AGGIE! THE GIRL’S NAMEis Aggie.
Aggie just got my slip-up scientifically explained away, and I’m sort of relieved. I like watching her—especially when she’s reading in bed at night.
“Hsssss.”
“Oh, Berry,” I whisper as the kitten jumps up on the bed and reaches tiny pink paws towards the wall where my prison hangs. “Look, cat.”
Whatever I’m going to say is stilled as little claws manage to connect and the tiny body lurches upward, sending my frame swaying side to side on the thick coil of wire that stretches across a single nail.
Berry is going to climb my frame. Knock me off the wall. Probably shatter me.
Death by kitten. What a way for a thousand-year-old phantom to go out, huh?
“Strawberry,” I whisper soothingly. “Truce? Truce, kitten? Look, Berry, watch!” I transform into a small brown bird and flit across the glass.
The kitten stills. Drops.
Now I’m a yellow butterfly.
A swallow.
A spider.
A blue bird.
Berry watches, kitten eyes taking in everything. Tiny hindquarters start to shimmy.
Berry may be little, but she is fierce. A born hunter.
“Oh, darling!” I can’t help but laugh as she launches towards the glass with one heroic spring, the pink pads of her paws smacking against the slick surface before she slides to the floor with a startled “Mrp!”
I let her catch me when I’m a brown moth next, dramatically fluttering and losing strength under each bat of her paw. I drop out of sight, and Berry sits like a triumphant queen, licking her paws with pride.
Damn it.
I think I’ve made a friend.
When Aggie goes to work the next day, Berry curls up on the corner of the bed closest to my mirror. I appear in my true form and speak softly to her, and she purrs, falling asleep in the sunlight that reflects off my surface.
Ugh. If I scare away the human, she’ll take the cat.
I rather like this cat.
Maybe... Maybe I’ll behave a little longer.
After all, I don’t mind watching Aggie fall asleep, either.
THE HUMAN—AGGIE—ISout on Wednesday nights. When she comes home, she’s happy, chatty, and glowing. Fun to watch.
But Monday and Tuesday nights are even better for a lonely phantom with a checkered past.
What past, you ask? Well, I can give you the short version and a little advice. Consider it a tip for the future, my friends and future victims. Don’t sleep with a sorcerer’s ex, even if he swears up and down that he’s no longer interested. One second, you’re dancing with a busty barmaid named Calliope, and the next, you’re trapped behind glass and sporting a nightmare body of writhing tentacles, shadows, and monochromatic skin, all grays, whites, and blacks.
Now, eventually, I learned that the sorcerer didn’t really know his abras from his cadabras. He didn’t realize I could still interact with him from behind the glass, or that he’d given me a new set of skills. I was clumsy at first, but now I’m an expert. I drove him mad by changing little details each time he looked my way. A wart on his nose. A blackened eye. Then normal. A split lip. A stained shirt.
Oh, he was a delight, and his own guilt about sending me to an eternity behind glass blotted out his common sense. He never suspected me until it was too late.
Fool.
