A Dismal Crystal Curse by Barker Constance

Author:Barker, Constance
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Constance Barker
Published: 2023-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Hades was waiting in his usual spot on the kitchen counter the next morning when Cora went down to make her tea.

“Salmon,” he said as she walked into the room.

“Good morning, Hades. Yes, I slept okay, thanks for asking.” Cora opened the curtains and leaned on the sink to look outside for a moment to ground herself in the energy of the morning light.

“That’s great. I’m nocturnal, well, actually I’m crepuscular, but that’s neither here nor there, and it has nothing to do with my breakfast. I am famished this morning.” He paced the short length of counter, flicking his tail side to side.

“You’re always famished and you always want salmon,” Cora said, grinning sideways at him. She opened the salmon and put it in his dish. “By the way, you’re not crepuscular, either. Technically, you don’t need sleep at all, so you aren’t even an insomniac. You’re something completely different. I don’t even know if we have a label for that.”

“Someone has taken a big dose of sarcasm this morning,” he said, going to work on the salmon.

“It was handy. I keep a bottle of sarcasm right beside that bottle of smarty-pants that you get into every day.”

He shot her a look and kept eating.

“I need to go speak with Norma Jean,” she said aloud as she fixed her tea.

“She’s in jail.”

“No kidding Sherlock. And I’m not sure that’s where she should be though.”

Hades stopped eating and looked up at her. “Really?”

Cora shook her head. “No, I’m not. And I need to help clear her name.”

“I thought she would have a lawyer for that.”

Cora shrugged. “I don’t know, but I feel that I need to do something for her.”

“And you can’t stand leaving a mystery alone, can you?” Hades grinned and began cleaning his face with his paw.

“You know me so well,” she said, grinning. “I’m going to talk to Norma Jean. If I’m going to help, I need to know everything that happened.”

Cora left the house and headed to the police station. She needed more information. In particular, she needed to know everything, every detail that Norma Jean knew and could give her. Otherwise, she might be flailing around uselessly grasping for straws instead of actually resolving the case.

Life in Lake Bay Village was going on uninterrupted for the most part. Smartly-dressed men and women hurried past on the sidewalks and in cars. Their jobs awaited them. Murders don’t halt the world. Nothing did. Life kept rolling right on by, moving ever-forward, no matter what. It only seemed changed to the ones directly affected by the murders, she supposed.

That was all in keeping with the cosmic laws of balance, she thought.

As she approached the station entrance, a large crow swooped down and landed on a tree branch a hundred feet from her. The tree was directly across the strip of grass separating the station from the sidewalk. Cora stopped and stared at the bird for only a second or two. To the casual pedestrian, it would have looked like there was a tiny hitch in her stride.

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