The Scariest Tail (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 4) (3 page)

B
lake said
her eyes welled up with tears again as she wrapped up her story.

“I just kept asking John to hold on and asking why,” Lisa had said. “Why would he do this to himself? Why would he leave me all alone? I held his hand and could feel bones rolling around inside, broken and ripped from their muscles. I told him not to move. I don’t know if he heard me or not. His eyes were barely open. So much blood was coming out of his ears.”

“So what did Samberg think of all this?” I asked Bea. I couldn’t help but think a guy so grounded in reality would have felt as though she were yanking his chain.

Bea shrugged. “Blake said he didn’t know what to think about Lisa’s story. But he did say that if there were some local kids around playing tricks on the more seasoned citizens of Wonder Falls, and this was the result… well, I don’t have to tell you how he’d plan on handling it. He doesn’t play.”

“No, he doesn’t,” I concurred. I thought back to the one time I had seen Blake interrogate a suspect. It was my good friend Min. Even though Blake had been wrong to think Min had anything to do with the crime, he’d certainly known how to interrogate. Heaven help the guy or guys who Blake had to interrogate for this prank.

“So, are we talking about what I think we’re talking about?” Aunt Astrid asked, standing up and shuffling behind the counter to grab the full pot of coffee. “This sounds like black-eyed children.” She went around to the tables, making a little small talk as she refilled coffee cups and picked up empty dishes.

I looked at Bea with wide eyes. “I thought black-eyed children were an urban legend—Internet hoaxes like Slender Man and
The Grudge
type of stories.”

“I don’t know,” Bea said, “but remember, I had to blow this off like it was a whole lot of hoo-ha. I couldn’t tell Blake that back before the trials in 1692, women in the craft could often change their eye color to blue, green, brown, and sometimes black just as easily as they could change their clothes. I couldn’t let on that in other instances, jet-black eyes indicated something was possessed by a demon.”

“Or demons,” Aunt Astrid added.

“But that’s if we believe this was a real occurrence and not what Samberg says it is,” I said. “A couple of kids playing games and freaking people out just for the fun of it. What do we do?”

Aunt Astrid put the coffee pot back on the burner and turned to face Bea and me. “I’ll tell you what we need to do. We need to do some research and find out if anywhere in history, these kinds of things have been seen before. Cath, bring your laptop to my house and check on the Internet to see if you notice any similarities in any of the stories online or if you think they’re mostly fiction. Bea, you can help me look through the library and see if we can find any references to children with black eyes. That is where I suggest we start.” Aunt Astrid pushed her wild, flowing locks back behind her shoulder and straightened her back.

“So meet at your house. Will there be food there?” I asked.

“Maybe we should order some Chinese food?” Bea suggested.

“Count me in.” I grabbed a rag and got to work, cleaning up the empty tables and washing the dishes.

I was surprised the rest of the afternoon went by smoothly and without any crisis or incident. Plenty of our regular customers came in, including my friend Min and his sweetheart Amalia.

“Hey, Cath!” She waved excitedly as she walked in. “I gotta ask you a favor.”

“Okay.” I looked her up and down suspiciously. “Step into my office.” We took a couple of steps away from the counter as Min gave me a happy wave and talked with Bea. “What can I do for you?”

“Min mentioned to me that you were a really fantastic artist,” she said.

I shook my head, a little surprised. I had loved to draw in high school, and I wasn’t bad at it, but I’d never thought I was fantastic. I kept most of my artistic endeavors to myself. Only Treacle knew that I kept a sketchpad under my bed, and that was only because he was one of my favorite subjects.

“I’ve been known to dabble. Why?”

She looked around at Min then back at me, putting her hand up as if whispering a secret.

“Min’s birthday is coming up.”

“Holy moly! You’re right. I completely forgot. Thanks for reminding me.”

“Hey, no biggie,” she said. “But what I wanted to ask you was if you thought you could draw a picture for Min’s birthday. I’ll pay you, of course. And I’ll take care of putting it in a frame. But I think it would be an awesome gift to give him. We can even make it from both of us.”

“Well, I think I could if you give me a picture to draw from. And I’d never take any money from you for it. That is out of the question.”

“I’ve got a picture already. I was hoping you’d say yes.” She giggled joyfully as she dug in her purse, which was the size of a small suitcase. She pulled out an envelope to hand to me, and she was practically bouncing with excitement. I tucked it into my back pocket just as Min was sauntering over, holding two to-go cups of Bea’s fabulous tea with lavender-infused honey.

“What are you two talking about?” he asked, leaning in to give me a peck on the cheek.

“Nothing,” Amalia said. “Just plotting world domination one coffee shop at a time. You want in?”

“Is that all?” Min asked.

“That and where to get some really tasty barbeque ribs.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Amalia came up with the oddest things to say, but she was the only person I knew who could get away with saying them and sound totally sane.

“What are you guys doing tonight?” I asked, waiting to hear the details of some horribly romantic plan that included champagne and rose petals and violins.

“I’ve actually got to catch a red-eye to New York tonight,” Min said. “I have a meeting with some board members for I can’t even remember what. So this tea is about it, then I’ll be on my way.”

“I’ve got a double shift at the nursing home, so I’m going to work and then recuperate for another two days.”

“It’s tough having to work for a living, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yeah, if only we knew someone who could pay all our bills and buy all our groceries for us all the time,” Amalia said with such a hysterically funny serious face that I thought I was going to bust a gut.

“They should pay just to be our friends,” I added.

“Right?” She looked up at Min and started to laugh.

“I think I might start paying to keep you two away from each other,” he said. “Amalia, you’re a bad influence. Or wait, is it Cath who’s the bad influence? Either way, you two together are too much.”

I laughed and slipped behind the counter. I grabbed two homemade biscotti dipped in caramel and chocolate, tossed them into one of our festive orange-and-purple Halloween Brew-Ha-Ha carry-out bags, and handed them to Amalia.

“On the house. And Amalia, stop in after you’ve recovered from your double shift. We can talk some more.”

“I’ll do that.”

She and Min waved good-bye and left the café. Just a short while later, we were all locking the place up and arranging to meet at Aunt Astrid’s house for some research and Chinese food.

I really didn’t expect for things to take the turn they did.

W
hen I got home
, I went to my bedroom and pulled out my sketchbook and pencils. The pages mostly contained detailed images of Treacle. I drew them as lifelike as I could.

There were also a couple of drawings of the Brew-Ha-Ha immediately after the fire. I had gone back in the early morning after the investigation of the mysterious fire to scribble a few sketches.

I’d also drawn a caricature of Darla as a zombie that felt extremely satisfying to put on paper. I’d made sure every boil, blister, and patch of decay was as realistic as possible. The picture made me smile every time I saw it.

After tossing the book and pencils on my bed, I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and threw it on top of them. I’d start drawing later. I grabbed my laptop and headed back out, happy that I had some research and Chinese food to tend to.

As I walked down the sidewalk and crossed the street, I noticed that the tension I had felt in the air that morning was gone. I saw people driving, raking leaves, and jogging. My little part of Wonder Falls seemed back to normal, at least. Who knew what was going on just one block over? The world could have dropped off over there, and I would never know it.

After I let myself into Aunt Astrid’s house, I inhaled deeply, smelling the wonderful aroma of egg rolls and my favorite, beef and peppers.

“Hey, we got you some tofu and sprouts,” Bea shouted from the kitchen. I passed by a stack of paperback novels on Aunt Astrid’s coffee table as I walked through the living room. She had a frighteningly complete collection of Jackie Collins novels, her guilty pleasure.

“I do hope you’re kidding,” I said as I stepped into the kitchen. Unlike Bea’s very modern home, Aunt Astrid had a flair for the traditional. The walls of her kitchen were painted an olive green. Everyone gathered around a thick oak table that had a bench on one side and mismatched chairs on the other. Her living room was boho-chic to match her peace-and-love attitude. And every flat surface was covered with at least one stack of books.

I cleared myself a small square of wood on the bench at the table, sat down, and propped my computer up on a stack of books so I could eat while I did my research.

“Bea, don’t tease your cousin so much. It isn’t her fault she can eat anything she wants and not gain a pound.” Aunt Astrid placed my container of pepper steak, rice, and three egg rolls in front of me.

I looked over the books at Bea, who was crossing her eyes at me.

“Oh, what did you get?” I asked her, more concerned with food at the moment than black-eyed tweens or anything that might be chewing at our psychically implemented security system.

“The Happy Family. Mixed veggies in a lobster sauce, no MSG.”

My aunt had what she always had—an extra-large container of shrimp fried rice that she would stretch out for three days.

We began to eat, and the food was delicious. But as the evening went on and we read more and more stories about black-eyed kids, we started to realize that what Lisa Roy had told Detective Samberg might have been more sinister than we’d first imagined.

I knew I couldn’t always believe what I read on the Internet. But true or not, the stories were still pretty compelling.

One woman claimed a black-eyed kid robbed her of her casino winnings in Florida. A dude in New Mexico claimed he’d seen an army of them flood off a space ship. My personal favorite was a lady in Portland, Oregon who claimed to have been impregnated by a black-eyed man and said she had black-eyed twins as a result. Of course, when asked to produce the little bundles of joy, she revealed they were with their father on the planet Seti-Alpha Five.

“I’m not really finding anything that doesn’t sound like memoirs of a crackpot.” I shut my laptop and took another bite of egg roll.

“Yeah. I can’t say I’m finding anything too substantial here either,” Bea said, closing a big green book with worn and weathered yellow pages.

Aunt Astrid stood up and stretched. “We just don’t have enough to go on.” She stifled a yawn. “If only we could have talked to John before he…”

“Took his big leap,” I said.

“Cath, have a little compassion,” Bea said. “We don’t know if these beings had something to do with his suicide or if he was really torn up on the inside due to some other influence.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny, but it is what the guy did. And I for one think that maybe there was more to the story than we or even Samberg were told.”

“Like what?” Bea asked.

“I don’t know. Did the guy ever do any drugs? Was he in a place where there were toxic fumes? Had he hit his head recently? Was there a history of crazy in his family? I’m not saying Lisa Roy wasn’t telling the truth. I’m just saying, with the only connection to these kids being six feet underground, it’s anyone’s guess as to what they really are, if they are real at all.”

Both Bea and my aunt looked at me thoughtfully.

“Or I could be wrong.” I shrugged.

We all sat quietly for a second. Bea twisted a couple of strands of her beautiful red hair, and Aunt Astrid tried to peer around a corner in a dimension only she could see. I couldn’t resist another bite of pepper steak just as I heard a frantic knocking at the door.

Before any of us could move, the door opened. My assumptions about these black-eyed kids immediately changed. We realized we were all in trouble.

“
O
h
, my God!” Bea cried. “Jake! What’s the matter?”

Jake stumbled inside, fell to his knees, and nearly passed out on the floor with his feet still partially on the porch.

I jumped up and ran out front, looking around for anyone or anything that might have been trying to make a getaway, but the street was deserted. It had that same eerie quiet, as if everything was holding its breath. Without anyone to chase or call after, I darted back inside the house. We pulled Jake’s size-fourteen feet inside so we could shut the door tightly.

Bea immediately began to work on him. She ran her hands up and down his arms and legs. Making circles over his chest, she closed her eyes and mumbled a request for help from all of nature and the life force around us.

“What do you see, Bea?” Aunt Astrid asked nervously.

“He’s been attacked. It looks to me like he made someone or something very mad. There are scratches on the walls of his mind. His heart has been bruised. Whatever did this wanted to hurt him, but from what I can tell, Jake was able to fight it off.”

“Is he dying?” I asked, my eyes filling with tears as I looked down at the big, strong ox whom I loved as a brother lying helpless and almost unconscious on the hardwood floor.

“No,” Bea snapped back. “He is not dying, but he’s badly hurt. We need to get him to the spare room.”

The three of us had a heck of a time trying to get Jake to his feet. He could barely stand and seemed as helpless and unsteady as a newborn colt. His legs visibly shook underneath him, and he was drenched in sweat. When we finally got him close enough to the bed, he flopped down with a
thump
onto the soft blankets, and the old bedsprings creaked out an objection at being forced to support something heavier than a cat.

Once Bea got Jake out of his shoes and removed his belt, she tucked him underneath the cover.

She turned to Aunt Astrid. “I don’t want to move him.”

“Of course, honey. He can stay here,” Aunt Astrid reassured her. “As long as he needs to. I’ll get some sage burning. The white candles and crow feathers will be gathered, too. He’s safer here than anywhere else, Bea.”

I told Marshmallow and Peanut Butter to stay close.

“Do either of you sense anything?”
I asked them.
“Anything at all that might still be lurking around outside? Anything that might have attached itself to Jake?”

“I don’t sense anything,”
Peanut Butter said.
“Why? Should I? I can try a little harder and see what happens
.”

I shook my head and scratched him under the chin.

“I thought I did when he first came in,”
Marshmallow said.
“But whatever it was let go. It’s long gone by now.
”

I called to Treacle in my mind. He answered me almost immediately and said there was nothing strange going on around him. I told him to be careful, and I suggested he stay either closer to home or Old Murray’s shelter, just in case.

Marshmallow hopped up on the bed and curled up by Jake’s feet. Peanut Butter stretched out along the bookshelf that stood by the headboard. I patted Marshmallow behind the ears, and as I left the bedroom, I could hear the two cats purring their own vigil for Jake.

Bea came into the room with warm water, a washcloth, a raw egg, and some salt.

“Aunt Astrid is right,” I said. “This is where he’ll get the best care.” I took Bea’s hands in my own and squeezed them. “He’ll be all right, and we’ll find out what did this. And we’ll give it such an ass—”

Bea cut me off as she usually did when I was about to cuss. But this time, she cut me off with a hug.

I hugged her back tightly. “He’ll be okay, Bea. With you at his side, he’ll always be okay.”

She nodded. I could tell Bea was trying to hold it together. She went into the spare room, sat down next to Jake, took his hand in hers, and began to quietly chant a healing rite.

I stayed with them through the night. Jake was getting better and better by the minute, but Bea was exhausted. She believed a few more incantations would heal the damage the unknown fright had caused him. He wasn’t talking yet, but he’d stopped shaking, his temperature was closer to normal, and he seemed to be sleeping the kind of deep sleep of a person who had hiked for over an hour uphill through four feet of snow. Something had attacked his mind and exhausted him trying to get in.

When it was almost daylight, I looked outside to see if anything was out of the ordinary. Nope. It all looked normal.

“Aunt Astrid,” I said quietly as she began to make coffee in the kitchen. “I’m going to go to my place and change clothes. I want to just give the place a quick once-over, you know, just in case.”

“Yes, honey, go ahead. I’ve put an extra spell over everyone, so you should be safe. But I don’t have to tell you if there is any trouble, you run those legs back over here and don’t stop until the door is shut behind you.”

“I will. I think I’ll check the café too. I’ll drive if that makes you feel any better.”

“It does, Cath. Thanks.”

Before I left, I asked her if she had seen anything in her study of the other dimensions in front of us. She still continued to look a bit past me as though something were just beyond a curtain, but she couldn’t quite make it out. Not yet.

A
fter cleaning
up at my place, I climbed into my car and headed off in the direction of the Brew-Ha-Ha. It was still very early. Most people were probably getting ready to head to work.

I couldn’t help but let my mind drift to something I had read recently.

I’d heard about a new phenomenon discovered by scientists called Exploding Head Syndrome. It wasn’t nearly as gruesome as it sounded. People who suffered from the affliction often heard loud noises in their heads like gunshots, breaking glass, and doors slamming when they were dosing off or in a very light sleep. Those loud noises startled the afflicted people into alertness, and in most cases, made them run around their houses checking for fallen mirrors, broken windows, or even thwarted break-ins. But of course, they would find nothing and just chalk it up to a vivid dream they couldn’t remember.

The scientists who had identified that singularity considered it an odd action of the brain.

But a witch like me knew better. Sometimes I wondered how the scientific community had come so far from its paranormal roots.

Exploding Head Syndrome was not just a trick or hiccup in the brain. It was actually a very valuable talent. Some people were good at math. Some people could paint. Some people were fantastic athletes. And some people could hear other beings entering and exiting alternate dimensions. Those loud crashes and door slams were mere echoes of some entity, usually a rude one, who had just pushed its way through to our dimension. But because the people didn’t ask for identification or shout
halt, who goes there?
and chalked up the noise as a dream, the entity just passed along its merry way, causing whatever kind of havoc it wanted.

The people who had that gift didn’t realize it, and therefore never developed it. Instead of visiting Grandma in the next city, they could have visited Grandpa who was in the alternate dimension two doors down.

But abilities like that would have been scary if someone didn’t have a reference point. If I hadn’t known about my witchy heritage before I realized I could talk to an animal telepathically, I would have had myself committed and the key thrown away. I began to wonder if John Roy had been such a person. He may have never known why he was able to hit all the green lights coming home when he was in a hurry or how he was always able to help his wife find her keys when she misplaced them.

Unfortunately, he was in a morgue and destined to be buried within the next forty-eight hours. There was no chance for Bea to get a peek at him to see if there was any paranormal residue left on him from the tragedy.

Aunt Astrid said she had felt something was floating through the dimensions, but whatever it was was moving at a glacial pace and not stirring up any trouble. However, she wasn’t sure if it was a natural ripple in the time and space current, if something was just lazily drifting through the astral plains, or if something more insidious was inching its way along, hoping it wouldn’t be noticed.

I couldn’t help it. Worrying about Jake wasn’t going to do anyone any good, so I decided I needed to keep busy. And what harm would there be if I just took a drive past the Roy residence, right? I didn’t ask anyone’s permission, which guaranteed no one would tell me no. But I had a feeling I was going to have to ask for forgiveness when I was all through.