by Harper Lin
“Yeah. It was a heart attack, we heard,” I said.
“That was Marvin Clegg, right?” Amalia asked, squinting her eyes a little.
“Yeah, it was,” I said.
“That’s really bizarre because just a few weeks ago, I’d say maybe two weeks ago, his daughter, Brit Clegg, had come in inquiring about a place for him at the home.”
My heart leapt. “Really. Gosh, that’s weird. Was she nice?”
Amalia took a sip of her tea and rolled her eyes. “Oh my gosh. This is soothing. Holy moly. Yes, she was very nice. But now that you mention it…”
I held my breath and leaned in.
“She was a little vague about some of the questions we routinely ask, and then she had some strange questions for us.” She took another sip. “I remember wondering what kind of daughter asks if female visitors other than her can come to her father’s room and stay overnight?”
“That is weird,” I said. “What else did she say?”
“Well, she asked if there were cameras, and she asked if her father could burn candles and incense in his room.”
“Well, maybe she was just concerned with security, and maybe her dad liked incense. My late Uncle Karl had a dog that died, and he kept a picture of it with a little votive candle burning all the time. Maybe he had something like that going on. His wife did pass away several years ago.”
“Maybe.” Amalia shrugged and took another sip of her tea. “The weirdest thing was that she wanted to know all these things but said her father didn’t know she was inquiring. She said she didn’t know when he’d be ready to move in, just that it would be soon.”
“And now he’s dead,” I said thoughtfully.
“I know. It’s so sad. If only she could have gotten him in there sooner, he’d have had medical attention as soon as it happened. He might still be alive today.”
Not with an exploded heart, I thought. “Was his daughter living here?”
“Yeah, that was another strange thing. When I asked her for her home address and a phone number where we could contact her, she gave the address to a rental located in, well, not a very good part of town. Do you know where all those warehouses and random mills are located? Apparently she’s living over there. Wishing Well Court trailer park. Frankly, I wasn’t sure how she was going to pay for her father’s room, but many people find ways when they need to.”
I thought of my adventure to find Treacle. His trail had gone cold just as I was roaming through that area. Whatever was there was affecting the cats, too. This was the biggest break I could have hoped for.
Amalia let out a big yawn. “I’m so sorry to be yawning. It isn’t the company, really, but I am beat. I think it’s your cousin’s tea. It’s like sipping a down pillow and comforter.”
Min and I laughed. “I better take you home,” Min said. “Tonight, we’re going to the Music Box to catch Casablanca on the big screen. Cath, do you want to come with?”
“Say yes,” Amalia said. “You’ll have fun. I’ve seen that movie at least a dozen times, and I just can’t see it enough. When the French start singing their national anthem over the Germans’… I get goose bumps talking about it.”
I would have loved to go, but the wheels in my head were spinning.
“You know, thank you so much for inviting me, but I can’t. I’ve got plans with my aunt and Bea that have to do with family stuff. Boring but necessary, you know.”
“I do.” She yawned again.
“Let’s make plans to do something together soon,” Min said, beaming with a happiness I knew was because Amalia and I had hit it off.
I smiled back. I couldn’t tell him, but meeting Amalia was more wonderful than he could ever know. Not only had she given us a lead on the real cause of Marvin’s death, but she’d also given us a lead suspect. And quite possibly, she may have given me a tip to where Treacle might be. If there was a witch in that area, she might have my black cat.
Even after the terrible night I’d had, I felt rejuvenated and couldn’t wait to tell Bea and Aunt Astrid what I’d found out. All I needed was Brit Clegg’s address.
After I told them, we agreed not to talk about our new discovery at work. Once the doors were locked and the CLOSED sign hung in the door, we met at Aunt Astrid’s for a nightcap.
Wishing Well
“The Wishing Well Trailer Park is huge, and it goes way back into the woods,” Bea said. “Those trailers are secluded for a reason. It’s not exactly the kind of place you want to go around asking questions.”
“Why would Marvin’s daughter be staying there when he had a successful business and a nice house in an affluent part of town?” Aunt Astrid asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe they didn’t get along,” I said. Neither my aunt nor Bea said anything. “I’m going to go and do some looking around.” I felt the strong gust of a second wind coming over my tired body.
Bea put her hands on her hips. “Cath, Wishing Well isn’t a safe place. You shouldn’t go by yourself. You shouldn’t go at all. Look, if we wait until tomorrow after we’ve slept on it, we’ll be better prepared to come up with a plan. But for you to just go snooping around is crazy. Besides, you don’t know what Marvin’s daughter looks like, and there are hundreds of trailers in there. What are you going to do, knock on their doors?”
“No, I’m not going to knock on their doors. I just want to get a look at things. See what we’re dealing with. Maybe see if I can pick up a vibe or two.”
Aunt Astrid took my hands in hers across the book-covered dining room table and closed her eyes. “It’s no use, Bea. You know how your cousin is once she gets a bee in her bonnet.” Astrid mumbled a few words I could barely make out, and I knew she was putting a protection spell over me. Letting go of my hands, she gave me a wink.
“You’re not going alone,” I heard a familiar voice say. “I’m going with you.” It was Marshmallow. She rubbed her head against my calf.
I looked down at her and smiled. “Thank you, but whatever is going on doesn’t seem to be cat-friendly. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you and Treacle.”
“That is exactly why you’re taking me,” she insisted. A curt meow was all Aunt Astrid and Bea heard. “You’re taking me with you.” She laid her paws on my foot, and I felt the tiny prick of her claws starting to come out.
Letting out a deep sigh, I interrupted Bea and Aunt Astrid, who were still talking about the weird alignment of the facts we had so far. “It seems I won’t be going alone after all.” Marshmallow jumped up on the table.
Just then, Peanut Butter scurried around the corner in a panic. He was still young compared to Treacle and Marshmallow. He loved to visit Marshmallow when Bea brought her along. Peanut Butter would stalk, pounce, swat, and dart from room to room with just the slightest, if any, provocation. Marshmallow would watch him with dreamy and disinterested eyes.
“You can’t go,” Peanut Butter cried. “Who’ll take care of me?”
Marshmallow peered over the table and meowed back. “I have to. We have to find Treacle. I can help. He’d do it for us.”
“Then I’m going with you,” Peanut Butter said in almost a hiss.
“No,” I said firmly in my mind. “You are too young. I don’t like the idea of taking Marshmallow. I’m not taking you along, too.”
“I’ll be all alone,” Peanut Butter cried sadly.
“I’ll be back. With Treacle.”
“Promise?”
Marshmallow looked at me. She was acting brave, but I could see fear in her eyes. She was a house cat. Rarely did she go outdoors unless a bird, mouse, or cricket was within a few feet of the door.
“I promise,” I said.
Marshmallow purred and rubbed her head under my hand.
“It looks like I’ll have this furry companion to help me,” I said out loud.
“Oh no, Cath, I don’t think so,” Aunt Astrid said, scratching Marshmallow behind the ears. Then Marshmallow did something I’d never se
en her do before—she swatted Aunt Astrid’s hand away and bared her teeth. She didn’t hiss, and I don’t know if her claws were out, but Marshmallow let her mistress know she meant business.
“Sorry, Mom. Looks like you don’t have much of a say in it,” Bea said, her eyes wide with surprise.
“I promise we’ll be careful,” I said. “I won’t let her out of my sight.” But in the back of my mind, I was worried. I remembered how all the other cats behaved near that part of town. I also knew Marshmallow wasn’t like Treacle. She didn’t have experience roaming the streets, slipping along inside shadows, or making quick decisions to get away from danger. Still, she insisted, and she’d never asked to help before. Even though she loved her human family, the love of her lifelong feline friend was entirely different. She wasn’t going to leave Treacle out there if she could help it.
I placed her gently in her travel box, loaded her into my car, and headed to the Wishing Well Trailer Park. I left Aunt Astrid’s house feeling as though I were about to solve the mystery in a matter of hours. I’d have proof, a motive, and be able to tip off Jake and Blake in an anonymous phone call, giving them credit for arresting the woman who killed Marvin… his own daughter. The thought of it made me sad.
I’d give anything to see my parents again, and Marvin’s daughter was so selfish that she thought her father’s life was something to be thrown away like a toy she no longer had use for. On top of everything else, she may have kidnapped Treacle, thinking a black cat would improve her half-baked attempts at witchcraft. Nothing was going to stop me from finding her trailer even if I had to knock on every door.
Finding Treacle
The sign for the Wishing Well Trailer Park was an old, faded piece of plywood cut into the shape of a wishing well. The peeling red letters appeared to have been partially scratched off so if you looked at the sign a certain way, the only defined letters were the “h,” “ell,” and Trailer Park.
I ignored the chill running up my spine as I drove past the entrance to the Wishing Well in search of someplace to park where no one would notice us. I saw a used car lot about a quarter of a mile down the road and an office building that looked like it had once been a Pizza Hut. I decided to park in the used car lot. Thankfully, the cars in the lot looked a lot like mine. They were old, a little rusty, and not very glamorous. The only difference was that my car didn’t have the $2500 OBO or 87,000 miles written in soap on the windows. But I didn’t plan on staying around long enough for anyone to notice my car.
“You doing okay?” I asked Marshmallow. She didn’t purr as I lifted her from her box. I felt her nails instinctively come out when I held her to my chest.
“I’m okay,” she said quietly in her head.
“Do you want to walk, or should I carry you?”
“I’ll walk. It’s all right.”
Gently, I set her down. For a moment, she stood perfectly still. Her body was low to the ground as she looked around, and for a moment, I thought she was going to bolt. “There is something here, but it isn’t what you think it is. I can feel it.” She stared into the dark woods separating the trailer park from the used car lot.
“What do you see?” I asked, looking into the darkness.
“I see fear.”
As if shaking like a leaf and second-guessing my idea to visit the trailer park weren’t bad enough, my companion then said all she could see was fear. I didn’t even want to know what that looked like.
Marshmallow walked ahead of me. I knew if she heard anything, she’d stop, yet I held my breath and listened for any unusual sounds—footsteps, groaning, weird whispers, and anything else I’d seen in a horror movie. I desperately hoped I didn’t hear the rev of a chainsaw.
Okay, I was being silly. Thankfully, the ground was even. It wasn’t full of dips and mounds, and there weren’t tons of fallen trees and sticker bushes. Most of the trees were thin and relatively young by tree standards. I grabbed onto them as I walked. The darkness was thick, and I used the trees to maintain my balance. Touching nature always grounded me. Trees were real. I didn’t feel magic or spells yet.
After a few more paces, Marshmallow and I saw a faint, green-tinted fluorescent light in the distance. Squinting, I could see a few trailers in its weakly illuminated circle.
“We’re almost there,” I said. Marshmallow gave me a quiet meow as a response.
I looked behind us and could no longer see the lights of the used car dealership. It was as if the whole world had dropped into some black place. If a tree fell in the woods, and no one was around, did it make noise? If you couldn’t see the lights, was the dealership still there? If Marshmallow and I had to run back, would we eventually see the lights, or would we keep running and running in darkness?
I shook my head and focused on the lights before us. The trailers were nothing like the trailers at the front of the Wishing Well that faced the road. Those trailers had roots in a way. The people who lived in the front trailers had flowerbeds and even cement stairs leading up to their homes. I’d seen a tool shed or two and a few gazing balls. Statues of St. Francis, wind chimes, and sun catchers made the place look homey and attractive. A person driving by might think the homes didn’t fit the stereotype of a trailer park. They looked clean, pretty, and proper. But when someone got to the back of the park where we were, he would see where reality lived.
Three trailers were huddled together under the sickly green light. The trailers looked like members of the same gang, all of them beat up with dents and scratches. Two of the three trailers were most likely breaking the rules as they were supported by cinder blocks and what looked like plastic milk crates. Lit up from the inside, the windows displayed either dirty curtains drawn tightly shut, a trash bag, or thick towels preventing anyone from seeing in or out.
“This isn’t where we want to be,” Marshmallow said, stopping in front of me. She raised her head, her whiskers twitching wildly, then crouched back down on her belly. “But we aren’t far. Something is up ahead.”
I looked where Marshmallow was looking. More trailers were lit by sickly green light. The lampposts were in just as bad a shape as the rest were.
Staying within the safety and confines of the trees, we skirted along the perimeter. The pitiful light from the trailer park cast menacing shadows all around us, but I was able to see, which made me calmer. It was a big park, and I began to think it was a bad idea to go snooping around.
But this wasn’t really snooping, right? I wasn’t peeking in windows or listening to conversations. That was snooping. I was just… exploring, trying to map out the lay of the land so I could snoop around later.
“There. Up ahead. Do you see that glow?” Marshallow asked.
I looked and squinted but saw nothing.
“It’s coming from the middle of that row,” Marshmallow said. “We’ve got to go in there.”
I looked around, listening and scanning the shadows for any kind of movement, any hint that someone was watching us. But there was nothing.
“Stick to the shadows, and lead the way,” I said, watching Marshmallow morph from the lounging butterball of purring fur to a svelte predator on a mission.
We quietly and carefully slunk along the sides of the trailers, moving in between generators and storage pods until we got to where Marshmallow had seen the glow. I saw no glow. I only saw a dark trailer. It wasn’t menacing like the three at the ass-end of the park, but it wasn’t a showpiece like the ones at the entrance either.
It was simple—a white trailer, no wind chimes, no decorations on the lawn, wooden steps leading to the entrance. As I stood in the shadows, I realized I was starting to feel ill, as if something I had eaten was fussing deep in my gut. I swallowed hard and tried to shove it away.
“That’s the house that’s glowing?” I managed to say to Marshmallow but got no response. I assumed she was busy studying the terrain. Perhaps something else had caught her eye. I took a step closer to the trailer and again felt a wave of nausea settle over me. My sk
in was becoming cold and hot at the same time. I shivered, but I was also sweating. I couldn’t imagine what I could have eaten that would hit me like that.
After a few deep breaths, I began to feel better. I took a few steps closer to the plain, little trailer in the middle of the park.
A bunch of mason jars set on the steps leading to the front door. As I looked closer, I could see they had something in them. The jars held a yellow liquid and some odds and ends I couldn’t make out. I counted eight jars on the steps, and to my surprise, they were in the windows, too.
I tried to inch a little closer but stopped cold. I gripped the side of the trailer behind which Marshmallow and I were hiding. “Something is wrong with me,” I said in my mind but still got no response. “Marshmallow, what are you…”
She was staring straight at me. We couldn’t communicate. She couldn’t hear me, and I couldn’t hear her, yet we were right next to each other.
This wasn’t right. My stomach was doing flips, and I was beginning to shake. Goose bumps had risen all over my arms and shoulders. I was about to scoop up the cat and head back to the woods when I stopped and held my breath.
Headlights. And they were coming this way. I flattened myself against the aluminum siding and tried to shrink into the shadows. If the car turned right, its lights would flash across us, and we’d be seen. If it turned left, we’d be okay. Closer and closer it came. Just then, lights popped on in the trailer, and I saw a familiar face in the window.
“Treacle!” I said in a hushed, sickly voice. Could he see us? Did he know we were there? I tried calling to him in my mind, but everything bounced back to me. What was going on?
Thankfully, the approaching car veered to the left and pulled into the gravel driveway of our plain, little trailer. A short woman, who I guessed to be in her early twenties, stepped out from the driver’s side.