Salem's Daughters

by Stephen Tremp

  Erma looked up at the spindle where the family Celtic cross should be, watching guard over all who enter and leave the bed and breakfast. Her countenance dropped and she hung her head.

  “Let’s go inside,” Ross said to Bob in a more serious tone. “We need to talk.”

  Erma walked past without saying a word. Bob knew she was more upset than ever. Normally she would never pass up the opportunity to take a verbal potshot at him.

  Bob needed to take the lead. His battle with Darrowby was mentally and emotionally draining. And the episode with Eddie and Alison didn’t help. But he couldn’t let Erma dominate during this precarious time. He speed-walked to take the lead and was first in the front door.

  Bob stopped at the kitchen archway. He could kick himself as he remembered too late the floor was littered with broken plates and glasses from Paul Knudson’s rampage. Erma gasped and held her hands over her heart.

  Ross comforted her. “There, there dear. Let’s have a seat in the living room.”

  “I’ll finish cleaning in here,” Raymond said, squeezing by Bob.

  Maria followed Raymond. “Have a seat, folks. I’ll bring some lemonade.”

  Once everyone was seated around the glass coffee table, Ross folded his hands on his lap and cleared his throat. “Bob, Debbie, we’ll get right to the point. We know there was another death here at Murcat Manor.”

  Bob looked at his watch. Darrowby and the coroner had left less than ten minutes ago. “How? Was it on the news?”

  “No,” Erma said, holding up her cell phone. “Not on TV or the radio, although I suspect it will be any minute now. We have a Google alert for Murcat Manor. We receive instant text messages if news of this place hits the Internet.”

  “There was a blog post by one of your guests that left and asked for their money back. We drove right over fast as we could.” Ross looked at his watch. “Only took us thirty-four minutes to get here.”

  Bob cringed at the thought of how little time it took for them to arrive on any given day.

  “So what happened,” Erma snapped.

  Debbie started to speak. But Bob needed to take charge. He was officially the manager of Murcat Manor. He was not going to allow anyone to usurp his authority. Not Darrowby. Not strange superstitious folklore surrounding the property’s history. And certainly not Erma.

  He cut Debbie off with a hand placed on hers. “One of our guests choked on his food or had a heart attack. He died in the kitchen this morning.”

  “And the broken plates all over the floor?” Ross said looking through the large arched entry into the kitchen. “Looks like there was a small war in there, my boy.”

  “His name was Paul Knudson. The man had been drinking all night and was extremely hung over this morning. He went on an obnoxious rampage at the breakfast table. He attacked Debbie verbally and then me physically. It all happened way too fast. Next we knew, Knudson grabbed his throat as if to say he was choking. Then he clutched at his chest, his eyes bulged and rolled back into his head, and he fell onto the table and died. It all took less than a minute—the whole shebang.”

  Erma looked around. “Where are the guests? You’re supposed to be booked solid all summer. All I see are thirteen lazy, good for nothing, flea carrying vermin all staring at me.” Erma gave them a short hiss.

  Bob noticed the cats scattered across the living room looking at Erma. Strange. He hadn’t seen any of them when they sat down.

  “Bob,” Ross said. “We’re starting to get worried. I don’t need to remind you we cosigned a three-and-a-half million dollar loan for Murcat Manor. Two deaths and an empty bed and breakfast are making us a bit nervous.”

  Bet you’re more nervous than your cool demeanor’s letting on, Bob thought. Although he couldn’t show weakness, Bob hadn’t had time to recalibrate his senses since the death of Paul Kundson. He needed a few moments to think of something to say. What to do? Bob stood from his chair.

  “Ross, believe me. I understand completely. I’m going to the kitchen to get my laptop. Be right back.”

  Bob took his time at the kitchen table. “Thanks Raymond, for cleaning up. You’re a big help.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Stevens. I’ll stay close by in case you need anything.”

  “Thanks,” Bob whispered. “There’s something you could do. Make a diversion. Maybe start a small fire on the stove.”

  Raymond chuckled. Maria gave him a wink. “Good luck.”

  Bob reentered the living room and set up his laptop on the coffee table.

  “Let’s get right to the point,” Ross said. “What do you plan on doing to get people back in this place?”

  “W-well, there’s ahm, there are a number of things we can do.”

  Ross’s hazel eyes locked on Bob’s. “Like what?”

  “Well,” he glanced at Debbie who gave him a look that said she couldn’t think of anything.

  Erma stood and threw her hands in the air. “Oh, for crying out loud. He has nothing.”

  “Now, now, don’t you two worry,” Ross said to Bob, then reaching across and holding Debbie’s hand. “Your grandmother and I have everything under control.”

  “Thank you,” Debbie said. “Both of you. Honestly, we’re not sure what to do.”

  “I believe you,” Erma replied, but looking at Bob.

  Ross directed his attention to Bob and sat next to him. He situated the laptop so they could both see. “You have a new group of guests coming in Monday, right?”

  “We do.” Bob toggled through a few screens. “So far, no one has cancelled. But that could change once the news gets out.”

  “Fortunately,” Ross said, “seven of the ten rooms are booked by people from outside Michigan. This unfortunate death here today is not a homicide. News stations in Indianapolis, Chicago, Cleveland, Toledo, and in Canada aren’t going to broadcast this event. The eighth room is booked by a couple in the Upper Peninsula. The final two are local.”

  Bob started to say something, but Ross’s knowledge of these details was unexpected. “Wait. How do you know where the guests are coming from?”

  “A three-and-a-half million dollar loan?” Erma spat out the rhetorical question like filthy puss oozing out of a festering wound. “Really, Bob?”

  Bob scrolled down the page and looked at the cities the next wave of guests lived, all just as Ross called off.

  Ross cracked a pernicious grin. “We have to do what we have to do to protect our interests. Surely, you understand.”

  “Oh, don’t act so surprised,” Erma said. “You don’t think we’d leave all the financial aspects to you.”

  “You hacked into my Murcat Manor accounts?”

  “Our Murcat Manor accounts,” Ross said. “We’re partners. Remember? But let’s put this in the past. Moving forward, there can be no more deaths here. Understand?”

  First Darrowby. Now Ross. Bob had always like Ross. But at the present, he wanted to throw him head first out the front door.

  Erma started crying. “Oh, this is all because our beloved heirloom was destroyed. I don’t suppose you can build a new Celtic cross, do you Bob?”

  “Um, well, I’m not sure.”

  “Hmph. Didn’t think so.”

  She placed her hands on Debbie’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, dear. Your grandfather is going to make a brand new heirloom. It’ll be similar to my grandfather’s cross, but we’ll make a few changes to reflect current times. It will protect all who enter. Of course, we’ll have our priest bless it.”

  Erma stiffened like a steel rod had replaced her spine. Her nose crunched. Her eyes furrowed. Her head locked forward. She glared at the cats lying around the living room.

  “Did I just hear one of your cats hiss?”

  Ross hunched one shoulder. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  Debbie looked around the large living room, cats lounging all about. “I didn’t hear anything, Grandma. Maybe it’s the strain of everything.”

  Bob looked at the lounging felines. They
were more spread out than usual. He had the eerie sense they were surrounding the humans.

  Erma snapped out of her rigor mortis and took a wide stance with her hands on her hips. Her eyes swelled.

  “Don’t patronize me, child. I’m not old and senile. I clearly heard a cat hiss when I mentioned I would have our priest bless the new family heirloom.”

  Erma first panned the room of cats, then perambulated the room, stopping at each cat, bending over, and studying it.

  Bob looked to Debbie and whispered. “See. I’m not the only one who thinks these cats are up to no good.”

  Erma move in a measured pace from cat to cat. Midnight was lying on the fireplace mantle. Erma stopped and put her face directly in front of the cat.

  “Did you just hiss at me?”

  Midnight yawned, rolled her head, and closed her eyes.

  Erma next stopped at Esther, spread across and over an ottoman like her body was a boneless, fur-encapsulated gelatin.

  “Was it you, you feline rodent? Tell me now. Was it? Did you hiss at me?”

  Esther casually jumped off the ottoman and onto an empty chair, then lay down and lazily closed her eyes.

  The situation was awkward. Bob started to say something, but Ross and Debbie motioned loud and clear with exaggerated hand movements for him to stay silent.

  Erma continued moving from cat to cat. Each one seemed to respond in a disrespectful manner; defiant, cocky, indifferent, yawning, preferring sleep to paying the least bit of attention to the annoying woman. A couple of the cats moved to another part of the room just before she reached them.

  After grilling the thirteen cats, she returned to the couch. Ross looked at her like she was from Planet Oddball. “Is everything alright, my dearest?”

  “No,” she sniped. “Everything is not alright. I know what I heard, and it was one of those little rug rats.”

  Ross slapped his hands on his knees. Bob interpreted the motion as trying to break Erma’s cat fit. Time to take it from here.

  Bob clapped his hands together as he stood. “Okay. Well, it’s Saturday afternoon. The new guests aren’t due until Monday. We need to get this place back in order. Time to get busy.”

  “Right,” Debbie said. “But I need to clean the kitchen first. With the police and coroner here, I haven’t had time to wash the mountain of dirty dishes.”

  Ross rubbed his belly. “What’s to eat, Debbie? Can’t get to work on an empty stomach.”

  “Um, I don’t really feel much like cooking, Grandpa. Someone just died in my kitchen.”

  Ross snapped his fingers. “Raymond and Maria can finish up. That’s what you’re paying them for. Right? Let’s go to Cornwell’s for a turkey dinner. We’ll go over our vision of Murcat Manor moving forward. I’ll have our accountants and lawyers look at every little detail regarding the financials this week and see what ideas and direction they can offer.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” Erma said with a smug smile. “We’ll take it from here.”

  Bob was seeing Ross in a new light. He was all about the money. Clearly Debbie and he were still reeling from the death of Paul Knudsen, the visit from Darrowby and Kowalski, and the loss of their guests. At least Raymond and Maria had the decency to show compassion for what they just went through. But all Ross could think about was money and fulfilling his gluttonous appetite for food.

  Chapter 27 Expanded Powers

  In the basement, Emily again took her favorite spot on the storage shelf directly across from the work table. This issue of canned fruit cocktail was a continuing battle. She knocked over the industrial sized aluminum containers of diced and sliced fruits to make room for herself, and Debbie would pick up the dented cans and put them back on the shelf.

  Once again, Emily caused the cans to tip over and roll off onto the floor, adding another dent to each one.

  Emily was happy. Because Rebecca had opened her eyes to accepting who they really were, she could sleep again. They had begun so young and innocent, with a cause to help people with their gifting and abilities. But since humanity had rejected and persecuted them, Emily and her followers had no choice but to meet out their exclusion from the human race the best way they could.

  The burden and recurring nightmares of her sister Sarah had lifted. She could enjoy sleep to the fullest for the first time in four hundred years. Emily knew she was more tolerable with the twelve. This meant they respected her, and fell into line when she needed to lead.

  “Well Emily, what do you think?” Rebecca said. “Are we having fun yet?”

  Emily looked at her close knit group of associates with an extreme sense of pride. “Yes, Rebecca, we are. All of us. That was well done, ladies.” She bowed her head. “I’m proud of you all.”

  “And let’s not forget about Helen,” Annie said. “She took care of that creep Knudson with no problem. His wife should send us thank you cards, if she only knew.”

  “Oh, it was too easy.” Helen waved her paw. “Believe me, I can do much better than that.”

  “Well, this was still a great warm up,” Annie said. “But let’s not stop now. We now need something more challenging. Like working together. We can coordinate our powers. You know, instead of individually or within our usual groups of three, we can band together as a whole.”

  Annie looked up to her sister Rebecca for confirmation. Rebecca only needed to nod. This told the rest of the clan they better respect Annie, regardless they were sisters.

  “That’s a great idea,” Emily replied. “And with the information explosion of this generation, let’s give it up for Madelyn, who has been studying up on the latest scientific research and discoveries. It’s mind-boggling how much this understanding helps explain our powers.”

  The cats erupted in a round of applause.

  Rebecca nudged Madelyn to the forefront. “Come on. Don’t be shy.”

  Madelyn stepped forward. “No applause necessary. I humbly accept. In this current society, as a human, I would be called a nerd and a bookworm. An introvert.”

  “Introvert?” Rebecca said.

  “The exact opposite of you. Respectfully.”

  Rebecca winked. “Got it.”

  “Today, knowledge is so much more readily available. The Internet its right at our finger tips.” Madelyn held up her paw. “Make that paw claws. Anyway, with Bob’s touch screen devices, I can touch and swipe and move to just about any site. And I can key in words. It’s difficult, but I can do it. I punch in the first few letters, and the computer completes the word or phrase—and most of the time it gets it right, just what I wanted. This information age is nothing short of amazing.”

  Madelyn’s voice had risen to an intensity never before heard by the others, to where they stared at her wide-eyed and speechless. Madelyn noticed, and stopped her elated ramblings with a blush.

  “Sorry, I get carried away sometimes.”

  “No, no,” Rebecca said. “It’s great to see you this passionate and expressive. Even though,” she giggled, “I don’t understand any of it, not a word you said.”

  She looked around at the others who nodded in agreement to being equally confused. Rebecca giggled again. “And see? Neither do the rest of us. So we’ll just have to take your word for it.”

  “Fair enough. Trust me when I say I can process and interpret information faster than just about any person alive. If you walk away with anything from what I’ve said here today, please understand we can combine the knowledge of how the physical world interacts with the mystical.”

  The other twelve looked at each other, then back to Madelyn with blank stares.

  “In plain English, please,” Rebecca said.

  “Very simply, we’re able to couple science with the supernatural. This can only help us increase our abilities as we gain a better understanding of the world we now live in.”

  Rebecca shook her head. “I still don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  Madelyn sighed. “I’ll give you the short v
ersion. Energy and mass are two sides of the same coin. One can be turned into another. For example, during fusing of certain elements, if the resulting mass is less than the initial mass, the energy released during the exchange can cause a reaction and an incredible amount of energy is released.”

  Most of the other cats hesitated and groaned because they didn’t understand. Esther, however, raised a paw and interjected.

  “She’s right. As you know, my unique ability allows me to cause small explosions. I never knew how I was able to perform these acts. Now, I have at least a better understanding of how my powers work. And, thanks to Madelyn, I’ve discovered I can do much more.”

  Esther had everyone’s attention. Especially Emily, as she possessed all of her follower’s individual powers to some degree. Everyone revered Esther as she demonstrated one of the most incredible abilities of all the cats. She could blow stuff up, and to a much larger degree and scale than Emily’s mirrored power. It was damn frightening the potential destruction she could wield. They all tried to stay on her good side.

  “Don’t keep us in suspense,” Emily said. “What else have you discovered?”

  Madelyn continued. “Even air has mass and takes up space. Currents in the air are a form of energy. And this mass and energy can be converted into each other. There is some water in the air and Esther is able to fuse the hydrogen atoms to produce helium. A very small amount of mass is lost and converted to energy. It’s not much to be sure, but enough for our sister to have a new toy to play with. Esther, care to give our captive audience a demonstration?”

  Before Emily’s heart could hit its next beat, a hot burst smacked her hard in the face. She was forced back and hit the cinderblock wall. Her mind went blank and her paws were scurrying in all directions. A moment later, she fell off the shelf, landed on her feet, and ran behind a stack of boxes to hide.

  Emily shook her head clear and peered around the crates. Most of the other cats scattered. Only Esther and Madelyn remained.

  “It’s alright,” Esther said. “Come back. That was an energy burst and nothing else.”