“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death” - Coco Chanel
Cait Sith, the Progeny’s own resident Cheshire cat, still liked to people-watch, even though he had been in the human world for a few years now. Humans, with all their little idiosyncrasies and contradictions, always managed to teach him something new. He liked to watch them as they went about their lives, unaware they were being watched. When they felt they were alone that they were at their most genuine. No fronts, no pretenses... they showed their true colors. Today, the faerie feline had chosen one of his more favorite haunts, a formerly vacant lot converted into a small park for neighborhood children. It existed in an older section of what had once been a Detroit neighborhood. What Dr. Destroyer’s act from decades prior hadn’t wiped out, time wore away at now. Old and decaying buildings stood empty in the area. But this park, this little stretch of green, held new promise. Wealthy investors had their eye on the place, seeking to gentrify the neighborhood. Of course, neither the kids playing on the playground equipment or their parents watching from nearby seemed to care about any of that.
Cait watched curiously from his spot on a park bench as a dad chased his daughter around, pretending to be some sort of monster. A tickle monster. The child’s curly hair bounced as she ran, squealing playfully as she ‘fled’ from her father’s outstretched fingers. She let out a chorus of shrieks and giggles as the man scooped her up. The cat felt… an almost painful sensation run through him as he watched the interaction, an uncomfortable mix of longing and jealousy. Cait didn’t remember much of his kittenhood, and only had fleeting memories at best of his mother. His father, however, wasn’t exactly the nurturing type. Cait would never classify his formative years as being terrible, or all that tragic, and as of late he couldn’t help but compare his family life with that of human families. He couldn’t help but think about the fact that his kittenhood had been so… lacking. The bond he’d made with his friends in the Progeny was, in fact, the closest thing in the faerie cat’s life that resembled a family.
The Chesire remained there on the bench, disguised as an ordinary cat, until the streetlights in the area flickered to life and the last of the parkgoers had left. It was time to return to the Arcade, and it would take him a few hours to get back to Westside. Possibly less if he could manage to catch a ride on a vehicle heading that direction. As he made his way through the park toward the streets, a soft sound caused him to stop. Cait stood stock still, ears perked up as he relied on his heightened senses. Then he heard it again, the sound of someone crying. Curiosity tugged at him, eventually spurring him on to seek out the source. The buildings about him progressively became more rundown as he followed the trail, until he came to a stop in front of a condemned tenement building on the outskirts of the neighborhood. His fur nearly stood on end as the subtle scent of death hit him, but it wasn’t just that he sensed. There was something… off. Not so much magic, that he sensed, but the presence of something supernatural for sure.
He scouted out the building as the sobbing inside continued. A gap in the boards covering a window allowed him entry. He wriggled through, and landed inside a tiny, faded room. Dried, peeling wallpaper covered the walls of what had at one point been a small kitchen and dining area. He passed through an equally small room that might have been a sitting room, heading toward a door that stood ajar. The cat poked his head out, all his senses alert as he scanned the narrow hallway beyond. The death stench lingered, but Cait couldn’t seem to find a source. Besides, he was more concerned about the crying at that point. He slipped through the entryway, letting his ears lead him where he needed to go. Down the darkened hall he went, pausing at each door until he reached the last one. He poked his head through, his senses on high alert. The sounds of sniffling and crying were coming from a tiny room off the main one. There, curled up where the floor had once been scarred by a claw-foot tub that was no longer there, sat a child. She might have been maybe five or six.
Well. Five or six when she was alive at least.
The ethereal child hiccuped, shoulders shaking as she cried. Cait hesitated for a moment. The affairs of ghosts were tricky. The logical side of him knew that the presence of a ghost, coupled with the death stench pervading the building, likely meant that there was something sinister afoot. He padded into the room cautiously, shifting out of his disguise to his true form, the matte black giving way to violet shaded stripes, his mouth shifting into that all too wide maw that Cheshire cats were known for. The little girl looked up, letting out a little squeak as she caught sight of Cait. She curled up into an even tighter ball, hands over her head, fingers laced together as if that would protect her.
“It’s alright,” Cait said soothingly. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you.”
The child ghost lifted her head just ever so slightly. “...kitties can’t talk…”
He crossed the tiny room, until he was standing a few feet in front of her. “I am no ordinary cat.”
The little girl lowered her hands, though she remained curled up, her chin resting on her knees. “You look like that cat from my book.”
“Is that so?”
“Mhm. Alice in Wonderland... You look like the Cheshire cat.”
“That’s because I am a Cheshire cat.”
The girl relaxed, a sweet little smile spreading on her face. “Cheshire cats are real?” she asked with a gasp.
“They are.”
“My name is Alice. Just like in the book,” she said with a giggle. “What’s yours?”
Cait hesitated for a moment, then answered, “You may call me Cait.” He approached the child, tense and alert. The ghost seemed friendly enough, but there was always the possibility she could lash out. “Alice, why are you here?”
The child seemed to shrink in on herself. “I don’t know. I’ve been alone for very long...”
Alice started crying again, and the cat couldn’t stop himself from moving over to her. Being what he was, when he brushed up against the child, there was an odd but tactile sensation. The girl felt different, but she had substance all the same. More importantly, the child could feel him. She seemed startled by this at first. Then after a moment or two she took Cait into her arms, hugging him close to her.
“You aren’t like the cat in the book. The cat in the book probably wouldn’t let me cuddle him.”
He couldn’t stop the purr that escaped him when the girl started scratching the back of his neck with her fingers. “...most likely not.” With the girl calmed, once again, it was time to get to the heart of things. “Alice...do you know why you’re alone?”
“...no.”
“You don’t remember anything at all?”
Little Alice continued petting him as she spoke. “I… remember Papa and baby Carol got really sick. The doctor came and then they were gone. Then I was really cold, and I hurt all over, and I was so tired. Mama was there. Mama sang hush-a-by… and then…”
The child started shaking, clinging to the cat with a vise like grip. He grimaced at the sudden pressure. It took a moment for him to notice that the death stench had thickened, becoming something like a thick miasma in the room.
“Mama put me in the bath…”
Rusty water suddenly spouted out from the pipes all over the apartment, gushing out of sinks and faucets, out of the walls. It spread across the floors, then veered into the room. It coalesced around the child and the cat. Then the water began to fill in the space just around Cait and Alice. The death stench swelled as the shape of a woman formed in the doorway. In life, she might have been beautiful woman. In death, however, the woman was wilted looking. Clothes that should have fit sagged in places on her frail form. Her cheeks were sunken in, eyes scored by dark smudges. Those wild eyes locked straight in on Cait. Water suddenly became solid, pushing up between the cat and the child ghost, forcibly tearing him free from the girl. He hit the wall hard, and it took a moment or two for the room to come back into focus. The wraith-like woman hovered over the child, as the water rose up all around little Alice. All the while, as the water steadily crept up, the woman sang a mournful song.
“Hush-a-by, don’t you cry. Go to sleep, little baby,” the woman crooned, stroking the child’s head.
Cait rose on all fours, shaking off the dull ache he felt. While in the back of his mind he knew Alice was dead, he couldn't stop himself from acting. Recovered, he gestured with a paw. Sigils inscribed themselves on the floor around the child mere seconds before a bright violet wall of arcane energy sprang up between the ghosts. The woman keened and railed against the barrier, then whipped around angrily at the Cheshire.
“You have to stop this!” he called out. That was all he could get out as the woman’s hands clawed at the air. Water rose up with the gesture and slapped out at him, sloshing him across the room once more. He barely avoided another wall collision as his claws gouged and dug furrows into the wooden floor.
“Leave her alone!” the ghost screeched. “My poor Lewis suffered. My poor Carol suffered. My little Alice will not suffer as they did!”
The agile feline ducked and leaped over jets of water as he countered, “She’s suffering now! Can you not see that?”
The water rose up all around the room as the woman howled and contorted her incorporeal body. “You’re wrong!”
Cait desperately tried to cast a binding spell, but wound up being buffeted on all sides in a sudden deluge before he could complete it. He flailed and clawed out in a bid to steady himself, but the swirl of water made it impossible. After several chaotic moments the water receded, depositing him in a heap on the floor. He groaned as he got back up on all fours, coughing and hacking up water he’d accidentally swallowed. The spell barrier fell under the might of the ghost's power.
“My baby is so so sick… but I promise, it’ll all be over soon,” the woman crooned, before beginning her sorrowful song once more. “And when you wake… you shall have a cake…” The voice hitched with a sob as the water rose up over Alice’s chin. “And all... The pretty little ponies…”
In that moment, Cait finally understood what the girl had tried to tell him before. He understood what had happened to little Alice. He understood what the woman had done to Alice. It hadn’t been done out of malice. It had been done out of grief, out of some misguided sense that she was being merciful. The act had been committed to spare the child suffering, but in return the woman’s guilt and grief had imprisoned them both in this place. Cait knew then what he needed to do.
“I am sorry for your loss. I am sorry for your pain. I am sorry for the suffering you must have endured all these years,” he said, voice calm, as non threatening as he could manage it. “What you’re doing to her now? It isn’t helping her. It isn’t helping you.”
The woman stopped her singing, fixed him with a look of uncertainty. The water wavered just under the child’s nose, but rose no further.
“Alice can never be at peace, unless you let it go. You have to let go of your guilt. What she needs is her mother. Not this thing you have become.”
A tense moment passed, where Cait was unsure the ghost had heard him, or if his words had reached her. And then the woman threw her arms around little Alice, clinging desperately. The water fell away streaming out across the floor away from the pair. The death stench that had hung so heavy in the air dissipated.
“Oh, baby. Mama’s so sorry Mama’s so, so sorry…”
“It’s okay, mama. Can we go home now?”
Whatever madness had built up in the grief stricken ghost seemed to lift, taking away some of the wildness about her. She gently kissed the top of Alice’s head. “Yes. Of course.”
The pair left with just a whisper of the wind, leaving Cait alone within the abandoned building. He didn’t linger long. The whole affair, while it had ended well enough, unsettled him. The chill in the air, coupled with the fact he was sore and soaked thoroughly, made his trip back to Westside an arduous one. Rather than continue on to the Arcade, he opted for someplace that lay a bit closer. He came to a stop in front of a nondescript building, sat down in full view of the cameras he knew were no doubt monitoring the area. He hoped that the person inside would be home, because truth be told? He simply didn’t want to be alone tonight. Not after what he’d just witnessed.
The wait wasn’t a very long one, but he was still shivering from the wet and cold by the time Sid yanked open the entrance to one of his many safehouses. The gunslinger wore a utility belt around stained, torn jeans, and a greasy gray T-shirt. Sid raised an eyebrow down at his teammate. “What’s up pussycat? How’d you know I was here?” The scent of gun oil wafted out of the doorway in a potent wave. Sid himself seemed to have been perspiring for some time.
Cait’s too wide maw curved into a relieved grin. Despite being cold and a bit on the miserable side, he tossed back, “Wouldn’t do to reveal all my secrets now, would it?” He shivered again. “Would it be alright if I stayed here for the night?”
Sid sniffed and rubbed his forehead of sweat, leaving a streak of some kind of grease on his brow. He gave a quick look around outside, before standing aside, jerking his head indoors. With a smack of reluctance he spoke, “Yeah, come on.”
Cait bowed his head in thanks, before quickly skirting inside. Like any sensible animal would, the cat sought out the warmest point in the room. In Sid’s safehouse, that point happened to be the utility lamp on the workbench. Covering one wall, curving, then covering half of the other, there was plenty of room up there without him disturbing his friend’s work. Still, he took great care as he lept up, keeping clear of the items laid out. He curled up under the lamp, letting the warmth seep in. After shutting the door, and taking care to lock all three deadbolts, Sid returned to his stool, resting his hands on the bench, a mess of gun parts and cleaning implements laid out before him. The raven-haired teen took a long look at his feline friend, before going back to his work, wiping down his disassembled weapon. Neither exchanged a word, but for Cait, the companionable silence was comforting enough. He watched his friend at work, until eventually the warmth radiating off the lamp lulled him to sleep.
