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I - Dillon

I was fighting a losing battle with myself.

The rational part of me was calm, collected and oh-so-convincing, telling me exactly what I wanted to believe. There's no such thing as ghosts, you mouse-brain - you're way too old to believe in nonsense like that. You've been imagining things. It was at least partly a dream, and now you're awake again you can forget it and carry on like nothing has happened. Because nothing has happened.

Those were the thoughts that had been running through my head since the full moon two nights ago, a steady, comforting stream of common sense. But common sense hadn't stopped me from avoiding the crumbling, white-painted Twoleg house like it was infectious. It hadn't stopped me from running in the other direction every time a hauntingly familiar silhouette caught my eye, or from leaving town that morning, making my second fresh start in half a moon.

Because another part of me, a deeper, truer part of me, knew that something had happened that night, something I could never begin to understand. There was no easy, logical reason why I'd been warned away from the abandoned dwelling so many times; there was no reason, either, why I'd felt compelled to ignore the warnings and tried to spend the night there anyway. There was certainly no reason for what had happened that night, for what I'd seen…

But it had happened, I was certain. Even the most polished logic can't win out against the truth.

II - Shadepetal

I was fading in and out, like one of those old twoleg lights they hang outside their dens.

I was like dry leaves, blowing in the wind. I didn't feel the pain, only the loneliness.

I stood on a crumpled box, staring through the glass over the hole in the twoleg’s den wall. I had started to do this ever since I had caught a glimpse of a tom outside, in the weed-covered excuse for a garden, looking up at me.

He had run off that first time, I thought he had only been a little braver then most, brave enough to come into the garden, and he would never be back again.

But the next time I looked through the glass, he was looking up at the old house again.

I paused for a moment, looking back, wondering why he had returned. Surely, he had heard the warnings. I shook my head, pushing my concern for the tom out of my head; he did not matter. If he wanted to stare, it was up to him, he could throw away his life at his choosing.

But I could not help throwing him another glance as I walked away.

Over the next few weeks, I started to give myself little excuses to look out onto the garden, some part of me hoping to see him again. Something fluttered in my chest each time I did.

Was this it? Was this finally it? Was he the cat who would brave all the odds to-?

I cut off that thought; it was useless. No cat could help me, not even a curious tom that had ignored the warnings, all he could do was learn the dangers or die because of them. But a small part of me thought: Or, he could succeed.

The house felt hollow, old, and moldering. It was empty of the hope I had first felt when I came here, oh so many years ago. It had started out with me thinking it would be only a day or two; my family would come and save me.

My family died some years later, I knew because their ghosts were here, in my head and my heavy soul, weighing me down with our combined crimes.

Deserter…

Traitor…

Heartbreaker…

Murderer!…


III - Dillon

The night of the full moon, three days after I tried to enter the house and failed - I preferred to use the word 'failed' rather than 'bottled out' - I crept down the semi-deserted street just after sunfall. I say crept; actually, I just kind of strolled along to the peeling wooden gate, then slipped in. Nobody noticed, that was what made it scarier.

I'd been warned away from the house so many times since arriving in that part of Twolegplace a quarter-moon ago: by a 'friendly' loner who clearly devoted his time to scaring newcomers; by the painfully skinny grey she-cat I'd met while scavenging for food; by the gaggle of kits I'd spotted playing beside the Thunderpath. But I was braver than a bunch of ghost stories. Tonight was meant to prove that.

Pushing through clumps of shoulder-height grass and drifts of rusty fallen leaves, I approached the smashed, dusty window that I'd discovered last time. In the growing darkness, every crumbling brick and warped plank looked sinister. It was my last chance to turn back, and I don't deny I was tempted.

Instead, I took a deep breath, and leapt up to the windowsill. Behind me, the chill breeze tossed the leaves into a frantic, whirling, endless dance.

Never one for superstition, I didn't stop to watch.

Inside, the bottom floor of the house was entirely deserted. I didn't know much about Twoleg homes - it had been a long, long time since I was last a kittypet - but even I could see that this one wasn't fit to live in. Rats had got in and left scratch marks and foul-smelling droppings. Dirty rainwater puddled over the rottting floorboards. Somebody had left a long brown streak of dried blood along one wall.

I settled down to sleep regardless.

What happened next - well, I want to explain it away as a dream.

I think an elderly tomcat climbed in through the window where I'd entered - scruffy and ginger, with mad, staring eyes. "Wait 'til Petal comes."

He walked away, deeper into the house. I didn't follow.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to know who or what Petal was.

I was almost asleep again when: "Wait 'til Petal comes." In the same low, hoarse voice, but he'd been joined by another tom, whose tones echoed hollowly. They spoke in exact unison.

A shiver ran down my spine, cold and sharp as ice, and I didn't dare lift my head to look.

Go away go away go away…

"Are you listening? Wait 'til Petal comes, or you'll regret it." Both of them with identical threat in their voices.

Go away!

I think they went, but I'm not sure; I was kept awake for hours by creaks and thuds that I feared were pawsteps. I didn't recognise the tom I'd seen, and I'd never once spotted any cat leaving or entering the house. So what were they doing here?

I don't know why I didn't leave right then, as quickly as possible. I should've, probably.

But I waited. I waited for Petal to come.

IV - Shadepetal

Wait till Petal comes...

Those words rang in my head like a songbird's call. It had been years since I had been called by any other name. I wondered if it was the tom who had come back, it seemed unlikely after the last time.

But what if it was?

Would I be lying if I sad my hopes had started to grow?

Whoever it was had outlasted both of my brothers and all the warnings of the town cats. But would they outlast the last test? I sighed as I prepared.

The last test, the one that would decide both of our fates.

The hallway I walked was long, a set of stairs behind me reminding me at every glance backwards that I was on the first floor. Old plaster dust congregated in the corners, covering my paws in a fine layer of dust.

At the end of the hallway a old, half open door hung.

I hesitated, my pelt tingling. This was it. Now or never.

I didn't bother with the door, I simply stepped right through the wall.

As my transparent body flouted through the wall ghostly flames appeared all over my body. This was the first of my tests. The flames burn like real fire, making me cry out in pain. The form huddled inside the room spins around, still crouched on the ground. Through the haze of flames and pain I saw the scared eyes of the tom.

With each pawstep my mind fought me, You should be upstairs.

"I know," I gasped, taking another wavering step forward.

The tom shied away, but didn't run, whether he was to afraid to move or not was hard for me to tell.

You'll die if you stay down here, whispered the voice, continuing its constant stream of protest.

One more pawstep.

The house seemed to bend around me, responding to the pain and the fear. I was almost to the tom now, frozen stiff with terror.

"But it doesn't matter," I gasped to the voice, mustering one more faltering pawstep. And the flames cleared and the house stopped twisting, but I continued, my voice a gasp, blackness at the edge of my vision.

"Because I'm Shadepetal, and I'm already dead."

V - Dillon

I watched the she-cat - Petal, it had to be Petal - approach, flinching at something I couldn't see, talking to something I couldn't hear. I wanted to run, I wanted to run, I wanted to run but I couldn't; I was too scared to move.

I heard her voice through the fog of terror that filled my mind "...And I'm already dead. So you can't hurt me!"

"I-I'm not going to hurt you," I stammered. "What do you want from me?"

Her eyes burned, like twin fires. "You know. You have to save me."

"How?"

"Stay here. Stay here for a year and a day. You'll be safe, I'll be safe, and in the end we'll both be free."

Her words, her desperation struck a chord somewhere within me. For a moment, I could see the life she was promising: Only a year, one in ten or eleven, and at the end she would find peace from whatever was tormenting her. I could do that, right?

"Will you?" She looked so hopeful. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't stay in that house. If I didn't leave now, it would be in a day, a week, a moon, and the disappointment would only be worse.

Mutely, I shook my head.

"You can't - you don't understand!" I hated to hear the agony in her voice, the agony I was causing. "You don't know what it cost me to come here tonight! I've been waiting here for years, centuries - ever since my Clan cast me out. I didn't mean to do anything, but I've been paying for it all these years. You have to help me!"

"No, I don't," I was backing away, back towards the broken window I'd entered by. "I'm a coward, okay? I came here to prove I wasn't scared of a load of ghost stories, but I am, and I want out, okay?"

"What about me? Can't I want out? I've been here longer than you'll ever be, and if you don't help it'll be longer."

I averted my eyes. "I'm sorry. You'll find someone else."

I climbed back out through the window, and she didn't try to stop me.

This is probably obvious, but I never saw her again. I never went back to that house, back to the area. Not for years. I don't know whether someone else found her and saved her, or what. Maybe nobody ever came.

Years later, when I returned to the Twolegplace once more, I decided to visit the house for old time's sake. By then I had almost convinced myself that what had happened was a dream. But when I arrived, the house was cordoned off, and a Twoleg monster stood in the weed-filled garden, swinging at the walls with a cruel metal arm.

As the roof collapsed and sank, I could imagine her smile.