Barry squatted down next to her and reached for the cat to stroke its back. The cat looked up at him and shifted so that it was closer to Myra. He pulled his hand back and chuckled. “I guess the cat thinks you’re pretty cute too. It seems to have taken a shine to you.”
The cat looked up and its pink tongue rolled over its whiskers, green eyes blinking slowly and staying softly narrow. It edged closer to Myra and climbed into her lap, rubbing its head against her arm.
Myra giggled and her fingers rubbed the cat’s cheek. “She’s like a little princess.” She smiled and her voice took on a haughty British accent, “You may pet me now.” She laughed. “The only princess name I can think of is the one from Star Wars. I think we should call her Princess Leia.”
Barry laughed and made no attempt to touch the cat. It obviously preferred Myra, so why push it? “So, if no one shows up looking for it or puts poster up, you want to keep it?” Having a cat felt right and in an old house, it might come in useful with mice. Or birds.
The cat didn’t look like it belonged to anyone—no collar and its ears were jagged and ripped at the edges. It wasn’t thin and emaciated but it looked like it had been on its own and could take care of itself. The fact that it had come from the cellar said something for its character as well. The way it acted, rushing out as soon as it could was in line with Barry’s feeling—the cellar wasn’t a wonderful place to hang out.
Myra kept petting the cat while she looked over at him and nodded. “Cats are supposed to have a sixth sense. From stories I’ve heard, they can sense ghosts and weird stuff. It might be good to have it around for when you’re working and I’m here all alone...or not alone, if you know what I mean.”
Barry watched the cat drift off to sleep and heard the steady rumble of a purr in its throat. It was quite content to adopt them it seemed. The fact that Myra had had the dream about Stella and then the cat showing up was no coincidence. It was meant to be part of the team.
Chapter 11
Gordon Braithwaite kept to the narrow foot path leading to the electricity and water meters. It was late enough in the evening that the loser cabbie and his bitch were in for the night. His teeth ground together while his breath plumed in the frosty air. These people were squatters! Squatters in a house that should have been his by rights. He was the only blood heir.
Blood is thicker than water. ‘And blood will tell…’ He stopped dead in his tracks. The thought that popped into his head… it sounded powerful. He gave himself a quick nod and continued his careful slinking down the path.
He took the same spot he’d stood in a few nights earlier, blending into the dark branches of a spruce tree at the corner of the house, with a perfect line of sight into the kitchen window. He was easily able to see the bitch cross the kitchen, her golden hair tied back in a pony tail above collar of her blue robe. Well...wasn’t that just so cozy? All warm and snuggled in for the night. Snuggled in his goddamn house while he was standing outside, freezing his ass!
Watching the young bitch promenade around the kitchen reminded him a little of ‘Aunt’ Stella. He had watched the crone from this vantage point regularly for quite some time. It had become his hobby, watching Stella and relishing the warmth of anger in his gut.
That old bitch Stella, had been batshit crazy, choosing to live all alone in this place when she could have sold it and made a fortune. When he was a kid still living at home, he overheard his parents talking about how she had turned down a huge offer from some developer.
Stella was his father’s aunt, and as far as the old man was concerned, she could do whatever she wanted with the place. There was no way Dad wanted anything to do with that house. What a fool. He tried to find out more from Dad, but whatever it was that he knew went with him to the grave.
When his Mom died, it meant that he was Stella’s last living relative. He started sucking up to her on the day of the funeral five years ago.
“You’re the only family I have left, Aunt Stella,” he mumbled through his tears. “I hope we can be close. I don’t want you to be all alone in the world.”
“Oh really?” she had peered up at him with a look of disdainful curiosity. She gave a short nod and asked how the disciplinary action was going at work.
His jaw dropped and his head whipped back. “How the hell did you hear about that?” He had squeezed an inmate’s balls so hard during a ‘routine frisk’ that the idiot got a rupture. It was his eighth time getting jammed up and the administration now had a hard-on for him.
The bitch smiled in a coy way. Well, as coy as an old bag could manage. Still her eyes watched him with bright interest when she invited him to her home the following evening.
He’d never forget that visit! It was really odd...right out of the Twilight Zone. She’d made tea and served cookies but instead of sitting in the kitchen, like you’d do with family, she insisted that they sit in the living room. At first it had put him off, being treated like some stranger or an insurance salesman but the living room was nice. He’d sat near the fireplace, feeling the warmth and...something else. He couldn’t describe the sensation of the surge he’d felt, sitting in that room, but it had been wonderful.
All the while her beady little eyes watched his every move. When he settled into the armchair with a purr of comfort, her face sparked and she nodded to herself. And the questions she’d asked him! It was more like an interrogation than anything resembling a conversation. What was his childhood like, did he have many friends, any pets...all the way up to how he felt about the inmates he saw every day at work.
To make matters worse, she already knew the answers before she asked the questions. When she asked about his time in high school, she wondered aloud whether that little twirp Jamie Dresden ever forgave him for the time he had stuffed the punk’s gym socks in his mouth. When she asked about his inmate abuse case at work, she knew it was the eighth time he was up on administration charges.
He ran some bullshit past her on that one, and all she did was go, ‘That’s some doodle you’re running past me, Gordon’.
At the door she told him to never come by again. When he asked why, she turned her head and gazed at the living room from the front foyer. Turning back to him she said, “The living room enjoys your company too much,” she said as she closed the front door in his face.
What a batshit crazy thing to say. They were the last words she ever spoke to his face.
He snorted softly, rocking back and forth from his toes to his heels. He must not have passed whatever bullshit test she was giving him because, she practically threw him out just as he was really settling in and starting to enjoy being there.
A quick movement in the window startled him. A white cat suddenly appeared on the sill. The cabbie’s wife stepped over to stroke its head, and looked out the glass for a moment. Gordon drew back into the prickly fir branches, even though he knew he was well hidden in the night. The cat’s yellow green eyes were focused where he stood; the tip of its tail flickered rhythmically, swishing back and forth.
He shoved his hands into his armpits, trying to shake the chill that had crept into his bones, his eyes never leaving the cat. He swallowed hard. That cat’s gaze made him uncomfortable.
It’s too cold out… let’s go inside. Whoa! The idea sounded so loud in his head it was like someone had spoken to him. Still, it was a good one. His toes were starting to go numb. He eased to the side of the house stepping silently.
Lo and behold, a set of steps leading down to the cellar! He grinned and crept down. A black door was at the bottom. With a sigh he grasped the ancient knob and turned it. Dammit, locked. Screw it, it was really old; he’d just force the stupid thing. He grabbed the knob with both hands and twisted.
The muscles in his arm and neck were tight as he bent to open the lock. He could hardly see in the dim light and from the blinding rage at the situation. Here he was, the rightful heir having to break into his house on a bitter cold winter night. And even if he did manage to trip the lock,
it would only let him in the cellar. There was no guarantee he’d be able to get upstairs.
His hand jerked away from the door and he cocked his ear. There was someone right on the other side of the door whispering! He froze. Standing utterly still, he heard his name! He bent forward to the crack in the door.
‘Gordon...’ followed by something he couldn’t catch. He leaned into the door and put his ear next to the vertical slit. “...yours. The house will be yours.’
His gaze darted back and forth. Yes. Finally, someone who agreed with him! A kindred spirit. He tried to see through the crack, for a light, anything. “Who are you?” he hissed.
“Your friend. I’ll help you.” Hearing the words, at first Gordon’s blood pounded in his ears.
With a soft creak, the door began to open on its own. He jumped back, watching it swing inward.
‘Your house, Gordon. Come in.’ The whispers were louder.
“You’re damn right it’s mine!” he muttered fiercely, stepping in. It had to be his, he sure as hell needed it now! Money was way too tight, and his forced retirement was coming at him like a freight train.
‘Come inside, Gordon…’
Wordlessly, he stepped over the threshold.
As soon as his foot landed in the basement, he let out a low moan of exquisite pleasure. It was a toe curling sweet delight, an ice cold beer on a sweltering day, and a soft bed after a hard day’s work all rolled up into a single sensation. He stood for a moment shivering in the total bliss of it.
And right behind that was a sense of power unlike any he had ever had. All the punks in the prison he shoved around with impunity, the assholes he beat on when he was a kid, the small animals he tortured in secret— all of those moments of joyous power put together were nothing compared to what washed over him right now!
He brought his hands to his head to keep it from exploding. His feet faltered and he staggered. “Oh my God!” he muttered. “Oh my loving GOD!”
Yeeesssss…
He fell to his knees before this… this presence. When his knees rested on the bare floor the waves of pleasure and power swept over him again. “Oh my loving GOD!” he growled into the dirt. He stretched himself prone, arms and legs extended and felt the pleasure intensify to the point of causing his vision to blur. Spikes of purple and red flashed in his brain.
It was beautiful.
“For you, my lord, for youuuu…” he moaned, his lips rubbing along the hard earth. He stuck his tongue out and licked the hard surface. “With you always… always with you…” he repeated it over and over, grinding his body into the dirt floor.
He went still when the sensations passed. He drew in a deep breath. He felt crumbs of dirt on his tongue and swallowed them all. Breathing heavily, he staggered to his feet and looked around.
The room was dark but for the moonlight coming though the basement entrance. Next time he’d bring a flashlight. And by all that’s holy, there would be a next time. It was about time things started falling into place.
Above him, a floorboard creaked and was followed by low, thudding footsteps. His temple throbbed knowing that it was either the cabbie or his bitch. They were making themselves totally at home upstairs, in his house.
“Where are you?” he whispered softly.
The only thing he heard were voices and more floorboards creaking from above. His teeth ground. If he could get his hands on them, he’d kill them...eventually. First he’d wipe that smart ass look from the cabbie’s face. He had a good idea how to do that. How would the cabbie feel watching his wife being beaten with a hammer? That would do the trick, all right.
‘Yes, then the house will be yours.’
He spun around looking for the source of the soft murmur. The only visible thing was a thin strip of light at the top of a set of wooden steps. He took a step forward and stumbled when his foot thudded against something the wooden landing of the staircase. He lurched, flailing his arms like windmills as he fell towards the steps.
He gasped. His falling stopped in midair, held by an invisible something. It was cold… cold as steel as it pressed him back up onto his feet. His mouth gaped open and his head pivoted around. “Where are you?”
‘Easy Gordon. You don’t want them to see you...not yet.’
This time the voice was to his left. When his head jerked to see, the voice became a low chuckle. His heartbeat was fast and he panted, trying to see where it was. He’d heard enough to know it was a man.
‘They have to be gone from here before the baby is born.’
Gordon’s teeth ground together so hard one cracked and a piece broke off. He spat it onto the dirt packed floor and his gaze flew to the slice of light at the top of the stairs. A baby! Well wasn’t that just a sweet little set-up—the young family settled in a new home. His fists clenched and un-clenched. There’d be neither family, nor baby in his house.
A shadow broke the line of light under the door at the top of the stairs. He heard a ‘meeeoooow!’ and a series of hisses, then claws scratching against it. He stepped back from the landing. It was that fucking cat he saw in the window!
‘Leave now, but come back. There is a way...’
The voice in his head was followed by the sound of footsteps overhead. Gordon turned and slipped out the door, pulling it almost, but not completely shut, behind him. At the top of the steps he swept snow into the stairwell, covering his tracks. He retraced his steps walking backwards, swishing his feet to conceal his footprints. It was probably a waste of effort, they wouldn’t be coming around to the back of the house. Why would they in the dead of winter?
He chuckled as he trudged through the snow and back onto the utility path. The dead of winter. Hah! He liked the sound of that.
Chapter 12
December 21, 2016, Winter Solstice
Myra got off the bus and trudged the fifty feet down the laneway to their home. It was a week since the incident in the spare room upstairs and things had been quiet. Even so, every time she entered the house, her gaze darted around, unsure of what would meet her.
She’d even gone back to saying prayers on a regular basis; not just every now and then. Nightly prayer had been a habit all through grade school and even the first few years of high school. But she stopped when she was in the eleventh grade; the stupid and tragic deaths of Mom and Dad turned her away from God.
The priest had tried to console Tony and her. He told them that Mom and Dad were in a far better place but she never bought into that. Her parents loved them. For them, nothing would have been better than being with their kids every day. Who did God think he was to destroy her family like that?
She started having second thoughts about that decision when this last pregnancy began. If anything, the earlier miscarriages taught her that life was a miracle.
In the foyer, she shrugged off her coat and hung it up. Looking to the living room, and then up the staircase, she shuddered. A quote from the Old Testament had been running through her head since that day of the ‘visitation from Evelyn’:
“There are yet hid greater things than these be, for we have seen but a few of his works.”
She was still resentful of what God had done to her parents. But she hoped he was still in her corner. She had a strong feeling that she and Barry were going to need all the help they could get. She had even taken to wearing her gold crucifix again.
The cat slinked down the hall and began tracing figure eight patterns through her legs with its sleek body. She slipped her feet out of the winter boots and bent to pick Leia up. The cat immediately began purring and rubbing its head against her chin.
“How’s my little Princess?” She scratched its ear and held it close, wandering through the dining room and then into the kitchen. Leia purred louder and its eyes blinked with lazy ease as she pushed her head into Myra’s fingers for more.
When she went to put it down, it climbed higher on her shoulder and licked her ear lobe. Myra smiled and held the cat close, meandering into the kitchen. The
cat never wanted to leave her when she was home. It tolerated Barry but it was obvious the cat adored her. The feeling was fast becoming mutual.
Gosh, she was bone tired. With only four days until Christmas, the stores were crazy busy. That in turn, spilled over into the food industry. She plugged in the kettle and took a mug from the cabinet to plop a tea bag into it. After topping up Leia’s food dish and water, the cat hopped down. Myra yawned and trudged over to the table.
Her eyebrows drew together in a weary frown. Where was the book she’d been reading that morning? She was burning through Stella’s old books and the one on spiritual cleansing rituals had really caught her attention. There was still an hour or so until Barry would be home and she’d been looking forward to just chillin’ for a bit.
She bent to check under the table and then glanced at the wide window sill next to her normal seat. Nothing. A quick glance at the counter, the washer and dryer tucked in the corner also came up empty.
With her hands on her hips she paused. Where the hell was it?
She bumped the heel of her hand against her forehead at the next thought. Barry may have stopped at the house during the day and put it somewhere. She stepped into the library and looked around at the desk, chair and small table. She really hadn’t expected to find it there since neither one of them particularly liked being in that room. She sighed and walked through the arch going into the living room. That room, like always, was cold and gave her the willies. It was probably her imagination, but every time she entered the room her chest felt heavy; taking a breath required a little bit more effort.
She gave the room a once over and huffed a sigh. Nada. But when she turned to cross back through to the front hallway she spied the corner of the book peeking out from under the chair beside the fireplace. Her eyes narrowed. What the hell is it doing there? Just as she touched it, there was a whoosh of air and the sudden flaming brightness of the fireplace starting up.
The Ghosts of Centre Street: A Haunting of Kingston (The Hauntings of Kingston Book 3) Page 7