The Curious Cat: A Petunia's Peculiar Particulars Prequel

The Shades in the Shadows

Author's Note: Added 7/15/21

Rhiannon followed the two Enforcers toward the shed with Bathsheba carefully held in her arms. The cat wriggled and murmured to her, "This would be easier if I could sit on your shoulders."

"Can't I just put you down?" The girl asked Bathsheba.

"No," the cat replied. "We must be in physical contact for me to assist you best. It will allow me to grant you a measure of my power. It works sort of like plugging something in to charge it." Of course, this wasn't quite how it worked, but Bathsheba found this to be the simplest explanation.

The dark-haired Enforcer in the front motioned with one hand for them to stay back. Rhiannon stopped, and the younger man dropped back a step or two in front of them. Bathsheba tried to recall their names and whispered to Rhiannon, "Is the younger one in front of us called Anderson?"

Rhiannon nodded and opened her mouth to respond, but Anderson turned to them and held a finger to his lips. They promptly ended the conversation. A few minutes later, the older Enforcer returned with a pair of goggles on his face and said to them in a whisper. "There are two shades here. They're in a shady area, so it's pretty easy to spot them." He looked at Rhiannon. "Do you know what to do?"

"Usually, I talk to them. The spirits ask me to take messages to loved ones. Honestly, I didn't even know I was talking to dead people until Bathsheba told me a couple of days ago."

"That's how it works," said Anderson. "The first few times are few and far between too. It wasn't often that it happened, was it?"

Rhiannon shook her head. "Maybe every couple of years?"

"Has the frequency increased lately?" Bathsheba looked at the tag on the front of the Enforcer's shirt while he questioned Rhiannon and saw that it read "Parker."

"Yeah," Rhiannon answered, puzzled. "How did you know?"

"You're heading into the coming of age. The spirits will find you more and more as you get older, and eventually, you'll be able to call them and send them away from you and choose when you want to deal with them." Parker explained. "For now, though, these two shades aren't a pretty sight. Are you sure you want to talk to them?

"She might not have to see them," Bathsheba said. "She could stand around the corner and just talk to them from there."

"Does it work like that?" Anderson asked. "I thought that spiritualists needed to see the spirits to hear their voices."

"Not those of her particular bloodline. If one of the shades is a boy about her age, I think it would be best if Rhiannon did not see what he looks like in his death state." The cat explained.

"Yeah, one of them is a boy. He looks like Isaiah Grey, the young man that died there a few weeks ago." Parker said. He took a slow breath in, and then he exhaled. "The girl, I don't recognize, not from our investigations anyway, so I'm not going to be much help there. She seems peaceful and completely non-corporeal."

"They're spirits," Rhiannon said with a quirk of an eyebrow. "Shouldn't they be non-corporeal?"

"Shades can sometimes manifest enough physicality to manipulate objects in the physical world," Parker said.

"He's referring to poltergeists. They're not common." Bathsheba added. "I think we will be safe if the two of you stand in front of us and we stay around the corner, out of sight, but where the shades can hear Rhiannon. What do you think, gentlemen?"

"That's what I was going to suggest," Parker said as he adjusted his goggles.

"Then let's do this," Rhiannon said firmly. "I want to find out what happened to my brother."