Pawsibly Murdered

by Harper Lin

  “How’s your ankle?” I asked Blake. He was sitting on the corner of Aunt Astrid’s soft, comfy couch. His right foot was bare, and his pant leg was pulled up around his calf.

  “Your aunt says it’s going to bruise.” He smirked.

  I sat down on the edge of the couch next to him.

  “I don’t think you’ll be able to get worker’s comp for it,” I joked.

  Blake didn’t smile or even smirk.

  “Are you going to go home?” I asked.

  “Jake and I have strict orders. We’re to take this dagger to the police station and then hightail it back here before sundown.”

  “That sounds cryptic.”

  “I thought so too.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you tonight.”

  He looked me straight in the eyes. I couldn’t read his emotion at all. I guessed that was what made him a good cop, a good interrogator when he needed to be. A poker face like that could win a million dollars.

  “Yes, I’ll see you tonight.” He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I couldn’t help it. I grinned. There was nothing I could do to stop myself. That was when I saw the slightest change in his eyes. They softened. There might have been a wrinkle around the edges to indicate the closest I’d ever get to a smile.

  It would be silly of me to say that I was twitterpated. Cupid hadn’t mowed me down with a barrage of little heart-shaped arrows. But there was something there. Blake and I were friends. Even though so many of our conversations resulted in eye rolls and sighs of frustration, he was my friend. But would he be able to accept my family and me and the cats—my goodness, the cats?

  The boys left after getting whispered instructions from Aunt Astrid. Bea and I stayed in the kitchen with the cats perched on the counter like soldiers awaiting orders. When my aunt returned, she looked at me.

  “I didn’t want to go, Aunt Astrid. I told him, but he pulled me with him.” I gulped. “I suppose I could have run away once the car stopped, but he was going in Niles’s house with or without me.”

  “If you hadn’t been there, Jake would probably be identifying Blake’s body right now with the same wounds and the same gut full of mud like the others.”

  I shivered at the thought of Blake being alone against that creature.

  “But we’ve got to prepare ourselves. This isn’t an entity that fools around.” My aunt was serious. “Now, tell me everything about last night and what you did.”

  It took forever to give Aunt Astrid the blow-by-blow description of what happened last night. She and Bea interrupted with questions and wanted details. I felt as if I’d done something wrong. My family acted as though they were trying to fix something I’d broken. I had to repeat myself over and over, and I had to describe the circle I made and guess how long that thing had Blake by the ankle.

  Treacle could hear my thoughts and came up to nestle alongside me.

  “You know they need to know everything,” he purred.

  “Why does it feel like they are mad at me?”

  “It’s just serious work, Cath. That’s all.”

  I took a deep breath and continued.

  “Is there anything to eat?” I asked quietly as I rubbed my stomach.

  “We can’t eat,” Bea replied as she went to one of the books open on the coffee table across from where Blake had been sitting.

  I looked at my aunt.

  “We have to fast before we go into battle.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we are dealing with a golem. In addition to sending it back to whence it came…” My aunt tied her hair back loosely. “We need to be prepared for it to use everything against us in order to stay here and finish what it’s been summoned to do.”

  “Who would summon that thing? Why did Niles want it? It’s like buying a big dog and being happy it comes down with rabies. Who thinks like that?”

  “I’m not so sure it was Niles.”

  “What?” I gasped.

  “While you were gone last night, we saw a car skulking around,” my aunt said.

  “Oh, that was Tom. He said he parked outside and waited for me to come home. Creepy. I know. I’ve made such a mess of things with him that…”

  “No. We knew Tom was out there,” Bea interrupted.

  “I don’t know how to feel about that. I think I’ll go with… humiliated. Yup, I’m humiliated you guys knew Tom was stalking around my house.” I shook my head and stroked Treacle in an attempt to soothe myself.

  “Tom can’t help the way he feels about you any more than I can.” Treacle head-butted me.

  “That still doesn’t make it right,” I replied and went on to listen to my aunt.

  “No. There was a woman out there too,” Aunt Astrid said. “I tried to get a look at her face, but it was too dark. So I decided to try the old-fashioned way. Walking up and talking to her.”

  “What?” I looked at Bea. “Doesn’t your mother know it is dangerous to approach strangers in a car? What if they kidnapped you?”

  Finally, my aunt smirked a little as she shook her head.

  “Mom said the woman had the sloppiest, most ramshackle protection spell surrounding her. It was like she threw it together from a bunch of different spells and only got part of it right in each one,” Bea added.

  “I could peek through the holes in it, but I didn’t get a good look at her,” Aunt Astrid continued.

  I thought as hard as I could but couldn’t imagine anyone who might have had anything to do with Niles that they’d want him dead. The women who sought his services adored him. And without the appointment book that melted into mud, there was no way without going door-to-door that we could find out who Aunt Astrid might have seen.

  “How do you know she was watching my house?” I asked.

  “She used binoculars. And then she drove by slowly a couple dozen times before parking in front of my house to stare at yours.”

  “Did you get a license plate number? Make and model of the car? Anything?”

  “The car had those dark reflectors covering the plates. It was a Lexus and blue or black. Some dark color. I told Jake, but he said that unless she did something to vandalize the house or trespass or something, we were out of luck.” Bea stroked Peanut Butter.

  I let out a big sigh.

  “So what do we do now?” I looked at my watch. The entire morning had already passed. My stomach was growling. I was getting a headache, and we still had several hours before nightfall.

  “I’m glad you asked. I’ve got a list,” my aunt replied. And it was a long list that included not only generating the most industrial-strength protection spell ever but also cloaking our psyches so the thing couldn’t see our thoughts. We had to have a parallel sight. That was to ensure we’d be able to see any help this golem might have lurking in the shadows. Finally, and probably the worst thing of all, we had to implement sonitus perimo.

  “How are we going to fight this thing if we can’t hear anything?” I asked. Sonitus perimo was the temporary blocking of the sound. We would all technically be deaf for an indefinite amount of time. It would last the duration of the conflict, but for obvious reasons, it was very dangerous.

  “We will each face a corner of the pentagram. The correct pentagram.” Aunt Astrid chuckled and shook her head as she remembered the childish rendition that was painted in Niles’s backyard. “If we prepare correctly, there will be no reason for us to worry about our hearing.”

  “But what if something sneaks up behind us?” I asked. “That’s what I’d do if I were the bad guy.”

  “That’s why we will have our backs to each other in a tight circle.” My aunt smiled.

  “You make it sound like we’re not doing anything more than a regular housecleaning spell,” Bea said.

  “That’s how I want you to look at it. This is just another spell that will rid Niles’s house of some dirt. Mud. Mud in the shape of a man, to be exact. Now…” Aunt Astrid looked at her watch. “We have a lot to do and littl
e time to do it.”

  “Do we really have to wait until nighttime?” I asked. “We can’t make a sweep of the house during the bright daytime hours?”

  My aunt just shook her head.

  “What about the boys?” Bea asked. “What are they going to do when they get home? How are we going to keep them safe while we’re at Niles’s house?”

  “Once they are here, I’ve got a sleep spell ready for them. They’ll rest and wake up when the whole thing is over.” My aunt was talking as she stuffed a huge carpetbag with candles, crystals, semiprecious stones, and a few other weapons for our battle.

  “Why did they take that dagger?” I grumbled. “It stopped that creature last night. We could have used that.”

  “I could just see you running at that thing like Mel Gibson in Braveheart,” Bea said. “All wild-eyed and hysterical.”

  “I think I’d be more like PeeWee Herman,” I replied, making Bea and my aunt laugh.

  “All right, girls. Time’s up. We’d better get started.”

  24

  Dead Bolt

  It might sound strange, but the lower the sun sank in the sky, the more energy I had. We had been preparing all day long. Even the cats all looked shinier and fuller, as the endurance and protection spells were for them as much as us. Marshmallow and Treacle were able to sit and breathe quite calmly as they channeled their energy. Peanut Butter, just graduating from the kitten stage to the young cat stage, was busy hunting his tail.

  Bea radiated from the inside out, and Aunt Astrid looked ten years younger. I didn’t bother to look at myself. With my luck, all this extra magic probably affected me like a second puberty, complete with acne and mood swings.

  The sun went down around eight o’clock this time of year. The shadows had stretched their fingers across the grass. Porch lights were popping on along the street. And along with the nighttime sky came a thick blanket of clouds. Lightning flashed across the sky, and a low rumble shook the ground.

  “Did you guys know it was going to rain tonight?” I asked.

  “That’s good. That will hide us from any snoopy neighbors who might look out their windows or think to keep an eye on Niles’s house,” Aunt Astrid said. “We’d better get going.”

  Just as my aunt hoisted her bag over her shoulder and Bea and I grabbed the books we needed, the rain started. It was a downpour.

  “I’ll get a couple umbrellas,” I said and darted to the closet where my aunt kept them. Just as I was about to ask who wanted the one with the sunflowers, I froze.

  There was a tremendous crack of thunder. Below it was that horrible, hateful scream of the golem. Or as I had come to call it, the mud monster.

  That same horrible scream that we’d heard that first night at Niles’s house shook the pictures on the walls. It was the same sound Blake and I had heard last night as the muddy golem pulled itself from the putrid pond and when I stabbed it with the curvy blade.

  I stared at Bea. “It’s here. How can it be here?”

  “It travels in the ground. It was following us when we were on the property that night.” Marshmallow said to me.

  “How does it know where we are?” I asked.

  “How does evil always know where good is?” my aunt answered cryptically. “The only thing that has changed, girls, is location. We won’t be seeking it out. It has already made its presence known.”

  “Yeah, and it’s in our backyard,” I muttered then looked at Bea, who looked as if she’d just swallowed a fly. “What’s the matter?”

  “Jake and Blake will be coming back here. They are probably on their way right now.”

  Terror gripped my heart. The boys would be walking into an ambush.

  “No time to waste!” Aunt Astrid yelled. “Bea, try calling the station and tell Jake not to come home.”

  Bea darted for the phone.

  “Cath, tell the cats to position themselves as we discussed. You help me get the candles and stones ready. Grab some sage. It can’t hurt.”

  I did as I was told. But just as I put my hand on a bundle of sage, just as I heard Bea ask for Jake or Detective Samberg, the lights went out.

  “Hello? Hello?” Bea yelled into the phone. “It’s dead!”

  My aunt struck a match, calmly lit a white candle, then held it up to her face. It was the only thing illuminated in the whole room. I was never scared of my aunt. Never. But I thought at that moment that if I were the mud monster and I saw my aunt’s glowing face, I might reconsider my whole idea of killing.

  “Calm down, girls. The storm is outside.”

  I grabbed the matches that were always on Aunt Astrid’s coffee table and lit the bundle of sage. Reciting the cleansing chant I’d been saying since I was a little girl, I walked through the living room, paying special attention to the front and back doors and the windows. It took no time to work through the kitchen and the downstairs rooms. I headed upstairs.

  Just as I was finishing my ritual, I looked outside. I tried not to. I really did. But like driving past a car accident, you couldn’t help but feel you had to look… you must look, if for no other reason than to see it wasn’t as bad as you thought. The rain pummeled the ground just past the back patio. There, illuminated by a flash of lightning, was the mud monster. It stared up at me.

  “As long as you’re looking at me, you aren’t getting inside. Aunt Astrid and Bea can finish getting ready. And you can get ready to go back to where you came from.” I waved the sage across the window, never taking my eyes off the thing.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  I nearly jumped out of my skin then turned when I heard the knock on the front door. My heart sank as soon as I turned back to the window and the lightning showed me the thing was gone.

  “Don’t open it!” I screamed. “Don’t do it!”

  Bea looked at me as I teetered, tripped, and staggered down the steps as if I were drunk, only after she was holding the door open.

  “Tom?”

  “So you don’t want them to let me in?”

  I grabbed his hand and yanked him in the house, and Bea slammed the door shut behind him and snapped the dead bolt back in place.

  “No, Tom.” I nearly started to cry. “What are you doing here?”

  “I needed to talk to you.”

  “Oh… for Pete’s sake, Tom!” I shuddered. “Now is not the time.”

  “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  Suddenly, the thing outside bellowed with anger that it had missed its chance to either get another victim or get inside the house.

  “You need to sit down and be quiet,” I said, my eyes burning as I pushed the tears back.

  “Cath, you can’t talk to me like that.” He was trying to be touchy-feely when we were in a life-or-death situation.

  “What? Someone needs to! I didn’t invite you over!”

  “Cath, you are really being selfish. I’m trying to tell you that our relationship is in trouble, and you want to run around playing scary movie in order to avoid facing me.”

  “Tom, can I make you some tea?” Bea interrupted.

  “Yes.” Tom smirked. “Yes, thank you, Bea.”

  “Bea, do we really have time for tea?” I wiped my eyes in frustration.

  “It’ll just take a moment,” she replied coldly.

  Aunt Astrid watched the entire thing unfold but said nothing. At least she didn’t say anything out loud, even though her lips were moving. I wasn’t even sure if she saw Tom. In the heightened state of being we were all in, I had no idea what my aunt could see or what Bea could see. All I knew was that I was ready to attack a demon, and Tom was zapping all my energy because he wanted to argue about our relationship. Who was selfish?

  “Cath, would you go get Mom’s sweater that’s hanging on the chair in her office? She’s going to need it,” Bea said gently.

  I sighed before stomping off down the hallway to Aunt Astrid’s office. I felt like a child and was mad at Bea for sending me out of the room as though I were one. When I
came back, Tom was slumped over the counter. Bea was taking his teacup and putting it gently in the sink.

  “Did you kill him?” I asked.

  “No man is going to talk to my cousin that way,” Bea snapped. “No. I didn’t kill him. But I can’t say I didn’t think about it for a second. He gets in the house and is safe and sound due to our efforts, and Jake could come face-to-face with—”

  “Don’t, Bea. Jake and Blake will be safe. They will be.”

  The thunder clapped as the rain pounded down. Aunt Astrid pushed two of her armchairs to the far walls. The candles were placed in a triangular pattern on the floor with the crystals in a complementary pattern. There was a bowl in the center, and the cats were unusually quiet, staying close to my aunt as she mumbled incessantly.

  “Treacle, are you doing okay?”

  “It’s getting close, Cath. We need to hurry.”

  “Bea, are you ready?” I tried to hurry her along.

  Bea grabbed a clear glass bowl and filled it with water.

  “Yes. I’m ready.”

  We went to my aunt and took our positions around the candles and stones. The cats were there with us. Before I even had a chance to get focused, my aunt walked to the front door.

  “Wait.” I stared. “What are you doing?”

  Aunt Astrid began to recite the elaborate words that only Bea and I could decipher. She led the chant. We were to reply in unison. But I didn’t realize what she was going to do.

  “Aunt Astrid, don’t!”

  “Mom?”

  Aunt Astrid faced her heavy door, reciting the words. Without hesitating she snapped the dead bolt back and took hold of the knob.

  “Mom!”

  25

  Botched

  “Bea! Do as you’re told!” Aunt Astrid scolded as she pulled the door wide open.

  There it was. The mud monster stood right at the door, towering over my aunt. It grinned as it stared down at her. But she stood straight, toe to toe with that thing. The words poured from her mouth. Bea and I remained where we were. We were both on autopilot, paralyzed by fear as we mumbled our parts of the chants. My entire body trembled. Bea was crying. Aunt Astrid had never looked more threatening as she confronted this demon that had been summoned by accident by a no-talent wannabe.