A Disgruntled Tale from the Mamas of Knotwood Hollow: A Haunting, Almost.

Nella Nettlesworth knew something was wrong with their cottage on DaisyDot Drive the moment her basil plant came tumbling down the stairs. She was the only one home.

She stood from her seat on the couch, chest tightening as she approached the wrecked greenery. It had been one of many plants that had met its untimely end that day. But, before she could investigate, the wooden door opened and shut with a dramatic thud.

“Ugh,” Mabel Maywick said, kicking off her boots and nearly stumbling into the coat rack, a wand falling out of her pocket.

“Couldn’t find her?” Nella said, fingering the soil on the ground like it could tell her what was going on.

“No,” Mabel said, sinking into the couch. “That tabby is nowhere to be found. No one in town has seen her.”

Tuna, the terrible terrorizing tabby had lived a rather long life for a cat that had so little regard for consequences. This was, in many circles, considered highly suspicious.

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Nella said, straightening as she looked up the staircase from the living room. “She’s probably just having a little fun with the critters of the forest?”

“Fun?” Mabel threw up her arms. “Is that what you call our cat murdering innocent birds? Fun?”

“She’s a cat Mabel,” Nella said, though even she had to admit she was getting a pinch worried. They hadn’t seen Tuna for over a week. “Besides, we have bigger problems.”

Mabel’s fingers dug into the pale cushion below her.

“What do you mean?”

Nella turned her head left, then right. Leaning in close to Mabel she whispered.

“I think the cottage is haunted.”

“What?” Mabel shot up to her feet, ready to book it for the door.

A loud crash sounded from upstairs. Then—their longest living house fern, Jerry came tumbling down the stairs.

“Jerry!” Nella exclaimed and she dove for him before she could think better of it. Plastered to the floor with the plant cradled to her chest she whispered. “You’re fine.”

Though, Jerry had most certainly not been fine ever since acquiring a feline as a roommate.

Nella felt a soft sensation brush up against her cheek—then it was gone. Her eyes went wide and she stood, shoving the plant into Mabel’s arms without even glancing at her.

“What?” Mabel said, following after her into the sun soaked kitchen. “What is it?”

“It touched me.”

“What touched you?”

“The ghost.” Nella pulled her blonde curls back into a high bun and headed for the stairs.

Mabel followed, reluctantly, clutching Jerry as tightly as she could.

“I can’t do this Nella.” Mabel shook her head, her nausea creeping. “I can’t be pregnant and haunted.”

“And I can?” Nella said, placing a hand to her belly. “I don’t want to bring babies into a cottage where plants are flying around willy-nilly and a ghost wreaking havoc on our lives.”

She held one finger up to her lips and Mabel nodded. Carefully, quietly, they crept up the stairs. Each step creaked louder than they wanted it to. The ascent, far more dramatic than they had ever recalled.

At the top, Nella squinted. The hallway was unbothered for the most part, besides the soil strewn all over the place. The long floral rug was kicked up on one end and the cherry potion cabinet appeared to be closed as it always had.

Nella felt another brush against her ankle and she jumped. Mabel caught her, tumbling back into the wall behind them.

“Get off me you pumpkin loaf,” Mabel said, pushing Nella forward.

“I think it’s tracking us.” Nella shuddered and they both crouched lower to the ground.

“What if we throw flour on it?”

“Flour?” Nella’s eyes hooded. “And then what Mabel? You want to knead it and make the ghost into bread?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mabel quipped back. “Ghost bread isn’t a thing.”

Nella rubbed a hand down her face. “Yes, you wickless candlestick, I know.” She gestured to the empty space in front of them. “What do you propose we do after we throw the flour on the ghost?”

“Oh,” Mabel said, shuffling her feet. She set Jerry down on the rug and pinched her chin. “We could chase it out of the cottage with a broom, or cast some sort of charm banning it from entry—”

Suddenly something rubbed up against Mabel’s leg and she fell back into the potion cabinet, sending all the vials skidding. One of them popped open mid-slide, releasing a scent of lavender and paranoia.

Before Nella could go to help her, she saw something stirring in the spilled soil.

“Don’t move,” Nella said with an intense seriousness. “It’s right next to you.”

Mabel stiffened, bracing her hands against the floor.

“I see it!” she exclaimed, tucking into herself—pointing wildly at a vial seemingly moving itself across the hallway.

Crouching low, Nella tracked the ghost—stepping as lightly as she could, her wand ready at her side.

Then, Mabel noticed something. She reached down beside her, picking up a small glass vial glinting in a strip of sunlight. It was empty.

“Nella,” Mabel called in a hush. “Did you drink any of the potions from the cabinet?”

“No.” Nella whispered, ready to hex this haunting into oblivion.

Another vial went suddenly skidding across the ground. Nella began to chant.

“Go away you wretched ghost, we do not want to be your host, back to the grave—”

“No!” Mabel rammed herself into Nella so hard that her wand went flying.

“What is wrong with you, you bristless broomstick!” Nella scolded, already reaching for her wand.

Mabel grabbed it before she could and held it high above her head, which was deeply ineffective, given she was five inches shorter.

“Give me that!”

“No,” Mabel said, chucking the wand down the stairs. “Let me explain.”

The look in Nella’s eyes was enough to scare Mabel out of the cottage and never return. Still, she held up the empty glass vial.

“Invisibility potion?” Nella’s brows pinched. “Why is it emp—?”

The reality sunk in right there. Nella’s mouth parted. Slowly, very slowly, she turned her head. Both of them did.

The soil shifted again. A small indentation pressed into it. Then another. Then—the faintest of shimmers, one too low to the ground to be ghost.

“You have to be kidding me,” Nella said under her breath.

One of Jerry’s fronds rustled, like something was batting at it.

“Oh not you don’t, you cauldron-cracked cat!”

Nella lunged, tackling the invisible grey tabby into her arms as Mabel rescued Jerry from his doom.

Tuna unveiled herself then, a low grumble leaving her throat as she chewed on a bit of green. Her grey fur was a mess, coated in soil and dirt from all the botanicals she had mercilessly decapitated that week. With a wiggle and a hiss she tore free of Nella’s grasp. Then, with an absolute commitment to her craft, she knocked a vial down the staircase. It shattered. She watched it and flicked her tail, satisfied.

Nella glanced at Mabel. “We are not ever, I mean ever, telling anyone about this.”

Tuna sauntered down the stairs, trailing a line of browned pawprints in her wake.

Mabel closed her eyes. “Agreed.”