Chapter Twenty-Two
A m o s S w a n - T h e c a t
The warmth of Sylvia presses against my side, along with her steady human heart beat. Her breathing is slow and deep which means she has gone somewhere I can’t follow. Her arm rests above my spine and I tuck my nose into the soft hollow of her wrist.
I watch the small clock on the wall tick, my brass eyes the only light source in the room other than the fireplace.
My mind is on Alistair, the boy she always has around.
I like him, I like that he keeps her company in her dark times, but the small stutter of his heart every time she mentions going to the mill gives me the sense that he’s scared.
Nerves leak from humans the way fire heats a room; it rises, trembles, and the air becomes sharp with the stench.
He doesn’t belong to the dark places she’s walking toward.
His hands betray him, opening and closing for no reason.
Courage has a smell similar to resolve but he smells like he’s hoping the world will be kind.
This cult won’t. They’re dangerous, skilled people who don’t let boys like him break past their wall. They’ll notice him from a mile away and that alone can kill Sylvia.
She shifts in her sleep, murmuring what sounds like a name and I feel the pull again.
The low, humming thread beneath her skin that I recognize as a place where doors don’t stay shut and dreams that haunt you come alive.
I’ve followed it since our mother died, since the night her eyes wept in her sleep and sorrow moved into her heart.
There’s not much I can do to help, but I see the shiver in his spine and that scares me.
I can’t tell her with words what I think, cats can’t talk, but I’ve been trying.
I curled my tail around her arm when he tried to reach for her, I bumped her leg when I felt the progression of fear arise in him, and I completely lost trust that he’ll be the one to save her.
My mind drifts to the rich boy, the boy that has picked on her since she arrived.
I figured it was attention from her he was seeking and last night solidified his attractiveness to her.
He likes her, deeply in a way I don’t understand.
He was distant in a way I’ve never seen him, his words sharp but broken.
He walked stiffly as they talked and he wasn’t as calculated as normal.
He’d given her a choice and I would've bet money that would’ve never happened.
The bully or him, is what Sylvia calls him.
She’ll never call him by name unless he’s standing before her.
He understands danger because he’s made of it.
He watches like I do, calculated, precise, and with a cruel understanding of how things will play out.
The bully won’t ask, he’ll take. He’d sacrifice himself before she even knows there’s something sharp in the air.
That kind of instinct is rare which should scare me but I lean on his side more and more each day.
If the dark opens its mouth, I hope the one with teeth is beside her. I hope the bully recognizes her peril and moves anyway, even if she never calls for him.
I press my paws firmly into her side, anchoring her to me. If something reaches for her in the dark it’ll have to pass me first.