Follow the Black Cat

By Iris Forester

With a hefty insurance settlement in hand, Ruby has fled the city for a little blue house in rural Minnesota. She's only hoping for a new, healthier lifestyle, but she gets a lot more than she bargained for when a soulful playwright living in his great-aunt's dilapidated mansion, a local vice principal with romantic designs and a sinister vibe, and a mysterious black cat enter her life just in time for Halloween. Will Ruby's life come crashing down on her even worse than the car that put her in this situation? Or will she follow her new feline friend to happiness in an old (allegedly) haunted house?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Shorts
• Release date: Oct 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781094427751

Iris Forester

Iris Forester is never happier than when she’s tossed everything aside to follow one of the story threads that cross her path. She shares her home place with eagles, ravens and owls — but also makes time every year to spend in New York City. When she’s not writing, Iris works with paint, clay, and various difficult creatures.

Book preview

Chapter One

Ruby stared morosely out her kitchen window, watching a garbage truck inch its way into an alley across the street. She picked up the second almond croissant out of its box, made a face at it, and put it back down. The good taste would only bring a few minutes of pleasure.

She should be happy, she thought. Most people in her situation would be happy, wouldn’t they? Suddenly having enough money to make your own choices about what you really wanted to do — wasn’t that what everyone dreamed of?

It had been three days since she had deposited the insurance settlement money into her savings account and dropped $4,000 into checking. It had been only eighteen hours since her last day at work, when she’d written notes to each of her students at the community college writing center. One of them, a super-sweet girl from Taiwan, had given her this box of bakery croissants as a going-away present, even though the fall semester was still new and Ruby had only been tutoring for a few weeks. And Tara, the writing lab director, had given Ruby a pretty handbound journal along with some advice about finding her passion.

You’ve got so much energy inside you, Tara had said. Once you find your direction, you’ll be like a shooting star. Her words had pricked Ruby, who didn’t feel remotely shooting-star-like. This morning, as a matter of fact, she felt like a slug, inching its slow way through the rainy hours.

The garbage truck couldn’t clear a lamp post on the corner and began to back up, beeping a steady series of warnings. The city was going about its early fall business, everyone back from summer vacation and settling into work and school. The early October heat was being washed out of the air with this rainfall, and there was a fresh energy on the street.

Ruby stood up. She would not vegetate any longer, reading ghost stories and running away from the terrifying hugeness of her new freedom. It was time to take her life into her own two hands, even if all she really wanted to do was to crawl back under her covers and watch movies.

First step. What was the first step? Giving notice to her landlord. Ruby was going to move out of Minneapolis, of course. She’d planned on that for months as she underwent back surgery and rehabilitation after the accident while the insurance company and legal system lurched through their processes. The guy who ran the stoplight and slammed into her car had been drinking, and the judge had nailed him with huge punitive damages: $200,000. Amazingly, he’d turned out to be someone who had that kind of money sitting around, so he’d been able to actually pay her. And his insurance company had covered all her medical and legal bills as well as a tidy new car to replace the totaled one.

Ruby stood up and stretched, moving briskly into her tiny kitchen and putting away the croissants. She might feel sludgy in her mind, but her body — amazingly — felt good. It had been a rough couple of months, during which she’d wondered if she would ever feel right again. The prognosis had been dicey at first, as far as her future ability to do simple things like bend over or walk without a cane. Her surgeon, however, had worked structural miracles. And her physical therapist, on whom Ruby had developed a futile crush, had helped her remove all the residual pain from her back and neck.

During her long weeks of recovery, Ruby had promised herself that she would never take her body for granted again. She would pay attention to it, nurture it, build a life that was centered on real health in every sense of the word.

Where would she move to? Somewhere out of the city; that was all she knew. Someplace where she could leave all her bad habits behind: the junk food that was way too easy to live on and the bad boyfriend opportunities that she was way too susceptible to. She thought of the latest of these, Kevin, a life coach who had started cheating on her two weeks after the accident. Well, she had been planning to break up with him anyway, but it was galling that he had had someone to run to as soon as she kicked him out of her apartment.

And her friends? Ruby’s heart pricked her a little. She was lonely. Her best friend, Sammie, had moved to California three months ago, and only after she left did Ruby realize how much she had depended on Sammie. Two other friends were overwhelmed with small children and seldom had time to spend with her. Nobody at the community college seemed like promising friend material, and even in her apartment building, she had only ever had one or two real conversations. A small town had to be friendlier.

Minnesota was full of beautiful places, and Ruby wasn’t fussy. Just someplace where life moved more slowly and she could see the stars at night. Where she could make a garden and keep a few chickens. Where she could get in the habit of eating fresh, healthy food, and go out for long walks where she could hear birds. And where she could gather herself together and figure out where she had mislaid her ability to be happy.

Chapter Two

If she were planning to embark on a new, healthier lifestyle, why not start right now? She had no excuse for putting it off any longer. Wishing that determination didn’t have to feel so grim, Ruby put on running shoes, some sweatpants, and a sports tank top and headed out to jog. The rain had stopped, and the pavement had a nice, wet smell. A girl standing on the street corner smiled at her as she passed, giving her a little thumbs-up signal, which boosted Ruby’s mood a bit. Her body was healed of its injuries, but she wouldn’t take it for granted anymore. Being plump was fine, but she wanted her curves to be more muscular and less marshmallowy, and she shouldn’t be this winded after just four blocks. She wouldn’t even be thirty for another four years, and her body was still young.

In her new surge of self-discipline, Ruby decided to push on for a fifth block before turning around. Ahead of her, a few people were clustered on the sidewalk. As she approached, she saw streamers and balloons; it was a grand opening. Of a bakery. Seriously? She slowed down, ready to cross the street away from the temptation, and then a caramel-scented wind stopped her in her tracks. Seeing her pause, one of the store people came up and held out an iced doughnut to her.

Grand opening. Would you like a free sample?

See, that was the problem with cities, Ruby thought as she postponed her new health initiative and accepted the free doughnut. In cities, you couldn’t be expected to get into shape because things like this happened. People handed you free doughnuts. She bought a cup of coffee to go with her free doughnut and pulled her phone out of a zippered pocket. She’d been compulsively searching Craigslist in the smaller cities to see if anything was for rent in the region. Sitting there, scrolling through the listings, she came to a new photo she hadn’t seen before and felt her heart begin to beat faster. She had found it.

A wave of excitement began to form inside the gray sea of her inner landscape. She couldn’t risk losing this opportunity.

The house for rent was about 150 miles away in a small town far out in the northern lake country, and it actually sat next to a lake so lovely that it looked like a postcard. But it wasn’t just the location. The house itself drew her. Picturesque as a dollhouse, it had heartwarming lines, a sunny garden space, a woodstove, and a sun-filled country kitchen. Putting herself inside each photo on her phone’s small screen, Ruby could feel the ragged parts of her life beginning to take shape in a whole new way.

She dialed the number on the ad, trying not to get her hopes up. She had references she could give, and she knew there would probably need to be a credit check. That would come out okay because she was conscientious (even a bit compulsive) about financial tidiness, but it all took time. Surely dozens of other people would be competing for the house.

The woman who answered the phone, however, did not ask for references or credit checks. She merely asked Ruby why she had liked the listing. Her voice was warm, and on impulse, Ruby spilled out her story of wanting to make a new beginning.

Can you Venmo me a deposit? the woman wanted to know, and Ruby put her hand to her mouth in surprise.

Absolutely. Right away, she answered.

And by the time she got up from the table at the new little bakery, she had rented herself a house.

Section Break

Three weeks later, Ruby had the house key in her hand and was actually ready to enter the house in that magical photo.

It had been a hectic interim, what with buying what she needed, getting rid of what she didn’t, packing, and scrubbing her apartment, all while trying to placate her worried parents. They had always lived in Minneapolis, and the city was their safe place. To have their daughter move out to an unfurnished cottage on a lake near some town they’d never heard of three hours away was not a development that made them happy.

Think of all the opportunities in the city, her father had argued with her. With your insurance money, you could start your own business.

You haven’t even gone out there to see the house, her mother had fretted. You can’t just rely on photos.

Ruby did her best to settle them down with promises to visit and to send her own photos to show them that she wasn’t camping out in some kind of shack. When she finally pulled her car onto the highway, crammed with everything that she still owned, she took a deep breath. This was the beginning of freedom; the beginning of her real life. Her heart felt lighter, less burdened. She had mercilessly sorted out her belongings, giving away everything that didn’t contribute to her new, fresh start. This process of stripping away was intensified by the fact that Ruby had rented

Reviews for Follow the Black Cat

[Sheena Gurbakhash · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Short and sweet.
Lovers and a creep
A black cat and a hint of mystery
All of which is resolved quickly.