The Empty Cradle

by Jill Nojack

  “Greet grobbering guh…” She couldn’t think straight under this kind of pressure. “Oh, get off me,” she said, giving up on the expletive. “What part of the word ‘slow’ don’t you understand?”

  He sighed. “The part where it means ‘not at all’. I don’t get it, Nat. I really don’t. I love you. You love me. There’s never been anyone else for me, and I know you feel the same. Why can’t you let us be happy?”

  She leaned against the counter; it pressed hard against her barely-padded hip bone. The slight bite of pain was good. It kept her focused.

  “I could give you a number of reasons from the life I lived when you were supposed to be dead and gone—my regrets, my mistakes, my follies. And if I did you’d forgive me every misstep; that’s how you are. But if I tell you the real reason, it will hurt you. I don’t want to be responsible for taking away your sweet view of life where the lions and tigers and bears make weekend trips together to Disneyland and post group photos on social media making kissy-faces at each other.”

  “There isn’t anything you’ve done that I wouldn’t understand.”

  She shook her head, her face falling forward, “It isn’t about me. It’s about you. What you are. What you’ve become.”

  His brows pulled in at the middle, making two deep furrows between them. “What’s the problem with what I’ve become?”

  “Nothing. Except for the part where you’ll never die and the rest of us will.” Her shoulders rose, then released, as her head collapsed toward the floor.

  His lifted her chin up tenderly, and his eyes held hers. “Is that it? You’re afraid of death? But that means you should live as much as you can…”

  “I was never afraid of death before.” She turned away and leaned heavily on her palms above the sink, looking out into the woods. “I always knew you’d be there waiting to escort me to the other side when my time came. But now, that journey will be a solo one, and you’ll be left here alone forever.”

  His hands slid around her waist and he whispered something in her ear that made her smile. And then she stiffened when she realized fully what he was suggesting. She slid her hand between his mouth and her neck where the next attempted kiss would strike.

  What he’d said might make her smile for its magical creativity, a trait she greatly admired, but it wasn’t something she could consider. At the very least, it would be a gray use of magic, if it wasn’t black as black. And Natalie had sworn she wouldn’t go down that path again. But still…if there was a chance….

  No. Dark magic always seemed like a good idea at the time; that’s how it caught you. And the cost could be far too high. She pushed him firmly away.

  ***

  Natalie kept her distance from William, who stood inside his opened car door, his elbow resting on the roof. His suggestion for them, a way for them to be together without it ending badly—even if the magic was dark—was becoming more attractive the longer she let it roll around her brain. She didn’t want to be where he could get his arms around her again; if she stayed out of reach, she felt sure she could resist him.

  But his low, loving tones drew her seductively. She leaned toward him, caught up in the moment until…

  A low, rhythmic sound reached her ear and made her stiffen, suddenly alert. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” he asked, looking around, the connection between them broken now.

  She held a finger in front of her mouth and cocked an ear in the direction of the sound that was coming from around the side of the house. It was the sound of a chant. A soft, low-volume chant, but a chant nonetheless. Who would dare such a thing on her land?

  She stalked around the side of the house, her right hand glowing with the promise of an unpleasant surprise for the spellcaster. She flicked a light switch by the back steps up with her left, and the floodlight lit the lot. She squinted down the yard at the figure in the black robe. Her size combined with the strand of salt and pepper hair peeking out from beneath her hood gave her away.

  “Zelda! What on earth are you doing?” Natalie shouted as she stalked toward the woman.

  The hooded figure looked up, her face still in shadow, but the response was unmistakably made in the subservient tones of Zelda James. “I uh…it’s…the…”

  “This is about that daughter of yours, isn’t it?”

  Zelda scrabbled frantically at her things, shoving some into her bag and holding others tight to her body with one arm as Natalie kept moving forward, slow, inexorable, as she spoke. “Your mother was a good woman and responsible witch who had high hopes for you, but since you became a mother yourself, you’ve lost the ability to see things clearly. That daughter of yours! What mischief are you working for her now?”

  Zelda was already on her feet and backing away faster than Natalie was advancing. “I…I’m sorry, High Priestess…I…I just want you to leave my daughter alone! She hasn’t done anything. Stop harassing her.”

  Then she turned and ran into the woods, dropping bits and pieces from her armful of supplies as she went.

  William’s hand came down firmly on Natalie’s shoulder, stopping her from chasing after the woman. “Let her go, Nat. Can’t you see she’s terrified? Whatever she was up to, she sure as heck isn’t going to try it again.”

  He was right. And what was she really going to do to her anyway?

  Well, in the old days…

  She sighed. But this wasn’t the old days, was it? And when William smiled at her, she felt ashamed of what she might have done back then, when she was first grieving him. His being here changed everything. And yet it didn’t dampen the anger. Nor did it make Deborah James less of a suspect in her mind. Why else would her mother feel such a need to protect her? So much need that she’d risk coming right onto Natalie’s property, violating Natalie’s own space with her magic?

  Then she thought of the visit she’d made to the Zelda’s home and her last little wave at Deborah.

  Well, of course it’s not the same thing, she thought. I was justified in what I did. It’s not the same at all.

  ***

  Natalie seethed silently as she walked with William back to his car. She’d shove him in as quickly as she could, no lingering now, and then investigate what Zelda had dropped to see if she could piece together what the woman had meant to do.

  But they barely made it to the back corner of the house when a high pitched keening began behind them. Natalie spun like a woman half her age. She’d never been a mother herself, but she knew the sound of a baby’s cry.

  The porch light lit a tan animal dimly on the edge of the yard facing toward the woods, head down and tail twitching catlike; it obviously wasn’t the infant she’d expected. It was directly in the path that Zelda had broken through the brush on her way back into the woods. She had to get a better look.

  When Natalie took off at a trot toward it, it zoomed into the trees, tail flattening out as it ran. “Blithering binomial badgers!” she muttered in frustration as her forward movement slowed to a walk. Gone before she’d gotten a a closer gander.

  “That was no bobcat,” she said when she stopped where the cat had been raking at the ground. “Although Doc Don’s theory may be correct—it could be a young cougar, maybe, if they ever make it this far east. I don’t like to think about what happened to that child if a wild animal got to it…”

  “You thought that was a cougar?” William’s eyebrows raised.

  “It’s dark out here, but that’s my best guess now that I’ve seen more than the color of its coat. What do you think it was?”

  His head shook back and forth. “I don’t know. It had large paws, though.” He held up his hands about four inches apart. “About yay big.”

  “That’s about right for Maureen’s wounds. That kind of span.”

  William’s head cocked to the side. “You didn’t notice anything odd about it?”

  “Odd how?” she asked, furrowing her brow, reviewing her memory of the animal disappearing into the gloom of the w
oods. “I’m a witch, not a wildlife expert.”

  “I held onto this until the end of our date—things have been tense lately, and we both deserved some time away.” He sighed. “But I promise I was going to tell you about it at the car after I got my goodnight kiss—not that it looks like I’m going to get one now—but Junior Rangel, the animal control warden? He told me that the last time he saw Maureen Oliver, she was cradling a creature that matched that one’s description.” His brows knit together as he said, “You didn’t notice that its head was strangely shaped? Not at all catlike. Missing something….” He rubbed his smooth chin thoughtfully. “Ears! That’s it. Pointy, silky ears. My sister Lettie’s cat loved to have hers rubbed.”

  “I don’t see how your walk down memory lane is meaningful.”

  “It’s not, I’m just…look—Junior’s a tippler. I don’t know how reliable he is, but he sure seemed spooked by what he’d seen. He said the creature was responsible for the disappearance of a number of local pets. At first, he said it was a monster, then changed his tune and said it was a mutant. It might be neither. It could just be a cat that’s been maimed in a fight…”

  “A monster, you say?” Natalie pursed her lips. “I’ll withhold my judgment on that until I get a better look. But stranger things than monsters have shown up in Giles Woods, as we both well know.” She nodded at him meaningfully. “Present company most definitely included in that assessment. What do you make of his story?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Well, I’m certainly glad I have your help on this one, then. It’s indispensable.”

  He shook his head and his lips pressed together before he said, “Nat, I’m doing everything I know how to do to help. Heck, I’m doing a bunch of things I don’t know how to do. But I suppose you’re right. Some protector I’m turning out to be. Maybe you made a mistake about me having become a genius loci. How am I really helping people?”

  Her expression softened. “I’m sorry. I know you’re doing your best. I’m frustrated with myself, not with you. I saw this creature before, in the woods, where the trail I followed from Maureen’s ended. I only caught a flash of tan the color of that thing’s coat. You’re doing a great job as the town’s protector.”

  “Sure I am. A real hero.” He looked down and toed at the ground like a little boy.

  “Wasn’t it you who had a bad feeling about Glory Rosewood, so you went by to see how she was? If you hadn’t stopped to chew the fat, I have no doubt she would have fallen into the old well that opened up under her front walk. Or how about Moses Hammond? You plucked him right out of the street when that driver backed out without looking. No, you’ve done your bit, there’s no doubt about it. You prevent things from happening. You may never know every bit of the good you’ve done.”

  He shook his head. “Then why couldn’t I stop this?”

  “I don’t know how it works. Maybe this one wasn’t chance. Maybe it was more complex, more planned. Or maybe it happened so fast there just wasn’t time for you to feel the pulse of impending danger.”

  “I guess you’re right.” William looked thoughtful. “So, Junior also said he first saw the creature with Maureen, the day before her death. And thinking about Maureen being a witch, I thought maybe she had a unique familiar.”

  “No, I would have known about something like that. No witch in this town would keep the existence of a magical creature secret from Robert and I. It’s too dangerous; the creatures you hear about in myths are seldom creatures designed to comfort us. Maureen wouldn’t have introduced that kind of danger into an environment where children were being raised. No, I need to talk to this Junior Rangel. Get a better description of it. Where do I find him?”

  William wrote down Junior’s address when they got to his car, then she rushed into the house for her purse, rushed back out, and popped into her own vehicle, speeding off as he called after her, “Don’t you think it’s a little late to go visiting?”

  She grinned. The new information about the creature might be just the thing she needed to prove to Robert that her demand for full access to the investigation should be granted. It was only a bonus that it helped her dodge a focus-muddling goodnight kiss.

  ***

  Zelda exited the shed as her daughter approached.

  “What are you up to now?” Deborah’s voice was suspicious, threatening. “You better not have been in my things.”

  She wasn’t going to alert her daughter to what she’d taken from the shed and had just replaced. She needed it if she was going to be able to keep Denton away. Ever since he’d shown up to accuse her daughter…her beautiful, misunderstood daughter…of being involved with Maureen’s death, she’d known she’d have to take action to protect her. She wasn’t going to let Natalie accuse her.

  No, she couldn’t let on about what she’d tried to do. She’d always protect her baby girl, no matter how little her daughter appreciated it.

  If only she’d succeeded in completing the spell she’d tried to cast in Natalie’s yard, they wouldn’t need to worry about the police coming around again. They wouldn’t believe anything the woman said.

  At least she’d been able to retrieve the item she’d dropped in her hurry to get away so that she could return it to the safety of the shed until she needed it again. She’d never bound a familiar before and had always envied Deborah her relationship with the pigs, but now that she had one of her own, it was working out well. She’d get another chance to cast the spell now, thanks to her helper’s swiftness; she’d given it its freedom to roam the woods until morning as a reward for its good behavior.

  Deborah was in the shed with the light on, rummaging the shelves. Zelda only made it half way to the house when she stormed out, yelling at her after she chased her, “You’ve taken half my stock of lemongrass.”

  Zelda turned back to her, steeling herself. “I…I needed it for…”

  She was ready for the slap when it came, but it stung and jarred her just the same.

  “Stay out of my stuff, mother! And don’t wait up for me. I’m going to the Toad.”

  13

  When Natalie got to the rundown apartment block on the far northeast side of town, she noted to herself that if this Junior person lived only one hundred or so feet north, William couldn’t have interviewed him, trapped as he was within the city limits.

  At some point his geographic limitations were going to create problems. How could he explain to the chief of police that he couldn’t step outside the city border? She put it on the list of things she’d think about another day; today she had to ferret out as much information about this creature as she could as quickly as she could. A witch’s child was out there somewhere. If Anat, before she was captured, had spun a spell that spawned a creature to prey on the town’s children….

  She pushed the thought away. Closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Tried not to think about her friends Tom and Cassie and the bean-sized speck of life Cassie carried.

  There was a faint light through the big picture window that looked out on the second story walkway that led to Junior’s apartment. She knocked on the door lightly, then knocked harder when no one answered. A neighbor pulled a curtain aside and peered out at her, scowling.

  She knocked louder. The door to the apartment next to Junior’s opened a crack and an white-haired woman in a cotton housecoat and thick glasses glared out at her. She said, “He’s not home, probably out drinking, so stop beating on the door.” Then she disappeared when her own door closed again.

  Natalie looked both ways down the walkway to made sure that no prying eyes peeked out at her now. She tried Junior’s front door. Locked.

  She left her hand on the knob and a faint blue light crackled from her fingertips. She tried the door again. Hmmmm…not locked. How very careless of Mr. Rangel.

  Once she was inside alone with the odor of dirty sweat socks, whiskey, and stale dog urine, she cupped a hand over her nose and kicked her activity into high gear. Within moments, she had what she need
ed, a small personal memento from the bathroom in the form of a discarded plastic razor that was clogged with thick brown and gray whiskers from its last use.

  She pulled a baggie from her red purse and slipped the razor inside. It would do.

  ***

  Natalie gently removed the remote from Marcus’s grip, where his arm hung over the side of the couch as he slept, resting on a pile of schoolbooks. She didn’t want to wake him. She’d find something lightweight to cover him in case it got cooler overnight. Then she’d do a quick location spell with the map of Giles she kept in her ritual space and be off again to talk to Junior Rangel.

  She clicked the button to turn the TV off and a sleepy voice from the couch said, “If I took off when you expected me to be home, you’d be real angry.”

  “I’d be breathing fire. What’s your point?”

  He sat up, stretched his arms, and yawned. “It works two ways, that’s all I’m sayin’. It’s late, I come home expecting you to be here, and there’s not even a note.”

  “Not that it’s your business what the adults get up to.” Then she thought better of it and reined in her grumpy tone with a sigh. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m in a rush is all. I have a quick task, and then I’m going back out.” She looked down at her wristwatch. 9:46 PM. “It’s nearly your bedtime, and I know you’d hate being tired for the start of final exam week tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I know. I was just…”

  She cut him off. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I haven’t lived in a family setting for fifty years. It will take some getting used to.”

  “I gotcha, Gram.” He picked up his books and stacked them neatly on the side table. Then he grinned as he said, “Just don’t make me have to lecture you about staying out past curfew.”