slept all day. As the week progressed, I grew inexplicably more despondent, ignoring my office altogether. Although what I was doing would only make matters worse, I could not seem to help myself. By the fifth night, as I fumbled to open my front door, I felt angry. I don’t know how long that emotion had been lurking in my psyche, but by the time I turned the key in the lock, I was more furious than ever.
“What the hell is happening?” I yelled out to no one in particular. I lived alone and had no pets, so I was unconcerned that anyone would hear me. I threw my purse on the floor and stomped into the kitchen. As I stormed through the doorway, I caught my elbow sharply on the frame. Crying out in pain, I slumped to the floor sobbing as I cradled my injured arm.
I was angry that I had bumped my arm. I was angry that I was behaving like my mother, staying drunk for a week to avoid what was bothering me. Then, my thoughts drifted back to what I had been avoiding all week: Stoner Halbert. I had to return to work and face my clients. I had to work with him. I could feel the unmistakable sensation of someone gaining on me, and I feared soon I would have no business to go back to.
“What did I do to deserve this?” I cried out again into the emptiness of my kitchen. “What I am I supposed to do?”
Still holding my arm. I slid across the floor and propped myself against one of the cabinets. As I sat on the floor of my kitchen crying, the image of the black cat from my dreams popped into my head.
“Why don’t you tell me what you want?” I murmured, my head resting against the cabinet, my eyes closed. “Please, speak to me.”
Not long after I said those words, I fell asleep on the kitchen floor.
****
CHAPTER 5
When I awoke the next morning, I felt very cold. Then I realized that I was not in bed. Had I somehow failed to make it home? Slowly, I began to remember the details of the previous evening and I opened one eye. I was sprawled out on the floor of my kitchen. My body was stiff from sleeping on the hard stone floor, and I was chilled to the bone, having slept without the benefit of a coat or blanket. I was about to get up when I heard a voice speak to me.
“Let me help you up,” the woman said, her speech revealing a hint of a foreign accent I could not place.
“Lily?” I asked aloud, thinking I was too hung-over to recognize my friend’s voice. Maybe I had let her in last night, or maybe I had called her and she had used her key. Either way I was glad that she was there.
“It’s not Lily,” the voice said. “Open your eyes, Olivia.”
I did as I was told and promptly let out a scream as my eyes focused on the figure standing in my kitchen. It was not Lily. I had never seen this woman before.
“Who are you and how did you get into my house?” I asked, wondering if I had managed to leave the door open. Maybe some deranged person had walked in off the street. I did live in a city, after all. I began calculating how quickly I could get to the phone and call the police. But as I glanced at her more closely, I saw that she didn’t look homeless. She seemed about my age and was tall, slightly more so than Lily. She also had long black hair, but it seemed almost darker than black, like the color of a raven’s wing, or say, maybe, a panther. She was wearing skintight leather pants and a dark sweater. The fingers on her hands were long and slender and adorned with several silver rings. She wore a small silver hoop through one of her eyebrows, which framed green eyes that almost glowed like a cat’s. I was beginning to see a pattern that unnerved me.
“Are you the panther?” I asked, shocked at the absurdity of my question.
The woman nodded. “You did invite me here, Olivia. You asked me to come and tell you what I had to say.”
Too stunned for words, I began to question whether I was losing my mind. All this time I had worried my mother would be the one