The Cat on the Bed Where I Died

There’d never been a cat in my house before. Yet here I sit on the top of my dresser, legs crossed, staring down at the small, black feline curled in a ball on the bed. How did it get in here? Its golden eyes are half-closed, velvet ears twitching softly, tail swishing back and forth like a metronome. 

Everyone knows that black cats are bad luck. Small, fierce omens of death, friends to witches and demons. But witches and demons are friends of mine; thus so is this cat, now licking its paw and stretching as though it belongs here, as though this place is its home. 

I don’t know how it can stand the cold. I keep my house frigid, just how I like it. Frost shimmers on the walls and crystallizes on the floor. Blissful, delicious frost, so cold that no other living thing would dare set foot in my house. Except now this cat. 

But something feels wrong. I felt it as soon as the sun rose this morning. The rays slip through the boarded-up windows, worming their way through the cracks between the wooden slats. Where the sunlight falls, my beloved frost melts. The beams fracture the room, violent bright splinters piercing my precious darkness. I hiss, and the cat looks up, fixing me with those too-big eyes. 

I ignore the cat. I leap from the top of the dresser and make my way to the bedroom door. My robes drag along the floor behind me, long and dark, enveloping me in quiet shadow. I gather them in my arms as I tiptoe around those shards of light, careful not to let them touch me. Nothing will happen to me if they do, but I hate them. It’s so bright, so hot, so exposing. 

I make my way through the grand hall, which is still blessedly wrapped in shadow. I like the way the runner rug feels under my bare feet, topped with ice and crunching as I take first one step, then another, relishing the crackling sound, the sound of bones breaking, glass shattering, necks snapping. A chuckle gurgles up from my throat but dies the next instant. 

A large mirror hangs on the wall. Sheila loved that mirror. She’d stand in front of it, preening and primping, trying on a multitude of garish, brightly colored garments, strutting up and down the hallway like a gangly peacock. Sometimes I would watch her. Sometimes, I would tug the long runner rug out from under her feet and watch her crumble to the ground, skinning her knees on the carpet. Sometimes, they would bleed, and the smell of that iron red blood, the sound of her whimpers of pain, would keep me satisfied for hours. 

But the mirror is shattered. 

I’ve shattered things about my house when I get angry, or when I’m merely bored. I’ve sent dishes flying against walls and vases shattering and skidding across the floor. But I didn’t shatter this mirror, and I’m the only one left here. Which means the mirror shattered on its own. Another ill omen. I feel a foreign prickling along my body. I’m not used to feeling frightened. The sensation is a strange one, uncomfortable, and from my fingertips, frost climbs up and around my arms. Ice sluices through my veins. But even this cannot quench the hot fever of fear. 

 I can ignore this no longer. A disturbance is coming, shifting the energy about my house, perverting it. My carefully curated space feels as though it’s been turned upside down, like I’m suddenly walking on the ceiling, which I’ve been known to do from time to time. Sheila hated when I did that. Now, perhaps, I understand her vitriol. It’s unpleasant when things aren’t as they ought to be. 

I approach the large window at the end of the hall. This is my favorite window. It’s the only one that hasn’t been boarded up. I often stand here as the sun sets, watching the sky turn first blood red, then a dark bruised purple. I watch the crows circle and wheel in the sky, roosting in the bare tree just outside. The landscape spreads out before me like a dark wooded tapestry. Sometimes, I think about what it would be like to leave my house, to shed my dark robes and run barefoot on grass instead of wooden floors and rugs. It’s been so long.

Today, it’s far too bright for my liking. The sun is still high in the sky, yellow and cheerful. But something is still wrong, and I must look everywhere for the source of the disturbance. I step into the light, tugging my robes about me, keeping the roiling shadows close, grimacing. I peer down at the lawn through the grimy window pane. 

The crows. They all lie dead on the grass, messy balls of black feathers, wings out, necks bent. I don’t feel sadness, but when I look at those birds contorted on the bright green grass, I feel that wrongness stronger than ever. A third omen of misfortune. Bad luck comes in threes, does it not? Can someone like me have luck to begin with? I slam my fists against the windowpane and the glass shatters, falling like glistening snow onto the lawn. 

As I stand there, the last piece of the puzzle rounds the corner, rolling over the paved road, towards my house. The sleek black vehicle hums and rumbles, and in it I hear the drums of war. I already know who approaches before the car swings into the driveway. Sheila steps from the passenger side, wearing a bright neon pink jogger set, her bleached hair in a high braid that swings like a rat’s tail behind her. She looks nervously up at the broken window, and I know she sees me, because her face pales and she runs around to the back passenger door, flinging it open and grabbing the arm of whoever sits back there. 

The driver’s car door opens, and a young man steps out, also in a jogger set, his forest green. I’ve seen this man with Sheila before. He’d come to my house, and she would make him some horrid dinner, and I would watch to see if he’d choke on it. What delicious fun that would be for me. Then they’d stumble back to the bedroom, my bedroom, and fall on the bed, arms and legs twisted together, writhing and making the most hideous moans and groans. I hated them. They were loud and clumsy. They moved about, making such noise, their bodies giving off steady currents of energy that hummed and whined in my ears. 

The final straw had been breakfast a few mornings ago. They were bickering, about what I neither knew nor cared. But their shouts echoed about, filling my house with angry, crackling vibrations. I drank it in, that anger, that heavy scrumptious emotion. It filled me up as I sat silent in the chair between them. 

I let the room grow cold.

Sheila’s breath puffed out of her mouth like smoke, and she gripped her scrawny arms, shouting at the man. See! See! It’s happening again! Just like I said! The man rolled his eyes and muttered something about the AC unit. The AC unit?! How that had enraged me! I stared at the cabinet doors, raising my hands to the ceiling. They’d begun to open and shut, open and shut. Louder and louder and with more and more violence. 

Sheila leaped to her feet, shrieking. What do you say now, hunh! How do you explain that! Still don’t believe in ghosts, Derek? 

Derek, to his credit, definitely ate his words, and the two of them fled the house just as I began gleefully sending plates flying from their cupboards and smashing against the walls. My cackling laughter followed them as they raced from the kitchen, down the hall, and out the front door. I slammed it shut behind them. What fun it is to rile them up! I might almost miss their company, miss how easy it is to stir such strong fear and anger within them. 

But then the third human steps from the car. He’s an old man, in a simple black suit with a small, square, white collar. Around his neck he wears a large silver cross, carved and ornate, shining so bright it’s blinding. I pull away from the window, flattening myself against the wall. Around me, the frost begins to melt and drip, rivulets streaming down the wallpaper to pool at my feet. If I had a heart, it would be hammering. 

I hate Sheila and her man, Derek. But I hate the man with his shining cross even more. Under one arm he carries a heavy book, and with every step he takes, the frost around me melts, my shadows writhe and thrash. I glide down the stairs and thrust myself against the door, holding it shut. They will not enter! They will not bring that thing into my house, that brightness, that hallowed filth. I grind my claws into the front door, leaving long gouges in the wood. The man with the cross knocks.

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

I lay in wait, nails sunk deep in the wood, clinging to the door like a bat clings to a cave wall. The man says something in a language all spirits know. The words hit me, and they burn like fire. My shadows screech and wail, shriveling before my eyes. The door is slick with melted frost, and I can’t hold on. Steam rises from me like smoke, and I fling myself to the ground, scampering down the front hall, panting and hissing. The door swings open and the man with the cross steps over the threshold. Sheila and Derek follow behind him, peering over the man’s dark shoulders. 

I stand in the hall, poker straight, burning coal eyes boring into them. They cannot be here! This is my house, my place. I’ve been here for so long. I was born in this house, and I died in this house long before they were pulled mewling and wailing from their mother’s womb. I am eternal. They are shooting stars, burning and dying out against the dark expanse of sky. 

The man with the cross closes the door behind them and looks around, holding the cross in one hand, his face serene, his eyes settling on me. I know then that he sees me, truly sees me. My bony face and burning eyes. I snarl and spit at him. He looks from Sheila to Derek, his voice infuriatingly calm.

It seems you have a poltergeist, and a pretty nasty one at that.

I scream. I howl. Unholy fire burns in my eyes as I rip the picture frames from the wall and hurl them at the humans, watching with desperate glee as they leap back, shielding their heads with their arms. Sheila wails.

What do we do, Father Gavin!

Father Gavin opens his book. 

Burn the sage now, if you please. 

Sheila and Derek each pull out lighters and hold them over dried bundles of herbs. A few moments later, a noxious smoke fills the hall, wafting from the burning bundles and sending horrid feelers through the air, reaching for me. I choke and splutter, and where the smoke touches me, that horrid acid burning begins. Father Gavin’s words echo over my screams. 

Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde! 

My doom is upon me. I can feel it, have felt it ever since I’d woken up and seen that black cat grooming itself on the bed where I’d died. I’d squatted in this place for so long, sequestered away, reveling in my darkness and my cold. And then came Sheila and Derek, horrid, but providing such delicious emotions, vibrations, fueling me with the closest I’d come to life in a hundred years. 

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, effugiatis. 

 I will not be dislodged so easily! I throw myself at them, continuing to wail, my screams reaching a fever pitch. Wreathing myself in shadow, I lash out with tendrils of night, peeling wallpaper from the walls, ripping hair from Sheila’s head, pulling blood from their nostrils. The floorboards beneath me begin to buckle and crack. Sheila is crying, and I drink her tears like sweet red wine. 

Discede ab hoc loco, et ne reversurus sis. 

I’m alight with fire, and my shadows shrivel and curl in on themselves. I claw at the three figures before me, ready to rip and shred them to ribbons, but my claws pass through them as if they are smoke. As if I am smoke. My screams die in my throat and the image of them wavers, translucent and hazy. 

Then, I’m plunged into nothingness.

It is finished.