The cat had been staring at the same spot on the wall for seventeen minutes. Not blinking. Not twitching its tail. Just, watching. Like it knew something the rest of the room didn’t. The one candle burning, the cat nodded an aye as the rain drummed a rhythm on the window as a silhouette fell the curtain…a whispering voice sipping sherry came from the armchair, low, amused “You’re late”, playing Solitaire with a deck missing the ace of spades.
The candle flickered violently as something heavy shifted overhead, a slow, deliberate drag of claws across floorboards, followed by the unmistakable chittering of jackals. Not one. Not two. A whole chorus. The cat’s ears flattened, its pupils dilating into black pools as it finally turned its head toward the ceiling. The armchair creaked as its occupant leaned forward, sherry glass pausing mid-sip. “Ah,” the voice murmured, as if recalling a forgotten appointment. “The attic tenants are early this year.” As they echoed “Ave Maria, full of grace.”
The jackals weren’t just in the attic, they were in cat’s hat. The armchair tilted back with a creak, the occupant’s silhouette dissolving into the flickering candlelight for a heartbeat before reforming, clearer. A woman’s hand, pale as the missing ace, tapped the sherry glass twice. “They’re singing the wrong hymn,” she observed, as if critiquing a poorly rehearsed choir.
The jackals in the attic weren’t singing anymore. They were arguing, a cacophony of snarls and yips that made the cat’s tail puff like a bottlebrush. One of them had apparently taken offense to the hymn selection, and now the debate had devolved into something distinctly less holy. The woman in the armchair sighed, swirling her sherry. “Always the same with them,” the dowager of Dr. Seuss muttered. “Ask for a little grace, get a theological brawl.”
