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Possibly, except I didn’t really have any neighbors. Oh, there were businesses to either side — a furniture store and an antique/junk shop — but Josie had told me that no one lived in the apartments above those stores, that the shop owners used them for storage.
Still, cats could range a good ways if they were in the mood.
I opened the door, and the cat immediately entered the bedroom, tail held high, walking as if he owned the place. Smiling a little, I watched as he strolled toward the doorway that opened onto the hall, then paused to rub up against the frame, getting in a good back scratch, marking it with his scent. Afterward, he continued toward the living room before he stopped in the middle of the chaos, eyes narrowing.
Was that catjudgingme?
I followed him, then paused, hands planted on my hips. “Hey, I just moved in,” I said. Back in the day, I’d always talked to Star like he was a person, and I saw no reason to change that behavior now. “It’ll be great when I’m done.”
Could a cat arch an eyebrow? His tail flicked from side to side, and then he said in bored tones, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
My eyes widened. Had that cat just talked to me?
No, I had to be imagining things. I’d been up since five that morning, wanting to get out of L.A. before the traffic turned truly hideous. I was just tired.
“I assure you, I am talking,” he went on, as if in response to the surprised look I must have been wearing. Definitely a male voice, too, slightly contemptuous, as if he just couldn’t be bothered with my incredulity. “My name is Archie. And you are?”
“S-selena Marx,” I stammered, wondering if the strain of the move had all been too much. Did you know you were having a psychotic break while you were having it?
“Hello, Selena,” he said. “I was hoping someone would move in here. It’s been quite dull loitering around here and depending on handouts.”
Since it seemed I was going to have a conversation with the cat, no matter how crazy such a prospect might have seemed, I figured I might as well roll with it. “This is your house?”
“I’ve made it my house,” Archie replied, which didn’t seem like much of an answer at all.
Probably better not to press him on it. “Do you talk to anyone else?”
“No one else in this town is a witch,” he said. “Therefore, I can’t talk to them.”
He made his situation sound so plausible. Maybe it was.
“Good to know,” I said lightly. “So…why can you talk to witches? Because I used to have a cat, and I know for a fact that he never talked to me, as much as I might have wanted him to.”
“Because I’m notreallya cat,” Archie responded, now sounding slightly irritated. “I was cursed to be a cat. And let me tell you — spending your days scrounging out of garbage cans and licking your own rear end is definitely a curse.”
Somehow, I managed to clamp my lips shut before a snicker could escape them. “I suppose I can see that,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “So, you used to be human?”
“I’m still humaninside,” he returned pointedly. “I just look like a cat.”
Of course. Then again, I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of having a human man trapped inside a cat’s body hanging around my new house. The situation could be awkward, to say the least.
The Goddess only knows what my face looked like right then. My expression must have shifted, because Archie went on, now sounding downright irritated, “I certainly would have no designs on your person even if I were still in my human form. My interests lie elsewhere.”
“You’re gay?” I asked, figuring that would be just about par for the course. Naturally, I’d end up someplace haunted by a cat that used to be a gay man.
“I am asexual,” he said primly. “Not that we had such a name for it back in the day. I only knew that I wasn’t interested in anyone…which is why I ended up in this ridiculous predicament. The witch who put this curse on me didn’t want to believe I couldn’t be enticed by her charms.”
That must have been a hell of a curse. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I would have believed such a thing was possible…except that I was standing in the middle of my new living room, having a conversation with a cat.
“What happened to the witch?” I honestly did want to know, because everything I’d read and every belief I held dear about the craft dictated that casting curses was a very bad idea, that whatever evil you put out into the world would come back to you threefold.
“She was run over by a Packard,” Archie replied, then added before I could comment, “I have been a cat for averylong time.”
Apparently. When was the last time people regularly drove Packards? Long before either I or my mother was born, that’s for sure…and probably before even my grandmother was born.
But the curse-casting witch’s fate seemed to tell me that my beliefs about casting hexes were valid. At the same time, I had to feel sorry for poor Archie, consigned to an animal’s body for decades and decades.
“Well, you’re certainly welcome here,” I said, knowing I wasn’t going to cast him out into the cold, even if I had never planned on having a talking cat as a companion. The poor guy needed shelter, a place he could call his own. “But I suppose that means I’ll have to go out and get you some supplies. I don’t have a litter box or anything.”
