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Nova Magistirium Suspiria Lacrimosa @novathemagicalcat
1. Each evening you find a black cat on your doorstep. It doesn’t meow or paw the screen or beg for food. It sits facing out, away from the house, as if watching, guarding, protecting.
2. You decide to name the cat Clive.
3. Your compost pile is a haven for mushrooms—almost every species you know and a few you don’t. You gather some—just the two species you’re sure of—and make risotto at sunset. Passing the brush pile, you notice the cuttings from your garden are covered in thriving nightshade. Purple flowers flutter in the breeze, blushing yellow as evening falls.
4. You offer Clive some risotto. He ignores you but doesn’t run away. You scritch him gently between the ears.
5. You wake up at midnight every night. The moon is always shining (except when it’s new as can be). At your bedroom window, you look out across the yard. You see the compost pile, a hundred fruiting bodies glowing pale, calling to insects to taste their flesh, carry their spores. Awake, you wonder what stirred you. (Clive is nowhere to be found.) As you stand—not tired, but calm, rested, waiting for you don’t know what—you fancy you hear a tune, a humming like the lowest note on a cello. It sounds almost like a chant, a summoning. Each night, it becomes clearer, until at last you can make out a single word: Arise
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