Bea was fixing herself some calming tea when I had an idea. I held the book close to me, and Treacle came to stand at my feet.
“We’re going to go back to that house—Treacle and me. What I want you to do is stay here and keep an eye on your mom. Don’t open the door for anyone but us. I’ll be back.”
I was sure the authority in my voice would be enough to get Bea to fall right in line and just say no problem. Of course, she didn’t.
“You can’t go back to that house alone. I’ll go with you.” I saw Bea swallow hard.
“What? In your condition?” I pointed to her big belly. “Sure. It’ll be no different from running a race carrying a full-sized watermelon under your shirt. No one will see or hear you.”
“But you can’t go alone,” she pleaded.
“Why? I’ve done lots of things alone. Bea, I live alone. I am fully capable of handling those witches alone. In fact, I’ve dealt with scarier things than them alone. Remember Darla from high school? She was scarier than them. How about Tom Warner’s mom? She was scarier than them. That spider in the café? Much, much scarier than them.” That one made me shiver.
“No. It’s not a good idea,” Bea insisted.
“Yeah, and you coming with is?” I snapped before softening my glare at my overly emotional pregnant cousin. “Bea, someone has to stay with your mom. Plus, you’ve got that baby to think about.”
Just then, we heard footsteps on the porch, a knock on the door, and the jingle of keys. The door opened, only to be held fast by that tiny, flimsy chain.
“Hey. What’s going on in there?” It was Jake.
“Oh my gosh!” I shouted as I stomped to the door to open it. “You gave me a heart attack!” I put my hand over my chest and slipped the book onto another bookcase by the door, hoping Bea wouldn’t pay any attention to it as Jake and Blake came in.
“I gave you a heart attack? We went home and found the door unlocked, no one home, and no food in the fridge. How’s my two favorite babies?” Jake said as he sauntered up to Bea, who smiled with tears brimming in her eyes as she wrapped her arms around Jake for a long hug. She was so pregnant.
“What’s the matter?” Blake asked me quietly.
“We’ve got a problem,” I whispered and looked deeply into his eyes. “Jake, can you stay with Bea and Aunt Astrid for a while?”
“Yeah. We were coming home to get something to eat before going over to the Gingerbread House to do a little snooping around. There are some things about those domestic violence incidents and suicides that aren’t matching up,” Blake said in his usual monotone.
“That’s funny you should say that. That is where I was going too.”
I told him about the book and Aunt Astrid and my hunch that there was a lot more going on than just a group of women living together and selling their pitiful wares at the art fair.
“So, what is your plan?” Blake asked.
“Hold on tight,” I replied. “Jake, would you mind staying here with Bea and Aunt Astrid while Blake and I go run an errand?”
“Cath, don’t even think about it,” Bea said.
“Think about what? Blake needs some… um, plastic baggies, and we’re going to the store to get some. We’ll be back later.”
I didn’t wait for her to reply before I grabbed Blake’s arm and pulled him out the door. Just before it closed, Treacle slipped out and came to my side, meowing.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Blake asked.
“No,” I replied matter-of-factly and looked at him as if he had just asked if I wanted pineapple and ham on my pizza. “But it’s all we’ve got, and if my hunch is right, we don’t have a lot of time.”
“I love how you look when you start to get witchy. Your cheeks glow and your eyes twinkle,” Blake said in his straitlaced, stoic sort of way without a trace of a smile on his face. “I’m sure it’s just the increase in blood being pumped when you decide you’re going to do something dangerous, maybe even life-threatening, but I can’t help but think danger looks good on you.”
“Maybe I should join the police force,” I replied.
“I don’t know if you meet the height requirement,” Blake replied without emotion.
“I’m not that short,” I muttered before pointing to Treacle, who was heading off ahead of us. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’ll meet you at the house. Good luck,” Treacle said before he slunk out of sight into some bushes.
“Stay out of sight. You know what they think about cats!” I replied before getting into Blake’s car. I was hopeful none of the witches would recognize his car.
Within fifteen minutes, we were positioned down the street from the Gingerbread House. Crouched in the seats like a couple of Peeping Toms, Blake and I spied on it.
“Hey, that For Sale sign in front of that house,” I whispered as I pointed across the street. “That wasn’t there yesterday.”
“So?” Blake asked as he reached across me to the glove box and pulled a pair of binoculars out. “People put their homes up for sale all the time.”
“Yeah, but I was just here yesterday, and it wasn’t. And how many houses have gone up for sale on this street since these women moved into my Gingerbread House?” I whispered. “And you said something was fishy with the deaths that had occurred here too. It’s like the houses were already bought before they were even listed for sale. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound odd.”
“You are correct.” Blake cleared his throat as he looked through the binoculars. “And that doesn’t include the death we were informed of this morning. Jake and I were on our way out here to talk to the neighbors. He wanted to check on Bea.”
“Another death? What house?” I asked, looking down the simple, stereotypical suburban street.
Then I was hit with an idea. I grabbed a crumpled receipt from the side console and pulled a pen from Blake’s breast pocket. I drew a rough map of the street, labelling the houses where there was either a death or a For Sale sign.
“We’ve got the Gingerbread House. The one across the street. The new For Sale sign you just pointed out. And now the elderly man at the house two doors down from that.” He pointed to a quaint ranch-style home.
“Elderly man?” I said, feeling bad. It was one thing to pick on people who might be able to defend themselves, but these witches had a thing for seasoned citizens like my aunt and this man Blake was talking about. It was as bad as their dislike for cats. Something was wrong with a person if they didn’t have a soft spot in their heart for animals and old people.
“He was a bachelor by the name of Bob Zarowny. Like a lot of older people, he contacted the police every once in a while when he heard a strange sound or thought he saw something suspicious,” Blake said. “But we got a call from the neighbors that his garage door had been left open for two days.”
“Oh no,” I said, feeling my throat tighten.
“It just didn’t seem right,” Blake said. “When we got there, the man had already been dead for over twenty-four hours. At first, it was thought his heart just wound down, even with the expression on his face.”
“Expression?” I asked.
“Yeah. He looked like he was scared. Terrified, actually,” Blake said before launching into some scientific reason the muscles in the body move independently during a stroke or heart attack and can cause the deceased to look like they’ve seen a walking nightmare before finally succumbing to the Grim Reaper. But I didn’t buy it. Not in this case.
“What made you think there was something more sinister going on?” I asked.
“Well, the fact that the neighbors had heard him shouting the night before. They said it sounded like he was having a fight with someone. But he lived alone. There was no car in the driveway. Nothing,” Blake said and put down his binoculars.
I didn’t know what to say. Maybe the old man had just died of a heart attack. Maybe he’d had a bout of dementia at the end, although I’d never heard of such a thing happening. No one ever just had a touch of dementia all of a sudden out of the blue. For some reason, hearing about this old man being all alone to possibly deal with those witches made me feel bad, like something had sunk deep in my chest.
I looked down at the paper and pen in my hand to see if there was any kind of pattern. My Aunt Astrid and Bea both lived across the street from me, making a simple triangle if anyone was to have a bird’s-eye view. When I included the new house for sale and the old man’s house that didn’t have a sign in the yard yet, at first I didn’t see anything. But then I drew a line from the Gingerbread House, the first one occupied by this group, and drew a line to the next house where a death had occurred.
“Oh my,” I said.
“What is it?” Blake asked.
“Well, If I’m looking at this right, it looks like a crude image of an old Masonic symbol.” I swallowed hard. “You know how some kids in high school think they are cool when they scribble pentagrams in their notebooks? Everyone knows what a pentagram stands for, or thinks they do. It’s evil, dangerous. Okay, if they really knew anything, they’d know that a pentagram was no scarier than a smiley face compared to this Masonic symbol called a Kly.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Blake said.
“No. Of course you haven’t. They don’t teach this in schools. I learned about it from my aunt.” My chest tightened as I thought about what was happening to her and hoped she wasn’t giving Bea and Jake a hard time. “Just like normal parents frown on their kids having anything that looks like a pentagram in their possession, that is what witches think of the Kly.”
I was just about to go into detail about why this symbol was right up there with swastikas and the number 666 when we both froze. The witches were on the move.