Rassmussen Plantation part 7

Tybalt heard Cinnamon stirring as he slinked back into the house, just a toss in her bed, and hurried up to see her. She was asleep. Tybalt jumped up onto her bed, purring contentedly. He noticed that his friend was not in the room, and had just begun to wonder where he was, when voices came from downstairs.

Being a cat, Tybalt could usually figure out what Cinnamon was saying because he had been with her for so long, but when humans got together and did their chatter chatter chatter, talk talk talk, he could only follow the basic tone of their voices. These voices were hushed, but strong. A male and a female. He had never heard his shadow-friend’s voice, but suspected that the male was his friend, and the female was not.

The voices kept strangely low, for Tybalt could scarcely hear them, but he knew they were fighting. The woman’s voice changed suddenly in something very close to a snarl, and Tybalt jumped to his feet as he heard quick steps running up the stairs. The footsteps hadn’t reached the top of the stairs when Tybalt heard a physical fight start, and then the sound of something shattering, and the female screamed. The footsteps receded down the long hall and Cinnamon jerked into consciousness.

“Who’s there?!” she demanded, her voice sounding much braver than she felt.

Cinnamon wanted a weapon very badly. The closest thing she could use was her candlestick, which was large and heavy. Vowing to purchase a pistol the very next day, she wrapped a fist around her makeshift weapon and rose from her bed. She walked quietly to her door and sneaked a look thru the crack.

Nothing.

“Who’s there, I said!? I have a pistol and I know how to use it!” Cinnamon lied, hoping her visitor would not gamble to find out.

The house was still in reply.

Cinnamon summoned all her courage and flung her door open, stepping boldly out into the hall, in a sham of fearlessness.  As she looked around she saw a table in the hall had a broken leg, and the statuettes on top of it had been broken and scattered.

“Who’s there, I say!?” Cinnamon whirled around, looking for someone, anyone.

There was no answer but the wind, banging a few shutters somewhere in the vast house.

Cinnamon retreated back into her room, making sure that her cat was with her, and locked the door, and moved all of the furniture in the room in front of it. She was certain that no oncould reach her window, but she locked the glass and bolted the shutters just the same.

She lit her candle, and wrapped herself in blankets on her bed, watching her shutters for the first rays of sun that would tell her the awful darkness of the night was gone, and it was safe now to run to town.

Cinnamon nodded off a few times, but jerked awake either from instinct, or from fleeting dreams.

It was a long night before the sun rose again.