Meow,meow.=My name Muffin. Meow.=My name Mr. Cat. Meow,meow.=We happy you with us now too. Kristina smiled at the two cats and said, “thank you, both…which of you did that?” She looked at each of us. Meow,meow=They not venting quizzers, we do talking, not them. Meow.=Yep, we talk good, other languages too. Then they sit there and smile at her. Poor Kristina. I’m sure she didn’t know what to think, whether she should be excited, scared or was she just plain crazy.

“Yes Kristina,” said Kat, “you heard them talk, only certain people that they trust can understand them. So that means they trust you. You will get used to it after a while.” Kristina picked up both cats and hugged them. “However,” I said, “it could be dangerous staying with us, there are a lot of people who do not like us.” “It can’t be any worse than what I have been through,” said Kristina. It was getting late, so we all went to bed, Kristina stayed with Annelie and Jennifer.

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful, sunny day. Jennifer came to our room while Annelie and Kristina got dressed. Jennifer was always early getting ready, she is just like Kat that way. “I slept well last night,” said Annelie to Kristina, “but I have a bad headache this morning.” She then sat on the bed. “Yes, I have a slight headache too,” replied Kristina. Then Annelie fell backward onto the bed and M.C. quickly pressed the alarm button. “Trouble next door!”, yelled Kat and we all went running over. Kristina had the door open for us and M.C. was on the bed with Annelie.

Meow!=Air bad! I told everyone to get out while the cats and I looked around. On the window ledge was a canister, with a small tube coming through a whole that had been drilled through the wood frame of the window. I opened the window and turned off the canister. I looked down, way down, the castle was on a hill and this side was straight down about 200 feet, no one came up that way. Perhaps down from the room above? Kat came over just then and I showed her what I found. “Let’s check upstairs,” I said and we took the cats with us.

Oddly the door was not locked, so we went in and I immediately checked the window. Sure enough, someone had hooked something onto the window ledge. “Probably a rope ladder to go down to the window,” I said. “But who would do it?,” asked Kat, “those 4 guys?” “Quite possible, or maybe the young couple with the kids,” I added, “it would be a good cover, a nice young family on vacation.” “They just don’t look the type,” said Kat. “I agree,” I said, “then there is the owners of the castle. Something did not seem right when we had gone after Gordon, Marik did all the talking and Beth just stood silent, almost scared.”

“That’s not like Beth,” said Kat, “I have to admit to being a bit nervous right now. The people after us are not the normal type we are used to dealing with. This is a country that is after us.” “Yes, I agree with that,” I said, “so it is hard to know what to expect.” We went back to the others and told them what we found. Annelie and Kristina were feeling okay now so we went downstairs and had another huge breakfast and made our plans for the day.

First on the list was to explore the remnants of the castle, which M.C. has been impatiently waiting to do since we arrived. While eating I called Rock, he mentioned that someone had been following him around so we switched our talking to a code we had devised for times like this. I told him to pack up and head to Baldwin’s for now. Then I called Baldwin, using our same code. I told him to watch Rock for a while, don’t let him go anywhere alone.

And I mentioned what has been happening here. He wanted us to come back and go into hiding for a while. I said I would talk it over with the others. Then we all went to explore the castle. M.C. was jumping for joy and even Muffin was enjoying it. We had a map with some areas marked closed because they were too dangerous to explore. So we stayed away from those spots. Meow,meow!=This blood, it fresh! Sure enough it was and a lot of it too. We followed the trail of blood to a door which opened easily and…it was Beth!

To Be Continued.

©2021 Steve McLeod.