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Twilight painted the leaf-filled street a golden hue. Luz hummed to herself as she dragged a heavy garbagecan to the curb. She stopped abruptly when she heard something across the street. Sitting on the sidewalk opposite of her was a small black cat–maybe even a kitten–with a faint limp and big green eyes. It meowed loudly at her. Her heart instantly melted.
"Aww! Hey there, tiny. Are you lost?"
She started to walk forward but someone snatched her hand. She turned, at first relieved to see it was only Amity, but quickly worried again when she noticed how tense her girlfriend looked.
"Luz, don't go near that. It's bad luck."
"Amity! I'm surprised at you!" She pulled her hand back, placing it on her hip. "Black cats aren't unlucky! That's just a harmful myth that scares people into mistreating them. My mom's a vet. I've known lots of sweet black cats."
"No, not all black cats. That cat!"
Luz glanced back at it. It watched them innocently enough. The scrappy thing was bone thin and seemingly injured. Something was wrong with its hind leg. Most likely bludgeoned. Knowing some of the high schoolers around town, maybe kicked.
"What makes you say that? Just look at it's lil' face!"
Amity still kept her distance. She crossed her arms, but her face softened. "Did me and the others not talk to you about this?"
"Talk to me about what? What happened?"
She didn't take her eyes off of it. "Do you remember the night I came home super late because I got lost on the other side of town?"
How could she forget? The second week of staying in Gravesfield, the first time Amity made an easy errand run by herself, she went missing until it was dead dark. During the don't-get-outed-as-a-witch scare, it was a truly terrifying dozen hours. There was a lot of hugging and a bit of crying that day.
Luz regained focus. "Of course I do, but what's that have to do with such a wittle baby?"
"Right before I got lost, I ran into it. I was coming home with groceries when I saw it at the front of an alley. I stopped to let it sniff me and I tried to pet it, but when I did I got a really weird feeling. Deep dread. I felt like I was being watched the whole time I struggled to get home. Once you and Camila found me, it just stopped. It was freaky. I could hardly sleep that night."
Luz frowned at the thought of Amity wandering dazed and scared through the simple streets she already knew so well. In hindsight, there was something off about that night. Some odd, frightening feeling that followed her home.
"You're right. That is super weird. It has to be some crazy coincidence though. I don't blame you for being cautious, but it was one creepy interaction with a stray cat."
"That's what I thought at first, too. Then I talked to Willow and the others. Apparently all of us have had something like that happen."
Luz examined the cat from afar, as if it would defend itself, or at least do something cute enough to be disarming. "Why haven't I heard about this until now?"
"I guess it just never came up. This is the first time I've seen it again."
"Well now I'm curious!" Amity stayed in the grass as Luz ran up to the house. She found her friends inside on the couch. She stuck her head through the window.
"Hey guys, do you remember anything about a weird black cat? A really tiny one with green eyes?"
She watched as they all shuddered. Their shared response was so instantaneous and uncomfortable that it spread goosebumps up her arms, too. Willow even rubbed her eyes with a groan.
"Why," she questioned, "is it back again?"
"Right across the street," Luz answered. "What the heck happened ?"
Hunter stood, came to the window, and scoffed when he saw the cat. Everyone followed him out the door and they all joined Amity. He glared at it.
"That thing is bad news. A few weeks ago me and Willow were hanging out on your roof when–"
"On the roof?" Asked Luz.
"We were stargazing," Willow clarified.
"Unimportant," Hunter quickly added. "The point is that that cat found its way up there and sat with us for a while. It was friendly and all, but after it let us pet it we got a horrible sense of dread."
Willow eyed it carefully. "When it ran off, all the street lights went out. We got weirded out, so we went to bed. Both of us woke up later that night from the same exact bad dream. Worst nightmare I've had in years."
Luz didn't ask what it was about, though it crossed her mind. She managed to get out a sympathetic, "Dang."
They finally shared the same tense apprehension when they looked at the feeble little cat. She faced Gus. "What about you?"
He drew in a deep breath. "I bumped into it on my way back to the demon realm just a few days ago. It wouldn't get out of the way of the portal door, so I shooed it away, but it hissed at me and ran. I got the same bad vibes from it as everyone else. When I got home, my dad was sick. Completely bed-ridden, and he never gets sick. I didn't think much of it until he started complaining about hearing a cat somewhere in the house."
Gus shuddered again, presumably from the same ominous feeling that tickled Luz's bones. He could only shrug.
"I looked around and never found anything. Just really weird all around."
"Okay," Luz brought her hands up to her face, then bowed them forward as she released a breath. "So the cat is definitely cursed. Great. Should I do something about that?"
"Like what," Amity asked, "we don't know why it's so weird. What is there to do?"
The sun was nearly set. The cat took on an eerie look in the long shadows of the houses. Or maybe it was the context. Nevertheless, Luz puffed out her chest and put on a brave face.
"I'll go investigate it."
Willow recoiled at the idea. "What! Why?!"
"Because if I don't figure it out, it's gonna bother me forever. Who knows? Maybe it's a scared little kitten who happens to be haunted by the fae."
She took a step closer. Amity cringed, but wouldn't let her go alone, so she walked with her. The others stayed a few paces behind them. They reached the cat. Its face was curious, its eyes were massive.
"Hey, little cutie." She tried to get a closer look at its coal toned fur as she spoke. Maybe it would reveal something. "You aren't from the Boiling Isles or something like that, are you?"
It blinked. On closer inspection, its fur seemed dirty. That much could be expected of a stray cat, but it didn't seem to be naturally black. It was powdered in soot or dark chalk or something.
"Are you hurt? I saw your leg. Do you need help?"
It stretched its back and casually walked closer to Luz. She tried to shy away from it, but before she could make any real distance it rubbed against her leg. Her arms shot up to her sides as it purred sweetly. She slid it away from her with her foot and it simply returned to nuzzling her.
Then she felt it. Horrid dread. Not evil, but rather foreboding. The kind you get when you turn off the last light in your house and make a run for your bed, or the split second you think you saw someone in the dark of your room. Only it didn't last a split second; it dug into her neck and scrunched up her shoulders, staying consistently potent with no sign of fading. It confused her brain. Why would this angel of a shadow elicit such a feeling?
She stammered for a second. Amity put a supportive hand on her shoulder and drew her away from the cat. She recognized the paranoia on her girlfriend's face.
Luz shook her head at it with squinting eyes. "What are you?"
The cat smiled. Not like a human, definitely not like a cat. More like a dog. Then, unprompted, it fell apart into a mound of ash. Its shape was entirely lost in an instant, slipping through the uniform gaps in the sidewalk, guided along by the gentle breeze.
There was no trace of it, further building up Luz's growing sense that she was crazy. But her friends all saw it. They all had their own very organic reactions, suggesting that it did indeed happen and that it wasn't staged. The air was cold. It had been all night, but now it begged for attention in the newly opened absence of their minds. Luz cleared her throat.
"
Oh
. Okay."