-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Well, we managed to get in and visit with Carmeline, though we didn’t have much time, only 10 minutes, which meant we couldn’t talk about much of anything important. However, we did tell her we would be taking her out of this prison later that day. Celestine, who is a friend of Carmeline, and I, will be leaving soon, but we would be back. Also, we brought Sky and Kitty in with us, though they remained invisible. They did show themselves to Carmeline though, but no one else would be able to see them.
That is a very handy thing that our ghosts can do. We also brought in 3 cats and they will stay with Carmeline, along with Sky and Kitty, who will protect Carmeline until we return. We can’t take her out with us right now, even though it would be possible, because we would likely be arrested by the police before we were able to leave the country. And everyone would know that we have rescued her. This is something we want to keep a secret for as long as possible, that way it would be hard for them to blame us.
Mostly though, I’m wanting to keep it a secret from Carmeline’s brother. I’m quite certain he is the one who sent us the warning note. Anyway, no matter what, we will not be taking Carmeline home with us at the moment. Instead, we will be using one of Mandar’s secret hideaways for a while until we see what happens. Vlora, who works for Mandar, will meet us there with teams 4 and 5 from Mandar. We haven’t used his teams for a long time since we have such a large team ourselves. But, we need to keep things business as usual at home, so we can’t take too many away to guard Carmeline.
However, the ghosts and cats will stay with her, as will some of the girls we have with us right now. I will shuttle back and forth with Sky just so I can make an appearance around the chateau too in case we are still being watched. Anyway, we are presently waiting for the guards to return and let Celestine and I out of here, our 10 minutes has already passed. Perhaps Carmeline is right, maybe they don’t intend to let us out. At that point, the two cellmates who were both rather big women, got up and came over and said something to us which we didn’t understand.
“They want you to move,” said Carmeline, “they said it was time for my exercise. That’s their way of saying they want to beat me again.” I told the women to sit down and leave us alone, which they likely didn’t understand. “They do understand English,” said Carmeline, “I don’t want them to hit me again.” She said that in a pleading tone with tears in her eyes. “Remember what you can do, my dear twin brother,” said Sky smiling. I told the women again to sit down. I didn’t really want to fight them though, that would give the authorities a perfect reason to keep us here.
“Okay Miss Kitty, it’s time to show yourself,” I said. Suddenly there was a large jaguar next to me growling at the two women and they backed up and then climbed to the top bunk! Only they could see Miss Kitty, any security cameras would not pick her up. I turned to Carmeline and said, “You don’t need to worry about them anymore, they won’t hurt you with Sky and Kitty watching you while we’re gone.” Carmeline was puzzled by the reaction of the two women since she only saw Kitty standing there, not Miss Kitty the jaguar.
Friskie had also come in with us, but she stayed in the office, invisibly, to see what was being planned, if anything, against us. She communicated with me that the warden, or whatever she calls herself, isn’t planning on letting Celestine and I leave the prison. How nice of her. I told Sky to go get Friskie and bring her back here to join us, which she did right away. “Sometimes I think maybe this is a dream,” said Carmeline, “I, I, just don’t see how it’s possible.”
“Don’t worry about it right now,” said Celestine as she sat beside her with her arm around Carmeline, “just know that we are here to get you out, and you know that I would never lie to you.” “Yep, we made a promise to each other when we were 8,” said Carmeline, “we would never lie to each other and I have kept that promise too. I’m scared Celestine, very scared. I know my brother did this to me. He killed our parents himself, I’m sure of that. He wants the whole inheritance for himself and he can have it too, I just want to be free again.”
She was really crying now with Celestine and Friskie comforting her. Sky and Kitty were angry and wanted to start a fight, but I reminded them we needed to be careful so we could get Carmeline out of here and to safety without the authorities being able to prove we took her out of prison with us. Finally I asked Sky to take us out, which she did and returned to the cell right away. We got into the van where Rock and Sherry were waiting for us and off we went.
Meanwhile, “Where did those two visitors go?” asked the warden. “They just disappeared,” said a man. “That’s impossible, people can’t just disappear!” she retorted. Then she sent the guards back to check on things. They found the cell door was still locked, but we were not inside anywhere. They asked the two cellmates of Carmeline what happened to the visitors, but they just frowned and said that no visitors had been in today.
The guards then took them back to the warden for a talk, but they still insisted that no one had come into the cell today. So they checked the security tape but strangely enough it showed Celestine and I going back outside to our van after talking with the warden, instead of following the guards. The guards, however, insisted that we had gone with them to visit Carmeline. The warden then went with them to the checkpoint and the two guards there also said that we had not come past them today.
That’s when the warden had those two original guards locked up. We left Storm, Ginger and Sneaker with the girls too, they are really helping Carmeline. When we got back to our hotel room it had obviously been searched and we expected that, so we didn’t leave anything important for them to find. Mac told us that the police had been around and searched each of our rooms and everyone cooperated with them without arguing.
They even searched each of the vans without finding anything, but we do have a way of hiding things in those vans where they can’t be found, without literally taking the vans apart, which they didn’t do. And, we still have Kat, Kristina and Angel, so they can help hide things right in the open. And they did. Now to finalize our plans for getting Carmeline out of that prison, which shouldn’t be too hard. However, getting her out of the country might be more difficult, though we could keep her invisible. But, they might try to keep us from leaving anyway, which is why we need a plan.
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
This is going to be a tricky operation, getting Carmeline out of prison. We will need quite a few people involved in this one, even with using the ghosts. And, because there is a possibility of someone watching the chateau, I need to leave some ghosts behind to help with protection. I wanted to leave both Jennifer and Kat at home since they are the strongest of the ghosts, however, Jennifer didn’t like that idea and Kat agreed with her. That meant I was outvoted and needed a new plan.
Jennifer said we needed Celestine with us to help with Carmeline, so she would go along as my wife which would help to keep her identity a secret. I thought it would be better to leave her at home where she would be safer. I was outvoted again. There are a lot of volunteers for this case, too many in fact, so I need to trim the numbers a bit. Those who can speak the Hungarian language will get priority, however, that didn’t give us near enough. Kat will be coming, therefore her Wildcats will also come. Dawn and Misty will be coming as well, so half of each team will also come along.
Carine will stay home with Jennifer since the Black Wolves will not be along on this case, except for 5 men which will be joining us. Now, because the chateau is likely being watched, how do we get out of here without being seen? While Jennifer and I were lying on the bed talking, Storm came in, jumped on the bed, sat up straight and flipped his long tail around touching his forehead. That’s his version of saluting. Jennifer looked at him. “Stop saluting or I will make you help Misty look after Steffie for a whole month,” she said, “and shave all the fur off your tail.”
Amazing how fast he can move that tail, flipping it underneath of himself and sitting on it. “Much better,” she said. Anyway, Storm volunteered his team of cats for this mission as well. That would be too many, but I told him to pick 6 cats that have certain qualifications, and I gave him a list. When Storm returned, there were 9 cats in total. “I said 6,” I remarked. “No, it number 9,” replied Storm. “It’s a 6,” I said again. “No, it a 9,” he replied. I look. He had the paper upside down. Sigh.
“That’s okay,” I said, “9 is better anyway, I wasn’t thinking properly.” He stood up nice and straight as did all the cats. I could hardly say no now that he picked them. Now, how to leave. “You forget that we are ghosts,” said Kat, “we will leave at night, no need to hide, we’ll just use the van blankets, using them at night is perfect for hiding them.” Now why didn’t I think of that? “No need to pout Steve,” said Jennifer hugging me, “you can’t be expected to think of everything. That’s why we have several leaders and advisors.”
That part is true, and it was my idea originally too, to help take some pressure off me. It was a full moon, so we didn’t need to use lights for driving. We decided to drive all the way since we will need transportation while in Hungary anyway. It does take longer though and we are in a hurry, but if they don’t know we are coming, it should be okay. We left after dark and everything went well. Once morning arrived we took off our disguise with those van blankets which help to make our vans invisible.
Not that they really turn invisible, but it looks like it to anyone watching. We could have taken the shortest route, but that would seem too obvious, so, we took the longest route which would take us about 15 hours, actually a little less. That’s still not bad. We all take turns driving and everyone gets a chance to sleep a bit too. The guys were especially good at the sleeping part, seems they don’t need to be comfortable to sleep, they just need to close their eyes.
We will have our jet available to take us out of here in a hurry if that becomes necessary. Sienna would like us to bring the vans back though, she’s funny that way, always wanting us to bring our vehicles back from a case. We arrived at our destination just in time for lunch, but our group checked into our hotel first, then went for lunch. The other two groups went for lunch first, then checked into their respective hotels. We all ate at different restaurants this time, but it won’t be that way all the time.
After lunch we drove out to the prison. There were both men and women in this prison, so we went over to the women’s wing and went inside, Celestine and I that is. Interestingly we were refused visiting rights since we were not relatives and were not on the list of approved visitors. Even putting 5,000 euros on her desk didn’t change her mind. She was about to pick up the money though, but I was quicker. “Uh, maybe I could allow you 10 minutes,” she said, “but you will have to go into her cell to visit, after all, she is a dangerous criminal.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “But only your wife can go in,” she said again. I took out a second envelope with another 5,000 euros and she grabbed in quickly. “I guess I can make an exception in your case,” she said smiling. We were escorted by two very large women guards down a long corridor, then we made 3 turns, then arriving at a checkpoint. We were checked a second time now for weapons, drugs or any electrical item, plus pens, pencils and anything else that could be used as a weapon.
Then we walked down another long corridor passing numerous cells, every one of them had people in them. I wonder how many are actual criminals? Are there any others in here like Carmeline with no hope of getting out? Kind of sad to think about. We finally arrived at the cell and the guards let us in, then they locked the door and walked away. That was kind of interesting, but perhaps they are just giving us a chance to talk privately.
Carmeline’s two cellmates were pretending not to listen and we talked briefly about what happened, then I put us in a bubble and Celestine told her friend we could speak without being heard now. Carmeline pointed under her bunk but I assured her that no listening device would work either and to just trust us. Celestine then told her we would be getting her out of this prison today.
“Perhaps you didn’t notice that the guards walked away,” said Carmeline, “that means you won’t be going anywhere, although some male guards will likely come to take your husband away to the men’s side.” “Well, they better not try that,” I said, “we walked in today and we will walk out today as well.” Then Sky made herself visible. “Where did she come from?” asked Carmeline.
“This is Sky,” said Celestine, “she works with us and will be staying with you until we return later. Don’t worry, only you can see and hear her. And this is Kitty, she will also be staying with you. You’ll just have to trust us in this, I know it doesn’t seem believable, but Sky will tell you a bit more.” “I don’t know how you did that, it’s amazing,” said Carmeline, “but they still won’t let you leave.”
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 