by Lilly Graves
Geez!
An oil lamp sits on a pedestal emanating a soft glow. I find that I’m surrounded by dark wood, down to the reception desk. You would never know it was daylight outside.
The nurse of doom goes behind her desk and shuffles through some patient files. “Who is it you are visiting?”
“Sylvester Moon,” I reply.
She looks up at me, the glow of the oil lamp flickering in her dark eyes. “Sylvester Moon?”
“Yes, Sylvester Moon.”
“I’m afraid he can’t have visitors.”
“Why not?”
“He’s on total lockdown. He doesn’t have the privilege of communicating with anybody but me, and that’s only for when I give him his shots and food.”
Shots?
Her watch beeps and she shakes her head at it. “Which reminds me, it’s time to prepare his cocktail.”
“Cocktail?” I repeat.
“Yes, he’s on a serious mixture of meds that you better believe could sedate an army of Marines. Even if you could visit him, trust me when I say you’d regret it.” She grabs a file that says Moon, S. “Is that all I can help you with?”
“Yes, th-thank you.”
She presses a button at her desk and the front doors open back up to the daylight. As she shuffles off, I turn in my Doc Martens in thought. I’ll follow her.
Sebastian peeks in. “Thank goodness you’re done so soon,” he hisses. “Come on.”
Instead of leaving, I go whisk Sebastian up in my arms.
“Hey, what are you doing?” he asks.
I carry him behind the reception desk and kneel down. “Hold me,” I say.
“Ew!” he spits. “Now is not the time to try and cozy up to me. Besides, you’ll make me puke not purr!”
“Shut up and put your paw in my palm like you want to hold it. I need to shift.” As a cat, my magical abilities are stronger, better. There was that one time I conjured up a scorpion instead of a clothespin. That was when I was in my human form. Let’s just say that wasn’t my best moment.
Sebastian reluctantly does as I say, touching my palm. I grasp his white paw in wait. I recently found out the key to shifting. Someone needs to hold me long enough for the change to happen, and as nobody else is around, I suppose Sebastian will have to do.
As we’re holding each other, Sebastian averts his eyes and sighs. We’re sort of like siblings that can’t stand each other, so touching at all is kind of a big deal. I don’t care. I need this to work. But after a few seconds, I don’t feel any change stirring within.
“It’s not working,” I say. “Hold me like you mean it.”
“Gag me,” he responds.
“Seriously. Hold me like you mean it or else.”
“Or else what?”
“I’ll child lock the guest toilet, so you have to go in litter.”
“Okay, okay! You don’t have to take things that far, psycho.” Sebastian puts out his other paw and lightly extends his claws, holding both hands.
Still, there’s nothing.
“This isn't going to work,” he hisses.
I let go with a huff. “Maybe it only works with people. I have to follow her. I know, you peek around the corner and lead the way for us. Hurry.”
“If that crypt keeper catches me, I’m doomed.”
“You are not going to get caught. You are faster and sharper and smarter.”
He lifts his fuzzy chin in the air. “For once you speak the truth. Follow me, Bubble Bum.” Sebastian peeks around the corner and says, “Coast is clear.”
I follow him down a long dark hall that has doors just a few feet apart from each other. They’re like holding cells. Each has a window, so I peek inside each, seeing people sitting alone, some rocking, a good many of them needing their hair brushed, especially a woman whose matted locks cover much of her face.
This place needs to be reported. But I also know it’s the oldest, and only, mental facility in more than a hundred-mile radius.
At the end of the hall, Sebastian spies left and right. “To the right,” he instructs and goes.
I follow and soon hear the nurse barking orders from a cell that’s at the dead-end.
“Don’t you dare try biting me! Now hold still! Just one shot!”
Grrrr…. A deep-throated growl bounces off the dark wallpapered walls that feel like they’re closing in on us.
What the…?
Sebastian says, “I smell dog.” His eyes avert every which way in fear.
We both freeze. Is there a guard dog? Hey, even in my human form I’m not a fan of the canine species. I don’t smell anything, but I trust Sebastian enough for a chill to run down my spine.
A symphony of tinny metal clanking to the floor causes our already on-edge nerves to skyrocket. I cringe, balling my hands into fists. That for sure came from the cell at the end of the hall. I suppose that explains why Sebastian is now hanging from a dimly lit chandelier. No, swinging from it. I pass him by to hurry and have a look in Sylvester’s cell.
Then we hear something else, just as eerie. The nurse singing an off-tune version of The Pina Colada Song, changing out the lyrics for others. “If you like psychotropic cocktails and staying lost in Shady Pines, I’m the nurse that you hoped for. For forever you’re mine.”
The spell? Yeah, this place seriously needs to be reported.
I go right up to the window to peek inside. A man with brown disheveled hair is bound by leather straps to what looks like a creepy antique dentist’s chair. “Back off!” he growls. “I can’t take one more, no!”
Just as the needle is about to be shoved into his neck, I shoot some blue magic at his bands and they release.
He flails to the floor from the force of fighting against restraints that are no longer there. Standing up tall, he raises his buff arms. “I’m free!”
The nurse now looks terrified, the needle dropping from her grasp and breaking against the tiled floor.
I shoot magic at the nurse and she disappears. Oops, I didn’t mean for that to happen. I just wanted her to have a protective orb around her so she wouldn’t be hurt by Sylvester.
“I’m freeeee!” The man flings open the door, and there I am standing there, gawking at him and he is now gawking back at me, like he sees a ghost. “Raven,” he utters.
Chapter 6
Sylvester is sweaty, his eyes bulging at me in disbelief. “How... are you here…?” He shakes his head. “Maybe I am crazy…”
“We’ll talk later. Let’s just get out of here.” I take off jogging. “This way.”
We head to the front and I push the button behind the desk that opens the front doors. Sunshine pours in and we make a mad dash for freedom. We’ve sprinted down the drive and through the open gate by the time a muffled voice calls out, “Wait for me!”
I turn and see Sebastian bounding down the drive and with something clamped in his mouth. I don’t recognize what the white thing is until he drops her at his front paws. Oh my gosh, it’s Head Nurse Maggie.
“Please,” Maggie says in a voice as tiny as a mouse’s. “Spare me!”
“The tables have turned,” Sylvester gloats, crossing his arms.
“Don’t hurt me!” she cries. “Let me go. I promise not to tell a soul!”
“Don’t trust her. She’s pure evil. The devil incarnate.”
Sylvester doesn't have to say that again. I swirl my hand and point at the rocky, leaf-covered ground beside the Manx. Blue magic shoots out of my finger and a mason jar appears. “It worked,” I say, pleased. But it was only because I was focusing on a small glass vial like what had held the bat teeth. I pluck up the nurse and dump her into the jar.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asks, her nurse’s hat barely hanging on to the side of her gray hair by a microscopic bobby pin.
“I'm not sure yet,” I say. I screw on the lid and poke holes in the top with a jagged rock, so she can breathe.
“How long am I going to stay in here?” she goes o
n, pressing her tiny hands to the glass. “Are you going to feed me?”
Sy interjects, “Yeah, the same putrid slop you fed me the last twenty years.”
Her mouth drops open and she covers it with skinny shaking hands. “Please no.”
“Not another peep,” I command, then conjure up a couple of bus passes and pass one to Sylvester. “Let’s get out of here.”
A bus is there within the next couple of minutes. I hide the jar of Maggie under my wrap and enter with Sylvester and Sebastian. “He’s my familiar,” I point at my cat cohort.
The bus driver simply nods, and we go to the very back of the bus. Sitting beside my escapee, I can’t help but smell his strong sweaty scent. He can sense my displeasure as he simply says sorry.
I zap him with some magic and suddenly he’s squeaky clean but now wearing a 1970s bell bottoms jumpsuit. The funny thing is, his hair that goes past his shoulders is a perfect match for the look. He looks down and chuckles. “Has this come back in style while I was locked up?”
I zap him again and suddenly he’s in rodeo wear, down to the 10-gallon hat. “I’m still trying to get a hang of things.” I apologize. “My magic is a bit out of control.”
He takes off the hat and the lasso, tossing them onto an empty seat. Now he’s just in his blue flannel shirt, ripped jeans... and paisley-printed leather chaps. He splays an arm across the back of the seat and looks at me like I’m a mirage he’s thirsty for. “Mmmm, how I’ve missed you.”
I can see what my mother saw in those fiery dark brown eyes framed by nicely shaped brows. But this is wrong. He’s a little too old for me in his late forties. He leans in for a kiss and I stop him, pressing a slender finger against his lips.
“What?” he asks, pulling back. “You aren’t, like, married now, are you?”
I smile. “No, I’m not married. I’m just not who you think I am.”
Slowly nodding, he says, “I can see. You cut your hair. You’re different.” His fingertips lightly tug at some black hair at the nape of my neck and it tickles. “At the same time, it’s like you haven’t aged a day. You look beautiful as ever.”
Oh my, am I really having a wave of butterflies over this stranger’s comment? He’s not my boyfriend, never was my boyfriend. He was my mom’s boyfriend. And like I said, there’s the age gap. I’m only twenty-three. Sheesh!
Brad Pitt is in his 50’s now, isn’t he? my mind wanders.
So? I argue with myself. Get a grip! This isn’t Hollywood.
I tug the wire that triggers a bell, telling the bus driver I want to get off. It stops outside of a liquor store, but other than that we’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Sebastian looks at me funny, but I lead us all off, jar still in hand. When the bus leaves, I say to Sylvester, “Look, I have to get something off my chest, sooner than later.”
His brow furrowed, he nods in concern. “Okay.”
“Okay, so I’m not your ex-girlfriend Raven. My name is Chloe.”
A brow goes up. “And yet you look just like her…”
“Raven passed away. She’s… dead.”
Sylvester rubs his face and then his hair, emotional pain evident in the deeply creased lines that appear. “That’s right. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead.” He drops to his knees in the dirt to the side of the road. “I am crazy. I am crazy. I thought she was… I thought you were… You’re not. She’s gone. She’s dead.” He starts to weep.
Sebastian looks up at me with big eyes, like What have we gotten ourselves into? I set Maggie beside Sebastian and throw an arm across Sy’s shoulders. “It’s okay,” I console him. “It’s okay. She’s still alive, just not living here on Mother Earth.”
He looks up at me, tearstains down his cheeks. “Is she okay?”
A wave of peace comes over me. “She’s okay, Sy. She’s okay. Can we go down to the beach and have a real talk? I’ll share with you what I can.”
Sy pulls himself up from the ground. When no car is passing, we cross the road and head down a steep slope of pine trees and sand. Soon sitting on some large black rocks, we’re several feet from Sebastian and the evil little nurse.
The waves are roaring this morning, crashing against giant sea rocks in the middle of the ocean. “Raven and I… we’re related.” I can’t let the cat out of the bag about my shifting situation, so unfortunately Sy has to hear the same bogus story I tell others upon first meeting. “I’m living with Willow and Nova and working at the family paper, The Mystic Cove Mirror.”
Sy is quietly listening, the sea breeze ruffling his long hair. “Okay.”
“I’m working on a story right now that’s close to home. I have reason to believe Raven’s death wasn’t an accident.”
Sy emphatically nods and looks away. “It wasn’t.”
That takes me by surprise. “You know?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t an accident. She was pushed.”
“Uh, h-how do you know that?” I blink.
“I saw it happen.” He rubs his forehead and finally looks back up at me. “I saw it happen.”
I’m a stuttering fool for a moment. “Wh-what? Y-you saw it happen?”
“Yes, I was with her that night. We were always together.”
“What did you see? Who killed her?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t get a good look at them.”
“You didn’t get a good look at them?” I repeat, hope deflating.
Sy scratches his jaw. “If I told you what happened, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
He thinks I won’t believe him? “I’ll believe you, Sy. I’ll believe you.”
“It sounds crazy. Nobody ever believes me. Not the police, not Shady Pines, not even my parents.” Pain casts a shadow across his brown eyes.
“That’s terrible.” My brow scrunches. “You’ve got to believe me that I’ll take your word for it. I have to solve this case.”
His eyes take on a distant look. “There were cats everywhere, climbing all around the lighthouse, meowing like crazy. I saw this shadow, a slender shadow dart by. Anyway, Raven was pushed. I saw her, you know, fall.”
“And nobody believes you?”
Sy clears his throat and gazes at the gray sky. “No. Everyone wanted to believe it was an accident.”
“What part of what you told me is so unbelievable? I don’t get it. Was it all the cats?”
He shakes his head. “I hate the critters now. No offense to your pussycat.” He gestures toward Sebastian.
I retract a bit. I am a cat. Okay, I’m human too, but my feline side is all I’ve ever known up until recently.
“I’ve offended you. I’m sorry. It’s probably a PTSD thing.”
I take a moment to reply. “It’s okay. Sebastian isn’t my familiar. He’s Nova’s familiar. I don’t have one.”
“Oh, good,” he sighs in relief. “I mean, I got along with Raven’s familiar just great, but he was a rat. Like I said, after that night, the thought of cats gives me the heebie jeebies.”
“I get it. You’re more of a dog man.”
He looks at me oddly and says, “What?”
“You like dogs, not cats.”
“No, I don’t like dogs either.” He anxiously rubs an arm.
“You’re just kind of anti-pets,” I tease with a laugh.
“Rats I’m cool with.”
“Okay, so Ham Sandwich and Stink Bottom are in the clear,” I joke more to myself. When he arches a brow at me, I explain, “Willow’s pet rats. Never mind.”
“Hm.” He looks around at the scenery. “I wish I had more information for you.”
An awkward silence takes over. I mean, what did I expect? To get all of my answers in one afternoon by interviewing one person? A person I don’t know at all. My only consolation comes from the fact that he was special enough to have dated my mom. She saw something special in him, so he must not be crazy, right? Right?
“So, do you have any contacts to the outside world?” I edge in. Suddenly, I feel like I�
��ve awoken a caveman from the Ice Age and I’m totally responsible for him. Evil Nurse Maggie had kept him caged up for more than two decades, so...
“I don’t. Other than my parents who moved far away and never reached back out after thrusting me into Shady Pines. You can say I never want to see them again. The only other people even closely related would be Raven’s family. Her mom, her little sisters.”
“Her mom is no longer with us,” I say. “She passed years ago. Her little sisters aren’t so little anymore.” But I’m feeling sympathy tug on my heartstrings. Dare I? In honor of my mother, I feel compelled. Yes. “...I’m sure you can stay with us for the time being.”
“I can?” His brows raise. “I mean, I don’t have to. I can sleep on a park bench like it’s the Taj Mahal after being cooped up where I was for so long. I don’t really have any job skills, so finding work might take some time. Then again, I guess I can get an entry-level job at one of the shops down Wildes. What if someone recognizes me? What if I get thrown back into Hell?”
“You will not get thrown back in when the head nurse is five inches tall.” I pause with another thought. “But still, let’s keep you staying with me a secret for now. I don’t think Willow and Nova would understand. Maybe the rest of the community won’t either.” I feel a chill.
“I really owe you one.” He sighs.
“You don’t owe me anything. I’m just thankful I could get you out of that hellhole.”
Chapter 7
With Maggie in a jar, it was easy enough sneaking her by my aunts. Sy was another story. A man who is six-foot two with muscles that look like he spent his life in a prison gym, not strapped to a creepy dentist’s chair, is quite the sight. Especially with his mane of hair.
Thankfully, Sebastian is on my side, for the time being, and promised not to tell. He also successfully distracted my aunts into the kitchen, so I could bring Sy upstairs. I don’t know how he did it. Probably through his usual whining for something. Life is never lavish enough for the part-Siamese Manx.
Once inside Raven’s bedroom, the mental facility escapee spends a long nostalgic moment getting reacquainted. This was a spot he knew well, so it’s like a time warp zone to the past. After reverently looking through items, he draws his body to the hardwood floor and curls up into a ball.