Under The Bed

‘Hope, then,
Is a winged thing.
Fragile are its feathers,
And––’

The quill scratching across the parchment came to a stop, the ink bleeding into the page and leaving an unsightly Rorschach splotch. Marisol sighed and laid the pen aside before leaning back in her chair and staring at the mess.
A cat, as black as pitch, leapt elegantly onto the desk. It padded across the surface, wending its way around the ink pot, candle, and pen holder. It circled once. Twice. And then sat, its tail curled around its front paws. Wide yellow eyes blinked up at Marisol.
‘Do you fancy yourself Edgar Allan Poe?’ the cat asked.
‘What do you know of Poe?’ Marisol asked in return.
‘Everyone knows Poe,’ the cat replied, blinking at her. ‘Have you not heard of ‘The Raven’?’
‘Of course I have,’ she replied.
‘Who do you think inspired him to write it?’
Marisol scoffed. ‘You’re a cat, not a raven.’
‘Am I?’ the cat asked, tilting its head.
‘Stop teasing her,’ another voice hissed.
Slithering out of the wardrobe, an inky black snake slid along the floor and wound its way up the leg of the chair to perch on the backrest, its large head hovering over Marisol’s shoulder. Yellow eyes blinked and a kind smile curved its mouth.
‘Will you be going out today?’ the snake inquired.
Marisol looked across her desk to the window beyond. The sky was the kind of blue that looked like it was wearing an Instagram filter.
‘Not today,’ Marisol replied, leaning forward to blow out the candle before sliding her chair back and standing to stretch.
‘That’s probably for the best,’ the snake said. ‘After what happened last time.’
Marisol swallowed and closed her eyes. Concentrating on her breathing, she forced her thoughts away from the memory.
‘I need to write,’ she said, busying herself by tidying up the sheets of parchment.
‘And you thought imitating Poe would help?’ asked the cat.
‘Emily Dickinson actually, and it was worth a try,’ Marisol replied, picking up her phone and checking the screen.
No messages, although had she really expected any?
‘I’m glad you’re staying home,’ a third voice said. It came from the soot-coloured dog curled up on the bed across the room. It was a round fat blob taking up nearly the entire quilt. It didn’t even bother to open his yellow eyes. ‘A good long rest is what you need.’
‘She needs to write,’ the cat said with disdain for the dog.
‘Getting some fresh air would be good for her, but today probably isn’t the best day for that,’ the snake said.
‘Feed me.’
A fourth voice. This one came from the darkness under the bed. It had no form. Tiny yellow eyes peered out from its hiding place.
‘Feed me,’ it said again.
‘I don’t know what you eat,’ Marisol said.
‘Pizza,’ the dog said. ‘Let’s eat pizza.’
‘Let’s eat the pizza boy,’ the cat said with a gleam in his eye.
‘Pizza person,’ Marisol corrected. ‘You can’t call the delivery person a boy, it’s demeaning. Also, it could be a woman, or they might be non-binary.’
The cat narrowed its eyes. ‘I am older than time itself. I am an immortal, the terror in the night! What do I care for offending people?’ The cat grew as its voice rose in volume and deepened in timbre. Its shadow spilled across the desk and onto the floor. Its teeth sharpened to long, needle-like points and its eyes glowed like sulphur.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Marisol said wearily. ‘You cannot be older than time. That is impossible. As long as you have been in existence, then so has time.’
The cat yowled indignantly and swatted the ink bottle off the table. ‘I am a sixty-million-year-old demon, child! How dare you—’
A knock on the door stopped the cat’s villainous monologue. Marisol reached for the tissues and began to mop up the spilled ink, her back to the door.
‘Yes?’ she called.
The door opened and a face peeked into the room. ‘Do you have someone here with you?’
‘No,’ Marisol replied, not turning around.
The cat, the snake, the dog, and the thing under the bed blinked yellow eyes at her, but Marisol ignored them.
‘I was just talking to myself.’
‘Oh. Okay. We’re ordering pizza. Do you want some?’
‘Yes,’ said the dog, but the person at the door didn’t hear it.
‘Sure,’ Marisol said. ‘Just leave a couple of slices at the door for me.’
The door closed and Marisol took a breath.
‘That was an improvement,’ the snake said, its head weaving in approval.
The cat rolled its eyes. It was back to its normal size, although its attitude had not diminished. ‘What improvement? She spoke eighteen words.’
‘Yes,’ the snake agreed. ‘Eighteen words to another person. Ten more words than she spoke yesterday.’
‘Such an achievement,’ the cat said sarcastically, bored with the conversation. ‘So, about that pizza boy…’
The room trembled, causing Marisol to grab hold of the desk to steady herself.
‘Oh, no. That’s not good. Not good at all,’ a fifth voice said.
A large black rabbit hopped around the room, its ears twitching and yellow eyes rolling. It was far bigger than the others and when it stood on his hind legs, its ears bent where they touched the ceiling.
‘It is good,’ the snake said.
The cat said nothing, lifting the corner of its lip to sneer at the rabbit.
‘No, no, no,’ the rabbit said, trembling so much the entire room rocked. ‘She told them she was talking to herself. Talking to herself! They are going to think she is…weird’ The last word was a whispered hiss.
‘They already think she is weird,’ the cat muttered.
‘They won’t think she is weird,’ the snake reasoned. ‘Humans talk to themselves. It’s a thing.’
‘Is it?’ the rabbit asked, looking to the cat for conformation. The cat stared back without comment. ‘I don’t think it is a thing,’ the rabbit went on tremulously. ‘I don’t think it is.’
‘Feed me.’
The rabbit screamed and jumped in fright, upsetting the ink bottle on the desk again, not that there was much ink left. It shuffled into the corner of the room staring with wide, horrified eyes at the darkness under the bed.
‘It’s still alive?’ the rabbit whispered.
‘Alive and hungry,’ the cat said, licking its paw.
‘Don’t feed it,’ the rabbit hissed. ‘You can’t feed it. Look what happened when you fed the cat.’
They all turned to look at the cat who had lifted its leg and was leisurely cleaning its nether regions, unconcerned with the attention.
‘I’m sure it’s not dangerous,’ the snake said, lowering itself to peer under the bed. ‘It’s such a small, pitiful thing.’
Yellow eyes blinked back at them from under the bed.
‘Feed me,’ it whimpered.
Marisol reached toward it and the rabbit screamed, scrambling to get between her and the bed.
‘No! Don’t touch it!’
Marisol was curious about the thing under the bed. Had it always been there? If not, when had it arrived? And more importantly, what did it want?
‘I just want to see it,’ she said, peering around the bulk of the rabbit.
The darkness under the bed shivered and something small and soft floated to floor. Marisol reached out to pick it up and placed it carefully in her palm.
‘It’s a feather,’ she said, gazing at the small object that was only half as long as her smallest finger. Slowly, she lifted her gaze from the feather to the darkness. ‘You’re a bird.’
‘A bird?’ the cat asked, interest dripping from the words.
‘A bird,’ the snake repeated, its voice soft and dreamy.
The dog snored, uninterested.
‘A bird!’ the rabbit shrieked. ‘A bird?’
The rabbit leaped away from the bed. ‘Birds eat rabbits,’ it said, its enormous body quivering.
‘And cats eat birds,’ the cat said, pouncing from the desk to land silently beside Marisol. ‘I like birds.’ It licked his lips, its yellow eyes on the creature under the bed.
‘I like birds too,’ the snake said, sliding closer, its head raised and ready to strike.
‘Kill it,’ the rabbit demanded. ‘Kill it now!’
The cat and the snake both struck.
Marisol tried to protect the bird, but the cat and the snake were too fast and too strong.
The bird whimpered and then was silent. The feather in Marisol’s hand turned to dust.
‘Did you get it? Did you get it?’ the rabbit asked as it bounded around the room frantically.
The snake emerged first, a satisfied smile on its face as it curled around Marisol, its coils cocooning, constricting her movement.
The cat slunk out after, its eyes blinking languidly. It climbed into Marisol’s lap and settled down to sleep, a loud purr emanating from its sleek body.
The rabbit slumped back against the corner of the room and sighed heavily. ‘Good, good,’ it muttered to itself. ‘That’s good. It’s gone.’
The dog continued to snore.
‘Hope, then, is a winged thing,’ Marisol whispered looking at the dusty smudge on her finger, the only thing remaining of the small bird.
There was a knock on the door followed by, ‘Pizza.’
‘Thanks,’ Marisol whispered before laying on the floor and closing her eyes.
The dog opened its eyes and stretched. ‘Pizza,’ it said in approval.