Chapter 4 Cat Tales
Hello, my name is May. I'm Carl and Amber's big sister and I come in to this story a bit later on. I'm just popping up now to do Carl a favour. You see, he wasn't there for this next bit and so when he was telling the story he realised he'd have to make this section up. That's not really his strong point. He's very good at all the true bits, but when it came to this chapter he was coming up with every excuse under the sun not to do it. In the end I offered to write it. It's not all made up. Some of it is based on stuff we found out later on. However, there is a decent chunk of this that is just me trying to fit the pieces of the story together and make it interesting. I have no idea what really happened. I hope you enjoy the version of events that I've come up with.
Our family has had three cats during my lifetime. When I was tiny there was Trixie, who was a grey and brown tortoiseshell. For a while, there was two when Ginger (guess what he looked like) came along. Trixie was quite old to begin with and I remember being really upset when she died. She'd had a kidney infection and I cried buckets when Dad took Trixie to the vet to put her to sleep. Ginger didn't stay around much longer after that. I never saw him again so he must have gone a fair distance. I hope he was ok. Thirdly, there was Deedee who was only a kitten. She was part of the litter of Carrie who was the cat from my Mum's works. She stayed with us for a little while before she went to a permanent home with one of my Mum's workmates. Mum had never intended to get another cat. She'd been too upset after Trixie had died. But Deedee kept coming into her office and when it came time to find homes for the litter it was if Deedee had already decided where she was going.
That's the thing about cats. They choose you, not the other way around. Both Trixie and Ginger were strays. Ginger was just a nickname for the tom that kept hanging around Trixie and the house, but by the time he had decided to make his home with us the name had stuck.
You might think you've chosen a cat, but if they don't care for you they'll just move out. That's why there are so many strays. At best a cat might tolerate someone they live with that they haven't chosen if the food and lodgings are good enough.
I think Mrs Akinyemi must have been chosen by Lucia and Lisa, the demon sisters trapped in the shape of cats. She'd be the right sort of person, a widow whose children had all grown up and moved away. Not lonely by any means, Mrs Akinyemi had plenty of friends and an active social life with craft clubs and computer clubs and all sorts of evening classes most nights. But there'd be a hole in her life somewhere in that big empty home that the sisters could exploit with a well-timed show of affection.
This is how the immortal sisters had sustained themselves for nearly 500 years. In their feline forms they were as good as powerless. They could never die, but they still felt hunger and cold, still needed somewhere to lay down when the voices inside their heads were silent and they could rest. There is no kindness within these creatures. Having to feign affection in order to be taken in would be alien to them. If they weren't insane before, half a millennium of acting against their nature would have driven them mad.
Even if they had wanted to there is no way they could have stayed with any one person for too long. Their black hearts would not allow it. It would be difficult for a cat to find a way to torment or destroy a human but not impossible. Over the centuries there had been many, many accidents and fires, fatal injuries and falls. If anyone had took the time to look into the patterns they would see a very definite progression from Italy across the continent and eventually ending up in Britain. A trail of inexplicable deaths with seemingly no purpose behind them. But even as the demons gave vent to their frustrations and disgust there was a small reason behind every death. Trapped in the form of animals, they could not call upon the spells or demonic powers that they had used to hoodwink and bamboozle the town of Santa Lucia. So, painstakingly, decade after decade, they would collect the dying screams of each of their victims in their tiny cat memories. It would take them all the while until the 21st Century for them to gather enough to reverse the alchemist's spell. They would have to recover the Chianti Lodestone that they had hidden during their last battle with Cabriatti. Long, patient work, but they had toiled for centuries before Santa Lucia to achieve their goals, they didn't baulk at the prospect of as much time passing again.
By the time they had reached Mrs Akinyemi they knew that their time was almost done. It had been ten years since they had first turned up at her back door, mewling and begging pathetically for attention. She had fed them and petted them and they had made themselves more and more at home. She'd made half-hearted enquiries to see if anyone had lost a pair of cats but she didn't look too deeply for answers. That first night that the sisters slept inside the house they knew their long wait would very soon be over.
Mrs Akinyemi had named them Phoebe and Monica. For a while Lisa had been Chandler until Mrs Akinyemi had realised that they were both female. As they strutted and purred about her kitchen, Mrs Akinyemi believed she was receiving some much-needed love from her loyal pets. She had no idea that she was being used.
In their time with Mrs Akinyemi there was one occasion when the truth of their evil was almost exposed. There had been times before, in previous households, where something had threatened to reveal something of what Lucia and Lisa truly were. It was usually soon after that the inevitable accident that forced their eviction took place. It was a little more complicated with Mrs Akinyemi. She had two sons, each of whom had a family of their own, who would visit their mother regularly – sometimes together. It was during one of these large family gatherings that Mrs Akinyemi's five-year old granddaughter Ceri started to tease Lucia.
Ceri was sat at the top of the stairs. Without instruction from anyone else she had discovered one of the fundamental truths of the animal kingdom: cats like string. This particular example had been tied to a Spongebob balloon that Ceri had been given at the fair the previous day. Spongebob hadn't lasted long when he'd got home – Lisa had seen to that. Perhaps it was some expression of resentment at this act that caused Ceri to do what she did. She had dolefully kept the string with her even after the balloon had been burst, trailing it along behind her wherever she had gone. Her father had tried to get her to leave it, to throw it away but it had been Grandma, kind, thoughtful Mrs Akinyemi who had recognised Ceri's need to mourn and had encouraged her son to let Ceri be.
It was as Ceri was leaving the bathroom that she was surprised by a sudden tug on her string. As had been the case all day, she was dragging it behind her when she felt something pull it back. That 'something' was Lucia, who in her guise as Monica had been avoiding the stifling hubbub and jollity that was going on downstairs. It was all a bit too wholesome for the average demon. She had been keeping out of the way on the upstairs landing when she saw the string worming its way past. You can't spend nearly 500 years as a cat without picking up some habits and before she knew it Lucia had pounced on the string and given it a good savaging.
Ceri soon picked up on what was going on and entertained herself by making the string – and as a consequence, the cat – dance. Lucia leapt and twisted, rolling on her back and kicking with her hind legs as she grappled with her prey. Ceri giggled at Lucia's antics, and somewhere deep inside the cat stirred feelings of pleasure that came not from hate, wickedness and destruction but from the simple joy of playing. It was because she had been weak enough to let these feelings take root that made her anger at what happened next all the more vicious.
When Lucia and Lisa formulated their evil schemes it was done with a slow, deliberate pre-meditation that ensured they got every last drop of foul satisfaction from the consequences. They enjoyed their corruption and revelled in it.
A five year old might do something wrong but that's usually because it doesn't know any better. The idea to do what she did popped into Ceri's head without any sense that it was naughty. But as soon as it was done Ceri knew she'd crossed a line.
Gradually teasing 'Monica' into position, Ceri had strategically dangled the string in order to get the cat to the top of the stairs. With perfect timing she jerked the string to tempt 'Monica'. The demon was happy to let the cat part of her take charge and she leapt for her prize. At the last second, Ceri whipped the string away and 'Monica' went sailing over the edge and in to thin air. Such was the force of her leap she missed the stairs altogether and plummeted directly to the hall floor below with an ugly thud. Horrified, Ceri looked down on the small motionless body at the foot of the stairs and began to cry.
More soonliest
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