Cat, Bell, Book and Candle (Part 4)

I wiggled through my house’s cat flip and standing on the back door mat, I shook myself. It had began raining heavily seconds after I had left the old lady’s and I was soaked right through.

‘Warm towel, Macavity?’ dad asked me.

‘Yes, please,’ I said.

He got up and dropped a warm towel on top of me. He rubbed me down then scooped me up and placed me on one of the two empty chairs at the table. I peered over the edge and saw they were eating tea. It was sausages, chips, beans and fried eggs.

‘Dad got paid,’ my Little Mistress explained, ‘so there’s lots of extra things in.’

‘That’s good,’ I said and began washing my ears.

‘And we got a pumpkin too,’ Eden pointed out, excitedly.

Looking to the kitchen sink, I saw a large orange pumpkin on the window sill. It was huge and looked like I could fit inside it.

‘That will make a fine Jack O’ Lantern,’ I declared.

Eden nodded and stuffed her face like she hadn’t eaten all day. Dad was more slow, in his tried, thoughtful way.

‘I wish there was two of me,’ he spoke after some time, ‘then I could here for you tonight and my double could go to work.’

‘Me too,’ Eden replied softly.

‘I’m sorry kiddo,’ Dad answered.

He left soon after, the front door locking behind him as he dashed through the rain to the car. We watched from the front window and Eden waved him off, though I doubted he noticed.

‘What shall we do this evening, Little Mistress?’ I asked.

Eden sat with slumped shoulders and stared at the TV watch was showing a quiz show.

‘Dad’s said that before,’ she whispered, ‘I didn’t think about it then but now…’

Little Mistress looked at me and said, ‘Macavity, do you know a spell to make a double?’

I thought for a moment and replied, ‘that kind of thing is too difficult and dangerous for you, young Mistress.’

‘I don’t care!’ Eden snapped.

She turned off the TV, raced from the room and went upstairs. I ran after her, a bad tingling in my whiskers. Eden bet me to her bedroom, she slammed open her door and began throwing her clothes off.

‘I can’t let you do this, Little Mistress,’ I shouted.

Eden pulled on her black witch’s dress and began getting books, ingredients and her small cauldron out. She sat down, pulled her family’s spell book into her lap and began flipping through the pages.

I jumped up and landed on the book, back arched and hissing maddly.

‘Macavity,’ Eden yelled and tried toss me off the book but I dug my claws in, ripping the page she was open at.

‘I will use all my power to stop you, Little Mistress,’ I growled, ‘you can’t do such a spell. It is wrong.’

Eden threw the book down and I kept my balance on top of it as I hit the floor.

‘Then what’s the point of being a good witch, if I can’t help my dad!’ Eden sobbed as tears dropped from her eyes.

I gathered myself and said, ‘calm down child. Perhaps, there are other ways.’

Eden sprawled across the floor and broke down in frustration. She cried loudly until she was struggling for breath and had to lay there gasping. She shivered and curled up, defeated and weary. She wiped her face with her hands and shut her eyes as her breathing began shuddery.

I went and sat lightly on top of her hip. She moved after a few minutes and sat up, looking at the mess she had made. I rubbed against her knee then crawled into her lap. She pulled the spell book back to her slowly turned the pages.

‘I know of simple helper spells we could try,’ I spoke gently.

Eden wiped her eyes and sniffed.

‘There’s the invisible servant, the cleaners, the dust sprites.’

‘It has to be real,’ Eden said with a shaky breath, ‘if the double is to go to the pub to work in my dad’s place it has to be just like him.’

I frowned and looked up at the ceiling in thought. I heard the wind blowing outside and down the chimney it was making loud gusty sounds. The rain though had stopped, leaving only a few drips dropping off leaves.

‘An impersonation spell then,’ I said, ‘but we will also have to put a clouding spell on top to stop people from looking too closely. This is going to hard Little Mistress and it won’t last more then twenty-four hours at the most.’

‘But then we could cast it again?’ Little Mistress pressed.

‘Only after some time.’

‘What do we need?’ Eden asked.

‘The spell should be in here,’ I said and from the beginning, I flipped through the book to find the right page, ‘Impersonation Potion. For use on self or someone else to create a solid imagine of person that can do simple tasks.’

‘That should do it,’ Eden said and lent over me to see the page.

‘It’s complicated and takes over twenty four hours to complete.’

‘In time for Halloween then.’

I murmured and read what we needed.

‘Let’s try it, please, Macavity,’ Eden begged.

‘All right, Little Mistress, but this won’t be easy and some of these ingredients we don’t have…We shall have to try our best.’

Eden nodded and we set to work. I didn’t have much hope the potion and spell would work. I had been on the receiving end of failed spells before. It wasn’t the end of the world but disasters did happen. I could have told my Little Mistress this but lessons taken are stronger learning tools.

‘We will have to substitute this and this,’ I explained, pointing out the ingredients with a claw, ‘coal should do and you’ll have to use your own blood.’

Eden nodded, the ever attentive pupil, ‘and I can go out and get rain water and soil. What’s this one?’

She pointed at the Latin name for a plant.

‘It’s a poisonous flower,’ I explained.

Going to the cupboard where all the jars and containers were stored I looked through for the best replacement. My Little Mistress had a limited selection of things. Her dad and I insisted that a child witch should only have safe things to use in spell casting.

Thus, a complicated and needy spell like this needed the larder of a professional witch to be fully effective. There was no way certain ingredients could be replaced but if I made some wise choose here, we could make something like a dummy of her dad. It wouldn’t replace him though…My Little Mistress would just have to understand that.

‘Here,’ I said and rose three jars of dried plants over to her, ‘a mixture of these will have to do.’

‘I need….’ Eden began reading the last few ingredients, ‘some of my dad’s hair, a tooth, fingernail, blood…skin? and mmm…erm….’

I peered at the word underneath her finger and spoke aloud, ‘ A mirror that has most recently capture the reflection of yourself or the person.’

‘The bathroom one? but we can’t take that off the wall…’ Eden trailed off.

‘At least we don’t need an empty vessel,’ I counted back, ‘the doubling spell would have demanding one.’

‘What’s that?’ Little Mistress asked.

‘A dead body.’

Eden pressed her lips together and tried not to look disgusted.

I jumped around some of the mess and headed to the door, I turned back and called to Little Mistress, ‘let’s check the bathroom,’ I said.

We went and were lucky that Eden’s dad had done a full prepare before he went to work. We found; hair, nails and skin.

‘We’ll have to do without the tooth. You can use your own blood, it’s close enough your dad’s and look, Little Mistress! His shaving mirror! He’ll have looked in it recently.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Eden cried and took the small mirror from off the top of the sink. With all the things we could get we went back to the cauldron and continued.

It was late by the time it was done and left to simmer. Eden curled in bed and fall asleep quickly in her black dress. I looked at the window longingly but I couldn’t go out whilst the camp stove was still lit and the potion needed stirring every now and then.

I could sense in my whiskers and by my magic that witches and their familiars were arriving. It was two days before Halloween. I signed and lay down before the glow of the gas fire. The room was warm and smelt of the bubbling potion; spicy, earthy and burnt hair.

I yawned and give a wave of my paw to set the metal stick stirring around the cauldron. The potion hissed and crackled, giving off a light red smoke that rose to the ceiling.

Opening the window, I let in the wild wind and though a chill went though my black and white fur, it was good scent the clean night air. A dog howled somewhere, a long call which wasn’t answered. A few minutes later, an owl hooted.

Fighting down the urge to go out, I turned away and went down to the kitchen. Eden’s dad arrived whilst I was raiding the fridge. He saw the light on and came to see what was going on.

‘Working hard too, Macavity?’ he joked when he saw me.

I nodded but didn’t say anything, it was none of his business what Eden as a witch did. I meowed and looked cute at him. He was tried and easily gave in to giving me some food.

He had something to eat himself then left without finishing, turning the kitchen lit out and going upstairs. I finished eating in the dark then went outside for a quick walk around.

The night vibrated with the coming Halloween. More animals were stirring and witches who had arrived from a far were awake in strange rooms, reading and preparing for the spells they wanted to cast on that sacred night.

I went back to the potion. Sniffing it, I knew it wasn’t going to work though I could tell it was brewing something. Perhaps, we’d end up with a ghost or a shadow figure of Eden’s dad, something that would last a few minutes or hours tops.

At the appointed time, I turned the camping stove off and got into bed with Eden. She was warm and soft, so I wiggled close to her chest under the duvet and dozed off as dawn arrived.

To Be Continued….

Postcard Story

Dear Shelly,

It’s September now and six months since I last held you in my arms. I don’t know if you have been receiving anything from me. Your mother is probably withholding all my letters and gifts. I forgive her. She was angry but I hope one day, to get a note from you.

The leaves are falling against the cabin’s windows. The river is running cold and I am more alone then I have ever been before. I miss your sweet smile and small, warm hands.

Perhaps, in the spring I can return to you.

Papa

Postcard Short Story

Dearest friend,

We are having a great time here. Yesterday we hired bicycles and rode around the town and countryside. We stopped at a pub in the evening and someone stole my bicycle! Well, we didn’t know what do to and I decided to walk back to the hotel and let the others go ahead.

Then a local man pulled up on a bicycle, he was drunk but happy and apologised in broken English that he had taken my bicycle instead of his own! I was so happy, I forgave him on the spot. We shook hands, collected our correct bicycles and went on our separate ways.

This would never have happen back home and just shows how wonderful this country is!

Perhaps, one day I will move here fully.

Your’s truly.

Needy

Why did I always go after the boys that needed saving? It was strange how I was drawn to that type of person, sometimes without even knowing about it.

Deleting the photos of my ex and I from my phone, I told myself I didn’t need him. He had been too clingy, too emotional and demanding. He was toxic and things would have only got worse between us.

I should have ended things months ago but I kept talking myself out of it. His words of, ‘I’ll kill myself if we break up’ and ‘you are the only thing that’s keeping me going’, repeatedly came back to me. Sadness and guilt overrode my wanting to say those last words to him.

Things had finished now. I had said what was needed, ‘I love you, Bennet but things aren’t working for us anymore. I don’t want to be your comfort blanket anymore. I’m sorry.’

Of course, he had broken down and tried anything he could to make me take back those words. The normally, I can change, I can do better, don’t want to lose you, why are you doing this to me? 

Maybe, if I hadn’t been through this so many times I would have given in like I had done before. I’d have cried, hugged him and said I was sorry and we would work something out. Then everything went back to how it was and the loop carried on. With Bennet I had learnt the cut of those other break ups too deeply and I stood my ground.

He spend days wearing me down, becoming desperate for us to be together again. Finally he phoned me and told me he was going to do it. It was going to kill himself. I told him I didn’t care and to go ahead. It was just an empty threat. Then I blocked his number.

So, I’m moving on. No more needy men for me. I’m staying single until I find someone who’s not going to abuse my caring nature like a numbing pill for their problems.

Someone who is more balanced and wanting to care more about me then themselves. Like a normal man. Maybe then, I won’t have to go through all this heartbreak again.

Under

The underground world had been closed for so long because it hadn’t been needed. Some sections had been turned into tour routes for those interested in history and ghost hunting. It was never thought that the space would ever be required again.

Then the outbreak happened. It was pushed off as a simple disease before levelling up to a world sweeping plague. Millions of people died but they didn’t stay in their graves.

The government repaired, improved and kitted out the underground cities, factories and farms once more. People moved in, coming not just from the country above but from others as well. Builders had to construct new sections and everyone had to pull together to survive.

The world above become ravaged by war and death, disease ran wild and people returned from the other side, their bodies reanimated, their hearts and brains nonfunctional.

Anybody who died in the underground world was thrown out the steel doors and just left there. Burials, prayers and rites no longer had a place and the families could only hope their loved ones stayed dead.

 

Other Summer

Another summer without any sun and just full of rain instead. I wondered when I’d walk on dry ground and feel warmth on my face instead of the whipping wind. Summer happened in other countries but mine seemed to go from spring to autumn.

I should be waiting to make a fire and read before it like I did in winter. I should have been sitting out, enjoying the setting sun whilst sipping wine.

Oh, summer when will you come to me?

Plans

‘Here are the plans for the wind farm and new pier,’ Tom said and hung his drawing up.

A ripple of sniggers and giggles went around the boardroom.

Tom turned to look at his drawing…

It wasn’t his!

The picture showed a line of wind turbines out at sea and a pier below them and were those stick people on the pier?

It looked like one of his children had tried to cope his finally draft.

‘Erm…sorry,’ Tom mumbled, ‘wrong drawing.’

Shuffling through his papers then his briefcase, Tom tried to keep his cool. He need this to go well and nothing was going to stop him. Realising all his drawings were gone, he coughed and turned back to the boardroom and indicted the drawing presented before the stern business investors.

‘Anyway,’ Tom picked up, ‘as you can see this gives us the rough idea of what is going to happen….’

A life Of Stories

It was a grim task but I had volunteered to help my family clear out a distant relation’s home. I hadn’t know Bill Dalton existed until a second cousin of my mum reached out and told her that his uncle had died and he knew my mum was an antique dealer. Did she want to come and do a house clearance?

Bill had been an organised hoarder so the task of going through things wasn’t that hard, just long.

Whilst my mum and her second cousin were inspecting a collection of figurine women dressed in 1800’s ballgowns, I decided to open a corner cupboard that had yet been touched.

The door creaked like it hadn’t been opened in awhile. Inside, stacked on the small shelves were pile and piles of notebooks. There was a range of leather, paper and hardback covers all looked well use and the lined sheets yellowing. The notebooks were all tied together string in small groups. It was a strange sight.

‘What’s all this?’ I called over my shoulder.

My mum and her second cousin came to look.

‘I don’t know….’ he trailed.

‘Pull one out,’ my mum said.

I pulled the smallest stack of notebooks out and undid the string around them. Picking up the top one which was like a hardback diary, I opened it.

‘It looks like a novel…’ I said.

I handed it to the second cousin then passed another one to my mum and gripped a third for myself. We read quietly for a few moments.

‘I didn’t know him well,’ the second cousin broke the silence , guilt and sadness in his voice.

‘It looks like this is a whole novel, handwritten and with corrections at the sides,’ my mum muttered.

‘Are all of these novels? Surely he didn’t write these, maybe he copied them or translated them or something?’ I said.

‘I don’t think they all are. Look at those, they say diary with the years.’ the second cousin pointed out.

I pulled out that stack, untied them and picked up the top one. He was right, it was a diary and each day page was carefully filled in.

‘Do you think there’s anything important in these?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ the second cousin said, ‘do you think you could go through them and find out?’

‘I’ll try,’ I said.

All of the notebooks turned out to either be yearly diaries which Bill had recorded his life in, full novels which Bill himself had written, short stories, ideas and drawings, reflections on things and details of locations and characters.

There was a lot to go through but none of it was important paperwork. I didn’t want Bill’s life to fade and so with the family’s permission and years of work; I finally held one of Bill’s officially published novels in my hands.

I hope he is pleased.

Mistake #3LineTales

I’m not very good at knitting.

 

(Inspired by; https://only100words.xyz/2020/06/04/three-line-tales-week-227/ with thanks).

 

D.I.Y

Crossing another task of my long list of them, I looked through the pages; some computer typed and others handwritten which were stabled together, at the other jobs there. They were all D.I.Y tasks like; paint the fence, fix the bottom draw in the kitchen, put the wheel back on the shelf unit, replace the doorbell.

It was was strange to think that once I hardly had the time or else I would say I’d do it tomorrow and now I needed to fill the daytime up because my job was on hold. What better way to pass the time then getting through my lists?

Everyone else was in the same place and constantly I would hear the whirl of drills, the teeth-on- edge scrapping of a spade against rocks and the blasting chugging of a chainsaw. Voices would drift from other back gardens; children playing, neighbours talking loudly over their fences and the wind slapping shut doors.

I frowned over a scrawling of words at the bottom of the list but couldn’t make them out. The one below it appealed to me more then anything else; build wood plants for herbs and butterfly/bee liking flowers.    

That sounded like a nice thing to get making.