Rosehead

Chapter 20. The Desperate Warning

Incessant cawing of the crows woke them with a start the next morning. Lilith sat up, her head reeling. The house readjusted itself for the morning with one final shake that caused her to fall back into her pillows. She hardly paid it any attention. Panther yawned and crawled deeper under the blankets, slinking by Lilith's knees to hide beneath her feet.

"No, you're not. Come on, Ed is waiting. We have one day left, and that's today," Lilith said, unceremoniously pulling out her pet by the tail, to his disgruntled protests and an attempted bite.

"Owww!" She blew on her fingers. "You didn't just do that."

"Oh, yes, I did. I'm sleeping. I need my thinking sleep for future thinking; otherwise, my thinking will not be thinking but merely ruminating last night's thoughts that, by this morning, will surely prove to be obsolete. Now, if you don't mind..." He inched under the covers.

"Panther Bloom Junior. You know I can't do this alone. You promised."

"All right. Then I demand steak. You still owe me steak, remember?" he grunted. "And your father has been behaving strangely lately. I'm terribly distressed because of that. Makes me itchy." He scratched himself.

For a moment, Panther reminded Lilith of her mother before she had her morning coffee. "You're excruciatingly impossible sometimes. Maybe dad is starting to believe you can talk, did you think about that?" She stroked his ears, irresistibly warm and velvety.

Panther stretched out his neck. "Oh, that's more like it."

"My beret! Where did I put it?" Lilith cried suddenly, looking around. An empty blanket and stack of pillows stared at her with the vacant expression of, well, an empty blanket and stack of pillows. "First the red, then the rosy, now the blue. My head has holes in it, I swear." She jumped out of bed, skidded on the polished floor, and looked underneath. Nothing there, except dust. With shaky hands, she took her bag from the bedpost and emptied its contents. Not there either.

"You and your berets," Panther yapped. "I thought I suggested you stop wearing them?"

Lilith waved him off and ran to the window, squinting at the flying crows. The weather seemed to be coming from the other side of the garden. Tongues of noxious vapor rolled in, together with the stench unusually sharp in its potency, as if Rosehead's bad breath curdled overnight, overwhelming the atmosphere with its poisonous reek. Lilith clamped her nose shut and stared at Panther, who licked himself, sneezing occasionally.

"One might think she's giving birth to moldy cheese," he snarled.

"Look!" Lilith pointed.

One of the crows broke off from the flock and zoomed to the other side of the garden. An enormous leafy arm snatched it right out of the air, cutting off the squawking.

"Wonder why she wouldn't eat Bär. What is he, not juicy enough?" Panther grunted. As if the mastiff heard him, he appeared from a garden alley, a taut leash extending from his neck to Gustav's bony hand. Alfred, however, was absent.

"Where could grandfather be? What do you think he's doing right now? I'd give anything to know," Lilith mumbled.

The door opened. Lilith and Panther wheeled around.

Hair pulled back in a bun, Agatha walked in with a tray of breakfast. It filled the room with the delicious smell of freshly made waffles.

Lilith wanted to say good morning, but her tongue got stuck.

"Good morning," said Agatha tonelessly, her eyes glinting. "Little miss better get ready, before her grandfazer wakes up. She better eat. She haz a long day ahead of her. Ze doctor iz arriving soon." The housekeeper pressed her lips into a line, indicating that she will say no more. She placed the tray on the bedside table and marched out.