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“My name’s not Fluffy,” the cat said, then hopped off the coffee table and onto the sofa beside me. “So don’t call me that anymore.”
“Wh-wh-what?” I sputtered, rubbing my eyes until I saw stars. “I’m seeing things. This isn’t real.”
Fluffy clucked his little sandpaper tongue. “You meant to say you’re hearing things, and no, you’re not. I’m talking to you, Gracie.”
I jumped off the couch and spun wildly around the living room. “Come out, come out wherever you are!” I shouted with a mad laugh, not really sure who I was confronting here. “The joke’s up. Haha, you actually had me convinced Fluffy was talking. Yup, I’m crazy! You win! Now come out and fess up!”
Fluffy let out an enormous yawn, then settled down with his paws tucked into himself. “You are most definitely acting crazy. Also I already told you my name’s not Fluffy, so will you please stop calling me that?”
I gasped, then sunk to the floor before I could pass out and crash down onto it. “This is not real. This is not real,” I murmured, acting quite similarly to how Kelley had when she was balled up and rocking in that club chair back at the coffee shop.
“What’s not real?” Fluffy asked, jumping off the sofa and striding over to me.
“You can’t talk.”
“I can talk, but it seems you’re not very good at listening.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“Of course I’m not going to hurt you. I need you to feed me, don’t I? Silly human.”
“What do you want from me?”
“The aforementioned food and also for you to stop calling me Fluffy. I much prefer the name given to me by my ancestors, thank you.”
“Um… Okay. What should I call you?”
“The name’s Merlin, and I come from a long and noble lineage of wizards dating all the way back to King Arthur.”
“You’re magic?” I asked with a quick breath in.
“Duh,” my cat spat, and then I officially passed out.
4
Night had already fallen by the time I regained consciousness. I’d like to say that I experienced a few blissful moments of ignorance as to the day’s events, but that’s not what happened.
First one eye squinted open… and I remembered my boss had died right in front of me and that I was a suspect in his possible murder.
And when my other eye popped open… I remembered my cat could talk and also claimed to have descended from wizards.
Ugh. I just wanted to go back to sleep and wake up when this was all over. Was it too late to drop out of school and move far, far away from this place?
Well, I was awake now, and I had to do something. I had no idea what to do about my cat, and I felt uneasy being home alone with him here in my dark house, so I decided to drive to the coffeehouse and see if I could find something that would prove my innocence.
Thankfully, I had a key from the many times I’d been forced to work both opening and closing shifts. I parked at the other end of the strip mall out of some small sense of self-preservation, then crept toward Harold’s House of Coffee and let myself in.
A shiver wracked through me as I used my cell phone’s flashlight to guide my steps toward the tiny back office. I probably shouldn’t have been there, but I definitely shouldn’t have been blamed for a crime I didn’t commit. Maybe Harold’s paperwork would reveal a secret mistress or embittered rival. I thumbed through stack after stack of timesheets, noting that despite having less seniority Kelley earned more per hour than I did.
And that jerk Harold had told me minimum wage was the best he could do! I continued flipping through the records of money in and money out, finding no alarming departures from the standard totals week after week. I was just about to move my attention away from the desk and toward the filing cabinet when a clack-clacking sounded just outside the office door.
I froze in place and willed my galloping heartbeat to settle.
“Please be a rat. Please be a rat,” I whispered to myself when I realized it would be impossible to hide from an intruder, then grabbed the biggest, most solid object I could find—a stapler—and crept out of the office.
“You’re about as stealthy as a one-winged bird,” a deep, vaguely familiar voice said from the shadows.
And then Fluffy—I mean, Merlin—stepped forward, his pale green eyes giving off an eerie otherworldly glow.
