The Scariest Tail (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 4) (8 page)

I
was
a bit relieved that Bea knew where the strange house in Prestwick was. After we piled into Bea’s car that evening after work, we took a nice drive to Prestwick. Thankfully, the café had been slow, and we were able to close up a little early, leaving the sun hanging in the sky for at least another good two hours.

After some Google Maps searches that yielded three different routes and a few complicated turns down the serpentine roads, I couldn’t help but feel a slight case of déjà vu. The fall leaves were still in colorful canopies overhead, and the houses looked even more beautiful this time since I had a chance to really look at them.

When we passed by Darla’s house, I tried to look away, but I caught sight of her standing outside. She was chatting up some guy in a van that had J&J Plumbing stenciled on the side. He was practically falling out of the driver’s side window as she talked and flipped her hair. I kept my mouth shut, but I looked away in disgust, rolling my eyes and wondering how so many guys fell for her babe-in-the-woods act. When I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw Bea looking at me. She smiled and winked at me, and I smiled back.

“Okay, we need to take a left up ahead, then a quick right, and we should be just about there,” Aunt Astrid said, navigating between two maps and a set of handwritten directions she had made for herself.

After a few more minutes, Bea pointed out her window.

“Is that it?” she asked. “I don’t see any numbers, but that looks like a driveway. At least, I think it is. It isn’t a road, right?”

“Well, let’s see. The house next door was 3490 Butternut. We’re looking for what?” Aunt Astrid looked at her notes. “This says 3494.”

“Let’s give it a try,” I said, knowing it was the right place.

Bea turned and headed down the cobblestone driveway, past the For Sale and No Trespassing signs, only to have the journey end at the wrought iron gate I had come to just a few days earlier. From that point on, I was as clueless as the other two Greenstone women. We had no idea what was up ahead.

“You feel that?” I asked as I opened the car door.

“Yeah.” Bea nodded as she climbed out from behind the wheel. “Like someone blasting a boom box or subwoofers on their car.”

“Something is here,” Aunt Astrid said.

I stretched my legs and my back as I looked around.

“Everyone smile. We’re on camera,” I said as casually as possible, motioning in the general direction of a camera at the far corner of the fence and then at one pointed down on the driveway from a tall tree.

“Well, at least we know someone is watching the place,” Aunt Astrid said, looking not only at the camera but past it and through it, trying to see the person who had installed them.

“Maybe,” Bea said. “They look pretty old and neglected. Big, bulky things from the seventies or something.”

They did look pretty old, but I wasn’t sure they were inoperable. They might have looked that way on purpose.

My aunt was gently waving her hands as if she were performing some kind of exercise or pushing invisible curtains aside, which she probably was.

“Maybe we should make an appointment like we’re interested in the property,” Bea said. “That way, we wouldn’t have to trespass in order to get a look around. We’re just a couple of ladies looking to invest in a bigger house where we could all take care of the frail and ailing Astrid Greenstone.” Bea looked playfully at her mom. “Besides, if those cameras
do
work and we sneak in, how would it look if Detective Jake Williams had to not only bail his wife out of the clink, but his mother-in-law and cousin-in-law too?”

“Yeah, that would look pretty bad,” I chuckled. “Good call, Bumble Bea. I’ll make the appointment.”

Aunt Astrid didn’t reply. She didn’t laugh. She just stood there, looking through the fence bars, and I could only imagine what other layers of reality.

Her face was firm and set in a stare far off down the driveway past the gate. “We’re being watched.”

Bea stepped closer to her mother. “What do you see?”

“Black eyes,” Aunt Astrid said, her voice low and firm. “Maybe four sets. Six at the most.” She squinted and stepped up to the metal gate, wrapping her hands around the bars and looking in. “They don’t like us being here. Not one bit.”

“Can they tell we’re witches?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if we gave off some kind of paranormal aroma or glowed like a road flare because of our connection with the magical.

“I don’t know,” my aunt said. “I don’t think it matters. They don’t look like they’d be happy with anyone showing up. Equal-opportunity haters.”

Bea squinted, looking behind us, back the way we had come down the driveway.

“We need to get into the house.” She walked to her car and opened the door. She came back with a wrinkled receipt and a pen and wrote down the number on the faded For Sale sign.

“That’s going to take time,” I said. “We have to be fit into the agent’s schedule. They have to meet us here and walk through the place with us. It’s going to be a big hassle. But look.” I walked up to the gate and pushed hard, stretching the chain. “We could squeeze through here and make our way down to the—”

Something screamed.

“Okay! I heard that! Did you guys hear that? Tell me you heard that,” I said to the ladies as I slowly let go and backed away from the gate. “You did hear that, right?”

“I heard it,” Bea said, taking her mother’s hand and pulling her away from the rusted gate.

“No,” Aunt Astrid whispered as she pointed. “They aren’t happy we’re here at all.”

“Okay, then I think it’s time to go,” I said. “We can come back with permission and be a little better prepared, with pepper spray and weapons and a couple of layers of protection spells, along with a few surprises like lightning bolts and binding incantations.”

“Yes, hurry.” My aunt backed up. “Something is coming.”

It didn’t take much for all of us to pile back into Bea’s car like a bunch of circus clowns. Just as we shut the doors, the wind whipped up something fierce.

They hadn’t been there a second ago. But they were just a couple of yards in front of us now. Three pale-faced children. Staring. I didn’t just see hatred in those jet-black eyes, but a hunger that terrified me. Smiles loaded with some kind of feral insanity spread across their faces. I was beginning to doubt the distance between us and wondered if the barrier of the glass and steel of the car was enough to protect us.

“I see them,” I said without moving my lips. “Three creepy kids over there. Yeah, I see them.”

“I do too,” Bea said while turning the key in the ignition.

I was never so happy to hear a car roar to life as I was at that minute. Before I could say anything, Bea hit the gas and peeled out of the driveway backwards. As fast as we moved, the creepy children were a little quicker. Within a blink, they were at the gate with their pale hands wrapped around the bars and their eyes glaring at us.

With some quick maneuvers, Bea got us down the driveway and back onto Butternut Drive, heading away from that house.

“If we’re going to go into that house, we’ll need protection, and that will take a few days to prepare,” my aunt said.

Hearing those words, I snapped my head in her direction. “We’re still going in there? Really?” I laughed nervously.

“Cath, who knows who they might come after next?” Bea asked. “They might try and finish what they started with Jake or Detective Samberg. Who knows? We’ve got to stop them.”

“Bea is right,” Aunt Astrid said. “They can’t be reasoned with. They can’t feel compassion. They are evil things.”

I knew they were right. But something in my gut was trying to tell me this was more than a couple of pesky entities. Maybe I found the whole thing so upsetting because they were children. But they weren’t children. They were taking the form of children. Little kids didn’t make a person kill themselves. Maybe children were brats sometimes, but they weren’t deadly.

Despite all the rational thoughts in my head, my gut kept twisting as if I were missing something staring right at me. I remembered Jake’s words about trusting his gut, and I felt really afraid.

I
t was still so early
in the evening that we all regrouped back at Bea’s house.

Jake had already headed off to work. The house was quiet except for Peanut Butter, who greeted us with a stern look.

“What’s happening?”
he asked.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Creepy spirits. Mysterious creatures. For us, that is just another day on the farm
.” I reached down to scratch his head as I passed.

Bea scooped the kitty up from the floor, and we all went into the kitchen without saying a word.

I took my usual seat at the end of the counter as Bea quietly cut up some apples, got some cheese out of the fridge, and tore a loaf of day-old bread from the café into small pieces, piling it all on a plate for us to eat.

Surprisingly, after such a gut-wrenching excursion, I found myself gobbling up the stuff, even the healthy apples that I usually shied away from.

“Someday you’re going to cook hamburgers for me for breakfast, aren’t you, Bea?” I asked, trying to break the silence with a little humor.

She smiled and winked at me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll call the real estate agent and schedule us an appointment to get into that house. But I’m going to schedule it for the first thing in the morning. I mean as soon as the sun is up. I’m not taking a chance that we’ll get stuck out there in the dark.” I shivered at the thought of being there again with the sun sinking and shadows getting longer.

“I’m going to check into the history of that place,” Aunt Astrid said. She hadn’t touched any of her food. “Maybe there was something done on that property that has attracted those creatures. Knowing that might give us a slight advantage.”

“I’ll check with Jake and see if he learned anything else from Mr. Eshelman when he lived there,” Bea added. “I have the feeling he would have stayed on his medication had he not been staying in that house.”

After we all had our own tasks assigned, we sat there without speaking.

“What’s going on?” Bea finally asked. “We’re never this quiet. After an experience like that, we’re usually like a couple of blue jays, hawking it up.”

“I was thinking that too,” I said.

Aunt Astrid, who still looked very stern and had not relaxed since we left that house, shook her head slowly from side to side. “I don’t know, girls. I don’t know what it is.”

Aunt Astrid didn’t know what it was? She didn’t have an answer for us? She didn’t have a theory? What kind of alternate universe had we stepped into? This scared me even more than the black-eyed children.

I couldn’t explain it, but I wanted to be home in my house. I wanted to be alone.

After I walked my aunt to her home, she went to the window and watched me get inside my house without incident. The familiar scratch was not at the window that night. Treacle had obviously found something interesting to keep him out a little longer.

I took one of the bundles of sage from my kitchen table, inhaled it deeply, and felt its soothing effect. I lit the dried herbs in a small bowl with pretty pink flowers around the edges and let the smoke surround me. Then I took it from room to room, just in case. To be on the safe side, I said the cleansing incantation that I had learned from my aunt when I’d first moved out on my own.

“You don’t know how other people have treated the property before you. Fill it with light and positive energy right away and reapply as needed.” I remembered Aunt Astrid saying that with a smile and a tear in her eye.

I had moved out of her home when I was nineteen to live in my parents’ old house. She’d still had Bea with her, but she and Jake were on the fast track to matrimony. It was only a matter of time before Aunt Astrid would have her big home all to herself.

But, as if the stars had aligned themselves for a purpose, the Brew-Ha-Ha began turning a good profit, and Bea and Jake had bought a house on our block.

And we both did our sage cleansings. Aunt Astrid put up protection spells with the help of the cats. So far, all had been safe and sound up until that moment when we were all feeling the need to isolate ourselves within the walls of our homes.

“That’s it,” I mumbled out loud to myself. “Isolation is one of the first things people do when they start to get depressed.” I waved the sage around more and more. I burnt the leaves and let the smoke reach every corner of the house. With each breath, my head felt clearer and clearer.

“They put the whammy on us,” I said out loud. “Those little brats got to us from that far away. They got inside our heads, and they followed us home.”

My house was so full of the sage smoke, I was sure the fire alarms were going to go off. Once I was finished, I breathed deeply. It was as if I had taken a long nap and felt refreshed and awake.

I heard scratching on my window. I thought it was Treacle, and I pulled the curtain aside and reached for the latch, only to see four jet-black eyes staring in at me.

“Whoa!” I yelled, backing away from the glass. They thought they would be able to get in. I didn’t look at their eyes. Instead, I focused on the point between their eyes. It was hard to do, but I knew if I looked into that blackness, I would be a goner.

“You aren’t welcome here! The stars and the moon see your deeds! By the four winds, I command you to leave this place!” I took a shaky step closer to the window. “I said, leave this place and don’t come back!”

All they did was scowl at me. Their sinister mouths pulled into painful and distorted grimaces, but I stood firm.

“Leave this place! You are not welcome!”

As quickly as they were there, they were gone. I had no time to lose. I grabbed my remaining bundles of sage from the kitchen table and ran across the street. I pounded on my aunt’s door then fumbled with my keys and let myself in.

“What is the matter with you?” she asked, emerging from her bathroom with soap on her face.

“I don’t have time to explain. Here. Burn this. Burn it right now and do the incantation you taught me.”

“But Cath, I have a protection spell on the—”

“Please, Aunt Astrid! Just trust me and do it. I have to get to Bea.” I slammed the door shut behind me and ran the few houses down to Bea’s place.

I rang the bell and banged on the door so hard that I was sure one of the neighbors would call the cops and send Jake speeding over here. Finally, when she didn’t answer, I let myself in.

“Bea!”

She still didn’t respond.

“
Bea!
”

Nothing.

I called Peanut Butter in my mind, but he didn’t reply either. I bound up the stairs and found Bea lying on the bed, sobbing. Peanut Butter was huddled in the corner and looked afraid to move.

“Cath, what’s wrong with Mom?”
he asked, and my heart just broke for him.

“She’s got a germ,”
I said bitterly. “
She’ll be all right in a few minutes. You just come and stay close to me.”

“Bea. Hey, Bumble Bea, come on. Snap out of it,” I said while I lit the sage.

“Jake called,” she said. “Another man tried to kill himself tonight. His name was Monty Krueger. He tried to hang himself from a tree in his front yard.”

“Bea, you need to inhale some of this. Sit up, girl.” I gently blew the smoke over her body and waved it into the air.

“Feel that?”
I asked Peanut Butter. “
Feel that change in the air?
”

“Yes, I do.”

“Something followed us home from that house, and it’s making your mom see nothing but bad things. This will help. And you just curl up with her. That will help too.”

Peanut Butter was all too happy to do as I said. He snuggled up to Bea, but she just lay there. She stared ahead with red eyes, crying for a Mr. Krueger that Jake had told her about.

“Just take a couple deep breaths. You’ll feel better in a few minutes. Trust me.” I blew on the embers until they glowed white and waved the smoke throughout the entire room.

“Bea? How you doin’ over there?” I looked at her as she reached down to pet Peanut Butter, who was purring loudly.

“Keep it up,”
I said to the cat.
“I’ll be right back.”

I don’t know if it was because Bea was a healer or if it was just because she was a downright good person, but whatever whammy those little beasties had put on Aunt Astrid and me seemed to especially get her against the ropes.

Quickly, I went through the house. I recited the incantation over and over, making sure the sage fumes reached every corner. Finally, when I had cleansed every part of the house and even the basement, I charged back up to Bea’s bedroom. She was sitting up, her face in her hands.

“Bea? You feeling better?”

Peanut Butter was on her lap.

“Yes,” she said weakly. When she looked up at me, I could see she had stopped crying. “What the heck, Cath?”

“Those kids did something to us. I don’t know what. But if we weren’t Greenstones, I think that we’d all have been found dead tomorrow. Suicide. And since we’re family, can you imagine the kinds of gossip would go around? My gosh, Aunt Astrid’s library alone would be enough for everyone to assume we’d made some pact with the devil.”

Bea chuckled, but then her eyes widened with worry. “My mom!”

“It’s okay. I already stopped there. She’s all right and burning her sage too.” Sitting down on the bed next to Bea, I put my arm around her.

“What made you think of it, Cath? The sage, I mean.”

“I don’t know. When I got home, I was feeling the weight of the world, and it just seemed to call to me, you know. I had to burn it. And when I did, it was like pulling off a heavy, itchy wool sweater.”

Peanut Butter stood on Bea’s lap and pushed her head into my arm.

Just then, we both heard the door downstairs open and Aunt Astrid call for us.

“We’re upstairs!” we both yelled in unison.

“Bea! Thank goodness you’re okay. Good call, Cath.” She rushed to hug the both of us. “I noticed before I came over here that something had been chewing on the protection spell at your house, Cath. And my goodness, Bea, they nearly punched a hole right through yours.”

“Figures they’re after you,” I said. “You always did have the looks in the family.”

“Yeah, you’re the one the boys found so mysterious like a rebel,” Bea teased back.

I laughed. I had been on a few dates here and there, but whether it was because I was rebellious or mysterious or just too hard to please, the majority of those never resulted in more than two dates.

I found it hard to be interested in a guy who found so much pleasure in drinking beer or watching sports or both. I just hoped for a bit more. Because I did have these standards, I really didn’t date too much.

“You think that is why those little things were creeping outside my window?” I asked.

“No, Cath. Were they really?” Aunt Astrid asked.

“Sure were. Ugly things, staring in at me. But I called their bluff and wouldn’t let them in. It was the sage. They must be filthy little monsters, because the smoke cleared them and their depression spell or whatever it was right out of my house.”

“If that is what they’re doing to the people around here who are killing themselves, my heart just breaks for them,” Bea said.

“I don’t think they’re able to do it to everyone,” Aunt Astrid replied, once again taking on that faraway look. “They didn’t get a hold of Min or his mom. And Cath, you seemed to be able to rationalize your way through whatever it was they were trying to do. But Bea, you didn’t handle it well.”

“What about you, Mom? How did you keep them out?”

“I don’t know. I felt them and the sad thoughts worming their way into my head, but I can see so many layers of dimensions that I couldn’t help but see what they were saying was lies. They were more like pesky, spoiled children not getting their way than anything so dangerous as they were to you.”

After a little more talk and a phone call to Jake, letting him know to stop and check on Bea after we had left, we all repeated our tasks regarding the creepy house and made our plan to go back to Prestwick as soon as we were armed.