Rassmussen Plantation part 11

Cinnamon didn’t answer. Instead, she took a few steps past him and knelt down, near Ajax, who was still in his original spot on the rug.

“Be careful. He doesn’t always take to strangers.” Jeremy’s voice was swift and stern.

Cinnamon patted Ajax on the head and Ajax whined and leaned into her lap. Jeremy looked surprised.

“What were you doing on my lawn, Jeremy Tarleton?” Cinnamon asked, never lifting her eyes from Ajax, “You ought not to go walking on grounds not your own at such an hour.”

Jeremy chuckled again, and sat down on the red couch where Cinnamon had been laying.

“Do I make you nervous, little lamb?”

“No. I’m not afraid of you or anyone. And don’t call me ‘little lamb’.” Cinnamon’s eyes flashed up at him with a burst of ill-disguised hostility, but quickly returned to the wolf in her lap.

“I do make you nervous. Your speech suddenly became more formal. And you were very quick on the defense. But I suppose it’s partly ingrained into you; the moment you regained consciousness you sat up, as if you expected an attack, or sensed an enemy.”

“Are you a gypsy then, Mr. Jeremy Tarleton? and do you make a habit of telling fortunes to strangers?”

“Not I, Miss Cinnamon Rassmussen. ‘Tho I confess my mother was a Roma, and was known to entertain with cards and smoke and trinkets. Perhaps it’s inherent.”

“I knew a man like you once.” Cinnamon patted Ajax, “He was a sniper in the Great War. He noticed everything, saw every detail and never forgot a thread. He told me they trained him for it;  my father can read Latin, but I cannot.”

“You don’t like me.” Jeremy smiled, “You don’t trust me and you don’t like me. That’s unusual.”

If Jeremy was trying to change her mind about that, he was doing rather a bad job.

“No.” replied Cinnamon, lifting her chin just a little, “I don’t like you and I don’t trust you, either. You dodge all of my questions.”

Jeremy chuckled again, and said to himself, “And never been taught how to play games.”

“Games, Mr. Tar- Jeremy?” Cinnamon corrected herself.

“You know, games, Little Lamb. Cat-and-Mouse, Cloak-and-Dagger, Hard-to-Get. Games people play with each other.” Jeremy knelt down next to Cinnamon on the rug and joined her in petting Ajax, “I’m just playing with you, Cinnamon.”

“Well I don’t like your games. I can play them well enough, but I’d rather be frank.”

“Very well. Let’s begin again, shall we?” Jeremy stuck out his hand to her, “Hello, Miss Cinnamon Rassmussen. I am Jeremy Tarleton, but I do insist you call me Jeremy.”

“Cinnamon Charlotte Rassmussen.” Cinnamon shook his hand, “And thanks for taking care of me tonight.”

“Ah, my duty and my pleasure, Miss Rassmussen.”

“You may call me Cinnamon.”

“You’re beginning to like me already!” Jeremy smiled.

“Don’t be so sure,” thought Cinnamon.

A knock at the door announced the arrival of an old man, carrying a basin of fresh water.

“Thank you, Ben. Is that tea coming soon?” Jeremy greeted him.

“Indeed, sir, indeed it is,” the old man replied.

“Thank you, Ben. And let me know if you need my assistance.”  Jeremy smiled at his old, bent servant  in a kind way.

“Oh, no, Master Jeremy, no indeed. It will be my pleasure,” the old man said, waving his hand dismissively at Jeremy, and shuffling back out the door.

Jeremy chucked and looked down at his wolf, but spoke to Cinnamon, “I think Old Ben has taken care of me for his entire life. Never lets me raise a finger to help him, or to help myself. The most loyal friend I could ever have had.”

Ajax whined and looked up at his master, cocking his head to the side.

“Except for you, Ajax, old boy,” laughed Jeremy.

“He seems to need at least a little help,” Cinnamon commented, not unkindly, “The house seemed perfectly deserted when I first spied it, and there seems to be a lot of dusting to be done.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” replied  Jeremy, “Tho you’ll get quite a lot from Old Ben. I am usually away from home, and only recently returned. I’m afraid that Ben is taking a turn for the worse, and the house suffers for it. If I hired someone to help him, I know it would deeply offend the old chap, and since I don’t entertain much company, I’ll just let Ben enjoy his last few years as he likes, since he refuses to retire.”

Cinnamon smiled, despite herself. There was a tender, genuine tone in Jeremy’s voice when he talked about his old servant. He really cared for the old man as he would his own father. 

“But what about you, Miss Cinnamon?” Jeremy turned his eyes to her, and took her by her two hands, lifting her to her feet from the rug, “Come, let’s sit back on the sofa,” he added as a side note.

“What about me?” Cinnamon asked, following him obediently.

“Your house must be no better than mine. And you haven’t any help there at all, have you?”

“No. But I can get along just fine. I am stronger than I look.”

“No doubt, no doubt. You’re not there all alone, are you? I don’t think that would be a good idea. Not for any extended period of time, anyhow.”

“I’m not alone. I have Tybalt with me.”

Jeremy laughed aloud this time, a bark of a laugh, a legitimately surprised and pleased one.

“You mean your cat, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but he’s good company.” Cinnamon answered, a little sullen.

“I don’t doubt it. Animals can be the best of companions. Ajax!” Jeremy called his wolf to his side, “But a cat isn’t much for protection.”

Ajax came at once, and laid his head in Jeremy’s lap.

“Oh, he does as well as a cat can,” defended Cinnamon.

“Would you consider keeping Ajax with you, for a time?”

Ajax seemed to know that his master was talking about him, and his eyes glanced back from Jeremy to Cinnamon.

“He’s a good fellow,” advertised the wolf’s master, “and he’s very well trained. He’ll protect anyone I instruct him to.”

Cinnamon hesitated. The idea of a big, black wolf was appealing as it was certain to deter her home invaders, but she didn’t know how Tybalt would react to it. And she wasn’t keen to be beholden to anyone; fast way to trouble, that was.

“Thanks, Jeremy, thanks, but I think not. Ajax….he’d attack my cat, I think, and I’m too attached him to let anything happen.”

“Cinnamon, I promise you he will not attack your cat,” Jeremy smiled, with that impossible smile that said he knew just what she was thinking

Another knock at the door announced that Old Ben had arrived with the tea. The couple remained in the red room for another hour before Cinnamon could no longer stifle her yawns, and she stood to excuse herself back home.

“Ah, not tonight, Miss Cinnamon,” Jeremy insisted, “Ben has prepared a room for you, with a drawn fire and fresh sheets; he’d be quite hurt if his work went to waste. And in any case, I’m not letting you walk all the way back to Eau D’Noir; I’ll find you in a dead faint halfway there tomorrow morning.”  

Cinnamon was too tired to argue. Her eyes were closing as Jeremy walked her down the hall, carrying a candelabra. The candlelight cast strange shadows against the walls, and, being in an unfamiliar house, Cinnamon had the feeling of a mouse in a maze. At last they stopped before a door, and Jeremy opened it slightly, then slightly bowed.

“Goodnight,” Jeremy said, leaning forward and kissing her lightly on the forehead. Before Cinnamon had a chance to respond, Jeremy and the light of the candelabra were gone, and Cinnamon was left in the dark.

Chapter Ten

The next morning Cinnamon awoke before Jeremy or Old Ben had a chance to, and hurried back to Eau D’Noir in her bare feet. She wasn’t sure how her host would take this, but the house made her uncomfortable, and so did he; Jeremy Tarleton with his cat-and-mouse games and his handsome, piercing eyes that looked just a little too deep into her own.

She shook her red tangles as she entered the last clearing and took a resentful look at her mansion.

            “You creepy old thing,” she thought, stopping and observing the house from afar, “What am I going to do with you?”

The thought of converting the mansion into a Bed and Breakfast reoccurred to her. What a job that would be. Perhaps she could convince Alexandra to come and stay with her for a while, to clean and cook and split the profits when they came in. Assuming that they would, in fact, come in.  

She sighed deeply and walked up to the house with her muddy feet.

She was met in the porch by a harassed-looking Tybalt. He’d spent the night searching and searching for her, and now wasn’t going to let her off lightly.

            “Rrrrr-owww,” he scolded, rubbing and rubbing against her ankles, “Rrrrrr-owwww. Where have you been!? How could you just disappear like that without a word? And the smell of wolves thick in the air! I just knew that I would find your body scattered from here to New Orleans! Don’t run off like that again, I’m warning you!”

Cinnamon largely ignored him and hurried up the stairs to change into her usual uniform; the sleeveless white shirt, the rolled-up overalls and a tattered newsboy cap. She looked funny in the fancy embossed-bordered mirror in the Master Bedroom. Perhaps this would be a popular room for guests.

Cinnamon left off her shoes and went back down the stairs, tying her hair back as she descended them.  Suppose she was to convert the place to a hotel. What rooms should she need to open? She’d need an office. Old Rassmussen’s office would do the job well. And the grand foyer would serve as a lobby, the kitchen was all ready for use, and the dining room wouldn’t need too much work, apart from polishing the silver. Assuming she could find the silver.  There seemed to be a lot of assumptions to throw around.

Cinnamon went first to the kitchen, and there made herself a ham and cheese sandwich from the ‘fixin’s’ left her by her lady visitors the other day. As she ate, she glanced around the kitchen, rather pleased with her work there. The counters and sinks were all cleaned, as well as every dish in the cupboard. Strange that she had not found the silver in all the drawers. It would have been an easy target for thieves, or one of the first things sold off, had the family fallen on hard times. But then, the silver-handled mirror and brush were still upstairs when she’d arrived, and they would’ve been sold off even before the silverware.

The practical mysteries of the place were as baffling as the supernatural ones.

The morning passed with Cinnamon on her knees, scrubbing the floors and up on chairs, scrubbing the walls. Many of the rooms were already cleaned to a degree, and Cinnamon didn’t have a terrible time getting them clean to her satisfaction. Regular light maintenance would keep them very well. The curtains were taken down and beaten out-of-doors, then taken back up and re-hung, and the rugs were all treated similarly. There were the many sheets which had been covering the furniture and beds that needed to be beaten out and stored, mirrors and windows to be treated with a homemade mixture of vinegar and water, armies of dead flies to me swept from the windowsills, and occasional mold to be scrubbed or pried up from the floors and windows. Cinnamon was unwilling to re-visit the attic where she had stored the photograph album, so she searched all over the house for another place to store them, and ended up putting the majority in the vacant maid’s quarters, next to the attic.

“Silly,” she thought, “to be afraid of the entire attic because it has a photograph album with a picture of a woman long dead. I’m not even sure it’s Alyce!”

“You do know it’s Alyce,” contradicted another voice in her head.

“I do not,” Cinnamon insisted, and started humming ‘Bill Bailey, Won’t You Come Home’ to block out any other thoughts on the matter, and went back to scrubbing.

A few hours later, after she had eaten another ham and cheese sandwich and fed little scraps to Tybalt, Cinnamon was back up in the maid’s quarters, storing sheets, when a sound turned her head. It sounded like a door shutting, coming from the attic. When the thought had time to sink in, her sink crawled involuntarily.

“It’s just a draft, Tybalt,” Cinnamon assured the cat at her ankles, “just a draft in a drafty old house.”

“Rrrrowww,” replied the cat.

Then came the sound of footsteps running out of the attic, and down the hallway, and the out of hearing. 

The Hideout

You know how old English houses have names? I guess most fancy places have names. Truthfully, I think that all places have names, just few of them are referred to generally by them.

I have been very lucky lately, and have gotten myself a nice little place in the North Valleys. It’s a very, very little place, but it has a porch (which is really quite essential for my happiness, I find), a large, walk-in closet, a shower which retains it’s hot water for a sufficiently long while, and I’ve got a good little garden growing in pots and baskets on the porch, and if the birds and rabbits don’t get them first, some wildflowers that I’ve sewn a bit helter-skelter in the backyard dirt.  

I have named my place ‘The Hideout’ and I have named the valley I live in ‘Quail Run’ because there are always quails running across the road and across the yard, and all around. I adore them, the sweet little things.

I like quails very much, also because they stick together, don’t they? The husband and wife never leave each other’s side, they always stick together, and soon there will be little quail-lings running all around behind their mothers and fathers. Mr. and Mrs. Quail are always a welcome sight. They always make me smile.

Oh- if anyone knows where I can get ahold of pumpkin seeds, I would very much appreciate that. I want to grow pumpkins more than anything, so I can have my own jack-o-lanterns come Halloween. 

I need to start saying nice things.

Once again I find myself apologizing for a long absence.
This time there is a man to blame! I have been diligently trying to blog some more, but there is this hilarious & handsome Chad who just keeps on kissing me. I cannot resist a Chad.
Anyhow....
The people at Starbucks tell me that I look exhausted. I feel pretty exhausted today as well. Work has not been very busy lately, and I cannot tell you how exhausting I find it to fake busy all day. Faking busy is awful. I must have wiped the counter clean about twenty times and dusted the windowsills the same amount. I cleaned the latte machine for an hour, and swept the floor until the broom wore clean thru. Would the general public please see fit to come eat at Dee's Bakery? I would much rather fuss over making you a perfect sandwich than fuss over imaginary lint on the pastry case.
And as I cleaned, I grouched. I was a big, fat crank. This is partly because of lovely facts of nature are imposing themselves on me very soon, and also because of faking work.
And I did not have very nice things to say. I said mean things about my cousin's spouse, mean things about Mormons and mean things about non-Mormons. I said mean things about children and dogs and people at grocery stores. All these things were said in my head, but they were all said, I promise you.
So I will repent of my evilness and say nice things.
But that Chad has arrived, and so now I have to go kiss him.
See you later. :)

Rassmussen Plantation part 10

She awoke some time later, on a red, plush velvet couch and near a crackling fire. She was covered in a knitted blanket and her head rested on a sofa pillow. She looked around her, taking in her surroundings and noticed a large black dog lying on a rug in front of the fire.  The room was unfamiliar, if warm, and Cinnamon sat up very quickly. Ooh, bad decision. Her head throbbed terribly, and she nearly blacked out again.

“Ah, you’re awake. Careful, careful now, my dear. You’ve had a fright, I’m afraid, and you ought to just lie still a moment.”

At first Cinnamon didn’t see who the voice belonged to, but as he spoke the man came around the couch and crouched down next to her. He looked to be about thirty, with dark blue eyes and thick dark lashes. He wore his hair very short, but she could see that it was thick, dark hair. He was strikingly handsome. Cinnamon never trusted handsome men.

“Who… who are you?” asked Cinnamon, putting a hand up to her aching head.

“Here, this will help you,” the man said, taking a warm, wet washcloth from a nearby basin and laying it on her forehead. He took a second washcloth from the basin and dabbed it lightly on her lower lip.

 “When you fell you seem to have bitten your lip.” He pressed the washcloth against the slight cut, and she pulled away instinctively.

“Stop that. Who are you?” she asked. She didn’t like how close he was to her.

“I assume you must be Miss Cinnamon Rassmussen, new mistress of the plantation.” He said with a sigh, wringing the rag out in the basin, “And I am Jeremy Tarleton. I’m the owner of the Devil’s Bayou Plantation, which runs right up next to your Eau D’Noir. That’s where you are, which I assume would be your next question. I’m afraid my dog Ajax and I were out walking and caught you somewhat unawares, and as we approached you, you fainted.”

“And fired,” Cinnamon said, recalling, “Mister, I coulda killed you! What do you mean by creepin’ all over a person’s property like that?”

Jeremy chuckled, “Ah, yes. That. Fire you did, miss, but you didn’t hit anything vital. I’m not entirely sure you hit anything at all.”

Cinnamon was a bit irked by his tone.

The dog on the rug whined a bit, and cocked his head.

“Stay, Ajax, stay there, boy,” ordered Jeremy.

Cinnamon looked at the dog a minute longer. Dog nothing! That was a wolf, the very wolf whom she had seen in the town earlier that very day. The red leather collar he wore left no doubt.

“What kind of a man walks alone at night in a graveyard? With a wolf no less!” wondered Cinnamon to herself.

Jeremy looked at her intently for a moment, then stood.

“I think a cup of tea is in order. That will set you to rights, I am certain. And I’ll get you a fresh basin.” Jeremy took the basin in one hand and walked towards the door.

He walked out the door, and when in the hall, Cinnamon heard him talking to someone in the hall. She shifted under her blanket, and slowly pushed herself into a sitting position. She looked around the room again. Her eyes fell on the window, and she briefly considered escaping out thru it, but convinced herself that that would be an overreaction.

Something was unsettling. Jeremy was certainly being kind, being gentlemanly, but he set her on edge just the same. She didn’t like him. And she didn’t like it here. She slid her feet onto the floor and stood up, slowly, carefully. The black wolf on the rug whined and cocked his head.

“Shh, shh dog,” she said, trying to remember what Jeremy had called him, “Shh, good boy…Ajax.”

Cinnamon realized that she had socks on her feet now. Warm, thick, woolen ones. Jeremy Tarleton certainly was attentive. And a warm robe around her shoulders. Warm, soft, and dark red like the theme of the room. It smelled faintly of cigar smoke and a spice, like nutmeg or cinnamon. The shoulders were much too broad for her, and the sleeves drowned her arms in their length.

Perhaps Cinnamon was just nosy, or perhaps it was her childish, inquisitive nature, but she padded quietly over to the mantle, crowded with curious brickabrack, and began to shuffle through it’s contents.

What a curious place. The mantle was covered in dust, as thick as the dust as Eau D’Nior before her clean-up. Old books, parchment, feather quills and assorted rubbish. Cinnamon lifted up a silk scarf and then dropped it suddenly with a gasp. She looked briefly back at the wolf on the rug, and the lifted the scarf again.

It was a skull; a wolf skull. Bleached white, with some signs of chipping around the edges. All the teeth were still intact, tho one of the canines was slightly broken at the tip. She lifted it up off of the mantle, and it’s outline was left in the dust, visible even in the flickering light of the fire. The firelight reflected off the red drapes and the red carpet, staining everything in the room with it’s crimson. The skull too, seemed leering and red in the dim light.

“You’re a curious little thing, aren’t you?”

Jeremy Tarelton was suddenly right behind her. She jumped and stifled a cry, instinctively hiding the skull behind her back, although she knew he had already seen it in her hands. Jeremy chuckled deep in his throat, and reached around behind her to take the skull.

“I’ll have to be more careful with you, won’t I?” he said as he set the skull back in it’s place on the mantle.

Jeremy was a very tall man, Cinnamon realized. Standing next to him, she just reached his shoulder with her head.

“I’ll scare you to death by accident before the week is out. Do you always startle so easily?”

Meagan is an ANGERY dinosaur today

If you are a girl, you love romance and you know it.

If you are a guy, then most likely you have no idea what romance is, and even less interest in it.

So exactly why we don’t all become Leslies and save ourselves a whole hell of a lot of trouble is quite lost on me. 

Trepidation in Starbucks

A long time ago I went out to lunch with Cody Peck (who used to be a good friend, and has since dropped off the face of the earth), and as we sat at the restaurant, Cody laughed quietly and directed my attention to a guy sitting across the room.
"See that guy?" he asked, taking a sip of his water.
"Yeah." I said, looking over at the guy discreetly and wondering what was funny.
"I don't," he replied.
"What??" I asked, laughing, "Yes you certainly do, you weirdo."
"I don't," he insisted, "And he doesn't see me."
"What?? What are you talking about, Cody Peck?" I was trying to laugh quietly.
Cody explained that he and this guy used to be friends until Cody broke up with the guy's sister or something and so now here they were at a restaurant, and they were playing the "Oh- I don't see you" game.
Now I really cracked up because I knew exactly the game Cody was referring to.
I had irrationally thought that the "Oh, I don't see you" game was one that only I played.


I just thought of that little incident again as I am sitting here in Starbucks and across the room from me is someone who may or may not hate me. I am not sure. This person may even like me, I really don't know. I just kinda get hate vibes.
Such trepidation.

I don't even know if we are playing the "Oh, I don't see you" game or if she genuinely does not see me. And I am too afraid to go over and say 'hello'. Besides, I don't want to be annoying. And nothing is more annoying than playing nice-nice with someone you despise (which I think is an accurate word for her feelings for me).

Rassmussen Plantation part 9

Cinnamon escaped with more money than she had counted on and waited until she was out of the shopkeeper’s sight before she let her hair back down. She suspected she’d be back to that shop again.

The gunsmith was just next door, and so not difficult to find. The man there asked plenty of questions, and verbally doubted that a little lady like her could use such a weapon, but Cinnamon gave him a dubious look and pointed out that she was in overalls; if any girl could fire a gun, it was her.  The man then offered a few more doubts about whether she’d be able to hold her nerve if faced with an attacker, and actually shoot a person.

“Oh, I could shoot a person, mister. I could shoot a person right between the eyes,” Cinnamon leaned forward on her elbow and looked right into the man’s eyes for effect. She could not believe she had to convince this man that she had the nerve of a man-killer to get him to sell her a gun. She hoped she was convincing. 

She was. The man looked taken aback for a moment, and then sold her the two guns she wanted.

Cinnamon looked around town for a place to buy a dog, but didn’t see anything promising. Hunger eventually got the better of her and she shuffled into the tavern at her best attempt at discretion, and shuffled back out with a roasted turkey leg. The turkey leg was a big, oily thing that looked disgusting, smelled heavenly and tasted even better. Eating it was close to impossible without looking like a savage, and so savage she looked, sitting under a gazebo in the town center, eating the first real food she’d had in a while, and feeding bits and scraps to Tybalt, who ate right out of her hand. Cinnamon had not realized how hungry she really was until she realized that she had finished the meat off the leg and was now picking it clean entirely. She pushed her newsboy cap back a little on her head, and wiped the turkey leg grease off of her chin. She leaned back on the bench she was sitting on, stretched and yawned a bit, then leaned back forward and rubbed at her shirt when she discovered dripped turkey oil on her collar and bib of her overalls.

She looked around quickly and, seeing no one, tossed the bone over her shoulder into the bushes growing behind the gazebo. The bone had just barely hit the bushes when Cinnamon heard something crunching on it. Cinnamon startled her to her feet and instinctively whipped her around to face the bushes.

A wolf!

A large, black Timberwolf.

Cinnamon stumbled back in her surprise. The wolf seemed unimpressed. He surveyed her with his big yellow eyes and his black face a moment, then continued with the bone. As he turned his head, Cinnamon was shocked to see that he was wearing a red leather collar.  The black wolf snapped the bone up into it’s mouth and carried it away into the shadows of the swamp. Cinnamon turned to pick up her bag, Tybalt inside it, with his hair on end, and slung it up onto her back.

Later that day, when she had finished up all of her shopping and pawning, Cinnamon started back home. The sun was still pretty high, and, armed with her new pistols and dagger, Cinnamon felt a lot better. She hadn’t been able to find a dog to buy that day, but a shopkeeper had given her the name of a farmer who’s dog had recently had pups; she’d try there maybe tomorrow.

That afternoon found Cinnamon on the tedious trek back home, and late afternoon found Cinnamon back at the mansion, up on a ladder with a hammer in her hand and a mouthful of nails, constructing sturdy bolts for the inside of all the doors. She’d not have any nocturnal visitors tonight! Unless they broke in through a window. Cinnamon shuddered at the thought. Well, at very least, if it came to window breaking, the sound would wake her and give her time to grab her pistol. Or run. Or both.

She didn’t think it would come to that. Bolted doors should do the job. She didn’t have the time to do it today, but maybe tomorrow she could make some sturdy shutters to protect the windows that didn’t have them. All of the windows had thick, velvet drapes, but only a few had proper shutters. If only she had more experience in carpentry! She could fix doors alright, oil hinges and tighten screws better than most girls she knew, and could manage basic jobs like bolts for doors, but hinges seemed more technical, more delicate and complex. Maybe her new friends from town, Cindy and Alexandra Talbot, could help, or at least knew of someone who could help.

The sun eventually sank low and twilight settled over the plantation. Cinnamon decided to stay up a while, at least until she could see the stars come out, so she lit a few oil lamps and lit a fire in the hearth. As the fire got bigger the room got a bit smoky, and Cinnamon made a mental note of this new chore to be done; sweep the chimneys. Cinnamon stirred the fire a bit, so as to let it die out, and took and oil lamp with her out of the smoky room. She remembered that the Talbots had mentioned an “Old Ben” who had reported seeing the lights in her windows, and so went up the stairs to see if she, with a better viewpoint, could see the lights in his. On one end of the mansion Cinnamon had seen an observatory, which she now reckoned would prove quite useful for spying on her neighbors. She hadn’t yet cleaned the room, and so found it very dusty. There seemed to be no end to the dust around the mansion. She made her way across the room to the spyglass near the far window. The glass in both front and back had to be rubbed clean, but it seemed to be in perfect working order. She put her eye up to the glass and swept her view over the panorama, but didn’t see anything. Perhaps she’d looked too quickly. It was getting dark, after all. She took another sweep, more slowly this time. Why yes! Just there was a light. A little house that looked very much like the caretakers cabin on the edge of her own lawn. Wait, though. Was it a caretakers cabin? Slowly, she moved the view a bit more. Sure enough, another mansion, about the size of the one she stood in. She had neighbors after all! But the mansion in her view was dark, and she didn’t see any smoke rising from any of its chimneys. That explained why she hadn’t seen it in her initial sweep. Still, she was pleased to know that someone was nearby. Old Ben, the probable caretaker of the mystery mansion. She stepped back from the spyglass and looked out at the sunset over the swampy geography. She heard Tybalt meowing loudly from downstairs, and so turned to go find him.

Tybalt was irritated. He’d been gone not four minutes chasing after a mouse and when he returned, Cinnamon was gone and the fire had died.

“Cinnamon!” he called, in his own, cat way, “Cinnamon! Where did you get to?”

He heard Cinnamon’s familiar footsteps staccato descending the staircase, and he went to meet her.

“Cinnamon!” scolded the cat, “Don’t disappear like that! We can’t be quite sure about this place yet.”

Cinnamon scooped her cat up into her arms.

“I’m sorry, sweetums,” she said, laying a kiss on his head, “Were you scared?”

“Hardly,” thought Tybalt, purring despite himself.

Cinnamon kissed him on the head again, and murmured some gibberish into his fur, until a noise outside stopped her suddenly.

A voice! And this wasn’t her imagination.  A strong, male voice.

She let the cat down, and quickly retrieved the pistol which she had purchased earlier that day. She was barefooted, and so moved almost soundlessly out the back door and onto her porch. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do, but it certainly wasn’t going to be sit shuddering in her living room.

Cautiously, she walked around the side of her house towards the side where she’d heard the man. In the looming nightfall and evening fog, she didn’t see anyone. She slipped quietly off her porch and onto the wildgrown lawn.

Again! She heard the man’s voice, like a command, in the distance. As she followed it’s sound, she realized it was leading her toward the family cemetery. Her feet faltered just a moment, but she regained her resolve, and walked faster, hoping that no one could hear the pounding of her heart.

She entered the cemetery grounds, trying not to let her hands shake.  Suddenly she heard a wolf howl, very near her, and the figure of a large man loomed from the fog. A werewolf! She screamed involuntarily and fired her pistol in the figures direction.  The figure advanced and she screamed again as it took hold of her, and she fell into a dead faint.