Cat Son.

The Cimetière Grimoire. Entry eight hundred and eighty eight.

This is my final entry in this accursed work which has swallowed my life and taken everything that I ever truly treasured. Friends, family and youth. The path I have followed has been fraught.

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As I witness my oldest familiar fight for his life, I recall the shape of our story and how it is embedded in a far larger tale. That begins with a black cat that would come and sit with me as a child, in the back garden in my families home on a street named Made Feld in Stevenage. In the year proceeding my first interactions with grief.

Those on the path I walk have long aligned their story with allies who are animals; familiars that are connected to deities that have enveloped and shadowed our species for thousands upon thousands of years.  This is a shadow story, that twists and turns across our entire history as a species. It is a tale that has often been hidden and not recorded adequately, this narrative explores connections that breach barriers of language and biology. It examines loss and how we experience time, love and the ultimate protection that animals have offered us in return for....? And we now arrive at a question that I would never attempt to answer. For fear of limiting this form of familial relationship down to the most basic of needs. And I believe it was a far more complex an arrangement. Anyone who has lived with an animal will understand the power of these form of relationships.