Maggie sat on the edge of the sofa while trying not to take deep breaths. She clutched her doll in her lap as her gaze darted to the others around the room.
“This house is dirty,” she mumbled.
She turned toward the kitchen. Her mom and Mrs. Churchill were talking and sipping coffee like old friends. Maggie worried that Mrs. Churchill would give her mom a job and then they’d have to live in a dirty house.
Her gaze wandered back to the others in the room. Mrs. Churchill’s elderly mother’s vacant eyes were focused somewhere on the large bay window. Maggie doubted the old lady was actually paying attention to the red birds building their nests in the heavy oak branches that shaded the large house from most of the sun’s rays.
An orange-hued cat sat in the old lady’s lap, his intent feline gaze boring into Maggie. But his cold stare wasn’t like the others. Maggie sensed the cat was more curious than anything.
She leaned toward the kitty and whispered. “You’re not as dirty as the rest. I might actually learn to like you.”
His ears twitched but he made no other movement.
Maggie took it as a good sign that the cat responded at all. She tentatively scooted closer to him. Interesting, she thought, as his aura seemed to be brighter than the old lady’s. Although it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the old lady’s light was fading. The sweet, pungent odor of death clung to the woman. The scent permeated the room and made breathing difficult for Maggie.
Maggie secretly hoped the woman would pass soon. She didn’t know how long she could stand living in a dirty house that smelled like death, too.
But if the old lady died, Maggie’s mom would again be out of a job. Her mom had been stressed trying to find work and a place for them to live.
The cat’s ears twitched again and Maggie thought she heard a soft purring sound. Despite the overwhelming stench of the old lady and the cold, unwelcoming stares from the others, Maggie scooted even closer to the cat.
“How did you die?” she asked.
The cat responded by lifting his front leg and licking what appeared to be icicles off the pads of his paw.
Maggie’s breath hitched and the gooseflesh on her arms tingled. “You froze to death?”
The cat lowered his paw and twitched his ears again.
“How terrible. I’m so sorry.” And truly she was. Though they’d never stayed long enough in one home for Maggie to own a pet of her own, she’d always liked animals.
She briefly wondered if he’d been Mrs. Churchill’s cat and if Mrs. Churchill had killed her own pet.
The cat twitched his ears again and Maggie felt the tingling sink beneath her gooseflesh and into her bones. Her eyes fluttered shut and she was struck by several images. Mrs. Churchill sick in bed. An angry white-haired man throwing the cat outside during a winter storm. Mrs. Churchill waking up and finding her cat’s lifeless body on the porch.
“Thomas!” the woman sobbed as she fell to her knees.
The strange sensation crawled back out of Maggie’s bones and her eyes shot open. “Thomas,” she said to the cat, “who was that white-haired man?”
Thomas turned his head and his tabby ears pointed in the direction of the mantle, toward the portrait of Mrs. Churchill and the same man from Thomas’s vision.
“Mr. Churchill?” Maggie breathed.
Thomas answered with a hiss.
The others said nothing as they faded behind a large tapestry on the wall.
