RT Shorts: The Mysterious Case of the Cat in the..

Jimmy bolted upright in complete darkness.

The bed was empty. This was nothing new. His unfortunate habit of complaining to Seth “Blabbermouth” Crey about the little irritations of his life meant that the newly crowned king made it impossible for his butler to keep a long term relationship with anyone, even his mother.

However, he’d felt a rustle in the covers beside him. Probably wishful thinking, he thought sourly, settling back into the covers with a sigh.

A moment of silence occurred.

“Mew.”

“AAAHH!!”

Something fluffy had squirmed up his shirt and he nearly bolted from the bed and set his shirt on fire trying to light a candle. Two green eyes peered at him from within his collar and mewed again.

He grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck and yanked it out roughly. It gazed at him mournfully and pawed at his face feebly in an attempt to inspire release.

He swallowed carefully. A supernatural intuition he’d inherited from his mother prodded at the back of his mind and a fear peeled off: black cats are bad luck.

He snorted derisively. This was his mother he was thinking about – his mother, who thought that putting on a pair of trousers inside out first thing in the morning meant your dog would die, or that if a bird came into the house, there would be a death in the family. No chance of that, he thought reproachfully. He hadn’t seen a bird of any description come near him since he began working with the infamous Prince Crey, and he doubted he ever would until his retirement at least.

He carried the cat to the front door and placed it outside, closing the door behind him. With a tired sigh, he went back to bed.

“Mew.”

“AAAAAHHHHH!!”

This time he really did leap out of the bed. The cat had returned, once again making a home within the confines of Jimmy’s shirt. He tugged it out and examined it, turning his gaze then to the door.

It was open a crack.

Failing to remember if he had closed it properly, he took it outside again and ushered it halfway down the hall with the sole of his foot. Returning to the warm confines of his bed, he managed to doze off again.

“Mew.”

“HOLY—”

He threw the cat out of the door and slammed it shut.

He dropped off completely and dreamed of his former girlfriend, with the blonde hair that was perfect except for the fact she kept putting the washing into the wrong shelves of the wardrobe. She turned into a black cat and crawled up his shirt to claw his chest off before he fell off a cliff and landed on the floor of his bedroom.

“Mew.”

The cat was back up his shirt.

He opened the door wide, threw the cat into the air and kicked it out of the door, sending it screeching in the direction of the spiral staircase. He dusted his hands off and closed the door firmly behind him, placing a chair in front of it as an afterthought.

He crawled back beneath the covers and threw the pillow over his head.

Only for it to explode in his face.

He screamed in fear and bemusement as a beak drove into his head and face over and over again. He escaped from the attack and collapsed into the corner of the room to stare at his oppressor.

It was a magpie, standing imperiously on his bed and glaring at him with a hideously evil expression. The pillow lay in pieces on the bed behind it, feathers strewn everywhere...

Magpie feathers.

If a bird comes into the house, his mother’s voice informed him internally, there will be a death in the family. If it comes into your bedroom, she added as an afterthought, there will be a death in your bedroom, but that never happens unless your pillow is stuffed with its friends'—

He fled from the room, pursued by the magpie. He stumbled on the first step of the spiral staircase and tumbled halfway down before grabbing onto the rail alongside him.

The black cat sat in front of him nonchalantly, licking its shoulder as the magpie descended. “Should have let me in to kill him,” he said haughtily as the magpie descended upon Jimmy’s eyes.