The Clack of the Slate

In the autumn of 1987, my cousin Delia and I were sitting on the warped front steps of my grandmother’s farmhouse, which was bordered by a towering, unkempt privet hedge that hid the gravel road beyond. It was nearing eight in the evening, and the air had that sharp, decaying-leaf smell that October brings. We were talking about nothing, the way teenagers do, when we heard a sound that didn’t belong: a rhythmic clack, like hard shoes on pavement, coming from the other side of the hedge. The steps were deliberate, heavy, and followed a steady beat we couldn’t place. We fell silent, then giggled nervously, imagining some neighbor in stiff boots. But the sound stopped abruptly, replaced by a different noise—a low, almost mechanical hum, like glass vibrating. From the end of the hedge, a slate-gray cat emerged, its fur flat and dull, its eyes fixed on us with an unnerving stillness. It sat at the edge of the driveway, maybe thirty feet away, and did not blink. The humming seemed to come from its direction, and I noticed the air around it shimmered slightly, like heat rising off asphalt on a hot day, though the evening was cool. Delia whispered, ‘That’s not a cat.’ I didn’t answer because the cat opened its mouth, and instead of a meow, a sound like a snapped violin string cut through the dusk, and the hedge rustled as if a wind had passed through it, though there was no wind. The hum grew louder, and I realized it was coming from the ground beneath us. The porch boards under our feet began to vibrate. The cat’s head tilted, and its eyes—which I had taken for gray—were actually a milky white, with no pupils, like a statue’s eyes. Then it stood and walked slowly toward the house, its paws making no sound on the gravel, yet the hum followed it, and behind it, the hedge began to writhe, as if something large was pushing through from the other side. Delia grabbed my arm, her fingers digging in, and I saw her face had gone pale. ‘The steps,’ she said, ‘they’ve started again.’ And indeed, from behind the hedge, the clack of footsteps resumed, but this time they were accompanied by the sound of a second pair—lighter, faster—like a child running to catch up. We didn’t wait to see who or what emerged. We scrambled up the steps and slammed the heavy oak door, bolting it. The hum seeped through the wood, and through the thin curtains, we watched the cat reach the porch and stop, its blank eyes staring at the door. Then, the footsteps ceased, and the hum faded into the rustle of leaves. For a week, the cat lingered outside, always at the same spot, always humming that low, glassy tone. On the seventh day, my grandmother, who had been bedridden, sat up for the first time in months, pointed a trembling finger at the window, and said, ‘The slate is calling.’ None of us knew what she meant. That night, the cat vanished, but in its place, we found a single slate tile, the kind used in old roofing, lying in the grass. It was smooth, unnaturally cool, and when I picked it up, I heard the clack of footsteps inside my skull, as if walking away into some dark, endless corridor. I dropped it, and it landed with a clatter that echoed like the steps from that first evening. We buried it in the field, but I still do not know what made that sound, or what the cat was a messenger for. But every October, when the leaves turn, I hear that hum, faintly, from beyond the hedge—and I know it is listening, waiting for its slate to be found again.