So… what’s your plan now?” I asked.

“Go explore, I guess. What’s your name again?”

“Gavin,” I repeated, shaking her hand.

“Good to meet you, Gavin!” she said, smiling and bowing slightly. “Where’s the way out?”

That’s it? I’d had all of about ten minutes with her, and now she was leaving? “Over there,” I said, motioning to the front door. “But are you really going outside?” I asked, hoping to discourage her from leaving. “It’s mid-February. Do Nature Emissaries not get cold?”

“We get cold, sure. But it’s the middle of the day. How bad could it be out there? Thanks, Gavin. I’ll probably run into you again some day!” And with that, Lilah loped to the door, and opened it.

For a moment, she just stood there. Then, she put one of her unshod toes into the snow outside.

“Gavin! There’s frost on the ground here. And it’s a foot thick!”

“You mean the snow?” I said, walking up to the door.

“Snow? Is that what you call it? Is this normal?”

“It’s normal for this time of year, yeah. In fact, this year’s snowfall’s been unusually light.” Right now, the sun was shining in the cloudless sky, glaring on the surface of yesterday’s newfallen snow. Compared to most days, it was positively balmy in the low 40s.

“How are you supposed to get anywhere?”

“Cars,” I said, shrugging. “How would you get around in the snow?”

“I didn’t… I didn’t have snow.” Lilah said. She shivered a bit and hugged herself, taking a slight step back. “It’s so cold out there!”

I stepped past her to shut the door. “Yeah, that’s winter in New England for you.”

“How long until it warms up?” Lilah asked.

“A few months, at least,” I said.

“Months? Like, 20 day long months?”

“Thirty, actually.”

She threw up her hands. “A whole brand new world I could explore, and it’s too frozen to even go outside.”

It seemed I’d have Lilah around for a little longer. At least until my parents came home. I wondered how they’d react.

“So… what’s your plan?” I asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Lilah said, somewhat forlornly. “I guess I’ll stay here for now.”

“Sounds good,” I said, nodding. My excitement mixed with nervousness, though. I’d have to explain her presence to my mother. And it would be awkward enough trying to introduce a girl to my mother, much less one with cat ears and a tail. Wearing my clothes.

At least she wasn’t naked anymore.

My mother had to let her stay. What else would we do? Kick her out on the streets? My family lived in a rural part of New Hampshire. It’s not like we had homeless shelters or soup kitchens around. If we sent her outside, she’d freeze to death. Assuming Nature Emissaries could die. No, she needed to stay. At least for now. I started trying to plan how to broach the subject with my parents.

They’d agree that she needed a place to be, but they’d take issue with her for sure. If she were a normal girl, things might be different, but catgirls were kind of a symbol of sexuality in most parts of the internet, and they’d definitely object to their son living with a symbol of sexuality.

I wondered if maybe I could keep her secret from my parents to avoid having to talk them into hosting her. It’d be hard, sure. And if I got caught, I’d be in huge trouble. But I could do it.

Both my parents worked and had long commutes; they usually didn’t come home until 7:00 or so, except for weekends. My mom left Evan at Aunt Sandy’s place on her way to work and picked him up on her way back, so he was gone until 7:00 too. Every afternoon, I had the place completely to myself. Besides weekends, Lilah would only need to be hidden for a few hours each evening, until my parents went to bed.

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And if I did tell my parents about her, what would they do? Probably find some way to kick her out. But they weren’t heartless. They’d find someplace else for her to stay. One of my aunts, maybe. Like, Aunt Kathy in Vermont didn’t have any sons, just a teenage daughter.

In fact, that made a lot more sense. That’s probably where Lilah should live.

At which point my mind snapped shut. This girl appeared in my pantry. I’d never seen anything so cool in my life, and I wasn’t going to have her go live with my cousin just because my parents thought I couldn’t be trusted with a girl in the house. In retrospect, it was crazy of me, and probably driven mostly by hormones, but at that moment I decided I was going to have her stay with me. Somehow.

And given that Mom and Dad wouldn’t approve, that meant hiding her.

“Okay, here. Come up to my room,” I said, beckoning her towards the stairs.

She smiled and came with me.

“Here’s the deal,” I said as we climbed. “I’d love to let you stay here, but you’ve got to stay quiet about it. My mother doesn’t like catgirls. I mean… cat Emissaries.”

“What? Why not?”

“Cultural preconceptions,” I hedged as we climbed the stairs.

“Didn’t you say you didn’t have Emissaries?”

“That doesn’t keep us from having stereotypes,” I said, opening my door.

I guess I’m lucky that I’m a clean person. Most guys I know wouldn’t be able to invite a girl into their room if one happened to magically appear in their pantry. Sure, my desk was a little cluttered, my bookshelves had books stuffed in at odd angles, and my dresser had some junk on it, but my floor was clear, my laundry was out of sight, and my bed was made.

Lilah’s polite smile turned into a grin of amazement. She put her hand on the bed and pushed. “Wow. Is this for sleeping on?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. I still wasn’t sure what things were like where she was from, but I suppose raised beds weren’t the norm there.

“It looks really comfortable.” She spun around and sat on it, bouncing slightly. Then she giggled and bounced twice more intentionally for good measure.

I smiled. It was going to be exciting showing her around.

Her smile faded after a moment, and she suddenly became more sober than I’d seen her yet. “We need to talk, though.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I’m basically hiding out, right? What does that look like? What am I going to need to do?”

“Okay, so my parents come home at seven o’clock, except on weekends when they-”

“Hold up, hold up. What’s ‘o’clock’? When does the week end?” She looked at me intently.

I sighed. I still didn’t know what she knew and what needed to be explained to her. I’d have to start simpler. “Okay, so the day is divided up into…” I started, before thinking better of it. “You know what? Never mind that. Just… A short while after sunset, my parents come home. They go to bed a short while after that. During that time, you’ll need to stay quiet up here. Same thing in the morning. They hardly ever come into my room, but just in case… you’ll probably want to be hanging out on that side of the bed,” I said, pointing over at the side of the bed opposite the door. “If my mom comes in, just roll under the bed and hide out there until she leaves.

Lilah nodded. “And what happens if they catch me? How intolerant of Emissaries are they?”

“They’d kick you out, for sure.”

“And let me freeze to death? Really?” Her face looked pained. Partway between anxious and disgusted.

I knew they wouldn’t. I could pretend they would, to raise the stakes, but lying to this girl didn’t feel right. “No, they’d… they’d probably just try and get you to stay with some other family.” I felt my chances of having her stay start to slip.

“Would staying with another family really be a problem? I mean, if your parents don’t…” she trailed off. Realization slowly dawned on her face, and I became increasingly uncomfortable. “It’s not that I’m in any danger is it? You just think I’m attractive, and want me to live in your room!”

“It’s not like that,” I protested. “I just… I-”

“Of course it’s like that,” she said, standing and walking towards me, an annoyed expression on her face. “I know I’m pretty. Humans keep telling me that.”

“No! I just think it’s cool that you came from another world! I’ve never seen anything like you before. Not in real life. I want to learn more about you and where you came from. It’s not like I-”

At that moment, I heard the garage door open. I jumped a little like you normally would when you’re worried about getting caught doing something sneaky and there’s a loud noise nearby. But it didn’t hold a candle to Lilah, who dropped to a low crouch with her arms guardingly in front of her. I hadn’t noticed until now that her nails were triangular and curved, more like claws than fingernails.

“Easy,” I said. “It’s okay. That’s just my mom coming home.”

“What on earth…”

I wanted, instinctively, to put my arm around her to comfort her, but those claws gave me pause. Instead, I held my arms up, palms forward, in what I hoped was a comforting gesture. “It’s just a really loud door,” I said, The sound abruptly stopped, and Lilah straightened up warily. I heard footsteps downstairs as my mother and brother came through the entryway. Lilah cocked her ears and listened.

Finally she looked towards me, intent. “I’ll stay here, like you want,” she whispered, “But I want to get something straight, first.” Her ears twitched as she locked eyes with mine. “I’m here because I think this’ll be fun, and not because I need to. I’m not your housepet. Not your toy. Don’t try and trick me into thinking I’m dependant on you. I’ll smell that ruse a mile away, and then go straight to your parents, and they’ll send me someplace else. I’ll disappear, just like that. Got that?”

I nodded.

“Great, then,” she said with a satisfied smile. “Thanks for sharing your room with me. I call the bouncy-bed.” And with that, she twirled around, unbalanced, and collapsed onto the bed, humming softly as she took armfuls of the bedding and bunched it up against her.

I sighed and went downstairs to say hi to my family.