The Sidekick's Journey

Following a black cat down an alley wasn’t how Frank planned for this job with Hannah to go. It was supposed to be flickering lights, and popping bulbs and gasps and, if he were lucky, the pretty daughter hiding her face in his shoulder. He would assure her that the ghost haunting her family was about to be history and, of course, she could call him anytime to talk, day or night. 

Instead, when Hannah had started to do her witchy stuff and the family’s cat had abruptly hissed then barreled through the screen of a partially open window, he was sent after it like the useless sidekick he was. 

Frank heaved a sigh. Okay, not useless. Hannah sucks at the people half of this job, so it’s fine that I’m extraneous to the magic half. 

It’s fine.  

And now here he was, peering around a corner and watching a fluffy black cat pick its way down a shady alley. At least the cat’s color is on theme. 

He watched, squinting to make sure he didn’t lose it as it trod daintily between the darker stains littering the crumbling asphalt. He crept cautiously after it, not wanting to spook it until he had it good and cornered. 

It wove between an old metal trashcan leaning against the alley’s brick wall to form a triangle beneath. The late evening shadows pooled in the space between, and the black cat sauntered into them with a jaunty tail twitch, and didn’t reappear on the other side. 

Frank blinked, and hurried forward, stealth forgotten. Bad angle? The alley took a turn just ahead. He tried to ignore the memory of Hannah’s admonished, “Don’t lose it,” punctuated with a doubtful look. Like he was the one to be doubted. He scoffed, then he caught up to where the cat disappeared. And disappeared it had. Had it spotted him and run? He rushed past the trashcan, started to turn the corner, only it wasn’t a corner, just an inset wall, as dirty and worn as the rest of the alley.  

Frank looked back at the trashcan, at the perfectly normal looking space between it and the wall. 

“Huh. So, not a normal cat then?” he asked the empty alley.  

Hannah’s frown flashed in his mind. She wouldn’t blame him. But…. 

Frank peered inside the can, mostly empty with nowhere for the cat to hide, then circled back to look through the gap. Maybe the cat saw some crack it could slip into? Except once he was crouched down and looking through it, he couldn’t see the other side of the alley at all, just a deep impenetrable shadow. 

He stood up. “Looks normal from this angle,” he murmured to himself. 

He toed the can. It didn’t move even though its precarious lean against the wall promised it should have. He kicked it. It was as immovable as the brick building beside it. He picked up a piece of the broken asphalt and tossed it between the wall and the can. It didn’t land, disappearing just as smoothly as the cat had. 

He grinned. This evening was starting to look a bit more interesting. 

It would be stupid to follow the cat. He’d be the idiot in every horror movie that ever existed.  

Or the hero in every adventure book. 

Maybe I don’t need to be the useless sidekick? 

He snagged his phone from his back pocket and crouched in front of the black hole in space. He pressed Hannah’s number and let the phone ring in his ear while he studied the creepy pool of darkness. It was big enough to fit him through, if he tried. 

She picked up on the sixth ring with a short, “What?” 

“So, there’s this weird shadow.” 

The silence stretched.  

Frank bounced on his toes. “What would happen if I went through it?” 

A heavy sigh came through the phone. “Through a shadow? I’m taking it you lost the cat?” 

“No, I saw exactly where it went, but...” Frank reached out a finger. It pressed into the darkness. There was almost a resistance. Almost. 

“Don’t do anything stupid. Where are you?” A door shut, and street background noise filled the expectant silence.  

Frank pushed into the darkness, watching the tip of his finger disappear, then the knuckle. It didn’t feel like much of anything. He gave Hannah directions to the alley while he watched his fingers be swallowed by the black. 

“I mean it. Don’t do anything. Don’t touch anything. Don’t,” her voice bounced, heavy with breath. She must have started running. “Just, wait for me, I’ll be there in a minute.” 

His whole hand was gone now, up to the wrist. His wiggled his fingers. He could still feel them, but he couldn’t see them, not anything at all. He set his phone aside, propped up against the trash can so it wouldn’t get stepped on, and braced himself to reach further through the darkness, through the portal. He waved his arm around. He couldn’t feel the wall continue through to the other side, nor the trashcan. Is this just a hole hanging in air over there? But he could feel the ground. It was a solid as the asphalt under him, but gravel. He grabbed a handful and pulled his arm back. 

He was half certain something would stop him from doing so and Hannah would find him stuck like a fly on sticky trap, but his arm came free with only the slightest of resistance. He tipped his hand and let the gravel fall; his heart raced with excitement as the little grains of rock pattered on the ground. Is this a portal to another world? Or one to somewhere else in this world? He wanted to find out. 

This was the reason he followed Hannah around, why he helped her track down clients, why he let her give him busy work while she did all the fun stuff. It was why he was okay being just the background character. Normally. 

She did tell me to follow the cat. 

Before he could second guess himself Frank stuck his head through the darkness, his eyes squeezed shut at the first hint of pressure on his eyeballs, but his momentum carried him through. He blinked rapidly to get rid of the feeling of his eyes being prodded, then gaped at the alley on the other side. There was no trashcan or brick wall. Wooden buildings lined a wider alley, which ended in a short wall he could totally climb, if he wanted. And there was the cat, tail slowly waving while it watched the new skyline. 

Frank sneezed. There was an acrid tinge to the air, like rotting fruit. The cat ignored him and he leaned further through, crawling forward, his shoulder scraping against the trashcan and wall but fitting all the same. 

He looked behind himself, craning his neck to see around the triangle of black his lower legs were still stuck through, and looked out onto a dirt street. It was empty, but he could see the butt end of a carriage—a carriage! — parked at the end of the alley. Some old wooden boxes were piled haphazardly around. No cardboard in sight. 

Am I back in time? Did he dare leave the portal? But no, the cat probably came and went so the portal must just stay there. That was it, surely. And he’d told Hannah he’d follow the cat. And probably being in two different places at once was doing terrible things to his body. 

Still, he couldn’t quite take that last figurative step. If Hannah was here she wouldn’t let him go through. If she showed up right now she’d grab him by the ankle and yank him back and all he’d have to tell the tale was a face full of gravel from being drug backward. 

He didn’t want this to be over yet. This was beyond a few moving objects, so far beyond just flickering lights. He was an explorer in a brand-new world. Or a time traveler. Or he’d just discovered a way to travel really, really fast. He pressed a hand over his mouth to keep from giggling. 

His attention was caught when the cat’s tail rose, its languid motions becoming quicker as it began to stand. Frank was scrambling out of the hole and to his feet before he realized he was moving. If he could grab it before it jumped away— 

Then—someone, no, something—appeared, jumping from below, mouth opening wide as if to swallow the cat whole. For an endless moment Frank took in the not quite human thing. The tattered clothing barely covering too pale flesh, the legs, too long and bending somehow wrong. The tiny eyes and gaping mouth stretching wide and wider, jaw opening far too far, tongue snaking, unfurling and he no longer cared about the cat, or being an explorer of a brand-new world. He turned and dove for the hole in reality, for the escape back to his own mundane life. 

Only there was no escape and instead he bounced off the portal that was no longer a portal, though it looked just the same as it had before, and then he was lying in the gravel, twisting his head around to see if the not-human thing was about to swallow him whole— 

It was crouched where the cat had crouched, the cat in turn was landing in front of him, stepping on him—its claws pricking through his shirt into his skin, punctuating his rising terror—then it was past him, ignoring the portal back to the sane world and out through the other end of the alley into the empty street. Safe. 

Frank whimpered when the not-human thing turned its attention to him, eyes boring down, pinning him in place. But it was human, wasn’t it, or what was left of one in this twisted world. This was the ghost plane that Hannah sometimes mentioned; the place where they, and other things, came from. And he’d treated it all like a game, like a break from the doldrums of studying and work and a thing to do on a Saturday and he knew she did save people, but he thought that was more of a figurative thing, and he didn’t really know what she was saving them from and.... 

Only now he knew, viscerally. And he knew ghosts drooled because this one was drooling at him, its tiny eyes growing wider, wider as its grin grew wider and its too long limbs were languid as it slipped to the ground and stalked toward his helpless carcass. He was toast. He was buttered toast with jelly that was too toasted to do more than lay there on the ground in the gravel and gasp for air. 

When its gaze jerked up from him to something past him Frank tried to grab that distraction to get up, to run. Maybe there was another portal the cat was using to get back home. If he could find it, if he could follow the cat— 

But cold fingers stopped him, wrapped around his ankle, and what breath Frank had mustered left him, squeezed his heart and he knew he was going to die. No one would save him because he was a victim after all, the stupid sidekick who reached higher than his status in life would allow, and he squeezed his eyes shut because there was nothing else he could do. 

And then his ankle was free. After a heartbeat full of grunts and scuffling, he forced one eye open, barely able to hope, but there she was. The real hero. 

Hannah stood with her back to him and a sword in her hand, and that grotesque thing was lying on the ground, unmoving. He thumped back to the gravel after confirming that the ghost was already unravelling and fading like a bad dream. 

The sky, Frank mused staring up at it, was much clearer than that sky at home. It was also the wrong time of day, now that he thought about it. Huh. 

Hannah leaned into his view, loose hair framing an expression somewhere between annoyed and concerned. Frank closed his eyes. 

“You’re alive,” she said, flatly, as if there wasn’t any other sort of outcome possible.  

His lips tugged themselves into a rueful smile. 

“We might as well find the cat,” she said. 

He opened his eyes to see her hand held out to him. He supposed, if he couldn’t be the hero of the story, then being the sidekick to the hero wasn’t so bad.