by Harper Lin
Meanwhile, my aunt continued to knead and spread the dirt from the bag with a big yellow sunflower on it to the pot.
“That stuff kind of stinks,” I said.
“It’s got nutrients and things in it to help the flowers grow.”
“Like poop?”
“Cath, the universe has a use for everything natural in the world. Even poop.”
“Doesn’t mean we should put our hands in it.” I tried as hard as I could not to smile or giggle when my aunt looked up at me. But it was no use. I giggled like a twelve-year-old boy who saw butt steaks were on sale at the supermarket.
Just then, a familiar black cat slunk over the fence.
“Hey there, handsome,” I said in my mind.
“Hi,” Treacle said, strutting over to me, and gave my calves an affectionate rub with his furry body.
Within a few minutes, Marshmallow appeared and slunk out of the sliding screen door that Bea had left open.
“Marshmallow, where have you been?”
“Waiting,” she meowed.
“Waiting for what?”
“For this.” She strolled over to a perfect square of sunlight that was coming through Aunt Astrid’s vinery lattice and fell over.
Treacle, who found a similar square just a couple inches away, did the same thing.
“It seems like it took a long time for spring to finally get here. We’ve been cooped up inside forever,” Marshmallow said.
She yawned while reaching out a playful paw to touch Treacle. He responded with a whip of his tail.
“Staying close to home today? That’s a little unusual. Are you feeling okay?” I asked my black cat as he purred loudly.
“I feel fine. I’m just in the mood to be lazy. Besides, I left you a present already this morning. It’s on the kitchen counter.”
“You are so thoughtful,” I gushed, knowing that there was going to be a dead bird or a dead snake or a dead baby rabbit on my counter when I got home.
I stooped over and scratched them both behind the ears just as Bea returned.
“Well, Jake heard about it. But he said he didn’t have a grabber.” Bea looked at me.
“What happened to him?”
“Jake said he and Blake were called to the house after a uniformed officer was making a welfare checks.”
According to Bea, a neighbor had noticed mail and newspapers piling up outside.
“When they got there, the uniformed officer was all choked up. Niles had some strange stab wounds, but they weren’t life-threatening and might have been self-inflicted. But the officer thought Niles had choked on something he was eating.”
“I never thought of that,” I said.
“But…”
“There’s a but?” I sat up straight.
“There were weird marks around his neck and some strange slimy stuff on his clothes.” Bea’s right eyebrow shot up.
“Foul play?”
“Jake says they haven’t said yes and they haven’t said no. It’s still being looked into.”
Marshmallow and Treacle were sleepily watching us when Peanut Butter decided to turn her attention to them. I watched the smaller orange cat stealthily creep closer and closer. She nestled quietly in the grass, her eyes wide with mischief, her back end wiggling as she revved her engine, then boing! She sprang in a perfectly silent arch and came down on Treacle, who leaped straight up in the air. When his feet hit the ground, he took off after Peanut Butter. They rolled around over and over each other in the grass as I laughed.
“What are you two up to?” Aunt Astrid yelled playfully. They froze and snapped their heads in our direction. I laughed even harder.
“They are just playing. Peanut Butter snuck up on Treacle. She’s getting to be quite the predator.” I looked at Bea, who beamed with pride.
“I know what happened.” Aunt Astrid pushed herself up from her flowerpot and pulled off her gardening gloves. “He probably tried to do some spell, and the whole thing backfired on him. Accidental suicide.”
“That’s awful,” Bea said. “To be snuffed out like that due to your own unsteady hand.”
“It is awful,” my aunt continued. “But there was no telling Niles Freudenfur that he was doing it wrong. He came from a long line of Third-Eye Seers, he’d say. Whatever that meant. In all my books, I never found the name Freudenfur. Of course, his answer was that the name morphed and changed over the centuries. He had an answer for everything.”
“You know what else is awful? That home of his was beautiful,” Bea said. “I heard around town he had quite a collection of expensive antiques and furniture and books and paintings.”
“Where did you hear that?” Aunt Astrid asked.
“Just around town. Sometimes people would ask if we were affiliated with his psychic readings.”
“To which you responded with a resounding no.” My aunt was on a roll.
“Of course.” Bea nodded. “But you know how some people are. If you charge a fair price and have a simple setting for people to visit you, you are the hack. Not the guy who charges a small fortune and has you visit his elaborate home that screams of old Vincent Price movies.”
“That really is awful.” My aunt shook her head.
“What’s really awful is that everyone is going to get to the estate sale before us and get all the good junk,” I said. “Can we make like a tree and leave?”
3
Sanctum Totem Arcana
The Freudenfur estate was a painted-lady-style house and the only one of its kind on Barbour Street at the edge of town. It was yellow with white trim and black shutters. There were three stone steps that led to the front door. The old mail and newspapers were still piled up there. The remnants of police Do Not Cross tape were stuck around the open door.
I looked in the bay window, which was wide open, and could see people milling around. Of course, I also looked at the second floor and at the oval attic window, expecting to see Niles’s gruesomely distorted face peering out. All that was there was a pretty lace curtain.
Two people were coming out of the house, but they had nothing in their hands. They also seemed to be hurrying away. But that was normal. They might have gotten a phone call to be somewhere or maybe had only stopped in to peek.
“There’s Lawanda,” Bea said as she put her car in Park.
“I’m surprised we caught her,” I said as I unbuckled my seat belt on the passenger’s side. “In fact, at the rate you were driving, I’m surprised we caught the sale at all.”
“Hey, better safe than sorry.” Bea stuck her tongue out at me.
We all piled out of the car like clowns and approached the front door.
“Lawanda!” I waved.
She smiled awkwardly and came up to us while rubbing her arms as if she were cold.
“What’s the matter? Didn’t find anything good in there?” I asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such beautiful things. But well, I don’t know.” Lawanda scratched her head. “Maybe it’s because he died and was in there for a while before anyone found him. I just didn’t want to buy anything. Truthfully, I didn’t want to touch anything. I know it’s just because I watched too many scary movies growing up.” She chuckled nervously. “I don’t know. Maybe you guys will have better luck.”
Lawanda waved good-bye and hurried to her car.
I looked at Bea then realized Aunt Astrid was already going up the steps.
“For someone who didn’t like the guy, she sure is in a hurry to look inside,” Bea joked.
“She’s not the only one,” I said.
When we stepped over the threshold, I was shocked that Aunt Astrid had been so spot-on. The place did smell like clove cigarettes. But there was something else, like a mossy smell.
“My mom is over by the books.” Bea jerked her chin. “I’m going to go and check what’s upstairs.”
The next thing I knew, I was by myself, so slowly, I began to roam from room to room but was stopped quickly by a cheery voi
ce to my right.
“Welcome. If you have a question about any of the items, just let me know.” It was one of the sales coordinators. She was wearing enough makeup to audition for a Las Vegas show, and her hair was poufy around her face.
“Thanks. I’ll bet you are selling a lot of stuff. This guy was known to be quite a collector,” I said, just to be polite.
“You’d think,” she whispered. “We’ve had a lot of foot traffic, but practically no one is buying anything.”
“Really?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. People are saying the prices are good. They love this lamp or that set of silverware. But when it comes time to buy it, they say they feel funny and change their mind.”
I wanted to dash up the stairs and see what Bea was feeling throughout the place, but that would have been rude.
“We just had a few people purchase some new sheets that were still in the packaging and a bookcase that was from Ikea and still in the box. Meanwhile, that beautifully etched corner bookcase is waiting to be taken to a good home for only twenty dollars.”
“Twenty dollars for that dark-wood bookcase?”
I pointed, and the woman nodded.
“What is your name?”
“Dorothy McGill. But you can call me Dot.” She handed me a business card.
“Well, Dot, wrap it up, because I’ll take that bookcase.”
Dot smiled happily. I told her I was there with my aunt and cousin and would like to look around a little more. When I made it to my aunt, I told her everything that Dot had said.
“If you could see what I see, you’d understand why people aren’t buying.” She shook her head.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Everything has got cobwebs on it. Psychic cobwebs. Layers upon layers. Like Niles never did a smudging to cleanse the house. I find that odd because he had the most meticulous fingernails every time I dealt with him.”
“Weird.”
“It is. Unless he was more of a fraud than I thought.” She looked back down at the books. “Aside from all these New Age-y books, I’m surprised Niles didn’t have something with a little more meat, even if it were just for show.”
“I’m going to keep looking around.”
I got a nod from my aunt, who went back to sifting through the stacks of books.
Dot had done an excellent job of displaying everything that was for sale. As I had expected, Niles had tons of candles, paintings in gilded frames, crystals of all sizes and colors, sound bowls, and thick, heavy furniture. The cushions were bright red, and the frames were a rich dark brown and chiseled into clunky blocks. It was the tackiest furniture I’d ever seen and came in a set of eight, including a couch, a love seat, two armchairs, a coffee table, an end table, and two lamps. His guests had to go crazy seeing that furniture in candlelight just before some make-believe séance or tarot reading. I had to admit the presentation was impressive.
That was another thing I noticed. There were stacks of tarot cards that looked as if they were homemade. I was all for an arts and crafts project, but whoever drew the pictures on these cards, I hoped they didn’t quit their day job. They were horrible designs and garish colors. It was obvious that some of the creatures were supposed to be angelic or fairylike. They looked more like starving fashion models and, instead of walking on a runway, were floating in water or dangling from a tree. So it was hard to tell which cards represented what. Others had pointy teeth and wild eyes.
No one was looking to purchase these. I didn’t blame them.
The paintings propped up along the walls were of similar designs. I squinted and saw that N. Freudenfur was scribbled in the corners of all the pieces.
“Not only could he see the future, but he was an artist too. A jack of all trades.”
The funny thing about this was that everything in the house looked as I expected, but precious little of it was authentic. I stood in the middle of the room and imagined what it would look like with nothing but candlelight and violin music playing in the background. I’d swear I was in a villa in Transylvania. But turn the lights on, and it was like a real painted lady when the sun came up.
As I roamed around, I peeked out the windows into the backyard. There was a lot of vegetation and what looked like a pond or some kind of round altar out there. I was going to go sneak a peek, but the door wasn’t just locked. There was a second deadbolt, a chain, and a two-by-four across it.
“There has got to be something of value in this house for Niles to have this many locks on the back door,” I mused.
I thoroughly inspected the main floor, and still there was nothing but the bookcase to strike my fancy. There were lots of people milling around, and I was happy to see someone buy a silver salt-and-pepper-shaker set. They were probably spray-painted that color, but who was I to ruin what that person liked?
I went upstairs to see if Bea had stumbled upon anything. I wasn’t sure what to think when I saw her expression.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said with tight lips.
“What are you pinching your lips for?” I asked while pinching my lips.
“I don’t know what to think about the room down the hall.”
“Why?”
“I can’t explain it. You have to see for yourself.”
I squinted at my cousin, wondering if this was a trick. When she didn’t move or start to laugh, I walked down the dark, wooden hall to the last room. The door was open. Inside were shelves and shelves of dolls.
Some of them were obviously old. Their clothes were faded, and some of the paint on their faces was chipped, giving them a sinister appearance, to say the least. Others were newer with frilly dresses and oodles of curls on their heads. Each one of them stared straight ahead. Or maybe they were looking at me. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to find out.
If anything in the house gave me the creeps, it was that room filled with the dolls. I was never a doll person.
“Freaky, right?” Bea asked when I walked back to her.
“I’m not sure what to think of that. Niles Freudenfur was a doll collector?”
“Maybe. If I were to guess who in the town was a doll collector, he would probably be on the short list. The cape. The flamboyant personality.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But he was such a know-it-all about other stuff. I wonder what prompted the pursuit of dolls.”
“I guess we’ll never know,” Bea said in a spooky, whispery voice.
“Let’s check out the bedroom.”
I was not the least bit surprised by what I saw in there. Niles had a four-poster bed with curtains draped at the head. Satiny sheets and comforters were folded neatly with little price tags on them. The matching dresser and nightstand were of the same dark wood. There was a beautiful mirror, but it had a crack up the center.
“I have to admit, I was expecting so much more. This is not a cheap piece of property, but Niles does not have the taste I thought he did,” I said.
“Did not.”
“What?”
“Did not have the taste you thought he did. Past tense. He’s dead now.”
“What about you? Are you getting any sense of something inside this place? I feel like I’m walking through the Museum of Natural History, looking at those cheap-looking replicas of the day in the life of a Neanderthal man or the Mayans.”
“There is definitely something wrong with all of this. But I can’t lock in on anything. I was hoping to go up in the attic, but it’s locked off. I’ll try the kitchen since it’s the heart of the house.”
Before we left the bedroom, a bright flash caught my eye.
“What is that?” I pointed toward the closet. It was wide open, but there was another little door inside. The light through the window caught on the crystal doorknob, grabbing my attention.
“I don’t know about that.” Bea slipped her hand in mine. “Those kinds of doors are always creepy.”
“I agree. But let’s peek anyway.”
“It’s pitch black in there.” I peeked. “Go in there and look around.”
“I’m not going in there.” Bea shook her head.
“Are you getting any vibes?”
“Nothing,” Bea said.
“Fine. It’s probably just an empty storage room. These estate people look through every nook and cranny of a house. I’m sure everything that is out is all there is.”
“Let’s find Mom.”
I shut the little door as Bea walked out of the closet first. That was when I heard a loud scream. Not a human scream but some kind of thick-throated animal that was outside. Bea was already out of the room. I hurried and looked out the window. The glass was filthy. I couldn’t tell what I was looking at. From where I was, I didn’t see anything. I held my breath and listened, but all I heard was the people bustling around downstairs. Now I was wondering if the sound was outside or inside. As if I heard something inside my head.
“Residual effects, Cath,” I said to soothe myself. “That was probably the sound Niles made when he was dying. Maybe.”
I shook it off and went after Bea. When I found her with her mom, they were both looking like the cats that swallowed the canaries.
“What are you up to?” I whispered.
“You won’t believe this,” my aunt said, hushed. She looked around to make sure no one was too close to her. “Niles has the first edition of Sanctum Totem Arcana. This book is so valuable in the realm of witchcraft that there have been generations of witches that had dedicated their lives to finding and protecting it. Even killing for it.”
“Do you think that someone might have done Niles in to get the book?” I asked.
“No. I don’t think Niles even knew what he had. Look.” She pointed to the faded green color of the hard cloth cover. “There are rings of dried wine on it. I found a recipe for meatloaf stuffed behind one of the pages. I think he kept this out on the coffee table for effect.”