It was my Mom. She died about a year ago. Totally unexpected. It really threw me. I went into this shell. A nice warm safe shell. But lately I've been thinking. It's not what she would have wanted for me. So…. [...] Look, you guys are probably crazy, but if you're right about this? Well me and my Dad sold that painting that might got these people killed. I'm not saying I'm not scared, because I am scared as hell but… I'm not going to run and hide either.
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Sarah Blake/Bela Talbot. One of them's a catgirl. You're interested?? Read it!! Sarah's a really fun POV to write!
For the Suptober prompts Black Cat and Portrait. Below is the opening:
Sarah Blake looks at the paper-covered painting she'd spent the past three weeks searching for, a glass of wine half-drunk in her hand. The painting is propped against the fireplace, and it looms, as portraits tend to. B, the little black cat that had followed her home from the auction house - the same day as when she got the commission, now she comes to think of it - sits upright next to her legs on the couch, ears twitching away from her fingers whenever she tried to stroke her.
That's unusual, for this cat. Typically, she'd sprawl out over any available surface, mewl for attention until she got head scratches, and purr contentedly any time Sarah put her hands on her. Now she was stiff, tense.
The only time Sarah had seen her like that before was when she'd tried to put a collar on her¹, and she'd ended up scratched and bitten so badly she'd had to go to the ER. When she got back, B wouldn't look at her, but kept following her from room to room, hissing if Sarah turned her face to her. Sarah, feeling incredibly guilty, had apologised out loud and showed B that she put the collar in the garbage, only realising after she'd done it that of course a cat wouldn't know what any of that meant.
Strangely, though, it seemed to work. B had come back purring as soon as the lid closed over the trash. She even licked the bandage over Sarah's cuts, and pushed her head into her hand.
B's a pretty funny cat overall. She has this unimpressed stare she levels at Sarah for such uncouth behaviour as 'bouncing a toy near her' and 'putting out cat food'². She gave a token grumble whenever Sarah scooped her up like a baby, but would dig her claws in if Sarah tried to put her down again before she was ready. She hops onto the counter when Sarah brings her research home (which is more often than she probably should, but hell, what else has she got to do on a Friday night?) and stares at the papers like she's reading them. More than once, B had put her paw on just the information Sarah had been looking for just after Sarah remarked on how she needed it³.
"My good luck girl," Sarah had praised, and kissed B's furry little head. B's hackles had gone up from the smooch, but then she seemed to calm herself deliberately, and she flopped over the papers like she'd lost all her bones in a fit of lazy decadence.
In the present, Sarah swirls her wine and surveys the hidden painting.
"What do you think is wrong with it, B?"
She's supposed to burn it. That's what the note said, which she'd found in an envelope taped to the back of the Picasso she'd just purchased. The note had been written in wobbly scratches of biro, addressed directly to her. It was lucky she was adept at reading awful handwriting - in the archiving business, it's essential - because the script was only barely legible. There had been $32,000 dollars in the envelope too.
The flat out work of the last few weeks had been for the money and the chance at more, she wasn't going to deny that, but part of it was her overactive curiosity.
What's wrong with it? Ava's first thought had been haunting. She'd waved her EMF machine at it half heartedly after the delivery guy left, but the needles stayed dissatisfyingly still. She'd bought the thing on Amazon when a friend mentioned cold spots, but it turned out they'd just had a fault in their double glazing⁴. She hasn't heard from them in a while, not directly, but from her Facebook feed she knows that they haven't been murdered in their bed by a malevolent spirit so far. Which is good! Just, well, a little disappointing, is all...
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¹ The collar was baby pink, and had a little bell on the end.
² Sarah's never seen her eat it, but it always disappears by morning.
³ So, she talks to her cat, so what? Before B, she'd talk through her process with her toaster.
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