“What? Did you think of something?”
“If the killer knew about the secret room in the basement, why not other rooms and passages in the house?”
“My goodness, you’re right,” Belinda agreed.
“If what you say is true, and there is a witch involved, perhaps she knows about all the passages. Maybe they have some sort of deep-rooted connection to the past, to your family.”
Belinda had a sordid family history of black magic, much of it tied in with the strange manor where she’d grown up.
“A witch who has either used black magic to live an extra-long time or has at least had secrets passed down to her.”
“What other secrets do we know about in this house? Just the library?” Sonja asked, thinking of the hidden stairwell from behind the bookcase down to the freezer in the basement.
“We better check there first,” she said.
The two women rushed to the library which stood silent, dark, and empty when they arrived. Everyone else was still huddled in the ballroom.
“Turn on the light,” Belinda instructed. Sonja did just that, bathing the room in a soft glow. The setting gave Sonja a chill. She remembered the first time she had even stepped foot in the manor a few years back. She’d only just met Belinda and they had performed a séance to summon the spirit of a murder victim.
Now, as she and her friend hunted down clues of a new killer, some of those memories and sensations came flooding back.
“The bookcase,” Belinda insisted.
Walking over that way, Sonja felt around for the switch. Pulling it, the bookcase swung open.
“Look,” the feline investigator shouted, dashing forward and bending over the stone entrance. Sonja instantly saw what it was her friend had found.
A single blue feather lay on the floor.
“The killer came through here as well,” Sonja gasped.
Chapter Eight
“I think there is definitely a witch here in the house,” Belinda asserted.
“W-We need to get Frank,” Sonja noted, feeling a wash of nausea come over her. She didn’t want to admit it, but she’d about had it with witches and ghosts. It was like these paranormal forces were constantly stepping into her life and messing things up.
Too many times had she been targeted by either a murderer, a ghost, or a witch. If not that, then she always found herself somehow in the middle of an investigation.
Now, if another witch was intent on harming her, she felt done with the whole thing. It seemed unfair that it was always her parties or events that got interrupted.
“Are you okay? You look a little pale,” Belinda asked.
“I’m fine,” she lied, feeling a sickening combination of anxiety and anger bubbling in her chest.
“Maybe you should lie down, or at least sit down,” the feline suggested.
“I just can’t take it anymore, Belinda. Why do these murderers always have to do their dirty work around me?”
The cat sashayed over and jumped up on a chair. “You know why,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Because of my supernatural power, the veil between the land of the living and the dead is thinner.”
“Thus, drawing in all manner of evil and malice to this place.”
“I just want to have a quiet, normal holiday for once. Why can’t Halloween just be about cheesy ghosts, vampires, and witches? I want the style of horror you always see in those goofy old black and white movies. I don’t want the real deal hanging around in my life all the time.”
The cat looked down at herself in quiet unspoken shame.
Sonja blinked back her frustration, which had begun to manifest itself as tears in the corners of her eyes. “Oh, Belinda, I didn’t mean you.”
The animal looked up at her friend. “I can’t blame you. It is a hard and scary life to be open to all manner of spiritual evil.”
Belinda wasn’t sharing her real thoughts, Sonja instinctively knew. While she was upset about having the ability to see ghosts, her friend was stuck living the rest of her life as a cat. Surely that was a worse shake from fate than helping bring justice to the world through ghostly murder investigations.
“You’re right, Belinda. I’m being selfish.” Picking up the animal from where she had perched, Sonja held her close, stroking her back. “We’re in this together, like we always have been.”
Without provocation, the cat jumped down out of Sonja’s arms. “Go ahead and go back to the cottage. Sit down and take a breather for a while. I’ll run and tell Frank about the feather here,” she said.
Sonja tried to argue, but Belinda insisted that her friend take a break.
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You haven’t, but I can’t help thinking about that omen from earlier. I think that perhaps you are the real target and the private eye fellow is either a cover-up or simply got in the way.”
Sonja had a sudden realization. “What if he was sent to protect me?”
“My thoughts exactly. Now, it’s just as easily true that he could have been here to harm you, but somehow it doesn’t feel right.”
“I think you’re on the right track.”
“In any case, maybe you should step out of the way for a tiny bit. If someone here still means you harm, maybe being directly involved in the investigation isn’t the best choice.”
Sonja realized her friend was trying to give her a break and protect her at the same time. She decided to take it as a kind offer. Having a few minutes to think things over alone might even help her piece things together. “Okay. I’m going.”
“And I’ll tell Frank about this feather.”
“Be fast. I’m worried that the killer could be hiding out in some other secret passage or room we don’t know about yet.”
“On it,” the cat said, trotting off to find the sheriff.
The cottage on the estate grounds had originally been built as a servant’s home. However, it was far cozier and more comfortable than the manor house, in Sonja’s opinion. Even just stepping through the door, she could feel a sense of the weight being lifted off her shoulders. Besides her little ghost cat, Misty, the place had always seemed devoid of the usual spooks that infested the rest of Haunted Falls. It was like a haven for Sonja, and she loved it.
She had a sense of pride and thankfulness welling up in her chest as she thought of her good friend Belinda who had asked her and Frank to live there.
Now, more than ever, she was doing her friend a favor. As a cat, Belinda could hardly take care of estate matters on her own. As the executor, Sonja could help in every way.
Heading into the small living room with the small alcove she’d turned into a reading nook with a beautiful bay window, Sonja glanced over the shelf of DVDs she’d collected over the years. Most of them were classic films of some sort, many of them in the horror genre. They were goofy and fun to watch and took her mind off things. She figured now was as good a time as any to throw one on and shut off her brain.
Sometimes, not thinking about a problem led to a solution.
Choosing a copy of House of Dracula, she reached up to grab the DVD case. As she did, she felt a brush of chilly air on her arm and then the stack of movies tilted as if something had just run into them.
However, that ever-familiar tingle along her skin on her neck didn’t come.
“Huh?” Sonja wondered out loud.
Another small brush of chilly air followed, and the movies tilted again, almost falling out. If there was anything that Misty loved to do, it was knocking things over like a tiny poltergeist.
There was something wrong, though, something that bothered Sonja to her core. Anytime Misty, or any ghost for that matter, came near she could feel them through the tingling sensation in her skin.
More than that, she could almost always see them once they came out from wherever they were hiding.
“Misty?” Sonja called out.
Another brush of air passed her leg as if the invisible anima
l were trying to cuddle her.
Still, she couldn’t see her ghostly friend. Why couldn’t she see it?
She thought of Frank and how he interacted with the ghost. It was only in brief brushes of cold air and the occasional knocked over item. He couldn’t see the cat because he didn’t have a sixth sense as Sonja did.
However, now Sonja couldn’t see the animal either.
Had she lost her ability to see the animal? Could it be that somehow her supernatural ability was fading or gone altogether?
A horrible thought suddenly popped into her head. She needed to talk to her father and possibly Belinda and she needed to do it now. Marching back out the door, she headed for the manor.
Chapter Nine
Something in Sonja’s gut nagged her, pushing her to believe her father knew something about what was happening to her. However, he was hiding it, pretending he knew nothing. She didn’t know why, but something about the way he talked to the gentleman in green—the private detective who was now dead—made her believe there was more than a passing relationship between the men.
However, what could that relationship be? Surely her own father wasn’t involved in any kind of crime. A few years back, the finger had been pointed at him as the culprit of a murder. She’d worked hard to prove his innocence.
She simply couldn’t believe he would fall into any sort of criminal activity now, and surely not murder, after all her work to clear his name and rebuild her own relationship with him. He himself had the ability to see spirits. His fear that his own daughter would have the same caused him to leave for several years.
At the time, she’d been sure he’d left her mother for another woman or something equally selfish and horrible. It wasn’t until recently that he returned and revealed the truth. Ever since then, he’d been back in her life and had the occasional habit of trying too hard to protect her from ghosts and what-not.
Sonja got it from both sides between her father and her husband.
Now, she wondered if his desire to protect her was somehow playing into this whole current homicide case.
Still, before jumping to any harsh conclusions, she decided she needed to ask Belinda. If anyone knew anything about what was going on, it was her. Belinda had more hard and fast knowledge about the occult than anyone else Sonja knew.
She found her animal friend sitting outside the door to the library. “Hey, I thought you were taking a break in the cottage?” Belinda scolded her.
“I have something I need to talk to you about right away.”
“Frank’s investigating the passageway with one of his deputies right now,” she said, seeing Sonja’s pained expression and thinking it had more to do with the murder case than anything else.
“Is he onto anything?” Sonja wondered, hoping that if Frank could catch the culprit that maybe it would explain why she suddenly couldn’t see her trusty ghost companion. Her experience in the cottage was something far too similar to what Frank seemed to feel and see when he encountered Misty. It was all brushes of cool air and moving objects.
“I believe he’s at least got an idea about how the murderer moved around. If they changed out of the blue outfit in the room in the basement, then it also means they likely used the secret passageway from the library to sneak past the party and downstairs without being seen by any guests.”
Sonja nodded. “That makes sense to me.”
Belinda wagged her tail. “But I have to wonder if they used even another passage or two that we don’t both know about yet. Perhaps there is even one from the tower all the way down to here somehow. If the killer really has such a deep knowledge of the house to use two of the secrets we already knew about, why wouldn’t they know even more?”
“I would say that the person had to have lived in the house here at one time or another,” Sonja asserted. “Enough time to explore every nook and cranny for secrets.”
“I spent my life here and even I don’t know them all. Of course, growing up as a little kid, I wasn’t always the smartest at finding things. Heck, if my dad asked me to grab something from his study for him, I rarely was able to find it myself. I usually had to rely on a maid to help me.”
“So, who could have that deep of a knowledge of the house?” Sonja wondered.
“Perhaps there are old blueprints of the original design and they got their hands on them.”
“But, why? I still don’t understand the motive,” Sonja asserted.
“Like I mentioned earlier. I truly think that some black magic is involved here somehow. I mean, that strange circle painted on the floor below the victim is one thing.”
Sonja set her teeth, beginning to really believe more and more that the circle had some sort of strange effect on her.
Could it really be that the killer’s real target was herself or was it that they were protecting her from the man in green? Perhaps the private detective was a warlock or witch himself. Perhaps the omen was a warning about him and one of Sonja’s loved ones took matters into their own hands.
She shook her head. None of it was making sense.
Worse yet, nothing could explain her sudden loss of paranormal sight. “There is something more I wanted to talk about, something I think is at the middle of this whole situation.”
The cat’s ears turned back as if it were listening intently. “Did you find a new clue?”
“You might say that.” She paused, almost afraid to say what she was thinking. “While I was in the cottage, I think Misty walked by me.”
“You think?” the cat questioned, not sure about what her friend meant.
“I couldn’t see Misty. It was just a flash of cold and then my DVDs falling over.”
Belinda stared up at her friend with bewilderment in her glowing cat eyes. She was slowly taking this new information in. “You mean to say that you missed seeing Misty or you literally couldn’t see the ghost?”
Sonja let out a long breath as she came to terms with what she was about to say next. “I couldn’t see. I honestly think my paranormal sense is fading.”
“You’re serious?”
“I wish I wasn’t,” she admitted, throwing up her arms in desperation. “I mean, that’s why I’m talking to you. No one else knows as much about the occult as you do.”
“And you believe it has something to do with the circle in the tower?”
“Absolutely. I mean, I passed out as soon as I stepped inside of it. Maybe it did something to me.”
Belinda began pacing like a caged tiger. “I’ve read theories about this sort of thing, that people’s powers fade because they no longer want them or don’t utilize them.”
“But that isn’t the case at all.”
“No, you’re right. If what you’re saying is true, this is an outside force that has affected you somehow.” She paused dead in her tracks.
“So, what could it be?”
“There are many ancient rituals that we don’t know about, things that are meant to change people. Heck! Look at me. If there is magic to turn me into a cat, why not one to take away someone’s supernatural sensitivity?”
“So, you think it’s magic?”
“Black magic. It has to be black magic.”
The cat and her friend looked at one another, knowing what this meant. It confirmed their suspicions, and their fears, once and for all. Sonja said what they were both thinking out loud. “So, it’s true, then. There is a witch or warlock somewhere in this manor.”
“I think so.”
Sonja bit her lower lip. “And somehow, I think my dad is involved.”
Chapter Ten
As Sonja marched into the ballroom, some of the guests looked up with interest. However, upon seeing that it wasn’t Frank or either of his deputies, they lost interest. They were all waiting on some word from the police to either find out if the road would be clear or they could be allowed to leave. With only two deputies, Frank had his hands full searching the house and grounds and investigating the crime scene.
&nbs
p; Since those two jobs took current precedence, it left him with no extra hands to keep an eye on the party guests. Consequently, he had asked Sonja’s father to keep watch over everyone and make sure no one started wandering aimlessly around the manor. Seeing as most of the guests were friends of Frank’s, they seemed willing to wait in the ballroom for the time being.
The DJ had even continued to play music for a while to keep people’s spirits up and retain some semblance of a party. However, the sense that there was a killer among them drove out much of the festive spirit and everyone had quieted down.
Halloween Waffle Murder Page 5