Agents of Darkness IV

Mrs Sinster stretched and spread her hands across her luxurious duvet.

She opened her eyes and saw it was still dark. She’d had a lovely sleep on her first night in her new bed in her new home. She felt replenished after the hectic day before.

A loud clattering downstairs made her sit up. She looked at the clock on her bedside table, and saw it was 12:30.

“Twelve Thirty?!” she exclaimed, a little too loudly for the time of night. “I’ve been asleep for thirty minutes. Half an hour! That’s all?! I don’t believe that. I feel like I’ve slept for eight hours solid.” She slid back under the duvet with a sigh.

Another loud clattering caused her to sit bolt upright again. “What is that?” she asked as she reached for her night gown. She’d decided to investigate.

She walked down the spiral staircase and out onto the corridor. She heard loud snoring coming from Mr Sinster’s room, “So it isn’t him…” she thought, as another clattering from down below made her jump. “I hope it isn’t burglars.”

She walked down the staircase slowly. The ground floor was in darkness, apart from the bright moonlight which shone in through all of the windows. She couldn’t see anything from where she stood in the kitchen, although everything seemed in order there. She stepped forward into the living area, and on the floor between the sofa and two armchairs lay what looked like a broken chair. As she approached closer, the chair moved, and darted behind the sofa.

“Goodness!” Mrs Sinster said, as she knelt on the sofa to look behind. The chair had gone, but now there was a small harp, which definitely wasn’t there when she walked passed a few seconds earlier. “OK. What’s going on? Gabriel? Is this you?” No answer. “Soul? Are you doing this?” Again, no answer.

Mrs Sinster watched as the harp started to shimmer and shake, and shrink down in size. It stretched out to her left and right and became quite long. The shimmering stopped, and now on the floor slithered a snake. It wriggled as it tried to get under the sofa, which it couldn’t do. The snake shook and shimmered again. First it became a lamp, and then a book, and then a white cat. The cat looked up at Mrs Sinster and mewed.

“Hello there, gorgeous!” Mrs Sinster loved cats, and the cat recognised this. It jumped onto the back of the sofa and nuzzled Mrs Sinster’s cheek, “How did you get in then?” she asked as she tickled her new friend. Mrs Sinster realised the ‘cat’ must have always been in the house. “Goodness!” she said again. “You must be very hungry. Let’s see what food we have for you. I hope we have food…”. She walked back into the kitchen, the cat walking excitedly beside her. She opened the food cupboard which was full to overflowing. “Thanks, Gabriel!” she said to the room, as she removed a can of tuna. “I hope you like tuna. And I’ll get you some water as well.”

She watched as the cat lapped up the tuna and had a couple of licks of water. The cat looked at her with grateful eyes and started to shake and shimmer.

“Oh, dear!” Mrs Sinster stood alarmed. The cat had become a tiger, and padded over to her, nuzzling her once again, but this time knocking her off her feet. Even more frightened, Mrs Sinster looked the tiger in the eyes, as it stood nose to nose over her. “You’re not going to eat me, as well! No matter how cute you were!” She struggled to escape but the tiger was too heavy. Mrs Sinster sighed. The tiger slobbered as it licked her face, drenching her in seconds. “Ewww! Stop that at once!” Mrs Sinster demanded. The tiger shimmered and changed back to the cat. “Are you claiming me?” Mrs Sinster tickled the cat once again, who pawed her hand gently. “OK then, I’ll let you. You can stay. But we need to come up with a name for you.”

Once again the cat shimmered and shook, and changed into a harp once again.

“A harp? Harp! That’s your name, isn’t it!?” The harp became the cat again and padded off somewhere into the shadows of the room. “Well, that was different!” Mrs Sinster got to her feet and looked around the room once more. There was no sign of Harp anywhere.

Previous parts can be found in the Storylines Menu.
This should have appeared yesterday, but as I’m currently spending a bit of time away from Blogland to do other things, yesterday came and went in the blink of an eye, and this post never came with it. Ah well. Better late than never, I suppose!