By Danielle Jolie

The cat showed up at our door late on a Friday night. The scent of pumpkin spice drifted
around my cottage, enveloping me in its warm familiarity. My girlfriend, Lita, was dicing up
some herbs for our recipe while the water boiled on the stove. I was supposed to be preparing the less common ingredients, the ones that required more expertise, when I heard a scratching at the door.

“Lita?” I called from the cabinet with various liquid-filled vials with fading labels—our
spices, we called them, although that wasn’t quite what they were.

“Yeah, darlin’?” She didn’t look up from her work, concentrating on cutting the herbs
into neat little pieces while also keeping all of her fingers intact.

“Do you hear that scratching at the door?”

Lita paused, her brown eyes narrowed as she listened. After a moment, she shook her
head, her red curls flopping around. “I don’t hear a thing, Fran.” She returned to her chopping,
humming a soft tune to herself as she worked.

The scratching had stopped by now, and part of me wondered if I was going crazy. I’ve
always been a little jumpy, ever since I was a little kid. Maybe I was just scared of something
that went bump in the night, but unfortunately, those monsters and creatures are real. I’ve seen
them with my own eyes, and so has Lita. That’s how we first met, actually—fighting a vampire
that wanted to turn us both—but that’s a story for another time.

Lita was always the voice of reason when it came to weird noises, reminding me that if
there was in fact a creature after us, we had the power to blast it to bits. While that was
reassuring, that did not chase away the anxiety around a creature potentially being in my house.
Scratch, scratch-scratch, scratch—

I nearly jumped out of my skin when the scratching returned with renewed vigor.

Something was definitely outside our front door, and now, even Lita heard it. She stopped
chopping the herbs again, putting the knife down.

“Let’s go check that out,” she said, rolling up her sleeves in preparation for monster blasting.

I nodded and followed suit, raising my sleeves to my shoulders, leaving my hands
unobstructed. Lita had her hands raised, a ball of golden energy forming between them. Her curls
lifted in the air, her dress shifting almost like there was a breeze blowing through the cottage.
Her eyes melted from their usual brown to match the magic she held out in front of her.

Summoning the familiar iciness of my power, the skin around my fingertips turned
purple, magic bleeding from me in droplets onto the ground. The floor where the magic fell
sizzled, turning a rotted black color.

Noting my readiness, Lita swung the door open with a loud creak, exposing us to the—
empty night in front of us? No monstrous creature lunged at us with its claws, no lost folks stared
at us and our power in horror…My gaze drifted downward and landed upon a small, black fur
ball with luminous green eyes.

“Oh,” I said, exhaling. “Lita, it’s a cat.”

“I see that, peaches.” As she knelt before the cat, her magic faded, her hair and eyes
returning to normal. “And what are you doin’ here, little guy?” She adopted this high-pitched
baby voice that she only used for animals.

The cat meowed at her, sitting on the doorstep like it was waiting for something. It had a
scar just under its right eye, a small slash of red where fur refused to regrow. Pity tugged at the
heart in my chest, and I knelt beside Lita to engage with the cat. Slowly, I put my hand out for it
to smell, letting my power fizzle to nothing so that it wouldn’t be afraid. The cat sniffed gingerly,
its whiskers rustling as its nose scrunched up. I got a sense of approval when it nudged my hand
with its head.

“Do we have any milk?” I asked Lita, still staring at the cat that was now rubbing against
my leg and purring. I patted its soft fur, smiling.

“I think so,” Lita said, stepping back into the cottage. “I’ll go fetch a bowl.”

She returned a few moments later with a small bowl of milk and placed it in front of the
cat. Its eyes went as wide as saucers, its pupils dilating. The cat immediately turned its attention
away from us, using its tongue to lap up every drop of the milk. I laughed at the sight, treasuring
the warmth that filled my heart.

“Do you think it came here for food?” I asked once the cat was finished with the milk,
not wanting to disturb it.

Lita shrugged. “I reckon he came here for a reason. Maybe he has malicious plans to take
over the world with his cuteness.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure, Lita. A cat is going to achieve world domination.”

“You never know, darlin’.”

“Does he have a collar or a name tag?” I felt around the cat’s neck, looking for any sign
of identification. Nothing. He looked a little ragged, too, like he’d been outside for some time.
His fur was soft, but longer in some places than in others. And that scar…Something had hurt
him before he found us.

“I think he’s all alone,” I said. “Probably a stray.”

I looked up at Lita, already knowing what she was going to say before she said it. Her
eyes gleamed with mischief, her lips turning upward into a smirk.

“So, he doesn’t have a family,” she said. “And he’s alone out there.” Her smirk grew into
a full-fledged smile. “And we’re in need of a familiar…”

I sighed. “Just ask it, Lita.”

She giggled. “Are we going to keep him?”

“I’m not opposed.”

She squealed with pure joy, clapping her hands while jumping up and down. “He’s going
to be the best familiar, I just know it! I mean, look at him. Take one look into those wide, green
eyes and tell me he doesn’t already know where all of the potion ingredients go—wait, I meant
to say spices—well, anyway…”

She rambled on and on for longer than I care to calculate, and my heart warmed with
every joyous word she said. Lita has been wanting to find a familiar for a while now, and this cat
showed up right on our doorstep—literally. The stars couldn’t have aligned any more clearly. We
were meant to have this cat.

“I’m thinking of naming him Thistle,” I said after we brought our new cat inside the
cottage. He had already set to exploring every inch of the place, knocking things over on
counters and overall being a menace. That just made him more perfect in our eyes.

“I like that name,” Lita said, picking up the freshly-cut herbs from earlier that had fallen
on the ground as a result of the cat’s escapade. “A perfect name for a spunky little fella.”

 

Danielle Jolie (pen name: Violette Barlowe) is a junior at Clark double-majoring in English and creative writing and minoring in French and francophone studies. She’s written and published two short stories (three now) and has written two full-length novel manuscripts. She is currently working on the potential sequel to her fantasy project that she wants to publish traditionally.