The Black Cat

"I'm not sure," Selima said, shifting her weight on one foot and thinking for a second. "Tuesday, has anything really bad happened to you since you moved in here? Has anybody, I don't know, threatened you or anything?"

A look of sincere shock flickered across the other woman's face. "Of course not! Who would do that?"

"I was just wondering," Selima said. "Do you want some help looking for Marchosias? I don't think I can sleep anyway."

Tuesday's nod was so vigorous that Selima thought it might knock the other girl's head right off. Two by two they tromped up and down each stairwell and out into the alleys around the building, although Tuesday said she'd never seen Marchosias go outside on his own.

It was strange—Selima had wandered around the building by herself on the darkest nights without worry, but somehow being here with another person made the old place spooky for the first time. More than once she looked over her shoulder, certain that a third person was with them, following just behind. Maybe Arabella, or maybe...someone else.

When they eventually found Marchosias, he really was waiting by the furnace room, although he had not been there before. Where he'd gone to in the meantime nobody could guess.

They also found the black cat with him, curled up and waiting. It followed Selima back home. Selima couldn't shake the feeling that the two looked like they were up to something

Tuesday thanked her several times for finding the dog, even though Selima said repeatedly that she hadn't really done anything. Then, still holding him in her arms, Tuesday said, "Sel? What you asked before, about whether anyone had, you know, said or done anything bad to me in this building. You didn't hear that from Maurice, did you?"

Her blood suddenly icy, Selima labored to keep her demeanor neutral. "Not at all. Why?"

"Just because Arabella...well anyway, thank you again for helping me. Marchosias says thank you too, don't you puppy?" As usual, the dog looked completely inert.

Before she left, Tuesday made several references to spending the night as a way to say thank you, and, for a moment, Selima almost said yes...

But in the end she said good night and shut the door. Putting her back against it, she waited until she heard the footsteps go all the way up to the second floor before she exhaled. The black cat, sitting at her feet, looked up at her.

"Now of course I'm just paranoid, right?" Selima said. "There's no way Arabella actually sent Tuesday down to try and get me to talk about what Maurice said—and then I fell right for it. Right?"

But there was no answer. The black cat kept its own counsel.

***

It was a week before she encountered Arabella again, as both of them arrived back home at the building at the same time. Selima had gone out to a concert on Fillmore, and Arabella was coming home from some place dressy, her white evening gown looking wraithlike as they came together in the lobby.

"Just who I was looking for," Arabella said to Selima, even while Selima lingered for a minute with her foot still out the front door. She wished she'd come home just five minutes later and missed the encounter.

Behemoth was waiting in the lobby—apparently nobody could keep a pet in the house around here. The huge cat's wiry black hairs rubbed off right onto Arabella's white dress, but she didn't seem to mind. "I have something to show you," Arabella said.

"It's late..."

"But you're still up. Besides, it has to be late if it's going to be just the two of us; I don't want anyone else snooping around."

She extended her hand; Behemoth nudged Selima's leg, much the same way that Trullibub did sometimes (shedding on her in the process too). Trying not to give away too much more of her reluctance, Selima followed Arabella into the dark.

To her surprise, they didn't go upstairs, but instead to the basement; increasingly uneasy, Selima saw that they were going to the furnace room, which huffed and puffed like a slumbering dragon as they came near.

"Yes, Tuesday said you'd been asking about this place," Arabella said. "I do hear almost everything that gets talked about in this building one way or another, you know."

Fear stabbed Selima's heart. She smiled as confidently as she could to hide it. Unlocking the door, Arabella beckoned. Curious in spite of herself, Selima followed.

The furnace room was lined with brick, but it had an exposed dirt floor. The furnace itself was an enormous presence on the far wall, though the grate revealing the hellish orange flames inside was relatively small.

At Arabella's instruction, Selima closed the door quietly behind them. "I'm the only one who comes in here," she said. "It's the only space in the building that's off limits to anyone else. Here, give me your hand."

She guided Selima in further, telling her to be careful where she put her feet. After her eyes adjusted to the darkness; Selima saw why; all over the floor were small stone markers, flat and rounded, pushed into the loose dirt by hand, and on the face of each of them a letter from some alphabet that Selima had never seen before.

"What is this?"

"One thing nobody probably told you about familiars is they don't live forever. Just like normal pets, they die when their time comes. Whenever one of the girls in the building loses hers, I bury them here."

Mildly horrified, Selima fumbled with her words. "Why?"

"Nobody else knows how to do it, for one thing," Arabella said. "It's not like when your dog ran out into the street as a kid. There are special steps to make sure—" it sounded as if her voice cracked for a moment "—to make sure they're finally able to rest. And it's important to keep them here in the building, close to the people they lived with. It helps."

Selima wasn't sure if help was meant for the witches or the animals, but she was impressed by the sincerity in the other woman's voice either way. Stroking Behemoth, Arabella led her carefully through the tiny burial plots, whispering the names of each of the departed creatures as they passed. One in particular she lingered over.

"This was my first, Pyewacket," she said. "It feels like I've had Behemoth practically forever now, but he wasn't always with me."

The shaggy black cat seemed to nod at the little round stone in the earthen floor, as if indicating respect.

"This is what I wanted to show you particularly," Arabella said when they reached a spot near the corner. "This one is Trullibub."

Seeing Selima start, Arabella was quick to add, "Not really, of course. But we all thought she was dead, and after losing poor Angela too...well, I wanted there to be something here to remember her by, even though there was nothing to bury. And then the day after I did it you moved into the building—and Trullibub turned out to be safe and sound, and now she's yours."

Turning to Selima, half of her face illuminated by flames, Arabella said, "So someday, when she really does die, she'll be the only thing ever to have two graves down here. I think that makes her special—don't you?"

Selima could only nod.

After locking up the room up again, Arabella showed her where she kept the key to the furnace room hidden. "But why?" Selima said.

"Because there's power in secrets," said Arabella. "Now we have a secret together."

The key was light in Selima's hand when she turned it over, but she felt the burden of it even so. "I'm...I'm touched," she said, and surprisingly, she meant it.

Pausing before going upstairs, Arabella said, "I've only ever shared that place with one person before."

Without even having to ask, Selima knew the answer: "Angela."

"Just before we lost her, in fact. For a while I wondered if maybe it was my fault...but that's a silly idea. I'm getting old and superstitious."

"My mother would have said 'witchy.'"

They both laughed. It felt good.

It was when Arabella was partly up the stairs and Selima was already halfway into her apartment that the other woman called back one last time:

"Oh by the way, I wasn't sure if you'd heard the sad news: Maurice is gone."

Halting with her hand on the door, Selima felt her blood stop.

With effort, she said, "You don't mean he—?"

"Oh no, nothing like that. He just moved out in the middle of the night, it seems. There's not a trace of him in his apartment anymore. Not one speck."

Keeping her voice even and not yet turning around, Selima said, "Why do you think he'd do that?"

"I'm sure I have no idea," Arabella said. "You know how men are—temperamental. I just thought you should know; since the two of you were chatting lately."

Selima squeezed her doorknob as hard as she could. "Yes," she said. "I'm sorry that he's gone."

"Me too," Arabella's voice said from the shadows.

And then:

"It was very unexpected."

Slipping inside, Selima turned the locks on her door.

But that wouldn't keep out the things she was really afraid of.

The black cat was waiting for her, sitting in the best chair. Taking the seat opposite it, Selima started to think.

"What should I do?" she said out loud.

Strangely, madly, Selima waited for the cat to say something.

And then, even more madly, it did.

"You already know."

Sitting up straight, Selima looked the black cat in the eyes. It hadn't moved; its mouth hadn't opened. The words might as well have been a dream, or her imagination. But...

But they weren't, she knew. She also knew that they were right; all of a sudden, Selima knew exactly what to do. Without even realizing it, Arabella and Tuesday had both given her the answer.

And it was then that Selima knew everything would be all right after all.

***

The first step was to call Arabella. Not with words, but with witchcraft.

It was the same trick Arabella had done to her the night the day they met, leaving a single candle lit in the doorway. Only Selima didn't leave it in her own doorway.

It was two nights since she'd gone with Arabella to the furnace room. One night would have been better—the more time passed, the more advantage Arabella would have—but she couldn't prepare faster than that.

The next step was just waiting. She wished the black cat could be here too, but that wasn't part of the plan. Instead Selima sat alone, doing her best to maintain her resolve. There was no telling how long it would take.

The candle was already halfway gone by the time Arabella appeared. Selima remained seated on the floor, looking up at the other woman as she descended the steps. It was clear from her face that Arabella hadn't known who was calling her, and was surprised—and bemused maybe—at discovering the answer.

They stood like that for a moment on either side of the candle flame, Arabella standing, Selima looking up at her. Neither of them spoke.

Finally Arabella extinguished the candle by kicking the whole thing over. It rolled about a foot down the corridor and hit a wall. When it was done, she looked at the door, and even laid her hand on it. Then she made a clucking noise with her tongue.

"I've told you to stay away from this old elevator," Arabella said. "It's nothing but trouble."

They were on the sixth floor; halfway between their two homes, a midway space. But more importantly, for the plan to work Selima had to get Arabella somewhere high enough off the ground...

Picking her words very carefully—anything she said now might change the outcome of the confrontation in ways she didn't expect—she said, "It's time to stop lying."

Without flinching or even batting an eye, Arabella said, "What about?"

"Oh," Selima said, rising to her feet now. "All kinds of things."

There was no sign of Behemoth, but he must be around somewhere. Arabella wouldn't answer a strange call in the middle of the night without him.

Turning her eyes back to Arabella—the merest flicker of her gaze from one side to another—Selima said, "It wasn't really unexpected when Angela died, was it? You made that accident happen. Because having her here made you feel threatened."

Selima heard movement nearby, and the sound of a door hinge sighing; the other girls were watching from their own apartments.

But none of them moved to intervene, or even to make themselves visible; they all wanted to be able to safely deny everything later, depending on how it turned out. But they could all see and hear, of that Selima was sure.

Undaunted, Arabella said, "What do you care? You never even knew her."

"And Maurice?" Selima said. "Did you kill him too?"

"Oh no. But I made sure he knew what would happen to him if he made trouble for me. I thought about doing the same thing with you, but...well, you are young. And I'm softhearted. It's a weakness I keep hoping I'll grow out of. In fact, maybe I'm about to."

And then Arabella sighed, a deep, rumbly noise that Selima think of the furnace.

"You girls are so ungrateful," she said. "You think witchcraft is all wonderful. None of you think of the prices that have to be paid."

Straightening her shoulders, Selima said, "Actually, I've been thinking about that a lot. The last two hours particularly."

Slowly, deliberately, Arabella pushed the elevator button. The bell dinged. "I warned you about this old elevator," she said. "They say a woman who lived her fell down it in the '60s. I don't know why you'd try to use it now.

"Everyone's going to be terribly sad when they hear the news in the morning. We all liked you so much, and for such a terrible thing to happen. So unexpectedly."

Now Behemoth crouched at her feet. Selima felt the strength of the two of them together pressing against her, and she was all alone. But she held her ground—she was strong enough for that, at least for now.

Swallowing, Selima said, "You're right. I think there is going to be an accident. A very unexpected one, like you always say. But it's not going to be me."

The elevator dinged again, and the doors slid open with a sound an exhalation. There was no lift in sight; the doors opened onto inky blackness and nothing else.

"It's going to be hard for everyone trying to get on without you around here," Selima said. "You've lived in the building for so long—but we've all got to go sometime, right?"

Behemoth arched his back.

"It won't work, Selima," Arabella said. "You're young, and you don't really know what you're doing."

More noises from the corridors above and below. All the girls were coming out to make sure they had a good view of whatever came next. In the dark next to both of them, the elevator cable swayed.

"Normally that'd be true," Selima said. "But I don't think you're as strong lately as you'd like us to think. Maurice explained it to me: the more you ask for, the more you have to give in return.

"And you've been asking for a lot lately: getting rid of Angela, getting rid of Maurice, doing everything for everybody so we don't ask questions—it's left you owing a lot back, hasn't it? You might say you've got debts to pay."

Arabella flinched. It was a small thing, and hard to see in the dark, but Selima was sure. Behemoth hissed.

"Even if that were true," Arabella said. "You still don't know what you're doing. For that kind of trick you need—"

"Something that belongs to the other person. Tell me, where do you think Pyewacket's headstone is right now? Down in the furnace room, where you left it? Or do you think I have it right here in my pocket—wrapped up in a scarf with some of Behemoth's hairs? The longer something belonged to you, the stronger its pull, right?"

This time it was easy to see Arabella shaking. The big cat hid behind her leg. The opening to the elevator shaft yawned.

"You're lying," Arabella said.

"Then why am I still alive? You have to kill me now—everyone's heard too much, and if you don't do something nobody will ever listen to you again. But nothing's happened to me yet..."

And she dared to take a step forward. Just one step, but she made it count.

Enraged, Arabella opened her mouth to shout something—but nobody would ever know what, because at that moment the shadows came alive. Something charged out of the darkness and flung itself through the air, the movement of blackness against blackness only perceivable because of the glow of its yellow eyes.

It was the black cat, and as it leapt at Arabella it hissed, and in a panic Behemoth turned and fled, disappearing into the night in a way that Selima knew meant he would never return again.

And at that split second when Arabella was suddenly most vulnerable, Selima threw the handkerchief and its payload into the inky black abyss of the elevator shaft.

There was only time for Arabella to gasp once...and then she toppled backwards too. Almost immediately the elevator doors slid shut with a sharp DING! that sounded almost satisfied with itself.

Selima waited to hear something: a scream, presumably, or the sound of a body landing. But there was nothing. One moment Arabella was here, and the next she was gone. Simply, gone.

The black cat was gone too. It had never touched Arabella, its leap meant only to make her afraid for a moment. And as fast as that, it was gone again also.

But Selima didn't mind. She knew where to find it. Turning, she began to ascend the six flights of steps up to the top floor. Almost as one, she heard every other door in the building slam shut. A few even locked as she passed by.

The door to Arabella's apartment was open. There was no candle burning, but they didn't need one.

The tea was ready when she came in, served steaming in Selima's own teapot, the one that belonged to her mother—and the one that Arabella would have flung out the window to shatter into a million pieces had she been allowed to come back to this apartment herself, Selima knew.

Have to remember to bring that with me when I leave, she said to herself...

She sat down in one of the old chairs, picking up the cup in front of her and blowing on it before taking a sip. The sharp flavor woke up her senses from the almost-lethargy that had taken hold of her the last few minutes.

The black cat sat in the opposite chair. The cup in front of it was empty, so Selima filled it. By the time she was done, the cat was gone; a woman about Selima's age sat in the chair instead, although she still had the cat's eyes, as that was the part that took the longest to fade.

"Thank you," Angela said, accepting the teacup.

"My pleasure," said Selima.

They sipped in silence for a moment, neither looking at the other. Angela broke the silence first: "All told I think that went very smoothly."

"Yes," Selima said. Then, "But you used me. The whole time."

Angela shrugged. "Sometimes you have to get your paws—hands dirty. Hurt feelings should be your least worry."

"They are," Selima said. "But I still don't like it. Don't make a habit out of it."

"Fair enough. But I couldn't tell you the truth—at least, not too much of it. If Arabella had ever suspected she hadn't really killed me...well, no sense worrying about those things now I guess."

"Mm. So if you were the black cat then what happened to the real Trullibub?"

"She's around. You know how cats are: always in and out. I'm sure she'll show up again soon. We really will have to get you one of your own soon, though. If you plan to stay, that is."

"Do you think I should?"

Sitting in thought, her cat eyes visible through a cloud of steam from her cup, Angela said, "I think...that there's an opening on the top floor now. It should go to someone who knows the building already."

"I figured you'd be moving in here."

"But there's room for more than one person at the top. Maurice can make himself at home in the basement, if he ever comes back—his price to pay for running out on us just when we could have used his help the most."

The chair suddenly felt much more comfortable than it had. Selima let herself settle into it, and let the smells of the old building mingle with the scented steam rising from her cup. "That's awfully generous of you," she said.