The Cat Watched On

Once these walls had been part of a castle. Now weathered by time and overgrown with brush and flowers grown wild from their once appointed places in their gardens, they housed only memories and small woodlands animals. Instead of the proud king who once sat in the roofless throne room, a large feral cat lay sunning in the last rays of the late afternoon sun.

Forest shadows crept across the courtyard, and as dusk began to gather, other shadows now appeared in the ruins below. From his perch above, the cat now watched what only he could see, ears twitching to sounds only he could discern. He watched as the weeds growing up from the cracked floor seemed to bend of their own volition. Or were they crushed by feet dancing to a phantom pavane?

The brackish pool in the small garden by the hall seemed to echo with the splashing of water from a long dried up fountain, and polite murmurs of courtiers long absent from this court drifted up as the cat shifted his position, if voices they were and not merely breezes blowing down empty hallways.

People gave this place wide clearance. Some said it was cursed. Some said it was haunted by the shades of the last ruler and his rebellious sons, doomed to fight each other for all eternity. Whichever it might be, no one came to look.

No one dared. Except the cat.

And the cat watched on.