Chapter 1
“Just don’t do anything to burn the house down while I’m gone, okay?” I asked with my hand on the cut-glass doorknob of the front door to my apartment. “I’d like to get that deposit back next year when I move out.” If I moved out. If I really liked the place, I’d stay until graduation, but that was a decision for another day.
“Yes, yes, dear. You know this is more smoke than fire, right?” Gram said as she waved her hand over a bundle of sage leaves, sending the smoke out into the corner of my beige-colored living room. Her beaded stone bracelets clinked together with each movement. She never took them off, said they kept her “energy aligned,” whatever that meant. She’d been new-age since before that’s what it was called.
“Joanie, you really should learn a bit more about this,” my mom added. She waved the sage smoke out an open window that looked down on the two-lane road below and the house across the street. Two streets beyond that was the beginning of Baycliff Harbor, but I couldn’t see it from the window.
“I think I’ve seen all I need to see to know what you’re doing.”
Mom closed the window and shivered, a common reaction when one stood by an open window in January, but it had helped to cut the acrid scent of the burning sage. “You don’t even know what it’s called.”
“You’re saging or whatever it’s called, I don’t know.” I shrugged, my hand still on the knob. “To keep the bad spirits out.” I knew they meant well, but I didn’t care what they called it or what it did as long as it kept them happy and out of the boxes I still had to unpack. If they got their hands on them, I wouldn’t be able to find anything until it was time to pack everything again.
I sighed. “Okay, well, don’t set off a smoke alarm, please? I’ll be home soon. I just need to go to campus and get some stuff.”
After getting mere grunts from Mom and Gram in acknowledgment, I pulled open the door leading into the hallway. This was my first time ever living alone. For the past two and a half years, I had lived in college dorms, and before that it had been Mom and me in my childhood home. Now it was just me in my one-bedroom apartment, but there were five other units in my building. Most, if not all, of the other tenants were students at the nearby college.
“Hey, did either of you put a paper bag out here?” Sitting in front of me was a large plain brown paper bag, the kind people get when they order Chinese food or sandwiches. I had become very familiar with this type of bag during my time at school so far, but we hadn’t ordered any food yet today. That was the plan for when I got back. It was well past lunchtime, and I was way too tired to cook after loading mom’s station wagon last night, driving with her and Gram the four hours it took to get here from home, then unloading everything. Mom and Gram had helped me load the car—just as they had two weeks ago when they helped me move out of my dorm—but once we got to the apartment, they were done after the first trip up. I couldn’t say I blamed them. They weren’t used to all the stairs.
“No, dear, not me.” Gram cast a quick glance over her shoulder to see what I’d been talking about before returning to her—
“Smudging! That’s what you call it.” The term had finally come to me.
“Very good, dear.”
“Mom, did you?”
“Not me,” she answered, not even bothering to look. She’d moved on to the open doorway between my living room and the kitchen. Mom was just as new-agey as Gram, if not more so, although Mom didn’t wear bracelets like Gram did. She said they got in the way and instead wore rings and necklaces. Mom didn’t understand how I wasn’t more like the two of them. That sort of stuff wasn’t my thing, although I’d helped Gram countless times with whatever it was she did. She called them rituals or even sometimes spells, but I think the spell part of it anyway was just to make it more fun for me and my cousin, who also helped sometimes. Beyond what she’d tell me to hold or where to stand, I’d never paid too much attention to what she’d done, but as a kid, I always thought the stones and feathers she used were pretty.
“Well, I’m going to set it inside right here,” I said, pointing to a clear spot on the floor. “I’ll deal with it when I get back, I guess.” I picked it up. The weight shifted, but barely, and whatever it was inside wasn’t that heavy. Maybe it was a housewarming present from one of my new neighbors, but what college student did that? Some strange prank was more like it. I gave the bag a quick sniff. At least whatever it was didn’t smell.
“All right,” they said in unison, dismissing me without looking.
Stepping out into the hallway that separated my apartment from my neighbor’s, I closed the door behind me. I’d have locked it but figured I didn’t need to with Mom and Gram inside. We never locked our doors back home, but I’d heard stories while living on campus that quickly broke me of that habit.
I walked to the central staircase that wound its way down to the first floor. I’d lose the notorious freshman—and an additional sophomore—fifteen in no time with having to walk up and down three flights of stairs every time I needed to go in or out of my apartment.
“Now, let’s see how fast I can get to campus and back,” I said to myself as I took my gloves out of the pockets of my peacoat and slid them on. I wanted to get back into the warmth of my apartment as fast as I could.
Behind me, a cat meowed.
“Oh, hello, kitty.” I turned toward it and squatted, holding my hand out.
The black cat stared at my mitten.
I pulled my hand away and removed the mitten before offering it again. This time, the cat approached my hand, taking a quick sniff before using my fingers to scratch behind her neck. I wiggled them around to help him.
“Do you live here?” The lease allowed pets with an extra deposit.
He—or she—didn’t respond and instead walked past me toward the door, then sat and looked up at the handle.
“You want to go out?” But it was so cold. And there was another matter to contend with. “I don’t know if you’re allowed to go outside.”
He glanced up at me before resuming his staring match with the door handle.
“Go on, scootch.” I was not going to be responsible for losing someone’s cat. How had he gotten into the hallway anyway?
As if listening, the cat backed up a few feet.
“Such a smart kitty. Thank you.” I pulled my glove back on and opened the door. “Maybe I’ll see you later.”
No sooner had I stepped onto the small porch than the cat was in front of me on the sidewalk.
“No way. I made sure you were still behind me.” I would have seen it get past me. But it was the same cat, same few white hairs on its chest—it had to be. Just to be sure, I opened the door behind me and peeked inside. No more cat.
Now I had to get him back inside.
“I guess you’re smart and fast,” I told the cat as I turned back around, pulling my glove off in hopes he’d want another scratch behind the ears.
The cat was gone.
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