“Sergeant, ma’am,” he said, flashing his badge. “Sergeant Donkerton at your service.” He squinted at me and poked his head inside the window. “These your cats?”
This one’s sharp.
“They are indeed.”
“I have one myself. Piece of work.”
“I empathize. Sergeant Donkerton, is there a reason you stopped me?”
He stopped chewing, pulled a folder from underneath his arm. He rustled through the contents and plucked something from the file.
“Seen this man, ma’am?” Donkerton thrust a photo in my face. It was one of those magi-motion images, taken from a camera that snapped not just the split-second moment, but also the following three seconds after shooting. The magi-motion was Warlock tech, and there was currently nothing else like it on the market in the Wizarding community. I gazed at the image in motion. A man with silvery blond hair stood next to a conservatively dressed woman with pinned up hair and a stern face. I noticed the chilly looking gap between the pair immediately. The man was wearing a forced smile as the photographer captured the moment. Then the following three seconds played out. The man in the image turned his head to look behind him. Only two other people were clearly visible in the background of the photo. One was a woman in a satin cerulean blue dress that I’d have cheerfully killed for. Her chestnut hair fell in glossy waves over her right shoulder. Her head was thrown back in laughter. I imagined her laugh to sound rich and infectious.
“Nice rags,” Gloom breathed, studying the woman’s beautiful gown. I nodded and then moved my attention to the other person in the background. A man. He was squinting in the direction of the missing man and his dour-faced companion. Once the picture had been snapped, and the missing man turned his head. However, the background man turned on his heel rather sharpish and left through a back exit. Interesting.
Donkerton cleared his throat, reached into the car and tapped the man in the foreground of the image. “This is the missing person, ma’am,” he explained. “Leland Clavelle.”
I passed the photo back shaking my head at the same time. “Sorry, officer, I don’t know this man, and I haven’t seen him. This is my first visit to Gothic Harbor, so I’ve no idea how I could be any help to you.”
“What brings you to our town?”
“I’m picking mushrooms,” I replied, beginning to feel a little impatient.
“Mushrooms? Stillbreath toadstools?” Donkerton asked, his eyes narrowing.
“The very ones,” I said.
“You work with the deceased?” The deceased?
“I beg your pardon, Sergeant?”
Donkerton produced the image again, this time tapping his finger above the face of the scowling woman in the foreground.
“The deceased,” he repeated, offering nothing more.
“N .. no, I don’t even know who this wom--”
“You have a permit for the Stillbreath’s ma’am?” He asked, whisking away the image once more. Gloom pawed the permit onto my lap and I handed it to the sergeant. He scanned the document and handed it back almost immediately.
“Thanks for your time, ma’am. I won’t take any more of it. I hope you enjoy your stay in G.H. It’s Santa Week, so I’m sure you’ll have a whole lotta fun. The kids love it.” Placing his hands on his hips, he added. “If you spot Mr. Clavelle in your travels, please give the local station a call. I’ll be back in town once my officer takes over for me here.”
I nodded. “How long has Mr. Clavelle been missing, Sergeant?”
“Three days now, as it happens,” Donkerton replied, turning back toward me.
“Well, that doesn’t seem like a terribly long time for --”
“Didn’t show up for his wife’s funeral three days ago, ma’am. Believe me, there’s a cause for concern, considering Lelan was seen readyin’ himself for the burial just the day before, ‘n’ all.”
“Readying?”
“Yep, drowning his sorrows at the pub just the night before his wife’s funeral. Plus, Clavelle had been spendin’ heaps for fancy floral arrangements at Nosegay’s -- that’s the florist in town, ma’am -- for Stella’s service. Now, what kind of man would just up an’ vanish after takin’ care to get his wife the most expensive wreaths this side of the Mainland?”
“Oh. Quite.”
“We’ll find him, don’t you worry about that. Nobody goes missing under Donkerton’s nose and get’s away with it,” he said, pushing his hips forward.
“His wife …. That’s the woman standing next to him in the--”
“Stella Blazier,” the Sergeant confirmed. “Found in a snow drift just outside her estate five days ago. Came off her filly and damned well froze to death. Looked like this when we found her:” Donkerton’s face contorted into a sudden and grotesque mask of terror; eyes like saucers, mouth cranked open in a mute scream. He snapped his jaw shut. “Terrible thing. Terrible.” The sergeant shook his head. “Well, I’ll let you get on. Careful of the Four Horsemen there. They look about ready to drop their load,” he said nodding to the rock giants before us. “There’s no way in and no way out if they do.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” I said. “I’ll be careful.” I moved to roll up my window, but couldn’t resist calling out to the officer. “Sergeant Donkerton, if you don’t mind me asking, how long do you intend to lay in wait here?”
“Been a man here since the funeral, ma’am. Nobody’s crossed here from inside or outside since then, at least. Course, Mr. Clavelle could have wandered out of town the night before his wife’s service, but unlikely. Anyway, I reckon I’ll keep it up until the Horsemen do their work. Like I said before; ain’t nobody getting in or out of G.H once those boys drop their cargo.” Donkerton squinted at the Four Horsemen, turned on his heel and lurched back to the comfort of his cruiser.
I wound up the window. Seven cats stared at me, their mouths ajar.
I shrugged. “Well, that was weird,” I said with practiced nonchalance. My stomach, however, erupted into its very own bee-bop-hop. A mystery! I LOVED puzzles!
The cats continued to stare.
“What?” I asked.
“Why are you pretending that you are a person who isn’t about to go snooping?” Eclipse said.
A reasonable question, I guess.
“You do love the mysteries, boss-lady,” Shade said. “ You thinkin’ about pullin’ an Agatha?” while we’re here?”
“Missing cats and missing persons are hardly in the same league,” Gloom opined.
She had a point. My mystery-solving career, thus far, was limited to reuniting lost pets with their distraught owners. But, still, I had had to unravel a host of clues before finding the wandering animals. I did it for fun, and because I didn’t like the idea of a lost and confused domesticated pet. But there was something more. It was the act of connecting the puzzle pieces that thrilled my soul. I felt that familiar tingle now.
“Well, I ...well, what would it hurt to help out the Sergeant by asking a few well-placed, and discreet questions, right?”
“It would appear there’s a good possibility that you’ll be working alone on this missing person’s case, Chimera,” Onyx said.
I raised a reflected pair of questioning brows at my sage cat.
“Sergeant Donkerton is co-ordinating his surveillance efforts on entirely the wrong side of the mountain pass. If there’s an avalanche, the sergeant will be trapped on the other side.” Onyx concluded.
“Yep, yep, ol’ sargie there wasn’t too bright, nope?” Jet babbled.
I thought of turning back. To share this pertinent factoid with the sergeant. But, I didn’t. I pressed the gas pedal and crept slowly forward instead. We started our journey past the Four Horsemen.
Fraidy pointed to a cornice of whipped snow the size of an oil tanker. It was nothing more than a cantilevered snow-shelf, held in place on just one side of its bulk.
“H-how does it stay up there?” My timid cat asked.
“It doesn’t,” Gloom said. “Or, I sho
uld say: it won’t.”
“Yeah, I don’t trust ‘em, either,” Shade said, peering at the icy arrangements. “These drifts look like they’re about to start a cascade-crusade to ruin our parade.” Midnight tapped my shoulder. “Time to agitate the gravel, boss,” I nodded and accelerated. Thank the Goddess I had the snow-chains put on before we left.
The car sped up; nothing crazy, just a little zip so we could get out of Avalanche Alley as soon as possible.
“What’s going on?” I heard rather than saw the last of my eight cats show up to the party. Midnight squeezed his face between Carbon’s and Shade’s. “Where are we? Was I napping?”
I smiled in the rearview at Midnight. “Hi, handsome,” I said. “Sleep well?”
“Out like a light,” Middie confessed. “Where are we?” He leaned over and pressed his fuzzy face to the window.
“Just about to escape Death Row,” Gloom quipped, flicking her tail toward the mountains with their loads of icy murder.
We held our collective breath as we crept past the outer edge of the last Horseman. We then shared a group sigh just as an avalanche worthy of the history books made its tumultuous descent down the mountain. The car shook as the weight of the falling snow gained power. We must have really been on one another’s wavelength because this time we let out a communal gasp as we watched the white stuff land in an immense pile not thirty feet behind the car. Midnight was the first to the back window. His ears twitched, and his tail snaked in twisty excitement as he surveyed the scene. “Woah! That’s gotta be the size of an oil tanker!”
I cringed. The questions would come now.
“So, is this really the only way in and out of town?” Gloom stared at me, her jaw square.
“I ...I don’t know, honey. The sergeant seemed to think so. And, we can’t use magic to get out of here...” My words trailed off. I ran my fingers through my hair. “It wasn’t something I looked for when I booked this place. It just wasn’t.”
“I can melt it away,” Carbon said, sitting up taller. “Don’t worry, sis, we’ll have salmon in our bellies, for sure.” My fire-starting kitty looked pretty satisfied with himself.
“Carbs,” I said. “You can’t use your fire, honey. It’s considered magic. Not only is it not permitted, but the protective wards at the town’s exit points will make it impossible, anyway. Nobody’s magicked their way in or out of Bonemark for at least a century.”
“Oh …. Oh, swell,” Shade whispered. He sounded on the brink of tears. “So, we’re having cat food for Christmas dinner, then.”
“Shade, sweetness. It’s too early to say --”
“Yeah, sure. Merry freakin’ CAT FOOD, and goodwill to all m...” It was too much for him. My Romeo cat’s voice cracked, and he retreated to the back seat completely beaten. I watched him topple under the weight of his cruel and hopeless life.
Gloom turned her rear to me, pushed her head under my scarf until her whole face was obscured.
“Aw, c’mon, guys, Whatever we eat or don't eat for dinner, isn’t the whole point of Christmas that we have one another?” I swiveled my head toward my backseat cats. They sat like loaves of bread in a row; mute and unimpressed. “We’re with each other, and that’s what counts, right? We’re here with each other and for each other. What could be more meaningful?”
My cats said nothing, but if they thought I couldn’t hear their low rumbling purrs over the engine, the gravelly road, and the squishy sound of the snow tires, they were mistaken.
Chapter Three
We pulled up in front of Foxley Cottage just as the day’s light folded into dusk. Deep blues and purples, like violent bruises, unfurled and stretched into ever-darkening realms. We still had to pick up the keys from the landlady of this slum: Iris Crimple. Iris owned the only pub in Gothic Harbor, but seeing as we had to pass our cottage first, I thought it’d be the perfect diversion for getting the cats excited about our stay. I checked the map to make sure we were in the right place. And swallowed. Hard.
“You have to be kidding me,” Gloom said, standing on two paws on my lap, her face pressed against the window to better analyze the dilapidated dwelling. I have to say, on first glance, Foxley Cottage didn’t seem to live up to its description in the brochure. The filthy windows did little to cover the even dirtier net curtains hanging askew inside the peeling frames. The roof, sagging in the middle, was a patchwork of mismatched shingles and seemed to be attracting a lot of the local wildlife. Namely, pigeons who were busy settling in for the night.
Yuk.
My stomach knotted.
“Boss, we stayin’ here?” Shade asked. His tone told me that he didn’t really believe it.
I glanced at the brochure again, scanning for something charming; something to lift this place from the apparent flea-pit it was. I could see a sliver of the harbor at the rear of the house; liquid moonlight kissing its velvety surface. A beam of warm light swept across the scene.
“Look! We have views of the harbor and the lighthouse over there on Codders point,” I said, getting out of the car. The cats followed me, while I tried to find any other delightful aspects of the house in the brochure.
“Oh, and, wait, it says here there are also splendid views over Silent Meadows. Sounds nice, right?” I didn’t wait for an answer; I was already trudging through the snow to the back of the cabin so I could see Silent Meadows in the ‘flesh.'
The cats kept quiet and tailed me, leaping through the snow, sure, but not really seeming to enjoy it as much as they normally did.
“Looks like where we were born,” Eclipse muttered as we passed the side of the dwelling.
“Aww, see?” I turned to ‘Clipsy, smiling. “That’s nice, yes? That it reminds you of your birthplace?” My pace picked up, and I started whistling. Maybe my kitties wouldn’t be too difficult about this situation, after all.
“We were born eight hundred years ago, though.” Carbon warned me. “Home comfort wasn’t a concern back then. It was more about cold and dirty dwellings infused with plague, cholera and blackwater fever.” His caution delivered, Carbie trotted ahead of me. The other kitties followed him.
I walked on, rounding the corner of the house. My cats, all in a row, stood in the snow staring forward. I followed their gaze.
Oh, please, Goddess, no.
“Well, ain’t this special?” Midnight quipped. “Ladies and gents, I present to you: Silent Meadows,” he said, offering a deep bow while flinging one paw out toward the cemetery in front of us.
“Nope, nope, nope.” Jet said. “And, nope, nope again.” He paced on the spot.
“Chimera, do you think there’s perhaps been an oversight?” Onyx asked with his usual politeness. “Could this be the groundsman’s abode?”
“I don’t think so, O. I booked ‘Foxley Cottage.’ And, this is Foxley Cottage.”
“Great,” Shade said, his voice cracking again. “A Christmas of cat food and corpses.”
Fraidy buried his face into his two front paws and swung his head left and right in a flagrant display of a cat who feels he is doomed.
“Fresh dead too,” Gloom said, pointing to a recently shoveled mound of earth sitting in between a couple of cracked tombstones.
“What an exquisite nightmare,” Onyx muttered.
“C’mon guys, let’s go and pick up the keys,” I said. What else could I do? I’d already booked and paid for this horror show, and despite my reluctance to get inside, it had to be better than standing in the snow looking at the outside. I turned and began the short journey back to the car.
“W-wait!” Fraidy’s voice was so high-pitched so as to be nearly inaudible. “I think I just saw something,” he said, his head cocked toward the graveyard. I peered over Fraidy’s head, training my eyes over the assortment of haphazard headstones. Too dark. I saw nothing and was about to turn again when the beam from Codders Point lighthouse made its sweep and bathed the area in a brief burst of light.
“There!” Midnight shrieked, pointing to t
he fresh mound of dirt.
I trained my eyes to the spot Middie was indicating and saw a flash of movement. It was low to the ground. Strike that, it appeared to be on the ground. I saw what looked like an arm fly up from the pile of earth, and then dive down again. The beam of light passed, plunging the scene into darkness once more. I blinked, unsure of what I’d just witnessed.
“We’re all going to die here,” Fraidy rasped. “Eaten by zombies.”
“Oh, hush, now, honey,” I whispered, picking my scaredy-cat up and tiptoeing closer to the cemetery to see if I could spot any more movement. Fraidy forced his small head into the pit of my arm.
“Say, boss, you think that’s the grave of the deceased? Stella Blazier?” Shade asked, moving to my side.
“I don’t know, chum,” I said. “Let’s get a closer look.” Fraidy stiffened in my arms, but he remained quiet.
The lighthouse beam came in for another orbit.
“Yep. Zombie on the move, yep, yep,” Jet jabbered.
I cast my head right, and just caught a glimpse of something or someone hurdling the low wall of the graveyard. A breeze picked up, and in the distance, what seemed like a veil of hair, as long as your arm, fluttered in the wind for a moment before disappearing over the wall. A glimmer of unearthly blue was the last thing I glimpsed before the beam of light retreated once more.
Arms swinging, I trudged toward the cemetery.
“And, she’s off,” Gloom said, shaking her head.
“Don’t you want to find out what’s going on?” I said over my shoulder.
My kitties said nothing, but I heard the soft crunch of snow as they followed behind me.
Stepping up to the fresh grave, I instructed Jet and Carbon to look over the wall; the last place we saw movement. I bent down to study the earth. It seemed a little flattened. As if something or someone had been lying on top of it. Maybe a grieving mourner had come to say their last goodbye and had desperately embraced the earth that held their loved one? But, other than that, there was no gaping hole, nor any evidence of a zombie uprising. I was about to stand up when the lighthouse’s beacon highlighted a glint in the earth pile at my feet. With one hand, I fumbled in the dirt to excavate the shiny object. “What is it?” Midnight asked, standing on his hind legs for a better view.
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