Chapter 7
Miss Georgia raced upstairs, Abigail close behind her. Where was Elmira? Why did she sound so strange? Rushing into her bedroom, she glanced at her cat’s basket. Still empty.
“Elmira,” she called, using her most persuasive tone. “Where are you, kitty? Kitty, kitty?”
Again, came that little plaintive meow, but much closer.
“I do believe she’s stuck somewhere in the fireplace,” Abigail said, bending down to look inside the cold firebox.
Miss Georgia joined her. The fireplace looked undisturbed, but in the soft sifting of dust across the hearth, she noticed some small tracks.
“Look, Abby. She was here. These are her tracks, but they just stop. They don’t go anywhere.” Dropping to her knees and grunting as they hit the hard hearth, she bent and peered up the chimney.
“There’d be soot if she was stuck up there,” Abigail said.
Tears stung Miss Georgia’s eyes. “I know, but she’s got to be here, somewhere. Why do you have an upstairs fireplace anyway, Abby?”
Abigail shrugged. “Used to be, you know, fireplaces were the only heat. This house is old, built sometime before the Civil War. A lot of houses in town are that old. I’ve got a fireplace in my room too.”
Again, Elmira cried in her most pitiful tone and this time, the two women heard a scuffing noise. Miss Georgia could imagine her little cat pawing at her prison, wherever it was. Her apprehension ramped up a notch.
For once, Abigail was the calmer one. “Now, Georgia, take a deep breath. You’re so frightened, you’re not thinking straight. If Elmira is stuck somewhere near the fireplace, she had to get in some way.”
Georgia wrung her hands and willed her heart to slow down. Abigail was right.
“Then, we’ve got to find it,” she said.
She commenced probing around the fireplace, even the dogirons. Abigail was going over the mantel, feeling above and below it.
“What’s this iron thing?” Miss Georgia asked, her fingers brushing against a lever that protruded from the back of the firebox.
Abigail knelt beside her. “I think that opens onto a chute where they dumped the ashes. It went all the way down to the ground, a good way to get rid of them without hauling them out in a bucket.”
Miss Georgia pulled on it and, sure enough, a small door at the back of the firebox slid open. She gave it another hefty tug and Abigail yelped.
“Georgia! She yelled, “the wall just moved.”
Miss Georgia scrambled to her feet. Sure enough, a part of the wall had slid back, revealing an opening about three feet wide. A frightened and dusty Elmira dashed out. She ran to the bed and disappeared under it.
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