” Blake smirked.
“Of course I do.” I rolled my eyes. “But this isn’t the time or place. I have to check out the backyard.”
“Cath, you can’t.”
“Now, what did I just say about telling me what to do? Didn’t you listen? I—”
Blake put his index finger to his lips then pointed to the Gingerbread House. Up in the top window was a dark form peeking outside. Instantly, I remembered the fingers stretching out underneath the door when I had gone snooping around. The house wasn’t empty, and there was an all-seeing thing up on the second floor.
“I’ve got to get to the shed, Blake. And I don’t have all night to wait,” I said, looking at the creepy round window with the thing in it.
“Yeah, and I have to interview the neighbors about the death of the old man,” Blake said. “As far as these women know, I’m just a cop doing my job.”
“Oh, Blake, if you go snooping around now while they’re all out there, they might gang up on you. Going into the backyard will be safer than that,” I said, my eyebrows furrowed at him.
Blake was smart, but I wasn’t sure if he really grasped the power these women had been stockpiling. If they’d done what they had to Aunt Astrid, Blake was no match for them. He was walking into a gunfight with a knife.
“I’m not going to do anything but run interference.” He looked in the rearview mirror and then at me. “When I get out of the car and approach the house next door—where, as far as we know, normal people still live—you sneak out of the car. But don’t run across the street from here. Go down a few houses and double back. Make it look like you escaped from the car, not like you were going to peep in someone’s windows.”
I smiled and couldn’t stop myself from giving Blake a deep, wonderful kiss. It gave me that extra rush of adrenaline I was going to need to sneak into Cedar’s backyard. She was still standing at the edge of the driveway, her creepy ice-blue eyes watching her minions.
With the grace and stealth of a hippo in a pool of mud, I slipped out of the car window as Blake got out on his side, coughing and slamming the door shut without worry about who would see him. His goal was to get all eyes on him as I made a break for it. Thankfully, he made a ruckus that hid the facts that I nearly broke my ankle as I landed funny, let out a cuss as I crouched behind the car, and bumped my chin on the open window. I was so aggravated with myself that I almost stood straight up and yelled to Cedar that I was marching into her backyard and she could go ahead and try and stop me. But I didn’t when I realized Blake’s plan had worked, and all eyes were on him. Even whatever was casting a shadow on the second floor was gazing in his direction.
Just as I ran across the street, I saw a familiar shadow slinking behind some bushes.
“There is a back entrance to the fence. Follow me,” Treacle said.
He led me through the neighbor’s yard and all the way around the privacy fence that enclosed the Gingerbread House’s backyard. Sure enough, there was a second set of hinges. What was even better was that this was just feet from the shed, where I needed to be anyway.
“Good job,” I whispered to Treacle. “Now you should skedaddle. This is a dangerous place for cats.”
“I’m not leaving you. There is a foul smell in the air. Like the smell around Astrid,” Treacle replied stubbornly.
“Fine,” I replied. “It’s not like I can tell you what to do. So let’s get this done quick.”
I jiggled the gate and heard the latch on the other side. Treacle looked up at me, and before I could even think a thought, he jumped up and peered over the top.
“Ugh. They’ve got it padlocked,” Treacle reported.
“I should have known it wouldn’t be easy,” I mumbled. “Is anyone around?”
Treacle’s green ey
es narrowed. “Not a soul.”
I didn’t have a lot of time, and sneaking in this way was a lot more practical than actually trying to sneak in the front gate that faced the street, which had been my original idea. So, after a few quick breaths, I reached up, took hold of the pointed wood at the top of the fence, braced one foot against the planks, and, with all the strength in my skinny arms, pulled myself up.
It was a horrible scene that I hoped no one was watching. My face was drenched in sweat and bright red as I grunted my way up to the pointy top, trying to place my stomach between the slats so as not to stab myself. It wasn’t working well. Before I could pull my leg over to straddle the fence, gravity stepped in and yanked me to the ground. I was sure I’d woken the dead as my breath was knocked out of me and I gasped for air.
“Anyone hear me?” I looked up at Treacle, who was surveying the estate.
“I don’t think so.”
I nodded, pushed myself up to my knees, and slowly stood, taking inventory of my limbs to make sure nothing was sprained or broken. The only thing damaged was my ego. So I quickly stepped behind the shed and collected myself. After a couple deep breaths more, I peeked around and saw that the yard was completely empty and the blinds to the patio doors were pulled tightly shut. The windows that faced the backyard were also covered by curtains. Thankfully, there was no rear-facing bedroom window to allow the thing in the upstairs room to peer down at me. Confidently, I reached for the shed door only to find it had a padlock on it too.
“What the…? Grr,” I muttered and clenched my teeth.
Quickly, I disappeared around the back of the shed to try and come up with another plan. I looked at Treacle, who was still perched on the fence.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Another padlock,” I whispered.
“Try the window,” Treacle replied, motioning with his head.
As I turned around, there it was: a plexiglass window that was simply snapped into place. My eyes lit up. I tried to peer inside but could barely make out anything. There was no alternative but to break the window. I put both hands on the glass and pushed as hard as I could. One corner buckled and bent inward. Then another gave way. With two corners free, I was able to bend the window until the frame snapped, and the whole thing cracked apart. I turned and gave a thumbs-up to Treacle.
