Suddenly I feel Muffin rub against me and she meows quietly.  Meow?=You awake?  Yes, I whisper, what happened?  Meow, meow.=You stop walking, go to sleep and fall down.  Meow, meow.=Then ghost drag you in here, tie you up.  Meow, meow.=I follow quiet, he not see me.  My head still feels a bit odd, like I was hit with a hammer.  Now I know where we are, the old mine.  I tell Muffin to come close to my hands, which she does.  I reach into a pocket on her backpack and pull out a small, but very sharp pocket knife.  I get it open and put the handle in Muffin’s mouth.  Just do it the way we practiced Muffin.  It doesn’t take her long to cut through the rope on my hands.  Then I cut my feet loose and put Muffin’s mini headlamp on so I can see. 

How long have we been in here Muffin?  Meow, meow.=Quite long, getting dark outside.  I don’t see anything nearby so I ask Muffin to lead me out of here.  It doesn’t take too long to reach the entrance we were close to finding and soon we are back outside again.  Muffin was right, it’s nearly dark so we make our way back to the hotel.  The door is locked naturally so I call to Jessica.  Hmm, no answer, that’s not good, it’s too early for her to be sleeping.  We go to the front door but it’s locked also, so I start checking the windows and one was unlocked to I was able to open it, so Muffin and I crawled inside.  We find Jessica tied up and unconscious on her bed…with a note!  It says simply, “leave while you can”.

Whoever this person is, is letting us know he could kill us anytime he wants.  This is starting to get dangerous, I don’t like this at all.  Meow, meow.=This bad, we should leave, I’ll go pack.  No Muffin, we are not leaving until we solve this mystery.  And stop sighing so much.  I finally manage to get Jessica awake, it’s obvious that both of us were drugged, but how?  Hmm, I did have some water to drink when we got back from town, Muffin didn’t drink any, which is why she wasn’t affected.  Jessica said the last thing she remembered was sitting in the main room drinking tea and getting worried about us.  She did drink some water too just before having her tea.  I check her teacup, no drug in there.  But she used water from the well for that.  She hauls in water for straight drinking purpose.  And someone put a drug in that big container.

I decide to show Jessica the note that was on her.  She just stared at it for a couple minutes so I asked what was wrong.  That’s Bill’s handwriting, she said, but that’s impossible!  Meow!=Ghost write it!  He isn’t a ghost Muffin.  Then how do you explain this note?, asks Jessica.  Well, I’m not sure.  It’s says to leave, is that what you want to do?  Meow, meow.=Great idea, everyone agrees, I’ll go pack.  No Muffin, come back here.  Meow.=Rats.  I’m not going anywhere, says Jessica, no one is chasing me from my hotel! But I don’t want you and Muffin getting hurt, so you can leave if you want, she said.  Meow, meow.=Good, all settled, I’ll go pack.  Muffin and I are staying here too, we wouldn’t leave you here all alone.  Isn’t that right Muffin?  Meow!=Right, we brave!  Meow.=Or stupid.

I’ll go get us something to eat, said Jessica.  After she was gone I asked Muffin if the man and woman that were here earlier had gone near our drinking water.  Meow, meow.=Me think, no, they didn’t, not even close.  Okay, the water was fine before we went to town, the intruders didn’t do anything to it, so that only leaves…suddenly Jessica screams loudly from the kitchen!  Muffin and I run to see what’s wrong!

To be continued.

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.