Looking down, I saw a small patch of light on the ground below me. I could hardly make it out with all the swirling snow, but because everything was so dark, it stood out. Someone else couldn’t sleep and he or she was in the kitchen.
Thinking this was probably a very bad idea, I tossed on my sweatpants and Vi’s sweater over my T-shirt and sleep shorts and quietly slipped out of the room. I was thankful for the electricity once again as the hallway was at least dimly lit by the sconces along the wall. I walked quietly down the stairs trying to decide whether to announce myself or sneak up on the person in the kitchen.
I decided stealth would be best and quietly approached the kitchen door once I reached the main floor. Cracking the door open, I wasn’t surprised to see Linda there in her pale gray robe again, but this time Emmett joined her. They sat at the small table, sipping something out of mugs and talking quietly.
I hesitated. While I was surprised to see them together, they weren’t doing anything wrong and Linda had certainly had a rough enough couple of days. I turned to go back to the staircase and just as I put my foot down, an angry yowl came from the white cat. I threw my hands over my mouth to stifle my reaction. She had snuck up on me and must have been sitting with her tail right where my foot had landed. I bent down to calm her, but she backed away from me with her hair puffed up, hissing and spitting.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to step on you,” I said to the cat. “You’re very sneaky.”
“Yes, she is,” Emmett said from the door. “I can’t keep track of her. She’s always trying to trick her way into the kitchen to steal food. And after the last time, René might lose his mind if he sees her in here again.”
I sucked in air and decided to play through—I hadn’t planned on revealing myself to these two, but sneaky cat had taken care of that.
“Emmett, I’m sorry to interrupt,” I said. “I couldn’t sleep and just came down to find a magazine or something to read in the lounge.”
“Come in,” he said. “Lin—Mrs. Garrett makes the best hot chocolate ever. It will be sure to help you sleep.”
After my bizarre dream, I wasn’t sure I wanted to sit in a dimly lit castle kitchen in the middle of a stormy night. But I couldn’t think of two more unlikely companions for a midnight hot chocolate run and figured I had been handed an opportunity to do some more investigating.
“Who is it, Emmett?” Mrs. Garrett asked.
“It’s Clyde Fortune,” Emmett said. “A fellow insomniac.”
“I can never sleep on a windy night,” Linda said. She got up from the small table, poured cocoa into a mug, and placed it in front of me. “I find the warm milk helps.”
Emmett picked up a bottle of Baileys and waved it in my direction. “I find this helps even more.”
I nodded at the offer and he poured a glug into the cocoa. As he tilted the bottle, I noticed an angry red scratch across the back of his hand. Duchess?
“If I’d known there was hot chocolate and Baileys, I would have roamed the halls earlier,” I said.
They both chuckled. “It’s mostly on the windy nights that I’m here,” Linda said. “Emmett caught me here messing up René’s kitchen a while back, so it’s become our little secret.”
“I guess neither one of you is afraid of the ghost,” I said.
They exchanged a quick glance that made me think they wondered if I was joking.
“As long as it stays away from my Baileys, I don’t care what that ghost gets up to,” Emmett said.
“I’m more afraid of the cat than the ghost,” Linda said. “I don’t know what we’ll do with her now. Ever since Clarissa . . . died, I haven’t been able to figure out what she’s up to. She used to seek me out for cuddles and now it’s like she’s gone feral.”
“She’ll calm down after a while,” Emmett said. He put his left hand over the scratch on his right.
“I think once she realizes she’s still being fed, she’ll adjust,” I said. “Was she very close to Clarissa?”
“That’s the funny thing,” Linda said. “I don’t think she was very attached to her. The cat loves the turret room and tolerated Clarissa.”
“Who does she belong to?” I asked.
“I suppose she belongs to the castle. She’s lived here for about five years. She just showed up one day, we fed her, and she stayed.” Linda sipped her chocolate. “If I ever needed to find her, I’d go up to the turret room and there she’d be, sitting in the window seat in a warm patch of sun.”
“She was a real friendly little thing,” Emmett said.
“Clarissa didn’t mind that the cat lived in her room?”
Linda smiled. “No, they seemed to get along just fine. They mostly ignored each other. Sort of like two cats who had been forced to live together.”
“Cats are very sensitive,” I said. “You should talk to Vi. She’ll tell you all about cats and their emotional lives.”