All the Cats are Black

A Willerby Short

Tabitha arrived in Willerby as a nervous RSPCA kitten only just old enough to leave her mother.

Simone called her Tabitha for her tabby coat.

She thought naming her that was cute and funny.

For the first few weeks of her life in the village she never left the house, but just as Simone was beginning to wonder whether she ever would – for some Willerby cats never do – Tabitha tiptoed into the front garden for the first time.

As she grew bolder she ventured further afield. Past Jack’s Pool and the smokers outside the pub. Over the Green and past Sharp’s corner and then, at last, into the woods where she hunted rats, mice and other delicious things.

Then deeper into the trees where, at last, she found the wide clearing where the witches once met.

There she joined with the other village cats, all jet black from every nose to every toe.

On the night of each full moon in the clearing in the dark wood the cats sang their wordless song of meaning and power, summoning those who could hear, filling the forest around them with strange life.

Ogres and goblins.

Brownies and dwarves.

Ghasts, imps and hags, and other strange people for which humans have no name.

When all those invited have arrived the cats fall silent and the conference begins, sometimes in one big group but more commonly in subcommittees and working parties of common interest

Border disputes and cross-dimensional crime. The alignment of the stars in the sky and what this meant for all the hidden kingdoms. The guarding of the portals and the progress of the great war, noteworthy discoveries made by alchemists and explorers at the edge of their worlds.

The cats watch and listen to it all, taking silent notes and then when it is all over they noiselessly disperse to pass the messages and agreed actions, going about their secret business in the dead of each night until the next full moon.

“Tabs is getting so lazy!” Said Simone to her boyfriend Matt one Sunday morning. “She’s always asleep apart from when she’s hungry and then after she's eaten she goes straight back to bed.”

Matt looked down at her snoring on the sheepskin under the radiator.

He looked away and then frowning, looked back.

“Did she always have black paws?”

Simone stretched any yawned.

“No - and it’s not just her paws. The tip of her tail is too now.”

Matt sat up.

“Cats don’t change colour though, do they?”

“They do here,” said Simone. “It takes a while, but they all end up that way in the end. In Willerby all the cats are black.”