Page 54 of Saint Céline
“You came,” she said, voice muffled against my shoulder.
Of course, I came. I almost said it aloud. Instead, I swallowed the words before they could escape, because the truth underneath them was unbearable.
Of course, I came. There was no one else left who would.
Mrs. Montgomery pulled back first, her hands still wrapped around my arms as though reassuring herself I was physically here. “You’re soaked through.”
“It’s raining,” I said, the words sounding small and obvious even to me.
“A terrible storm.” Her voice drifted strangely for half a second, distracted. “Katherine hated thunderstorms.”
The sentence landed heavily between us. Past tense. Not even she seemed fully aware she had used it. I looked away first, focusing on the familiar black-and-white marble floors of the foyer. The enormous chandelier still hung over the staircase, its crystals catching the low light. Family portraits stretched down the hallway toward the west wing, generations of Montgomerys staring down with the same careful poise. Somewhere deeper inside the house, a grandfather clock chimed softly, marking the hour with steady, unhurried tones.
Everything remained the same, except for Katherine’s lively presence.
Mrs. Montgomery touched my elbow lightly.
“She’s upstairs.”
Miss Astoria.
My chest tightened instantly.
“I tried bringing her down earlier,” she said as we moved through the hallway together, her voice soft and careful, “but she kept running back to Katherine’s room. I think she’s waiting there now.”
The staircase creaked softly beneath our footsteps, the same way it always had. I hadn’t realized until now how long it had been since I walked these halls without Katherine beside me, explaining something impatiently or arguing about music or carrying three books at once because she refused to admit she needed help. My old room sat across the window down the east corridor, exactly where it always had, untouched since I left for university after I turned eighteen. The instinct to glance toward it remained so immediate that it almost embarrassed me.
Mrs. Montgomery noticed. “You can still use it whenever you’d like,” she said quietly.
I froze for half a second on the landing. The words were kind, but somehow sounded cruel. Because they still spoke to me as if I belonged here, when I never did. And maybe the worst part was that some weak, starving piece of me still wanted to.
“Katherine’s room is open,” she added after a moment, her hand resting lightly on the bannister. “I changed the sheets this morning. I know Mira said to leave things alone for a while, but I couldn’t stand how stale the air felt in there.”
The fact that my mother was still cleaning this house made my chest ache unexpectedly. I followed Mrs. Montgomery the rest of the way up the stairs and down the familiar hallway. She reached Katherine’s bedroom door first, then hesitated. I saw the exact moment she lost courage. Her fingers tightened against the brass handle before she looked at me, almost apologetically.
“She’s been sleeping in there every night,” she said.
I nodded once.
Mrs. Montgomery opened the door.
The room smelled faintly like lavender detergent, old books and cat. Miss Astoria sat curled in the middle of Katherine’s bed. For one suspended second, neither of us moved. Then the cat lifted her head. Blue eyes fixed on me instantly. The sound she made next nearly broke me in half. A sharp, desperate cry, loud enough that Mrs. Montgomery startled beside me.
“Miss Astoria—”
The cat launched herself off the bed before I finished speaking. She hit my chest hard enough to knock me backwards a step, claws catching briefly in my coat while she climbed upward frantically, crying the entire time.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Her whole body shook against mine. I sat down automatically on the edge of Katherine’s bed while Miss Astoria crawled into my lap with frantic urgency, pressing her face against my stomach, my hands, my chest, as if trying to confirm I was real from every possible angle. Her fur felt thinner than I remembered, and her ribs pressed too sharply against my palms. I buried both hands in it anyway, letting her knead and circle and cry until the sound slowly faded into a deep, rumbling purr.
Mrs. Montgomery made a soft sound behind me.
“She’s barely let anyone touch her since… well, since.”
She watched the cat settle more fully into my lap, then exhaled with obvious relief.
“Thank you for taking her. Frankly, the cat is quite disgusting, and I cannot clean up after her anymore—the litter, the fur everywhere, all of it. It’s ruining Katherine’s space. I just don’t have the patience for that sort of thing.”
