“OW!”, Siobhan protested as I tugged at the cat ears on her head.
“Quit being weird!”, I said. “It’s not a fancy dress party.”
“I know”, she said angrily.
“Please”, I pleaded. “They only invited me to the party because I was coming with you. Now you turn up being weirder than they think I am!”
“I’m not exactly loving it myself!”
“Loving what?” I asked. Losing patience, to be honest. The Uber was 5 minutes out, and Siobhan was playing some kind of joke on me. I put the 6 pack and chips I was carrying down, in the kitchen Siobhan and I shared. “How well this prank is going?” As I complained I became aware of was feeling uneasy. Something was off about this whole thing. For a start, Siobhan wouldn’t do this to me. She wasn’t a dick.
“Prank?!”, she said wiggling her cat-like ears at me. “Does this look like a prank to you?” As she spoke, she turned around. There was something moving in the back of her leggings.
“Jesus CHRIST!”, I shouted as I recoiled. “Its like Alien! What the fuck!”
“Oh for God's sake”, she said and pulled the top of her leggings back. A tail sprang out, and from the memories, I had of my parent’s cat growing up, the owner of the tail was pretty angry. Someone was in danger of getting scratched.
“Woah. Is this a Taylor Swift cosplay from that movie? The one where she looks like a cat? With lots of other singing cats?”
“Cats?”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Wow, how are you doing that? It looks awesome”, I breathed.
“I…… don’t know”, she said. “And it’s not a cosplay. I mean why would anyone cosplay anything from that piece of crap movie.”
I nodded to concede the point.
“I don’t know how I’m doing it”, she continued. “Because I don’t think I am doing anything. I think this is perfectly normal behaviour for a cat. Which I seem to be turning into.”
I put the heels of my hands to my eyes. My phone pinged to say the Uber was nearly outside. “Um”, I said.
She licked the back of her hand and rubbed her ear as she waited for me to speak.
“Don’t do that”, I said. “It’s weird”. I decided to cancel the Uber. My account would take a hit for that, but I needed a minute.
“Do what?”
“You just cleaned yourself?”, I said.
She looked at her hand in disgust. “Did I? Fuck, I hadn’t even noticed. Its getting worse I think.”
Siobhan sat down and I joined her. She looked so forlorn. I found myself fighting the urge to pet her hair. To distract myself, I asked her what happened.
“I dunno”, she said. “I was just reading one of your books while I was waiting for you to get out of the bathroom. Your make-up looks great by the way.”
I blushed. “Ah, thanks. You really think so? It’s a lot of effort I know, but I just want to make sure I … which book?”
“The big one, with the leather cover. It's not very good. Sort of short poems and stuff.”
I shrugged. “I don’t have a book like that.”
She nodded. “Yeah, it's in your room now. A guy turned up and delivered it. I assumed it was something to do with the party. Like a Secret Cinema type deal? He looked all mysterious, and foreboding. Or at least that what I think he was going for. He was quite cute, so I let him off the am-dram.”
She stood up and prowled over to my room to retrieve the book. It was just as she described. Leatherbound, atlas sized. It looked expensive. Not like a prop from a mystery party. Which was not where we were going anyway. This was a 6 pack and chips party.
“See?”, she said and dropped it on the table, sending up a small cloud of dust. It smelt old. “He gave me the book to give to you. Said you’d know what to do, and that you’d need this today. Well, he actually said something about ‘before this day is through’ but that’s the gist.”
I flipped open the book and skimmed a few pages. It was gibberish. “And you read this? You speak Klingon now?”
She looked over my shoulder. “Oh, it wasn’t like that when I saw it.” Then she started to read. “Oh power of darkness, grant me thy wisdom so that I might….” She leapt back, with surprising agility. “I can read Klingon!”
I looked at the page again, and somehow so could I. I was able to continue the whole passage in my head, following word by word. “Woah”, I said. I felt a crackling sensation over my scalp. Like static, or one of those cheap joke handshake buzzers. “This feels weird.”
Siobhan flipped through the pages. “This one”, she said. “This is the one I started reading.”
I followed the passage. “Siobhan”, I said. “This is a fucking spell. To change your form to feline. You really are turning into a cat, I think. What the actual fuck? Did the guy leave a card or anything?”
“NO”, she wailed. “You do know what to do with it right? Like he said?”
“Not a clue, babe”, I replied with a shake of my head. “So do you like, lick yourself clean now?”, I nodded at her nether regions to illustrate my question.
“Ewww!”, she whined. “Don’t be disgusting! Of course I don’t!” Then she paused for a second. “Oh fuck. I don’t know? Maybe. Sarah, you’ve got to get this sorted. Christ, do something before I do something I’ll really regret.”
“Perhaps, if we finish the spell?”, I said. “You only read the start right?”
She nodded.
“OK”, I said. “For want of any better idea I’m going to go with it”. I put on my best Gandalf voice and read the rest of the passage. I boomed the final words with a ‘shall not pass’ style flourish. Siobhan giggled.
“Anything?”, I asked.
She shook her head. And her tail. “Nah, still weird”.
My phone buzzed from my bag by the front door, and I went to answer it. “Don’t pluck the cushions”, I said as I left. I got a glare in return.
“Sarah!”, said a breathless voice as I picked up the Unknown Number
“Hello?”, I said noncommittally. “Who’s this? If it’s the Uber driver, I’m sorry my guy, something came up. I’ll still pay up if you need.”
“Sarah! It’s not Uber. Its Aunt Mel.”
I remained silent trying to remember if I had an Aunt Mel, or if this was a bad scam.
“Smelly Melly?”, the voice insisted. “Come on, you must remember that? You Dad and me used to argue about you calling me that. I said it was funny, he was all prissy about it?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. That sounded like Dad. He was pernickety about manner even as we were saying goodbye to him in the hospice.
“I don’t remember”, I said. “You weren’t at the funeral.” I tried to be aloof but to be honest I was starting to get flashes of her. Frizzy hair, huge laugh. Too much messing around. And a weird damp smell.
“No”, she said. “I wasn’t. And I’ll regret that for the rest of my life. But he wouldn’t let me. I think he worried I’d try and help him with my powers.”
When she said ‘powers’ it all came flooding back. “Oh, you’re the one who thought they were a witch”, I said sadly. Then I caught up “Shit! You’re the one who thought she was a WITCH!”, I said triumphantly.
“Yes, yes. I actually am a witch but I do think that I am as well. Listen, I’ve not got much time. Did you get my delivery?”, Aunt Mel asked.
“The book? That was you? Yeah, I got it. My roommate said your delivery boy was cute.”
“Howard? Your friend sounds like they have odd taste.”
“Yeah”, I said. “She not feeling herself at the moment.” I smiled to myself, thinking about how funny that line would go over when I told this story later. “Sarah.”
“Yes.”
“Whatever you do, do not read that book. OK? Wait for me to get there. I’ll be 2 days. Lock it up or something. They will also be looking for it.”
“Um”, I said again.
“Sarah?”
“Yes?”
“Did you read the book?”
“Ah… what?”
There was a crash from the other room.
“What was that Sarah?”, asked Aunt Mel.
“Nothing?”, I said as I followed the noise.
“I don’t believe you”, said Mel on the phone.
“Fuck!”, I said.
“Miaow”, said the small black cat sitting on Siobhan’s balled up leggings.
