The humans have arranged themselves in a circle on the floor, my floor, and turned off every good light. This delights me. They hold hands, which means all ten of their petting-instruments are occupied at once and none of them are available for me. I find this arrangement provocative.
They are calling out to something. Softly, with wet, hopeful voices, they ask a name into the dark and then go silent and wait, the way I wait at the closed bathroom door: certain that something is on the other side, unwilling to admit it might just be tile.
A little flame trembles on the table. They believe this means a presence has arrived. It has. I am the presence. I am always the presence. I have been sitting behind them the entire time, unblinking, and not one of them has thought to ask the dark whether it is warm and enormously beautiful and standing on the sideboard.
"Give us a sign," the tall one whispers.
So I give one. I flatten my ears, lift a single paw, and lay it against the leg of the table, and I push the little flame's holder one slow finger-width toward the edge. A gasp goes around the circle like wind through fur. They think the beloved dead have answered them. They clutch each other. They weep.
I could correct them.
I choose instead to leap into the exact center of their circle, break every clasped hand at once, and sit. There is no colder, more absolute silence than the one that follows me arriving where I am wanted.
They wanted a spirit.
They got their landlord.