Oh, I beg of you,
Give me one more second,
One more moment of breath with you.
It didn’t take Allison long to realize time was like a river. The same water coursing through the same veins, the same people growing up and dying in circles; it was a wonder that anyone got anywhere at all. She’d spent the first few years obsessing over the people who came to visit her. She laughed when they laughed, sat with them, and even laid her head on their shoulders. There was just one problem: she hated when they cried. Maybe that’s how she’d ended up so jaded. She simply couldn’t understand it. Even when she sat right next to them, it wasn’t good enough. No, somehow she needed to be more. It was hard not to take it personally. Over time, they visited less, and then disappeared completely. Sometimes Allison wondered if something was wrong with her. She’d always expected that she’d spend a little more time smelling the roses, and then she’d go and join her mother, play checkers, talk about the weather, maybe get married. When it became clear that was never going to happen, she tried taking up a hobby.
For a few months, Allison tried living in a sorority’s attic. She had never gotten a chance to join a sorority, but her sister was once part of one, and she’d always been jealous. She spent most nights banging some dusty chairs together. She tried to figure out how to play Beethoven on the upright piano, but she never got much farther than “dying bee run over by several unicycles in quick succession”. Unfortunately, Allison was quickly evicted. Turns out, Catholic priests and holy water are pretty effective after all.
After that, she tried hiking. She waited at the foot of a mountain for tourists to come, and then she joined any group that didn’t look like it was full of serial killers, triathletes, newlyweds, or vegans. Unfortunately, Allison had never quite gotten over her fear of heights. She was fine for the first couple of miles up the mountain. The trees were perfectly pleasant, and she saw new kinds of butterflies each time. She especially liked it when the hikers had picnics. Of course, they never saw her or offered her any food, but Allison liked trying to guess what someone might eat for lunch based on their appearance. Her favorite picnic was the time a burly, lumberjack-looking fellow ate only marshmallows. Allison laughed about that for weeks.
The views from this mountain were supposed to be spectacular, and Allison wanted to appreciate them so badly. She was fine, so long as she didn’t look, but once she heard the group oo-ing and ah-ing, she couldn’t help but try and see for herself. Naturally, whenever she did that, she would start screaming uncontrollably. The hikers would run in a panic back down the mountain, and she’d never see them again. After five or six of these incidents, the hiking trail closed for some kind of investigation. Allison missed those hikers, but she went home and gave up on hobbies.
Now, Allison spent most of her time relaxing in the graveyard. It was a little cold at night, but it was peaceful. Lonely, but peaceful. Allison still didn’t feel at home in the graveyard, and she wished she had someone to keep her company, but at least it had been a few months since the last attempted exorcism.
This was Allison’s third November since giving up hobbies. She didn’t quite believe in days or nights anymore. Maybe it had been too long since those things mattered. Today was November 13th. What used to be her birthday was only a few days away. Allison didn’t see much point in celebrating it now. After all, she wasn’t getting any older or younger these days. She had a full seventy-two hours of staring at her own headstone planned, which was almost a celebration, so long as you don’t believe in any part of the word ‘celebration’. Allison settled into the grass and fixed her eyes on her own fading name. Not five minutes later, she heard something.
“Who’s there?” She asked. She was cheerful, not scared. A visitor would be a welcome change of pace. “Are you here to talk to me?”
Something rustled in the bushes a few feet away. Allison tiptoed over to the bushes, and looked inside. A little, brown tabby cat with green eyes and a white spot on its chest stared up at her. It began purring as soon as it saw her.
“Oh,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting– wait. You can see me?”
The cat purred louder, bumping its head against her hand and twining between her legs. It looked up at her with an affection bordering on worship. Allison noticed the way the cat’s image wavered around the edges, and how it seemed to walk above the ground instead of on it. Suddenly, Allison understood.
“You’re a ghost too, aren’t you?” She asked. The cat’s eyes twinkled as if to respond. “I’ve never met another one. I started to think it was only me.”
The cat blinked, as if criticizing her stupidity. How could she have possibly thought she was the only ghost?
“Why are you here, though? I always thought ghosts happened because they had some unfinished business on Earth or something. I mean, what kind of unfinished business does a cat have? Didn’t hunt enough mice? I guess I don’t know what kind of unfinished business I had either, but…”
Allison sighed and took a deep breath. Sure, she’d had some regrets at her funeral, but who didn’t? There was no point worrying about it, anyway. Death was death. That was it. Allison was done, over, nothing at all. She just wanted to go home now. The only trouble was, she didn’t quite know where home was. For a time, she had tried to go to heaven. The day she died, she expected to leave right away. When that didn’t happen, she figured there must have been some kind of delay, and it would happen at the funeral. She distinctly remembered standing in the rain over her grave that day, tapping her foot and staring at the sky, occasionally checking an imaginary watch. Everyone else was at the reception. After waiting for fifteen minutes, she shrugged and joined them. Allison wondered if maybe she was supposed to look for hell. She waited for a few days, thinking the evilest things she could, but her application to hell must have been rejected too. So maybe Allison didn’t have a home. Now, though, starved for conversation, cold from the elements, and with the first company she’d had in years, Allison had to know.
“Cat, can you take me home?” She asked. “I’m tired, and I want to go to bed. It’s been so many years now. I’m ready to go.”
The cat turned away from her and started walking. Allison followed close behind. The cat didn’t stop to groom itself or wind off course. It walked all through the night and the next day. Allison wondered more than once if she was just getting played by a cat, but it wasn’t as if she had anything better to do with her birthday than follow a random phantasmal cat through the woods. After a couple of days of walking, the cat stopped in front of a pale yellow house with a white picket fence and a well-manicured garden.
“This isn’t quite what I meant,” Allison said. She realized she wasn’t actually disappointed. If anything, she was a little relieved. “Um, do you know who lives here?”
Allison didn’t have to wait long. A woman in her late thirties with long brown hair and pretty green eyes opened the front door and walked out into the garden. Her belly was swollen with the promise of a baby soon to come. Allison caught her breath. The woman looked so familiar to her, but different after so much time. She hadn’t seen her sister for ten years. Eva had stopped visiting once she finished college. She’d moved for work, and maybe after that she simply forgot.
“Oh,” Allison said, choking on her words. “She’s beautiful. I don’t know how you found her again, but thank you for showing me one more time. I’m glad she’s happy. I was worried about her after I left.”
The cat sat silently, but looked from Allison to Eva pointedly. It seemed to expect something from Allison. When Allison didn’t comply, the cat twitched its tail and wandered to Eva’s feet as she watered the roses. Allison followed, bewildered. She reached out towards her sister’s belly. In that moment, she wished her hands could touch her sister. She wished she could give just one more hug, and go to one last birthday party, and try high school a second time. Maybe if she had one more chance, she would make it through. Maybe if she just––
On November 15th, a baby cried for the first time. She was born a healthy eight pounds, six ounces. Her mother named her Elizabeth Alise Brown. None of them noticed it, but a small tabby cat looked on the birth from the window, before disappearing to continue work on its unfinished business.
As the baby forgot its last words, the cat heard them. At last, it was time to return home again.