Moggies, Magic and Murder

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “What’s being thrown, though?” Carbon said, craning his head upward and scanning the windows of the building opposite.

  “I don’t know,” I said, surveying the ground. “I haven’t actually seen one yet, but something is being hurled at us right now.”

  “I don’t want to say ‘I told you so,’ but --”

  “Well, don’t, then,” Carbon sniped at Fraidy. “It won’t help.”

  Shade lifted his head slightly and looked around. “Think we can make the dash to the hole in the wall?”

  I licked my lips. “That’s what we’re gonna try, buddy,” I said. “You guys go first, and I’ll be right behind you. Keep low. Keep very low.”

  My kitties dropped to their bellies and inched their way along to the trap-door in the fence. Staying low, I pulled up the hood on my hoodie. Just as I was about to pull it over my head, something tugged at it. With enough force to make the body of my hoodie pull back against my throat.

  What the?

  I pulled my hood back down and shook it, and something that looked like a piece of hay, or straw fell to the ground.

  I reached for it.

  A dart? Huh?

  My hand had just closed around the missile, when Fraidy leapt on my head, shrieking: “Duck!”

  I did a faceplant into the dust and debris of the filthy ground, just as another dart whizzed past my face.

  I turned my head to the side, blowing out a plume of dirt. “Thanks, sweetie,” I said, my breath hitching in my throat. Who was this maniac firing these things?

  I still had the dart I had reached for. I pulled it to my side, still staying flat on the ground, and, taking the end of it carefully, wedged it into a side pocket of my bag.

  Fraidy still lay across my head. I could feel his ragged breathing through his belly.

  “See anything, Fraidy?” I managed.

  “I pointed out all the killers earlier, why didn’t you listen to me?” He protested, and entirely unaware that he was digging his claws into my head. I winced.

  “Okay, but can you see who’s firing these projectiles?” I huffed.

  “What’s a projectile?” Shade asked. He was lying by my side, with his paws over his eyes.

  “Things that fly through the air and kill you.” Fraidy barked. My timid cat was not a happy camper right now.

  “Look, over there!” Onyx said, crawling about three feet in front of us and extending his paw to kitty-corner (ha!) From us.

  Not lifting my head, but raising my eyes as far as they would go, I just made out a shadowy. The wraith ran to a burnt-out Plymouth Fury and crouched behind the rusting metal. Wearing a cape that obscured the attacker’s face, it was impossible to tell whether the being was male or female.

  “Oh, great. That’s just great.” Fraidy said. He was purring now. Likely to ease his stress. And, I have to say, it calmed me down a little as I lay on the floor of a slum in a foreign land, having potentially lethal darts shot at me.

  “Thought you said we had left the danger behind?” My timid cat moaned.

  I thought we had too. I really wasn’t expecting to come to North Illwind and be shot at from an unknown menace. Goddess, I wish I’d waited for David.

  Onyx inched forward again. “It looks like our hostile host might be reloading her …. Well, it looks like a bamboo pole, if I’m to be honest.”

  Darts. The assailant was using darts. Amazonian Indian style.

  “Guys, we have to act fast,” I panted, taking the attackers re-loading time to wriggle as fast as I could along the floor. “Carbon, get to the gap in the fence and hold it up until we’re through, got it, buddy?”

  My pyro-cat’s face was grim, but he nodded, and crawled as fast as he could to our proposed exit. I watched him snake through to the other side and then I turned to my other kitties. I had to shake Fraidy from my head. “Go! Now!” I shouted.

  My cats did the belly-shuffle to the open portal, and as soon as the last black tail disappeared, I ran on my hands and knees to the aperture. A high-pitched whine flew past my ear, and something caught in my hair. I felt it brush lightly against my temple, but thankfully it didn’t pierce the skin.

  Wow, that was close.

  I fell through the open panel to the other side, and Carbon let the flap of wood go. We tensed, not daring to move, waiting for the next missile to find us.

  Nothing.

  I snapped into action.

  “Come on,” I whispered, hustling toward my broom. The kitties trotted after me, as eager as I was to get out of the menacing shanties.

  “What was that all about, boss? Were those darts?” Shade asked, his voice wavering.

  “Later, Shadester,” I said, grabbing my broom and straddling it. “Get on,” I instructed my cats. In my haste to make sure we were flying away from danger, my takeoff was a little on the wobbly side; I plummeted almost as soon as I had gained height.

  Fraidy let out a warbling cry. “Everyone had enough of GaleDOOM now?”

  “Zip it, Bro,” Shade said. “We’re not done here yet. We’ve gotta get to the school for lunatic girls yet.”

  I rolled my eyes and got the broom under control. “It’s a women’s college, Shade,” I said.

  “Oh, so now people are taught how to be crazy? They just enroll in lunatic college?” Fraidy’s voice was getting more shrill by the second. I needed to put some distance between us and the hostile slum below. I pulled the nose of my broom upward and bolted east toward the central train station of Galedoom.

  After a minute or so I felt, rather than saw, my cats settle down on the broomstick behind me. I heaved a sigh of relief, and dropped my altitude a little, as the Galedoom shanties fell behind us. A firefly danced by my head. I smiled. It had been so long since I’d seen one of these beautifully luminous critters. I never knew the little bugs flew so high. A couple more points of lights dashed past my head.

  Wow, we really were at quite a height, here, so I was impressed by the charming insect’s audacity.

  “Can anyone smell smoke?” Shade asked. I could hear him sniffing at the air behind me.

  Carbon, who had his chin resting on my shoulder, while his belly was pressed flat against my back, said: “It’s in your head, brother. We’re all just spooked out, that’s all.”

  I reached behind me to give Carbie a little head rub.

  “Huh,” Shade said. “So, this fire here, it’s all in my mind?”

  Carbon and I swerved our heads slowly to look behind us. Fraidy blocked our view for a second as he leapt over my head to land in front of me on the stick. It was a pertinent move, because now at least he had a wall between him and the licking flames from the thatch of the broom. Another firefly rushed by. Only, I realized now that these points of light weren’t luminous bugs; they were fire-tipped darts, and one had successfully reached its target in the thatch of dried twigs at the end of my besom.

  Onyx and Shade were stunned into statues, their heads, pulled back into their bodies, was the only noticeable sign that they registered the fire.

  “Carbs!” I shouted into my cat’s face. “Think you can do anything about that?”

  I brought the broom downward. We needed to land before the besom fell from the sky on its own accord, but I didn’t want to risk touching down anywhere near the phantom shooter.

  Carbon pushed away from my back and scrambled over his statue-like, brothers.

  He shielded his eyes with one paw, and with the other, he extended it over the flame. I heard him mutter some ancient fairy language -- probably in Cait Sidhe tongue -- as he pulled his paw upward, drawing the flames into his outstretched mitt.

  He was sucking out the oxygen from the flames; essentially vacuuming up the fire’s energy and power. The light brightened at first, and then lowered to an orange glow. Finally, the crackling sounds of the twigs fell to low hissing murmurs.

  “Thanks, sweetie!” I shouted back at our fire-loving life saver.

  Once again, I heaved out a relieved breath, and, spot
ting the Galedoom central station, I lowered the broom to prepare for landing.

  A lovely woman by the name of Nora Breeze showed us into a waiting room just off to the side of the reception desk at ‘Galedoom Women’s College.’ The place looked cheery and full of color. I felt my shoulders relax as we took our seats to wait for whomever it was that was going to tell us a bit about the place before it became a college.

  I stared at the artwork on the wall; all amateur masterpieces created by former students. My cats sat, almost obedient-looking, at my feet.

  “Are you enjoying the artwork, Hattie?” Fraidy asked, his voice suspiciously calm. I pulled my eyes away from a pastoral watercolor.

  “They’re very pretty,” I replied.

  “Lovely, yes, just exquisite. Hey, I know! Why don’t we all have a little stroll in this delectable little gallery here, and discuss the beauty of the works?” His voice was getting strident, near hysterical. “I mean, that would be a reasonable thing to do after just escaping a maniac killer, right?”

  “Buddy, calm down,” I said, picking him up and holding him into me. Fraidy held his breath and thrashed for a couple of seconds while he squeezed his eyes shut and screwed his face up at me.

  I kissed him on the head. “I love you, sweetie,” I said. “I really do.” I pulled his body into my chest.

  Fraidy’s body calmed almost immediately. He flopped his head under my chin in defeat.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, his nose scraping my chin. “But, Goddess, we were nearly killed a few minutes ago, and now we’re here appreciating the art?”

  I held onto my kitty with one hand and rummaged in my bag with the other. My fingers brushed against the dart in the pocket of my purse. I plucked it out and stared at it. Fraidy’s head popped up from beneath my chin and Shade, Onyx and Carbon jumped up to inspect the weapon.

  Onyx squinted. “Looks like there might be some kind of resin at the end there,” he said nudging his nose close to the tip. I brought the stick up to my face. “I think you’re right. I think this dart has been dipped in something.” I twirled the missile under the light of the waiting room.

  “Chocolate?” Shade asked hopefully. We looked at him, our faces blank. “Could it have been dipped in chocolate?”

  Eye roll.

  “They’re not going to send chocolate on the first batch of darts and then flames on the second, bozo,” Carbon sniffed.

  “We need to take it to Maude,” I said, putting the weapon carefully back into the secret pocket in my handbag. “We’ll do that as soon as we get back to Glessie.”

  “That time couldn’t come sooner,” grumbled Fraidy.

  “Ms. Jenkins?” A crisp voice said from the door. A rounded and ruddy lady of about sixty years filled the entry way.

  I stood up, putting Fraidy on the floor. “Hi, I’m Hattie, yes. You are?”

  “I’m Matron Heffer. You came to ask about Summer Greenfield?” I spotted a folder in the crook of Matron Heffer’s arm.

  “Did you know Summer?” I asked, moving closer to the woman and taking a seat nearer the door. She looked at me warily. “I’m asking on behalf of a friend,” I said, smiling. “It’s possible we know the whereabouts of Summer’s father.”

  The rotund woman took a hesitant seat across from me. “Summer’s father never visited her here, why would he be interested now?”

  I kept my voice light. “I guess, as we age, we have time to think about the things we’ve done? Or, should have done?” I ventured.

  “Yes, well, Mr. Greenfield, or whatever his name is, is going to be very disappointed, I’d imagine.” Heffer pursed her lips.

  “Oh? Why’s that?” I asked, leaning forward in my chair.

  “Summer was a spritely, ill behaved child. I can’t imagine she’d have grown up to be any different.”

  Somehow I got the sense that this woman would brandish any child ‘ill behaved’ or ‘spritely.’ Matron Heffer didn’t seem to have a whole lot of patience or compassion.

  “Children.” I smiled again. “They have their own funny ways, don’t they?”

  Heffer just grunted. I knew the matron thought kids were demons. She’d may as well have been wearing a placard around her neck stating as much.

  “Did Summer have any visitors while she stayed here?”

  “Visitors?” Heffer balked. Her eyeballs looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. “Summer didn’t even have any friends, much less, visitors.”

  My heart constricted, and I breathed through the dull pain there.

  Heffer huffed.

  “I have some bits and pieces of Summer’s here,” she said, thrusting the file at me.

  I opened it up. The first picture was a woman in her mid-twenties. She had wild chestnut hair, lit up like a torch from the fall sunset on the lake behind her. Her eyes sparkled with sincere joy as she ran after the toddler running toward the person taking the shot. Again I felt my heart squeeze. Deevie. And, Summer. The little girl apparently held onto it; physical evidence of her mother’s brief existence.

  “Summer was always vulnerable to peer pressure. She’d get outraged when the other kids teased her about her mother’s suicide. We’d put her in the hole, of course, but every time she was goaded about this, she’d blow up in a rage.”

  Heffer shook her head, apparently disgusted by the memory of this demon child who acted up when her peer group stabbed her with the suicidal-mother jokes.

  The back of my throat burned, I was so angry with this stony woman before me.

  I didn’t even want to ask what the ‘hole’ was all about.

  “Nurse Duffy was way too easy on Summer, though. Encouraged her to continue to work with her plants. If Duffy was on duty, Summer was put in the nurseries for punishment instead of the hole. Pah!” Heffer spat. “What good is a greenhouse for comeuppance?”

  “Summer liked plants?” I asked. Tears threatened my eyeballs. Summer loved plants. I felt an instant connection with the girl.

  “So much so, that she poisoned the math teacher, Mr. Grubbin, with wormwood. All so she could get out of a test!” These memories were causing much outrage in Matron Heffer. I couldn’t help but feel that maybe it was time for this dinosaur, with her prehistoric views of childcare, to retire.

  I also couldn’t help but chuckle at Summer Greenfield’s brazenness. They were exactly the kind of tricks and schemes I got up to when I was in school.

  “Do you know what happened to Summer after she left here, Matron?” I looked at the woman with the angry red face. “Did she ever visit? Tell you what was going on in her life? Where she moved to, perhaps?”

  “No. Nothing like that. We never heard from former inmates, Ms. Jenkins. Not a thank you note, nothing.

  Thank you note?

  I had nothing but empathy for the girls who had lived under Matron Heffer’s brutal reign.

  I shuffled through the various pictures and documents of the file folder. I was about to pass it back when a flash of color caught my eye. I pulled at the edge of the paper that grabbed my attention.

  “Aw, that’s sweet,” Fraidy whispered, peeking over my shoulder. There was no need for him to whisper. The woman in front of us was most definitely Unawakened, so my cats were in no danger of being overheard.

  The drawing was sweet. Heartwarming. A mom, a dad, a little girl, all holding hands in that child-like picket fence way. A big red sun, that looked to be setting, in the middle, with a smiley face, of course. Bright, green grass and a house with a sign outside that only said “Happie Home.”

  “Aw,” Fraidy had one hand to his chest. “She even titled it ‘A Summer’s Eve,” he said eyeing the corner of the picture where the title was scrawled.

  I felt my cat’s empathy. It was flooding me right now, in fact.

  “Matron Heffer, I’d like to thank you for your time,” I said, standing. I needed to get to a bathroom to cry. Summer’s Eve.

  The Matron left the room while I gathered my bag and thought about the child
who had drawn a sunset and a happy family. Perhaps she believed that the fateful day her father would come home to them would be an evening with a beautiful sunset that bathed everything pink. The child had labeled her work ‘A Summer’s Eve.’ Even the playful dance with the words, how she’d used her first name to conjure up the warm imagery. My heart melted for this unlucky little girl.

  “Come on, guys, let’s go home,” I said, reaching for the doorknob.

  Shade had his forepaws on the back of one of the waiting room chairs, staring intently at an oil painting. I moved over to him to see what had grabbed his attention.

  He looked at me and smiled and then looked back at the painting.

  “These are the beautiful flowers my bae had her last photo shoot in. You know, for her Poofiful and Wild Instagram?” He breathed out a lover's sigh. I shook my head, but the vivid colors of the painting grabbed my eye.

  I squinted at the squiggles of spiked colors. The flowers that stood boldly on the canvas were Foxgloves.

  “Buddy, when was Poof’s last photo shoot and where was it?” I asked, surveying my kitty. I ran through some hasty mental calculations. Foxglove bloomed anywhere between early July and Mid October. We weren’t quite mid-October yet, so …

  “Not far from the dunes!” Shade chirped, looking excited at the prospect of showing me his girlfriend’s place of work. “You know, those community gardens there?”

  “Sure do, buddy. Take me there. To the spot where these flowers are.”

  Just to be nosy, you know. Not that I thought the Foxglove Killer was waiting there, or anything. More because Foxglove doesn’t often pop up on our isles. It certainly didn’t grow wild, so whoever was cultivating this plant was definitely somebody I wanted to meet.

  We made our way to the broom, and as we walked, I vaguely wondered if I might know the person growing this beautiful, yet potentially lethal bloom.

  CHAPTER 16

  We landed at the edge of the dunes, just to give Carbon enough time to hop off the broom. He carried the Galedoom dart gingerly between his teeth as he dismounted.