Ned sat on a big leather chair in a small dark room. The leather was soft, worn out from years of use. He was comfortable, but that didn’t help him feel any less anxious. He tapped his fingers on the cold armrests, his eyes wandering across the room.

He strained his eyes to examine the many strange items on display, with only the little light seeping in through the snow dusted window to illuminate them. He saw walls full of African masks and Native American totems, along with amulets he guessed had come from Asia. On a lone shelf beside the window stood several rows of books, but it was too dark to make out their titles.

“I’m finished!”

A small girl approaching her teens was already there when he arrived. They’d talked a bit, but she was absorbed in her work – a poem.

“Already? Great! Will you read it out loud for me?”

The girl looked at him, then at the poem, then at the floor. She hesitated for a moment, then got up from her spot in the middle of the room and walked over to him, keeping her gaze fixed on the carpet, and handed him her notebook. It opened precisely on the last page and he read:

How’d she get that lion?

If you're feeling lonely, some company want.
A friend or a doggy, a dad or a cat.
Take with you the eigth one, then go for a walk,
And with your own magic, their feelings do charm.

“I can’t say I quite get what it’s about, but the metric and rhymes are great for someone your age.”

He handed back the notebook. She finally lifted her gaze from the floor and looked him in the eye, then smiled and proceeded to run away through the left corridor. He felt disappointed. The girl had gotten his mind off the matter for a bit.

Thankfully, his wait didn’t last much longer. He heard a voice calling out to him from the hallway on the right.

“Ned, you can come in. Down the hallway.”

He got up from the chair and followed the voice down a corridor just as packed with trinkets as the room where he was before. He finally reached a tall wooden door. He knocked.

Source: Shuttershock

The door was opened from the inside by a tall woman dressed in black. He’d known her for years, ever since she used to date his brother, William, and she was the one who scheduled the interview. She smiled and signaled towards one of the two sofas occupying most of the room.

“So, you’re Edward.”

He heard this as he was sitting down and froze. He felt strength in the voice, authority, but also a hint of something else. He looked up and saw the one speaking.

“You must be Emma. Truly a pleasure and an honor!”

He’d gone straight for the sofa furthest from the door, failing to notice the old woman sitting on the other one. She looked at him with amusement from her place at the end of the sofa, the sides of her wrinkled mouth curling into a smirk.

“I’d say the same, were the circumstances not so… uncomfortable. You can finish sitting down, I won’t mind.”

He did, then felt embarrassed at not having moved all that time. The old woman had a presence like none other he’d felt before, as expected from a gypsy matriarch. He wasn’t really sure if they were gypsies, but it was his best guess; that’s what the rest of the town knew them as.

He proceeded to explain the situation to the matriarch while Dianne, the woman in black, made tea on a samovar sitting in a corner of the room.

Angel Rodriguez, a young man in his early 20s, had gone missing some days ago. Nobody had the faintest idea what had happened to him. He only told his family he’d meet up with his girlfriend the day he went missing.

“That’s why you decided to take my Kate into custody.”

There was no anger in her voice as she said that, rather, she sounded annoyed.

“It’s standard procedure, ma’am. She’s currently our only lead in the investigation, so we needed to interview her.”

“Interrogate her, you mean. She’s not your only lead, she’s your only suspect.”

He swallowed hard. He didn’t want to look at it that way. There was no crime, not yet. Someone had gone missing, and they had to be found. Still, it had already been three days since the disappearance, and 48 hours had passed since the report was made. Most missing person cases were solved in the first 48 hours, and the rest…

“We haven’t jumped to conclusions regarding the case. Right now, she’s our only source of information as to what might have happened to Angel. Or, well, we hoped she would be.”

At that moment, Dianne returned with the tea. He took his cup and smelled it, finally able to enjoy the aroma he’d been catching whiffs of the whole time he’d been talking. Emma did the same, slowly, closing her eyes as she did. She took a sip, then opened her eyes, her gaze harder and colder than before.

“What did you mean by ‘hoped’, Edward? Did something happen to Kate?”

“Not at all, no. Rather, something did happen with her. You see, we did interview her. We asked whether she knew about Angel’s whereabouts, whether she’d seen him in the past few days, if they’d seen each other recently...”

“And?”

Emma started tapping her fingers against the cup she held with both hands, much like he had against the armrest on the chair while he waited to be received.

“She denied everything. She said she didn’t know what had happened, she didn’t know where he was, and –“

“Well, I don’t see the issue there, then. Why isn’t she here with me now?”

She tapped harder, faster.

“The thing is, she denied having met with him on the day of his disappearance, but we have eyewitness reports of them walking along the road leading here from the town, together, on that same day.”

“And what did she say when confronted with these reports?”

“She just… said they were wrong. She acknowledged having walked the road, but said she was alone the whole time. To be exact... she laughed. She said what the eyewitnesses had seen was most likely just her guardian an – Agh!”

He felt an acute pain on his right ankle. He instinctively reached down towards the source and his hand met with something dry and scaly. Dianne darted from the seat she’d taken beside Emma and tried to catch whatever had bit him. She finally pulled it from under the sofa.

“Alex, what’s gotten into you?”

Alex, the large iguana that had just bitten his ankle, was now dangling in front of him while trying to wriggle out of Dianne’s grasp. Before he could react, Emma started talking again. The annoyance seemed to have turned to anger, as her voice was stronger and her tone harsher.

“We’re done here, Mr. Investigator.”

The lizard broke free, fell to the ground and made its way to Emma. It rubbed its scales against her feet, drawing an 8 figure on the ground as it went around them. She put her tea on a small table beside the sofa and picked up the creature.

“I do so much. So much for these vixens. Making me work overtime… Crows! Get out of my house, Edward. You’re a good man! Never come here again.”

He was shaken, surprised, dumbfounded. He didn’t get what was going on. He fumbled with his words, but managed to bid farewell as he left the room. Dianne walked him out.

Before reaching the door, they went through the common room. There, he saw the town’s librarian playing with a cat. She saw him, chuckled, then waved back. There were several other women, all seemingly enjoying their times with the house’s many pets. There were as many as there were women.

He found the scene bizarre, but not entirely foreign. The house apparently served as a boarding house of sorts, and new women came and went with the seasons. Only a couple, like the librarian, stayed for longer. They all had some function in the town’s cultural life.

He saw Dianne take a coat from the hanger beside the door before opening it.

“I’ll walk you back to town.”

Before long, they were walking down the same road where Angel was last seen. They talked about the past, about his brother and what transpired all those years ago.

“What happened to that dog you got back when William… vanished?”

He didn’t like saying it. Much as he didn’t like treating Angel’s case as anything more than a missing person. He was determined to find him. He wanted nobody to suffer such a loss on this town again.

“You mean Billy? He… He died last month.”

That explained the black clothes, at least. She’d always been really close to the dog, so he didn’t find it weird that she’d mourn him. Maybe mourning animals was normal for gypsies.

“I’m sorry about that, Dianne. You loved that dog, didn’t you?”

“I did, I really did. But it’s fine. You’re fine too.”

He chuckled. Dark humor was a sign she was dealing with it just fine.

He stopped for a moment and looked back at their footprints on the snow. He wondered whether Angel had seen something similar the day he disappeared.

Source: @sad-dad

He was about to get going again when he saw something on the ground, where his feet had been moments before. He bent down to pick it up – it was a piece of cardboard.

“A… card? What kind of card is this?”

The card had a drawing of a girl with flowers in her hair grabbing the mouth of a lion.

“It says… The Strength. Is this a tarot ca –“

He felt dizzy and weak. He heard Dianne say something in a language he didn’t know. He felt hot, hotter than he’d ever felt, and his heart beat faster than it ever had. He sniffed around him. He was thirsty, so he licked the snow. He saw the card on the ground, but it felt unimportant.

A hand started scratching him behind the ears.

Afterword

What an experience it was writing this story! It took me out of my element at first, but somehow it ended up where they all end - I f'd up the protagonist. Why do I always do that?!

It's mystery this time around, though. Did you figure it out before the ending spelled it out for you? If you didn't, it's OK, perhaps I didn't include enough clues.

At first I wasn't too sure about it because I felt I was trying to pack too much in too little a package. I even went over the word limit! It also didn't flow too well. But, of course, the folks at @TheWritersBlock helped me unearth something I'm satisfied with. I'm very happy with the result. To think I was about to scrap it!

That's all I've got to say for now. Gotta run and post it to @gmuxx's Art Prompt Writing Contest before the time is up!

_Header image made with resources taken from PhotoHDX and HungUpLTD.