Mel woke up and stared at the dark ceiling. A dream had not awoken her, she was sure of that. Perhaps it was the noise, or lack of it. The heaters in the bed and breakfast, at the moment, were not running. Everything was silent. Even the cat spirits, ever present at the foot of her bed, were nowhere to be found. The only thing she could hear was her own breath. And perhaps her own heart, she fancied, if her hearing was that good. She pulled the covers off and stepped onto the cool wood floor which stung her bare feet. She didn’t bother with slippers or a robe. She knew that she had to walk a bit before going back to bed or she would never go back to sleep. She hugged her arms to herself and walked to the window.
The cat spirits were crowded at the ledge, watching the night. They were silent and still, not even acknowledging her. They might as well be decorations and statues. Before she had gone to bed, she had drawn aside the drapes so whatever moonlight could get in through the window and that when the sun rose, she would be awakened by the first rays of the morning. But now, in the dead of night, there was no moonlight. Thick, puffy, navy clouds obscured the sky and she saw nothing—not even the bed and breakfast’s backyard with its solitary tree.
What were the cat spirits looking at? She wondered. Or perhaps they weren’t looking at anything at all. They were just zoned out, half-asleep. She should be asleep, she thought. Mel had left her tote bag on the arm chair in her room. Now, she walked over to that and automatically took out the plastic bag with the beads of horn silver. Even in the dark room, the beads seemed to take on a glimmer of their own as if they could generate their own light. As if they were radioactive. But she knew that radioactive things didn’t glow—only a Geiger counter could really tell for sure.
Mel turned and she noticed that the cat spirits were no longer at their places at the ledge of the window. They were scattered half across the room, silently pacing back and forth, agitated. But they did this silently so that they were nothing more than flitting shadows with bright eyes. Drawn by some inner compulsion, she opened her bedroom door and looked out into the hallway.
It was a long dark corridor punctuated with doors to the other guests’ bedrooms. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. For a moment, she debated on whether or not to take a walk outside, to clear her head.
A faint creak, that sounded like originated from the distant corner of the house, reached her ears.
Before she could wonder what it was or dismiss it as the house settling, the air became heavy and rushed out of her lungs. The dark hallway turned a shade darker. And was it just her own vision or did it seem to shrink suddenly as if some sort of presence had invaded the space? The horn silver beads in the bag burned hot in her hand.
With a noticeable effort, she forced her arms and legs to move. It was as if she was treading through molasses. She managed to get back inside her room and close the door. She turned the lock which clicked softly and began pulling the comforter off her bed. She stuffed the comforter at the bottom of the door to cover the crack. Then she began dragging the bureau and pushed it against the door. The cat spirits climbed up on the bureau and stared belligerently at the door. Mel only sank to her knees, the coldness of the floor seeping through her flannel pajamas. The horn silver beads dropped from her hand with an audible clink. She curled up with her back to the bureau, her blood pounding in her ears.
A harsh scratching sounded at the door.
* * *
Stuart groaned as he felt the cat spirits that inhibited his room jump on the bed. “No. Just fifteen more minutes, please?” He rolled over and covered his head with the pillow.
Undeterred, the cat spirits pounced on his prone form and began yowling loudly in a dissonant chorus.
“All right, already! I’m up, I’m up.”
Reluctantly, he flung the pillow away and stumbled out of bed, wincing as his bare feet touched the cold floor. Dimly, he noticed that the sun wasn’t up yet. He looked at his watch which was laying on the stand beside the bed. It was ten minutes before he was supposed to wake up, but since he was up now, he might as well stay up. He walked to the bathroom and closed the door before turning on the faucets. The cat spirits were still outside, meowing up a storm. What was wrong with them? He wondered as he went through his morning routine. They must be restless after being cooped up in a room for an entire day, he reasoned.
After he was dressed, he opened the door of his room and the pacing cat spirits burst out into the hallway, running in all directions. He closed the door behind him and still in a somewhat sleepy daze, proceeded to climb down the stairs. He stopped at the bottom when he saw Mel standing in front of the living room windows staring outside. Her hair was pulled back in a braid and she was wearing a black turtleneck sweater. She was frowning and there were faint shadows under her eyes.
“Morning,” he said.
She suddenly jerked as if someone had slapped her. She turned her head and her shoulders fell. “Oh, it’s just you. Morning.” She tucked her hands into the back pockets of her pants and took a deceptively relaxed stance.
“Something’s wrong,” he said flatly.
Her gaze didn’t meet his. Instead, she pretended inordinate interest in the bed and breakfast’s front yard. “I saw Ida Townsend just a little while ago. She said breakfast will be reading in about half an hour.”
“Mel, something is wrong.”
She was silent.
“I think you know me well enough to trust me. You can tell me.”
“Stuart…”
His heart pounded and his mouth felt dry. “It was last night, wasn’t it? Just tell me, straight out. I don’t want any sugar-coating. I know I can be really dense at times—it’s me, isn’t it? I should have listened to you when you told me I’m just a big geek who plays too many video games…”
Mel put a hand to her eyes and her mouth faintly curved. “Stuart…”
“You’ve realized that I’m not your type, am I?”
“Stuart!”
“What?”
“You’re so damn insecure for someone who’s usually so sure of himself.”
“That’s what you think,” he muttered.
She sighed and crossed her arms. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but this isn’t about you. It was last night, in the middle of the night. Something woke me. I’m not sure what it was. I’m not sure I can explain.”
“Was it a dream, perhaps?”
She shook her head. “I’m sure it wasn’t a dream. Maybe if I showed you…or perhaps you would just say that I was too spooked from being out in the dark at the Grandbury Farm.”
“You’re not spooked. I saw that thing too, remember?”
“But you never said anything to back me up when I asked.”
“I can be insecure about that kind of thing too, you know.”
“Well, I suppose I don’t blame you, much. Anyway, come see.”
He followed her back up the stairs and walked down the hallway toward her room. He noticed that all the cat spirits that he had let out of his room were now sitting in front of Mel’s bedroom door looking up. On the door were a series of three gouges which went through the paint and through the wood in the door. Automatically, Stuart reached up to touch the gouges. They were definitely real.
“Who…?”
“I locked the door,” she said distantly. She wasn’t even looking at the gouges. Instead, she had wrapped her arms around herself and was gazing down the hallway. He couldn’t tell exactly what she was looking at. “I showed this to Ida who told me I was just imagining things. She said there weren’t scratches on the door and that maybe I was just exaggerating how the paint strokes looked on the door. So I thought, maybe it’s like the cat spirits. But unlike cat spirits, I haven’t learned how to tell spirit scratches from real scratches.”
“But I can see it. I can feel it too.”
“At least I don’t feel so crazy now. But I definitely think that this has something to do with those beads. They felt hot to the touch last night.”
“Do you have them with you now?”
She pulled the bag of beads out of her pocket and handed it to him. They looked and felt as usual to him, but who knew what they were doing the previous night? He put them in his pocket. “Perhaps if I keep them, they won’t do anything,” he said.
Her mouth twisted downward. “Actually, I think it would be a better idea if we just drove out into a field and buried them there. Then we wouldn’t have to bother with them any more.”
“Not yet. I want to find out more about them first.”
