Pawsibly Murdered

by Harper Lin

  “That’s just a shadow. It’s the shadow of one of those lilac bushes,” I replied, looking at the hulking wild thing that was at the end of the driveway.

  “But it’s on the driveway. Niles Freudenfur didn’t have some kind of bush growing out of the middle of his driveway. And it doesn’t really look shrubby. It looks sort of humanoid.”

  I thought back to when we came for the estate sale. No. There was no shrub in the middle of the driveway. What was in the middle of the driveway did not look shrubby. Treacle was right.

  “Did you really just say humanoid?”

  “It looks like it’s dirty. Really dirty. Muddy.”

  “A dirty, muddy humanoid?”

  That was when the thing’s eyes opened.

  “Shrubs don’t have eyes. I’ve prowled through enough to know.” Treacle began to growl.

  “Do you see that? Are they red?”

  “They look red.” He hissed.

  “Those aren’t lights coming from behind it?”

  “No, Cath. Whatever it is, it’s a solid thing. It’s not a shrub.”

  “It would be better if it was a shrub.”

  “But it’s not a shrub or a hedge or a plant.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No. But you are more than welcome to creep a little closer and take a better look. I’ll hang back here and—”

  The sound pushed into our ears like a man kicking in a door. It was a horrible, guttural scream of hatred, and it was directed at us. The smell of decay and dirt became overwhelming. Still the thing stood there, staring at Treacle and me. We felt those red eyes boring into us.

  “I think we’d better go.”

  “I think we’d better run!”

  The creature took two lumbering steps and had closed the distance between us. Treacle, who was naturally faster than I was, darted off like a bullet in the direction we’d come from.

  “Meet me at the car!” I yelled before turning and dashing off down the driveway.

  I heard the thing scream again and wondered why no one else in any of the surrounding houses came to investigate.

  It was an unholy sound that stayed in my ears. As my feet pounded against the driveway, I was sure the thing was right behind me. The smell was overwhelming. My eyes were starting to water. The hairs on the back of my neck were bristling. As I gulped air, my mouth became dryer and dryer as I pushed myself to run even faster. Still, I knew it was gaining on me. It was huge. One of its steps was at least two of mine.

  “Hurry, Cath!”

  Treacle was perched on top of my car. His back wasn’t arched, but his green eyes glinted in the darkness. Those were lovely eyes. Those eyes were comforting and welcoming and familiar. They didn’t burn with hatred and strike terror into a person.

  “Hurry!”

  Struggling not to slow down, I reached into my front pocket for my keys. I pulled the inside of my pocket out as I yanked them free. Thankfully I knew no one would ever want to steal my Dodge Neon, so the door was unlocked.

  As my body crashed into the side of the car, I fumbled for the handle. With the kind of precision that only came by being so closely connected, as soon as I yanked open the door, Treacle jumped inside. I threw myself behind the wheel, yanked the door shut, jammed the keys in the ignition, and didn’t stick around to see how close the thing had come to my car.

  “Thank goodness Bea isn’t driving,” Treacle said.

  I started to laugh with relief.

  “Are we going to tell the others?” He stood up on the passenger seat and turned his head to see out the back window.

  “I think we should just go home.”

  Treacle and I didn’t say anything else, but he purred next to me the rest of the way home. Once we got there, we quickly and quietly hurried to the front door, and I turned on all the inside lights, slipped the dead bolt, chain, and doorknob locks into place, and double-checked the windows before letting out a breath.

  “Sorry, kitty. I’m closing the window for tonight.” I locked the sliding kitchen window. “How about a little milk before bed?”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Me neither. But you can have some milk, anyway.”

  I snapped the television on and stumbled on The Best Years of Our Lives.

  “This is a good one,” I told Treacle, who hopped up on my bed and curled up on the pillows. “It’s about these men coming home after the war. One guy has no hands and has to use his hooks. It’s amazing. He could really do all this stuff in real life.”

  “That sounds sad.”

  “I think it’s inspiring. Plus, this movie is about three hours long. Since I won’t be sleeping tonight, at least I won’t have to flip through the stations.”

  Under my bed were a couple of sketchbooks and some fancy drawing pencils. I had been quite the artist in high school. But as grown-up life replaced teenage angst, I found not only did I have less time to draw, but I also had less need to express myself this way. But I had always enjoyed sketching and doodling.

  Since tonight was a special situation, I decided to draw what Treacle and I had seen. Over the course of the movie, I sketched and erased and embellished on the page until Treacle approved.

  “That’s what I saw.”

  “That’s what I saw too.” I sighed as I looked at the image of the creature we’d seen. “Aunt Astrid is going to be mad that we went out there by ourselves.”

  “Probably.” Treacle yawned. “But you got a look at it. Maybe she’ll recognize it from one of her books.”

  “I’ll tell her that. It might soften the lecture I’m going to get tomorrow.”

  Aunt Astrid was forever telling me not to go off on my own when we were dealing with possibly hostile paranormal entities. I really tried to listen to her. It was just that sometimes a person needed a brush with death to feel as if they were really living.

  Okay, that wasn’t true.

  Somewhere, someone who was selfish and maybe a bit crazy said they needed to face death in order to feel alive. That wasn’t me. I was just a terrible listener. Plain and simple.

  19

  A Spell on You

  “What is all over the back of your car?” Bea pointed as she crossed the street the next morning.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Did someone vandalize your car?”

  “They’d better not have!” I trotted out the front door to take a look at what she was pointing at.

  What I saw made my blood run cold.

  “What jerk would put muddy handprints on your car?” She leaned forward with her eyes narrowed. “At least, I hope that’s mud.”

  “It’s mud,” I mumbled. I slung my purse with my sketchbook in it over my shoulder and slipped my arm through Bea’s. “Let’s get to the café.”

  “What’s the matter with you? You’re shaking.”

  “I’d rather just spill it all at once than have to repeat myself.”

  Bea nodded and patted my hand as we hurried to the café.

  “Cath, what am I supposed to do with you?” Aunt Astrid scolded. “When are you ever going to learn that we are stronger together? When one of us goes off to wade in a pool of danger, it can be harmful to us all!”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Astrid. I was feeling restless last night, and I had Treacle with me. I wasn’t totally alone. His magic helped.”

  “What would you do if something happened to him? If your cousin and I and the other cats weren’t there to help him? What would you do if you were overwhelmed and Treacle was left alone?”

  “I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry.”

  My aunt waddled to the door in her usual way of maneuvering through the dimensions she could see and flipped the sign on the door to read Open. Within minutes, a steady flow of customers, familiar and new, came to get their morning jolt of coffee or tea or flourless chocolate cake.

  I didn’t speak to anyone unless spoken to, and Bea, as usual, handled all the friendly chatter. It wasn’t clear if Aunt Astrid wa
s ignoring me or letting me do my job uninterrupted. She barely looked at me and hardly said a word.

  I felt terrible.

  Finally, there was a lull in foot traffic. I took a seat at the counter across from Bea. I ordered myself a mint tea and a slice of carrot cake. The cake was so moist that had it been stirred just one more time, it might have become pudding.

  “Have you tasted this?” I asked Bea.

  She shook her head, so I sliced off a wedge and let her have it.

  “Holy moly.” She rolled her eyes. “That is so good.”

  “What does Kevin do to get the texture and the frosting so perfect that…”

  “Cath,” Aunt Astrid interrupted.

  “Yes?” I replied quickly, eager to do anything my aunt wanted if it meant her forgiving me for being so reckless.

  “Are you going to hoard all that cake, or do I get a bite too?”

  I smiled.

  I got up from my seat, walked around the counter, got Aunt Astrid her own slice, and dropped the money in the till. We got almost everything to eat for free. But I hoped she would understand my gesture and forgive me quickly. There was still so much more to tell her.

  “Cath, you are a grown woman. I can’t tell you what to do. If your mother were still here, I’ll bet she would have been knocking on your door, inviting you to do exactly what you did last night. You are so much alike. I forget sometimes that you are not my real daughter. You have her looks, her mannerisms, her stubbornness.” She winked when she said that. “But I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again. I love you like you were my own daughter. And that means I will slap you silly if you think you can get away with going off ghost hunting by yourself in the middle of the night.”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Astrid,” I answered. “From now on, the buddy system or nothing.”

  “Good girl. Wow.” She said after taking a bite of the cake. “What are we charging for this?”

  “A dollar seventy-five a slice,” Bea answered.

  “Knock it up to two dollars. This is too good. People will pay.” She dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin then squinted at me. “For your punishment, young lady, you are not allowed to eat any more of Kevin’s carrot cake.”

  “For how long?” I griped. This was getting out of hand. I was willing to sit in the corner until Aunt Astrid cooled off, but depriving me of Kevin’s carrot cake was cruel and unusual punishment.

  “Until you learn your lesson. And rest assured it will be on the menu for the next couple of weeks. Just to drive the point home.”

  My aunt took another bite and arched her eyebrows. I was beaten.

  So now that the scolding was over, I told my aunt I had more to tell her. When I pulled out my sketchbook and showed her my rendition of the creature that chased Treacle and me, she swallowed hard.

  “So I was right,” she muttered. “Niles tried The Sequence of Ursaken, botched it up, and released this abomination.”

  “You know what it is?” I asked.

  “This is a revenge demon.”

  “Demon? Did you say demon?” Bea stuttered.

  “I did.” She stared at the image as if she were half expecting it to jump off the page and start tearing apart the café. With trembling hands, she closed my sketchbook and handed it back to me.

  “We have to get rid of this thing. It isn’t like anything we’ve ever dealt with before.” She looked into my eyes. “You said it saw you?”

  “Yes.” I already didn’t like the sound of that.

  “That’s probably the gunk that is on the back of your car, Cath,” Bea added, making my aunt’s eyes widen.

  “What’s on your car?”

  “When Treacle and I ran out of there, we hopped in the car and drove away. But this morning, there were two muddy handprints on my car.”

  Aunt Astrid pinched her lips together.

  “We’ve got to move quickly,” Aunt Astrid said. “You ladies stay here. It’s business as usual as far as you are concerned. I’m going back to my house. I’m going to do some research to make sure this is indeed the creature I think it is. If so, the preparation needed to get ready for this will take me a couple of hours.”

  “Shouldn’t we stick together?” Bea asked. “You’re always saying how much stronger we are together. And if we are dealing with a demon this time, maybe separating isn’t the best route to take.”

  “While the sun is up, we’re fine. This creature, like those of its kind, doesn’t like the sun. It prefers shadows and darkness.” My aunt’s usually jovial expression had transformed into a tombstone of seriousness. “Tonight, I suggest we all stay together. That includes Jake and Blake.”

  “Blake? Why does he need to be with us?” I asked a little too quickly.

  “Because he might be in danger too. He and Jake were both on the scene at Niles’s house.”

  “But they didn’t see the creature,” I replied nervously. For some reason, the idea of having Blake wrapped up in this made me jittery inside.

  My aunt looked at me with a twinkle in her eyes. It was as if she was reading something much deeper in my expression. I felt my cheeks get red.

  “It’s going to be all right, Cath,” she assured me. “It’s going to be fine. Now, you two continue along as I said. If I need you to bring me anything, I’ll call. Otherwise, get ahold of Jake and tell him he and Blake are to come over for dinner.”

  Bea nodded, and I shifted from one foot to the other.

  A few hours went by with just enough business traipsing through the café to keep Bea and me from really talking.

  The lunch-hour rush was slow but steady.

  The after-dinner hour had a dozen people meandering in and out of the place at an excruciatingly slow pace.

  Finally, around six o’clock, we got a lull.

  “What did I do?” I asked Bea after the day was almost over. “I really stepped in it, didn’t I?”

  “Why did you go to the house?” Bea asked.

  I told her about my special spa night and how much better I had felt and that I couldn’t sleep.

  “You can always call me if you can’t sleep, Cath.” Bea smiled and patted my shoulder.

  “I wanted to make a decision about Tom.”

  “Are you two having trouble? Aside from with the mother, I mean.” Bea blinked her wide eyes.

  “Ever since I met her, there has been a shift in the air. I know what Aunt Astrid said and that it isn’t me. But how do you go back to the way things were when you know that she’s scheming behind your back?” I clicked my tongue. “The really sad thing about it is that I’m not sure I even care anymore. How did this happen? How did I wake up one day and feel… ‘Tom? Meh?’” I shrugged.

  “We can’t control how we feel abut someone any more than we can control the stars in the sky,” Bea said.

  “But a month ago, I didn’t feel like this.”

  “A month ago, you hadn’t met his mother.”

  “Do you think she put a spell on me?” I asked, getting madder by the second.

  “No. Her trying to inflict a spell on you would be as effective as shooting a spitball at you. She’s obviously not a real witch. You also just had what sounded like a wonderful evening pampering yourself. All that would have removed any whammy she might have tried to put on you.” Bea poured a coffee for one of our regular customers, who chatted on his cell phone as he did every evening on his way home.

  “So what I’m feeling, or not feeling, is all me.”

  “Looks that way,” Bea said.

  Just as I was about to rant some more, Jake and Blake walked in. My heart fluttered as if I were coming straight down the steep end of a rollercoaster. I accidentally jiggled a couple cups, almost knocking them to the floor.

  “Hi, honey,” Bea said, leaning over the counter for a kiss from Jake.

  He was always happy to oblige. Blake took a seat in front of me as I rolled my eyes at the pair.

  “Coffee?” I asked with a smirk.

  �
��Yes. Hold the sugar. Jake and Bea are sweet enough,” he replied without so much as cracking a grin. I, on the other hand, laughed out loud.

  “Will this be to go?”

  “No. For here. We’ve got some time to kill,” Blake said.

  “Oh yeah? How come?” I asked.

  “The murder of Niles Freudenfur was enough, but now we’ve got Patrick Fouts killed in the same way, and he has a mother who is beyond hysterical, demanding we do something. As if we are sitting on a suspect, waiting for the right time to pull him out of a sack.” Jake harrumphed as he took a seat on the stool next to Blake.

  Just as I was about to help Bea get the coffee for the boys, the phone rang.

  “Brew-Ha-Ha Café,” I answered.

  “Cath?” It was Tom. I coughed and felt my stomach fall into my shoes. What was wrong with me? Shouldn’t I be happy to hear from him?

  “Hi, Tom. What’s up?” I turned around so that no one in the café could see my face or hear my conversation. Not that it was much of a conversation. I had no idea what to say.

  “Are you going to be around tonight?”

  “Yeah.” I thought lazily. “I’m here until closing at seven thirty. Why?”

  “I think we need to talk. My mom told me what happened and…”

  “It’s okay, Tom. We don’t need to talk about that.” I grimaced at the idea of discussing what Patience had said and how my aunt stepped in. It was embarrassing. Not for me. I didn’t do anything. It was embarrassing for Tom to have to come and make excuses for his witchy-wannabe mom.

  “We do. Can I stop by tonight? Before closing?”

  “Sure.” I tried to sound as if I were excited, but it came off phony. “I’ll be here.”

  “Good. Okay. See you tonight, Cath.”

  Before I could stop myself, I just hung up the phone. I didn’t say good-bye or see ya or kiss my butt.

  “Classy, Cath,” I muttered.

  “Who was that?” Bea asked.