I loved my mother, and my father as much as he would let me. But the first I really fell in love was when I was ten, and I got a baby sister and a kitten in the same day. I remembered my mother lumbering and heavy through the months before she went to hospital, and then there was this little bundle. My mother, holding her, looked like the Madonna in the old church pictures, and then she looked like my mother, whom I loved. I worried, as a wee lad might, if she loved the little one more than I, and then she gave her to me to hold, and I forgot the question entirely, as those dark eyes opened in that little face and fastened on mine in recognition. She was mine, and I was hers.

The kitten and the little sister grew up together… 

… and what I don’t like to think on, died on the same day. He was on in years, a fat sleepy old cat who adored her and was adored in turn, and he was burned with her as her familiar.

***

As I begin revisions on The Shape-shifter’s Tale, I will be posting character interview excerpts for the main cast of the novel. This week’s excerpt comes from the interview with Trevor, Emma’s cousin.

Weekend Writing Warriors offers eight-sentence excerpts from a variety of writers; see the other excerpts here.