Chapter 118 – The Second Catalyst – Silver Brooks

It was clear that my shrine didn’t have the intended effect after a week of no response from the Killing Cat. I felt so sure that the spirit would appreciate having a physical manifestation to represent it. Spirits were usually fond of such esoteric things in works of fiction.

This could be because the Killing Cat was a human that simply didn’t care that the shrine was put on school grounds in their honor. My second goal with the shrine was to encourage this potential human to personally reach out to me. This was essentially an attempt to butter them up.

It was probably more likely that the Killing Cat simply didn’t communicate with unaffiliated people, spirit or not.

As an unexpected coincidence, far more people visited the shrine than I originally planned for. To my surprise people were donating to it, leaving flowers, and making wishes as if it were a real spiritual relic. This had turned out to be my most popular art piece yet.

I still felt disappointed. As cool as it was to see other people enjoying the shrine, it wasn’t my goal. I didn’t make it with these people in mind. My aim was focused solely on the Killing Cat. I even added a few other clay cat statues around it, hoping to increase the chance of drawing the Killing Cat’s attention.

Annoyingly, the additional cat statues only encouraged others to bring similar cat imagery. The day after I added the clay statues there was an influx of plastic cat toys, stuffed animals, and cat ears. On top of that, people had increased the money being donated.

The money didn’t last long. It was confiscated by the SCA and supposedly put away for ‘safekeeping’ for school related projects. Apparently this area had become so active recently that the SCA was no longer interested in dealing with it. A sign was put down beside the shrine saying ‘No donating’.

This was essentially the end of my experiment. With a sigh of resignation I decided to call it quits. If there was a way to summon the Killing Cat then I didn’t know what it was. Feeling empty and apathetic, I knocked over the stone shrine and walked away.

I didn’t walk away entirely empty handed. One of the pairs of cat ears that someone donated were particularly cute. They were fuzzy and snow white. As childish as it was, putting them on helped calm me down after the whole ordeal. Perri gave me a funny look the moment I tried them on.

Perri and I were currently skipping class together. This was the first time in a few days that we were alone. Now that I had given up on contacting the Killing Cat I was trying to put the whole ‘dead body’ thing out of my mind, just like Perri did.

We were on the rooftop garden where no teacher was likely to come prowling. The only person that regularly visited this area was Holly and she was in class. This area was a genius place to skip school, all things considered. It was a good thing that the door was usually left unlocked.

“You’re going to make me ask about it, aren’t you?” Perri asked in a monotone voice.

“Ask about what?”

She pointed to the cat ears on my head.

“Oh, this…? This was left near that Killing Cat shrine I made. For some reason, people have been donating cat ears, cat tails, and ‘Good Fortune Cat Paws’ that I seriously hope aren’t real.”

Perri laughed.

“I can’t believe you legitimately tried reaching out to a murderous spirit. You’d be better off using a summoning circle and a live sacrifice.”

“I hate that you might have a point.”

“The real point is that it’s better if you don’t.” Perri said in a lecturing tone, “Its better if you forget that whole debacle ever happened and just move on with your life. Honestly… It was cute at first but you’re going to end up turning into a weirdo…”

“I’m already a weirdo.” I said.

“More so than usual,” Perri said. “I guess you never got the chance to see how much of a mess Erica devolved into before she changed schools. She looked like she straight-up lost it, I swear. I’m not at all surprised she changed schools to begin with. There was that whole episode with Ms. Logan and whatever. Anyone else would’ve change schools sooner.”

“Maybe…” I said.

“Forget all that. That’s not why I wanted to talk.” Perri said. “I asked you to come up here because I wanted to know if you’re interested in coming to this thing me and Jin are setting up.”

“Will it just be our gang?” I asked.

Perri grinned. She leaned back against the metal fencing near where I was sitting. Her fingers were interlocked into the chain links as she swayed back and forth excitedly.

“Nah! We managed to round up a few girls from other schools to join us. Oh! Also I’ve got a few friends coming from a nearby college that promised to show up too.” Perri said. “It should be a fun time. I want to introduce you to some of the fools I used to run with before getting expelled.”

“Hmm… I don’t know… My mom has been keeping a close eye on me lately after our trip out of town.”

“She’s not likely to let up either. Might as well just go through with what you really want to do. She can’t hold you down forever.”

In truthfulness, I preferred small intimate groups instead of the big parties that Perri liked to throw. Perri’s ‘the more the merrier’ attitude didn’t always agree with that. What I’d really like is just a relaxed weekend together with her, Brianna and Casper. I couldn’t include Jin in that list since she was naturally opposed to the concept of relaxing.

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Perri sat down beside me and leaned her head onto my shoulder, giving me a fiery look. Her confident smile always tugged at my heart in a way that made it hard for me to resist her. She knew exactly how to influence me at this point. She put a hand on my knee and shook it lightly.

“Oh come on, Silver! Why not get out and have a bit of fun? I can tell that you’ve been down the past few days. Let’s celebrate the fact that we’re almost halfway through this cursed school year.”

“On a school night…?”

“Yeah, you can tell your mom you’re studying at a friend’s place or whatever. She won’t think much about it.”

“You clearly don’t know my mother that well…”

“I’m sure you can come up with something.”

I hummed thoughtfully.

“Alright, I’ll give it a shot.” I said.

Perri jumped up and cheered loudly at this. She pulled me up off the ground and swung me around with her. Then she pulled me into a tight hug and lifted me off my feet. I laughed the entire time, feeling pulled out of my earlier misery. Perri’s burning spirit was the thing that I liked most about her. She had this energetic effect on everyone around her. It made her fun to be around.

Satisfied with my answer, Perri decided she’d be going to her next class. Gym was the only elective that she enjoyed and didn’t want to miss out. As for me, I had a history lesson that I wasn’t looking forward to. The teacher was one of the hands off types that left the class to reading the textbook and answering questions from the book.

That being the case, I needed to retrieve said textbook from my out-of-the-way locker. The narrow hallways always made getting to my locker such a chore. Typically I was loathed to come here but history class was the only time I absolutely had to visit it every day. Part of me considered skipping this class as well. Since the work was textbook based I could easily do it at home.

I sighed overdramatically as I opened my locker. I wanted to complain to myself about how much I hated my history class, but then I noticed something. My history book wasn’t where I left it. It was still in my locker, sure, but not where I left it.

Soon I realized that everything in my locker was like that. This wasn’t the way that I normally arranged things in my locker. I knew it wasn’t my imagination overeacting either. I always managed a tight system since there were so many art books inside my locker. Even those books were currently out of place.

Someone had rummaged through my locker.

Slowly, I began reorienting things into their usual positions, scanning my locker’s contents for signs of stolen items. When I pulled out my history book a black envelope came out with it. It fell to the floor before I noticed it. I leaned down to pick it up, curious as to what it was. This definitely wasn’t something that I put inside my locker at any point.

The letter inside the envelope had only one line of text in a fanciful cursive script.

“What surprise lies behind this shrine of mine?” The letter asked.

Was this a prank? Was someone watching me read this while recording me with their camera? The writer correctly identified me as the creator of the shrine but went on to ask me an obscure question like this? What did they mean by that anyways? If they wanted to know what was behind it then they could just look for themselves.

Unless this was a riddle…

Admittedly I wasn’t good with riddles. The message just evoked a feeling of annoyance with the writer. In this moment I came to the conclusion that yes, I was going to skip class after all. Not only that. I decided that I was going to take apart the shrine that I built and trash the entire thing. This class period was going to be dedicated to cleaning up my own mess.

­I walked out to the backside of the school, ready to tear down the shrine in a huff. Only, as I rounded the corner, I could see that someone put the shrine back upright. I distinctly remembered knocking it down before I left to go hang out with Perri. Someone had managed to fix it within that short timeframe.

I approached the shrine thoughtfully. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to destroy it? It must’ve meant a lot to the other students if someone had fixed it that quickly. The collection of donated items around it also gave me pause. The more I considered it the more I felt like I’d be a monster for trashing it in a fit of rage.

The newly donated cat doll sitting directly behind the shrine caught my attention.

This doll wasn’t here an hour ago when I ran off to see Perri. I sat on my knees beside the small shrine, getting covered in dirt and grass. I picked up the doll with both hands and appreciated its unusual design. This doll looked more expensive than the others with its high quality material and distinctive facial features. Then I realized… I remembered hearing about this doll through Zoe and Perri!

“Nyx…?” I asked.

The cat’s smile lit up, shining a frosty blue.

“My, you’re quite quick on the pick-up… Literally… Do you mind letting me down?” The doll asked.

“I… I don’t understand… I…”

“You wanted me.” The doll said in an exasperated tone. “Here I am. Now like I said, down.”

I sat the doll down atop the shrine, moving the candles aside so that it had room to rest there. I almost couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I knew that Erica talked to the Killing Cat through a doll but this wasn’t what I had in mind when I set out to meet the Killing Cat.

Apparently Nyx could see this just by looking at the expression on my face because her smile lit up again.

“Disappointed…?” She asked in mock sorrow. “I don’t usually make personal visits unless I’ve got a bone to pick someone. Trust me, seeing me in person is never a good thing.”

Nyx was letting on to something grim. Even though the doll’s voice was playful and child-like, she wasn’t. It reminded me of exactly who I was talking to. This person or spirit was a serial killer and I was granted an audience. Suddenly I lost my strength to speak. My voice went weak the moment I tried saying something.

“Cat got your tongue?” The doll asked. “Please, tell me that you didn’t summon me because you wanted my autograph… I don’t show up for just anyone, you know. I’ve got other things to do.”

“It’s not like that!” I said quickly. “I saw something… I saw a police officer burying the body of a dead woman.”

“A woman that I killed,” Nyx added.

“Why?” I demanded.

“She was a killer herself.” Nyx said. “As well as that police woman you saw. As well as the woman that runs this school. As well as more people than you can possibly imagine. We’re all killers. This line of work is a never ending circle. But I suppose that isn’t why you summoned me, is it?”

“It kind of is…” I said. “I don’t want to live in a world full of killers. I don’t know who I can go to about this. Everything is so heavy that many of my closest friends either don’t believe or don’t take this conspiracy seriously. The few people that do understand haven’t done much about it. The student council knows but they’re dragging their feet and…”

My voice was becoming hysterical. I was practically tongue-tied trying to speak so fast. Putting my stream of thoughts into a coherent explanation was difficult.

“And you want me to be the hammer of justice?” The cat surmised, its smile lighting up again, “Poor little girl, just what do you think I’ve been doing?”

“I… I don’t know. I just wanted to ask for help.”

“What a coincidence. I wanted to ask the same from you.”

I gave the doll a suspicious look.

“What…?”

“You want the world to be a better place?” She asked. “You’re going to be my new agent. We’ll discuss what that means later. For now, you should get back to class. It would be bad if you drew unnecessary attention so soon after we’ve made a pact.”

‘A Pact’ it said. That sounded ominous. I wasn’t sure that this was what I wanted but she was right about one thing. I did want to make things better. It was my main reason for reaching out to her.

“I’m planning to go to this party with my friends tonight.” I explained. “Maybe today isn’t the best day for…”

“Oh…?” The doll interrupted me, “Then perhaps you should take me with you. I’ve got a feeling that this party of yours will be dangerously exciting.”

I flinched back at this barely veiled threat.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s just something I heard on the grapevine.” Nyx said. “That school bag of yours looks awfully warm and comfy. Mind putting me inside?”