The Dark Yule Read online

  “Let him up,” I told Dot. Dot shot me a glare like I’d ordered her to abandon a three-legged rat. I must have looked serious about it, because when I backed slowly from the entrance, she and Cinnamon followed.

  In far less time than I’d have expected the ghoul hauled himself out, squeezing painfully through the narrow hole in the curb. He crouched before us, panting and shivering, and I held my breath while he glowered at us with pink, blood-streaked eyes.

  But in the end, he only sneered, pale lips curling upward to reveal polished fangs. “Take it up with the thing in the pond,” he repeated, and with a last fearful glance over his shoulder at the storm drain, loped away.

  The fish smell was now eye-wateringly potent, and the four of us did not wait to see if the Deep One would pursue its lost prey. We scampered away ourselves, and did not rest until we were once again in familiar territory, under a pine at the corner of Wood and Jefferson, not far from any of our homes.

  “The island in the middle of Black’s Pond,” I repeated. “Do any of you know what he means?”

  “No,” said Dot, and Cinnamon shook her head, but Libby spoke up at once.

  “It’s a bit of a landmark, actually. Some sort of crazy old hermit lived in a shack there or something. Tourists ask about it sometimes, but nobody ever goes.”

  “What about the monster? ‘A white thing’—isn’t that what he said?”

  “I don’t know,” said Libby. “But really, nobody goes there, ever. We had a painter once who was just dying to get on the island and paint the pond from that perspective, but she never could find anyone with a boat to take her over, or even someone to lend her a pair of waders. It was like she was…blocked, if you know what I mean.”

  I did. We all did. Sometimes, things don’t happen for a reason—and that reason is not always within our comprehension. “Well, we’ll have to find a way over,” I said.

  “Why?” Dot wanted to know. But before I could answer, she cut me off. “Ugh, forget it. Spice, you’re all torn up and you smell ungodly and you’re likely to freeze in this weather. Go home. I’ll talk sense into you some other night.”

  “I want to go,” Cinnamon volunteered. This was evidently her good-bye, for she nudged against me with a little purr, and slunk out from under the pine tree with no further ado.

  “I don’t,” said Libby emphatically.

  “What if Mark and Clarence are in danger?” I wanted to know. “What if whatever-it-is means to destroy the whole town?”

  Libby’s ears flattened, and his nose wrinkled into a troubled expression. “I don’t know,” he eventually concluded unhappily. “Let’s…let’s just see.”

  “Go home, Spice,” Dot told me sharply. She bumped against my shoulder in a way that was hardly friendly at all. “Before Morwen has to take you to the vet.”

  “She’s going to take me anyway,” I muttered.

  “Oh!” said Libby cheerfully, as I slipped cautiously out from under the pine and back into the white wonderland of the streets. “So that’s why you don’t want to go home. Well, good luck!”

  6

  Spectral

  As I’d expected, Morwen lost her shit when she discovered me in the kitchen the next morning. I was still pretty well torn up, but the bleeding had stopped and I didn’t smell half so bad as before—so what was all the fuss about? But my protests were ignored. Her Husband went to work, a new babysitter was summoned early, and I was bundled into that awful cat carrier and placed in the front seat of Morwen’s rattling car.

  Honestly, Pumpkin Spice, why now? Morwen moaned, while she slid her big-bellied self, with difficulty, into the driver’s seat. The grumbling didn’t stop as she backed out of the driveway, though my comprehension of it waned as Morwen went into specifics. To be honest I wasn’t paying very much attention. I get carsick, and I was staring glassily through the cat carrier’s little grate, trying to abate the nausea. If I crammed my head against the door and looked past Morwen, I could see a bit of passing scenery through the driver-side window, and that helped.

  Briefly, but without warning, the entire world went transparent. The car and the cat carrier alike turned a filmy, see-through gray. I yowled at the sight of nothing between me and the passing asphalt, and scrambled frantically for purchase on the invisible floor—only to yowl again as the asphalt transformed into bumpy cobblestones.

  Over my own panicked squalls, I caught a horse’s shrill neigh. I looked up to see a horse rearing over my head, its spectral hooves descending through the shadowy roof of the car.

  What the—oh my God! Morwen yelled, and slammed on the brakes. The car shuddered, swerved, and crashed. The carrier flew forward and smacked directly into the dash. I shrieked with shock as I collided w the hard plastic. My head hit, and for long seconds all I could see were stars.

  By the time everything stopped spinning, the carrier rested on its side on the passenger floorboard. From where it lay, I couldn’t see Morwen. Was she hurt? Was the baby all right? I meowed, at first tentatively, then more vigorously.

  Why didn’t she answer?

  The carrier shook slightly from a small impact. Pat, pat, pat went a hand on top of the plastic roof. It’s ok, I understood Morwen to say. It’s ok, baby. Are you all right?

  I howled a joyful affirmative. She rotated the carrier so the door was on top, tumbling me with it, but I was too relieved to complain. Unlatching the grate, Morwen reached a soothing hand inside to stroke me. I purred and nuzzled my nose into her shaking fingers.

  Multiple humans outside the car window shouted and called, and Morwen answered in a voice as shaky as her hand. The car door opened, and one or two angry voices stopped at once. Instead, I listened as a concerned female human took over. She I could understand quite clearly—she must’ve had cats herself. Let’s get you to a doctor, honey.

  With the carrier standing on its end, it was difficult to see, but I assumed the ensuing shuffling sounds were of other humans helping Morwen from the car. I could also tell, from the street sounds, that they’d left the car door open. After a long pause, during which nobody came to fetch me, I squirmed my way up out of the carrier. Easing my bruised self down to the floor, I crouch half-hidden on the floorboard in front of the driver’s seat. From there, I could observe the scene at my leisure.

  A small crowd of people surrounded Morwen, who was tearful and upset but who, as far as I could tell, did not smell of blood. None of them were looking my way, but it was only a matter of time before Morwen remembered my presence, and then I’d be forcibly returned to the carrier.

  And after that? I’d be taken to the vet and likely locked up for days, unable to either comfort or protect poor Morwen. Meanwhile, these time-slips would likely continue, if not intensify, placing all of us in immediate danger. Was I content to remain trapped in a cage, useless to all, while my friends and my hometown suffered? I was not.

  So I hated to do it…but it really was for the best. Staying low and moving slow, I oozed out the driver side door and slunk underneath the car. When I’d reached the far side of the car’s protective shadow, I bolted across the (thankfully empty) street, and sprinted down the first alley I encountered.

  Morwen would be terribly upset when she discovered me gone. But not as upset as she’d be if this whole cursed town fell apart.

  * * *

  I’d gotten almost no sleep the night before. My shoulder was torn, and throbbing all the way down to my paw. I was limping through the snow. I had just been in a car wreck caused by a bizarre temporal shift the likes of which I’d never witnessed, in any lifetime.

  So I was not at my best when I ran into the King.

  The cat King of the neighborhood was sprawled upon his house’s old porch swing, dangling his head over the faded, splintery edge to casually observe his domain. His tail twitched and slapped the wood as I slunk past; though his ears swiveled my way, he said nothing. I thought I was off the hook when, just as I prepared to cross the street, he hailed me.

  “You.
Pumpkin Spice. Where are you going in that condition?”

  My ears flattened as I reluctantly turned back.

  The King sprang from his place on the swing, setting it rocking and creaking back and forth, back and forth. He sauntered up to me and sniffed my shoulder in a curious way. Though here he wasn’t the great panther he was in the dreamlands, he was still a brawny tuxedo tom, nearly as big as I was—no mean feat for a mere short-haired domestic.

  “You’ll bring dogs down on us,” he observed. “Or worse—foxes. Go home and wash so you don’t reek of blood.”

  “Sorry, Your Highness,” I replied stiffly, trying to force my ears into a more friendly, or at least less pissed-off, position. “I can’t just yet.”

  Languidly the King raised his gaze. His eyes were a brilliant, poisonous green, hypnotic in their clarity. Two centuries ago, he’d have been thrown into the fire as a witch’s familiar, for his black fur and those eyes.

  “Why?” he asked simply.

  “There’s something wrong with this town,” I said, and could not entirely hide my irritation. Hadn’t he noticed? What sort of King couldn’t keep tabs on his kingdom?

  “Oh?”

  “Some sort of temporal dislocation,” I said briefly. “Two different times overlapped. It caused my human to wreck her car, nearly killing us both. I aim to stop it.”

  I must have finally surprised him, because his pupils widened, turning nearly round. Then they narrowed again, as his characteristic superciliousness overpowered his interest. “How? Alone, and looking like that?” He sat, confident in his condescension, and curled his tail around his toes. “Whatever spirits are working this town, they’ll certainly be able to smell you coming. And even if they didn’t, what could you possibly do to stop them? Whoever they are, these are powerful entities—maybe even the Neighbors themselves.” He scratched the snow, forming a Mark against evil, as all cats do when forced to mention them. “They’re not likely to be swayed by a kitty.”

  “It’s not ‘entities,’ it’s ‘entity,’” I retorted. “Whatever lives on the island in the middle of Black’s Pond.”

  The King’s eyes narrowed, and I caught his tail twitching. “How do you know?”

  This was a bit of a sticking point. I bent down and casually, briefly groomed my good leg, to show I didn’t care what I was about to admit. “A ghoul told me.”

  “A ghoul?” I was still deeply engaged in examining the short hairs on my foreleg, but I could hear the King’s nose wrinkle. “Why on Earth would you talk to a ghoul? And why would it tell you the truth?”

  “It was in…straitened circumstances,” I told him demurely, studying my paw, as if too humble to describe how I’d overpowered and threatened a full-grown ghoul. “And I can’t see that it had any reason to lie.”

  Giving my paw a last nibble, I looked up. Rather to my surprise, the King’s gaze was distant. Thoughtful.

  “It won’t be easy to get on that island,” he volunteered. “There’s a deception around it. I don’t think whatever lives there likes to be disturbed.”

  “I have my ways,” I said airily.

  “So do I,” he said. Rising quickly, without even a good preparatory stretch, he nosed open the cracked front door and strolled purposefully inside.

  I dithered on the front stoop, uncertain whether to follow or to leave—had I been invited or dismissed? The King saved me from social awkwardness by reappearing as suddenly as he’d left. He was carrying something between his jaws—what, precisely, I couldn’t say.

  “Here,” he said, without ado, and dropped the object at my feet.

  It was a paw-sized hunk of rusted, corroded iron in the rough shape of a key; I describe it that way because, whatever it had once been, it certainly hadn’t been an actual, working key. Likely it had been intended as an amulet, especially given the large hoop it made at one end, through which was tied a leather string that looked nearly as dirty and old as the amulet itself. What was more, the entire thing reeked—and I mean reeked—of tom-cat piss.

  “This is one of the kingdom’s treasures,” the King volunteered, licking his lips with something of a grimace. “Passed from King to King for millennia. I was told it hailed originally from Scandinavia, and came to England in the mouth of a mighty King of Forest Cats, long before it made its way to this New World.” The King nudged the amulet with his paw. “It should open a way for you to the island.”

  “Thank you,” I said, shocked into genuine gratitude. “I’m sure it will be useful.”

  The King’s eyes narrowed with sleepy disinterest—the cat equivalent, I suppose, of a human being’s shrug. “Bring it back when you’re done,” he said. “If you live,” he added, before leaping back upon his porch swing, and setting it once more rocking and creaking from rusted chains.

  I almost asked if he cared to come too, before realizing that I had no desire for him to join me whatsoever. Still, it was odd, to loan a treasure like this so casually, when the chances of it being returned were far from certain. Of course, it was not the first time I had found the King too cavalier in his duties, but it did make me wonder…

  With an effort I bit the precious amulet, trying not to touch its urine-encrusted surface with my tongue, and carried it away. I did look back over my shoulder, considering that, perhaps, this was a trick of some kind—but the King was already dozing in the winter sun once more, his head dangling crookedly off the side of the ancient swing.

  * * *

  “It’s disgusting!” said Libby, wrinkling his nose.

  “It’s powerful,” muttered Cinnamon, sniffing it with care.

  “It’s from the King?” Dot narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

  One by one I had fetched my fellow cats, laboriously walking—in broad daylight!—to each of their houses to summon them in person, as it was still too early in the morning to trust that they could be found in the dreamlands. We were now gathered by Black’s Pond, directly in front of the island that was, apparently, causing all this trouble. This was not exactly prime cat territory; the low banks were too marshy for our liking, and the high banks had a tendency to crumble away without much warning. Dot had previously sworn that, in summer, this area was good hunting, but she was a fanatic; the rest of us would rather eat kibble than venture this far from town, and this close to so much water.

  Those were mere practical considerations: there were other reasons to dislike the place. Such as the white mist that still hung around the low island, long past the time it should have been burned off by the sun.

  “Why give it to you?” Dot went on distrustfully. “If he has the ability to fix this problem, he ought to do it himself. It’s his responsibility.”

  “Heavy lies the head upon which rests a crown,” Libby murmured poetically.

  “Well, for whatever reason, he’s not. So it’s up to us,” I told them firmly. I had already told them about the car accident and its circumstances, and so no one was willing to argue. I might be a trifle more protective of my humans than the average cat, but Libby and Dot, I knew, were also fond of their people. Cinnamon’s family I didn’t know much about, beyond that they were both rich enough to afford a Savannah, and old-fashioned enough to let her roam; yet Cinnamon had required the least persuasion of them all. I put it down to her kittenish energy.

  “Damn good thing the pond’s frozen,” Libby muttered, pointedly loud enough for me to hear. “Or she’d have us swimming, too!”

  “How does it work?” Cinnamon wanted to know.

  I realized I wasn’t sure. With true cat ingenuity, I endeavored to conceal that as much as possible. “Why don’t you give it a go first, Cinnamon,” I said vaguely, licking my paw and passing it over my ear in a casual way. “We’ll follow along behind.” As soon as I’d delivered the command, I twisted round and fell to licking my haunch, to further demonstrate how much I didn’t care, and also to keep my mouth busy so that no one would expect me to talk.

  I heard the dull clack of metal on teeth as Cinnamon picked
up the powerful (and disgusting) talisman, then the swish of her tail as it swept through the tall grass. I also heard Dot pad closer to me, on pretense of aiding my grooming, and purr as she said: “You haven’t the faintest fucking idea how to use it, do you?”

  My ears flattened and I shot her a little sideways glare. I sometimes think there is something very unfeline about Dot.

  “It’s working,” I heard Cinnamon mumble around the key.

  We all looked. The beautiful Savannah cat was standing with her head held high, advancing slowly toward the water. As she went, the air appeared to part before her, creating a corridor with translucent walls. The effect was eerie; I had the sense that reality itself was being sliced open.

  I stood behind Cinnamon and peered over her shoulder. The view directly before her was quite different from what we’d seen before. Here the island was not thirty body-lengths of thin, creaking ice away, but perhaps only eight or nine body-lengths distant from our paws, and surrounded by thick white ice.

  I took a step to the left, and saw the old view of the pond; a step to the right, and perceived the same. Only directly in front of Cinnamon did the strange corridor, and its alternative version of our world, appear.

  “Well done, Cinnamon,” I said. I even managed a choked little purr. Gods damn it, I wish I’d known it would be that easy. Dot, I could tell, was smirking behind me; I could feel the schadenfreude radiating from her like a wave of sarcastic heat.

  I swallowed my jealousy, and took a deep, cleansing, rib-heaving breath—which of course made my shoulder twinge. “Lead on,” I told Cinnamon. “We’ll follow.”

  With care Cinnamon, still holding her head—and the talisman—high, stepped onto the ice. It creaked beneath her substantial weight, but showed no signs of cracking. When she walked on, she left a large paw-print behind in the powdering of snow, which I took great care to step in exactly. I wasn’t sure how picky the key would be about the dimensions of the path, and I had no desire to experiment. Cinnamon moved on, as did I, and I heard fainter creaks behind me as the others fell into line. She had to walk around a black branch poking above the ice once, and around half-submerged rocks twice, but the key bent the path to accommodate her, and the island remained in view.