The Midnight Moon [ONC 2024]

Chapter 2: The Crow and The Cat

I looked from the doorway to the young woman, my eyebrows arched questioningly. But it was not she who spoke next.

'We are colleagues of Mistaria Heath,' the Crow said.

'We are—'

'Familiars. Yes I had worked that out,' I commented quietly, interrupting the Cat.

Silence fell over the room. The cat jumped up onto the arm of the chair where the woman was sitting, whilst the crow perched on her shoulder. She looked cowed by their nearness.

'Will you please give this young woman some space?' I snapped. 'Don't crowd her. She's clearly upset, and it seems to me you are responsible.'

The cat and the crow turned slowly to the woman, whose eyes were now trained on the floor.

'I'm sorry,' the cat then said, clearly unused to apologising, before leaping onto my desk. The crow swooped over to sit beside it.

I glared at the creatures. 'Why are you here? All of you? I am a very busy man.' I could take liberties with the truth when the need arose.

'We want you to find Mistaria,' the crow said.

'Find her? How do you know she is missing and not dead?' I asked, recalling Mother May's fears.

'Impossible,' the cat said, with certainty.

'Is it?'

'Of course.'

I narrowed my eyes. My head was beginning to ache.

'This puzzlesolver clearly knows nothing about magic.' The crow ruffled its feathers and I got the distinct impression it was laughing at me.

'Is it that obvious?' I asked dryly. 'Look. If you don't get to the point, now, you can leave.'

'If Mistaria was dead, they would have reverted back to their human shapes,' the young woman explained. 'They are form shifters by nature, but with the use of magic - a spell - they transform into familiars and work with a witch to carry out her craft. If the witch dies, the spell is broken, and they would be human.'

I nodded. That was remarkably easy to get my head around. 'All right, then. Mistaria Heath is not dead...but she is missing?'

'Yes,' the cat said, rolling her eyes.

Who knew a cat and a crow could be so sassy?

'And how do you know this? Might she just not want to see anyone this morning? Perhaps she's gone visiting relatives and forgot to mention it?'

'Never. We were in the middle of a magical undertaking. She would not have gone without it being concluded. She is a professional.' The Crow had taken umbrage at the suggestion the witch might be a little unreliable, yet it left me wondering at how professional a witch really could be.

'So she is definitely missing then?'

'Finally.' The cat's tail swished with impatience.

'Look, you chose to come and bother me,' I spat. 'And besides, I prefer to work on more...traditional cases.'

'A missing person isn't traditional?'

'I was thinking more about the magical bent of the case.'

'So you won't take it?'

Before I answered, the young woman exclaimed, 'But you must. You have to.'

'Who are you?' I asked, trying to work out how she fit into this puzzle.

'My name is Tomasina.'

'And?'

'Mistaria Heath was...maybe...at one time, I was hoping...'

My brow furrowed, and I pursed my lips, as nothing but half-formed incoherent thoughts came out of the woman's mouth. This was turning out to be the worst morning I had experienced in a long time.

'Spit it out, girl!' the Crow snapped.

'Mistaria was looking for an assistant to train. Tomasina applied for the position, but at the time of her disappearance no decision had been made.'

'You want to be a witch?' I asked Tomasina. Did I manage to keep the incredulity out of my voice? I think so, however I could not conceal the fact that this idea sounded crazy to me, but what did I know?

'I want to help people, sir.'

I wanted to say that there were other ways. More normal and easier to accept ways, but I kept my mouth shut. It wasn't my business.

I took a deep breath in. Then I said, 'Look. This is beyond my area of expertise. I doubt I could help you very much at all. You would be wasting your money for very little gain.' [ONC - approx 2000 word mark]

As I said the words, a number of questions flitted into my mind. Would the cat and the crow remain as they were until Mistaria returned, or was found, or died? And, how were they going to pay me, if, in the unlikely situation, I took the case?

I shook my head before realising I didn't care. I did not want to know. I had my own work to do.

I stood up. 'I'm sorry, but the answer is no.'

Another silence fell over the room, but I would not be intimidated into changing my mind by a cat, a crow and a tearful girl. This was my puzzlesolving agency and I decided which cases I took on and which ones I didn't.

'Is that your final answer?' The Crow asked. I nodded. 'Then, so be it.'

'Come, Tomasina,' the Cat called as it gracefully jumped down from the desk and casually walked out of the door as if it owned the place. The crow followed. Tomasina stood up, her face showing signs of disappointment. She sighed.

'See you soon, Mr Slaine,' she whispered. I looked at her inquiringly. 'Trust me, we will be back.' It wasn't a threat. It was a statement of fact, and she was resigned to it.

Of course, as I closed the door to the building behind her, I didn't believe it.

I returned to my office and looked around, bewildered by what I had seen and heard that morning. I wondered if I needed to clean down the furniture that the creatures had touched, all the while thinking that a crow and a cat and a would-be witch had wanted to hire me.

Sitting down, I tried to shake off an unsettling feeling of...I'm not sure what. I picked up the uppermost case in front of me - The Case of The Untrustworthy Husband - and made a note of the maids' home addresses. I was going to have to see if they each had a young gentleman in their lives who might have got them in the family way. And that's when I heard it. A burst of sound in front of the building.

I ran over to the window to see what was going on, thinking someone may have had an accident but The Green seemed to be empty. Only then did I spot a flutter of black wings, and a man making a hasty retreat from my front door.

Angry that my clients were being scared off, I marched to the front door, my temper flaring.

'What, by the Grace of the Sun, Moon and Stars, are you doing?' I shouted, but to my horror, there was no-one, no human, no magical creature, there. All I could see was the back of a well-dressed man, disappearing off down the Green Way.

I slammed the door, but twenty minutes later the same thing happened. When it occurred for the third time, all the fight had left me. I opened the door a crack and whispered, 'I give in. You win. I'll take the case.'

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Chapter word count: 1173

Story word count: 2492