by Harper Lin
“I’ll show you a…”
“You won’t show me anything. Oh, I take that back. You’ll show me a bunch of cats who will do what? Scratch my furniture until I beg for mercy?” A surge of positive energy coursed through me. I suddenly realized what was happening. Jennifer, having chosen to learn from those darker shadows and beasts in other dimensions, could not maintain the upper hand for long if her victim wasn’t afraid. My gosh, how terrified had Marvin been for her to do what she did to him? “Tell me, Jennifer, what was your plan for Lucas? Did he know you were just using him? Or did he…”
“Shut your mouth, subcreature!” she screamed into the phone. Her voice was like a growl and a scream all at once.
I think I had just gone one step too far. “Yeah, okay. You’re real tough over the phone, Jennifer, but how would you be if I was right in front of you? You think I’m scared of a voice? You think I’m scared of someone who has to stick to the shadows and uses cats because she’s so horrible, she knows no one wants to even look at her?” I was shaking as the words came out of me, especially when the other end of the line had gone silent.
Then I remembered something Jake had said about the notes we received. Jennifer could do parlor tricks. She could make cats act crazy to freak us out and deliver notes, but she was still using the things in this world for most of her scare tactics. And her psychic attacks were as chaotic as her own mind was. She was no match for the Greenstones.
“Jennifer, are you still there?”
“Your whole world is going to become very dark, very soon.” Her voice was low and gravelly.
“Yeah, yeah, well, that may be. But let’s just say we handle this like big witches. You meet me by the waterfall tomorrow at one in the morning. Do you know where that is? There’s a clearing where the water begins to fall. It’s out of the way. Quiet. No way for an ambush. And let’s settle this. If you win, you get Treacle, and I’ll step aside. If I win…”
“Deal,” she said without listening to me, then the phone clicked and went dead.
I looked at the phone. The number was listed as unknown, which I thought was kind of creepy. But the decision I had made, this duel I had arranged, felt oddly comforting.
Until I remembered I had to tell Bea and Aunt Astrid.
Fight
“Are you out of your mind?” Aunt Astrid asked me the next morning after we had opened the café. “How could you just challenge her to a duel without even discussing it with us?”
I stood with my hands thrust deep in my jeans pockets as if I were back in high school and being questioned about a failed exam. I shrugged, not looking up.
“She makes people’s hearts explode!” Bea hissed so as not to be overheard by the patrons who were seated in the café, drinking. “Did you forget about that?”
“No, I didn’t forget,” I mumbled.
“Then what? What made you think this was a good idea?” Aunt Astrid asked, not caring about the people who turned to look at her. “I lost my sister because she went into something unprepared. I don’t plan on losing my niece the same way.”
I looked up at my aunt. “What do you mean my mom wasn’t prepared?” I asked quietly.
“Don’t try and change the subject. You might be in your own house, paying your own way, but Cath, you are still my responsibility. You can’t just assume you can handle anything thrown your way. Sometimes, you need to let the universe tell you what to do.”
“I thought I was. I have a hunch. I have a gut feeling that meeting her up there is the answer.”
“The answer to what?” Bea asked.
“The answer to getting her to stop.”
Aunt Astrid looked at me gravely.
“Aunt Astrid.” I leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Jennifer Skala is just a big bully. When you take away the gruesomeness, she’s no different than a punk in school.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I think I am.” I smiled weakly at both of them.
“Mom, there’s got to be some kind of passage we can find to help with this,” Bea said. “Somewhere in one of your books, there has got to be something that would help.”
Aunt Astrid planted both hands on her hips and looked around the café. “If there is, I can’t think of it offhand.”
Bea scooted gracefully around the counter, wiping her hands on her apron. “Sorry, folks, family emergency. We’re closing for the day.”
A chorus of groans went up as chairs began scraping the floor. Papers rustled, and the bell behind the door jingled as the customers slowly exited.
“We’re sorry. So Sorry. Some things just can’t be helped. But come back tomorrow for a free coffee or tea and a slice of apple pie.”
“What?” I asked. “They don’t need to get a freebie for this, do they?”
“Compliments of my soul sister here. She’ll be buying your coffee for you tomorrow. Thanks so much for understanding.” Bea continued to usher people gently toward the door, winking at me as I felt my paycheck totally disappear before I’d even earned it.
I locked up the front door and flipped the CLOSED sign. We told Kevin he was welcome to go home, but he insisted on staying and getting a jump on those free pies we’d be giving away the next day. He said he’d be sure to lock up when he left.
“We need to get the cats,” I said as everyone piled into my car. We drove to Bea’s place, then all of us, each with a cat in her arms, got back in the car.
Treacle, who was usually quite at ease in the car, was trembling in my arms. “Don’t you hear it?” he said to me. “It’s like someone keeps calling my name. I keep hearing it and wanting to go there, but…”
“It’s not what you think it is, Treacle.” I looked at the other cats. “Marshmallow, Peanut Butter, how are you guys feeling?”
“We hear it, too.” Marshmallow shifted in Aunt Astrid’s arms. “But it’s not calling Treacle. It’s calling me.”
“No,” Peanut Butter said. “It’s me. I told you it was me. I heard it first.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. She was starting already. Jennifer was going to get to me by getting to my cat first. We had to find something to stop her.
I backed out of the driveway and quickly pulled onto the street. Before I’d gotten ten feet away from the house, I slammed on the brakes, causing everyone to lurch forward.
“Look! Over there!” I pointed to a long-haired woman getting into a silver car and speeding away. She was wearing all black.
“Is that her?” Treacle asked.
“I’ll bet it is,” I said. “We have to hurry. Who knows what she’ll try to do to us while we’re on the road.”
I was right to be concerned. But instead of using forces around us, like trees falling in our path or birds swooping into the windshield, the person in the silver car drove like a maniac. She pulled in front of us then slammed on her brakes. Turning down a side street, we thought she was going another route until she made a complete circle and sped up behind us. She kept up with us for several blocks, weaving and swerving, speeding up then slamming on her brakes.
I couldn’t panic. I whispered into Treacle’s ear, keeping both hands on the wheel as my cat stared with wide green eyes out the window.
Finally, the silver car pulled away, and I hit the gas to get to Bea’s house. It seemed like every car ride I took recently managed to take a couple of years off my life. This one was no exception.
Finally at my aunt’s house, we all piled out of the car. Looking around, I noticed the street was quiet. Treacle strained and cried, trying to tear free of my arms. I knew he wanted me to let him go. I knew he missed prowling around on his own, but I couldn’t be sure whether it was his idea or Jennifer’s. I wasn’t taking any chances. He had to stay with me.
“I know, Treacle. It won’t be much longer.” I held his big, squirming body as I tried to get to the front door.
“MEOW-MEOW-EROW!” He hissed, swiping at my face and clawing a long scratch down my neck. The mark quickly turned from a hot pink t
o a thin thread of bright red as blood surfaced.
I lost my grip on him, and he landed on the ground. With one push of his strong back legs, he was off, darting into the neighbor’s yard, scooting underneath a car then out the other side to squeeze through a row of Yucca trees. Treacle had made his escape.
“Treacle!” I cried. My eyes burned instantly with tears. I took a few pathetic steps in the direction he’d run but knew I’d never be able to keep up with him, let alone catch him. “Oh, no! She’s going to get him! She told me she would. She told me what she was going to do to him. To all of them. This is all my fault!”
“Come on.” My aunt grabbed me by the hand. “She’s doing this to distract you.”
“No,” I said pitifully. “She told me on the phone. She said what she wanted and what she was going to do. She’s calling him, and he’s going to go to her. What have I done?”
Bea hurried and opened the door to her mother’s house, tossing in a skinny and high-strung Peanut Butter. She quickly came back and scooped up Marshmallow. “Cath, I know you’re scared, but we don’t have much time. If Treacle does go to her, then we need to find a way to get him back and get her in check. She’s not playing by the rules. If she has your black cat, this might be a bigger fight than we anticipated.”
“We?” I asked. “You guys can’t come.”
“Oh, right.” Aunt Astrid stomped her way toward the house. “Bea, get the books from my nightstand. Cath, in the pantry behind the cans of soup, you’ll find The Outpost of the Enderton. Grab that and—”
“I mean it. You guys can’t come. I didn’t tell her I’d meet her at the waterfall with my whole family. I just said me.” I stood on the porch as my family stepped inside then turned to look at me. The image of us right there couldn’t have been more perfect. Bea and her mom were inside the house, and I was standing at the threshold, on the porch but not in the house. It was so clear, I almost began to cry.
I didn’t want to admit it, but although I’d never felt unloved, I would always feel as if I were just outside the threshold. I don’t believe my family made me feel that way. I chose it. I knew I would always feel like that, and I had taken a stick to that snakes’ nest and poked and poked until every one of those tails rattled with hatred and aggression.
I couldn’t risk my family. They’d have each other. How awful would I feel if I left one of them feeling like I did? What if I left one of them feeling incomplete, unfinished? I couldn’t even think of it. It was too much.
“Do you think she’s going to abide by that?” Aunt Astrid scowled. “Do you think she even knows the meaning of the words ‘fair fight’? She killed a man for not being in love with her. How unreasonable is that? There is no telling what she’ll do to you if she gets the upper hand.”
I swallowed hard. “She won’t.”
“What time are you meeting her?” Aunt Astrid asked.
“I told her one in the morning. No one will be up there. Anyone around Lover’s Lane would be long gone by then. No one else would get hurt.”
“Fine,” Aunt Astrid said. “Let’s get to work, and no more talk about going solo.”
I nodded without smiling or making eye contact. I stepped over the threshold and felt a strange feeling of unfamiliarity. I wasn’t sure if the feeling was real, or if Jennifer was getting her talons in me from a distance, or if I had just gotten myself so worked up that I didn’t know what to feel.
Either way, I needed a plan, and hopefully there would be something in one of Aunt Astrid’s books to help me. I hated the sense of loneliness I felt. Yet if I could prove to my aunt and cousin that I was capable of handling myself then maybe…
What was I thinking? Maybe this would somehow bring my parents back? Maybe all my years of growing up surrounded by oddities, curiosities, and just plain weirdness would pay off? Maybe this fight would prove I had the ability to get whatever took my mom and do what? Beat it up?
I was having trouble focusing. Why was I so distracted? I turned around and faced the street. In the distance, I saw a Wonder Falls police car cruise slowly by. Why wasn’t Blake Samberg there to help?
What? Where in the world had that thought come from? I felt as though I’d spoken the words out loud, and both Aunt Astrid and Bea had heard me. I turned back to face them, my face beet red and my nerves a mess. This had to be some kind of inter-dimensional warfare. She had sprinkled some kind of fairy dust my way and was trying to get me so wrapped up in the wrong thoughts that I’d never be able to fight her.
“Cath, honey, she’s working on you already. Come on.” Bea took my hand like she did when we were little girls. I let her lead me into the house. Once Aunt Astrid shut the door, I looked around, almost surprised I was inside of the house. It was time to get to work… if I could just focus.
Dirty
After several hours, I found myself starting to doze, which was not good considering I was stretched out on Aunt Astrid’s couch, holding a four-inch thick book in front of my face.
Outside, the sky had gone from blue to violet to black, and the clock struck once, indicating ten thirty.
“Are you sure a good, old-fashioned binding spell won’t do the trick on this one?” Bea asked, wiping her hair away from her face. She and my aunt had gone through two kettles of tea, and I had eaten three brownies I’d found in the back of the freezer.
“I’m just positive she’ll be expecting that,” Aunt Astrid said. “She has probably already put up her defenses and psychically bricked them over by now. We need to find something that will enable Cath to fight fire with fire. And since Miss Skala has crossed so far into sorcery with no real knowledge of what she’s doing based on her past handiwork, she’s going to play dirty. Very dirty.”
Dirty. The word stuck in my head, and I quietly got up, setting the big book down. Tucked on a shelf between some bigger books was just what I was looking for. I’d seen it before. It was about thirty pages long and reminded me of the CliffsNotes some kids used in high school when they didn’t want to read a whole book. It was a classic witches’ spell book called Light Magic… because it was so small.
I stuffed it into my back pocket, yawned, stretched, then shrugged. “Oh, geez!” I thought fast on my feet. “I think I’m still a little nauseated from those witches’ vials.” My lie was lame, but it was all I could think of.
Both Aunt Astrid and Bea looked at me as if I’d suddenly turned green.
I didn’t say anything. I was sure they saw right through me. Then suddenly, my aunt jumped up from her seat, pushed aside the big book she was reading, and rushed over to me. “You poor thing. You’ve got to rest. You can’t have any distractions. It wasn’t smart of you to challenge this woman, but I know your intentions were to save Treacle and us.” My aunt tucked a few stray hairs behind my ear. “That’s why we’re going to help you. We’ll find a spell that will work, something that will keep you safe and maybe, just maybe, knock her out of the game.”
I looked deep into my aunt’s eyes and saw how worried she was. It tore at my heart. I never lied to her. It made my stomach fold over on itself, and I thought I was going to start actually feeling like I did at Brit’s place.
“Go lie down in my room. I’ll have Bea bring you some special tea and—”
“No. I don’t want any tea. Just a little rest. Maybe twenty minutes or so.”
“Take a little longer than that if you need to,” Be said. “We’ll be ready when it’s time to go.”
I couldn’t look at them anymore. The guilt was too much. I looked down at my feet, smiled, and headed off to my aunt’s room. Along the way, I grabbed a white candle and a book of matches from the side table in the hallway.
Once inside her room, I pulled out the little booklet and found exactly what I was looking for.
I said the words quietly over the tiny flame, lifting the spell to the four corners of the Earth and calling to my side a few familiar souls to walk with me on this scary journey.
I was scared for my family. M
ore than that, I was scared for Treacle. He was out there, and I couldn’t tell if it was because wandering was his nature, or if it was the hocus-pocus that Jennifer had cast on the felines around town. He was a tough kitty, but he was no match for that kind of black sorcery. He didn’t stand a chance. And when it was all over, if she got a hold of him and did the horrible things she had threatened, he would just be left there, alone, dying, suffering, and wondering where I was.
My eyes clouded up with tears, but I continued my vigil, requesting the simplest assistance.
Once I was finished with part one, I tiptoed to the door and listened.
“Hmmm,” I heard Bea mutter. “What about this? It’s a chant to induce a sort of hologram. Cath wouldn’t even have to actually go to the clearing. She could stay here in a circle of salt, but Jennifer would see her, hear her, yet not be able to touch her.”
“Yes, yes, that sounds good. And here, look here,” Bea said. “Since her strength would be at a lesser level, she could summon a simple silencing spell that would shut that girl’s mouth for almost seventy-two hours. That would be just enough time for us to get a hold of her and make that muteness permanent. She wouldn’t be able to summon a waiter, let alone a cessation spell.”
“Do you think that would be enough? She is a murderer.”
“We just have to stop her and trust that the universe will deal with her in an appropriate manner. It will be out of our hands by that point.”
I shook my head. Why didn’t I know about this omnipresent spell when I was taking gym class in high school, where it really would have come in handy? But this was a different situation. Jennifer had threatened my family but had singled me out because of my cat… just like Darla had singled me out because something about me rubbed her the wrong way. I couldn’t just send my shadow to fight. I had to be there no matter what my chances were. Anything other than a physical confrontation wasn’t going to stop a person like Jennifer Skala. She thrived on inducing fear. Taking away her voice, even permanently, wasn’t going to deter her. I had no doubt she would retaliate.