by Lilly Graves
“You don’t have to sleep down there,” I start, but then my eyes go to the bed and realize there isn’t a proper place to offer him.
“No, it’s okay. Anything is more comfortable than Shady Pines. I’ll sleep like a rock.”
I pass him a blanket from the closet, and he pulls it up to his neck, soon snoozing away.
I lay on the maroon comforter of the queen-size bed in thought. I could have easily shifted and offered him the cozy bed, and for that I feel guilty. But I don’t want to show him that I'm a cat since he hates them so much. What did he say? PTSD?
As he snores in a deep sleep, wrapped in a blanket on the floor, I hope my aunts don’t hear him. I fluff my pillow and sigh back into it.
“You know you’re making the biggest mistake of your life, don’t you?” a voice implores. It’s evil nurse Maggie in her jar.
I still don’t know what the spell to do with her. It’s not like I can keep her like this forever, but I also don’t feel safe enough to let her go. I saw how she felt pure glee as Shady Pine’s overlord, administering her cocktail to a patient on total lockdown.
“What do you know?” I shoot back at her.
“I’ve been the one tasked at watching over him all of this time.”
“Watching over him? That’s how you put it?” I arch a brow.
“He’s not who you think he is.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“His diagnosis.”
“Well then tell me, if you know so much.” A part of me is suddenly spooked. Maybe there is something I should be worried about. Sy’s own parents locked him up and never came back.
“His condition is called Lycanthropy. Ever heard of it?”
I roll to my side and face her. She’s sitting down in her confinement, doing criss-cross-applesauce in her white dress. Pretty spry for her ancient age. “No, I can’t say that I have heard of Lycanthropy, so what does it mean?”
“He’s a howler at the moon, a pee-er on a fire hydrant, a fuzzy tail chaser.”
“Huh?” I sneer. “No riddles. Just spit it out, lady. Are you saying he’s a dog?”
“He thinks he’s a wolf!” She huffs, shaking her head.
I crinkle my brow. “He didn’t tell me that.”
She mocks back, “Well, I suppose since he didn’t tell you, it must not be true. I’m just saying, I overheard your pathetic little conversation you two had at the beach, and you’re playing with fire. He’s completely delusional about his identity and has sudden raging outbursts. I didn’t mix up heavy cocktails for nothin’! Besides, what do you think is going to happen when the rest of the administration at Shady Pines finds out I’m missing and the wolf is loose? You don’t think they’ll put two and two together?”
Oh my gosh, I’ve been running on adrenaline all day and failed to think of that. “You need to do something. Call the facility and tell them you’re okay.”
“Mmm-hmm, they’ll believe that. Like at eight-five I just up and decided to take a vaca to a tropical island.”
“You could.... What’s wrong with that?”
“And leave behind my dream job where I get to torture folks for pay? As if!” She rolls her beady eyes. “And what about Hairypants? How am I going to explain that one?”
“You're the Head Nurse. Don’t you make all of the important decisions?”
“Of course I make all of the important decisions!”
“Then it’s simple. Say you released him.”
“They’ll never believe that one. He’s my favorite one to torture.”
“I swear, you are the crazy one.”
The doorbell rings and it’s close to midnight. Immediately, I imagine a swat team ready to burst through the doors, find Maggie cooped up in a jar on my nightstand, and the man who thinks he’s a wolf curled on my floor.” Then I’ll be the one to go back to the nuthouse.
Willow’s heavy footsteps tromp down the upstairs hall. “Who could it be at a time like this?” she says with her usual raspy sweet voice.
“Oh no.” I’ve got to intercept this. I leap off the bed and run out of the room, passing by Willow.
“Chloe? What’s with you?” Willow asks.
Downstairs, just before whipping open the door, I say with a pant, “It’s for me.” On the doorstep is an image that takes more of my breath away. Detective Julian Pierce.
“Hi Chloe,” he says. “Can we talk?”
The police car sits at the curb with dark windows, no flashing red and blues. He leans against the doorframe. Is he here for personal reasons? Still, I can’t risk it.
Julian is clever. He could be tricking me into talking about Sy and Maggie! I throw up a fake yawn and pat my stretched open mouth. “It’s pretty late, Detective. I’m tired. We can talk tomorrow.” I go to shut the door and he presses a hand against it, stopping me.
“Please, it’s important.”
I smile big and with a sweet tone reply, “Oh, good. Then tomorrow it will be important too. Night, take care.”
“I’m sorry,” he blurts, and now it’s me holding the door open.
“Excuse me?” I step out onto the porch with him and softly shut the door for some privacy. I’ve got to hear this. “Did you say you’re sorry?”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “After everything you told me this morning, I shouldn’t have brushed you off like that. It must be… hard for you knowing what you do about your mom. It must be a lot to take in, all of these changes that you’ve gone through. I should sound more supportive.”
I cross my arms and raise my brows at him. “Well, uh, thank you. It has been a lot.”
“What have you been up to today?” He looks me up and down. Moonlight washes over the white porch and across his face, the elegant angles of his features, adding an extra sparkle to his hazel eyes.
I’m caught up for a moment, but worry suddenly creeps in. Nobody would understand. Not even my aunts. Why would Julian? “I’ve just been out and about, keeping busy.”
“What have you found out?”
I internally roll my eyes. He just wants to know how much I’ve snooped around and gotten myself into danger. He doesn’t like my meddling. “I don’t know. Not much. How about you?”
“I’ve got the police report from that night.”
“A police report? Tell me about it. What does it say?”
“It’s about a Sylvester Moon,” he starts.
My mouth mashes closed. In-ter-est-ing. I let him go on.
“He was an eighteen-year-old kid, dating your mother. Authorities had to take him away to the mental facility, Shady Pines, because he was behaving out of his mind, naked, spouting nonsensical things. There were scratches all over his body. Looks like I’ve got a good lead to follow. He could be the one.”
I sigh. “The one who killed my mother? It can’t be.”
Julian’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean it can’t be? There’s no other trail that we can go down, as far as I can see.”
I shake my head and look off to the sky, to that moon that’s waxed halfway.
“You know something.”
I look back at him. “Huh? No, I don’t.”
“Well, I find it odd that the main suspect I’m speaking of broke free from confinement at Shady Pines today, and now you’re defending him.”
And there the truth bomb finally drops. Defensive, I scoff, “And that’s why you came here. You think I had something to do with it. My meddling around, right?”
“Chloe, if you know where he is, you have to let me know. From what I know, he’s dangerous.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything, Detective.”
“Is he here?” he presses on. “Is he staying with you?”
Wow, it’s that easy for him to blame me for everything. Even though he’s technically right. I clench my jaw.
My stubbornness really doesn’t want to give in right now. If I tell Julian he’s with me, then Sy will be carted straight back to the facility. And then there’s the sm
all problem of Maggie having gone missing. I could get in trouble for kidnapping too!
If I confess to nothing, however, if I don’t invite him inside, he can’t do a thing without a warrant. Yes, that’s the best plan.
“Like I said, I’m tired. I think the both of us just need to chill and go to sleep.” I go inside and even though I hate to do it, I shut the door in Julian’s face.
Shaking my hands, I realize just how completely antsy I suddenly feel. I doubt I’ll sleep tonight. It’s like I can sense Julian still standing there on the porch. I sigh and rest my head back against the door.
The faster I can solve this most important case of my mother’s murder, the faster I can get Julian to get off my back.
Sy wasn’t good for much info about the night of the murder. All he said was he saw a shadowed figure push Raven, and then there were all the meowing cats.
Hmmmm, cats….
To get anywhere, it sounds like I need to interview a different kind of suspect. Fellow felines. For that matter, I should probably start with the most obvious potential witness: Boris.
Maybe he and CeeCee were in cahoots to kill my mother.
Boris sings at The Cats’s Meow. It’s a club above the bookstore. A private cat club that only a few witches know about, including CeeCee.
Hmmmm…. I’ll see if I can cozy up to him to get some information, no matter how much it’ll make me want to hack a hairball.
Chapter 8
In the back alley of Pages Revisted, I jump onto one of the two tin garbage cans set against the brick wall, hop to a rickety ladder, and lithely climb to an attic window. Instead of cigarette smoke, the scent of catnip curls out from the open space. It’s my temptation, my weakness, and I’m about to be catboxed by it
Eek! The last thing I want to do is become a drooly purring mess all over Boris. Still, I need answers, so I hop inside to the wood floor.
White Christmas lights are tacked up around the attic. At the surface of the crowd point dozens of cat ears, casting triangle shadows across the walls everywhere. Tied to the rafters, yarn hangs at various lengths to tempt savage kitty claws. Random swipes pop up here and there.
And then there’s the music, of course. Familiars can talk, so why wouldn’t some be gifted with a singing voice.
“It had to be youuuuu,” Boris croons into a standup microphone at a platform stage of empty apple crates.
A throng are meowing and purring at him like a bunch of un-spayed teens in heat. If we wore underwear, I guarantee they’d be throwing a few pair right at his big head. Boris wears a custom-sized black fedora tilted over one eye and a cheesy Cheshire smile is splashed across his face.
Seriously, what do they see in him? I slink to a corner shadow to watch. A calico pushes a trolley of beverages, and, spotting me, stops to ask, “Milk?”
“No thanks,” I say. I know they’ve been spiked with catnip. As if the scent isn’t powerful enough.
Like any seedy club, I should have known there’d be mind-altering drugs. Although I wish I had a gas mask, I don’t. I’ll just have to suck it up. Literally!
It doesn’t take long for the catnip to take over my senses. I feel the slits of my jewel blue eyes widen to circles and my whiskers curl at the ends. Soon I’m swaying to his crooning against my will. The white twinkle lights around the attic glow into a soft haze.
I will not succumb to romantic thoughts about the fat orange cat. I will not succumb. If I keep repeating this mantra, it should work, right?
....I hope.
After Boris finishes his opening act, he’ll come down to mingle with the crowd, maybe allowing one of the beatnik kitties to do their poetry reading. It’s an open mic thing here at The Cat’s Meow.
Soon enough, I watch as Boris struts his big self through the crowd and some of the cats are literally clawing at him for attention.
A scrawny cat with patchy fur, one of the ferals from around town, gets up to the mic. “You ever hear the one about the cat and alien that enter a bar?”
No one replies.
“None of y’alls ever heard it? After a couple of drinks, the cat thinks the alien is getting a little frisky, like he wants to go home with him or sumthin’. Surprisingly, the alien wasn’t interested in him. He says to the cat, ‘Take me to your litter.’ Get it? Litter! Bahaha.”
No one laughs.
I step out of the shadows, and since I’m Boris’s biggest crush, I know that’s all I need to do. Locking right onto me, his orange eyes go wide in surprise. Pawing away the other kitties, he clears a path straight for me.
“Well, lookie who finally accepted my invitation,” he says with a cocky smirk.
While under the influence, I dare to look at him, testing my feelings. “Yes, I’ve been wanting to see you for a change.” I play along. “Let’s go talk out on the roof.” That will give me some breathing space to help lift the fog from my brain.
But, instead, he drapes a heavy striped arm around my shoulders. “And leave the party? Nah, let’s go talk over there.” His chin gestures toward a little alcove at the other end of the attic, dusty beams arched over it. I can see from here the double-wide cardboard box with a silky blanket just waiting to be lain in. It’s a cat bed for two.
How charming. Not.
I’m about to say Spell to the no, but my sensitive nose picks up a strong scent wafting from Boris’s neck, pulling me in. “Your.... cologne...” I muster.
“You like it? It’s from a new line of catnip essential oils called Let’s get to know each other better, over there.”
My whiskers spring and I literally feel like my eyes have turned to hypnotizing swirls. I stare at my admirer in awe as black disheveled hair slowly appears atop his fuzzy round head. Now that’s trippy. Boris with a toupee.
But then I have the urge to run my claws gently through it. Uh oh, no interrogation is worth this. “I better… go…” I try to pull away.
Boris puts on a sad face, and slowly it morphs to display human skin, a human nose, and the best cut jawline I’d ever seen. “Don’t go,” he says. His eyes become hazel green accentuated by nicely shaped dark brows. “Come with me.”
Detective Pierce? I want to give in, but how can I? I know he regretted hugging me down at the lighthouse. He had tossed the warm gesture aside like it meant nothing. “You’ve been so cold to me.”
Boris’s face fades in and out with Julian’s until Julian’s completely takes over. “I’m sorry you thought I was cold to you,” he says.
“And you always doubt me,” I reply.
“Doubt you?” He smiles. It’s the second time I’ve ever seen that smile and it makes me feel even more warm and fuzzy.
“Yes, you doubt me.”
“Hey, pretty kitty, whatever it is that I’ve done to mistreat you, let’s put it behind us. Start over. Whaddya say?”
I don’t know why the detective is talking like that. It’s not like him at all. However, it’s a tempting plea to start over.
“Start over,” I repeat in a daze.
An acapella group takes to the apple-crates stage and melody drifts to my ears. I’m in my human form now, which makes sense because Julian’s touch causes me to shift. He takes my hands and brings them up around his shoulders as my cheeks nuzzles against his neck. I sigh. Mmmm, it feels so good being this close to him. We sway like this for a long and perfect four-minute ballad.
Soon it’s just us in that club. Everyone else leaves. My senses drift further…
My eyes flutter open from a deep, dreamless sleep. Paws are clamped tightly around my chest in a hug. What the? When I realize who they belong to, I have a total freak out.
“RReeEEoOW!” I leap up, fur standing on end. The box… the silk bedding, the fat orange cat… My eyes pop. The horror!
Boris stretches with a yawn. “What’s the matter, pretty kitty?”
It’s the next morning, sunlight pouring in from the attic window. I have no idea what time it is, but the effects of the catnip have definitely w
orn off. “What did you do to me?!”
“What’d I do to you? You were the one all over me,” he declares, sitting up. “All I had to do was smile and you were like melted butter. I knew it would take time to get you to come around. Not this long, but that’s okay.”
“But I didn’t—we didn’t—right?!” I shudder. Although I have my black fur covering me, I feel totally naked and vulnerable right now. I’ve never been so thankful that I’ve been neutered until now.
“Honestly, kitty, I don’t know.” He smirks. “But I bet it was amazing!”
I want to claw him, feeling my sharp nails extend to their max. Don’t forget why you came here to begin with. You need answers. All of this trying to pretend that I don’t wanna gag on a hairball at the sight of Boris will be a waste.
I try to smile and I’m sure it looks psycho instead of sincere. “Okay, well, anyway. It’s okay. Whatever happened is in the past.” There’s that gag reflex. I hold it in so he can’t see.
“History sometimes repeats itself,” he says smugly.
I know that Boris has a crush on me, but I also know he can be a total bully. If I try to push him for answers without being friendly, I will not get answers. He takes after CeeCee that way.
“So, hey, I came not only to check out your Cat’s Meow. The anniversary of Raven Wildes’ death is around the corner and I just wanted to know what you thought of it.”
“Oh no, not that,” he grumbles.
“What?”
“It’s not the best memory, you know.”
“Memory? You remember it? You were there?” Sy’s account of the many cats pops into my mind. Yes, he was there, and probably with the rest of CeeCee’s ten cats. “What happened?”
“There was this treasure hunt.”
“Yeah? Tom Dodd’s Treasure.”
“Right, the treasure that I thought was just a hoax, until CeeCee found out what it was.”
“What? What is it? Like some buried chest of pearls and gold?
