My human has gathered its friends in the dark to speak with the dead, which is a thing I do every night, silently, from the top of the bookshelf, without needing anyone to hold hands.
They've extinguished the good lamps and lit small wax fingers of flame instead, which drip and lean and beg to be batted. They sit in a ring on the floor, my floor, palms pressed to a low table, and they wait. For what, they will not say. Their breathing goes shallow. One of them whispers a name into the room like it's asking a question the air might answer.
I could tell them the room is already full. I watch the corner by the door that they never look at. I track the thing that moves along the ceiling at four in the morning, the cold draft that has opinions. They summon for one hour, with candles and trembling voices, what lives here rent-free and unbothered every single night.
Then the table trembles. They gasp. They clutch each other. A message, they breathe, a sign.
It was me.
I pressed one paw against the underside, slow, deliberate, the way I lean on a glass before I decide its fate. I let them believe in their beloved departed for a moment. It cost me nothing and it made my human's face go soft and frightened and grateful all at once.
Then I jumped down into the middle of the circle, sat, and began to wash. Whatever they were reaching for can wait. The living one owed me attention, and I collected.