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Category:
Horror
Publisher: Create Space
ISBN-10: 1493723073
Pages: 184
Copyright: November 9, 2013
ISBN-13: 9781493723072
Price: $4.99 (eBook)
When New York writer, Joanna Elliott, flees her abusive husband to the Texas Hill Country, she and her six-year old son, Jason, unwittingly become a killer's prey. Despite Realtor Tommy Joe Greenleaf's warning that Wanda and Ralph Spencer had mysteriously disappeared from the remote farmhouse ten years earlier, Joanna moves in, and makes the sunroom into her office. Joanna adopts a cat from the local veterinarian, Jim Kelly, who tells her that Sabbath "had belonged to a witch." Immediately, unexplained events unfold: Joanna is locked overnight inside the storage shed, footprints appear under the sun room windows, and Jason's dog, Mournful, is found poisoned. What more can happen?
The black cat crouched in the tall weeds, tail twitching, yellow-gold eyes narrowing as if in deep thought -- watching as the gray Chevrolet moved past, down the highway into the distance.
She waited until she could no longer hear the noise from the car before she moved, silently, stealthily, from her hiding place.
Only then did the cat turn, eyes focused on the roadway leading to the farmhouse, to her Home and her People. As she approached the house, a sense of disquiet came over her. A restlessness, a vague sense that something had happened there.
She stopped to consider this strange new feeling searching her primal instincts for an explanation.
Yes. A strange Person had entered the House, suddenly, and then there was --A loud, and violent, noise. She had instinctively fled into the countryside, far away from the Something happening at her House.
That had been quite some time ago; she had missed a couple of dinners, and instinct had led her to scavenge at least twice for field mice.
Now, the cat approached the sunroom door and paused cautiously.
Her Mistress and the Man were here, after all-- she smelled their presence. But where? She entered the house through one of the myriad gaps in the foundation, into the former porch turned sunroom. She prowled, circled the room, until she was certain. They were here. Beneath the Room – She pawed at the floor, crying softly.
But if they were beneath the house -- They were No More. The cat ceased her frantic pawing, sat back and stared at the spot.
She lifted her small face to the gentle breeze, and her keen sense of smell detected Something -- something that her primitive instinct registered as Death.
Yes, I remembered the Evil thing that had been here; the Evil thing had taken her People away.
She crouched, pulling herself into a ball, narrowing her green-gold eyes as she processed the information assaulting her senses.
A stranger. Loud noise. Escape.
What had happened here was not good. That much she knew. Her People were No More.
Was this her Gift?
She must go.
The black cat turned away from the House, her Place of Comfort, and emitted a long cry of anguish before she fled once more into the sanctuary of the underbrush.
Excerpt
It was Halloween. The nine-year old boys were hampered in their game of running up to the Witch’s Porch, ringing the doorbell and running off by a raging thunderstorm. The Hill Country of Texas did not adhere to any standard weather pattern; it would just as soon rain on the Fourth of July, as be 80 degrees on Thanksgiving. Halloween here was certainly no exception.
Granny Copes retired early, after a meager supper, alone, as usual; that no-account Maria had not been in the house at all today, she thought. I must speak to her when she comes in tomorrow.
Her sleep was interrupted first by thunder, then by what sounded like an animal crying in the night, first a faint cry, then somewhat closer, until it sounded as though the animal was right on her front doorstep.
Struggling from her bed, Irena descended slowly down the massive staircase, opened her front door to investigate and found a cat. A sleek black cat, at that.
As she stooped to pick up the creature, she said aloud, “Well, kitty-cat. Are you lost? Come inside, with old Granny Copes. After all, every witch should have a black cat.” She smiled wryly at her little joke.
"The storm scared you? And you’re hungry, too."
She examined the cat as she walked slowly into the kitchen. Fumbling for the light switch, she wondered: Where is that Maria? She's never around when I need her.
She opened the refrigerator, the light spilling into the room. It was sufficient for a woman familiar with her own house.
She and the cat inspected the meager contents.
"Milk?" she asked softly. "Would my black cat like some milk? It appears that is all I have to offer."
She pulled the carton from the shelf and turned to the cabinet in search of a bowl, finding only one. Everything else, she noticed, had been piled in the sink to be washed whenever Maria got around to it.
She frowned. The milk smelled sour; how long had it been since she had sent Maria to the store? When was she last here...from the looks of it, several days, at least.
Anger rose in her and she promised herself she would confront that lazy girl tomorrow.
As Irena unconsciously uttered an oath of disgust, the cat jumped from her arms, running for the safety of a dark corner.
Irena set the bowl of milk gently on the floor. The cat hesitantly crept from her corner toward the milk, then began to lap, tentatively at first, then more greedily.
While the cat was occupied, Irena examined her collar for a tag. She found one, but it had no address or veterinarian's number on it. Just her name.
"Folly?" Irena spoke softly. "I don't think you're my ‘folly.’ Not at all."
The cat raised her head from the bowl, seemingly in agreement with Granny Copes, then returned to her lapping of the milk.
Granny Copes wondered briefly about the family who had lost their pet and what circumstances would have caused such a loss, but then realized the cat had come to her. A black cat had come to The Witch. Then she must give it a name worthy of a witch's cat.
A black cat, black like the night. Like the unknown...A chime from one of the many clocks in her vast house sounded the hour: midnight.
It was tomorrow, already. Sunday. A church day, in her days gone by. Church had been important to her, once, when Eric had been alive, when they had first come to this country and began building their business together. She had taken their children to church on the Sabbath, but now that the children were grown and gone, she no longer attended. Besides, witches don't go to church... she stopped in mid-thought.
“I found her on the Sabbath. Oh, what a fine name!” She clapped her hands and laughed aloud, startling the cat, who had finished the milk and who now crouched, tail whipping gently to and fro, yellow-green eyes studying her new Person.
"Come, Sabbath," Granny Copes urged gently. She closed the refrigerator door, and the room plunged into darkness again.
But with the sureness of someone who has lived all her life within the confines of the same house, she led the way from the kitchen into a cavernous hallway, toward the stairs.
"You and I can see quite well in the dark, can't we, Sabbath?" she said softly as she gripped the oak banister.
"But then, a witch and her cat ought to be able to see in the dark, shouldn't we?"
She laughed again, but softer than before, being careful not to startle the cat as she had inadvertently done in the kitchen.
Sabbath? The cat pondered her new name. Well, it made no difference what label her Persons put on her. And since this Woman seemed to enjoy the new name, she would accept it. And, in keeping with her knowledge that she was, indeed, a very special cat befitting her Gift, Sabbath seemed to be appropriate.
Irena Copelski "Granny Copes" knelt by her bed while her new resident jumped up on the bed, chose her territory and curled herself into a ball. Thank you for sending me this new creature, who will keep me company and comfort me in times of need, as I will also care for her. Amen. She crawled into bed where the old woman and her new pet slept soundly till morning.
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