Ghost In The Dark
At first, it was a fleeting presence—nothing more than a shadow in the corner of her eye, a flicker of movement that vanished the moment she turned to look. Agatha would catch glimpses of it out of the corner of her eye, a sleek black shape that appeared in places it had no right to be. There were mornings when she would step outside, ready to start her day, and there it would be, perched on the stone wall at the far end of the garden, its back arched with an almost regal air. Its golden eyes were always fixed on her, unblinking, like it had been watching her for hours. There was a quiet stillness to its presence, an eerie calm, as if it were waiting for something—or someone.
On days when the weather was warmer, she would catch it lounging on the fence, tail curled neatly around its paws, eyes never leaving her as she moved through the house. She would brew her tea in the kitchen, glancing out the window to find it waiting on the wooden fence outside. There, in the cool morning breeze, it remained—silent and ever-present, as if watching her, studying her every move.
At dusk, the cat would be waiting again, stretched out across the front step like it had always belonged there. Its body sprawled lazily, but its eyes were sharp, fixed on her every step. There was something almost too familiar about it, like it was woven into the fabric of her routine. Every evening, without fail, she would return to find it there, patiently waiting. No matter how many times she tried to ignore it, she could never shake the feeling that it was watching her—waiting, somehow, for her to make the next move.
Agatha never invited the cat to stay. She never went out of her way to offer it food or shelter, but neither did she ever tell it to leave. It seemed to settle in with the same quiet persistence as the seasons, neither asking for permission nor giving her any reason to force it away. Perhaps she had grown accustomed to its presence—or perhaps it was something deeper, something she couldn’t put her finger on, that kept her from turning it away.
She knew there was something unnatural about the cat, something off that made her hesitate. It wasn’t the color of its fur—black, sleek, almost glimmering under the moonlight. Nor was it its eyes, those unsettling gold eyes that never seemed to blink. It was the stillness, the way it seemed to be everywhere without moving, the way it could melt into the shadows as though it had never been there at all.
And so, she did nothing. She let it stay.
She spoke to it, though only in passing. A few words here and there, mostly out of habit. A soft “Good morning” when she found it watching her in the garden, or a quick “Leave me be” when she caught sight of it outside the kitchen window. But she never asked it to go. Part of her knew, deep down, that if she told it to leave, it would. And yet, another part of her wasn’t sure she wanted it to.
Perhaps that was her first mistake.
For deep down, she could sense that there was more to this cat than met the eye. Something ancient, something familiar. She just hadn’t figured out what
******
The first time Agatha noticed how persistent her new shadow was, she had been in the greenhouse tending to her plants. The air had smelled of damp soil and rosemary, the glass fogged with humidity. She had turned to grab a pair of shears, and there it was—perched on the worktable, nestled between a cluster of potted herbs.
She had nearly dropped the shears in surprise.
“How the hell did you get in here?” she muttered, narrowing her eyes.
The cat only blinked.
Agatha sighed, wiping dirt from her hands onto her apron. “You know, most strays wander off after a meal or two. But not you. No, you’ve decided I’m your personal caretaker.” She tilted her head, studying the sleek black fur, the way it sat so unnaturally still. “Or is it the other way around? Are you here to watch me?”
Silence.
But the cat’s ears flicked and tilted its head ever so slightly.
Agatha smirked. “Got you.”
She reached out and traced a finger gently over its head. The fur was impossibly soft, like ink turned to silk. The cat leaned into her touch, but she didn’t miss the way it stilled at her words.
She knew.
She wasn’t sure what she knew exactly, but she knew.
So, she started speaking to the cat like an old friend.
At first, it was small things. Observations. Offhand comments. “You have a habit of showing up at odd moments, you know.” Or, “You’re quieter than most cats. Smarter, too.”
Then, she started testing.
She would murmur Rio’s name in conversation just to see if the cat’s tail twitched, if its ears turned toward her, if its gaze sharpened for the briefest of moments.
It always did.
But Agatha never let on.
Instead, she would only smile to herself and scratch behind its ears, whispering, “I see you.”
And though the cat never spoke, she swore it understood.
******
Agathas new friend wasn’t just in the greenhouse. The cat had a habit of appearing wherever Agatha went, as if it had woven itself into her daily routine without her permission.
One morning, as she walked the winding path toward town, she heard the soft pad pad pad of paws on dirt behind her. She didn’t turn, but she knew.
“You’re following me,” she said aloud.
The sound of footsteps stopped.
Agatha chuckled, shaking her head as she finally looked over her shoulder. Sure enough, there it was, sitting neatly in the middle of the path, golden eyes unblinking.
She crossed her arms. “You don’t even pretend to be subtle, do you?”
The cat only stared.
Agatha exhaled, glancing up at the trees as a breeze rustled through their branches. “You know, I read somewhere that black cats were once considered omens of misfortune.” She paused, tilting her head. “Of course, I always thought that was nonsense. You don’t feel like misfortune to me.”
She crouched down, studying it carefully. “You feel like something else. Someone else.”
The cat didn’t move.
Agatha tapped a finger against her chin. “See, the thing is, I never have believed in coincidences. Everything has a time and place. You showing up every day, sitting outside my house, following me down roads you shouldn’t know I’m taking?” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s like you know me. You know how I think and you predict what I’ll do.”
The cat’s tail flicked.
Agatha smirked. “I thought so.”
She reached out to scratch under its chin, and the cat leaned into her touch.
But for the briefest moment, she swore she saw something flicker in its eyes—something ancient, something familiar.
******
It became a game after that.
She would speak to the cat the way one spoke to an old friend, watching for the smallest signs that it was listening.
On days when she was working in the garden, pulling weeds from the damp earth, she would murmur, “You know, I used to have a dog. A big, clumsy thing. He would have hated you. He would’ve wanted to eat you.” She glanced toward the fence where the cat lay stretched out, tail flicking idly. “Or maybe he wouldn’t have. Maybe he would have chased you around until you gave up the act.”
The cat only stretched, as if unbothered.
On evenings when she sat on the porch with a glass of wine, staring at the starry sky, she would sigh and say, “It’s funny. You don’t act like a normal cat, but you don’t act like anything else, either. You’re something in between, aren’t you?”
A pause. A twitch of its ear.
Agatha chuckled. “You could at least try to pretend you don’t understand me.”
And then, there were the real tests.
One night, as she sat down by the lake, absentmindedly stroking the cat’s fur, she murmured a single name.
“Rio.”
The cat’s body went unnaturally still.
Agatha didn’t react. She only kept her fingers moving, slow and deliberate. “Now, that’s interesting,” she whispered. “Because most cats wouldn’t care about a name. But you do, don’t you?”
The cat didn’t move and you could barely tell it was breathing.
Agatha smiled wickedly.
She leaned down, her lips close to its ear.
“I see you. Rio, I see you,” she whispered.
The cat exhaled softly. Almost… resigned.
Agatha pressed a kiss to its head, running her fingers through its impossibly soft fur. She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to.
Because now, she knew. The query was now, what the hell to do about it.
******
On a night when the air was thick with the scent of rain, and the sky heavy with the promise of a coming storm, the truth revealed itself even more. Agatha had been walking home from the market, the wicker basket on her arm filled with fish, bread, and a small bottle of honey wine. The path leading to her cottage was quiet, the woods on either side dense and shadowed. Nothing really out of the ordinary.
She was nearly home when she felt it—a shift in the air, a prickling sensation at the back of her neck. The air took on a chill.
She stopped moving and began glancing warily about.
The trees rustled, but there was no wind.
Slowly, Agatha turned her head, scanning the path behind her. Nothing. Just darkness stretching between the trees, the faint outline of the road she had traveled.
Then—a whisper.
Low. Indistinct. A sound that shouldn’t be there.
Agatha’s pulse quickened. She tightened her grip on the basket, her other hand twitching toward the pocket of her cloak where she kept a small charm for protection.
A sense of misdeed settled over the air, thick and oppressive. It was then that she noticed the silence—the kind that didn’t belong in the woods. No owls hooting. No insects humming. No wind through the leaves.
Something was waiting.
Then—a voice.
Not a whisper this time. A rasping croon, slithering through the darkness like oil across water.
“Lost, may you be, little witch?”
A figure stepped from the trees.
Tall. Thin. Its limbs too long, too angular. Its face was obscured beneath a hood, but Agatha saw flashes of gray, sunken skin, lips that barely moved when it spoke.
“You smell of sorrow,” it mused, tilting its head. “Delicious.”
Agatha’s blood ran cold.
A wraith.
A creature that fed on grief, that drank the despair of the living, until there was nothing left but a shell.
She had faced dark creatures before, but this one… this one had been waiting for her. Watching. It knew when she would be most vulnerable.
Agatha took a slow step back, her fingers curling around the charm in her pocket. She forced her voice to stay steady. “You’re trespassing.”
A low, rattling laugh.
“So are you.”
The wraith took a step forward, the space between them suddenly too small, the air too thin. Agatha’s breath hitched—
And then—
A growl and a hiss.
Low and vicious.
From directly behind her.
Before Agatha could turn, a blur of movement shot past her—a sleek, black shape lunging toward the wraith with a snarl that didn’t belong in the throat of any ordinary cat.
The wraith jerked back as the cat landed in front of Agatha, fur bristling, golden eyes gleaming like twin flames in the dark.
The wraith sneered. “A pet? How quaint.”
The cat hissed.
No, not just a hiss. A warning.
A growl rumbled from deep within its small body, a sound too powerful for its form. Agatha felt it vibrate through the air, through her bones.
The wraith hesitated.
And then the cat lunged.
It moved impossibly fast, too fast for Agatha’s eyes to follow. One moment it was beside her, the next it was upon the wraith, claws sinking into fabric—into flesh.
The wraith screamed.
A horrible sound, more rage than pain, but it staggered. The cat’s claws left deep gashes across its arm—gashes that smoked.
Not a normal cat. Not at all. Jesus, what the hell was this cat!
The wraith snarled, stumbling backward into the trees. It watched them for a long moment, its lips curling over blackened teeth.
“Another time, little witch.” Then, it melted into the darkness.
Agatha didn’t move. Her breath came quick and shallow, her fingers clenched tight around the forgotten charm in her pocket.
She looked down at the cat.
It sat there, fur on end, tail flicking, its golden eyes still fixed on the spot where the wraith had vanished.
It had protected her. There was no room for doubt about that.
Slowly, Agatha crouched, reaching out with careful fingers. The cat didn’t flinch. She brushed her hand down its back, feeling the tension still coiled in its muscles.
“Not just a cat,” she murmured.
The cat finally looked up at her.
And though it didn’t speak, something in its gaze answered her.
That night, as the storm finally broke over the cottage, rain lashing against the windows, the cat sat at the foot of her bed, watching the door.
Keeping watch. Wide awake.
******
The storm rolled in just after midnight.
Thunder rattled the windows, rain hammered against the roof, and the wind howled like something feral. Agatha should have been asleep, but she lay awake, tangled in the sheets, staring at the ceiling as lightning illuminated the room in quick, violent flashes.
She thought about getting up, making tea, maybe reading a book until exhaustion finally won out. But before she could move, another sound threaded through the storm.
Her name.
At first, she thought she had imagined it, just the wind twisting through the trees. But then it came again, soft but unmistakable.
“Agatha.”
Her breath caught.
The world shifted, and suddenly, she wasn’t in bed anymore.
She was standing in the forest.
The air smelled floral, the trees towering above her. The ground was soft beneath her bare feet, wet leaves clinging to her skin. Mist curled around her ankles, thick and swirling, glowing faintly in the moonlight.
“Agatha.”
The voice was closer now. Familiar. A voice she hadn’t heard in a year, but would know anywhere. A voice that was once the melody she craved.
Rio.
She turned sharply, searching the darkness. Her heart pounded against her ribs, her pulse thrumming like a war drum.
And then she saw her.
Rio stood just beyond the tree line, half-hidden by the mist. She was wearing a green hood and had a faint emerald glow surrounding her.
She was exactly as Agatha remembered—tall, golden-eyed, impossibly beautiful in a way that was more than mortal. But there was something different about her now. Something heavier, like the weight of a thousand lifetimes pressed into her bones.
Agatha’s breath hitched. “You…Why the hell are you here? I told you to never come back!”
Rio stepped closer. “I’m sorry…. For everything.”
Agatha’s hands curled into fists. She gritted the following words through clenched teeth: “You don’t get to be sorry.”
Lightning split the sky, illuminating Rio’s face for the briefest moment, and Agatha’s chest tightened. She looked haunted. Like something starving, something that had been waiting in the dark for too long. Something tired.
“Aggie, I never wanted to leave you. I swear that’s the truth,” Rio whispered.
Agatha’s body ached with how much she wanted to believe that. But the pain inside her, the wound left gaping and raw, wouldn’t let her.
She took a step forward, shaking her head. “You say that like it was a choice.”
Rio flinched. “It wasn’t. I had to go do my job. You also sent me away and said to never return.”
Agatha let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Then tell me, Rio—was it your duty that made you leave me, or your guilt?”
Rio’s eyes flashed, the golden hue darkening like embers burning low.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Agatha demanded, stepping closer. Her voice cracked, raw and sharp. “Don’t talk about it? Don’t say his name? Don’t remind you that you’re the reason I—”
She broke off, her breath hitching in her throat.
The lightning storm raged overhead, but it was nothing compared to the fury coursing through her veins.
“You took him.” The words came out barely above a whisper, but they cut through the air like a blade.
Rio’s entire body tensed. “You think I don’t know that?” she said, voice hoarse. “You think I don’t feel it every second of every day?”
“I begged. I screamed. I felt his body go cold before I could even say goodbye.”
Rio closed her eyes. “I didn’t want to take him.”
“But you did.”
“I had no choice! I am Death! You always knew that. You know I have to maintain the sacred balance. I don’t pick and choose who or when.” Rio’s voice rose, sudden and sharp, the storm seeming to shudder around them in response. “He was my son too Agatha. I lost him too,” Rio
whispered as her chest heaved with heavy breaths..
Agatha shook her head, something wild and desperate clawing at her insides. “There’s always a choice. And you left me, Rio. You left me to drown in it. Alone”
Rio took a shaky breath. When she opened her eyes again, they were shining, but no tears would ever fall—not from her, not from Death itself.
“I wanted to stay.” The words barely made it past her lips. “I wanted—” She cut herself off, clenching her jaw. “But I couldn’t. I was already losing myself, Agatha. If I had stayed… I don’t know what I would have become.”
Silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating.
The wind stirred, cold against Agatha’s skin.
“Do you hate me?” Rio’s voice was so quiet she almost didn’t hear it.
Agatha swallowed hard. The answer should have been easy. It should have been yes.
But it wasn’t.
“I cant . I tried. I don’t know how to stop loving you,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.
Rio’s face crumpled, and for a moment, just a moment, she looked almost human. Almost breakable.
She lifted a hand, reaching for Agatha, fingertips brushing the air between them—
Agatha jolted awake.
******
Agatha exhaled shakily, pressing a hand to her forehead. The storm raged outside, wind shrieking through the trees, but it was nothing compared to the storm inside her. Her pulse still thundered in her ears, the weight of the dream pressing against her chest like a hand wrapped around her ribs.
She turned her head—
And there, in the dim glow of candlelight, sat the cat.
Watching.
Waiting.
It wasn’t curled up, relaxed, like a creature content in the warmth of a home it had claimed. No. It sat perfectly still, posture poised, eyes locked onto her as if it had been waiting for her to wake.
Agatha’s breath came slower now, steadier, but the ache in her chest had not settled. She shifted up onto her elbows, studying the creature that had wound itself so stubbornly into her life.
“I should have known you’d be here.”
The cat didn’t move, didn’t blink, but its golden eyes gleamed in the flickering candlelight.
Just like Rio’s.
A humorless laugh slipped from Agatha’s lips, rough and tired. She reached out, fingers sinking into the sleek fur, stroking down the cat’s spine. The texture was impossibly soft, smoother than it should be. Like silk woven from darkness itself.
“You always do this,” she murmured, voice quiet but edged with something sharp.
The cat flicked its tail, just slightly.
“You linger on the edges. Watching. Waiting.” She dragged her fingers through its fur again, slower this time. “Never speaking. Never revealing yourself. Just… being.”
The cat’s ears twitched.
Agatha smirked faintly, though there was no humor in it. “Are you still going to pretend you don’t understand me? That you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about?”
The cat remained silent.
Of course, it did.
Agatha let out a soft sigh and leaned back against the pillows, her hand still resting against the creature’s sleek form. “I had a dream,” she confessed, staring up at the ceiling. “Though I doubt I need to tell you that.”
The cat didn’t react. But she wasn’t fooled.
“You were there,” Agatha continued. “Or maybe you weren’t. Maybe it was just my mind trying to fill in the spaces you left behind.”
She swallowed hard, rubbing absently at the hollow ache in her chest. “It felt real. Too real. And I—” She hesitated, closing her eyes for a moment before exhaling. “I saw you. The real you. I know who you are.”
She felt the cat tense beneath her touch, the faintest shift in its muscles.
Ah.
There it was.
“I think you forget how long I’ve known you,” Agatha whispered, opening her eyes again, turning her head to meet those golden ones staring back at her. “How well I know you.”
The cat still didn’t move, but something passed between them. A shift, invisible yet unmistakable.
“I know who you are.” Her voice was soft, gentle even, but laced with something heavier. “And I know why you’re here.”
The wind howled outside, rattling the windows.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” Agatha asked, tilting her head slightly. “That I wouldn’t feel it? That our connection wouldn’t show itself in a different form.”
The cat’s tail flicked again, a slow, deliberate movement.
“You think you’re so clever,” she murmured. “Slipping into my life like a shadow. Never asking for permission, never demanding space, just… taking it. Inserting yourself like you never left at all.”
Her fingers trailed absentmindedly over the cat’s back, a touch more intimate than she realized.
“But you did leave.” Her voice grew quieter. “You left me, Rio. And now, now you think you can just slide right back in.”
The candlelight flickered.
The cat still did not move.
Agatha let out a soft, tired breath. “You don’t have to say anything. You can’t talk anyhow.” She closed her eyes for a moment before reopening them, staring straight into those golden depths. “I already know.”
She sat up then, gently nudging the cat aside as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her body ached—not just from sleep but from grief, from time, from the relentless weight of loss that had never truly lifted.
The cat watched her, unmoving, unreadable.
Agatha turned back to it, gaze steady. “You’ve been watching over me all this time, haven’t you? You were always so protective over us. That is, until that day.”
The cat didn’t answer. But it didn’t have to.
Agatha huffed softly, shaking her head. “You always did have a terrible way of showing you cared.”
She reached out again, fingers threading gently through the cat’s fur, her touch lingering.
“Don’t go,” she murmured, a quiet plea, a challenge, a truth she wasn’t ready to name.
The cat didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t fade into the night like a ghost.
It just remained.
Silent. Watching. There.