Black Cat Crossing Read Online Free Page B

any of the ideas I came up with. Sometimes writing was nothing but a big time suck. Around eleven I called it a night and went to bed.
    I tried to sleep, but apparently I was too wound up after what had happened today to write or to sleep. By two, I gave up on the bed and decided to bake. I had a craving for pecan tarts. I changed my nightgown for shorts and a T-shirt, added socks and tennies, then grabbed a flashlight and keys and headed to Aunt Rowe’s. Not my first middle-of-the-night foray into her large country kitchen. I had baked things there as a cure for insomnia two or three times a week since coming to live in Lavender. Though Aunt Rowe claimed she had trouble sleeping, she had yet to interrupt me during a baking frenzy.
    The night was humid and still. From the path, I could barely hear the gurgle of the Glidden River—a narrow section of which ran through Aunt Rowe’s property. Clouds drifted across the half-moon, and I flipped on the flashlight to guide me. At her back door, I stubbornly tried my key three times and then smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand.
    Of course. Thomas had changed the locks.
    I stood there for a few seconds, grieving for the pecan tarts I would not be eating. I’d have to settle for the banana bread I had leftover from my last middle-of-the-night bake-fest. I hurried back along the path toward my cottage. The clouds slid away from the moon, and I switched the flashlight off to conserve the batteries.
    Something darted across the path in front of me.
    I stopped and scanned the area. Up ahead, eyes glowed in the dark. My heart raced. I turned the flashlight back on and found a large black cat sitting about twenty yards ahead of me. The same cat I’d seen sitting on my car the day before.
    This time it had crossed my path.
    If that had happened before Bobby Joe Flowers’s visit, I’d say
he
was the bad luck. Or if the cat had shown itself on the way to Aunt Rowe’s house, I’d say the bad luck was that I didn’t have the right house key.
    Black cats don’t cause bad luck, Sabrina, remember?
    I resumed walking, and the cat stayed right where it was until I got closer. Then it jumped up and ran ahead.
    When I reached my cottage, I saw the cat sitting on the top stone of the steps leading to the river. I stooped down and talked to the animal.
    “You’ve made quite a trip coming all the way out here from town,” I said. “You might want to steer clear of Thomas, though. He probably won’t be happy to see you.”
    The cat meowed.
    “Glad to meet you, too,” I said. “You remind me of a cat I used to have. Smoky went all the way through college with me, but then I married Elliott and he was allergic. Should have made
him
move out instead of the cat. But Dad kept Smoky for me until he passed. Smoky, I mean, not Dad, but Dad’s gone now, too.” My eyes teared.
    Get a grip. You’re talking to a cat as if it’s your therapist.
    The cat stood and looked at me, then turned and darted down the steps.
    “Wait.” I ran to the top of the steps and shone my light in the direction the cat had run.
    There, another flash of black.
    Where was the danged cat going? I thought cats didn’t like water.
    I took the steps a little too quickly and had to stop for a moment to catch my balance on one flat stone that rocked when I put my weight on it. I slowed down, taking care so I wouldn’t slip and fall. When I reached the bottom, the cat’s green eyes appeared in a place that made it seem like the animal was suspended over the water.
    No, he was sitting on a fallen tree limb. A rather large limb with one end resting on the riverbank, the other end submerged. The cat was taunting me for some reason, and I was crazy to be out here in the middle of the night following the animal around.
    “If you want to be friends, come and visit me tomorrow,” I told the cat, then turned to retrace my steps.
    I swear he meowed again, though I couldn’t be sure over the sound of the river. I turned