The Black Cat

When the kiss finished the woman—Patty, she recognized the voice now—said:

"To know the Secret Letters, to know the Secret Words, to know Secret Operations, to know the Secret Love, to find Secret Riches, to learn all Secret Arts, M E G I L L A, E G I L L A M , S I M B A S I , I M A R C A, R A B A S I."

And they went on like this one by one, every woman except for Arabella, each of them embracing Selima in her blindness and saying the words. At first Selima tried to repeat them, but soon she realized this wasn't necessary, as the words were being said TO her.

When the last one finished Selima reached to take off the blindfold, but again someone else's hands stopped her. "Not yet," Tuesday whispered. "Let's have some fun with it first."

Fits of laughter from everyone else, then another kiss, long and teasing, and whenever Selima reached out the other girl slipped away from her just barely, and then came back again in time to stop Selima from blindly staggering into disaster. The laughter grew louder, but it sounded appreciative rather than ridiculing.

"This isn't part of the Sabbat," she said after coming up from another kiss.

"It is and it isn't," said Arabella's voice.

"She means it CAN be if you want it to," Patty's voice said in her other ear. She was behind Selima now, and her hands moved over Selima's body, taking complete liberty as she fondled her. Selima's head rolled until she found the other woman's mouth and brought her in for another long, deep kiss. The initiation had once again left her feeling extremely relaxed and eager at the same time.

Playfully, Tuesday fought to keep the blindfold on Selima as Patty lowered her to the floor. There was bedding laid down now, silky but heavy, the same fabric as the scarf Selima had tied around herself.

Sinking into it, she held out her arms for whoever came close, and opened her legs at the same time. She wasn't sure what woman responded by climbing on top of her, but she wasn't feeling terribly particular at the moment either.

She touched everyone who came to her, exploring the sensations offered by so many different bodies, cupping each breast as if weighing it and fondling the outlines of their legs and thighs and calves.

Then they'd fall on her, eager to feel more, long hair trailing over the shoulders of those who got on top. Soft breasts pressed together and open mouths met as they all came together, while hands and fingers found each other, wrapping in knots.

How good it all felt, Selima decided. Without sight, she guided her way through this world by touch alone, and how good to always find another body and another, as the circle grew wider and wider.

Some voices she recognized; some she didn't. Some kisses, too, were familiar, and some touches as well. A woman put her hand on Selima's knee, sculpting the length of the leg with exploring fingers, until the heat and want spiked.

Another kiss, harder than the others, and then the agonizing relief of a touch just where it was truly needed. Oh yes...

And then someone screamed. It was a sound of almost pure horror, and it made everyone scatter at once, and Selima sat all the way up and ripped the blindfold off as her heart raced.

Everyone was reacting with shock, but it took a while for her to realize why: The brass statue was still there, but it had changed. Its face, previously sedate and knowing, now very distinctly expressed a smile, and its chin pointed up. The difference was small, but it was also stark, and once noticed it was impossible to miss.

The most shocked of all was Arabella. Standing next to her, Selima said, "Did you do that?"

But Arabella shook her head. "I think...you did."

"What does it mean?"

"That Urian is pleased, for one thing," Arabella said. And then she turned to look Selima eye to eye. "And that very important things are going to happen for you. Soon, I think."

Selima didn't know what to say, and neither, it seemed, did anyone else. It was a while yet before Selima noticed what else had changed while they were all distracted: The black cat sat on the pedestal with the statue, its long tail dangling almost to the floor.

And Selima thought that, like the statue, it too looked very pleased.

***

"So why aren't there any other men in the building?" Selima asked, seated on a high stool with a leather-covered cushion so deep that it felt as if her entire body were sinking into it.

Maurice's apartment looked as if it belonged in another building—no, another century, Selima decided, more resembling a Victorian drawing room than a Depression-era flat like the rest of the place.

He even had a full bar, which he stood behind like the bartender in a posh drawing salon, pouring brandy for the both of them while Selima perched on the overstuffed stool. He waited until their glasses were perfectly level before answering.

"Well, there aren't many men who are witches to begin with," Maurice said.

He was tall and heavyset, almost completely bald and with small eyes. But at the same time Selima would have called him handsome, and it was obvious he must have been a killer in his youth.

"It's generally agreed most men just don't have the natural knack for witchcraft. And even fewer of them feel the incentive to develop it if they do," he continued, swirling some ice around his glass as he talked. Selima sipped hers; it was so smooth she barely felt it go down.

"But you're the big exception?" she said.

"A very minor exception, really. Arabella runs everything—the building, and all sorts of other things a tadpole like you isn't just ready to know about yet. I'm more of what you'd call a gray eminence—no that's giving myself too much credit. Really I'm a figurehead these days. I look good and make everything seem more official. Like the queen."

"Is there a...witch queen?"

"I mean the Queen of England, love."

As he talked he was feeding a great black raven, a scraggly fowl that looked like it was too heavy to fly anymore. It sat on a perch on the wall, concealed in the mass of its own feathers.

The black cat was here too, having followed Selima upstairs. She'd been worried it might start trouble with Maurice's bird, but the pair seemed to have some unspoken truce.

Selima practiced swirling her ice around the way Maurice did. Careful to keep her eye on the glass instead of him, she said, "But you didn't come to the Sabbat the other night."

"Dear girl, I'm much too old for that sort of escapade. A pensioner at an orgy is like a calliope at a funeral: tragically out of place, but likely too heavy to move."

Despite her best efforts, Selima cracked up.

"If I'm any use at all to the women in this building—you must never call them 'girls,' I've told Arabella many times—then I'm glad to earn my keep, modest though it may be. And that goes for you too. Whatever you need, come to me first—as an act of charity if nothing else."

"I've heard so many people tell me that this week," Selima said. "'Come to me for anything,' I mean. It all feels too good to be true."

"It is," said Maurice. "In witchcraft you can get whatever you want, but never think that you're getting anything for free. There are always hidden prices—some you've paid already, some you won't even know about until years from now."

Pausing, Selima said, "But nobody's really told me how anything works yet. You know; magic?"

"You mustn't call it that," Maurice said, leaving his station at the bar and moving to this reading chair, in front of a high tower of bookshelves. The black cat was sitting there, but Maurice simply plucked it up and sat it on his lap, where it made itself exactly as comfortable as it'd been a moment before.

"Witchcraft is not 'magic,'" Maurice continued. "Nobody is waving wands and reciting bad Latin. It's not what you young types get up to in your college years these days either, with crystals and goddesses and talk about energy. Witchcraft is a deal you make; things you get and things you give, always in proportion."

"A deal with who?"

"Things much older than the universe. You wouldn't call them gods, you'd simply call them—"

"Urian!"

"Precisely. That's a euphemism, of course. Their real names, their real natures...well, there's a reason we don't talk about such things directly."

Dropping off the stool and balancing her drink, Selima approached the heavy old coffee table made of dark wood (Maurice said he made it from a coffin when he was much younger) and put a finger on a stack of oblong white cards there.

"But there must be SOME magic," she said. "Girls in college like to use these too—tarot cards. And I've seen Arabella use all sorts of, oh, candles and sacred circles and things."

As he nodded, Selima sensed Maurice's satisfaction that she had picked up on this particular line of questioning. She checked herself not to feel too pleased at his approval.

"Those sorts of tolls are handy. They let you read the world's ledger: what you've taken, what you've given, what you still owe. I'm quite good with the cards myself."

Flicking his fingers like a dealer at a professional table, he overturned five cards almost as fast as Selima could see him move: the ten of swords, the ten of wands, the five of pentacles, the Tower, and the Devil.

Almost as quickly—Selima saw his eyes linger on the faces of the cards for just a second—he shuffled them back into the deck.

"There are other tools too. Your familiar is your best one."

Maurice gave the black cat a shove and it leapt from his lap and into Selima's arms.

"Malphas is my familiar; like me, he's seen better days, but he's useful enough," Maurice said, indicating the nearly helpless bird still clinging to its perch.

Selima looked at the black cat. "But Trullibub isn't really mine," she said after a second. "She belonged to the other girl—Angela."

Nodding, Maurice said, "Yes, that's strange. But then, everything about what happened with Angela was strange."

Not sure why, Selima felt her heartbeat pick up. "What do you mean?" she said. "Nobody's said anything strange about it. Just that it was—"

"Unexpected."

"Everyone uses that word."

"Hm. And do you really think it was?"

"I..." Selima paused. "I have no idea. I never even met her."

"Even so. Angela was...no, no, forget that. Answer me this: How do you think a person becomes a witch?"

Scratching the black cat, Selima said, "I guess I've been assuming we're born different. Special?"

Both of their glasses were empty now, and the ice sat melting at the bottom of their tumblers, like diamonds in a pool. Maurice raised a finger.

"Are you born a musician? No. You can be born with talent, I suppose, but when you're very old like me you know talent is overrated and it makes people lazy. You see all these books? The worst ones were written by talented people.

"Being a witch is something you learn, and being good at it is something you learn over time. Angela learned fast; as fast as I've seen anyone, and I've seen a lot of women in this building in my life."

Tilting her head, Selima said, "I don't understand."

"Sometimes it doesn't pay for everyone to know how good you are at something. It might make them anxious. Or jealous. Or...well, I'm sure you can imagine the kinds of things people say about a young witch who looks like she might be coming into her own faster than everyone else."

"I...don't," Selima said.

But the truth is she did. And the way that Maurice leaned forward now in his chair—his tone still normal, even, and conversational, but his demeanor suddenly more focused—took her breath away.

This is the real reason he asked me to come here tonight, she realized, and suddenly there came a feeling like spider legs creeping across the back of her neck.

Pausing, Maurice brought down a book off of his shelf, with a cover of old creased leather. "Cotton Mather wrote this; he said that witches torment their victims by creating little poppets in their image and piercing them with needles or thorns or just pinching them in such a way that hurts the real person."

"Isn't that a voodoo doll?"

"There's no such thing, not in voodoo anyway. But an image hex one of the oldest and more documented practices in all of western witchcraft."

"So it works?"

"Not a bit; Mather was a fraud. If a witch really has it in for someone, what they need is an object owned by that person. The longer they've had it, the more effective—because things that belong to us are part of us, in a way. Steal something from someone, and you have a part of them, right?"

The spider leg feeling increased; Selima already saw where this was going.

"Most witches would never actually do such a thing, of course. But it might help if—just in case, just hypothetically mind you— you got into the habit of entertaining a lot in your home. And if people found that more often than not—"

"They accidentally forgot something," Selima finished. "And then meant to go back and get it but just never did."

Drumming thick fingers on the cover of the old book, Maurice nodded. "A handy trick for anyone who wants to create an insurance policy for themselves. Hypothetically."

Sitting up much straighter, Selima picked her next question carefully. "And if you wanted to protect yourself from something like that?"

"There's only one thing for that: Be a better witch. No shortcuts possible, I'm afraid. I must say dear, you're looking a bit pale."

"I feel it."

"Seems we may need another drink to put some color back in your cheeks."

Selima didn't turn as he went back to the bar, listening to the hard clink of ice cubes refilling their tumblers. Maurice continued talking.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you should know that it's a scary world you've found yourself in now, Selima. I told Angela the same thing when she came here first."

"What was she like?" Selima asked suddenly. Now she did turn around, finding Maurice right behind her, with the tumbler in his outstretched hand.

"She was very honest," was his reply. "And very astute. She was going to do great things, I was sure. I still am sure, actually. What happened to her was...well, there's nothing to be done about the past."

"It's the future you have to watch out for," Selima said, and then drank a mouthful of brandy all at once.

"That's also very astute."

"And very honest," Selima added.

Treating it like a toast, they drank together again.

Somehow the black cat had gotten out again without anyone seeing, so Selima left Maurice's apartment alone. He seemed unusually somber when they said goodbye, and Selima wanted to tell him not to worry, but come to think of it she wasn't sure he shouldn't.

On her way to the stairs, something caught her eye. She thought at first it was Trullibub, but when it moved she realized no: it was Arabella's cat, Behemoth.

The big feline regarded her with knowing green eyes. It was stationed near Maurice's door—right outside of it in fact. Close enough perhaps to overhear a conversation inside...

That's ridiculous, she told herself. It's just a cat. Nevertheless, she didn't like knowing that its eyes were on her as she descended the stairs.

For a moment, Selima thought she heard someone say her name....but when she looked over her shoulder again nothing was there. She hurried the rest of the way down to her apartment, and locked the door behind her.

***

Selima sat in front of a mirror, staring into a candle flame. It was supposed to help her focus, but all night long her mind had been drifting...

To what? She wasn't sure. A vague sense of dread hovered over the building since her talk with Maurice a few days earlier. Everything that he told her—

But what HAD he told her really, she wondered? Nothing in so many words. Not even really an accusation, although if it had been so what? That wasn't anything more than gossip. Gossip about old friends behind each other's backs, the kind of thing that happened all the time with—

"With witches," she said out loud, and then laughed to nobody.

The apartment was empty except for her. She kept looking for the black cat, but hadn't seen it all day, or even the day before. Of course, it was a cat, and it had always come and gone as it pleased. Still, she wished it would turn up again soon. Selima seemed to have an easier time thinking when the cat was around. Or at the very least, solutions seemed to always come to mind more quickly with it.

She went to make tea to calm her nerves, but the sight of the strange blue teapot just reminded her that her mother's was still upstairs, with Arabella. Of course, there's no reason to worry about that, no matter what Maurice said. I can go up there and get it back anytime I want, Selima thought.

But of course, she hadn't. And a witch who knew what to do could make other people, even other witches, forget about certain things for a little while.

Selima turned the stovetop off with a snap. No tea, she decided. And no candles either, she thought, blowing it out and dropping the basement apartment into darkness for a few seconds while she turned the light back on.

It was very late; the clock on the wall (not really hers, a gift from the other girls in the building, like almost everything else) told her nearly 3 A.M.

I should go to bed, she thought. Not that there was any real reason to; she didn't have to sleep or wake at any particular time these days. She didn't have to worry about hunting for a job, because no bills ever came and the rent was never due, and if she needed anything all she had to do was ask and somebody in the building would help her get it.

She still didn't really understand why, but whenever she asked somebody—usually Arabella—would just tell her that she didn't have to think about those kinds of problems anymore...

Sighing, she flopped down onto a chair. Then almost instantly she leapt up again as someone knocked on the door. Who was it at this time? She didn't bother with the security chain as she whipped the door open and saw—

Tuesday stood in corridor, wringing her hands and twisting, her face pale. She looked so shocked that Selima took a deep breath, waiting to hear some terrible news. When Tuesday managed to inhale deeply enough to speak, she said:

"Sel, have you seen my Marchosias? I can't find him anywhere."

Marchosias was the little dog that she kept, a creature as seemingly stolid and immovable as Tuesday was excitable. The idea of the dog running off was as unlikely as if Tuesday had said her coffee table had wandered off on its own. But her look of almost manic concern impressed Selima.

"No, I'm sorry, I'm sure I'd remember if I saw him," Selima said, opening her door wider. She was not prepared for Tuesday to step in and start weeping on her shoulder, but she put her arms around the other girl anyway.

"I asked everybody in the building and he's not anywhere," Tuesday said. "I was really hoping you might have seen him."

"Why me?"

"Because the last time he did this—"

"He's run off before?"

"Twice," Tuesday said, sniffling. "And when he did I found him down here, waiting at the door. Not your door," she added. And then she turned and pointed into the darkness and said, "That door."

She was pointing at the furnace room, the only other door on the basement floor, a place that Selima often heard through the wall but had never been to and had never seen anyone come in or out of either.

Stepping out of her apartment, she looked at it more closely. "You found him at THAT door?"

Tuesday nodded.

"What was he doing?"

"Just sitting there, like he was waiting for something."

Selima wasn't quite sure why she asked the next question, but it came out of her mouth anyway: "This wasn't by any chance the same time that Angela died and Trullibub went missing, was it?"

Even in the dark, Tuesday's eyes shined. "Wooooow, spooky—yeah, you're exactly right. How'd you know?"