| |
“The Fairgrounds are only a few miles up ahead,” Amanda said, as she navigated the two-lane highway.
“Remember all the time we spent wandering around the flea market?” Jonah asked.
“How could I forget. You always loved the tarot card readers.”
“And you preferred the fortune tellers,” he laughed.
Before they left the house, Amanda had carefully laid the pen in its silk lined box. She secured the stopper on the bottle, zipped the pen and the almost empty inkwell into a Ziplock bag and put it on the floor in the backseat.
“Is the pen still back there?”
Jonah leaned over the seat to look. “Yep. So far, so good.”
Amanda drove into the parking area and took the plastic bag from the car. “Here we go,” she said. “If Antiqua is here, I will find her. And if she isn’t here, we can dig a hole and bury this thing!”
An icy breeze swirled around her, and she shivered. Jonah draped his arm across her shoulders and pulled her closer.
“Look at that!” He pointed to a small group of clouds in an otherwise clear-blue sky. “It looks just like a cat.”
“The day that I found the pen, there were clouds just like those. I remember saying that the cat looked like Vanilla.” The bag vibrated in Amanda’s hand. “And the pen seemed to rumble, like a cat purring.” Wide-eyed, she looked at Jonah.
“I’m sure that means we are on the right track,” he said, right before he grabbed his chest and collapsed.
“Jonah!” Amanda dropped the bag and fell to her knees next to him while she reached for her phone to call 911.
A man who had been walking behind them approached. “I’m an EMT. Can I help?”
“Yes, please! I called 911, but who knows how long it will take for someone to get here.”
Although conscious, Jonah’s breathing was shallow, and the color was gone from his face. “I don’t know what happened,” he gasped.
“Do you have any pain?” The man reached for his wrist to check his pulse.
“There was a stab of pain, like an electric shock in my chest and my legs buckled. I think I’m okay now.”
Reaching into his pocket, the man pulled out a small tin and offered two pills to Jonah. “Just sit there for a minute. Chew these up. They’re just aspirin. If you are having a heart attack, they could help, but if you aren’t, they won’t hurt.” He turned to Amanda. “I’m going to get some water.”
Again, an icy breeze swirled around them, and a shadow blocked the sunlight. When Amanda looked up, she expected to see the man who had helped them. Instead, she saw Zahror.
“You have one more day,” he growled, before turning away to get lost in the crowd.
Trembling, she asked, “Did you see him?”
Jonah nodded. When he tried to stand, she put her hand on his arm. “Maybe you should wait for the ambulance.”
The good Samaritan returned with a bottle of water and handed it to Jonah. “The medics are on their way.”
Within minutes, two medical technicians arrived with an oxygen mask. They checked his blood pressure and his heart rate. “Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“Never,” Jonah replied. “But it went away as quickly as it came. I feel fine now.”
“Your vitals are good. Have you been under a lot of stress?”
When Jonah glanced at Amanda, he couldn’t stop the grin that erupted. “Maybe a little bit.”
“It could have been a panic attack. They often mimic heart attacks and can be debilitating.”
Jonah stood, shook hands with the EMTs, and thanked them for their help. Then he turned to Amanda. “Don’t give in to him. He might be able to terrorize us, but he can’t control us.”
“You’re right. Let’s bury this thing and go home. I can’t wait to be rid of it.” She glanced at the ground around her. “Did you pick up the bag?”
Jonah shook his head.
“It was here.” She pointed to the spot next to her foot. “I set it down when you fell. It was right between us!”
“Good riddance,” Jonah said. “If you don’t have it, then it is no longer yours.”
“Come on. I want to get you back home.”
“I’m okay,” he told her. “Just on the receiving end of a Zahror tantrum.”
On the drive home, Amanda’s anxious glances at Jonah convinced her that he had recovered from his collapse the hour before. “Why don’t you take a shower and relax? I’ll get dinner started,” she said, unlocking the front door.
“Why don’t you join me in the shower, and I’ll help you start dinner later?” Jonah teased.
With a chuckle and a shake of her head, she went inside. She looked around the entry hall. “Odin?”
“He’s probably asleep,” Jonah said.
“He always meets me at the door. Something is wrong! Odin!” she yelled.
This time, her call was answered with a shrill meow-like shriek.
With Jonah on her heels, she dashed to the living room. The cat was crouched in the center of his invisible circle and staring at the ceiling. Following his gaze, Amanda’s stomach lurched when she saw the silver pen floating slowly toward the desk, where the ink bottle waited. She reached toward the pen, and it flew into her hand.
“Stay there,” she told Jonah. She grabbed the inkwell and went outside. Standing on the porch, she threw the inkwell toward the rock pillar at the edge of the walkway. The crystal bottle shattered, and each sliver of broken glass erupted in flames before it hit the earth, scorching the grass where it fell. The air outside changed from balmy to frigid. The sky darkened and Zahror hovered beside her, scarcely visible, yet his roar of outrage vibrated her eardrums. She hurled the pen to the ground, and it dove straight down into the dirt out of sight. When it vanished, so did Zahror.
She shivered and went inside. Jonah was sitting on the floor holding Odin, who laid limp in his arms. “What happened?” she asked, rushing to take the cat from Jonah.
“As soon as you went outside, Zahror materialized and followed you. But before he got through the door, Odin hurled himself out of the circle directly at Zahror’s throat. As soon as Odin hit him, Zahror changed from a man to a mist. Odin fell to the floor. I picked him up right away, but he hasn’t moved.”
Amanda grabbed a small, crocheted blanket from the chair and wrapped it around the cat. “Odin, what did you do? He isn’t breathing, Jonah!”
“I am so sorry, Amanda.” Jonah wrapped his arms around her as tears poured down her cheeks.
She cuddled Odin to her chest and an almost inaudible whine broke the silence. “Did you hear that?”
“I think I heard something,” Jonah replied.
As she paced the floor, Amanda began to rub the soft fur up and down the cat’s spine. After a few seconds, a slight vibration followed the soft meow. It was a sound that couldn’t be mistaken.
“I definitely heard that!” Jonah grinned, as Amanda dropped onto a chair.
“Please don’t die! Open your eyes, kitty.”
As if in response to her request, Odin squinted his eyes open. He briefly focused them on Amanda, looked around until he found Jonah, then closed his eyes and began to purr.
“He wanted to be sure you were here,” she said.
“That’s what it looked like.” Jonah went into the kitchen and filled a small dish with water. “Here. See if he’ll drink a little.”
Amanda dipped her finger into the water and touched it to Odin’s mouth. He licked the droplets from his lips. After a few more drops, he began to drink from the dish, and she knew that there was a good chance he was going to be fine.
“The house feels different,” she said. “It’s calm now. Zahror is gone.”
“I can feel the difference, too,” Jonah agreed.
“Somehow, Odin realized that it was the inkwell that gave Zahror his power. And he knew that he was safe inside his circle, but he risked his life to give me time to destroy the bottle,” she said.
“If not for Odin, who knows if you could have gotten away from Zahror?”
“How could this cat have understood what was happening? Where did this little guy come from?” Amanda questioned, stroking his fur.
With a soft “meow,” Odin looked toward the window as a breeze swirled around Amanda. A translucent cloud hovered, then dissipated and her parents were there, holding hands and smiling. Her father winked, her mother blew a kiss and then they were gone.
“It looks like he was a gift,” Jonah whispered as he placed his hands on Amanda’s shoulders.
“I believe he was.”
Odin hopped from her lap onto her shoulder and Jonah slipped his arm around her waist.
“Marry me, Manda.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” came her reply.
###
