Cat’s POV
“Hey, Cat!”
I looked up from my phone, feigning confusion. I say feign, because I knew all too well whose heavenly voice called out to me. It was none other than Lee Kim’s, the divine being who—
Well… before I pursue THAT era of the story, I suppose basic manners would require me to introduce myself. I am Catherine Augustine Tiber (Cat for short), a sixteen-year-old sophomore at Oceanside High, in Oceanside, California. Live there with my nutty aunt and creepy sister. More details to come.
So! Like I said, I feigned confusion as I looked up and around for the gorgeous god that is Lee Kim Fitch. He was running towards me, his long, black hair shining in the golden sunshine. Externally, I looked shocked. Internally, angels sang at his beauty as he approached.
“Um… hi, Kim…?”
He made a face. “Again with the Kim? Jeez, if LEE KIM is too long, then just say LEE.”
I grinned playfully. “Whatever you say, Kimi!”
He stuck his tongue at me—AND WHAT A GORGEOUS TONGUE! JUST KIDDING… KINDA—then got to the point. “Just heard Alex say he was going to hold a party tonight at eight. Wanna come?”
Again, I feigned ignorance. “Really? Alex is holding a party? And I can come? Wow, that is… out there.” In truth, I had already been invited by Veronica and was waiting to ask my totalitarian sister for a ride. “Well, I don’t know if I can make it… I’m pretty sure I can come…”
An innocent, heavenly smile nearly blinded me. “Really? That’s great!”
From behind me: “Definitely not.”
Without even stopping for an explanation, the dark, lanky figure that spoke just walked on. It’s hard to describe the relationship between my sister Lavi and my social life. One might say she is an obstruction. I say she is a catalyst to its end.
“What?” I demanded after her.
Her Rudeness ignored me.
I glanced at Lee Kim, who eagerly awaited my response to the new development. Laughing nervously, I excused myself. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
I trotted after Lavi, but like the ever-so-mysterious being that she is, she already disappeared into thin air. Sighing with exasperation, I cried “The hell, man?” then slid my phone open to text someone for a ride home.
Lavi’s POV
I pulled the yellow bug up to The Apothecary to pick up some lavender for Aunt Carmen. As the door jingled, a tall bespectacled man sprouted from behind the counter.
“Lavi, darling! I knew that cold draft I felt was you. Come to work an extra shift for your poor employer?”
I walked on to the herbs shelves in the back. As I reached for a bottle with a soft purple ribbon around its neck, I heard the door jingle.
“Hello, Hello!” my boss’s “new costumer” voice rang. “My name is Richard Vahn! What brings you to the county’s finest health foods store?” I didn’t have to see him to know he was gesturing to a certificate he’d made on MS paint.
I turned the corner to see a brown-haired fellow stammering away.
“Well, uh… My name’s James. My family’s opening the music store next door. We’re moving in right now, so I came over to buy a few sodas.”
“Well, that’s great! Oceanside needs a few more businesses! I just made some lemonade, so hold on.” Vahn disappeared through the bead curtained doorway that leads to his apartment upstairs. I stepped behind the counter to ring up the lavender.
“Oh, hi!” smiled the “James” fellow. “You work here?”
“Not today.” I met his black eyes. I tried to read them.
Just then, Vahn stepped out with a sun flowered pitcher that presumably held lemonade. “I see you’ve met Lavi! She’s just back from school! Will you be attending Oceanside High school, James?”
“I think so. I’ll be a junior.”
“So is Lavi! Well, take this to your family and perhaps you can return it night when you bring your family for dinner at the Tiber house! How many of you are there, James?”
“Just my dad and me. And this is awfully nice of you, Mr. Vahn. I’ll let my dad know.”
“No problem, James! I’ll see you around then! Lavi is an excellent cook!”
“Thank you!” The door jingled behind him.
I turned to my imposing employer. He grinned sheepishly. “Your family isn’t busy night, are they?”
“Not anymore.” I made my way to the door.
“Hey, I hope you paid for that!” I didn’t.
Cat’s POV
“Thanks for the ride, Liz,” I smiled, shutting the door to her four-wheel drive Jeep.
“Anytime, Cat. You coming to the party tonight?”
“Probably. I just need to convince Lavi to give me a ride,” I replied through the open passenger door window.
“Hey, I can always pick you up—“ she began to offer.
“Um, no thanks! “ I cut her off laughingly. “Me in the back seat with you and Lucas? NO WAY, JOSE.” I cried, pretending to gag.
“Hey!” she protested.
I grinned. “Well, that’s what you get for getting a boyfriend before me! Anyway, I’m going to get ready. Catch up with you later?”
“All right. See you at eight!” she called before rolling up her window and driving away.
I turned around to face… what unfortunately is my home. In twenty words or less: it is a dark, three-story mansion deprived of any light whatsoever due to the gigantic gnarly oak trees that look like they’re possessed by ghosts. Okay, that was twenty-five words, but it’s really hard to condense a fitting description of it in just a few words. I mean, you see it and it just screams “NUTHEAD CHEAPSKATES BE HERE! AVOID AT ALL COSTS, ESPECIALLY ON HALLOWEEN, BECAUSE THIS IS THE TYPE OF HOUSE THAT FREDDY COUGAR HAUNTS!” The area surrounding the house is pretty pathetic, too. The black iron gate, wrought into flower patterns, is rusted and crooked in some areas. Besides the gate, though, there is no distinction between “lawn” and the surrounding forest, and stone figurines (ranging anywhere from crosses to toad stools to ballerinas) are placed randomly throughout the property by my beloved Aunt Carmen.
The old Victorian house itself leans slightly to the left, and is painted a dirty white color. No, that’s not quite right. I suppose when it was FIRST built, some few thousand years ago, it was painted white. Since then, no one has bothered to fix it up, so dust has found its way anywhere where the winter and spring rains couldn’t get to it, and all the paint is peeling off. The shingles on the roof are a mess, but on the lower right corner there is a weathervane colored a mysterious bright pink. From the porch ceiling, my aunt created a little greenhouse—that is, instead of the traditional flower pots hanging here and there, she literally dumped soil into piles where she grows various weeds.
So, I turned to face my home, looking specifically at the makeshift driveway for Lavi’s banana of a car (in truth, there’s no drive way, or garage. Just a dead patch of weeds). She wasn’t home yet, even though she zoomed off without even a thought for me earlier at school.
I sighed in exasperation. “You have no intention of letting me go, do you?” I muttered.
Heading into the house is quite a feat. You see, between the front gate and the porch, there really isn’t a walker-friendly pathway. Rather, anyone who bothers to visit us must first trek across a little stream of dirt that’s usually wet for some unknown reason! Hence, if you stop by and you’re wearing any light-colored clothing or dainty shoes (as I usually do), you are doomed to be covered in mud by the time you reach the front door, unless you take certain precautions (such as switching to the rubber boots I hid in the bush just outside the gate and climbing into a big plastic garbage bag as a makeshift poncho). Once you reach the porch, you must force all your weight onto the thick, wooden door to get it to budge, while holding the screen door so that it doesn’t come slamming into you and bruising your calves.
The journey, however, does not stop there. I finally managed to get the front door closed and was about to drop my school bags and call out to my aunt when—
“MEEYOOWW.”
The hunger call of fifteen cats never fails to freak me out.
“OH MY GOD! THE HELL, MAN?!” I screamed.
The orange tabby by my foot purred, as though saying Welcome home! You gonna feed me now? The others followed suit.
“Darn critters, go catch a mouse or something!”
Still, I made my way to the kitchen (where I was greeted by even more cats) to fulfill my obligation as a responsible human being of feeding the hungry. I wouldn’t actually mind this assumed chore of mine too much, if only there weren’t 30 million cats in the house. I have to choose my steps carefully, so as to not step on some cat’s tail, and I have to open more than 20 cans of cat food from the pantry!
Half an hour later, I lay exhausted on the living room couch (covered in, you guessed it, cat hair), thinking about what I was going to wear to the party tonight. This poses as a problem for me, because Oceanside really doesn’t have too many clothing stores and I’m not about to go wearing the long-sleeved shirts and dresses that my aunt and sister wear. Up until a few years ago, I used to beg to go to the nearest city to go shopping with some friends, but recently I’ve found that altering the few decent pieces I find at the thrift store can create an unlimited amount of new outfits (that don’t look too bad, I must say).
Finally, I heard the slamming of a car door outside.
“Lavi, baby!” I greeted, pulling the door open for her. “You didn’t really mean that, earlier, when you said what you did…?”
Again, she ignored me.
Lavi’s POV
Cat followed me to the kitchen whining the entire time about some party that that one Asian kid that she likes invited her to. I don’t know why she even bothers asking me to chauffer her around, I never comply. I set down my school bag and groceries on the kitchen table and called to Aunt Carmen. She burst through the pantry door, smacking a cat in the process.
“Yes, my dear?” She inquired as she picked up the maimed cat to comfort it.
“Vahn decided to invite some people who just moved into town to dinner tonight. Do we still have any pasta? McGuire’s was all out.”
Cat begun her whining routine again. “What? We can’t have people over today! I have to go to Alex’s party and you have to take me! Oh my gawd, you’re ruining my life! How is a teenager living in the twenty-first century supposed to live in a town like this…” she rambled on and on.
Aunt Carmen began to pet Cat’s long black hair, quite similarly to how she comforted the cat. “Don’t worry, dear! I’m sure this evening will bring about entertainment!”
Cat turned to plead with Aunt Carmen, “Please talk some sense into Lavi, Auntie! This party is important!”
Aunt Carmen didn’t seem to hear her as she set the cat down in the sink and began to fuss over the potted fern. Out from its soil she pulled out a zip lock bag of spaghetti noodles.
“Aunt Carmen, those belong in the pantry,” I sighed as I took them from her and began to pour water into a pot. “Cat, I’m going to make lasagna, you can work on putting something together for a dessert. Aunt Carmen, can you go get some greens for a salad?”
Cat stomped out of the kitchen. “UGH! THIS IS SO UNFAIR!”
I pulled the cat out of the sink and began to rinse the lima beans in a strainer. Aunt Carmen picked up a few cats as helpers with her to the greenhouse. I started thinking about a stew or something to serve after the salad. As I zoned out on the lima beans, I saw the future of one of them. It would make its way into James’ mouth. In the vision, I saw James smile and how black his eyes were.
I shook the vision out of my head and removed the ground beef from its plastic bag.
A gong rang somewhere from within the house.
“I’ll answer it!” Aunt Carmen volunteered. I hurriedly set the silverware on the table and rushed to get the salad plates on.
“Cat! Get the salad in here!”
“Whatever,” she sulked, dragging her feet. Three cats strutted behind her.
“I thought I told you to make sure they were all upstairs!” I grabbed the cats (one of which was a kicker), ran up the stairs and locked them in the study, where their comrades struggled to escape. As I was about to descend the stairs, I made sure my hair was presentable at the hallway mirror. My thick brown hair was as hopelessly frizzy as ever, but I made sure to get the occasional twigs out.
When I got down the stairs, I saw that Aunt Carmen was busy making our guests uncomfortable with her crazy green eyes and that Vahn was helping himself to the sherry in the living room. I corked the bottle.
“Lavi, this is my father.” James smiled warmly and gestured to the man with a thick brown mustache that had curled up into a smile.
“Call me George,” he said, shaking my hand. James. George. Talk about cookie cutter names.
I put my best face on, “Thank you all for coming! The dining room is this way!” I led them to where Cat was sitting with her arms crossed and her head down. Upon seeing a fellow teenager, she shot up self-consciously.
After more introductions, we settled down to Caesar salad.
“From where do you hail?” asked Aunt Carmen.
“Denver, Colorado,” George answered between bites. “I was an accountant but after getting a promotion and an opportunity to work from home, I decided to take James and me out to California. Since James plans to go to a UC something or another, I thought it would probably we better this way, so we wouldn’t have to pay for out of state tuition. And I’ve grown up by the ocean, so I thought it would be nice to return to it.”
“Why did you decided to open a music store?” asked Cat.
“Well my father had owned one out in Denver and died two years ago. I had a mess of instruments in my possession. As we were preparing to move out here, it dawned on me to open a shop! And things seem to have fallen into place.”
George talked about their old life in Colorado and gave anecdotes on their move over here through salad, soup, and the lasagna. We decided to take our cups of quick tiramisu into the living room and relax there. A half an hour into it, Aunt Carmen decided to call it a night and Cat also left to sulk in her room.
“Lavi, may I use your bathroom?” George asked, setting his cup on the coffee table.
“Oh, yes! It’s upstairs, the second door on the left.” As he trotted up the stairs, that left me, James, and Vahn (who was flavoring his tiramisu with sherry) alone in the living room. James scooted closer to me on the sofa.
“After I left the store, some girls from your school told me that you and your aunt were witches.”
“They’re wrong.”
He laughed, “I thought as much.” He paused, “Well, I don’t think you are a witch. Your aunt might be.”
It was my turn to laugh. Aunt Carmen hasn’t practiced magic since she lost her wits. “I assure you, she isn’t a witch now.”
Vahn plopped himself between us. “Lavi is a fortune teller, though.” How I hate this man.
James frowned. “Really? What do you mean? She reads palms?”
“No, she stares into the depths of your soul and sees what your future holds! That’s why I hired her. She runs a little station for five dollars a fortune. Very popular with the teen girls. A real gold mine on tourist seasons.”
James stared at me wide-eyed. I wasn’t about to admit anything, “I’ll have to plead the fifth on this one.”
He smiled. “Well, can you read my fortune?” Vahn clumsily got up from between us and took a seat on the coffee table to watch us.
I shifted myself towards him and handed our cups to Vahn. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I took his left hand with my right and entwined my fingers with his. His hands were nice and large and pleasantly warm, making my heart beat a little faster. I then lifted my chin to peer into his black eyes with my own steel gray ones. They were like bottomless pits and I saw how open he was with his soul. I searched through them and tried to find something worth telling him. As I dug deeper, I saw something that made me gasp.
He was in a place that I couldn’t recognize. Before him stood a ghost or demon, I couldn’t tell. It leaned over and entered its hand into James’s chest cavity. James face became blank as the spirit began to enter him as one would put on a coat.
I pulled my hand from his. He looked shocked and opened his mouth to say something when we heard a yell from upstairs. We all ran up the stairs and found George had fallen on the floor, covered in cats.
“I heard scratching noises and opened the door to see what it was when all these cats came flooding through!”
I bent down to pull cats off of him and help him to his feet. “Sorry about that, they get restless when they’re altogether in one room for too long.”
There were apologies from both sides and soon after George announced that it was getting a little late. They said their good byes as they walked out the door, James stayed behind a bit and pulled me aside.
“What did you see?”
I couldn’t tell him what I saw. What is written in their souls is inevitable and telling someone, “You’re going to be possessed,” isn’t exactly nice. “I didn’t see anything,” I lied.
He frowned. “The look in your eyes said you did see something.”
“I didn’t,” I reassured him. “It seems that our paths are closely connected. People like me cannot see what you already know or what will be a product of our own involvement. There were many holes in your timeline.”
“So you did see something.”
I racked my brain for some insignificant detail. “You’re going to have a meatball and cheese sandwich for lunch one day at school.”
“When?”
“I couldn’t tell you that if I wanted to.”
He gave me this smile that made my heart skip a beat. He began to walk backward on the dirt path. “So I’ll be seeing you around then?”
“It’s fated.” His smile grew bigger.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
After they drove off in George’s pick up, I shut the heavy front door behind me. I leaned on it for a while, thinking of James’s smile and those nice warm hands of his.
The hand entering his chest flashed in my mind. I shuddered and headed up the stairs to my room on the third floor. Perhaps there’s something about possession in Aunt Carmen’s books? I resolved to look into it in the morning.
I changed into a white night gown and crawled into bed. That night, I had a dream that Cat had grown whiskers.
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