The Cat Who Hides in the Closet

Let me introduce you to the four creatures who actually run my household. I just pay the mortgage.

Paden and Mikala are Shelties, a brother and sister who will both turn three on Halloween, which, for a supernatural thriller writer, feels like a wink from Heaven. Paden is the sweet protector. He is like a lot of boys: he lies around looking cute right up until something needs guarding, and then, suddenly, there is energy to spare. In between, he is a clown. Pure play. Mikala is another story. Mikala has ambitions.

Then there are the tabbies, Trinity and Tessa, sisters, and as different as two cats from the same litter can be. Trinity is the outgoing one. Mischievous. She keeps the dogs busy, which I suspect she considers her job. She acts like she owns the house. She does. Mikala vies for the position daily, and I would not want to be the one to referee that election.

Trinity acts like she owns the house. She does.

And then there is Tessa.

Tessa is the closet cat. When the dogs are too much, or the day is too loud, or she simply prefers her own company, she disappears. For a long while the closet was her spot. Then she decided the closet was too obvious. This is a big house with a great many places to hide, and she has made it her life’s work to know every one of them. I have found her in places I did not know were places.

I understand her completely. I am an introvert married to a big, noisy, wonderful life, and there are days I would happily take a closet too.

What I have learned from Tessa is that hiding is not the same as being gone. She has her own hours. Around the time everyone else goes to bed and the house goes dark and quiet, out she comes, and the whole place belongs to her. She makes her rounds. She checks on things. She sits with me if I am still up, as though she has been there all along and I am the one who has been acting strange. Then morning comes, the dogs come thundering in, and she is a memory again.

The rest of the household does not give it a second thought. Paden is napping. Mikala is campaigning. Trinity is running the place. They all seem to know that Tessa is exactly where she wants to be, and they leave her to it. There is a kind of wisdom in that I am still learning: that the quiet one is not lost, only elsewhere, and will come when she is ready.

Readers of the Ravens Cove books know I cannot write a story without animals in it. BC, the black cat, sees what the humans cannot. Carnelian, the Sheltie, stands guard. I did not have to invent those characters so much as look across the living room. Every animal I have ever loved has known something I did not, and I have long suspected that is one of the ways God keeps company with us: quietly, on four feet, showing up at odd hours.

If you have a cat who disappears, or a dog who guards, or a house full of small creatures who think they run the place, you already understand. And if you are the one in your house who slips away when it gets too loud, know that you are in very good company. Tessa and I will save you a spot in the closet.

Mary Ann Poll is known as America’s Lady of Supernatural Thrillers. She is the author of the six-book Ravens Cove Iconoclast series and host of the weekly podcast Real Ghost Chatter. After more than forty years in Alaska, she now lives in Texas with her husband, two Shelties, and two tabby cats, one of whom is probably in a closet right now.