"Willow's Missing Tail" 1

Perfidia stepped out of the Heaven’s Brew café carrying her favorite cup of tea and humming along to the love song playing through her ear buds. Her lighter mood and whimsical musings had been a consequence of the solstice festival and her re-connection with Jon, mostly her re-connection with Jon.

They’d managed to spend every weekend together these last three months and the distance of two hours between their homes didn’t matter at all.

Perfidia continued down the street, enjoying the unusual, warm autumn day and singing slightly off key, ignoring the humorous glances of people passing by.

She stopped by her potion shop Verde, placed her key in the door’s lock while still singing exuberantly and opened it. A cool September breeze ruffled her red hair and followed her inside. She flipped on the light switch illuminating the store and both her happy smile and discordant singing died.

Perfidia stared in shock at the disarray of her normally, pristine shop. Her precious potions had been moved out of order, plant cuttings were strewn across the counter and the floor.

“What happened?” Her voice shook with disbelief but no one was there to hear it.

She had the only key to her shop and no one was permitted to touch her precious potions and plants, so it begged the question who’d have the audacity to enter her store and tamper with her treasures? Who would dare to cross her threshold and how did they gain entry?

She eyed he entry door and saw her protections were still in place. A worrisome feeling sizzled through her; the intruder would have had to wield an equal power to eradicate those barriers.

Perfidia walked to the counter and put down her cup of tea and purse. She took out her phone and tapped a name in her contacts, calling the only person she trusted to help her solve this mystery.

*

Martha walked into her sun filled kitchen as she did every morning and took Willow’s fine china bowl down from the cupboard to fill with her feline’s favorite morning treats. Her thoughts this morning were a tad distracted by her late night conversation with Dillon, who still lived in California. They'd greed to start their friendship over at the solstice festival but it'd progressed from friendship pretty fast. Last night, Dillon told her there was a job possibility for him, one that could settle him closer to her. He’d know soon enough if it would work out.

That possibility was the reason her morning was brighter. She began to hum a happy tune as she filled Willow’s bowl.

“Willow.” she called out, not seeing the feline in her usual place, lounging on her down feathered cat bed.

Martha thought she must be out in the garden and placed the filled bowl on the floor calling to the feline again. Several minutes passed and Willow did not slink in to the room; Martha decided to go out to the garden and find her. She headed to the back door but stopped when her cell phone rang; she picked it up from the kitchen counter and saw it was Perfidia. She answered as she stepped out the back door into the garden.

“Good Morning Perfidia.”

“Martha, something’s wrong; terribly wrong!”

Perfidia’s frantic voice was unexpected and drew her concern.

“What’s wrong; why are you upset?”

“It’d be easier to show you. Can you come to my store, now?”

“Of course, I’ll leave as soon as I find Willow.”

“Find Willow…what do you mean find her?”

“She didn’t answer my call to breakfast and you know that’s not like her,” Martha chuckled, “I’m sure she’s just sleeping in the garden.”

On the other end of the line, Perfidia experienced a pang of premonition.

“Martha, I have a strange feeling about Willow,” she said it with a sense of dread.

“Nonsense, she’s in the garden, probably in her favorite spot under the delphiniums.” Martha assured her, but as she approached that part of the garden her heart squeezed with fear. Willow’s beloved delphiniums had been ripped out of their garden bed.

“Oh no…!” Martha gasped, not liking what she saw, or the mayhem it foretold.

“What is it Martha, what’s wrong?”

Martha stared at the disturbed flower bed and the deep claw marks on the ground near it and knew they were made by Willow, in distress.

“I think Willow’s gone,” she said in a low, pained voice, “and not by her own accord.”

"I'll be right there.” Perfidia said and disconnected the line.

 

Perfidia looked around her violated shop and opened her phone to camera mode. She took several pictures then picked up her tea and purse and headed to the front door.

She was almost to the door when a letter came sliding through the small space under it.

She couldn’t see who’d delivered it because her store’s front door was solid oak with a thin glass panel of stained glass that distorted shapes beyond it. Perfidia picked up the letter and saw only her first name was scrawled across it. She opened the door and looked up and down the street but didn’t see anyone near enough to have delivered it.

She tossed the letter into her bag before locking up her store and heading over to Martha’s garden and the passage that led to her out of town home.

*

Martha walked the parameter of her garden looking for clues but found none. She was standing again by the destroyed delphiniums when Perfidia entered the garden from under the Willow tree’s secret passage.

“Martha, are you alright?”

“No, not at all, and I’m glad you're here.”

“Are you sure Willow’s been taken? Maybe she’s gone off on one of her adventures?”

“Look at those claw marks; they're compelling evidence she didn’t leave on her own,” Martha pointed towards the flower bed.

Perfidia stepped closer and the deep claw marks made her feel ill. She may not have always gotten along with that feline but she’d grown to care for her.

“This isn’t acceptable! And besides, how could anyone take Willow against her will? No one can catnap that cat.”

Martha gave her a worried look. “I’ve been wondering about that too.”

“So you agree; it shouldn’t be possible.”

“I didn’t think it was.”

“So…how could it happen?"

“I don’t know.”

Perfidia thought about her vandalized store and now something might have happened to Willow; it didn't feel like a coincidence.

“Martha, there’s something going on. Someone went into my store last night and took some potions and plants. Look; this is how I found it today,” Perfidia opened her phone’s camera gallery and showed Martha the pictures she’d taken.

“But how could they entered your store; don’t you have triple lock down protections?”

“Exactly, I do! But someone was able to elude them.”

“You think it could be the same someone who has Willow?”

“It's a strange coincidence if it isn’t connected.”

Martha scowled. “I thought we were done with havocs.”

“Seems we're not, do you think your special insight brew could help us?”

“It’s worth a try.”

They’d just stepped into Martha’s kitchen when the front doorbell rang.

Martha walked to the front hall with Perfidia but before Martha could open it a letter with Martha’s name scrawled cross it was slid under it.

Martha picked up the letter and Perfidia looked over her shoulder noticing the same scrawled handwriting as the one on her letter. She walked around Martha and flung opened the front door hoping to catch the person who’d delivered it but again,  just like at her shop, no one was there.

“This answers the question; there must be a connection!”  Perfidia seethed slamming the door shut and turning to Martha, "I had a letter delivered to me in the same way just before I left my store."

Martha’s eyes widened. “Someone wants our attention.”

“Oh they’ve got mine, but they may not like what they get with it,” Perfidia warned.

Martha nodded. “I’ll brew some tea and we can open these letters.”