The girls were long gone and Rachael had been asleep for a while, but for some reason I had been up for a while staring at the board. There was something about it that felt like there was an idea floating around my head that wouldn’t stop long enough for me to take a good look at it. Sitting on the board, I stared down at the planchette, eyeing it like it held the mysteries of the universe. The cat part of my brain very badly wanted me to knock it off the table and watch it clatter to the floor, the urge was getting worse as the night progressed. I lifted my paw to start working it towards the edge and touched it gently, causing the triangle of wood to glide smoothly across the table. It slowly came to a stop over the “YES” printed on the bottom right corner of the board. The idea that had been eluding me all night exploded in my mind, the possibility overwhelming me in it’s simplicity and obviousness. I could use the board to communicate, it was perfect for it! The ease at which I moved the planchette meant that I might be able to spell quickly and be able to at least converse in short words.

I impatiently waited for Rachael to wake up, eyes stubbornly held open despite the burning need for my cat body to nap. I didn’t want for the worst to happen and her wake up while I slept and put the board away. I would potentially only get one chance, there was no way I’d ever be able to set it up on my own. To my relief, I heard her stir a little after the sun started to come up, the floor of her bedroom creaking as she got ready for the day. Getting impatient, I started to meow for her, hoping to hurry her along.

“Teddy,” she harshly whispered from her bedroom, “people might hear you!” She came out of her room, eyes still heavy with sleep.

Not wanting to spend even one more second unnecessarily unable to communicate, I began to move the planchette to one of the pre-printed words, “HELLO.”

She blinked, then rubbed her eyes, stepping over to the board. She was about to pick up the triangular piece of wood and take away my chance, so I batted it out of her way and carefully maneuvered it to spell the only word I could think of that might get her attention. Concentrating very hard, I managed to slowly spell out R-A-C-H-A-E-L.

Rachael blinked, face morphing between fear, shock, and exhilaration like she couldn’t decide which exactly she should be in that exact moment. On wobbly legs, she shuffled to the couch and dropped into it, turning her gaze directly at me. “Are you kidding?” she whispered.

In response, I maneuvered the planchette over to “NO.”

“I must be dreaming,” she whispered, closing her eyes tightly, then opening them wide. “I just need to wake up.

N-O-T-A-S-L-E-E-P, I spelled, then meowed while reaching toward her with an extended front paw.

“Then what’s your name?” she uttered with barely any volume at all.

T-E-D-D-Y

Rachael breathed in sharply and leaned back in the couch, moving quickly, as if she was going to fall over otherwise. I waited patiently for her to recover herself, I supposed I would have been pretty shocked too if I had just learned that my house pet could spell and understand. After a long few minutes she sat up, eyes like saucers as she looked to me.

“Who are you really?”

M-A-N, I spelled, then paused, unsure how to go from there. How could I describe myself in the least words? I gave up on the backstory for the present time and instead went with the facts I felt like she absolutely needed to know. C-A-T-2-0-Y-R-S.

“I don’t understand…” Rachael’s voice trailed off and she uneasily looked to the board like perhaps it had possessed me in some way. In her defense, it did seem like a more reasonable explanation than I was a man who had transformed into an animal.

P-L-S-H-E-L-P. I looked to her intensely, again cursing the lack of emotive ability of my feline face. I needed her to believe me, this was the best chance I had ever had at maybe returning to my proper form.

Slowly, she turned the phone she had been holding over and fumbled with trying to go through her contacts without taking her eyes off of me. I sat back on my haunches, waiting patiently, though I very much wanted to keep spelling out things. It was probably best not to push things too far before she had time to process what was happening. People often did strange, impulsive things when cornered with something they don’t quite understand. Rachael quickly raised the phone to her ear as soon as she hit the call button, her eyes still huge as she stared at me, barely allowing herself to blink.

“Connie…” she said barely above a whisper. “Come over right now.”

“What? What’s going on?” Connie said, alarm in her voice.

“I can’t explain, just get over here.” Without another word, Rachael hung up and set the phone next to her on the couch.

It did not take long for Connie to arrive and as soon as the first knock came to the door, Rachael flew to the door, wrenching it open.

“What’s wrong?!” Connie was shaking, eyes darting over Rachael to see where the wound or damage was.

“It’s not me.” The words tumbled out of Rachael as if she couldn’t contain them any longer. “It’s Teddy, he’s… he’s… oh my god this sounds so crazy… he talked to me.”

Connie’s eyebrows raised and she cast a glance back to me, hands still on her friend’s shoulders, clutching her out of concern. “Your cat talked to you?”

“Not out loud, through the board!”

Not wanting to go down the path where Connie would argue with what was happening, I meowed loudly and started batting at the planchette, navigating it over to the first letter.

“Watch him!” Rachael pleaded. “He will spell something out!”

C-O-N-N-I-E, I spelled.

Connie’s face paled and she began to shake her head slowly back and forth. “That’s not possible.”

“That’s what I thought,” Rachael said, “but ask him something!”

“How many people were in the apartment last night?” After asking, Connie navigating the both of them to sit on the couch before the board, leaning in close.

It almost felt like a trick question, but I answered “6” like they expected, but quickly followed it up with: 7-W-I-T-H-M-E.

“See?!” Rachael said a little hysterically. “He told me that he’s actually a man and that he’s been a cat for 20 years!”

“Then what’s your real name? Connie asked, seeming to be taking the news a bit better. At least she was shivering nearly as severely as Rachael.

E-R-I-C, I spelled, then looked to the girls hopefully. I wanted them to ask more question about me, it had been so long since I had been able to share any communication that I craved it desperately.

“Eric,” Connie said aloud, causing a chill to run down my spine and all the way to the end of my tail. “How old are you?”

Another particularly tricky question, in my head I had not aged at all, yet many years had passed. Deciding on a compromise, I answered, 2-5-H-U-M-A-N and then followed it up with 2-0-C-A-T.

“I can’t believe I’m having a conversation with a cat…” Connie said with an uneasy laugh. “I keep hoping he’ll start giving nonsense for answers and we can relax and just chalk this up to temporary insanity.”

“I think it’s real,” Rachael said, voice still barely audible. “I don’t think I’m dreaming.”

“Do you mean to become a cat?”

I slid the triangle over to “NO.”

“Rachael, do you have paper and a pencil somewhere?” Connie asked.

“Yes, I’ll get it.” She seemed grateful to have a reason to snap her attention away from the unbelievable scene playing out in her living room.

“I’m going to write down what you spell so that we can communicate better,” Connie explained. “Just tap the board with your paw when you’re done with a word.”

I tapped the board with my claws to signify my agreement and slid the planchette over to “YES” so that there was no doubt that I understood. I was glad that at least one of the girls was able to process what was going on without going into shock.

Pencil and paper in hand, Connie looked to me and nodded. “Go ahead, tell us your story.”

After a lot of paw tapping and very carefully batting the triangular piece of wood in the right direction, Connie had nearly filled the page of paper. There was so much more I could say, but I didn’t want to overwhelm them all at once. Hopefully this wouldn’t be the only time I would get to be able to communicate with them.

“My name is Eric Bronelle,” Connie recited. “I was transformed into a cat 2 decades ago due to a magic ritual that went wrong. I had been living on the college campus and collecting ritual items to try again, but I have yet to get it to work. I would like help completing the ritual correctly so that I can be a person again. I have gotten too adapted to being a cat and sometimes have trouble keeping myself from acting out the instincts.”

The room was quiet as the words hung in the air, the girls staring at me with more fascination and less panic than before. For the first time since I had transformed, I had some of solid hope that I might just be able to get out of of this situation.

“Okay…” Rachael began, but then went silent again.

Connie cast a glance to her then shrugged. “I don’t know what to say either really.”

I meowed softly in reply. I wouldn’t entirely blame them if they still didn’t quite believe this was all real. Before having it happen to me, I didn’t even realize that something like this could even be an outcome of interacting with magic.

“Do we help him?” Rachael asked, looking away from me just long enough to cast a glance at her friend.

“Of course,” Connie replied, “we can’t just leave him like this.”

I sighed in relief, my shoulders physically dropping slightly in relief.

“That’s true, I just… don’t know what to think I guess. I thought I was bringing home a cat and instead I managed to bring home a… middle aged man?” Rachael shivered a bit, the expression on her face recoiling. “He’s been in the apartment while I’ve been sleeping and showering. I don’t exactly know how to feel about that.”

Had my face been allowed to flush, I would have turned bright red. I immediately hopped back to my feet and began to push the planchette, determined to clear my name. Connie flipped over her scrap paper to the other side so that she could record what I wanted to say.

“He says, ‘No, I assure you that I stayed out of your room and the bathroom while you were home. I made it a point to never give you a reason to look back and feel any more uncomfortable than you already were going to be. I’m sorry that I could not tell you who I really was any earlier.’” Connie read.

“That makes me feel a little better,” Rachael admitted, “but I still feel kind of weird about it. I don’t think that’s just going to go away right away.”

Connie turned her head to look at her friend, a slight frown on her face. “If you’re really uncomfortable, I’ll take him.”

‘Why would you do that?” Rachael asked, though her voice did sound slightly hopeful. “Wouldn’t you feel uncomfortable too?”

“Maybe if I didn’t know before hand, but now that I do, I think we can both be adult about it.”

There was a lump forming in my stomach and I felt ashamed, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. I could completely understand why Rachael would feel like her privacy had been invaded and that she didn’t know if she could trust me. Part of me felt like perhaps I should have gotten away and not let her take me home, but then I wouldn’t have been able to figure out how to finally communicate with the world again and be so much closer to getting back to a normal life. I was just selfish enough not to regret the path I had taken and accept coming off as kind of creepy was worth the gains.

“If you’re sure,” Rachael said, glancing towards me. “No hard feelings, Ted-er, Eric.”

She looked sad, I guess in a way I had just taken away a pet that she had very much wanted. My mind floated back to seeing her eating ramen noodles daily while spending what little extra money a college student has on my name brand cat food. The lump in my stomach only grew heavier as I realized she would have to go back to living alone with no one else to keep her company.

S-O-R-R-Y. I really was.

Rachael shrugged and stood up. “I guess I should give you the litter box and the rest of the cat food, Connie.”

“Sure, that sounds good.” Connie looked to her friend with a half-smile, obviously picking up on the fact that she felt disappointed. “We can get you another cat,” she offered, “Why don’t you keep everything until we do. We could go today.”

“No,” Rachael called from the kitchen, “I shouldn’t have been keeping him against my lease anyway. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

I kicked the planchette over to “NO” and shared a look with Connie. She nodded and let out soft sigh, picking me up and holding me under her arm while we waited for Rachael to be done with gathering all of the things that would go with me.