Pawsitively Cursed

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  “If we stay cooped up in here too much longer, I’m going to lose it,” Willow eventually said. “You know I love you, but you live in a shoebox.”

  Amber straightened at that, Willow’s arm dropping away. “It’s quaint!”

  “I’ve seen postage stamps bigger!”

  A slight smile tugged at the corners of Amber’s mouth. It felt like the first time she’d smiled in days.

  “I saw that!”

  Amber shooed her away and finally got to her feet. Willow followed suit. They stared at each other for a moment before Amber pulled her into another tight hug.

  They broke the embrace, then wordlessly cleaned up the mangled lion, dumping the parts onto the counter.

  “I might have a couple ideas on how to fix this, if you’ll let me fuss with it,” Willow said.

  “Yes, please!” Amber said. “My magic is glitching something awful lately.”

  Crossing her arms, Willow turned to Amber and rested her hip against the counter. “Any ideas on what we can do next? All joking aside, we really can’t stay cooped up here for much longer. Gretchen has a life to get back to. I have a job. We have to figure out who the Penhallow is.”

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t know,” Willow said, throwing her arms in the air, unable to keep her frustration in check. “Find out what they want?”

  “Already know that,” Amber said. “Me. Dead.”

  Willow’s mouth bunched into a tight pucker. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Sorry,” she said, frowning. A thought she’d had since Aunt Gretchen arrived started worming its way to the forefront of Amber’s mind again. “When was the last time you saw Edgar?”

  “Gosh,” Willow said, head cocked. “Fourteen years?”

  “How do you feel about a little family reunion?”

  They waited another two days, both so Willow could complete the lion toy in time for the boy’s party, and so Amber could get Lily and Daisy Bowen to help Gretchen man the store for a few hours on Saturday. Under normal circumstances, their aunt would have protested about them going to see Edgar without her, or being left to run the shop, but given the last conversation between Gretchen and Amber, a lot of her aunt’s usual spunkiness had dried up.

  Amber’s anger at Gretchen had slowly turned from a boiling rage to a lingering sense of what she could only describe as betrayal. She knew it was only a matter of time before she cracked and forced another conversation with her aunt. But Saturday was not that day.

  Amber and Willow called a goodbye to their aunt and the two Bowen sisters in the morning, just before the shop was due to open. Willow stepped out into the thankfully mild February morning, but before Amber could follow her, someone lightly grabbed hold of her arm.

  She turned to find her aunt staring up at her with wide, desperately sad eyes. “Tell Edgar I say hello.”

  “Okay,” she said, offering her a tight-lipped smile before she turned to leave again.

  But Gretchen grabbed at her arm once more. Keeping her voice low so the Bowen girls couldn’t overhear, Gretchen said, “Before you leave, drink the tinctures I left in your purse. They should protect you both from a Penhallow attack—but likely only one blast of cursed magic each. It should give you enough time to flee, though, should you need to.”

  Amber stared at her, wondering not only when she’d made the tinctures, but when she’d slipped them into her bag. Gretchen had her bottom lip caught between her teeth now, giving Amber something akin to puppy dog eyes. The last time Amber had seen her aunt this sad, it had been the days after the death of Amber’s parents.

  A slight twinge in her chest caused Amber to pull her aunt into a hug. The woman gave a squeak of surprise before she wrapped her arms around Amber’s waist, squeezing tight. Her aunt smelled like shampoo and mint. She smelled like home.

  When they pulled away, Gretchen’s eyes were a little glassy. She tentatively reached up and placed a cool hand on Amber’s cheek. “I truly am sorry, little mouse. For everything.”

  “I know,” she said. “We’ll talk later, okay?” With that, Amber slipped out the door of the Quirky Whisker.

  Amber could feel her aunt’s eyes on her as she walked away.

  “Everything okay?” Willow asked as Amber slid into the passenger seat of Willow’s car. “I see no visible wounds.”

  Amber laughed weakly. “We’re fine.”

  Willow pulled out onto Russian Blue Avenue, heading for the area of town not far from the Sippin’ Siamese. Edgar lived beyond the little bar, though—out in the sticks. Amber often wondered how his family had managed to find the house in the first place.

  “Have you been out here before?” Amber asked, her stomach in knots.

  “Yeah, but never went in the house,” Willow said. “Mom drove out here with me a couple times to bring Edgar stuff, but I always stayed in the car. Place has always given me the willies.”

  Amber had last seen Edgar nearly three years ago. He’d stopped answering her calls months before, so she’d resorted to swinging by his house occasionally. He only let her in once, and they hadn’t gotten past the foyer before he got spooked and kicked her out. She tried bringing him pastries, groceries, and even gifts. The marble cat statue that had taken a tumble earlier and lost a tail and part of an ear had been something she’d bought for Edgar. It stayed on his porch for a week. On the seventh day of swinging by to see if he’d at least taken her offering into the house, the marble cat had a note tied around his neck that read, “Go away and take your unwanted gifts with you. The Blackwoods are dead to me.”

  She hadn’t returned.

  With an air of trepidation, only fifteen minutes from Edgar’s house now, Amber told her about the marble cat incident.

  Willow let out a long, gusty sigh. “Probably would have been a good thing to mention that before we left, Amber! What if he has a loaded shotgun by the door or something?”

  Amber didn’t reply to that.

  The closer one got to the southern end of Edgehill, the more rural it became. They traveled up a two-lane road, flanked on both sides by quaking aspen, their trunks thin and white. There must have been a slight breeze, because the leaves were in a tizzy, quaking on their branches like a sea of green butterflies. The leaves would be a vibrant yellow in the fall, making their stark white trunks stand out in the landscape even more. Amber cranked her window down a fraction to let in the cool air. The sky was a bright, cloudless blue. An orange butterfly winged its way from one side of the road to the other.

  “The turn is coming up here in a few,” Amber said. “It’s easy to miss; there’s no sign.”

  “It’s hard to believe anyone lives out here,” Willow said.

  They hadn’t seen another car for the past ten minutes.

  The forest of quaking aspen started to give way to tall grasses on one side.

  “Here it is on your left,” Amber said, pointing.

  The dirt road had waist-high grass growing on either side. With a muted whimper, Willow needlessly put on her blinker, then turned her little sedan onto the road, where it bumped along the uneven path. Willow slowed her car to a crawl, branches and leaves smacking the car like the hands of a protesting crowd.

  Slap, slap, slap. “We don’t want you here. He told you to go away.” Slap, slap, slap.

  Amber chewed on her bottom lip.

  Ahead, an old fence—so overgrown with ivy that it was impossible now to see what was beneath it—stretched out to the left, marking the start of Edgar’s property. The gate was forever stuck open, as the vines had claimed it on the other side of the opening, too. The twisting vines had also ensnared a tree just behind the fence, wrapped tightly around the trunk like a thick green blanket. The branches of the oak draped over the opening in the fence, creating an almost perfectly constructed archway. It would have looked like something out of a fairytale to anyone who didn’t know better.

  As they passed though the arch, Amber’s hand firmly clutched the “Oh crap!” handl
e above the door to help counterbalance the excessive bouncing Willow’s poor car had to endure.

  The property was walled in on three sides by the vine-choked fence, pine trees stretching up behind it to help fully close him off from the world. They reached into the air like the long, plump fingers of a giant, ones that could hinge forward and crush them should Amber and Willow do something to upset the master of the house. Which, given Amber’s history with the man, would likely happen sooner rather than later.

  They continued down the path, the expansive area on either side of them overgrown with weeds. The grasses were as tall as the car’s doors in some places. Amber could only imagine what manner of creature hid in all this.

  After a slight curve in the road to the right, the house sprang into view. It was a two-story, modest-sized wooden monstrosity. Dying shrubs and tall weeds rose up around the structure, almost surrounding the wide porch. A couple of the windows on the top floor were boarded over. Amber sensed no movement from inside.

  A truck sat out front, but it was just as old, dusty, and dilapidated as everything else here. Willow slowly pulled up next to the rundown vehicle, the crunch of tires over rocks and packed earth sounding too loud in Amber’s ears. She rolled up her window. Edgar’s only means of transportation, as far as Amber could tell, was a rusting, white pickup truck with a flat back tire. Luckily the tall grasses had been cut back around most of the house’s front steps. Otherwise, they’d have needed a machete to get to the door.

  Amber and Willow sat in silence, staring at the house for a long time.

  “What if he’s not home?” Willow asked, voice ticking up at the end in a hopeful tone.

  “He’s home,” Amber said. “I called from a blocked number about an hour ago. He answered, sounding very tired and grumpy.”

  “Great,” Willow deadpanned.

  Pulling her purse onto her lap, Amber found Gretchen’s protection tinctures in the same inner pocket as her rubber cat. She handed one to Willow.

  With a delicate clink of the small glass vials, they uncorked them and knocked back the contents. Then both immediately coughed and gagged.

  “Ugh! It tastes like gasoline!” Amber said, her eyes watering. She coughed, beating a fist against one knee, one eye squinted shut.

  “Gasoline and despair,” Willow said, heel of her palm pressed between her eyes as if the pressure would dispel the horrible taste somehow.

  It took a full minute for them to collect themselves. Willow noisily blew her nose.

  After shuddering violently, Amber placed the empty vials back in her purse. “Ready?” Without waiting for a reply, she climbed out of the car, leaving her purse on the floorboard. The warm sun beat down on her face. The sound of birdsong was loud and raucous. She imagined it could be lovely to sit out on the porch here in the mornings to listen to the birds sing and scrabble in the brush.

  But the house, much like cousin Edgar, didn’t give off a friendly, welcoming vibe.

  A grumpy-looking black-and-white cat was crouched on all fours on the pickup’s hood. It fled the moment Amber made eye contact. Edgar’s cat wasn’t friendly either.

  The wooden steps groaned underfoot as Amber cautiously ascended. Weeds poked through the slats of the porch. A lizard scurried across the wood and landed with a crunch in the tall brush ringing the patio.

  Amber had just reached the front door when she glanced over at Willow. She had her arms folded tight across her chest, looking this way and that as if she were sure a mountain lion were lying in wait, ready to pounce. “Get over here, you! We need your charm.”

  Willow scoffed. “This is a terrible idea,” she said, but moved to stand beside Amber, their arms flush. “How do you expect me to charm a guy who wants nothing to do with people? I mean, can he get any more obvious?” She gestured to the rug below their feet.

  The mat was black with a red trim. In a cheery font, it said, “There Is No Reason For You To Be Here.”

  “Subtle,” Amber said.

  “I feel bad for the guy who had to deliver it,” said Willow. “I bet all the drivers at Patch’s Pizza draw straws to determine who doesn’t come out here.”

  “I bet they make the new kid do it,” said Amber. “Initiation ritual. If you can deliver the pizza to Old Man Henbane, then you’re one of us. Like when kids dare each other to ring the doorbell at the scariest house on Halloween.”

  “That’s probably this one, too!” Willow said with a laugh.

  Just then, a sharp click startled them both. The rational part of Amber’s brain told her it was a bolt sliding free on the inside of the door. The irrational part said it was half of the schlock-schlock of a shotgun being loaded. Aunt Gretchen would be so upset with them if they managed to get shot on Edgar’s porch.

  Amber grabbed her sister’s arm, then slightly stepped behind her.

  “Are you really trying to use me as a meat shield right now?” Willow hissed. “You’re the older sister. You’re supposed to protect me.”

  Click, click, click. Shlock, schlock. Click. Schlock.

  Amber flinched with each one, her fingernails digging further and further into Willow’s arm. Lord only knew how much more reclusive, grouchy, and hostile Edgar had grown in three years.

  Then the door opened a crack and a sliver of man’s profile came into view. It was unsettlingly dark in the house, but Amber still managed to make out Edgar’s wild mop of black hair, his gray T-shirt and sweatpants, one slippered foot, and the bright white of one eye as the dark brown iris darted in Willow’s direction, then Amber’s, then back again.

  “I thought I told you not to come back,” came a gruff male voice.

  Amber swallowed, but before she could get a word out, Willow piped up. “Hi, cousin. Do you remember me? I’m Willow. I must have been fourteen the last time you saw me.”

  Her voice was high and light, but Amber sensed how coiled tight she was, as Amber was still clutching her arm. Her very tense arm.

  Edgar grunted in response.

  “Can we come in and talk?” Amber ventured, prepared to have the door slammed in her face. It had happened enough times in the past; there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t happen again.

  “No,” he said.

  At the same time that he went to slam the door, Willow raised her hand, palm out. The screws holding the doorknob in place all unscrewed themselves. They fell to the wood below with a series of tiny clinks, like metallic rain. Moments later, the knobs on either side fell with a clatter.

  Edgar growled like an angry bear, then flung the door open. Amber and Willow jumped back. Amber had yet to let go of Willow, the two now taking slow steps down the patio while Edgar, a disheveled mess, stalked toward them like a starved animal just released from his cage. His attention snapped to Amber. “I told you before, Blackwood, that your family was dead to me. That means no phone calls, no presents on my doorstep, and no destruction of my property.”

  Amber’s back hit the railing behind her and she yelped, almost losing her footing and flipping over into the brush below with the hiding lizards.

  “I didn’t destroy anything,” Willow squeaked out, her shoulders bunched up by her ears. “I can fix it.”

  He stopped a foot in front of them, his eyes wild. Sweat stains lined the area by his armpits and his beard and hair gave off the distinct impression that he’d been struck by lightning. Twice. The dark blue slippers on his feet were so worn, Amber could see a hint of his big toe poking through. “Can you two not read? I got that mat specifically for you, Amber. There is no reason for you—for anyone—to be here. Leave. I have nothing to say to you.”

  He turned and stalked back to his open front door, lifting a hand as he went. The screws and doorknobs were back in place before he crossed the threshold.

  “A maid was killed,” Amber blurted, then slightly shrunk behind her sister again.

  Edgar stilled, hand on the newly fastened doorknob, his back to Amber and Willow. When he didn’t move for several long seconds, Willo
w detached Amber from her arm and gave her a slight shove toward Edgar.

  Amber stumbled forward a couple steps, then shot a wide-eyed look of horror at her sister. She held her hands out, as if to say, “What am I supposed to say now?”

  Willow swept her fingers in Amber’s direction, as if to say, “Don’t know! But hurry up and think of something before he slams the door in our faces!”

  “It happened at the Manx Hotel three days ago,” Amber said, focusing her attention on her cousin’s back. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she clasped one over the other in hopes that would get them to stop shaking. “We think Aunt Gretchen was the target. The maid’s body was found in her room.”

  He turned then, thick black brows pulled together. “Why do you think I care?”

  “Because the door’s still open?”

  Somehow his brows pulled even closer together.

  “She’s your aunt too,” Amber said. “I thought—”

  “Thought what? That I’d want to get involved with all this simply because you want me to? How many times do I have to tell you to go away—that I’m not interested—before you get the hint?You have a knack for getting so caught up in what you want that you disregard everyone else’s feelings. But like mother, like daughter, right?”

  Amber pursed her lips, her fists clenching. Would it be in poor judgment to clock her cousin in the face? Yet, what he said hit home even harder than it would have otherwise, as it wasn’t unlike what Willow had said to her earlier. Were they right? Was she too singularly focused? Had her mother been too? Her cheeks flamed.

  Edgar’s mom had passed away from diabetes complications when they were kids. There were few illnesses magic could truly heal. His father had been in Edgehill until Edgar turned twenty-one—a few years before Amber did—and then abruptly left after Amber’s parents died, leaving Edgar behind. Amber had no idea where the guy was now, and given Edgar’s current venomous expression, was too scared to ask about him. Edgar had been on his own out here in this falling-apart house ever since.

  “Go away, Amber,” he said, the edge in his voice gone now. “I’m not a Blackwood. I’m not a Caraway. I’m barely a Henbane. I’m no one, okay? I can’t help you. I don’t want to. I don’t remember anything. Just leave me alone.” He started to close the door.