Sure enough, my watch now said 4:30am. “Hmm, something in here is affecting my watch, changing the time,” I said to the cats, “another thing to make people think they have gone crazy.” I laughed and we went back to our bedroom. Amazingly the girls were already asleep. Sigh. “You cats stay here with the girls, I’m sleeping out here on this couch,” I told them. Off they went and I lay down thinking about things. Such as, how did someone push the button on the bed to release skinny? Someone must have been in there, that button had to be pushed manually. But why didn’t we see anyone? Another hidden door and secret passage?

None of the walls are big enough for that, but I will check in the morning to make sure. The night passes and the early morning sun is shining right on me. I open my eyes slowly and Muffin is sitting there looking at me. Meow,meow?=Time to get up, you wasting day in bed. I look at my watch, it’s 5am. “Okay Muffin,” I said, “I’m awake, what about the others?” Meow,meow=They sleep too, need to get up, I hungry, can’t work on empty stomach. “Well,” I said, “go wake them up then.” Meow,meow!=Yay! I wake up fast! I hear screams from the girls. Guess I should have said to wake them up gently. Oh well.

We had breakfast, pancakes, which is the cats favorite breakfast food it seems. Then back to skinny. Someone had to push that button. No opening possible in the wall, but, a very neat square in the floor, which would be right beside that button. It fit too tightly to pull it out so I used a screw right in the middle as a handle and out it came. In the room right below was a table positioned perfectly under that hole. That solves that mystery. The girls were a bit disappointed by that. Next we went around checking all the rooms. There were 10 bedrooms, a servant’s quarters, a living room downstairs, sitting room upstairs, a large eat in kitchen, with large pantry, beside the kitchen in the suite where we are staying. Plus a large dining room and library.

In between our two bedrooms there was a door which led to the rest of the attic, but it was locked and there was no key for that door. Hmm, so Mr. Cat went to work and picked the lock for us. I opened the door and there was a puff of smoke and Thomas Bentley, the original owner was standing there. But as we watched he just disappeared. “How did that happen?”, asked Calanthe. I used my flashlight to look around but couldn’t see how that was done. “Obviously a trick of some kind,” I said, “but how it worked I have no idea.” “Are you sure you want to go in there Steve?”, asked Kat. “Well, we have to check everywhere,” I said, “and I see the cats have already gone in ahead of us, so let’s go.

Unless you would rather stay out here.” “Um, as a matter of fact, I would rather stay here,” said Kat. “Me too,” said Calanthe. So they stayed behind while the cats and I looked around. There was some old furniture, lots of boxes, mostly empty by the looks of it. Oddly, there was no dust around in the attic section, and there should be. There was also a bed with a table beside it and an electric lamp. I looked at that, it was plugged into an outlet so I turned it on. It worked. That’s interesting considering there is no electricity out here.

Meow.=This room not feel good at all, I sense danger around. Meow,meow.=Yep, me too, this not good place to be. “What could go wrong in here?”, I asked them. Meow.=Not know, but still not good, me vote to leave. Meow,meow.=Me too, let’s go. And off they ran back out to the other room. Fine, I’ll look around by myself. I kept looking around, digging in boxes, trying to find a clue of some kind, but not really knowing what I’m looking for. There’s an old trunk over by one wall so I go over to look in it. Nothing but old clothes…wait, what’s this? Then I got this feeling of being watched. I quickly turned with my gun ready. There was a big guy with an axe which he slammed onto the trunk!

That would have been my head if I hadn’t moved. I shot him in the neck with my dart gun. He stood there and pulled out the dart, so I shot again. This time he staggered backward a bit then fell forward. These are just sleeping darts so I shot him again just to make sure he stayed sleeping for a while. I took his axe and a large knife he had. Strange that the girls and cats didn’t come to check the commotion…

To Be Continued.

©2021 Steve McLeod.