Exsanguination and Other Love Stories

VII. A Voice in the Dark

Now perhaps I should go back and say something about Selene, because out of all the cats I could have found lying there, it being her was nearly the worst. She was the only one there without distinguished forebearers or a serious medical condition, and by far the friendliest of the lot.

Actually now I think about it, she was about as close to a dog as you could get in a cat, which probably explains why I liked her so much. She sought me out whenever I came in and always wanted to sit on my lap. None of the others really bothered.

I wouldn't admit to myself that she was dead at first, even though there was nothing hopeful about the stiff, awkward arrangement of her legs, the clotted blood which had soaked through her pink collar and deep into the all-weather carpeting my aunt had had put in twenty years ago.

I knelt there for a long time. I remember thinking that lifetime warranty or not, there was no way I was going to be able to get those stains out without using a box cutter. Moreover, Selene's injury was a jagged neck wound, exposing a major artery. How on earth had it happened? Why hadn't there been more blood? Why hadn't I heard anything?

Why hadn't Florian heard anything?

Then I heard the west wing door creak open. For a long moment I froze. Light footsteps padded down the hall, and a shadow fell on me from the doorway,

It was Florian. "Bill, I think I might have broken your Nutribullet," he said. "I'm quite sor – oh."

"Why was she even in there?", I cried. "No one's supposed to be put in with Momow. None of them. Didn't you read the exhibit label!? It's taped on the door!"

And indeed it was:

ASOCIAL AND GYNOPHOBIC

MUST NOT BE KEPT IN CLOSE QUARTERS WITH OTHER FELINES

"I didn't," said Florian. "I'm afraid - Cordelia's hand - I couldn't make heads or tails of her letters when she was twenty, and she must have scrawled those instructions when she was seventy-five at least!"

I said nothing. The look on my face must not have reassured him, because he just kept going.

"You have to understand, Bill. It – I mean, Selene was so – enthusiastic, practically flinging herself at me last night, when I all I wanted to do was sleep. I really couldn't keep up with her, and I couldn't keep looking at her face after I turned her down, so I just put her in there with the surly one. I had hoped maybe they would hit it off."

"Didn't you hear anything?"

"Well, yes, but I assumed... "

"What?!"

"That they were sounds of ... joy ... I never in the world thought he would...

"I don't care what you thought! " My cat is dead because of you. The only cat that had really been my cat, that had liked me. "You need to get your things together. You need to leave."

He looked very alarmed at that. "Wait, Sabilla! You don't want that, that would be most unwise on your part, for your personal safety at the very least –."

I couldn't believe he was threatening me. "Didn't you hear me? Of course I mean it! Get out!" I cried, and I meant it. I was so angry I grabbed up Selene's litter scoop and brandished it at him, sending several fragrant Absorbapearls which had been caught in the grill flying.

And, unsurprisingly, I suppose, he went. Right down the hall, into the sunroom, and out into the garden, without even picking up his bag or his coat, as though it were literally uncomfortable for him to stay a moment longer. He kept looking back over his shoulder, and calling, and imploring, but I was deaf with rage. I couldn't do anything to Momow, wherever he had taken off to, without losing the house. But I sure as hell could do something to him.

"I hope you scorch!" I yelled after Florian Werther Bathory Byron. "I hope you wrinkle up and turn into a pecan, you self-centered delusional twit! You're shallower than a bird bath and creatively bankrupt to boot! If you come back here I'll make you a real coffin and put you in it for good!"

And I thought of everything that was wrong with him and made me feel small and inadequate and afraid, and I congratulated myself for finally seeing the back of him.

I didn't stay even long enough to watch him leave through the front gate. Instead I headed back up to my room, and retrieved my phone from the side table. I could have sworn I'd left it plugged in, but there was no sign of the charger anywhere...

Nevermind. I still had two bars left, and that was enough for what I needed.

Calling Florence now didn't seem like so much of a big deal. After interrupting Florian and putting him out on his nose, in fact, it seemed like a molehill. Hadn't she said something about an internship last night? I ought to get on that. After all, I was going to have to pay for college and roof repairs somehow.

I dialed her number, and we talked for some time. I didn't mention Florian or Selene. Afterwards I dug out my laptop from in between the sofa cushions in the parlor, and filled out the application and the forms she had emailed me. But after I'd attached everything and hit "send" to HR, after I'd shut the laptop and sat back on the couch, my mind just went blank.

I stared at the covered islands of furniture around me, and my eyes fell on a cardboard box a few feet away, almost empty, which I had started loading with bric-a-brac for the attic. The thought came to me: that's just about the right size for Selene. I mean, I could try to go upstairs and find a hatbox in the attic, but that would be so much effort – and it was broiling up there in the summer, it had been since early June.

It was as though everything had been drained out of me. And I felt awful, because after all it was my fault she was dead, because I'd let the wrong one in, so to speak; and now I couldn't even be bothered to go upstairs get her a decent coffin.

At some point, too, I would have to find Momow, and I wasn't looking forward to that at all: after this incident I was definitely going to have to grill off his room like a real exhibit. Only he wasn't a tiger or anything, just an old sick cat with dementia, and watching him waste away in there – that was not going to be fun, either. I was sure he was the sort of cat who would haunt you after he was gone. He had the eyes for it.

In the end, I got up and emptied out the bric-a-brac box, and went back into the west wing. I shut the window in Momow's room, put Selene inside, and then I remembered I couldn't remember where I'd put the garden shovel at all: and I was so exhausted I just went downstairs into the basement, opened the old freezer I kept the fish and meat for the cats in, and put the whole box inside.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. When evening fell, I fed the cats and headed upstairs to my room, where I collapsed and slept like the dead.

I woke to the strangest noise, a sort of scratch, scratch scratching at the bedroom door.

Rrrrooooow. Rooow. Rooowww.

I would have recognized that voice anywhere. The Siamese has a particular, signature sound to begin with, and Momow added his own hoarse flavor to it, like the shrieking of an overly-rosined bow on a stringed instrument that has long since grown out of tune.

As the scratching intensified, I felt the first stirrings of fear in my belly. Sitting up, I watched as a dark shadow that might have been a paw flitted back and forth in the space between the threshold and the door. Bat, bat, bat.

Then silence.

Mrrroow.

I gritted my teeth. I stripped the cover from my pillow and got up.

"Nnn-nonono! Bill, I wouldn't do that if I were you!"

At the sound of that voice I shrieked – like a girl - and whirled around: it was none other than Florian, outside my window, banging on the panes to get my attention.

Now you might not think this was entirely worth screaming about, given his youthful appearance and dashing good looks: until I remind you that the bedroom I was in, which had once been my aunt's, was on the house's second floor. And to make matters worse, he appeared to be floating.