I grabbed a tea towel hanging from the door of the range and threw it over him, giving his fur a vigorous rub with it in the process. I heard his purr from underneath the fabric.
“What is he hiding from me?” I cried. I surprised myself even with the sound of desperation in my voice.
I grabbed the jar off the top shelf. The startled outcry toppled Onyx off the counter and onto Jet, my heretofore feline in absentia.
“Fur-real, dude!?” Jet yowled.
“My humblest apologies, dear brother. How did you fare in our absence?” Onyx queried.
Jet shrugged. “Stayed in. Binge-watched old episodes of Bewitched. I kept trying to do that nose thing, but, I gotta say. Elizabeth Montgomery? Girl had skills!”
While the rest of the cats had been fairly eager to join me on Cathedral’s sunny shores, Jet had remained perfectly content to curl up on the overstuffed sofa and succumb to a little boob-tube sedation. Agoraphobia had that effect on him. He was usually able to keep it in check with a regulated helping of catnip, but, the downside was, I lost a lot of glassware when he rocketed around the shop. Millie had taken to keeping a spray bottle handy. And when Jet needed to cool his, Millie doused him proper with a well-aimed stream. If “The Water Bottle” ever becomes an Olympic event on the Mainland? She'd claim Gold. For sure.
“Whatcha whipping, up, Hat?” Jet asked, nosing around the Mason jar I held in my hand. “Anything with catnip, by chance?”
“No, Jet. Just nettle.”
Nettle was a fairly prolific plant, not much more than a common weed chucked out of most folks’ gardens when they did the spring landscaping. What a folly! Urtica had a plethora of uses! ‘Course, I might not want to let that little tidbit out, or I might put myself out of business! Who would come to the apothecary to assuage their ailments when all they had to do was nick a little nettle from their own backyard? Cut yourself shaving…nettle acted as a styptic to stop the blood flowing. Feeling stuffy? It was a natural decongestant. Just gave birth? It was a super-effective galactagogue.
“Galactagogue,” I said the funny word out loud.
Yeah, okay. The cat’s ears all perked on that last. Galactagogue was just an herbalists’ term for “milk-stimulator.” First time I heard it, though, I would have sworn it was some exotic temple on a far-flung alien planet from Star Trek. Ha! Kirk thought he had trouble with Tribbles? He should have tried living with eight immortal magical cats!
I trailed a curious finger through the air, perusing the rest of the vast inventory of fresh and dried flora I kept stocked on the shelves. Herbs for cooking. Herbs for salves. Herbs for unguents, balms, elixirs, infusions and teas. Let's not forget the herbs to increase libido. (Bee-tee-dubs. In case you’re wondering, forget oysters. Try a little basil.)
Oh, I carried plenty of baneful herbs as well. Hellebore, wormwood, hydra-root, demongrass et al. And the deceptively named Angel’s Trumpet. Beautiful though the plant was, with its perfumey, bell-shaped flowers, it could cause intense, skull-splitting, migraine-like headaches not to mention mind-blowing hallucinations.
“Angel’s Trumpet! Oh, H-E-double hockey sticks no! That’s like asking for a bad trip, man!” Jet moaned as I pondered the deceptively evil herb on the shelf of the baneful supplies cupboard.
It was sage medicinal advice. And exactly why the dangerous herbs stayed under watchful lock and key. Large quantity purchases even required an exclusive license from Talisman, the governing body of our clutch of magical isles. Not many people were granted such a permit here in Gless Inlet. In fact, I could think of only one.
The intimidating Portia Fearwyn, witch of the Gorthland Swamps.
Remember those warty old crones of movie and book fame I may have mentioned earlier? Yep, the old hag was their poster child.
Portia inhabited a decrepit, crumbling manor in the far flung reaches of the Gorth Swamps. In truth, it was likely much better that way. Or, at the very least, safer for the general populace. Portia was inclined to practice the gloomier side of magic – dark spells with even darker intentions.
All sorts of odd things could be seen and heard in the peculiar skies above Portia’s home. Chilling shrieks. Curdling howls. Arcing bolts of eerie green lightning, even though no storm gathered for miles.
I recalled a probing visit during our investigation into the Spithilda Roach murder. Chief Trew and I had had ample reason to suspect Portia had dispatched the unpleasant witch. But, the only thing I’d discovered was an unusually modern, flush, steel set of doors in her basement. I found out about this when the Infiniti and I rescued Portia from being shackled in her own cellar during the Spithilda Roach investigation.
Portia had waffled when offering an explanation for why doors of such magnitude were located in her basement. “Root cellar” just hadn’t seemed to cut it. The intimidating metal doors with their strange, complicated lock, located in the wall to the right side of them certainly had looked robust enough to contain a formidable secret. Couple that with the tendrils of wispy fog that had snaked its way through the minuscule crack where the doors met, and the secret only deepened.
Portia, in her defense, did exhibit rare moments of helpful benevolence, however. She occasionally provided tidbits of useful information that helped further our case. I suppose I have Grammy Chimera to thank for that. She had known Portia for a number of years before she passed away. While they weren’t inclined to swap casserole recipes or dance around the Samhain fire together, they had each enjoyed a healthy respect for each other’s abilities as formidable practitioners of their respective arts. Still, I was sorely glad for any opportunity to avoid Portia Fearwyn.
A sudden shiver rippled down my spine. I turned my attentions back to the tea. “Let’s see. Still need Burdock Root, some Hawthorn Berries to brighten it up, and…ginger for a bit of warmth and zip!”
“Zip! Jet burbled cheerily, secretly glad, I think, for the return of our company. “That’s my middle name!”
“No, it isn’t, dufus,” Gloom corrected morosely. “It’s Merlin. But, I’m gonna magically make you disappear if you don’t shut your mouse hole soon.”
She shivered. Then sneezed. Then gave me a baleful stare that told me I had a lot to answer for.
Hm. Maybe I’d slip a little St. John’s Wort into Gloom’s tea. After all, she needed a whole other kind of chill.
I placed all of the gathered herbs on the weathered formica countertop and filled Grammy’s old tea kettle with water. I had just set it onto the gas burner when a scream rang out, and a loud thud echoed from the front of the shop.
The cats and I, sans Gloom, rushed to the front of the store as a collective unit to investigate. As we skidded into the room, it was snowing. Well, not snow snow. But, a flurry of paper flyers swirled in a printed blizzard around the bubblegum dolloped form of Millie Midge, who lay crumpled in a heap on the wooden-planked floor, as the paper fluttered down around her.
“Millie?” I queried, not sure I recognized my herbal assistant under all that pink hair.
“Omigosh! Hattie! I am so glad you’re here! I was just leaving the print shop, you know, to print all these flyers about the town meeting and I saw the lights on in the shop. Oh, and have you heard about the Sugar Dunes project that’s being proposed? Goodness, no. Of course you haven’t. You’ve been on vacation. Goodness. That reminds me. How was it? Anyway, I saw the light on, like I said, and came in to check on Jet and the shop. You know, to make sure everything was okay. You know how Jet is. But, there was water on the floor. So, I was afraid a pipe had burst. But, now I see you’re all wet, so I guess that’s where the water came from. But, then I slipped, and the papers fell. And so, here I am, and there you are, and…where was I going with this?”
“Midnight Hill from the sounds of it,” Jet whispered to Carbon from behind a discreet paw. His reference to Glessie Isle’s asylum for the insane wasn't lost on me. Millie looked positively raving.
“Think she needs a douse with the water bottle?” Shade offered?
I gave him a reprimanding look and rushed to help my assistant to her feet.
“Are you okay, Millie? You took quite a tumble.”
She grabbed my hand graciously. “Oh, no. I'm all right, Hattie. I’m just a little flustered, what with the Sugar Dunes proposal, and all. The impact it will have on the environment if the plans go ahead could be disastrous!”
“What on earth are you talking about, Mil? What Sugar Dunes proposal?”
Millie grabbed one of the flyers. “Here. They’re proposing an airstrip development out there! Do you have any idea what that could do to the nesting grounds of the terns, or how it will affect coastal erosion patterns?”
Airstrip? Didn’t I remember reading something about a proposed runway in the research vaults of the Talisman Tribune?
I looked down at the flyer. “COUNCIL MEETING. GLES INLET TOWN HALL. MONDAY 7:00 PM. AGENDA: OPEN FORUM RE PROPOSED SUGAR DUNES STRIP! COME MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!!! STOP THE STRIP AND PROTECT OUR BELOVED DUNES!!!”
“They’re actually serious about building it?” I said, my brow creasing in worry.
Millie attempted to put herself to rights and collect the errant flyers. “Yup! But, don’t worry, Hat. We’ve got a lot of good people on our side. And we’ve collected a lot of data to support our arguments. The council’s got to listen to us!”
“I certainly hope so. It’s bad enough that when the seasonal flooding ramps up the salt content and the plants can’t handle it. It’s so hard to control the damage that can occur to fragile habitats like sand dunes. And when photosynthesis gets muddled up by the elevated water levels? The surviving submerged flora can’t do what they're supposed to, and the whole food chain goes out of whack! Forget that the sand and silt deposits that can smother them. Know what you get then?”
Millie shook her confection-colored head.
“Coastal erosion, cliff collapse and slumping!!! There’s your tern threat right there. Their whole ecosystem is disrupted, at best, and eradicated at worst!!!”
My hands gesticulated with wild emotion, knocking into the counter display of essential oils. The glass vials tinkled wildly. The cats scurried for cover.
“Correction!” Jet meowed as he raced Midnight for a spot behind the wingback. “I think Hattie’s the one who needs a squirt from the water bottle!”
“It’s okay, Hattie. We’ve got all our ducks, er, terns in a row. We presented our case to the SPCA, and they’re sending an experienced spokesperson and nature advocate to speak on our behalf. With her on our team, there’s no way we can fail!”
I allowed myself a moment of relief. If Millie had gotten the Supernatural Protection Coven Association involved, things weren’t as glum as they seemed. The SPCA was a group of ecologically-minded witches who were fierce supporters of all manner of wildlife across the Coven Isles. If they were sending someone to plead the plight of the terns, we stood a fighting chance against the developers.
“That makes me feel a little bit better. Who is it?”
Millie beamed from ear to ear. “Millicent Pond!”
My jaw dropped slack and my stomach vaulted in a twisted somersault. Onyx clucked his tongue.
“It sounds like your campaign to save Gless Inlet’s waterfowl has just taken an un-fur-tunate ‘tern’ for the worse.”
"Yeah," Shade chimed in. "The campaign has run a-fowl of today's untimely events."
I couldn’t sleep.
Grammy Chimera’s clock tolled three, deep ominous tolls. 3:00 AM. The Witching Hour. It was an old occult belief that this was the time each night, from three to four, when all manner of malevolent forces were at work, conjuring all kinds of ill will. If something bad was going to happen, this was the time for it to occur. Hauntings. Possessions.
Murder.
Okay. Maybe it was my over active imagination that snuck that last in there. But, all sorts of magical practitioners, witches, sorcerers…wizards, were purported to be at their most active during this odd little fold in time.
But, supernatural hyperactivity wasn’t just limited to magical folk.
“Hattie?” Fraidy’s quavering mewl whispered from his cashmere fortress under the bed. The quaking kitty had made a personal castle of all my most luxurious sweaters in a vain attempt to keep out beasties and things that go bump in the night.
“Is it true that this is the time when, gulp, ghosts can cross over to our realm? I mean, I’m not saying we should build a permanent wall or anything. That would just be inviting trouble but how safe is it to hand angry spirits a key to the front door? Have you seen the kind of damage a poltergeist can cause?”
“No more than Jet,” Gloom growled from the foot of the bed. “Now shaddup, will ya? A girl’s gotta get her beauty sleep.”
“So, when’s your alarm set, Gloom? Turn of the century?” Eclipse giggled from his comfortable roost on top of my head. I swatted him one.
“It’s not just the ghosts interrupting your dream time you have to worry about, Fraidy, my man. Meeeee-YAWN!” Shade arched his back comfortably.
Yeah, I thought. Apparently, it was becoming a regularly penciled appointment for a family kitten klatch.
“There’s more?” Fraidy trembled.
“Only if you count demons, werewolves, vampires, and any other miscellaneous evil spirits that might be hanging about,” Shade elucidated casually.
“Shade, put a sock in it. Fraidy’s frightened enough,” I warned.
“Shade,” Onyx stepped in. “Hattie’s right. Not all werewolves and vampires are immoral beasts. Other than being a randy Casanova, Rad Silverback is a relatively decent fellow.”
I thought back on Rad’s part in the Spithilda Roach case. Onyx had a point.
“Except that one time a month when he gets PMS,” Eclipse ventured.
“PMS?” Fraidy asked.
“Pretty-scary Monster Syndrome.”
Bad joke aside, if I hadn’t been able to follow Grammy Chimera’s notes in her old grimoire, it would have likely meant that good old Rad would have made Chief Trew his favorite chew toy. The incident reminded me that, though I may be adverse to practicing magic in a traditional sense, I had an innate ability for the craft. A fact which Onyx took every available opportunity to point out to me. But, I was firm. No magic.
That was my story, and I was sticking to it.
Until David managed to draw me into another murder investigation with the GIPPD, and situations presented themselves where I had absolutely no other choice.
Which seemed to be happening a lot lately.
Sigh. Well, at least I hadn’t been sucked into the Millicent Pond investigation. And it hadn’t been declared a murder yet. Poor Millicent could have just been struck by a freak lightning bolt. And other than finding Millicent’s crispy corpse, I couldn’t see what David could gain by pulling me into things.
That’s good, I thought. Now I could concentrate on other things, like the Sugar Dunes campaign.
“And what about Governor Shields?” Eclipse asked as he kneaded my hair at the same time.
Jet’s head suddenly popped up from a twisted knot of the quilt and sheets. His immediate resemblance to one of those Whack-a-Mole games brought tears to my eyes.
“Wait! What’d I miss? Who’s this Shields guy? Some cat puttin’ the moves on Boss-Lady? A cat lets his whiskers down for one second!”
I give him a reassuring tousle on the head. “Don’t worry, Jet. I only ran into Gideon because Chief Trew called him to the investigation scene. I probably won’t have much cause to see him again.”
“Except for dinner,” Gloom swooned.
I bobbled my head in subconscious agreement. “That’s right. Except for dinner.”
“Dinner?!” Jet meowled. “But, Hat! What about your one Trew love? The devastatingly attractive, roguishly handsome Chief Para Inspector? He’s your destiny! Chimera will bury us in used kitty litter if we…”
Onyx gave Jet a pronounced whack on the back of the head. “It’s just dinner, Jet. Hat
tie is allowed to eat, you know.
Jet nodded sheepishly. “Well, yeah. Of course, you’re right, O. I only meant…”
“No,” I interjected. “Onyx is right, Jet. It’s just dinner. After that, with my luck, I’ll probably never see Gideon Shields again.”
One thing’s for sure, no matter what mystical powers Grammy Chimera may have passed along to me, clairvoyance wasn’t one of them.
Chapter Four
It was murder.
On the eardrums, that is. The voices in Glessie Town Hall whipped into a cacophonous fervor. A sheepish Fortescue Grimsbane, Under-Mayor to Sincerity Jones tentatively flourished his gavel. A rapid succession of half-hearted taps of the hammer couldn't call the madness to order. The poor sap seemed at a complete loss, but with the new mayor, Sincerity Jones, on a business meeting in Talisman, he was the bedraggled fool in charge of this rabble of residents. Even in his ineptitude, he was a damn sight better than the underhanded Mayor Marty Fog had ever been. I liked a man who didn't appear overly 'polished' in his interactions.
On the podium immediately to Grimsbane's left stood an oddly shaped mystery item. Concealed in a black satin cloth. The strange object let out a rather bawdy 'squawk.' The Under-Mayor’s eyes widened in concern at the queer outburst, but before he could peek under the anonymous sheet, a petite blonde appeared and whisked the package to another location.
Fortescue tried pounding his gavel once again, but the gangly, bow-tied politician was tilting at windmills. Millie’s guerilla marketing tactics, or perhaps it had simply been the beacon of her bodaciously colored hair, had certainly put a big pink highlight on the night’s town council meeting. It seemed as though the entire population of Gless Inlet, and maybe even the whole of Glessie, had managed to cram into the tiny historical building.
Hmm, I should perhaps ask Millie about rustling up a marketing package for The Angel. I was impressed with her passion and definitely bowled over by the results of that passion. I'd never seen so many bodies in this Town Hall.
Goddess, my bag felt heavy on my shoulder. I had a terrible habit of leaving previously read paperbacks in the large sac. I must remember to empty it when I get home. From the feel of it, I wouldn't be surprised if a copy of "War and Peace" had snuggled up in the dark corners of the carrier. I moved it carelessly to the other shoulder in an attempt to balance the discomfort.
The Black Diamond Curse (Hattie Jenkins & The Infiniti Chronicles Book 4) Page 4