October Ninth

Moonlight spilled through the window. From somewhere out in the hall ticked the old grandfather clock. At this hour, the only creature stirring was a black cat, well into her ninth life. Her collar dubbed her "October," and the brightness of her white, sightless eye competed with the full Autumn moon outside.

Beside her in the bed, the frail child she guarded sighed in his sleep. She laid a paw across his brow, finding it cool beneath her paw-pads. For now, the sickly little boy was free of fever.

The wind wailed outside, and scraggly branches scraped against the window like skeletal fingers. Her boy stirred. October curled beside him, lulling him with raspy purrs. The child hugged her close.

The noise subsided, and everything was as still as before, but it was no longer silent. A new sound made October perk her ears. She watched the window creak open. A dark, shrouded figure splashed into the room like smoke. The cat bristled her spine at the sudden chill.

October was used to doctors visiting her boy. But this specter and his black cloak of flowing smoke was surely no doctor. It sat beside her boy, gently as if not to rouse him. When October hissed, it lifted a hand to her, letting her smell it. No scent.

It was then that the cat became aware that the clock in the hall had stopped ticking. It was as if time itself had stopped.

Something wasn't right.

She fixed her one working eye on the figure looming over her boy, recognizing it for what it was; the end of his short life.

The specter whispered, "The human must come with me now."

At that, October arched her back. "This boy is mine," she spat at the manifestation of Death. "I am his protector!"

"It is the way things must be," sighed the shrouded figure. There was no cruelty in its voice. Even October understood the inevitable nature of death.

All the same, she swatted at the specter.

"I have already killed hundreds of humans more significant than him in the past hour alone," it said. "The world will continue without him."

October hissed at that and stood over the sleeping boy who was her entire world. "Take another soul instead!"

"Whose?"

"Mine."

"It is not your time."

October, ribs showing beneath her sagging pelt, laughed at that. "I have lived a good nine lives, and I owe that to this boy. Aren't nine entire lives more significant than one?"

At that, the specter laughed and floated toward the open window. "Well then," it murmured. "Come with me."

She padded after Death, gingerly stepping over the crayon drawings of stick figures and black, one-eyed cats. From the windowsill, she cast one last look at her boy, still dreaming peacefully. "Don't worry," she meowed. "I'll keep watch over you still."

October followed Death into the night.

In the hall, the grandfather clock chimed, a morbid finality in the sound.