The stripped bed was empty. I had been foolish. I would not stare at it. I would not. I turned back to the closed door. I dared myself and walked to it. I put my hand on the door handle. It was cold. Colder than was natural? Would her ghost linger where we had unwittingly abandoned her? I pushed down on the latch and then dragged the door open. The draft from the little room nearly sucked the flame from my candle. I stood still until it steadied and peered in.
It was emptier than when I had last seen it. The old stand and ewer remained there. And the heavy bed frame was still pushed tight against my secret entrance. Somehow tonight the idle furniture crouched and the empty ewer rebuked me. I spoke to her ghost. “If I had known you were still here, I would have taken better care of you. I thought you were gone.” I felt no change in the hovering darkness, but felt a bit braver that I had dared to speak to her directly.
It was harder to pull the bed frame away from the concealed entrance while holding my candle, but I managed. I clambered over it to trigger the lever, and then climbed back to go inside. I dribbled wax on the passage floor and stuck my candle in it before dragging the bed frame back into place and pushing the door shut. In my hidden labyrinth, I felt better immediately. I held my candle steady and followed the marks I scarcely needed anymore until I came to my little lair. Just outside it I stopped suddenly, puzzled. Something was different. A scent? A slight warmth in the air? I studied the little room carefully, but saw nothing amiss. Cautiously I stepped forward, tripped, and measured my length on the floor. My candle jumped from my hand, rolled in a half-circle, and only by the greatest good fortune remained lit. By bad fortune, it fetched up against a coiled scroll I had left on the floor. The edge had just begun to smolder with a stink of burning leather when I scrabbled to my knees and seized the candle. I set it upright in the holder and turned to see what had tripped me. It had felt like a mound of fabric. Warm fabric.
I felt a moment of dizziness as the floor wavered before my gaze. Then a small, scowling cat face emerged from nothing. He rose slowly out of the floor, stretched, and gave me a rebuking Wowr. Only the barest edge of rolled butterfly wing betrayed the cloak in a heap on the floor. I pounced on it and snatched it up, holding it to my chest. It was warm and smelled of black cat. “What were you doing?” I demanded of him.
Sleeping. Was warm.
“This is mine. You’re not to take things off my shelf.” I saw now that the plate I’d put on top of my bowl of hard bread had been pushed aside. With the bundled cloak under my arm, I made a quick inspection of my supplies. The bread had been chewed at the edge and rejected. I’d had half a sausage up there. Only a few scraps of casing remained. “You ate my food! And slept on my cloak.”
Not yours. Hers.