“Bast! Where are you? Kitty, kitty?” Deegie sprang from the couch, the blanket draped around her shoulders like a cape, and ran to the living room door on legs that still wobbled. A woman’s voice, singing, stopped her in the doorway. Deegie recognized it at once as the song she’d heard the night before, only this time it was bold, and clear, and beautiful: The Flower Duet from Delibes’ Lakmé.
“Lisbet? Is that you?” Deegie called out uncertainly. “Please talk to me. I need your help.”
Mew!
The mew of a kitten, strident and insistent, rose above the ghostly soprano voice, and tears of relief stung Deegie’s eyes as she saw a fuzzy black shape dashing down the hallway towards her.
“Bast! Oh, thank all the gods!” She bent over to pick him up, but he dashed away from her and jumped up on the couch she’d recently vacated.
The kitten gave one of his paws a perfunctory lick, then opened his mouth. The next line from Lakmé flowed over the tiny pink tongue and Deegie almost screamed. Impossibly, incredibly, Bast was singing while he swatted at the tassels on the throw pillows.
Deegie grabbed him and folded him in her arms. “Lisbet! Are you doing this to him? Stop it! Don’t you dare hurt him!”
“Not hurt! Never hurt kitties!” The reply came from the purring ball of fur in her arms.
Bast looked up at her calmly and reached for her hair with a questing paw. “We all sing together. Never any hurt. Sorry ... sorry ...”
“Lisbet? Wh-what are you doing? Are you ... in my cat’s body?”
Lisbet giggled, and Bast’s constant purr made it come out shivery. “Fun ... such fun ... the Tiger doesn’t know. I could not pass by him, so I hide ... here! Kitten takes me to you ... speak to you and see you now!”
Deegie sat again, and Bast jumped from her lap and attacked a forgotten dust ball in the corner of the room. Being momentarily possessed by a soprano-voiced ghost didn’t seem to be a problem for him; the black kitten was just as curious and playful as ever.
“Lisbet, what’s happening here? What is that thing in the basement? Do you know?”
A long sigh of utter despair emanated from Bast as he playfully chased his tail; the contrast between voice and action was downright eerie, even for Deegie.
“Bad things! Bad! The glass ... it has broken. The men ...”
“Gilbert didn’t mean to break it,” Deegie said patiently. “I know something was released when that jar of fingers broke. I need you to tell me everything you know about it so I can fix it.”
“Please don’t send me away ...”
Deegie’s heart clenched, and her throat tightened. “No, Lisbet. I won’t send you away. I want you to stay here with me, you and all your kitties. But I need to get rid of the evil in here first so we can be happy. Do you understand?”
Lisbet sighed again. Bast pounced on Deegie’s foot.
“Lisbet? Can you answer me? Tell me what you know. Please.”
“Eighteen-eighty three! Right here in this house, me ... born HERE!”
Deegie closed her eyes and breathed in calming pink light. This was going to take a while. The long-dead lady was a gentle soul, but Gilbert had been correct: she was a bit slow.
“Did you live in this house all your life?”
“Yes, yes ... mother, father, brother. All gone ... only me now. We all sing together ... Christmas ...”
“You must have had some wonderful Christmases here, Lisbet.” Deegie got to her feet and captured Bast before he ran out the door and took the ghost with him. Bast purred and squirmed and batted at her nose. “When it is time for Christmas, I will decorate this house just for you, if you can tell me who put the jars in the basement.” Deegie did not observe Christmas herself, but she did enjoy the look of a house dressed up in winter finery.
“In the basement. Oh, it is loose! The glass must not break! It must not! My hand!”
Lisbet’s voice was edged in panic now, and Deegie immediately regretted upsetting the childlike soul. Whatever happened in this house had obviously been traumatizing for her.
“Shhh, it’s okay, Lisbet. Don’t be frightened; I won’t let anything hurt you, I promise.” A thought occurred to her then, a wholly unpleasant one. “Lisbet, these bad men, did they ... did they hurt you? Did they do a bad thing to you?”
She received no reply for several long moments. Bast dragged his claws trough her wild black curls and bit her nose, completely oblivious to the sad ghost playing stowaway in his body.
“I rent out the house when I am old. Rooms for rent ... bad men came. Oh, bad, bad ... Fingers all bloody ... they make a book, it hides in the wall ... like me ...”
And with that, Lisbet left Bast’s body; Deegie felt her go. Bast wriggled in her grasp, wanting to be put down, so she let him have his way. He bounced across the couch cushions, eager to begin a new adventure. Deegie sensed that Lisbet was still near, hovering near the ceiling, but at the sound of the brothers’ approaching footsteps, she passed through the layers of paint, and plaster, and wood beams, and hid herself away on the second floor.
Those men killed her, Deegie thought. I’d be willing to bet they did. Bastards.
Zach poked his head into the room. “Deeg? Who are you talking to in here?”
“Bast,” she said. “Only it wasn’t Bast, it was someone else.”
“Well, that makes tons of sense.” He sat beside her. “You feeling any better?”
“Aside from the pissed-off ball of growling smoke in my basement and the ghost of a crazy cat lady taking over my kitten’s body, I’m just dandy.”
“Wait—what? Are you serious? Is he okay?” Zach was alarmed; he had clearly developed quite a fondness for little Bast.
“Yes, he’s just fine. Didn’t faze him a bit. Lisbet couldn’t get past Tiger, so she hitched a ride inside Bast.”
“Holy crap. That’s amazing!” Zach looked around the room. “Is she ... here?”
“No. She got upset and left. I was able to ask a few questions, but it’s hard to understand her. She knows what happened here, and she knows who put the jars in the basement.” Deegie grimaced and massaged her temples. “I will try to talk to her again later.”
Gilbert entered the room, looking dejected and humble as he gnawed on a thumbnail. The bizarre events of the evening had robbed him of his cockiness. “The door’s still holding up,” he announced. “I can still hear that thing fumbling around down there, but at least it’s quieter now.” He glanced at the empty spot on the couch next to Deegie, but remained standing.
“Thank you, Gilbert,” she said, feeling a little sorry for him. Although she knew he’d most likely been listening in on her conversation with Zach, she let him in on what had just happened to her and Bast.
Gilbert stroked Bast’s fur as he listened, and he didn’t interrupt this time. “I can help if you want,” he said when she’d finished. “I have contacted ghosts before and communicated with them.”
“I get the feeling she’s afraid of men. Poor soul. Thanks Gilbert, but I think I should be the one to talk to Lisbet. She’s very fragile, and this is going to require a gentler touch,” Deegie said. “She said something about ‘bad men’ who came, and hid a book in a wall.”
“Book of Shadows, maybe?” Zach asked. “I know what those are, at least.”
“Yes, I think that’s what she meant, but I’m going to see if I can get more information from her before we start ripping out walls.” She yawned hugely and rubbed her reddened eyes. “Guys, if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to try to get a little sleep now.”
“Here?” Gilbert was incredulous. “Not here, you’re not! Are you kidding?” He looked over at Zach hopefully. “Right Zach?”
“Absolutely not.” Zach stood and tugged at Deegie’s arm. “We have a guest room where you can stay until this house is safe again. Pack a bag, grab Bast, and let’s go. You need rest, and you’re not gonna get it here, that’s for sure!”
Deegie knew better than to argue; she was outnumbered, and they were right. It would be foolish to stay here.
***
Jarvis “Shit Storm” Murphy could sleep just about anywhere as long as the weather was warm, and he did so quite often. Whenever happy hour at the Cantina or the Shady Inn got a little too out of hand, and he didn’t want to risk another DUI, Murphy would go to one of many little hide-outs in the woods and sleep it off until he was sober enough to drive home. Several of these hidey-holes had been in use for years, some of them even dating back to his father’s time, when the old man used to hide from his Temperance Union wife.
Now that the cold weather was moving in, the forest hide-outs were no longer cozy wooded refuges from a sober world; Murphy had frozen his ass off last night, and he reluctantly decided as he crawled out from under pine boughs and chunks of sheltering bark that this would have to be the last night in the woods until spring. Shivering in the pink light of dawn, he stood and had a good full-body scratch while he got his bearings and tried to remember where he had parked his truck. Snow was in the air; he could feel it. If his memory served him correctly, there should still be a bottle of Night Train back home, under the kitchen sink next to the floor bucket. It would serve double duty, both as breakfast and to take the chill from his rapidly aging bones.
Just through the trees and down the hill stood the newly inhabited 14 Fox Lane: the creaky old barn purchased by the young lady he’d spoken to last night. Sheltered by lofty pines and with a dusting of frost across the roof shingles, it fairly glowed with its fresh coat of white paint, and its newly cleaned windows reflected chilly morning sunshine. If he took the barely discernable path through the trees that ran alongside the house and down to the street, he might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the raven-haired lady of the house and apologize again for his behavior the other night. Was it last night, or the night before? he wondered as he started down the hill, and what exactly did I say to her? Damn tequila. Always stealing away good memories. Or was that gin?
As he came closer to the house, Murphy noticed that the young lady’s (Debbie? Diane? Something with a D) colorfully painted van was missing from the driveway once again. She didn’t seem to stay around much. Then he remembered the red-haired kid from the Cantina who’d been with her that night. I betcha that’s where she is! Keepin’ warm with her beau! Murphy’s phlegmy cackle startled a couple of jays from their roost in the branches above, and they flew, scolding and cawing, into the sunrise. The carpet of pine needles, soon to be covered by winter snow, crunched under his feet. He touched the tough new skin of paint on the old boards and wondered if he should take a quick peek in one of the windows, just to see what else she’d done with the place. I bet everything’s all pink and girly, with ribbons and bows, and—”
From somewhere deep in the house, a woman screamed.
Murphy backpedaled, tripped over a fallen branch, landed on his ass, and bit his tongue. She was home after all! And, judging by what he had just heard, she was in a powerful heap of trouble, as his dearly departed daddy used to say.
Another scream, louder and more insistent, tore from the lower half of the house. Locked in the basement, maybe? Somebody hurting her? Goddamn it, this isn’t what I had on the agenda for today! Murphy hustled to the back of the house, where two boarded-up windows nestled close to the ground. Another scream filtered through the splintery boards, and Murphy knelt in frozen mud to wedge a couple of his beefy fingers around the weakest looking board. “Hold on, dammit! Just hold on!” he yelled to the distraught woman inside. The board came free with a single yank; the exposed window glass was black and opaque, as if it had been spray-painted. A lacy net of spider webs swayed in the corners.
“You in there? Hey, lady! What’s wrong with you? You okay in there?” He put his lips close to the filthy glass, hoping his voice would project better to the woman trapped inside. The last of his leftover tequila buzz vanished and Shit Storm Murphy found himself horribly sober. He pulled away from the window and got his fingers behind the second board, ready to yank it free and break through the glass. From behind the filmy windowpane came a stealthy, scuttling noise, like someone rushing towards him through a pile of leaves. Something tapped on the glass, and Murphy hoped to hell it was the woman he was clumsily attempting to rescue. “Hang on, lady! Almost there!” He heaved backwards on the weather-beaten board, and the squeal of wood against nails coincided with another peal of anguish from the other side of the window. The tap turned into a loud bang, and the glass shivered in its frame as something was pressed against it.
A face, horrid and squashed-looking, peered out at him with a cluster of lidless, jack o’ lantern eyes. A mouth widened in a drooling crescent lined with crooked, rotting teeth, and it screamed again, a perfect imitation of a woman in distress.
Murphy spun away from the window, his face distorted in a terrified grimace, and he headed for the woods in a shambling run. He wasn’t built for speed and some days he could barely walk, but he forced his legs to keep moving anyway, taking him back up the hill and deeper into the woods. “It’s them demons, them demons ...” The words ripped from his mouth in clouds of steam, and his heart sledgehammered dangerously in his chest. The only demons he’d experienced before were the ones that came out of a whiskey bottle. He located his lean-to of bark and branches and dove into it, getting dirt up his nose and pine needles down his shirt. Murphy huddled in the early morning cold, praying to whatever gods would listen and pressing his hands hard against the bomb going off in his chest.
***
She grew tired of staring at the ceiling, so she turned on her side in the narrow twin bed and stared at the wall instead. Bast purred in his sleep next to her pillow, and the wind-up alarm clock counted down the seconds remaining until sunrise. Deegie gave up and got out of bed. The enticing smell of brewing coffee cut through the bachelor-pad aromas of neglected laundry piles and leftover pizza, and she left the cluttered guest room to find the source. Zach stood in the kitchen, scratching at his red beard and frowning at the instructions on a box of pancake mix.
“Morning,” she mumbled. “Need help with that?”
“Deeg!” He put down the pancake mix and gave her an awkward, one-armed hug. “Did you sleep okay? Oh, and I forgot to apologize for the mess in here last night. Just, you know, the whole ‘guys are slobs’ thing.”
“Pour me some of that coffee, and you’ll be forgiven.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Zach poured coffee in a huge yellow mug, set it in front of Deegie, and watched her take a sip. “Well, you’re not gagging. Must be okay to drink, then.”
Her lips twitched in a suggestion of a smile, but she said nothing and sipped from the mug again.
“Hey, you okay? Sorry, dumb question. Of course you’re not.” He looked at the pancake mix again, embarrassed.
“I’ll be fine,” she said automatically. Her tone indicated that she was nowhere close to being fine, but further discussion on the subject was closed. “Where’s Gilbert?”
“Asleep, I think. Hey, Deeg, I’m sorry about him. He’s a little—”
“Sure of himself? I noticed.”
“Not so much anymore. Whatever’s going on in your house humbled him in a fast hurry.”
“I noticed that, too.” Deegie took a few more swallows from the yellow mug, then set it down. “I should go,” she said. “Thanks for letting me stay here last night.” She scooped up Bast with one hand and grabbed her purse with the other.
“Wait, you’re not going back there, are you?” Zach put down the pancake mix and followed her to the door.
“No.” She smiled to cover her lie. “I have a lot of work to do at The Silent Cat before I open today. Shipments to put away, more stuff to order, that sort of thing. Life’s gotta go on, you know. With or without basement demons.”