I could smell bacon frying in the old cast iron pan. “I made breakfast and some tea. Do cats drink tea?” Abigail asked.
Pixel jumped up, not understanding but smelling the food in the air. “Me hungry. Me hungry.” He circled around the cabin, his tail wagging ferociously.
I jumped to the table and sniffed the tea. It had a distinct musky minty smell. “Abigail, is this nettle tea?”
“Yes, I added some nettle leaves to the green tea.”
“Why would you do that?”
Abigail stopped and thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Abigail, what are you doing in Asheville? Why did you come here?”
She took the bacon out of the pan, plated it and sat across from me. Pixel reached up her leg, trying to get to the bacon. She lifted him up to the table. While he devoured his meal, Abigail said, “I told my parents I was hearing voices in my head. At first they thought it was a young girl’s nonsense but as I grew older the voices became stronger. They shuffled me between doctors. Finally they took me for an MRI. I overheard them telling the doctor that they didn’t know my family history because I was adopted. When I confronted them about the adoption, they didn’t want to talk about it. They handed me the pocket watch and said it belonged to my real parents. I was so angry I left, and I haven’t spoken to them since.” She paused. “I think the voices are my real parents but I can’t remember their faces.”
“What do the voices say?”
“They told me to come to Asheville to get down to the crossroads.”
Crossroads, I thought, Lionel believed Asheville was his crossroad. I curled up on the chair, pondering that word and what it meant for him, for her, for them.
Abigail stood and walked to the sink to clean the dishes. Pixel dropped a mouse at Abigail’s feet. She bent down and scratched his back. “Thank you, but I'm full from breakfast.”
Pixel grinned up at her as the mouse scampered to safety. As Pixel helped Abigail clean the dishes, I rummaged through her garbage bag suitcases, going through her clothes, looking for clues of who she was, why she was here and how she was connected to Lionel. I usually have great intuition when it comes to these matters, but the trust I had placed in Abigail was dwindling. She was parked near the alley where Lionel was murdered. She knew more about potions than she let on to me. For good or bad, something drew her to Lionel and perhaps because of it, Lionel was dead.
I stepped outside onto the wooden porch, overlooking Black Mountain. Morning dew stained the wood floorboards. There were massive paw prints leading to the front door and then a dry spot where something had settled for the night. I could smell our tracker. Pixel was right, he smelled like a dog. “Me, right,” Pixel exclaimed from behind me.
“How did you sneak up on me like that? I didn’t hear you.”
“Me quiet,” Pixel whispered, biting my ear.
We followed the paw prints that circled the cabin. Pixel dug into the fresh dirt around back. He proudly presented me with some sticks, which I recognized as ash, thorn and oak. Pixel scurried to another freshly filled hole, and retrieved the same. This continued around the entire perimeter of the cabin. Pixel sat with a twig in his mouth and a confused look. “This combination of sticks is good magic, Pixel. White magic. It protects anyone within the cabin,” I told him. No dog would know to do this.
“Pixel, Abigail,” he said.
“No, not now, Pixel, let’s keep this to ourselves until we find out who this tracker is.” I stared off into the distance but didn’t see any sign of our tracker. Pixel flopped over onto the grass and rolled around in mad circles. I am constantly amazed at his joy in simple pleasures.
Abigail stepped onto the porch, holding her arm up to shield her eyes from the mid-morning sun. I saw her. Until now she had been the Abigail girl, the human who was to lead me to answers I was seeking but now I really saw her. She is an incredibly beautiful girl. Her platinum hair turning almost absolute white in the bright sun, giving her an ethereal quality. She is tall, much taller than the young girls of my time. Her slender features and pale skin would make a Tolkien elf envious. There is something very elfin about her, the way she carries herself, the way she walks through the forest as though she had walked here hundreds of years ago. A nimbleness to her step. She sat on the edge of the stairs, staring off at the same distance I had myself several minutes ago. She was searching for something.
I sat down next to her. That’s when I got a closer glimpse at the scar that ran down the back of her arm which was covered by a tattoo of Tinkerbell.
She caught me noticing it and covered it with her other arm. “Cat, what are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” I said, turning my back to her. Pixel scampered up the steps, jumping into her lap with his guttural happy noises. “Today is Lionel’s funeral. Myself and the others will be watching from the edge of the cemetery. We’re not allowed in when the humans are about. You’re welcome to come.”
Abigail nodded her agreement. As Pixel and Abigail started down the path to town, I ran into the cabin and retrieved the remaining bacon Abigail had made. I placed it outside the front door for the tracker. By nightfall, we should know his intentions. Either way I prepared myself.
A short while later, we entered the large iron gates of Riverside Cemetery, located deep within the Montford neighborhood. Lionel had talked about the cemetery in his last days as if he knew he would soon be a resident. He told me, “Bury me in the rolling hills overlooking the French Broad River. My people helped build this town, this cemetery; some of them are buried here. I want to be near family.”
Walking amongst the headstones, we passed Thomas Wolfe, O. Henry, famous literary figures who had called Asheville home. I realized I didn’t know Lionel’s last name. To everyone on the streets, he was just Lionel. Abigail stepped quietly through the headstones not noticing names. Pixel ran off chasing a squirrel. A crowd gathered by a freshly dug grave along the water. I wonder if Lionel knew that dark creatures couldn’t cross over moving water. Was that why he wanted his grave by the river? He had told me that the French Broad River was a powerful force. It is the second oldest river in the world, only the Nile is older. It had a good mojo, Lionel said. It defies nature because like the Amazon and Nile, it flows in a northerly direction. Lionel said it starts deep within the eastern continental divide where the world split apart, good on one shore, evil on the other. Maybe he did know. Maybe he did know that evil can’t cross moving water.
Abigail walked up to the back of the crowd, blending her way into the dark clothed mourners. I hid behind a headstone and listened to the preacher start his eulogy. He spoke with the same cadence as Lionel, a mixture of Cajun and southern drawl with a smearing of French. “I knew Lionel. He was a good man. Many days I would meet him at the park. He was a good chess player. I listened to his stories and he helped me with my sermons. Our church reached out to him, offered him a home but Lionel said his home was with the people who needed him on the streets of Asheville. Lionel would quote to me his favorite Bible verse, Luke 4:10, ‘He will put his angels in charge of you to watch over you carefully.’ Lionel felt this to be his calling, to watch over his flock. His people helped build this town when they came up from Louisiana. Lionel’s grandfather helped build some of these homes right here in Montford. Lionel told me he moved back here to spend his last days in the shadows of his grandfather’s work. The evil that took Lionel from us can’t take the memory of his good works. I look around at all these faces, all these souls that Lionel touched and made better. Just knowing Lionel made you a better person. Today we lay to rest a good man, Lionel Foret.”
“Foret?” I mused out loud. His last name was Foret, French for forest. I heard Mrs. Twiggs crying as the coffin was lowered. She followed the procession, dropping a lily onto the coffin. She took a sachet from her purse. I could smell the mixture of herbs, including nettle leaves. A poultice to help Lionel rest in peace. I ran up to her to comfort her, circling around her feet purring and rubbing up against her bare ankles. She bent down, picked me up and hugged me. Her tears soaked my fur.