Pawsitively Dead (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 2)

by Harper Lin

  Bea assured us, “I can handle him on my own. Fair is fair is one on one.”

  I could tell that Bea was nervous though. Luckily, right then, I felt something brush my ankle and saw Peanut Butter between us. He looked at her with large amber eyes and gave a weak miaow.

  I urged Bea, “At least take Peanut Butter with you!”

  “I will,” Bea said, bending down to pick up Peanut Butter. With his front paws on her shoulder and his hind legs cradled in her arms, Bea nodded good-bye at the both of us and set off for Jake’s place.

  Aunt Astrid shut the door. The look on her face was one of anticipating doom.

  “At least Bea won’t be alone,” I said. Jake couldn’t possibly feel ganged up on by one person and her pet.

  Aunt Astrid remarked, as her expression changed to one of exaggerated innocence, “And you’ll be able to check up on her through Peanut Butter.”

  I would never admit to that ploy ever having crossed my mind.

  Burger’s Bite

  Aunt Astrid and I sat down together to figure out what the problem was with the construction contractors’ contract. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it for the whole morning, although Aunt Astrid ultimately seemed to have figured out what had gone wrong. She made the call to their accountant while I made lunch: deli meat and cheese sandwiches, a giant garden salad, and some reheated crab-and-corn soup.

  I let my mind wander to Treacle, letting our minds connect. “I didn’t leave food out for you,” I reminded him. I used to do so, but that attracted other stray cats, and they tended to be rude or even violent to Treacle.

  “That’s all right,” Treacle replied. “I ate a field mouse on the way to the wire forest.”

  That would be all right if it had only been words, but when I join my mind with animals, they spoke in ideas and feelings…and the full imagery of experience. I flinched when I sensed the crunch of field mouse bones, the smell of its urine, and the fleas tickling Treacle’s whiskers.

  “I wish you’d quit hunting wild things, Treacle. They could pass on worms in your gut that’ll make you feel sick!”

  “Some human foods for cats are poisoned,” Treacle reminded me.

  That had been a freak outbreak of contaminated pet food in China. I’d read a news report about it and translated it for Treacle, who took it entirely the wrong way.

  “Some human foods for humans are poisonous too,” Treacle thought. “Life is always going to be dangerous.”

  There was no convincing him otherwise. “Marshmallow is grouchy that you don’t take your magic lessons. Why did you go to the… wire forest?” As I uncertainly repeated the thought back, I recognized the cracked concrete floor of the animal shelter—and the wire around the kennel area. Oh.

  “Because,” Treacle thought back at me triumphantly, “I don’t want to scare away our witness.”

  The reply made no sense to me.

  Through Treacle’s eyes, I saw the edges of worn blue jeans and sneakers. Treacle looked up and miaowed at a figure too tall for me to recognize, until it stopped and sat down. The air took on a ragged quality as the human covered his face with his hands.

  Cody, I realized. Cody Willis was crying. Of course he was. Old Murray was his grandfather, and the only family he had left. Old Murray had been arrested for a crime that he didn’t commit.

  There was nothing I could do.

  “Cody? Are you all right?” said a familiar voice.

  Cody wiped his tears away and tried to laugh. “That’s what I’ve been asking you, Mr. Samberg.”

  Blake approached them both and petted Treacle on the head. “I know Old Murray can’t have done it.”

  “How can we make everyone else know it?” Cody asked. “You have to prove it. We can’t even prove how anybody could do the crime in the first place!”

  Treacle trotted purposefully down the hall and into the yard.

  “A witness,” I thought, “you don’t want to scare away… what does that have to do with Marshmallow’s magic lessons?” Then I remembered Burger. Samantha Perry’s dog had been present when the crime took place, and she was afraid of magic. “Treacle!” I called urgently. “Old Murray’s been arrested! I feel sorry for Cody, but the mystery is solved. It’s Old Murray, but it’s not… the humans wouldn’t understand.”

  “You heard the other two humans talk,” Treacle argued. “They also know Murray didn’t do it.”

  “I saw the Unfamiliar attached to Old Murray. I saw it myself, with my witch eyes! What can we do?”

  Treacle climbed the wire fence and walked at the top, balancing with his tail. “What did the dog see? We never found out if it was the same sight. I’m curious.”

  I tried to explain through my panic. “There’s a human saying about what curiosity always does to cats!”

  It was too late. Treacle had caught sight of Burger, alone in the kennel, lying down. Treacle gave a loud miaow. Burger perked an ear up but otherwise didn’t move. Treacle jumped down and swaggered over to the giant, shaggy dog.

  Burger whimpered, got up, and sent the thought, “What do you want?”

  Treacle stretched and yawned. He approached Burger. “I chased a mouse today. I caught it, then I let it go, then I caught it again. It was fun.”

  Burger waited for more.

  “Maybe it’s not as fun for the mouse. But maybe it is. I thought I’d see.” With that, Treacle batted Burger on the nose with one paw.

  Burger scoffed and lay back down. “Leave me alone.”

  Treacle didn’t. “I don’t understand why everybody here is so miserable.”

  “My human is gone. We were such a small pack, just the two of us.” Burger whimpered again. “Of course I’m miserable. Cats can’t understand. You’re all so selfish.”

  “We’re understanding each other now. How did that happen? You understand cats?” Treacle wondered.

  Burger flicked an ear. “When I was a puppy, our pack was three: the human, and me, and an old Siamese cat. I grew up knowing what a hiss meant.”

  “There are plenty of humans everywhere in this part of the mountains,” Treacle said. “They like dogs too. If your human doesn’t come back, I’m sure you’ll find another.”

  “My human isn’t coming back. Go away, cat.” Burger began to growl.

  Treacle didn’t move. “Tell me to go away again, but without the growl.”

  “Go away,” Burger thought.

  “How did you do that?” Treacle asked.

  Burger sent a wave of confusion. “I… we… just do…”

  “Was this so easy with your human?”

  “No.” Burger whimpered. “It never needed to be! Why do you keep bothering me about my human?”

  “Because I want to tell you that not all humans have magic.”

  Burger stood straight up and growled. “You are dangerous.”

  “Me? What about you! You’re bigger!” Treacle fluffed up, tensing for a fight.

  Burger lunged forward with a great bark. Treacle fled for the fence opposite the dog. My cat scrambled up that fence, almost losing his footing when Burger crashed her body into it. But Treacle landed on the other side.

  “I saw your magic human!” Burger barked furiously. “I saw the magic that was not human! They worked together to kill my human!”

  “Cath wasn’t even at the cemetery that night!” Treacle argued. His fluffy fur flattened again, and he licked his paw to wash his face. “Talk sense, dog.”

  Finally, Burger gave his testimony. Samantha had walked Burger around that night. The cemetery was just another part of the park-meadow to her, though she wouldn’t let Burger pee on the gravestones. She could be respectful of the dead, but she was never afraid.

  That night, Samantha should have been afraid. Burger had sensed a chill in the air, like the sky was being torn up. He bit on his leash and tried to lead Samantha away, but Samantha was strict and stubborn, and she couldn't sense what was coming. He remembered her telling him, “We always walk this way, Burger! Co
me on, what’s wrong with you?”

  The graveyard glowed with moonlight. Burger couldn’t see as well as a cat could, but Samantha should have seen… if she’d only thought to look… if she could only believe…

  A human was floating in the air toward them. The lower half, at least, seemed like a human. The upper half looked as if it were made out of smoke. The smoke spoke. This is the one. Kill her and raise the dead.

  Burger didn’t know what to make of the smoke, but he lunged at the floating leg and got his teeth in. The floating body waved its hand, and a gust of some kind of force threw Burger against a mausoleum, snapping the leash. Samantha fainted, or seemed to.

  Then a tombstone shattered, the earth opened up, and the bones of Shelley Marina emerged from them and lurched toward Samantha. The bones grew gristle at every step.

  “Ooh…” the syllable came from the half-formed throat of the ghoulish apparition. “Noo… die… let… me… die…”

  The bones collapsed beside Samantha Perry’s body and struck her before getting up and trying to continue on. Samantha Perry was already dead. Blake had said that the bruises were post-mortem.

  “I was afraid of this thing that I never saw before! Humans aren’t supposed to fly!” Burger barked. “I was afraid! So I ran, and I went back later in the morning to find my human was dead! I should have protected her!”

  “Treacle!” Blake called. It seemed that he’d gone out to see what all the noise was about. Blake scooped up Treacle in his arms and carried the cat away.

  I thought about what Burger had shown Treacle—us. “The full moon and the Unfamiliar made Old Murray fly. That explains the lack of footprints. The Unfamiliar…”

  “Was it the same one?” Treacle asked me.

  It was indeed the same Unfamiliar that I’d encountered and sent away from Old Murray at the theater. I was certain of it, even more now that I’d seen it through Burger’s eyes. Well, through Treacle’s mind’s eyes looking through Burger’s eyes. “Just come home to me and Astrid, Treacle. This was a risk.”

  Treacle would never admit that he was wrong. “Burger bit the human part.”

  “There was no human part. It’s a whole human and a whole Unfamiliar squished together. So what if Burger managed to bite him?” I wondered, without really wondering.

  Blake set down a saucer of milk for Treacle, who began to lap it up. Treacle wondered, “Did Old Murray have a bite on his leg?”

  “What’s the latest with Peanut Butter then?”

  Aunt Astrid’s voice pulled me back to reality. I’d been in a trance while my mind followed Treacle to the animal shelter.

  “That was Treacle,” I said. “The Unfamiliar that I saw at the theater was the same as the one that Samantha Perry’s dog witnessed. If Old Murray has a month-old bite mark on his leg, then we can confirm that Old Murray was haunted by this Unfamiliar spirit.”

  Aunt Astrid took a bite of a sandwich and nodded thoughtfully. “Treacle is trying to help the case. Be a dear and reheat the soup. I think it’s gone tepid again.”

  “I don’t think cats can understand how complicated humans make things!” I set the microwave to heat the soup again. “This is all well and good to know, but none of it would be admissible as evidence in court. We certainly can’t tell Blake—Detective Samberg—”

  “Or any other investigators,” Aunt Astrid added.

  “Yeah.” Why had I singled out Blake? I pushed the thought aside and continued. “I’ll bet Old Murray’s Unfamiliar would have healed his leg anyway.”

  I poured the soup into two bowls. Aunt Astrid carried her bowl of soup and the plate with all of the sandwiches to the table. I carried my bowl of soup and the giant bowl of salad.

  We ate for a while, then Aunt Astrid said, “Not necessarily.”

  It had been long enough that I’d forgotten what she would be talking about. “Not necessarily to what?”

  “The Unfamiliar healing the physical injury of their host. Most Unfamiliar spirits never had human bodies and wouldn’t know to do that.”

  I remembered watching an old movie about a little girl who was haunted by what the Greenstones would call an Unfamiliar. In a famous scary scene, it forced her to turn her head so that her face looked behind her, like an owl… not a human. A human body couldn’t survive that. She should have had broken her neck at that moment. But if an Unfamiliar wasn’t familiar with a human body, then…

  I shuddered in horror. That little girl in the movie could have been me.

  “Of course,” Aunt Astrid added, “it depends on what the motive is.”

  I munched on a lettuce leaf. “Now I’m confused. You told me that the Unfamiliars don’t understand basic survival. How can we possibly understand what their motives are then?”

  “Motive is a mental thing. Many other motives are much more in the realm of the other world than in the realm of the body. Remember Queen Myrtha?”

  She was talking about the ballet, the queen of the ghosts. All of the ghosts were women who’d killed themselves out of unrequited love, or because they’d married somebody who’d cheated on them, or something.

  “Imagine Queen Myrtha as Unfamiliar,” Aunt Astrid continued. “She wants something from our world, and she’s crossing lines and boundaries to take it. Nobody can know why. But the only method she knows to get whatever she wants depends on tempting all those other poor girls with the promise of getting what they want.”

  “Vengeance. The Wilis were the ghosts of women scorned.” I remembered reading something like that on the ballet program. “When Giselle forgave those two jerks, Queen Myrtha didn’t have any power anymore.”

  “Exactly.” Aunt Astrid murmured into her soup, “If only it could be that simple.”

  “It can be simpler,” I said. “Tell Queen Myrtha to get back in line. That’s what witches do. That’s what we did. Simple! Done!”

  “Your mother would be proud of you.” Aunt Astrid beamed. She added, “So I hope that you don’t take personally that she would also be suspicious that this was so easy.”

  I took a piece of bread and used it to sop up the bottom of my soup bowl. “Aunt Astrid… whose motives was my Unfamiliar using? Mine?”

  Aunt Astrid hesitated. “If you’re not sure—and you were the only one of us who was actually there, who was actually being bothered by the Unfamiliar—we may never know.”

  My mother would be suspicious of getting rid of an Unfamiliar so easily because she gave her life for it. I steeled myself against that thought. We could know. There was a way.

  I needed to know.

  “It’s full moon tonight,” I said. “What about we finally try that séance?”

  The Walking Dead

  After the sun set, the moon was a perfectly round smudge of chalky paleness in a dusky blue sky. Aunt Astrid and I sat on my black picnic blanket in front of my parents’ graves.

  “I know, I know,” I said to the gravestones. “I’m early.” I turned to Aunt Astrid. “This suddenly got awkward.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…” I tried to form the words. “Every year, for fifteen years, I’ve come here to talk to them. I took for granted that they were listening. Now… I don’t know. I’m going to talk to them, and I know they’re going to hear me, and if I’m lucky, they’re going to talk back. That changes things.”

  Aunt Astrid phrased it better. “Your attitude toward death before was more normal and comfortable for you.”

  The other world, the one where all the magic was, also seemed to be the afterlife. It was difficult to explore, and witches could only guess what it was like. The séance itself might not work because it was too soon, like with Samantha Perry. It might not work because it was too late, like with Shelley Marina. Just because somebody was dead didn’t mean that they weren’t not busy. At least, that was the explanation I’d received when I was thirteen and tried to conduct a séance. It might have been more because my magic talent wasn’t that strong yet, or at least not strong e
nough in the direction of necromancy.

  Death, even to witches, remained a mystery. Grieving remained a process.

  “We can just sit here then,” Aunt Astrid said. “It’s a lovely afternoon in a lovely graveyard.”

  So we sat and waited. Eventually, I wondered aloud, “I wonder how Bea’s talk with Jake went.”

  Aunt Astrid waved dismissively. “I’m sure she’ll tell us.”

  “Eventually. Later. I’m wondering how Bea’s doing now.”

  I nudged Peanut Butter with my mind. His anxieties covered me like a wave. Jake’s hand waved toward Peanut Butter’s face, making Peanut Butter jump back from where he sat on the table. It wasn’t a table I recognized from Bea’s place.

  Jake demanded, “How do we know we’re not under surveillance right now?”

  Bea cried, “Cath doesn’t do that!”

  “You know with your magic?”

  “That’s not possible! Even if it were, I’d trust them!”

  “Well, it’s impossible for me. I can’t live like that…”

  There was a shout from outside the room—not any room in Jake’s house, I realized. They were at the police station.

  “What was that?” Bea stood and went over to the door.

  I pulled my mind back to the graveyard, where I sat beside Aunt Astrid. “Oh, no. They’re fighting.”

  Aunt Astrid sighed. “Better than not speaking to each other.”

  We sat for a little longer.

  I said, “They were fighting about whether I would spy on them through Peanut Butter.”

  “You’d never!” Aunt Astrid said as if on reflex. Immediately, more humbly, she corrected, “You just did. But you’d never after this.”

  Suddenly, I stood. Aunt Astrid took my cue and stood with me. She moved off the picnic blanket, stepping smartly.

  “I want to go home,” I said as I bent over and folded up the blanket. “Wait for Bea there with all her favorite chocolates.”

  “And a divorce lawyer,” Aunt Astrid added. She glanced behind her, startled, and said, “Can I help—”