By Rachel H Grant

A white whisker floated in the wind like a feline wish, blowing it knew not where, with a mission to whisper softly where it was needed most … a heart silently waiting.

The boy played in his back garden, the fairy house almost complete. Gently, a whisker landed on the tiny flint roof. Lewis laughed, feline fun in his eyes.

A black cat jumped on to the garden fence, its eyes sparkling like whiskers on fire. Lewis extended a shaking hand. The cat jumped down and ran to him, gently licking his hand. Lewis’ heart hiccupped. The fairy house was now surely blessed.

Several streets away, Malcolm sat motionless before his laptop, writer’s block hissing in his heart like an angry cat. Where was Sybil? With his black cat purring on his desk, the ideas would just flow like a feline waterfall of words.

Later that day, Sybil appeared again like a subconscious mind shadow. And ideas itched inside his brain. The novel needed a child character; he clearly pictured in his mind a little boy building a fairy house. He chuckled. Fairies it would be.

A year later, Malcolm’s hand reached for his cat, then realised that of course she was not there. It was his first book signing. He smiled and laughed, a strain in his heart and disbelief in his brain. He was here, he was published. Weeks ticked by like a clock in slow motion. Then the letters came. “You have written about my neighbour.” “Your book features my son.” “I recognise my grandmother.”

Disbelief lit in Malcolm’s heart, a candle of whispers in the night. Sybil, his inspiration … or just his village gossip? He called her name, anxious to look in her eyes and see if it were true. Did messages cross from her mind to his?

Sybil was not at home. The days passed like whiskers floating in the wind, and still she did not return. Malcolm mourned deep within, as words charged through the pages on his screen, little cats chasing birds, never catching them, never giving up …

Months turned to two years. Sybil was gone.

Then one day he found a novel on his doorstep, with a note on top: “I know where your cat is, from a feline-loving neighbour.”

Newly released “Black Cat Beauty” tickled his curiosity like a whisker dancing in his mind. The author biography explained that: “Ebony writes by day and turns in to a feline muse at night, her faithful black cat by her side.”

Malcolm began to read, astonishment piercing his heart like a cat crying in the night. The main character was none other than Martin, a middle aged man struggling to write with a black cat by his side. One day, the cat found a fairy house and made friends with a little boy. Martin wrote a children’s book about a boy and his fairy friends.

Not quite an exact fit – his fairy house featured as a mere aside in an adult village romance novel – however close enough. This writer was surely bewitched by his own feline word whisperer.

Two weeks later he stood unsure outside a famous bookshop in London. How to ask someone whether they own your cat? Only one way to find out …

Ebony was not what he expected. A crazy cat lady with straggling permed hair and a large cardigan … did not describe her at all. Long auburn hair, a glowing complexion and shining green eyes. His brain was bewitched … his heart hooked like a mouse in a cat’s jaw.

Stuttering, he tried to speak to her. “Cat … your cat … “ The words would not come, a writer’s tongue block, a poet’s paralysis in slow motion.

“Cat?” she repeated. “Yes Sable is my muse, a stray I adopted, or rather she found and adopted me, just turning up at my door one night. I wouldn’t be without her.”

So Malcolm shared a photo of his Sybil. The same eyes, an identical sleek coat … however black cats do look similar to each other. A meet up arranged, Sable ecstatically rubbed around Malcolm as he stood on the doorstep. Ownership proved, feline style.

Malcolm stared in to Sybil’s deep eyes and then looked up. Ebony was smiling in the doorway. “It looks like we co-own a cat!”

Malcolm and Ebony agreed to literally share the cat, month about. It seemed like a fair deal. As the months passed, the two writers became close. Poetic purrs tickled their hearts like a cat’s whisker inside.

Sybil purred by their side, silent secrets in her eyes. For a cat’s magic knows no words. Feline wonder embraced them. A cat’s whisker fell to the floor unseen. In the garden next door, a little boy played alone. A whisker fell to his feet. He laughed, picking it up. “This is a magic whisker,” he whispered to himself. The whisker was placed in his little box of favourite things. Decades later, a grown up author found his long lost box in the attic. “A whisker … ,” he laughed. As he held the whisker, ideas whispered in his mind like a cat’s purr. His fingers shook. It was time to write again …

So whiskers become words become books. Whiskers flying from mind to mind, feline tales lodging deep inside hearts. And like a whisker on the wind, whispers of cats long gone live on in the pages of tomorrow’s readers. Like a whisker in a box, words can last forever, echoing with black cat magic across an ebony eternity.