Ghost Cats of the South

by Randy Russell

  Luis Gaspar had little time for his wife. The stern military commander had nothing to say to her. Women didn’t understand the world, especially a woman as young as Marianna. She was mere decoration for the colonel, a bright and golden ornament for formal occasions. She was another badge he’d won from the throne.

  Marianna blossomed in the New World and soon found herself wildly attracted to the more youthful Miguel Antonio, a captain newly assigned to the garrison at St. Augustine. The young captain in turn fell helplessly in love with the married woman. Theirs was a love that was doomed from the beginning. But it was also a love that neither could end.

  Marianna wore a richly scented rose perfume to mask the odor of the physical love she shared in secret with Miguel. She had the perfume formulated by the garrison pharmacy. The doctor was sympathetic to Marianna’s plight. It was only natural for a young woman to fall in love with a man close to her own age, with a man who adored her. Soon, the couple would learn that Marianna was the property of a cruel master.

  When the illicit love came to the attention of Colonel Gaspar, the punishment was swift and severe. A ruined woman now, Marianna was locked inside an interior stone room and chained to the wall. A heavy wooden door sealed her fate. The door was cut with a small window, over which were bolted iron bars.

  The next day, Miguel Antonio was stripped of his rank, the buttons cut from his uniform. Marianna’s sentence was death. Miguel’s was different, though just as cruel. By command of the colonel, he was taken to the room under armed guard and locked inside with Marianna. He, too, was left in chains but was given the option of release if he would publicly denounce his love of the colonel’s wife. He would be returned to Spain and put in prison there, but he would be alive.

  No food or water was provided the lovers in their stone cell.

  Upon hearing the harsh sentences, the doctor in the pharmacy went at once to Marianna’s rooms and retrieved the pet cat she’d brought with her from Spain. He carefully clasped a small vial to the cat’s collar and filled it with water. The human body can survive much longer without food than without water.

  The doctor brought the cat to the outer room. She knew instantly where her mistress lay behind the locked door. While he spoke briefly to the guard about a salve he’d brought for the guard to try on his itching feet, the cat hurried across the floor and leapt through the window in the cell door.

  Later that day, the cat returned to the pharmacy. A small note had been rolled into the vial. Written with a pencil from Marianna’s chatelaine were the simple words, “Gracias, por favor más”—“Thank you, more please.”

  The cat was sent to the dungeon time and time again, through the day and through the night.

  It is unknown, of course, how the lovers spent their time, of what they spoke and what they did not dare to speak. Miguel Antonio refused each morning and each evening to be released from death, to be released from Marianna’s fate, a fate that was soon to be his own. Small amounts of water from a vial would not prevent death, only delay it.

  On the fourth day, the doctor found another note rolled into the cat’s vial. It read, “Veneno, por favor”—“Poison, please.”

  The doctor did as Marianna so plainly requested. He formulated an oral poison that would be fatal with a mere touch of the tongue. Its smell was strong and offensive. He scented the black liquid with rose perfume, hoping to mask the repulsive odor. The faithful cat, Marianna’s pet since her arrival in St. Augustine, performed her duty.

  As an act of love, Miguel Antonio sipped the poison first, so Marianna would not fear that she might die alone. A touch to parched lips, a touch upon the tongue, and the lovers died locked in one last kiss. Their hearts beat as one, then together beat no more. Miguel and Marianna died with their eyes closed to a rose-scented kiss.

  A few years ago, a portion of the Castillo de San Marcos was closed to the public. One of the heavy cannons fell through the roof of the structure. Workers were called in to reinforce the original ceilings against further collapse. Those who entered the chamber quickly noticed a rich, sweet rose odor coming from a sealed-off room adjacent to where the cannon had fallen. The perfume had been sealed within for two centuries. Inside the previously hidden room, they discovered two skeletons. One was that of a man, the other, a woman.

  Tour guides routinely tell visitors the story behind the corpses, how the wife of one of the Spanish commanders was caught by her husband having an affair with a lesser officer, and how in punishment of her infidelity the lovers were sealed into the small room and left to die without food or water.

  Not entirely without water, though.

  The room is now open to the public.

  Some visitors still smell a faint rose perfume when touring the grounds of the fortress. Many report seeing a small cat with a bright silver collar about the grounds, most often in the area of the recently discovered room. The cat cannot be followed. She simply disappears around a corner.

  The San Marcos Cat may have faded in color through the years. The scent of rose perfume has faded as well. The perfume is for now a faint and airy memory of a bygone love and of the faithful cat that brought fate-scarred lovers life when they required it.

  The same faithful cat, now a ghost, carried to her mistress a final drink when life, but not love, was brought to its end.

  JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

  A Piece of Yarn

  They say that Jackson, Mississippi, has as many lawyers as cats. And the cats are smarter.

  Attorney L. Anson Emery stared at a badly misshapen wool sweater left for him as a birthday gift by none other than William Barkeley, Jr., one of the wealthiest men in Jackson when he died, and Anson’s second uncle by marriage. The old codger’s remembering Anson’s birthday was good. The sweater was bad. It was of thick knitted stripes in black and yellow. Anson could barely stand to think of it, that crazy old man knitting alone all day and all night in his mansion just off Belhaven Street.

  Nobody wears wool in Jackson. The climate is molten at best. The city is built on an extinct volcano, and most people believe the Jackson heat comes up through the soil. The humidity is Mississippi’s own contribution to the city in America that feels most like living in an oven. Summers in Jackson are so hot and humid that they make the inside of your mouth sweat.

  Jackson is one of the few cities in America where in August you can sit outside and watch trees melt. There are no sea breezes of an evening, unlike Galveston, Mobile, and Biloxi. The only change in weather in Jackson comes when overheated thunderstorms drop buckets of rain on the ground. It’s so hot the wind can’t blow. Wind comes only in the form of tornadoes.

  The heat drives people bonkers in Jackson. And humidity keeps them from doing anything about it.

  Anson should know. His uncle went nuts. There was nothing more to be said than that. Anson worried that the rich old coot had given all his money to a television evangelist or to that so-called nurse he had paid to be there every day and cook him lunch and supper. The old man had lived his last years alone, except for that nurse’s coming by. And except for the cat.

  When Anson had driven by the stately house at night, it always looked as if it were lit up for Christmas. Every light had been on every night.

  He looked at the sweater again. It wasn’t anywhere near his birthday. But that’s what his richest relative had left him when he died, that and the care of his cat.

  Anson had inherited a hand-knit sweater, along with a scrawled note that read,“Happy Birthday, Anson.” The cat got the rest of the estate.

  In 1839, Mississippi had become the first state to allow married women to possess and administer their own property. The law was enacted in Jackson. It didn’t say anything about cats owning property.

  But laws of inheritance hadn’t stopped his uncle. The old man created a caretaker’s trust that tied all his personal property and wealth, including the Belhaven mansion, to the care of the cat. The cat, according to the legal paperwork, would remain in her home fore
ver, and it was the charge of the executor to see that she was happy there and without want of any kind. The estate was eight million dollars in trust and a mansion full of priceless antiques.

  As executor of Uncle William’s estate, Anson vowed to see what he could do about that.

  He dropped by the mansion, fired the nurse when she arrived, and killed the cat.

  Anson wrote “Natural Causes” on the appropriate paperwork at his uncle’s downtown law firm. Death by lawyer, he thought, was natural causes. He laughed out loud.

  Anson specialized in D.U.I.’s and divorces in his own legal practice and didn’t understand the complicated twists and turns of wills and trusts. His uncle’s personal attorney explained matters simply enough.

  “You’re looking at years before final control of the property and access to the money will be free for your inheritance,” the white-haired lawyer told him. “I’m afraid your uncle’s trust doesn’t provide for a quick and easy route to remove the assets of the estate from the trust upon the death of the cat. The trust stays in place until five years after the cat’s natural death. Did you not understand that?”

  “I see,” Anson said blankly. Of course, he hadn’t understood that. At least he’d gotten a small head start by killing the cat.

  “And everything goes probate at that point. Probate is slow as molasses. Two more years, maybe three. Until then, as executor, you will receive a monthly stipend. It’s the same as if the cat were alive. And of course, you can draw expenses for maintenance of the house. It cannot be sold or rented out, and the terms of the trust name you as sole occupant of the property. No one else may spend the night there.”

  “You mean I have to stay there?”

  “Yes, young man, in order to draw the stipend, you do.”

  “Oh.”

  Since the stipend was a measly ten thousand dollars a month, the legal limit of the trust, the bulk of his uncle’s money—of Anson’s money—would sit idle for what seemed like forever. Five years was forever when you were waiting on money. Five years of long, hot days in Jackson, Mississippi.

  Anson decided he would find a way to break the five-year extension of his uncle’s trust, even if he had to go back to law school and read every state inheritance law ever written.

  Anson’s first night in the mansion was not a happy one. He didn’t like being there alone.

  He discovered an unopened bottle of twelve-year-old single malt Scotch in his uncle’s cabinet. He carried it with him, taking a sip as he felt like it. He walked through the house to survey what antiques might be sold. Anson peered out through the stained-glass window on the landing but saw only the reflection of his own face. It scared him. For a sudden moment, he thought someone was watching him, and his heart leapt.

  Safely tucked in bed in one of the large upstairs guest rooms, Anson wondered what the weather in France was like in the summer. He had enough money to live on a yacht anywhere in the world, if he could just get his hands on it. Maybe he would fly a few places and see what was what. Anson counted places like sheep, Rio, Paris, Cannes….

  He was bothered in his sleep. Something light and feathery constantly crossed Anson’s face. He dreamed his face was inside a spider web.

  When Anson woke in the morning, the spider web was gone. He found a piece of yarn at the foot of the bed and another small piece by his pillow. He noticed an indentation in the pillow beside his. It looked as if something the size of a head had been sitting there.

  Forget it, he thought. He must have moved around in his sleep.

  Pieces of yarn were all over the house.

  Next time, he’d try the fifteen-year-old Scotch. No reason to save it for a special occasion. Having a better night’s sleep was occasion enough.

  He carried out box after box of the old man’s antiques, small things he thought would readily sell, one or two at a time to every antique shop in town. Ceramic vases, silver candlesticks, bronzes, daguerreotypes. He even managed to wedge two framed oil paintings between the front and back seats of his red Mercedes-Benz.

  Some of his uncle’s family things were worth a lot, he learned.

  Anson sold a Newcomb College vase to an antique dealer for two thousand dollars cash. In the glaze was a picture of a moss-draped tree in moonlight. The bottom was signed. The dealer called Anson later that day to ask if he had more. He told the young attorney that he had already placed the vase with a valued customer. He also told Anson in passing that a piece of yarn was found inside the vase.

  Why wouldn’t there be? Anson thought. The entire house was full of yarn. Balls and packages of yarn were everywhere and in every color. Yarn overflowed large paper sacks in every corner of every room. It was driving him crazy. Pieces of yarn clung to his clothes. Yarn seemed to follow him around the old man’s house. Wherever he went, there was yarn.

  Every morning, he woke up and briefly felt as if he couldn’t move. Yarn would be there with him, pieces of it on the bed, on the floor next to the bed. Some of it was tied in little knots. Anson didn’t know much about knitting but thought it was something along the lines of tying knots over and over again. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought his uncle had come back from the grave in the middle of the night and thrown pieces of yarn at him. Anson found them in the morning, in loosening wads on the bed by his feet and wrists.

  His uncle’s Scotch ran out. Anson switched to bourbon.

  The night he brought home the yacht brochures, he woke up in bed from a dream that he was drowning in a calm ocean and that someone had tied a weight to his chest. When he opened his eyes, he saw the cat sitting right on top of him. A piece of yellow yarn was in her mouth.

  Anson was too startled to speak. For the life of him, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t move. The cat that Anson had killed blinked at him and then was gone. Finally, he was able to throw back the covers and get out of bed. He paced the room. Cats can see in the dark, he knew. The cat could see Anson just fine.

  He phoned the paralegal.

  “Yes, I know what time it is,” Anson said. “You’re on twenty-four-hour call, remember?”

  He waited for the employee to clear his throat.

  “Grab a pad and write this down. Is there some sort of condition where a person wakes up but isn’t really awake? And they are unable to move? Call me back on that.”

  Eight minutes later, the phone rang. The paralegal was a whiz at research.

  “It’s called ‘the hag phenomenon,’ ” he said. “According to the Internet, it’s a condition of sleep when you wake too quickly, where you feel utterly paralyzed, as if you’re being held down and can’t move. It comes with age. And whatever you were dreaming, well, you still see a little bit of that, but you think you are entirely awake.”

  “You see what you’re dreaming?” Anson said. “Not what’s really there?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. Try drinking a little less late at night. And turn the air conditioning down. That recirculated air messes with your head.”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll turn the air conditioning down when I’m in France. I wonder if they have air conditioning in Tahiti.”

  “Don’t ask,” the paralegal said, and clicked off his phone.

  Anson went back to sleep. He had the same dream again. He tried to swim but couldn’t move his arms or legs. The ocean was on top of him, and all he could do was stare up at it. Fish swam by. They all had whiskers and looked like they wanted to eat him. Their teeth were little shiny knives and forks. They were waiting for Anson to drown.

  He struggled to push himself from the depths of sleep. He woke with a start, his eyes wide open. His bed was covered with cats. Cats of different sizes and different colors. They were right on top of him. They were at the corners of the bed. The dead cat was right in the middle of them. For a minute, Anson couldn’t move. He was filled with dread. And fear.

  The bed may as well have been on fire. He couldn’t do a thing about it.

  Finally, he was able to scream. He flailed
his arms at the cats, drawing his legs up in one quick motion. The cats leapt off the bed and disappeared.

  Downstairs, he opened a bottle of vodka. It would have to do. The old man’s bar had been reduced to little else. It was three in the morning. He’d been asleep only a half-hour since calling the paralegal.

  Anson climbed the stairs in his underwear, drinking. He turned off the air conditioning.

  “There’s no hag,” he said out loud to no one. “It’s just a cat.”

  Never kill a cat if you want to sleep at night.

  Anson convinced himself he was not insane. It was the barometer. A thunderstorm must be coming. He was under a lot of pressure, that was all. A lot of pressure, and too much air conditioning.

  He wasn’t a little boy anymore. There was nothing to be afraid of in the dark. He was an adult and could go back to bed anytime he wanted to.

  Anson didn’t show up for an appointment at his uncle’s law firm. In fact, he hadn’t been heard from in several days when the Jackson police broke down the door of the Belhaven mansion. His car was in the driveway. Inside the house, the lights were on in every room. The air conditioning was off, and the house had been closed up tight. It was like an oven in there.

  Only it smelled worse.

  Anson’s death turned into a rather sensational murder case, as yet unsolved. The state investigators released few details. They kept their reports under lock and key. They considered it important and confidential evidence that Anson’s hands were tied to the bed by loosely braided lengths of yarn. Only the murderer and the police knew that his ankles were tied to the footboard posts in a similar fashion, and that Anson was strangled in his bed by a curiously woven noose of knitting yarn in a strange variety of colors.

  Anson died with his eyes wide open, the pathologist said.

  Evidence specialists determined that the small pieces of yarn weren’t cut by scissors or knives. Rather, the ends appeared to have been chewed and bitten off by someone. The loose weaving of the yarn pieces was errant and disorganized, the end result misshapen but still strong enough for the job.