The Marmalade Cat

My first brush with the impossible happened when I was six, in the autumn of 1987, in the small town of Harlow’s Bend. My grandmother, Eleanor, had just passed away. She was the keeper of the town’s old apothecary, a dusty shop that smelled of dried lavender and camphor, and she had a peculiar attachment to a stray orange tabby that she called Marmalade. The cat was ancient, with a torn ear and a limp, and it followed her everywhere, even into the shop, where it would curl up on the counter among the jars of tinctures.

After her funeral, my mother, Claire, and I stayed in her creaking Victorian house to sort through her belongings. The house was a maze of overstuffed rooms, with steep stairs that groaned at the slightest step, and a peculiar smell of menthol and old paper. On the night after the burial, I lay in the spare bedroom, which had a window overlooking the overgrown garden. The moon was nearly full, casting silver light across the floorboards. I couldn’t sleep, haunted by the image of my grandmother in her coffin, her hands folded over her chest, her familiar smile gone.

I heard a soft thud, like a heavy book falling, from the room downstairs. Then, the sound of shuffling footsteps on the wooden stairs, slow and deliberate, as if someone was dragging one foot. The footsteps stopped outside my door. The doorknob turned with a faint creak, and the door swung open. There stood my grandmother, but not as I had seen her in the coffin. She was dressed in her usual flowered apron, and she was holding a jar of something dark. Her face was pale, almost translucent, and her eyes were sunken, but she smiled at me with a warmth that chilled my bones. She walked to my bedside and began to stroke my hair, her fingers icy cold, leaving a trail of goosebumps.

I tried to scream, but my throat was tight. I finally managed to croak, ‘Grandma, you’re dead.’ She just continued stroking my hair and said in a whispery, dry voice, ‘I know, sweet child. But I had to come back for my Marmalade. He’s lost without me. Have you seen him?’ Her eyes darted around the room, and her hand tightened on my shoulder. I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. She leaned in closer, and I could smell the cloying scent of the lavender sachets she kept in her drawers, mixed with something earthy, like rot.

In the hallway, I heard my mother’s footsteps. She burst into the room, her own face white as the moon. ‘Mom?’ she said, her voice trembling. My grandmother turned to her, but before she could say another word, my mother flicked on the light switch. The room flooded with harsh yellow light, and my grandmother vanished. The only trace was a cold spot on my forehead and the faint scent of menthol and camphor that lingered in the air.

We both stood there, shaking, when the sound of a cat’s mournful yowl came from outside. We rushed to the window and saw Marmalade sitting on the stone wall that bordered the garden, his yellow eyes glowing in the moonlight. He was staring directly at the house, and as we watched, he opened his mouth and let out a long, human-like wail that sounded like a name: ‘Eleanor.’ My mother pulled the curtains shut and hugged me tight.

The next morning, my mother called my aunt Beatrice, who lived across town. Before she could even say what had happened, my aunt exclaimed, ‘Claire, you won’t believe it! Last night, little Timmy—he’s only four—he woke up screaming. I went in, and there was Mom, sitting on his bed, petting his head, asking if she could borrow his toy boat to put in her garden pond. She said she’d left it by the back door and needed to fetch it.’ My mother’s face went ashen. She told me to pack a bag, and we left that house without looking back.

But even now, years later, I sometimes catch the faint scent of menthol and lavender in an old house, or hear a cat’s yowl that sounds too much like my name, and I wonder if my grandmother ever found her marmalade cat—or if she’s still looking, touching the heads of the living, asking for things we can’t give.