Even teen evil queens need love. Right? (Or at least a handsome sword-fighting minion to do their bidding!)
***
Bad things happen when Rowen is around and the worst part is, she has no idea why until a massive family secret sends her on a fantastica...
In human cemeteries, many of the dead lay restless in their graves. Still carrying secrets untold, loves unloved, dreams unfulfilled, lies left to fester. Regret, then, is what binds a spirit to this plane.
But animals have none of that. In life they prowled, chased, slept, ate, all without pretense.
That is why the pet cemetery was usually so peaceful. The animals had lived their lives without regret. There could be a lesson there, but one I've not yet learned, despite having lived more lifetimes than most.
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If I really was a girl in a horror movie, now was the time I would ignore Cal's warning and take a step forward onto a secret trap door and drop directly into the murderer's lair. (While screaming.)
Or a monster would emerge from the black smoke and vaporize me. (There would be no screaming because it would be instantaneous.)
Or possibly, Cal was really a shapeshifter in disguise. And in seconds, he would change into his true form and gobble me down like I was Thanksgiving dinner. (Lots of screaming in this scenario as apparently being eaten is quite painful.)
(Honestly, girls in horror movies were not the smartest, but I blame the screenwriters. Most girls would know to avoid trap doors, shapeshifters, and weird black smoke that smelled like rotted eggs.)
Anyway, I knew this was real life, not a movie, and I refused to be the dumb girl. Which meant I needed to be cautious. Assess the situation. Analyze the facts. Which were these:
There was a three-legged Cal-shaped cat, only a few feet away.
The cemetery appeared devoid of catnappers and other humans more broadly.
The weather over the cemetery had turned dark and spooky.
Weird black smoke rose from the grave where Cal was standing.
Add to that the crow that kept staring at me, and we had a full-on horror movie scenario. The crow leapt to a closer branch, which bowed under its extra burden, and fixed me with a dark, piercing gaze. Electric prickles of fear danced up my spine, making it super hard to concentrate on my facts list. But this was stupid. Crows didn't bite. I didn't think.
I waved the crow away with a broad swipe of my arm. "Hey, crow! Git. It's not my fault I'm in the back end of a horse costume. Long story, okay? Shoo."
The crow did not shoo.
Wow, I hated being in a horror movie environment. Why couldn't I be in a romcom or a documentary about hackers? Something more enjoyable that might have involved kissing or world domination.
Sigh.
Back to developing a fool-proof rescue plan ...
Given that this was real life, despite indoor tornadoes and seemingly sentient crows, it was safe to assume that Cal was the real Cal and not a shapeshifter. And assuming the catnapper hadn't been run over by an errant garbage truck and therefore delayed, he/she/it was probably hiding nearby. I didn't see anyone peeking over gravestones or from behind trees, which meant the catnapper probably didn't have a line of sight. Ergo, he/she/it was listening to my every move. I needed the villain to think I was somewhere other than where I was, which called for a deception. If I could be in two places at once, it would be easy. But no. Of course, I could only occupy one place in the universe at a time. Where is science when you need it most?
