Purr-fect Getaway (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 5)

by Harper Lin

  “Jake promised to check in on him, or pick him up at Old Murray’s if he winds up at the animal shelter. He’s also already locked up your house and will be checking in on it every day. That’s one of the perks of being married to a member of the Wonder Falls Police Department.”

  Was that a dig, I wondered. Was Bea bragging just then?

  “What about the café? Who’s going to run that? Kevin can’t bake and run the front. My gosh, he’ll slash both wrists during the morning rush hour.”

  “Kevin is getting four paid days off. You won’t hear a peep of complaining out of him,” Aunt Astrid said without looking back at me.

  I scooted my right leg underneath me again and looked back out the window. I was still in the sweats I had slept in, which weren’t much different from the ones I was wearing to work these days.

  “What about my clothes?” I said, suddenly feeling like an ugly duckling between two swans.

  “We already arranged to have new clothes there waiting for you. And you’ll be happy. They are yoga clothes. Not quite the Rocky Balboa sweat suits you’ve been wearing, but I promise they’ll be just as comfortable,” Bea said, pushing a long red lock away from her face.

  It was no use. These two witches had thought of everything. I wasn’t going anywhere but to Muskox Serenity Spa and Retreat Center.

  Well, I had one last card to play: I could pout. I did for the entire hour we were in the car. I barely spoke and didn’t make eye contact. Since I was miserable, I was determined to make them miserable as well. It wasn’t like me to do that or to behave this way. But I hadn’t been feeling like myself for a long time.

  Muskox Serenity Spa

  The silence in the car was refreshing. Unlike the chatter and busyness of the café at this time of morning, the hum of the engine and slight bumps over cracks and potholes in the road had a soothing effect.

  I had heard of the Muskox Serenity Spa and Retreat Center. It was situated just a little more than an hour away from the center of Wonder Falls. It was in an unincorporated part of the town, so things were sort of mismatched and jumbled when it came to the city agencies. Wonder Falls Police Department handled all their emergency calls, but they got their garbage picked up by the WM Waste Management Company of the next town over.

  The patchwork district realignments were obviously the genius ideas of a couple of decades’ worth of politicians trying to reinvent the wheel. The retreat center had been built a long time ago and had been renovated, adding a spa and salon, within the past fifty-five years.

  The traffic to get there was always heavy, with lots of semi-trucks and views of the concrete barriers blocking out the scenery. But Muskox Serenity Spa recommended a little longer, less travelled route, promoting it as starting your spa experience before you even checked in.

  That was the way Bea decided to take. She slipped in a CD of smooth, mellow sounds that reminded me of birds chirping and water trickling over rocks.

  Reluctantly, I did manage to get lost in the view. The autumn leaves had almost all fallen from the trees, leaving a tapestry of bare gray limbs among dark patches of maroon, purple, and dark-green foliage. Little white flowers dotted the ground. Majestic hawks circled overhead, their wings holding steady as they silently glided along the breeze in search of prey. The steep cliffs, low hollers, and hills made it look like one of those paintings by that guy with the afro hairstyle who painted beautiful nature scenes in a half-hour television show.

  I cracked the window and inhaled the cool, fresh air. My head felt like a heavy blanket was finally being pulled off of it, and my muscles started to tingle as if I had been holding heavy books in my arms and finally set them down.

  The distraction came in the form of a deer carcass lying off to the side of the road. I saw a herd of about a dozen deer, their heads up proudly, watching us as we drove past the field they were in. It happens, right? Deer try to get across the road only to get caught in headlights or taken by surprise, and they freeze. But then I saw another carcass. And another. I counted six before we reached the billboard pointing us up a black, paved, private road to the spa.

  Unless the deer population had boomed up here, I found the number of bodies to be unusually high. Something inside me twisted, and my shoulders shook with shivers.

  “They have natural hot springs here,” Bea said.

  I felt no need to say anything. A part of me wanted to make my relatives know I was still angry over being abducted. The chip on my shoulder had not receded.

  But as we pulled slowly up the winding road to the spa entrance, I couldn’t hide my surprise. The building was constructed of honey-colored wood and cream-colored brick. The thick beams gave it a rustic feel, yet it oozed elegance, with elaborately beveled glass windows that had to capture hundreds of rainbows every afternoon when the sun shone in.

  The parking lot was cobblestoned. As we pulled in, we saw magnificent urns holding seasonal foliage that draped languidly over the edges, spilling out like leafy tongues in rust, evergreen, and fuzzy gray tones.

  We stepped out of the car—me last because Aunt Astrid had to open the rear door from the outside thanks to the child safety locks—and felt the shift in the air.

  “This will be good for all of us,” Bea said. I saw my aunt looking around, seeing more than Bea and I did. Her eyes were gathering all kinds of information from this astral plane as well as from two or three more.

  Bea stretched and rubbed her arms against the cool air. She hopped to the back of the car, happily pulling two overnight bags out of the trunk and slinging them over her shoulders with no effort at all. Like a little kid who had seen how many presents were under the Christmas tree, she happily helped out in order to get to the goodies that much sooner.

  “This is going to be a blast,” she said to me, bumping me with her hip.

  “This is more beautiful than the pictures on the web,” Aunt Astrid said.

  I wasn’t ready to give up my attitude and grumbled “I guess.” I wanted to be excited. I wanted to join my cousin and aunt in their enthusiasm and run inside like a little kid looking for the indoor pool during a winter holiday, but I couldn’t. Something wouldn’t let me.

  Bea tried to take my hand in hers, but the feeling of her warm touch made me pull away. She looked at me as if I had just called her a rude name.

  “You’re going to feel better. I promise,” she said quietly.

  I blinked and shrugged, and we headed inside.

  The lobby was even more beautiful than the exterior. Chihuly glass sculptures hung from the ceilings. Mosaic tiles covered the floor. For an instant, my heart jumped into my throat as I remembered the living tiles from the Prestwick house. Were these the same? Were they cursed? Destined to start writhing and pulsating under my feet? No. They stayed still in a simple pattern like the cobblestones out in the parking lot.

  My breath began to slow down before I even realized I was starting to hyperventilate. A cold sweat was ready to cover my skin but only succeeded in dampening the areas under my arms, making them feel cold and uncomfortable.

  “I’m going to go sit down,” I whispered to Bea.

  “You okay?” she asked, her eyes clear and healthy. I felt like I was looking through a sickly yellow film at her.

  “I wish everyone would quit asking me that,” I griped and walked over to a small loveseat next to the concierge desk. Flopping down, I felt as if I had run a marathon coming in from the parking lot. I’d sat in the car the whole time. How could I possibly be tired? It had to be the anxiety of being abducted from my own home under a ruse. Yeah. That was it.

  “I don’t want a free night,” a male voice snapped. “I want a refund. You couldn’t get me to stay another night in this place for all the tea in China, missy.”

  I leaned around the desk and saw the man speaking. At any other time, he probably blended into the scenery unnoticed. Average height with a slight spare tire around his midsection and a head that was shaved but gave away a horseshoe pattern of stubb
le, indicating he was balding and had decided to beat the inevitable to the punch.

  “I do understand, Mr. Kline. You were in room 116,” the desk clerk said patiently. Tapping away on her keyboard with French-manicured nails, she barely looked at the man.

  “I never saw such things,” he mumbled, patting his shirt and pants, making sure he had everything he needed: wallet, keys. “Right out of the wallpaper it came. I thought this place was supposed to be for relaxation. I’m more stressed now than I ever was in the pit of the New York Stock Exchange in the days of paper and pencil, I’ll tell you that much.” He wiped his forehead.

  “I understand, Mr. Kline. Some of our guests do claim to experience some strange things.”

  “Strange things?” he said, almost laughing out loud. “No. Strange is when you know you shut the lights off before you left for dinner and come back to your room and they’re on again. That’s strange. Not having a pale woman come out of the wallpaper, screaming and running out of your room without opening the door. That is horrifying. Horrifying. Do you see the difference?”

  The woman nodded while typing away. Finally a sheet of paper was spit out of the printer behind her. Ripping it off, she handed it to the terribly nervous Mr. Kline, who didn’t even wait for her to explain his charges being refunded.

  He grabbed the paper, picked up the suitcase at his feet, and stomped through the electric double doors and out of view. As I watched him, I noticed his shirt was partially untucked, his suitcase had the cord of a phone charger and another piece of clothing sticking out of it, and I could have sworn he didn’t have any socks on. I wondered how long he had stayed before he decided to leave.

  Truthfully, I was not as interested in the man’s experience as I was in the clerk, who didn’t seem to bat an eye at his story. Pulling myself up, much against the will of my cranky, screaming joints, I walked over to her.

  “Excuse me,” I said, feeling a headache start to settle at my temples. “I couldn’t help but hear what that man was saying to you.”

  She looked up, flipping her black ponytail behind her and smiling in that plastic How can I help you? way.

  “Um…is this place…you know…?”

  “Haunted? Yes.”

  Haunted

  It wasn’t what I’d expected to hear. Suddenly my heart began to race like it had that time in high school when I realized I had forgotten my science report at home when it was worth half the semester grade and due that day.

  I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t say anything and just kept typing away on her keyboard.

  “Well, what’s the story?” I prodded, leaning on the counter half to support myself, half to get close enough for her to tell me the gory details.

  “Let’s just say the Muskox has a very rich history. I can’t tell you any firsthand stories because I have not experienced anything myself.”

  “But what that man said about things coming out of the wallpaper, a woman? Was the guy just drunk, you think?”

  Her eyes simmered. “We don’t provide any alcoholic beverages here. This is a holistic spa, and everything from the lighting to the arrangement of the furniture to the food is meant to help bring healing to our guests.”

  This tennis match of words was not going anywhere.

  “Okay. I didn’t mean anything by it. And just because you don’t provide the juice doesn’t mean a person can’t pack their own.” Sure, I didn’t need to be snarky about it. But neither did she, right? I flipped my own unbrushed, bed-headed hair behind me. “But if the place is haunted, I just wanted to know…”

  Her voice was low and velvety. “Some people claim to have items move in their rooms. They claim to see a woman. Some people claim to see shadows. If you take a look, you can find all of this on our website if you click on the history tab. Like I said, personally, I haven’t seen anything.” She looked at me as if her eyelids had suddenly gotten heavy. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get ready for a bridal party that will be arriving. If you have any other questions, I can give you the name of the manager. He is not on duty right now but will be tonight around eleven.”

  “I’ll probably be sleeping by then,” I muttered, clucking my tongue. “It’s okay. Thanks anyways.” I managed a smile and so did she. Not mortal enemies after all.

  So this clerk hadn’t seen anything. No mention was made of a tragedy surrounding a lover’s triangle ending in murder. No missing child later discovered to have fallen to his death down a stairwell.

  I looked up and saw Aunt Astrid and Bea smiling as they talked with the man behind the counter, who was giving them their keys and a little verbal tour of the place. Something he was telling them got two very enthusiastic nods, and they waved and thanked him as they walked away from the counter and toward me.

  A rope pulled inside my gut. Should I tell my family this place was haunted or keep it to myself? If I told them, they might want to investigate. What would that mean for me? I wasn’t sure I wanted any more of the paranormal in my life. But if I didn’t tell them, I could be risking them getting hurt. Ghosties and ghoulies and creatures that creep have the tendency to seek out witches like them—like us.

  The words wouldn’t come even if I’d wanted them to. Quickly, my mind had dug a shallow hole and tossed the information into it, covering it with the dirt of a dozen other things, including anger. The small house I lived in just a few blocks from the Brew-Ha-Ha Café in the center of Wonder Falls was not haunted. It was safe. It was mine. I wanted to be there. Not at this place. This haunted place.

  “Hey. We are all on the same floor,” Bea said, handing me a plastic credit-card-sized key. It had a lotus flower on it. How original, I thought. “Cath, are you all right?”

  The mental dirt I had just thrown on that little bit of information began to move as if something was trying to dig itself out. Hitting it hard with a mental shovel seemed to work for the time being.

  “You know, I’m tired and hungry and still not altogether willing to be here,” I said, pulling my hair back and looking down at the key in my hand. “A shower. Some breakfast. I’ll be better.” I managed a smile.

  The word I really wanted to say didn’t come out. It hung in my throat like a piece of dry toast. Scared. I was scared to be there. The idea of seeing something like I had at the Prestwick house loomed like a fast-approaching cliff.

  The Muskox Serenity Spa and Retreat Center had three floors of beautiful rooms. We were on the third floor in room numbers 310, 318, and 323. I took the room closest to the fire escape, 323. When I walked in, the whiteness was nearly blinding.

  Even though the day outside had a light-gray ceiling of clouds, it could not stop me from gasping at the amazing view.

  I slid open a thin glass door, letting the chilly air rush in. I stepped out onto a small balcony made for two lounge chairs and nothing else. The bare trees looked stoic, waiting for the colder weather and blankets of snow that would be arriving in a few more weeks. A body of water mirrored the sky off to the right, and I could see a sprinkling of boats floating on it. They were little black spots, and I wondered how chilly it must have been down there by the water.

  Closer to the spa, I saw the steam rolling up from the natural hot springs. People lounged in them. They all looked very content, with their arms spread out to the sides, supporting them, as their heads leaned back in complete relaxation.

  But it wasn’t the people that caused me to stare and lean slightly over the balcony’s edge. It was the movement I had suddenly noticed behind the springs. I watched for a moment, thinking a cat or a raccoon or something that size might be creeping behind the soakers. But just that quickly, it was gone.

  A trick of the steam, I thought. That was what it was. Sure, animals were probably very used to humans walking through the trails and sitting in the springs. Food probably brought the critters much closer than they normally would have ventured. But it was just how the steam was rolling and billowing, like sheer curtains over an open window just before a storm
.

  Just before a storm. Why did those words echo in my head?

  The wind kicked up and sent a chill over me that sent me back inside my room. It was pretty. And the bed looked very inviting, with a super-thick comforter, half a dozen pillows, and a faux-fur afghan at the foot.

  A nap. That was all I needed. But before I could make that dream come true, a gentle knock sounded at the door. Exhaustion fell on me and weighed my shoulders down. What now?

  “Just one last thing,” Aunt Astrid whispered as she walked in, carrying three bags from the gift shop with pink tissue paper poking out of the tops. “Your wardrobe for the next three days.”

  I had almost forgotten that I had no change of clothes, and I managed a smile.

  My aunt set the bags down on the little desk next to the three free postcards and pen with the spa name written on it.

  “Take a shower. Eat something. Rest. Then come to meet us in the lobby around two.” She kept her voice low as if a baby was sleeping in the room or a sick person was trying to get some rest. Wasn’t that sort of the truth? She went to hug me but I stepped back, taking her hands in mine and shaking them in some moronic handshake.

  “Okay,” I said, making it painfully obvious I wanted to be alone.

  I saw her eyes squint for just a brief second as if she was trying to see around me, behind me. I turned but saw nothing there. When I looked back at her, her face held its usual understanding expression.

  Without another word or look, she turned and went to the door, stepped out, and let it slide shut behind her, the lock clicking into place with metallic finality.

  No matter what was wrong with me, I had to admit getting some new clothes was exciting. I peeked into the first bag and saw lovely yoga pants in navy blue, gray, and rust colors. They had matching shirts and even some jewelry. Flip-flops. Headbands.

  “Wow. They went all out,” I mumbled. Then I saw the card. I pulled it out and opened it up to see a watercolor picture of some beautiful leafy vines growing up what could have been the side of a castle. The inside was blank except for the words written in Bea’s elegant scrawl.