Софи Райан - A Whisker Оf Trouble

I’d sold my car when I’d moved to Minnesota from Boston, and because I could walk everywhere in Mayville Heights, I still hadn’t bought a new one. Since I had no car, I’d spent my first few weeks in town wandering around exploring, which is how I’d stumbled on Wisteria Hill, the abandoned Henderson estate. Everett Henderson had hired me at the library.

Owen and Hercules had peered out at me from a tumble of raspberry canes and then followed me around while I explored the overgrown English country garden behind the house. I’d seen several other full-grown cats, but they’d all disappeared as soon as I got anywhere close to them. When I left, Owen and Hercules followed me down the rutted gravel driveway. Twice I’d picked them up and carried them back to the empty house, but that didn’t deter them. I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find their mother. They were so small and so determined to come with me that in the end I’d brought them home.

There were whispers around town about Wisteria Hill and the feral cats. But that didn’t mean there was anything unusual about my cats. Oh no, nothing unusual at all. It didn’t matter that I’d heard rumors about strange lights and ghosts. No one had lived at the estate for quite a while, but Everett refused to sell it or do anything with the property. I’d heard that he’d grown up at Wisteria Hill. Maybe that was why he didn’t want to change anything.

Speaking of not wanting change, Hercules was not eager to relinquish his prime spot on my lap. But after some gentle prodding, he shook himself and got off. Owen yawned a couple of times, stretched and took twice as long to move.

I got the broom and dustpan from the porch and swept up the remains of Fred the Funky Chicken. Owen and Hercules sat in front of the refrigerator and watched. Owen made a move toward the dustpan, like he was toying with the idea of grabbing the body and making a run for it.

I glared at him. “Don’t even think about it.”

He sat back down, making low, grumbling meows in his throat.

I flipped open the lid of the garbage can and held the pan over the top. “Fred was a good chicken,” I said solemnly. “He was a funky chicken and we’ll miss him.”

“Meow,” Owen yowled.

I flipped what was left of the catnip toy into the garbage. “Rest in peace, Fred,” I said as the lid closed.

I put the broom away, brushed the cat hair off my shirt and washed my hands. I looked in the bathroom mirror. Hercules was right. My hair did look better tucked behind my ear.

My messenger bag with a towel and canvas shoes for tai chi class was in the front closet. I set it by the door and went back through the house to make sure the cats had fresh water.

“I’m leaving,” I said. But both cats had disappeared and I didn’t get any answer.

I stopped to grab my keys and pick up my bag. Locking the door behind me, I headed out, down Mountain Road.

The sun was yellow-orange, low on the sky over Lake Pepin. It was a warm Minnesota evening, without the sticky humidity of Boston in late July. I shifted my bag from one shoulder to the other. I wasn’t going to think about Boston. Minnesota was home now—at least for the next eighteen months or so.

The street curved in toward the center of town as I headed down the hill, and the roof of the library building came into view below. It sat on the midpoint of a curve of shoreline, protected from the water by a rock wall. The brick building had a stained-glass window that dominated one end and a copper-roofed cupola, complete with its original wrought-iron weather vane.

The Mayville Heights Free Public Library was a Carnegie library, built in 1912 with money donated by the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Now it was being restored and updated to celebrate its centenary. That was why I had been in town for the last several months. And why I’d be here for the next year and a half. I was supervising the restoration—which was almost finished—as well as updating the collections, computerizing the card catalogue and setting up free Internet access for the library patrons. I was slowly learning the reading history of everyone in town. It made me feel like I knew the people a little, as well.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sofie Ryanis a writer and mixed-media artist who loves to repurpose things in her life and her art. She is the author of The Whole Cat and Caboodle and Buy a Whisker in the New York Times bestselling Second Chance Cat Mystery series. She also writes the New York Times bestselling Magical Cats Mystery series under the name Sofie Kelly.

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