Merlin’s attention, by contrast, remained focused solely on me. We shared such an unbreakable bond that he had felt the pain and anguish overtake me. This wasn’t a normal thing that happened with us, but it had occurred a couple times in the past when an emotion had come on especially sudden and strong for one of us.
And this time fear, anger, and sorrow had all collided on me at once. Now Merlin needed to make sure I was okay before he diverted his attention to anything else.
“Oh, Merlin,” I whispered, crouching down to stroke his head sadly. “Look behind you.”
As soon as he turned, he sunk low to the ground and pushed his ears back against his head.“Wh-what happened?”
I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer. They fell hot against my cheeks. “I worked really hard on preparing this place for tomorrow’s ceremony. It was such a beautiful garden, too. I thought it would help Luna feel more at home, but—”
“Someone destroyed it,” Merlin hissed, his green eyes glowing fiercely as they looked up into the night sky. “They destroyed my Luna’s garden, but I’ll make sure they don’t get away with this.”
I shook my head as the tears continued to fall.“I can’t remake it before tomorrow. I just can’t. I spent days tracking everything down. I—” My voice cracked, and Mr. Fluffikins moved to comfort me.
“There, there,” he rasped in that strange snake-like voice of his. “It’s a terrible thing, but we’ll make it right. First we need a barrier.”
No sooner had he said this than a rippling, translucent glow sped out in all directions and formed a dome around my yard. As soon as the shape had formed, the magic flashed and faded from sight. I knew it was still there, working to keep any would-be gawkers unaware.
Merlin paced around the yard, deep in thought. Occasionally, he muttered something under his breath, but not loud enough for me to make out. The poor guy. He was just as torn up about this as I was.
“Cut that out!” Fluffikins spat as soon as he noticed what Merlin was doing. “You’ll muddy up the paw prints and any other clues the culprit may have left behind.”
“Point taken.” Merlin dropped his butt to the ground and twitched his ears.
“Did you see some tracks out here?” I asked them. It was too dark for me to make any out, but their vision was infinitely better than mine.
“I haven’t had the time to look yet,” the black cat admitted with a frown. “But we’ll need some kind of evidence to help us find the responsible party, and paw prints are as good a place to start as any.”
“I can help bring them to the surface with my magic,” Merlin offered, rising to all fours to show he was ready to get to work.
“Then do it,” Mr. Fluffikins commanded, clearly used to being the one in charge.
I watched quietly as the cats worked out a plan, all the while wondering why neither Luna nor her guests had come out to investigate following my scream. Had they not heard, or did they just not care?
Merlin padded on the ground with his front paws, much like he did before settling himself on the couch. As he worked, little dew droplets rose from the earth and hovered a few feet above ground, creating a 3D replica of our yard.
Wow. I studied the image, looking for anything that stood out as unusual. Honestly, it was all unusual and astonishingly beautiful, too.
“Can you isolate the prints?” Fluffikins asked, coming to stand beside me as he watched Merlin work.
Merlin changed the speed of his padding maneuver, sending a majority of the dewdrops straight up into the sky where they instantly evaporated.
“Take out the human shoe prints,” Fluffikins ordered next. Then added a bit more politely, “And can you change the colors to differentiate each set of cat tracks?”
“I can try,” Merlin managed between clenched teeth. Mr. Fluffikins was clearly pushing him to the edges of his magic.
As a sky witch, Merlin often played with rain, wind, and thunder. In theory, he should be able to manipulate color, but it was something I’d never seen him do before. Still, he wasn’t giving up, and I admired him for that.
He struggled to find the right tempo, alternating his speed, direction, and even stomping patterns, until at last the dewdrops began to glow with new colors.
A set of yellow-hued tracks led up to Fluffikins.
A set of green made their way over to Merlin.
That left us with three others.
Blue. Purple. Red.
One of them belonged to our vandal.
Now we just had to find out which.
6
Mr. Fluffikins rose above the dewdrops and floated around the yard, studying each unique set of tracks without saying anything to us for a long time.
“Gracie,” he said to me at last. “Merlin and I will handle the crime scene. You may go inside and start questioning the suspects. We’ll reconvene at 0100 hours to discuss our shared findings.”
I looked to Merlin, but he was so focused on maintaining his dewdrop magic that he didn’t notice when I turned his way or even when I called his name.
“Okay, sure,” I said with a quick nod.
“And have Luna help you,” the bossy black cat added. “It takes a cat to know a cat. And besides that, she knows all the suspects far better than any of us do.”
“Who are our suspects?” I asked, wondering if he’d been able to determine something I hadn’t while studying the prints.
“Everyone,” he said with a grim expression.
I tilted my head to the side.“You mean all the guests?”
“No, I meaneveryone. All of our prints are back here, too.”
I took in a quick, sharp breath.“So nowI’ma suspect?”
“Not a likely one, I’ll admit. But we can’t rule you out yet.”
“Fine. Whatever. At least I know I didn’t do it.” I stomped off, once again overly emotional about something a cat had said. Yes, this was my life now.
“Oh, and Gracie?” Mr. Fluffikins called after me.
I stopped walking but didn’t say anything. I was happy to have his help but irritated by the fact he would consider me a possible suspect after all the work I’d put in to make tomorrow special for my two cat roommates.
“Make sure no one leaves until we figure out whodunnit.” His words echoed into the night. An order. A plea. A necessity.
I turned and offered him a quick salute, then ran back into the house.
Luna met me at the door.“What’s wrong, dear?” she asked, studying me closely.
“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?” I asked in little more than a whisper.
She looked past me, fixing her blue eyes on the door.“Let’s go outside.”
“Um, I’d rather not, if that’s okay.”
She frowned as she glanced around the main living area, which was positively overflowing with cats.“Well, I don’t think we’ll get much privacy anywhere around here, but we can perhaps try the bathroom?”
“Good thinking,” I said, picking her up and carefully weaving my way through the clowder of magical cats.
I did have to shoo away one overly friendly ragdoll, but once I did, Luna and I had the bathroom to ourselves. I lowered the toilet lid and sank down into a sitting position while Luna hopped up on the edge of the bathtub and waited for me to speak.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” I began as tears threatened to spill once more. No, I needed to be strong for Luna. The last thing she needed was for me to spoil her big day before it even arrived.
“I made a special garden for you in the backyard,” I revealed with a sniffle. “It’s why I didn’t want you going back there. It’s got some of the spell-casting herbs you had before, and there was this beautiful arch made of so many flowers.”
Luna’s mouth formed anO.“Oh my, dear. That sounds like a little piece of Heaven on earth.”
“It is. I mean, it was. Someone destroyed it.”
She gasped.“Destroyed it how?”
“They completely demolished it. Luna, I’m so sorry.”