She stretched—front legs first, extending her claws and spreading her toes. Then her back legs, one at a time, feeling each muscle pull and release. Her jaw opened in a huge yawn that made her whole face scrunch up.
Her body felt good. Rested. Ready for—
“Smoke?”
She lifted her head, ears swiveling. Listening for the soft padding of giant paws. For the little squeaky mews.
Nothing.
“Brother?”
She stood, turning in a slow circle. Where was he?
Her eyes scanned the darkness. He should be easy to spot—all that white fur would stand out even in the dim Nowhere-light. Except he’d been darkening for seasons now, grey creeping in like shadows. But still. He was huge. Almost twice her size. How could she miss him?
She looked left. Right. Behind her.
Just empty grass. Tree-shapes. Darkness.
No massive fluffy brother.
“Smoke?” Her voice came out smaller now.
The darkness closed in.
Wrong darkness. Empty darkness.
Not the bedroom with its familiar smells and sounds, not the closet where her spot was among the laundry cubes. This was—
Oh.
The memory crashed back.
She was dead.
She was in the Nowhere.
Smoke wasn’t here because Smoke was still alive.
Still in the bedroom. Still with the fathers. Still with sister. Still—
Without her.
Solstice sat down hard, tail curling tight around her body.
At least he wasn’t completely alone. He had Ducati. He had the fathers. He had Coffey, even if Coffey was—
Her thoughts scattered. Tags. Movement. Whatever had happened that she couldn’t quite remember.
But Smoke had always had HER. Even when they’d been in separate crates as tiny kittens, they’d been able to see each other. Hear each other. Know the other was there.
And now he didn’t have that anymore.
Was he looking for her? Was he crying his little squeaky cries, wondering where she’d gone? Did he press his nose to her cube in the closet, trying to smell her, trying to understand why his sister wasn’t coming back?
Her chest hurt.
Not like the pain from before. Not like dying. This was different. Deeper. The kind of hurt that didn’t have a wound you could lick until it healed.
“I’m sorry, brother,” she whispered to the empty nowhere. “I didn’t mean to leave you.”
Still alone. Malice hadn’t returned.
The puddle sat nearby. Patient. Waiting.
Solstice stared at it.
Malice had shown her Remote Seeing. Had made the puddle show the hamsters—their whole realm with its grinding wheels and flour and tiny villages. Had proven that the puddle could show things far away. Things in other places.
What if she could see Smoke?
The thought hit her like a physical thing. Hope and fear all tangled together.
She approached the puddle slowly, her heart doing something strange in her chest.
Malice had done it. Had looked at the puddle and somehow made it show something far away, something real. But how? How had she made it work?
Smoke was living.
Smoke was her brother.
Solstice settled into her loaf position. Paws tucked under. Tail wrapped around. The way she used to sit in the window watching birds.
She made her eyes big and round and shiny.
The connection formed—looking up at herself from below. Her own reflection staring back. The M-marking dark on her forehead.
But she didn’t want to see herself.
She wanted to see home.
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She pushed through the puddle. Past it. Beyond it.
Show me Smoke. Show me my brother. Please please please.
Her vision stretched. Searching. Reaching out through the nothing, through the darkness, trying to find something—
Nothing.
Just more darkness. Just more Nowhere.
Her chest tightened.
“Please,” she whispered. “I need to see him. Need to know he’s okay.”
She pushed harder, focused everything on the feeling of Smoke. On his huge fluffy warmth. On his little squeaky sounds. On the way he’d curl around her when they slept, his giant body making her feel small and safe.
Still nothing.
The puddle remained stubbornly empty. Just her reflection. Just herself looking sad and desperate.
“Work,” she told it. Her voice cracked. “Please work. I need—”
She stopped.
Took a breath.
Malice had made it look so easy. Just stare. Think about what you want to see. And there it was—hamsters grinding grain, clear as anything.
But Solstice couldn’t.
Maybe she wasn’t doing it right. Maybe she wasn’t strong enough. Maybe—
Maybe she didn’t deserve to see him.
The thought settled in her stomach like a stone.
She’d died and left him. Left all of them. And now she was stuck here in the Nowhere while they were there in the real world, grieving, and she couldn’t even—
“Stop it,” she told herself firmly. “That’s not—you didn’t MEAN to die. You didn’t CHOOSE this.”
Solstice shook her head hard, trying to dislodge the thoughts.
Focus. She needed to focus.
She stared at the puddle again. Made her eyes big and round.
This time, instead of pushing through violently, she tried to ease into it. Gentle. Like the way she’d slip into the cube when Smoke was already in his—careful not to disturb, not to push, just finding the space that was hers.
Show me home. Show me the bedroom. Show me where Smoke sleeps.
Her vision stretched—
And caught on something.
A flicker. A flash of—
Color?
No. Not color. The Nowhere didn’t have real color.
But it was different. Warmer. Less empty.
She focused on that warmth. That difference.
The puddle’s surface rippled.
An image began to form—
Blurry at first. Like looking through water. Or through a dirty window. All shapes and suggestions but nothing clear.
Solstice held very still. Barely breathing. Afraid that any movement would break whatever was happening.
The image sharpened.
A room. THE room. The bedroom where they’d all lived together.
She could see it in the water. Actually see it. Not just remember.
The bed—the big one where the fathers slept. The carriers lined against the wall where food appeared. The door that led to the rest of the house. The scratching post by—
Movement.
Something grey-white and massive squeezing through a doorway.
The closet.
Smoke was coming out of the closet.
“Brother,” Solstice breathed.
And just like that, the image in the puddle shifted. Not showing the whole bedroom anymore, but following Smoke. The water’s surface tracked him as he moved.
Solstice moved closer, staring down at the puddle like it was a window. Like she could reach through and touch him if she just got close enough.
When had he gotten that dark?
He looked tired. His fur—so much greyer than she remembered—was matted. Not just on one side. Everywhere. Clumps and tangles that he would have groomed out immediately if he was taking care of himself.
Solstice leaned closer to the puddle, watching the image ripple with her breath.
Smoke loved grooming. Loved being clean. Would spend entire naps just licking his paws and washing his face.
But he wasn’t doing that anymore. He’d stopped caring.
He walked slowly. Not with his usual lazy confidence. Not with that big-cat swagger he’d developed as he’d grown huge and realized he was bigger than everyone else.
This was different. Heavier.
Smoke padded across the room. Past his light blue carrier. Past Ducati’s charcoal one.
Straight to the white and grey carrier.
Her carrier.
No. Not anymore. She didn’t have a carrier. She didn’t have anything.
But Smoke stopped in front of it anyway.
And then he started trying to squeeze himself inside.
“What are you—” Solstice started.
But she knew what he was doing.
I did this to you. You’re hurting because I’m gone and I can’t—
Air wouldn’t come. Her chest squeezed tight—tighter—the pain building, pressing against her ribs. She didn’t know what to do with it. Panic wormed in, cold and creeping—
“I can’t fix it!”
The words gasped out. Raw. Desperate.
The carrier was too small. Way too small. Smoke was almost twice her size. He barely fit in his own carrier. But he was determinedly shoving his massive fluffy body into hers anyway.
His front half disappeared inside. Then his middle. His back legs folded awkwardly, not quite fitting, but he pulled them in anyway with a little squeaky grunt of effort.
And then he was in.
All of him. Somehow. Packed into a space meant for a cat half his size.
Her claws dug into the not-grass beneath her, her throat tight.
He couldn’t even turn around in there. Could barely move. He just… sat. Squished. His face pressed into the far corner.
Where her scent would be.
“Brother,” she whispered. “That’s not your spot. The light blue one is yours. Why are you—”
But she knew why.
Because she wasn’t there to fill it.
Smoke made a sound. One of his little squeaks. But this one was different. Sadder.
And then he just… stayed there. Pressed into that corner. Breathing in deep. Searching for the smell of her. For what was left of it.
Looking for her.
The puddle’s image wavered.
Solstice realized she was crying. Actual tears running down her face and hitting the water.
“I’m here,” she told him, even though she knew he couldn’t hear. “I’m here, I’m okay, I’m—”
But she wasn’t okay.
And he didn’t know.
Couldn’t know.
He just knew she was gone. And so he’d squished his too-big body into her too-small space, trying to be close to her anyway.
The ripples from her tears spread across the puddle.
The image fragmented. Split into a dozen versions of Smoke-in-the-carrier, all of them sad, all of them squeezed into spaces too small.
“No,” Solstice said. “No, wait—”
But it was breaking apart. Scattering. The connection she’d worked so hard to make was dissolving in the water disturbed by her grief.
“Please,” she whispered. “I need to see him. I need—”
The image shattered completely.
Just her own reflection again. Tears dripping from her chin into the puddle.
Solstice slumped forward. Pressed her forehead against the cool ground beside the water.
The pain hit her then. Really hit.
Not the small hurt from before. Not the ache of missing. This was bigger. Deeper. Like her chest was being crushed from the inside out.
I want to go back. I want to tell him I’m okay.
She curled into herself. Tight. Like a shrimp. Paws tucked against her chest. Tail wrapped around. Trying to hold herself together because no one else was here to hold her.
The pain was so big.
I want— But I can’t.
Bigger than any feeling she’d ever had when she was alive. Back then, her big feelings had been scary, overwhelming, but they’d had limits. Her body could only feel so much before it shut down, before she’d lash out or hide or freeze.
But here? In the Nowhere? With this new body that wasn’t quite cat anymore?
The feelings went deeper. Wider. They filled every space inside her and kept growing, kept expanding, until she thought she might shatter from the weight of them.
I’m here and he’s there and nothing I do will change that.
She’d seen the living world. Had seen Smoke. Had managed something Malice probably never learned—reaching through the barrier between dead and alive to witness what was happening in the real world.
She’d done it.
She’d actually done it.
And it had been awful.
I am seeking feedback. Please take a moment to answer the following questions, or share anything else you'd like. Thank you.
- What moment in this chapter hit you hardest—and did it feel earned, or did it catch you off guard?
- When Solstice finally saw Smoke through the puddle—did you feel hope, dread, or something else entirely?
- After finishing this chapter, did you immediately want to read the next one—or did you need a moment to sit with what happened?