Every prop in my studio has a backstory, and this one belongs to two characters at once: Madame Fantasia, the fortune teller you’ll find in her tent at CarnEvil, and the small skeletal cat who never leaves her lap.
You might call her Noc, if you knew her well.
But you never would.
She insisted upon Nocturna, always and in full. She had been raised among witches, after all, and knew that names carried power. A name carelessly shortened was power carelessly surrendered, and Nocturna had never been careless with anything.
She came from one of the oldest familiars’ lines in the country. For as long as anyone could remember, the women of a certain family had lived in a cottage beyond the village, and beside each witch had sat a black cat descended from the one before.
The witches had daughters. The cats had kittens. Together, they worked their way through the generations.
Their cottage was so steeped in magic that it clung to everything within it. It settled in the floorboards, curled in the chimney smoke and glimmered in the water bucket beneath the moon. Most of all, it gathered in the cats’ fur. Year after year, spell after spell, the magic seeped deeper, through skin and sinew, into every delicate bone.
So when Nocturna finally exhausted the last of her nine lives, she did not move along to whatever comes next.
She simply stood up again.
Her fur and flesh had gone, but her bones remained, held together by the magic accumulated across centuries. She was much lighter now and considerably quieter, but in every way that mattered, she was still a cat.
By then, her kittens were grown and settled with witch mistresses of their own. Nocturna began to wonder what might exist beyond the woods and villages she had known for so long.
Then, one evening, a carnival came to town.
The distant music drew her first, followed by the shrieks and laughter of children. Last came the warm, irresistible scent of sugar glazing over apples. Nocturna no longer possessed a stomach and had no earthly need to eat, but some temptations transcend death.
She bade farewell to her kittens, her cottage and her old life, then followed the lanterns towards the carnival.
She found Madame Fantasia in her tent, midway through a reading that had gone significantly better before a skeleton cat had walked in uninvited and sat down on the crystal ball.
The client left.
Madame Fantasia looked at Nocturna. Nocturna looked at Madame Fantasia. A silent negotiation took place, the kind that only happens between those who understand that some things simply are.
The reading, as it turned out, improved considerably once Nocturna got involved. Madame Fantasia had the gift, but Nocturna had centuries of magic in her bones, and the two together were something rather more than either alone.
She has been there ever since. Curled on the table beside the cards. Watching. Occasionally guiding a paw toward one particular card when she feels it is necessary.
She never tells fortunes directly, of course. That would be gauche.
But if you pay attention, you might notice which card she is sitting on.
For although names carry power, the future carries more.
And a wise cat knows when it should remain her own.
You’ll find Madame Fantasia’s tent, and Nocturna curled beneath the tablecloth, waiting for you at CarnEvil this October.
