Truth of Shadows: Chapter 2
This is an installment of an ongoing light fantasy novel. Truth of Shadows is the story of a young witch, told entirely from the perspective of her cat. To start at the beginning, see the Truth of Shadows: Prologue and Chapter 1.
Chapter 2
Cats do not have names. Humans give them names, or try to, but giving a cat a name is a bit like telling a human that they’ll be identified as “the texture of the bark of an oak tree” or the “smell of rain after a drought.” Cats think in a layered multi-sensory way where sound, smell, touch, taste, the flowing of alternate dimensional energy, temporal pulses, and sight are all interwoven. So, it’s difficult for them to grasp the concept of a particular combination of human mouth flaps being used to identify them. This is why the young, black cat with a white circle on his chest had no name, at least not yet.
The name that a witch gives to her cat is different than typical cat names. It is a word, of course, but it’s also a symbol. It is what she sees in the cat, and it’s the beginning of their partnership. If the witch accepts the cat, the first thing she does is name it. She does this without any real consideration or planning — it comes as naturally as breathing. So as the little black cat sat in the shadow of a tree, looking at the old house with moving…
