Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day by Seanan McGuire

Author:Seanan McGuire [McGuire, Seanan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Horror
ISBN: 9780765391421
Google: zFm7DAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0765391422
Barnesnoble: 0765391422
Goodreads: 31183180
Publisher: Tor
Published: 2017-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

8: Sleepover in Manhattan

The cats don’t stir when I open the apartment door and turn on the light. I’ll need to go through before bed, checking them for signs of life. It’s not unusual to lose a cat every now and again, considering how old they are, and that’s why I bring them back here: to give them a peaceful place to die. Even so, I don’t want to deal with that tonight, and I hope they’ll hold on.

“Nice place,” says Brenda, stepping through the door behind me. She’s looking shamelessly around, taking in my living room like a tourist taking in Times Square. She has her guitar slung over her shoulder, and a backpack she retrieved from a storage locker at a health club downtown. I’m not sure she has a permanent residence. I’m not sure she needs one. “How many cats do you have?”

“It varies,” I say, unwilling to commit to a number before I’ve touched sides, felt the slow rise and fall of aged lungs and fragile rib cages. “I hope you’re not allergic. I only have the couch for you, and you’re going to wind up covered in cats by morning.”

“I grew up on a farm, eating dirt and sexing chickens,” says Brenda. “It’ll take more than a little cat hair to do me in.”

“Okay,” I say, uncertainly. I’ve never had a houseguest before, not in all the time that I’ve been renting this apartment. I’ve certainly never come home with a witch. For all I know, Brenda has a mirror of her own tucked into the bottom of that bag, something come from Mill Hollow and destined to be my final resting place.

But no. She’s had plenty of opportunity to ambush me, and not just tonight; stretching all the way back to the night we met, years and miles ago. She had no reason to tell me about the missing ghosts, to take me to see Sophie, if she just wanted to take me captive. I have to trust someone, and Brenda seems like the best candidate for the position. She doesn’t have a mirror. She isn’t here to hurt me.

“The couch is fine,” she says. “I’ve slept on worse, and I like cats. As long as there’s running water in the bathroom, I won’t have any problems.”

“Delia keeps the place up to code,” I say. I don’t bathe—going insubstantial for hours every night keeps me clean—and I only have to use the toilet if I drink coffee or eat pie, but since I do both those things just about every day, running water is important to me, too. And then there are the cats to consider. Cats require water to live.

“Good,” says Brenda. She walks to the couch and plops down on the central cushion, between a geriatric calico and a black cat whose eyesight failed long before he came to me. She puts her backpack between her feet and begins stroking one of them with each hand. “I’m sorry to impose.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” I say.

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