The Familiar

Lynn Hardaker

i never did like the witch
 
not that there was any need for my affection
in her beetle-black heart
 
she lured me in
one winter’s morning
with a saucer of sweet promises
 
my guard was down
 
once i crossed the threshold
she grabbed me by the tail
locked an invisible collar around my neck
strung its key on a chain of moonlight
that hung around her own
 
i was hers
end of story
 
until
the moment came
when she knew, in that way that witches have,
that her time was at an end
(and they say that we cats are uncanny)
 
she lay herself out on the table
in her best dream-black robes
and brushed her hair into a thunder cloud around her head
 
then she unfastened the chain from her neck
and without giving me the satisfaction of even a final glance
she swallowed the key
 
she died grinning.
 
i watched it all from my perch, here on the shelf
between sprigs of brittle herbs and twilight-tinted jars.
now, i could wait
with the patience of my breed
until her flesh dries to tissue paper to slit with a claw,
and crawl between the bars of her ribs,
rub my whiskers against the empty cauldron of her pelvis
gnaw on a patella before
picking up the key with teeth as sharp as a curse
 
i could
but
what she didn’t know,
is that bondage works two ways
 
the collar around my neck is attached
to one around hers
by a tether as thin as a promise
 
so i will spend my days and nights lying on the hearth rug
living off spiders and getting used to the cold
until she is dust in the corners of this cottage
 
and when my time is finally at its end
(and being a cat, i will know)
then i might decide to bite the tiny thread of bondage
with teeth as sharp as forgiveness
and set her loose at last.
 

 

Lynn Hardaker is a Canadian writer and artist currently living in Regensburg, Germany.

Her writing has appeared in such journals as Not One of Us, Goblin Fruit, The Ghastling, and Scheherezade’s Bequest.

About “The Familiar,” she wrote, “I’d always assumed that the relationship between a witch and her familiar was a mutually agreed-upon one. This poem came about when I started to wonder whether that might not always be the case.”

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