“Woof!” said Rocky.
“There’s something mysterious about that globe.” She looked down at him, her almond-shaped brown eyes darkening. “I think it’s time for us to go, buddy.”
The cat leapt off the shelf then, and as Rocky and Johanna watched, she seductively waltzed a figure eight between Rocky’s legs to rub up against Johanna’s boot. Johanna lifted an eyebrow, shocked that the cat was being so friendly after the clerk had said she was so unfriendly. She leaned down and petted the cat’s beautiful grey fur.
“You are a lovely little thing,” she cooed as the cat purred contentedly. “I can’t believe that man called you salty! You hardly seem salty to me.”
Rocky sniffed the cat in a friendly manner but refrained from the licking Johanna was sure he wanted to do.
The cat meowed again. This time what came out was more of a warbling sound, like the melody of a song.
A smile covered Johanna’s face. “You can sing? Well, aren’t you talented!”
The cat’s melodic singing continued until finally, Johanna stood up in a trance and nodded. “Yes, I think I’ll get the snow globe.”
4
Johanna shuffled the large cardboard box and Rocky’s leash to her other arm while she dug out her apartment keys. Rocky barked in the direction of the stairwell from which they’d just come, causing Johanna to cast a backwards glance in that direction.
“Well, I’ll be! She is still following us,” said Johanna, sticking her key into the doorknob. “That’s bizarre.”
The furry grey cat from the antique store peered around the corner at them.
Rocky bounced around on his front paws. A friend had come home to play with him, and he couldn’t be more excited about it.
Johanna threw the apartment door open but stood in the hallway for an extended moment, looking at the cat curiously. She hadn’t let the furry creature into her building, but it was rush hour, and between those coming home from work and those headed out for supper, someone else could have easily let the cat slip in. Should I take her back to the antique shop even though she wasn’t his cat? Johanna wondered, tilting her head sideways.
With Rocky bouncing around like a three-year-old that had to pee, Johanna knew exactly what he wanted. Rocky wanted Johanna to invite the cat in, but she didn’t know. The antique store owner had said that the cat had taken up residence and then wouldn’t leave. What if she decided to take up residence in Johanna’s apartment? Johanna wasn’t sure that she could handle a two-hundred-pound mastiff and a cat in her small apartment.
“Go on.” She shooed the cat back towards the stairs as it crept towards them.
At Johanna’s urging, the cat stopped walking and sat down primly. Training her green eyes intently on Rocky, she flipped her long fluffy tail back and forth. “Meow,” she said sweetly.
Rocky let out a chuff.
“I think she’s sweet on you, Rocky,” said Johanna, shooting him a wink and a crooked smile. “I guess you’ve still got it.”
He barked and then put his head on his paws, leaving his rump sticking up into the air.
“Oh, oh, right.” She chuckled. “You never lost it. Come on, bud, time to go inside. I’m getting hungry. You want dinner?”
That got his attention. He stood up and, forgetting about the cat, trotted inside the apartment. Johanna smiled at the cat. “Time for you to go home, sweetie. Night-night.”
Johanna followed Rocky inside the apartment, and just as she slammed the door behind her, she caught a glimpse of the cat trying to make it inside before the door closed, but she narrowly missed. What a funny little cat.
Johanna set the box with the snow globe down on her side table. “Talk about your impulse buy,” she said to Rocky, who sat next to his food bowl waiting patiently. Tossing her keys down onto her comfortably tattered sofa, she pulled off her hat and coat and strode into the kitchen. “What in the world do I need a snow globe for? At least it was on sale.”
“Woof!”
“I know, I know. Walk equals dinner. It’s coming.” She lifted his food bowl and walked it over to the giant plastic container that held his food. Giving him a generous portion, she walked back to her front door, where she opened the box and pulled out the snow globe. “I mean, I don’t even know where I’m going to put it! It’s just one more thing for me to dust.” Her eyes glanced around her unkempt apartment. “Or not dust, if we’re being honest.”
She shook the globe and watched the snowflakes fly. It was so pretty in there, but what she really loved was the dress on the form. If she ever got married, that would be the exact dress she would pick to get married in. She sighed.
“Who am I kidding, Rocky? You have to find a man to get married. You have to have a social life to find a man. And you have to be social to have a social life.”
Johanna walked to her computer desk with the globe in hand. She slid all the empty coffee cups into her garbage can, followed by a heaping pile of wadded-up tissues and crumpled sticky notes, and then she moved a big stack of books to her bookshelf.
“There, now I’ve got room for you!” She put the snow globe down next to her laptop. “Perfect. Now I’ve got one more thing to distract me from my writing. Just what I needed.”
Pulling the full garbage liner from her wastepaper basket and grabbing the empty cardboard box, she carried the trash out into the hallway. “Taking the garbage out, Rock. I’ll be right back,” she hollered, though Rocky didn’t bother looking up from his bowl.
After returning to her apartment, Johanna found the grey cat sitting in front of the closed door, staring at it. When she saw Johanna, the cat stood up, arched her back in a stretch, and then wrapped herself around Johanna’s legs. “Meow.”
Johanna squatted down and met the cat eye to eye. “You’re still here?” She scratched the cat under the chin. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have room for another pet in my apartment. Don’t you have a home?” For a second, Johanna thought the peculiar feline had shaken her head, but reconsidering it, Johanna was sure she’d just imagined it. It had been a long day of writing, after all, and her eyes were likely fatigued. They were always playing little tricks on her like that.
“Well, I’m sorry. You’re beautiful and all, but I just can’t keep you,” said Johanna, stroking her fur. She gave her one more scratch behind the ears and then scooted her body out of the way. “Bye-bye.”
Johanna stood up, opened the door to her apartment, and walked inside. Once the door was shut behind her, she was shocked to discover that the cat had managed to dart in behind her.
“Hey!” she shouted. “You sure are fast!”
Done with his food, Rocky glanced up to see the cat standing in his living room. “Woof!”
Johanna dropped her eyebrows. “Yeah, I know you’re excited, but we can’t keep her.”
The cat looked up at Johanna, her big green eyes pleading silently. Please let me stay, they begged.
Johanna felt her defenses crumbling. She bent over and picked the cat up. Holding her in her arms, she ran her hand down the cat’s thick, soft, luxurious fur while Rocky circled Johanna anxiously.
“Oh, fine,” she finally sighed. “You can have something to eat, but then you’re going outside!”
“Meow,” the cat seemingly agreed.
Johanna put the cat down next to Rocky. “Play nice while I look for something that she might want to eat.”
Immediately, the cat darted towards Johanna’s desk and hopped up on her chair and then onto the desk, where she promptly sat down next to the snow globe and peered inside.
“Oh, I see. I took something from your antique shop. Is that it?” Johanna lifted her off the desk and put her back on the ground. “You can’t get on my desk, though. No, no,” she added, wagging her finger at the cat. Then she looked at Rocky. “Rocky, entertain her while I go pour her some milk.”
Rocky let out a happy-to-oblige “woof” and gave the cat a sloppy lick across the face, something Johanna was sure he’d been dying
to do since they’d met her. One would have thought he’d slapped her across the face, the way she reacted. Her green eyes widened, and she let out the most god-awful “rawr” Johanna had ever heard. The next thing she knew, the cat had her claws extended and had reached out and swiped Rocky across the nose.
Whimpering and now nursing a scratched-up nose, Rocky backed away from her. He had been raised a bit of a sheltered dog and as such had never been treated like that before. Especially by a cat! He didn’t know what to make of it.
Johanna’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh! So the claws come out! The clerk was right. You are a salty girl.” She patted Rocky’s head. “He was only showing you affection.” Johanna headed straight for the kitchen to pour the milk. “If that’s how you’re going to be, I think we’ll just let you drink your milk in the hallway.”
Suddenly, the cat’s attitude appeared to change. She pranced over to Rocky and rubbed her body against his muscular leg and then rolled to the floor, where she looked up at him sweetly, almost begging him to cuddle with her.
By the time Johanna returned with the small saucer of milk, Rocky and the cat were playing nicely. She sighed. Now what? Kick the cat out and make Rocky be lonely again? The thought of breaking his heart broke her heart. She plopped down at her desk chair and watched them play. Johanna couldn’t do that to him.
“Fine,” she relented. “She can stay until morning, but on our morning walk, we’re taking her back to the antique store!”
A sparse Charlie Brown–type Christmas tree stood in the corner of Johanna’s living room next to the radiator. With its crooked stem, misshapen branches, and lack of needles, some might have thought it to be a pity purchase, but Johanna had found herself quite excited about her discovery. All the other Christmas trees were bigger, denser, more beautiful, and more coveted by the masses. This Christmas tree was the awkward, misunderstood one of the group, and Johanna felt a kinship towards the tree that made her excited to decorate it proudly with her grandmother’s glass bulbs, single strands of tinsel, and a string of hand-strung popcorn.
Colored Christmas lights blinked on and off in random fashion in the living room window, and the television set glowed blue-green against her living room wall later that evening.
Curled up beneath a blanket next to Rocky and Natasha, the moniker she’d assigned to her furry overnight guest, Johanna fast-forwarded through the commercials on her Hallmark Channel Christmas movie and sighed. She’d just watched a romantic Christmas proposal, and now her heart was heavy. Most days she valued her independence and treasured her solitary lifestyle, but moments like this, sitting alone on a cold winter evening, made her wish for a companion.
Taking a sip of her wine, Johanna reached over and clicked on the lamp on her end table. She pulled her feet into her body pretzel-style and exchanged her wineglass for her new snow globe. Giving it a good shake, Johanna watched the glittery flakes cover the wedding gown, as she’d done dozens of times since she’d brought it home only a few hours ago. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something begged her to continue shaking it. Like a song stuck in her head that begged to be sung, Johanna just couldn’t make herself stop.
“Ugh, no matter how many times I shake this globe, I’m never gonna get to wear this dress,” Johanna finally sighed, her words only slightly slurred by her third glass of wine. “It’s gonna be you and me forever, Rocky. You’re the only man I need in my life.” She patted his butt, causing Rocky to lift his heavy head and look at her with big sad eyes.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that.” Johanna scowled at him. “Because when your pet starts feeling sorry for you, you know your love life really has gone to hell in a handbasket.”
She focused her attention on the girl in the globe. “She’s a pretty girl. I wonder if she made that dress herself.”
Natasha uncurled herself from Rocky’s embrace and hopped over him to curl up next to Johanna. “Meow.”
Johanna showed her the snow globe. “You like the girl in the globe?”
Natasha’s green eyes stared at the glass ball. Johanna was sure she was staring right at the girl.
“I feel like you can understand me,” said Johanna, scratching Natasha’s chin. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”
“Meow.”
Johanna took another sip of her wine and, without looking at the globe, gave it a solid shake. When the glittery flakes had settled, she looked back down at it and was shocked to discover that the wedding gown was no longer on the dress form. It was on the girl! And the girl wasn’t seated at her sewing machine anymore. She was now standing!
“Oh my God!” Johanna breathed. Bolting upright, she practically threw the snow globe onto her coffee table. “Did you see that?!” she asked Natasha.
Natasha leapt off the couch and onto the coffee table.
Feeling the sudden tension in the room, Rocky sat up too.
Johanna wondered if she’d just imagined the girl in a different position or if the wine was stronger than she’d thought. “I swear she was sitting at the sewing machine just a few minutes ago! Tell me you saw that!”
Natasha put a paw on the snow globe. “Meow,” she said plainly.
And now it felt as if the cat was talking to her. Johanna rubbed the heels of her hands against her forehead and sucked in a deep breath. Breathe, Johanna, breathe. There’s no way the girl in the snow globe moved and the cat talked to you. You’re seeing things! Your eyes are fatigued! You’re drunk. You—you’ve read too many fantasy novels and watched too many magical Hallmark movies!
And then the warbling began again. It started out deep in Natasha’s throat, but slowly it became a melody. It was the same song she’d sung to them in the antique store.
Johanna’s eyes widened, and her pulse quickened. But suddenly she felt drawn to the globe once again. She lifted it with both hands and gave it another shake. And another. Again and again she shook it until she noticed a glowing glimmer of light emanating from inside the base of the globe.
Johanna peered down at it. The shimmering lights glowed through the snow, forming letters, and then words! She had to squint to read it. “There’s no star too far away,” she whispered, before having to shake the snow globe again to keep the snow at bay. “And no wish too grand. Shake the snow globe and make a wish, the magic’s in your hands.”
Johanna’s heart raced. Make a wish?
Rocky’s head tilted sideways as he stared at the globe too.
“You can see it too, can’t you?!” she asked excitedly.
Rocky jumped off the sofa and ran to her bedroom.
“Scaredy-cat!” she hollered after him.
Natasha still sat with her tail thwacking the coffee table. Cool as the proverbial cucumber.
Johanna eyed her suspiciously. “You’re not scared. Why aren’t you scared? Cats are the jumpiest animals alive, and you’re over there chillaxing!”
Natasha didn’t flinch.
Johanna sighed and turned her attention back to the globe. “I’m supposed to make a wish? So it’s a mystical snow globe?” she wondered aloud. What should she wish for? She cast her eyes towards her apartment window. Snow. She should wish for snow. “Fine, I’ll play along. What’s the harm?” She shrugged.
“I wish for…” She stopped. She had been just about to say the words, I wish for snow, when the girl in the wedding dress caught her eye again. What she really wanted was to meet a nice man and get married. Should she wish for a husband? Was that what she really wanted? Johanna slumped backwards against the sofa as tears burned at her eyes. No. The truth of the matter was, she missed James. She missed her best friend. Yes. She wanted to find the love of her life and get married so that she wouldn’t be alone anymore, but in reality, she wanted to find and marry her best friend. Is it creepy to wish for a dead man to come back into my life? she wondered.
Goose bumps rippled down Johanna’s legs as the words she felt in her heart finally came to her. Her spine straightened. She shook the snow globe one more time as tears o
f loneliness coursed down her cheeks and dripped onto the glass.
Sniffling, she whispered, “I don’t want to be alone anymore. My wish is to find my best friend again.”
Johanna didn’t even have time to wipe the tears from her face before it began to snow in her apartment.
5
Johanna’s eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. Snow?! Okay, I’m dreaming right now, she told herself, pinching her eyes shut. But I can feel the flakes on my face. She forced one eye open and then held her arms out on either side, allowing the cold flakes to hit her arms.
“But I didn’t wish for snow,” she whispered before letting out a little giggle.
As the snow in her apartment began to come down harder, the snow globe in her lap began to shake, whipping up a snowstorm inside the watery world. Johanna’s pulse quickened.
“What in the world?” she said, putting the glass ball on the coffee table next to Natasha. Wind whipped around her as the flurry of flakes in her apartment continued. Suddenly, the snow globe emitted a brilliant burst of light, followed by a deafening sound like thunder cracking overhead. Thinking it was some kind of bomb about to explode, Johanna curled into a ball and covered her head with her arms, her heart beating erratically in her chest. But instead of an explosion, seconds later, the whole apartment fell eerily silent.
Johanna waited for almost an entire sixty seconds before she slowly uncovered her head, afraid of what she was going to see and wishing to God that Rocky hadn’t high-tailed it to the bedroom. Where was her protector when she needed him? As she slowly forced one eye open, Johanna was happy to see that it had stopped snowing in her apartment and Natasha still sat calmly on the coffee table staring at her with Rocky nowhere in sight!
Surely that hadn’t just been a figment of her wine diluted imagination! Because if it was, she needed to get to a hospital stat and have a CT scan done on her brain!
Snow Cold Case_A Mystic Snow Globe Romantic Mystery Page 3