Matilda’s Keeper

Matilda’s Keeper

by Jim Moore (as told by Lucifer Morningstar)

Hello. My name is Lucifer Morningstar, and before you roll your eyes—no, I did not choose that name. If I’d had any say, I would’ve gone with something sensible like Mr. Whiskers, Fluffy, or even Midnight. But no, the witches decided I needed something dramatic and infernal. Figures.

Anyway, since you’re reading this and can’t see the illustrations, I should tell you I’m a cat—a sleek black tom with a white star-shaped patch over my right eye. It’s not paint, and it’s not irony. It’s birthright.

I was born under a blood moon, in a barn full of dying candles and whispering crones. My first breath smelled like sage and regret. That should’ve been my first clue I was doomed.

In a better world, I would have been adopted by a sweet little girl named Becky—one of those giggling humans who would’ve stuffed me into frilly dresses, poured me imaginary tea, and overfed me until I looked like a bowling ball with fur. I could’ve lived with that. Affection and snacks are a small price to pay for peace.

But no. I had to be chosen by her.

Brahmhilda.

That’s right. The nine-hundred-year-old witch with the body of a goddess and the soul of a rotting pumpkin. Before you assume I’m her evil little sidekick, let me stop you. I’m a familiar—bound to serve witches, not of them. I didn’t choose her. Magic chose me. And I have despised every cursed minute of it.

You see, familiars don’t get a vote. One moment you’re chasing butterflies, the next you’re bound to a creature who thinks “affection” means using your fur as a spell component. Do you know what eye of newt really is? It’s us—our eyes, not theirs.

Don’t be fooled by Brahmhilda’s beauty. Beneath the silken hair and flawless skin lies a hag who devours children to stay eternally young. Her coven is worse—an entire clan of power-hungry banshees who treat demons like pets and think vampires make good wine tasters. I’ve seen them make demons cry and vampires wet themselves.

Still, I stayed. Because that’s what a familiar does. We endure.

Until now.

Because this time, Brahmhilda went too far.

And she made him angry.

---

The war started three nights ago.

The air outside the manor crackled with lightning, every bolt tinted green from the witches’ curses. The moon bled red through the clouds. I perched on the windowsill, tail flicking, watching the world burn while Brahmhilda and her sisters screamed incantations that twisted the air.

The manor itself seemed alive. The walls breathed. The floors pulsed with symbols that crawled like beetles. The smell of ozone and blood made my whiskers twitch.

“Stay out of sight, Lucifer,” Brahmhilda hissed, her voice sharp as broken glass. “This is beyond you.”

Everything was beyond me, according to her.

But I could feel it—the tremor beneath the earth, the shift in the wind, the coming of something ancient.

Then came the sound.

Not thunder. Not footsteps. Something deeper. A hum that lived under the skin. The kind of sound that makes even ghosts stop and listen.

Outside, the wards flickered. One by one, the protective symbols carved into the stones dimmed and died. The witches’ power drained from the air like water through sand.

And that’s when I smelled it—smoke, gunpowder, and something else. Iron. Real, old iron, the kind that doesn’t bend to magic.

He was here.

---

You’re wondering who “he” is.

Is it the Council of Nine?

The Veil?

The Truth Seekers?

The Knowledge Keepers?

Maybe that ridiculous pink-haired witch who spells her name with three E’s and travels with that talking fish, Barnabas?

No.

It’s him—the one even the gods whisper about.

John Merlin.

They say he’s immortal. Some call him a marshal, others a monster. I’ve heard demons tell stories of him around fire pits, voices shaking. They say he’s older than time, that he’s walked through Heaven’s gates and Hell’s depths and came back unimpressed by both.

But to me, in that moment, he was just a man in a long coat, walking through a storm that died around him.

He stepped through the shattered gate and into the courtyard. The rain stopped midair, droplets hanging like beads of glass. Brahmhilda and her coven turned to face him, their eyes glowing with sickly green light.

“Who dares enter our sanctum?” hissed one of the younger witches.

“Where is she?” he asked, calm as a whisper.

Brahmhilda laughed. Her voice filled the air with false confidence. “You have no claim here, mortal.”

He looked up at her balcony. “You took something that wasn’t yours.”

“Everything is mine,” she said, and raised her hand. Lightning cracked from her palm.

He didn’t flinch. The bolt hit him square in the chest—and vanished. Not fizzled. Not deflected. It simply ceased to exist, like it had never been.

The witches hesitated. So did I.

He raised one hand, and the air itself screamed. Shadows burst from the walls. Every candle went out. The runes carved in the stone began to melt.

John Merlin, the immortal marshal—the man even demons fear—had come for his dragon.

---

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

You see, this all began with Matilda.

Everyone thought she was a mutt—a harmless stray that wandered into Brahmhilda’s woods. She had soft brown eyes and a wagging tail, and even I liked her. I’m a cat. We don’t like anyone.

But Matilda was no dog. She was a dragon. The last of her kind. Not one of those puffed-up, hoard-loving, overgrown lizards from fairy tales. Matilda was different—smaller, clever, warm. She could take any form she wished, and in her heart burned the Blue Flame, the sacred fire of life and rebirth. It could heal. It could resurrect. It could make gods tremble.

Brahmhilda wanted it.

She wanted immortality without consequence.

So she took Matilda.

I still remember the night they bound her. The coven chained her in the cellar, runes etched in obsidian, her cries echoing through the walls. The glow of that blue fire flickered against my fur for days. It never washed out.

And when Matilda’s voice finally went silent, something in the world went quiet too.

---

When Merlin came for her, it wasn’t vengeance that filled the room—it was grief.

He moved through the manor like a storm. Spells shattered before they reached him. The Grand Priestess herself—two thousand years old and meaner than death—stepped forward with a staff carved from Leviathan’s rib.

She lasted seven seconds.

Brahmhilda tried to run. She called my name once, like maybe I’d save her. I didn’t move.

When the screaming stopped, the manor burned. The coven was ash.

And then there was silence.

I crept out from under a table, paws soft against the blood-soaked floor. Merlin stood in the center of the room. A small, scaled creature lay limp in his arms.

Matilda.

He brushed soot from her snout, whispered something, and that Blue Flame flickered once more.

Her eyes opened.

For the first time in my nine lives, I saw magic that wasn’t cruel.

---

When the smoke cleared, he looked down at me. The white star over my eye caught the firelight.

“You were hers?” he asked.

I nodded. Cats can do that when the magic lingers.

He studied me for a long time, then sighed. “You’re free now.”

But familiars are never truly free. Magic always finds a new bond, a new master. The old chain just changes hands.

And so, I became his.

John Merlin’s familiar.

---

Now I ride his shoulder as he walks through the ruins, the little dragon Matilda trotting beside him, scales shimmering like dawn. She curls her tail around his wrist. He whispers something soft—something only she can hear.

We travel from place to place now. He never says where we’re going, and I never ask. I’ve learned that with Merlin, silence carries more truth than words.

Sometimes I catch him staring into the horizon, eyes full of storms that haven’t come yet. Matilda hums softly in her sleep, blue fire glowing under her skin.

He glances at me once and says, “You don’t have to stay.”

I flick my tail. “Neither do you.”

He smiles at that—barely—and we keep walking.

And for once, I think maybe I already am home.

Because when the darkness comes again—and it will—I’ll be there:

his shadow,

his conscience,

his cat.

I am Lucifer Morningstar—

excuse me, I mean, Mr. Whiskers—

and I am Matilda’s keeper.