The Necromancer's Daughter

|| eighteen ||

Rebecca shut her eyes tight to wipe away the thoughts of dying. She willed herself to be more positive, to clear her mind of worry so she could focus on their plan, on what they needed to do to win. She turned to her back and stared at the ceiling again.

After a moment of tranquility, she heard noises coming from outside. She didn't mind them at first, but the noise only grew louder as if begging for her attention. Rebecca propped her elbow to try to hear the noise better. The noise sounded like faint meows and some sort of scratching on wood and metal.

It was Mr. Gainsboro.

Rebeca sat up, careful not to wake Lucille, and glanced at the ornate wall clock in the room. It was almost three am, why on earth would the cat still be outside?

She slowly stood up, wore her slippers and went out into the hallway. The night casted shadows on the hall but Rebecca felt no fear. She has come to accept that this was her home and that she was safe in here. Still the cat's meows cut through the wee hours' silence.

When she went down to the kitchen, she saw that the kitty door wasn't open. After Mr. Gainsboro went missing the last time, Jili made it her personal responsibility to always lock the kitty door before bed. Rebecca glanced at the empty cat bed and listened more intently. The cat's meowing were at two or three time intervals followed by some odd scratching sounds. She didn't have to know how cats normally behave to realize the noises were unnatural.

She tried to peer out the windows to see where the cat was but every time she seemed to have come nearer to it, the cat ran off somewhere else. It was like it was begging her to follow. Rebecca thought about waking the others, but getting the cat back in seemed too trivial to wake someone up over. After a short while, Rebecca carefully opened the door to the back porch.

"Mr. Gainsboro," she called out. "Come on and come back in."

The cat appeared from behind some bushes and meowed back to her. He didn't make a move to come closer, though.

Rebecca looked at her surroundings. There was nothing different about the night but something nagged at her. Her instincts were telling her to shut the door and let the cat wander where it wanted. But another part of her feared that Mr. Gainsboro might go missing again.

She thought about it for a second and then heaved a deep sigh. "If you aren't coming back here, I'm gonna come out and make you." Mr. Gainsboro just stared at her.

Rebecca took off her home slippers and put on her shoes. She wasn't gonna bring dirt and mud inside the pristine floors of the Manor. The moment she stepped a foot on the soft ground, the cat retreated back to the bush and ran farther.

"Mr. Gainsboro, no!" Rebecca called out and ran after it. "Come back here, please!"

The cat was fast, but it occasionally stopped to look back at Rebecca. Once, she almost caught up to it, but as she reached out her hand to grab at the cat's collar, Mr. Gainsboro leapt out of the spot and sprinted farther out to the field.

"This is ridiculous!" she grunted to herself, "I'm only going to chase after you until the end of the clearing. If you don't want to go back in, then suit yourself."

Rebecca glanced back at the Manor. She was a few yards away from it but still quite near and safe. She looked ahead to where the cat had run off to. Mr. Gainsboro was standing on all fours, looking straight at her. I'm trapped, he seemed to be telling her.

Rebecca didn't know how she understood the cat's expression. It isn't magic, more of a...feeling, an instinct. In the dim of the night, she held the cat's gaze. Help me, I'm trapped!