I slept most of the night in the woods at the edge of marshes, cuddled up in a pile of tired friends. Montadie dreamed alongside us, her bulk an enormous windbreaker against the chill of the air and our nightmares. We all needed to cultivate away our hurts, as much as we could, and process the events of the evening. It was nice to do it together. Also I was too tired to walk anywhere else.

  All of us had more wounds than we had initially realised. Especially me and Moeee, but we had been fighting the longest and bore our hurts proudly. Montadie’s skin was alarming to look at, with deep gouges and lacerations where the rat-king’s corrupted qi had eaten away at it. Montadie assured us she had seen much worse, before falling into a deep slumber, her body gleaming silver as the moon qi flowed through her.

  Our sleep was untroubled by the shades of For-Molsnian, or anyone else. I was content, considering the dark times over, because I was young and still inexperienced. I thought that things would return to normal now. Yes, there might be fewer humans around, but that was alright. Two-leggers were overrated. Then I remembered that Thimble had lost his family in the massacre, and was a little sad for him. My brother was a strong cat though. After a suitable period of mourning I thought, perhaps he would find another family to watch over, and then all would be well.

  Upon waking in the pre-dawn light, I extracted myself from the pile of yawning friends, removed Moon-sap’s slimy jade-green foot from my neck, and went to speak to Montadie who was now awake, and looking slightly less worse for wear.

  “Thank you,” I said, solemnly, bowing my head before the great toad. Her giant eyes looked down at me and she snorted, gently.

  “Well, I won’t say it was a pleasure,” she said, “but I could not sleep easy knowing he was here. Of course…Hmmm.”

  “Will you stay?” I asked hopefully. “Will you move the sect back?”

  Montadie flared her enormous nostrils, air huffing in and out in great gusts.

  I knew she was smelling the scent of rot and death that still permeated the forest. I could smell it too, hanging in the air, mixing with the usual autumn smells in a way that was most uncharming.

  “For now,” Montadie said. “I will return to my glade here but…I do not think I will make the return permanent. There are events occurring here that we should have no part in Jenkins. I do not like interfering with the affairs of two-leggers and…this business is likely to escalate. I foresee a return to my moorland home in the near future. I advise, as I have done once before, that you remove yourself also.”

  “But now that the necromancer and the demonic rats are dead surely all will return to normal?” asked Wuot brightly. The goose arrived at my side, and looked up at our teacher questioningly. “Well... as normal as possible, given the village.”

  Montadie looked out over the marsh.

  We all turned our heads and looked with her - out over the battlefield of the night before. The place was trampled and burned, but that was all the evidence of the drama that had played out. No bodies remained to be dealt with. All the rat corpses had gone, absorbed into For-Molsnian’s shade. The demonic cores, immune to fire, we had buried.

  “There is still something wrong with the land,” Montadie said. “I can smell it. The Old God has claimed this place for his own. He walks here now. Perhaps I am wrong, and the stench is just lingering darkness, perhaps all will be well but…I suspect the necromancer awakened an abomination. It will make itself known soon enough.

  “As for his highness, I do not think he left peacefully.” Montadie frowned. “Demonic cultivators are slippery to deal with. Stay alert, my students. I know my words are dark and not what you want to hear. I hope I am wrong, but it is better to be prepared.”

  After some words with Wuot and Moeee, I bid the rest farewell. On my way home I stopped off by my stagnant pond friend to thank the spirit that dwelled there, and to try and extract the noxious qi that remained. The pond water might be stagnant, and quite gross smelling to my nose but the spirit assured me that its usual smell was quite desirable, and not in the slightest bit enhanced by the scent of rotting rat.

  I removed what I could. It took a vexingly long time and was difficult. I promised to return to check that it would stay clean. Likewise the core burial spots would need to be watched. They made me uneasy, but while they could not be burned we could think of no other solutions. If the Murder-Man was still alive I might have put them under his bed but alas, he was feeding my Maud’s roses.

  I set off home, skipping a little as I went, pleased with my mighty victory, despite Montadie’s dour warnings. I had beaten the rats! Sure, Montadie had helped a little - quite a bit I suppose - but the rats were gone! And I had only one more meridian to go till I broke through to the next realm…Lives to spare!

  What would the heavens have in store for my next tribulation? My initiation into the Dreamchaser realm…

  Lost in my happy daydreams it did not take long for me to get back to the cottage, despite the ache in my limbs. I was looking forward to snuggling up on Maud’s lap and having a snooze in front of the fire.

  It was not quite dawn when I arrived home.

  I saw immediately that the hearth was cold, not a single puff of smoke drifted from the crooked little chimney. Maud had not yet returned. I tried not to worry while the Small Folk crowded around me, fussing over my injuries and demanding a reenactment of the battle.

  I obliged them with a spirited, and only slightly embellished retelling, then told them I needed to sleep and heal. I settled into my wool basket to await Maud’s return, my ears twitching, my body sore and my heart more than a little peeved. I grumbled gently into my fur as I groomed myself. I wanted to be admired. I wanted to sit on her lap and tell her of my heroic deeds. I wanted my ears scratched. It was most inconsiderate of her to be gone at such a moment.

  The garden gate banged and I jumped.

  I leapt up, then stretched out nonchalantly. It would not be seemly to show her how much I had missed her, it would not do to -

  A swarm of screaming Small Folk burst through the cottage, interrupting my thoughts.

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  “Ahhhhhhhhh!”

  “The hag is deid!” Polly-wally screeched, before diving into the kitchen cupboard to hide.

  “What?”

  “Deid! The hag is deid!”

  The cupboard door banged shut as the front door banged open. My Maud stomped into the cottage.

  Or something that smelled like Maud stomped into the cottage.

  I did a double take.

  It was Maud. Of that much I was certain. Her qi signature was…Maud, the familiar, comforting scent of Maud but it was wrapped in the pungent odour of …death? Not just wrapped but somehow bonded together. She stank of Old God, and not the nice one who trooped through the woods at the change of seasons but the scary one that Montadie had said was very, very bad news. The Whisperer. The Whisperer’s scent was entwined with my Maud’s very being.

  This was not the only difference. My Maud seemed to have lost all of her flesh somewhere.

  The Maud who stalked into my kitchen was a skeleton.

  Well, almost a skeleton. Thin patches of skin, and threads of… well two-leggers bits were visible here and there. Her eyes sparked blue lights, more shiny than they had used to be, much shinier than any two-legger eyes had right to be.

  I got up to take a closer look. My Maud, what had she done to herself?

  She seemed a little dazed, as was I. The ground beneath her feet blackened as she stood there. I stared at it. At her, then back at the floor. The flagstones of the cottage were charring or… what was happening? Looking with my qi sight I could see subtle threads of energy pulling towards her, from the stones into her being. The process reminded me of the demonic rats, the way they snatched energy from anything around them. Only this was slower, less aggressive. Arguably less aggressive.

  I felt very strange. Had Maud become a demonic cultivator? What foul bargain had she made for her life? Were the excitable fairies correct? Was my Maud dead? She did not look dead, apart from being made of bones, but then, my experience with dead things was limited. Usually it was I who made things dead, and that was the end of it. It was very confusing.

  I had never met anyone made out of bones before… apart from the rat-king’s minions of course. This was an uncomfortable train of thought that I did not want to think about. I thought about it anyway. Was my Maud one of the Whisperer’s minions?

  I leapt down so that Maud could greet me but she just stood there, staring blankly at the unlit kettle. It was hard to tell what she was feeling. It had taken me long enough to understand the body language of two-leggers and now it looked like I would have to figure it out all over again. It was weird. I didn’t like it. If only she had a tail, it would make it all a lot simpler.

  Stalking towards her, I yowled, complaining about all this, complaining that she wasn’t greeting me. It knocked her out of her stupor. She bent to pet me, and then stopped. Why did she stop? That was most unsatisfactory.

  She stared at me for a while then declared rudely: “Go find a mouse!”

  I hissed at her, my feelings hurt and jumbled. But being a patient cat I decided to leave her alone. Becoming a skeleton probably was a bit of an adjustment. So I sat under the table and watched her some more.

  To my disappointment she did not light a fire, but started rummaging through her books. Bored of this, I retired, somewhat grumpily to the cupboard, the one where I kept my trophies, intending to curl up in a tight ball and sleep off the rest of my hurts and the annoyance that was my human’s behaviour.

  Unfortunately my cupboard was absolutely bulging with fairies, all of them shivering and quaking.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked them. Surely they couldn’t be that scared of Maud? Just because she didn’t have any skin? Her skin had always been ugly, with silly patches of fur dotted around her body randomly. I didn’t really see the issue. It was weird but not scary. She just looked a bit different.

  Berry-man pushed his way to the front.

  “M’off,” said Berryman, waving his hands around, dramatically before planting them on his tiny hips. “Allus off!” Polly-wally appeared next to him, a small bag flung over her shoulders, the little bundle dangling from a twig. Her pale face- was even paler than usual.

  “Ghouly ghouly ghosty! Brrrrrr!!! A’m nae scran fer ghosties! Not faffing’ aboot with a massive ghouly. Nae!”

  “She’s not a ghosty,” I said indignantly. “She’s a … I don’t know but she’s not a ghosty.” I knew what those looked like, they were pale and transparent not…bony.

  “Bad news, kitlin,” said Berryman, his face serious. “Ver-ver bad. Deid hags nobbut trubble.”

  He peeked out the door.

  It was morning now, and sunshine spilled in through the windows.

  Maud seemed to have gone out into the garden.Berry-man beckoned the other fairies forwards and all the Small Folk excited the cupboard in a whoosh, some of them patting me affectionately as they left. Polly-wally gave me a big hug, throwing her spindly twig-like arms around my neck, and endangering my whiskers with the sharpness of her nails.

  “Sithee, kitlin,” said the little fae, sniffing. Then she fluttered off after the rest. I could not believe it.

  Berryman presented me with a large plump blackberry that he pulled out from somewhere about his person, bowed, then he too, jumped down onto the stone floor. He ran across the floor taking great pains to avoid the blackened areas.

  I watched him go, sad, and a little confused. Very confused and upset. Before he got to the door he turned and waved. Then he said, very clearly. “Don’t let the deid hag eat you.”

  Then they were gone, the door swinging on the hinge.

  I stared after him with some indignation.

  Why in the heavens would Maud eat me?She would never eat me. If anyone was going to do the eating it would be me. What a daft thing to say. It was all ridiculous. My legs hurt. My heart hurt. My whole body hurt. I had had enough.

  Leaping up onto the sunny window sill I wrapped my tail around my body, yawned, and stared out into the garden. This was too many changes. I was quite unhappy.

  Something was going on outside. What was going on now?

  Skeleton Maud was arguing with some men at the gate. One of them was carrying a long bow and all of them were waving their arms and legs around. The conversation seemed to be growing quite heated, and I wondered if I should go out there to help. Perhaps some of these men would like to join the Murder-Man beneath the rose bushes?

  But before I could intervene, Maud sorted the problem by herself.

  She reached out and snapped one of their necks. Just like that. Like me with a bird or a mouse. Easy. The man slumped to the ground. I was proud of her, admiring the finesse with which she did it, but it did nothing to ease the discomfort inside me. It was strange. In the past she had always preferred to prattle at her customers when they were difficult. Perhaps losing her flesh had given her a better understanding of the efficiency of violence?

  While I thought these thoughts the rest of the group ran away screaming, which was funny.

  Maud also found it funny and stood there chortling. Then she came inside and got out her crafting baskets, scattering things all over the kitchen table. She sat down and was soon lost in her work, cutting and sewing and arranging and humming.

  This behaviour reassured me.

  Whatever was happening my Maud was still herself, new appearance and propensity for violence notwithstanding. Content in this knowledge I went to sleep in the garden, soaking in as much sunshine as I could, and ignoring the new corpse, until I had fully slept off my long, long night.