Excerpt: Familiar

By the time Shoo came around later that night Sarah had all but forgotten their earlier conversation.

Her mother’s strange fascination with cute and cuddly animals meant that Shoo usually spent the evenings at home in Samantha Graves’ lap, purring incessantly as Sarah’s mother kept petting him. Sarah loved when her mother swooped Shoo up in her arms and brought the cat with her back to the den. It gave her some time alone to finish any homework she had to do (sometimes) and work on some of her drawings (more often than not).

But, no matter how much he loved the feel of Samantha’s manicured fingers scratching behind his ears, Shoo always padded his way upstairs to Sarah’s bedroom to fall asleep. He insisted that, as her familiar, it was part of his duty to stay with her when she was at her most vulnerable, her most unprotected. Sarah suspected it was more because he didn’t want to have to sleep alone himself; that, and he liked to curl up at the end of her bed to sleep.

After that first night, when he sat outside he room she was in and yowled, Sarah let him stay in her room on the one condition that he slept in the fluffy white cat bed her mother bought him from the pet store.

She’d lost track of how many times already she caught him snoozing on her bed—or worse, her pillows.

That night Sarah decided to turn in earlier than normal. It wasn’t a conscious decision on her part; she wasn’t trying to avoid him or a discussion that Shoo might want to have. She was tired and, after washing up and turning down her bed, Sarah was interested in climbing under her cozy covers, switching her lamp off and just drifting off into dreamland.

Shoo, on the other hand—paw—had a different idea.

The cat seemed to know the exact moment when Sarah was getting ready to close her eyes; with the slight jingle of the bell on the collar that Sarah’s mother insisted her wear, she heard him trying to enter her room quietly. She closed her eyes at once, pretending to snore.

He wasn’t fooled. Then again, she also hadn’t turned her light off, either.

“Sarah, are you sleeping?”

She didn’t open her eyes yet. “I was just about to,” she whispered back. Not only was her light on, but the door was wide open. Her mother had ears that could pick up the sound of a glass spilling from across the house. It had been a miracle that Samantha hadn’t heard Sarah’s one-sided conversation with the cat yet. She wanted to keep it that way.

“Oh.” There was a pregnant pause, so heavy that she could hear both his disappointment and his intentions in it. “Good night, then.”

Groaning, Sarah gave up on pretending. She fluttered her eyelids and left them open. “I’m up,” she announced before sitting up in her bed. “What did you need?”

“I’ve been thinking,” he began, and Sarah snorted. Then, acting as if he hadn’t heard her, he added, “I’ve been thinking about what I said earlier. Perhaps I should explain. I mean, there’s only so much I can say, and only so much I can do to make you believe me but…”

“But?”

“But you have to understand. I’m not lying to you, Sarah, and I really am trying to help you.”

Sarah chuckled under her breath. “So it’s time now?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Outside, you said it wasn’t time yet. It’s time now?”

“You could say so,” Shoo said, lowering himself so that he was lying on the floor. He didn’t lift his head, choosing to keep his vivid green eyes on the hem of her comforter rather than meeting Sarah’s humor-filled gaze. For all the seriousness he was trying to portray, Sarah couldn’t help but think it was all one big elaborate joke. Until Shoo spoke again and she began to wonder if maybe the joke was on her: “You see, I haven’t been completely honest with you, Sarah, about my... about my duty.”

“I knew it!” she cried, aware that her voice would carry and not really caring at that moment. “You are one of Shane’s toys, aren’t you? Probably a video camera or something, ready to show the world how stupid I was to believe in talking cats and witches and all that mumbo jumbo you tried to feed me.” She leaned back against her pillows, smacking herself in the forehead with the palm of her hand. “God, I was such an idiot to believe you!”

“No, Sarah, no,” Shoo said hurriedly, rising up and rearing back. With one graceful leap he landed on Sarah’s bed. It was imperative that he convince her that everything he told her up until that point was true; there was no time for her to regress back. He had thought he had gotten off easy, the way Sarah had so readily agreed to everything he said in the beginning—but what good would it have done if she changed her mind and went back to pretending he didn’t exist? “Never think like that! You are as much a witch as I am your familiar. No, that’s not what I meant at all. What I accidentally misled you about was not being a witch, it was Halo.”

“Halo?” she asked, lowering her voice. There was something about the way Shoo said the name—if it was a name—that called for it being whispered, almost like it was a name that belonged to someone with the ability to come when called, like Beetlejuice. Sarah shuddered, an involuntary reaction to something she couldn’t quite describe. “Who’s Halo?”

“Halo’s the demon,” Shoo answered, picking and choosing his words carefully.

“The what?”

“The demon.”

“Halo, like fancy angel hat halo, is a demon? Why doesn’t that sound right?” Sarah closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. She thought it couldn’t get any weirder when Shoo was following her all over the place, and then he had started talking; she thought it couldn’t get any weirder that she was a witch, and now the talking cat was talking about demons. Of course.

“Halo,” Shoo explained, keeping his voice just as low as Sarah’s, “isn’t just a demon. He’s the demon who’s been after your line since it first began. I’m sorry, Sarah, but I should’ve told you about him earlier. It won’t be that much longer until he comes for you, and we must be ready for him.” The cat shook his head sadly, then settled down so that he was lying at the foot of her bed. “And then I think of that boy and I wonder if he’s already here.”