Summer and Sully stared after Ms. Midnight as if standing still might help things soak in and make sense. It did not. Sully and Summer stared blankly at each other until Summer finally laughed. She could think of nothing else to do. The whole experience had been like an out of body event. Sully pounced for the tennis ball nearby and dropped it at her feet.
Summer picked it up and gave it a good throw, making it bounce and disappear around the backside of the cottage. A moment later Sully took off after it and started barking. When she rounded the corner of the cottage, she immediately saw what had Sully’s undivided attention—a very large black and white cat in the house next door, clawing at the window as if he was trying to dig to China. His mouth opened and closed in silent meows, imploring her as he continued pawing the pane of glass. He was on his hind legs making him look even more massive. His pink belly could be seen through tufts of long white fur.
Sully was frantically barking at the cat and clawing at the rotting fence barring his entry to the neighbor’s yard. Seeing him on his back feet standing against the fence made Summer suddenly realize Sully had grown significantly. She tried to fathom that realization while also trying to calm the inconsolable pup.
Without any warning, Sully stopped and plopped down to the ground and looked proudly at Summer. She looked over at the window to see only the swaying curtains where the large feline had been a second before. Sully trotted off to a nearby hydrangea bush and withdrew his dirt-covered tennis ball. Summer inspected the claw marks Sully dug into the soft ancient cedar boards. They were nearly the height of her shoulders. She thought to herself, He’s going to be huge!
She ran her fingers over the gouges, when something on the ground twinkled in the light, catching her attention. She squatted and brushed loose dirt from something black and iridescent. It was bigger than she’d originally thought when she’d plucked it from the compacted dirt. She set it in her palm to examine it more closely.
In the sun the iridescences glowed brightly in shades of green, purple and indigo blue. The item itself—though it looked black on the ground—actually had a hint of steel blue to it. It was the shape of a plump teardrop but slightly rounded where the point would be. It was the length of an AAA battery, the width of a quarter and about as thick as the cardboard used to package butter sticks. It looked delicate, but it was very solid and strong. Her hand felt warm and kind of tingly while it rested in her palm, but she was sure it was just her imagination. She could only guess it was some kind of mineral like mica that brakes off in thin sheets or maybe obsidian.
Whatever it was, Summer found the item pretty and thought if she drilled a small hole near the top it would make a nice pendant. She stuffed it into her pocket just as Sully ran into her from retrieving his slobbery dirt-encrusted ball. She made one last glance at the window where the large cat had been, before tiring out the pup as best she could with a little more “Keep Away” and “Fetch.”
*****
A week or more had passed since Summer had the strange conversation with Ms. Midnight and seen the desperate-to-escape cat in the window. Something about the cat bothered Summer. She couldn’t say why or what, but there had been something in his face that screamed “panic” to her and made her unsettled. She found herself thinking back on the scene several times over the course of the week, but she wasn’t really sure what she should do about it.
Sully seemed to be growing daily. He had captured the hearts of Dr. Stuart and Tori’s boyfriend Nick. Tori, on the other hand, was more of a cat person, but she liked Sully well enough; she just didn’t like the slobber.
The item she found by the fence made a great pendant and Tori commissioned Summer to find another for her ASAP. The drilling of the hole, however, was a bit of a fiasco. Whatever mineral or material the item was composed of made for a challenge for the drill. Her first attempt was with an ordinary carbide drill bit used in surgery, but it was no match for the would-be pendant. The bit snapped after only a moment. She knew that carbide could be brittle, but she also didn’t think the pendant would be so hard. In the end she snapped another carbide bit and one diamond-coated carbide, but the diamond-coated carbide made enough of a hole that when she replaced it with a new one, it finished the job. Of course if she had known how much the bits cost, she might not have done the deed. As usual though, Dr. Stuart was a sport about it and complimented her new ‘stylin’ necklace, as he called it.
Summer had been working part time that week, in hopes of finding Ms. Midnight’s rat, but she really was at a dead end in the matter. She ran the conversation by Dr. Stuart and Tori for their input, but neither had much in the way of ideas for her perplexing assignment. Instead, she focused on getting the garden planted. She and Sully spent hours, prepping, planting, repairing and nurturing it. There were two items she couldn’t order locally and so she had to use an online store to get what she needed per Dr. Stuart’s recommendation. All in all it looked pretty darn good.
Sully helped her with the crushed rock paths. He clawed them up, loosening the compacted material and bringing up to the top newer looking rock. They tamped it down to compact it once again, the final results bringing a brighter color and making it look like it had just been laid. Summer was really proud of the results and brought Dr. Stuart over for inspection when she was pretty much done.
He was floored by all that she had done and how meticulously she had kept to the original garden. Many would have opted for an easier and faster route to planting, but it was clear she had put her full effort into appeasing Ms. Midnight’s demands.
She explained to Dr. Stuart her plans to expand the garden with some plants he suggested in some outer lying areas of the square knot, and to incorporate them into the existing garden. The trick was going to be trying to match the crushed rock. Dr. Stuart had some suggestion on that topic and was enlivened by her enthusiasm. She also told him how she was going to implement a drip system to help with the maintenance.
All the while Summer was giving Dr. Stuart his tour of the finished garden, Ms. Midnight stood at her post in the upstairs window scowling at both of them until Dr. Stuart waved and she stepped back, concealing herself from their sight with the draperies.
*****
“I see nothing much has changed in your relationship with Ms. Midnight despite finding Sully and the few conversations you’ve had with her,” Dr. Stuart said, taking his gaze off the curtain-clad window and focusing on Summer.
“No, I’m sad to say. And the worst part is I don’t even know where to start. Everything she says to me is so cryptic. Aside from that one conversation where we talked about Ms. Ash where she seemed so…lucid.” Frustrated, Summer plopped down on the bench.
“You’re doing your best, that’s all you can do,” Dr. Stuart said, picking up the ball Sully had dropped at his feet and throwing it towards the graveyard.
“Maybe. But I feel like I’m letting her down. If I could just understand what she’s talking about.”
“Well, I hate to say it, but it could very well be all in her head. From what you’ve told me, nothing much she’s said makes a lot of sense.”
“I don’t know. When she saw Sully she was so pleasant albeit sad. Ms. Ash was a real thing…not a person, but definitely a living thing. It just makes me think this rat and broom she keeps referring to are real things too, but to a person like me who doesn’t know anything about her or her family, it makes no sense.”
“So you think the rat could be a person?” Dr. Stuart asked.
“Or someTHING. It’s definitely not a rat. You should have seen her face when I showed her the rat I caught. I thought she was going to jump out of her skin. Someone who reacts like that to a rat definitely does not have one as a pet.”
He chuckled. “I see your point.”
“No…there’s something I’m missing…something between the lines.”
“Well, I don’t know any Mr. Rats in town, or for that matter any families named Broom. Hopefully she’ll relay more information to you.” He stood.
“Leaving?”
“Yes. I told Missy Rogers I’d stop by and check on Goldy.”
“Is she molting again?”
“No, I think she’s getting ready to lay an egg, but you know how Mrs. Rogers gets so nervous if one of her birds starts behaving strangely.”
“Boy, do I,” Summer admitted.
They both headed for the side gate near the cottage to run into Tori.
*****
“Maybe I should start holding office meetings here?” Dr. Stuart suggested.
“No way, doc. I came for some much needed girl time,” Tori blurted out.
“All righty then. I’ll let you two get to it.” Dr. Stuart said his goodbyes and patted Sully on the head.
As Dr. Stuart started for his car, it dawned on Summer she had meant to ask him a question. “Oh, wait…Dr. Stuart?”
“Yes.”
“I meant to ask you…do you happen to know who lives in that house?” Summer pointed to the neighboring house in which she had seen the terrified cat.
Dr. Stuart turned to look at the small, aging cottage with the faded yellow peeling color, trimmed in white. “Hmm. It had been a rental for years, but I wasn’t aware of anyone renting it in ages. Why do you ask? Is someone living there?”
“I…don’t know, I mean I, we, Sully and I saw a cat inside clawing at the window pane. He looked terrified, but then he was gone and I haven’t seen him since. I knocked on the door, but no one answered and I couldn’t hear the cat crying, but the whole thing was disturbing. It really bothered me. Should I break in and see if the cat might have gotten left behind or found his way into the house by accident and can’t get back out?” Summer asked.
“Before you do that, let me call Mr. Henesy’s daughter, Clair. I believe she owns the house now that Mr. Henesy has died. I’ll see if anyone has rented it. If not, I’ll let Clair know what we’re going to do, and then I’ll come back with a crowbar and help you.”
“Thank you, Dr. Stuart. That would make me feel so much better,” Summer said.
“No problem. I’ll let you know as soon as I have any info. Bye, girls!” he said as he got into his car.
Tori looped her arm in Summer’s. They turned for the cottage when Summer patted Tori’s hand, sending her a zap of electricity they both saw and heard.
“Ow!” Tori said, releasing Summer’s arm.
“Oh, my God. Tori, I’m sorry. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. The air must be unusually dry,” Summer said.
“I don’t think so. My hair will go frizzy when the air is dry and though my green streaks are fading, I’m having a rather good hair day, if I don’t say so myself,” Tori said, tossing her locks.
“You are, definitely. I guess it’s just a fluke, but I’ve been zapping things for the last couple of days. Maybe I’m shuffling my feet,” Summer laughed. “So you’ve been missing me, huh? Figured you’d be so busy with Nick that you’d hardly notice me being gone.”
“I always miss girl time. Nick’s great—he’s gorgeous, he’s a vamp, he’s—”
“Great to you,” Summer inserted.
“Yeah! He’s all that, but, let’s face it, he’s still a guy and a girl NEEDS her bestest friend to hang with once in a while,” Tori admitted.
“Everything is okay though, right? You two are good?”
“Oh yeah! Things are fine. I mean, he just says dumb guy things every once in a while that irk me.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, you know, when he tells me I ‘shouldn’t feel that way’ or tells me how I need to ‘fix’ something when all I wanted to do was talk about it. I mean, what is it with men? Why do they feel they need to tell you how to do everything? And why is it so hard to close a cabinet door after opening it? I just about slammed my head into one the other day coming into the kitchen. I swear, every one of them was open. And don’t get me started on the toilet seat…I just about killed myself falling into the pot the other night.”
Summer tried to hold back a laugh at the thought of her friend lit only by the moonlight coming in the window, bent like a ‘V’ in the toilet, flailing her arms and legs trying to get out.
“I know. Believe me, it was not a pretty sight,” Tori said, but then started to laugh. “Speaking of guys…have you heard from Jackson?”
“No. Why?”
“No? I’m surprised. He’s called the clinic a couple of times since you’ve been gone, looking for you. I just assumed he called here.”
“No. In fact I was kind of wondering if he had second thoughts about me,” Summer said sadly.
“Everything Nick has said suggests Jackson really likes you. I wonder if he lost your cellphone number and is just too embarrassed to ask for it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we should do a foursome again? We could do movie night here in the graveyard. Wouldn’t that be awesome? We could put up a white sheet and borrow that projector Dr. Stuart uses at meetings. That would be so cool. Like a picnic.”
“In the graveyard?” Summer said, crinkling her nose at the thought of sitting on someone’s grave.
“Where else? We could stream a movie onto my laptop and watch some great old classic, like The Wolfman or The Bride of Frankenstein,” Tori said, giddy at the thought.
“Sure. We could do that, if you want,” Summer said, uncertain that a night watching movies in the graveyard would be anything but weird and gross.
“Great…I’ll set it all up. Do you think the old bat will be all right with it?”
“I don’t think she’ll care as long as we aren’t too loud and keep it closer to my side of the yard.”
“Super. How about tomorrow night?” Tori asked.
“Sure. What should I get to eat?” Summer asked.
“Leave it to me. You don’t have to do a thing. I’ll bring everything and set it all up.”
“Okay,” Summer said. “You’re the boss.” She laughed as Tori pulled a small notebook from her coffin-shaped purse and started writing notes about what needed to be brought and done for her dream movie night in the graveyard under the stars.