The Queen of Cats

Chapter 13: I Look For The Ocean And The Ocean Is All I Need

Another chapter in the span of two days?! Gaspity Gasp! I'm trying to increase the output, so expect things like this. This chapter's dedicated to @pixenglish who's amazing The Diplomat's Daughter is well worth reading. Creepy cults and weird stuff abound. You'll love it!

"It's changing course." Leonidas told me.

"I can see."

The snow was still falling delicately, kissing my wounds maternally. I brushed them away. "Can you rally the cats together?"

"Why?" he asked.

"Because they've found the place."

"How do you know?"

"Because that thing's my mother."

Leonidas pattered away.

I tailed the monster and the lady in the smouldering twilight, waiting for the cats to arrive. There were a lot of them. Lots of little parts that made up this world. But they wouldn't be enough.

I didn't have a lot of time to wonder, though. To wonder why I was finishing this job for someone else. It seemed ridiculous, now that I was at the cusp of it. This was my job, no doubt about it, but I wasn't obliged to do it. I was dead. I am dead (be careful what you eye wish for).

This was probably the impending destruction. This was what was coming to me.

That thing which looked like my mother and the thing controlling her, they'd kill all the cats. And I'm sure that'd destroy the world. That was all it took.

This didn't worry me as much as I thought it would. It calmed me, more than anything. It soothed me. This was the end and I was getting closer and closer towards it. I was here.

This was it.

It seemed a long time ago, when I packed my bag. When I selected that frayed old book. When I chose my name (let us consider that for a while the metaphoric resonances are endless the names oh the names the name she picked for herself interest eye very much because it affects us it is like a twang on the spider-web of life and it resonates and judders back and forth as we fend for ourselves the world is hostile to us and we have only names to hold on to and she chose a name and that name gives us power oh power). And it was over.

The journey began there and it ends here.

I loved it. It gave me strength.

I didn't lose sight of them and I kept careful pace behind them, not letting them out of my sight. I could hear things behind me. The tiny patter of paws on the concrete. They were rallying. I did not look back.

I pressed on.

I smelled the ocean before I saw it. That scent. The whiff of my mother. I was there. And it was here. The place where I found the rotting thing and the place where it went back to. A clue that the lady picked up on but I missed. A clue.

xxx

Howard Moore tested his fresh acoustic guitar. he needed all his strings intact for this next one.

"Thank you very much, Roundhouse!" he shouted.

The London Roundhouse roared back.

"You guys've been amazing. This is our last song. It's called I Look for the Ocean But The Ocean Doesn't Look For Me."

He turned around and looked at all the other members of Holy Wood. They still felt as funny as they always felt when performing this song. The same feeling they felt when they wrote it three years ago in that old house. They could feel it. The finger in the room. The dank smell. The cat.