Year of the Fire Horse

Dear friends,

Not only are we in 2026, we are somehow almost in MARCH of 2026. That rascally Fire Horse is galloping just a bit too fast for me right now.

A lot has happened since I last wrote to you. Seven Ways Through the Woods came out and I did events at Annie Bloom's Books, Green Bean Books, Barnes & Noble, and Powell's. Am I good at reading to tiny people? Not yet. But there's also less pressure when I'm reading and half the audience is picking boogers or playing with crayons.

One of my favorite fall events wasn't for my book. I had the absolute pleasure of being Martha Wells's "in conversation" partner for the release of her fantasy, Queen Demon. Martha and I have known each other for a long time. Over a dozen years ago, she hired me to design some book covers for her out-of-print books. She was one of my all-time favorite clients – so kind and open to my ideas. I leapt at the chance to catch up with her and celebrate her well deserved success.

I have a million more things to tell you about – art classes, trips, friends, successes, failures... the ways in which I'm clinging to hope in light of the horrific state of the world, etc. etc. But there's too much, and that's why I haven't written a newsletter in months. So I'm going to skip ahead to last week.

Last week I lost my soulmate, my heart outside my body, my beloved cat Finley. He was almost 15 and we'd been keeping him comfortable despite a gastrointestinal lymphoma diagnosis. The time came to say goodbye, and we did. I cried so, so hard that I had a headache for days. I can't yet talk about it much, or look at his picture if I want to stay functioning. Goddamn, I loved that little dude.

So instead of a picture of Finn, I wanted to share a flash story I wrote a few years ago about grief, which happens to feature cats. It was originally published in The Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy. You don't have to read it, but I did.

The Right Number of Cats

By Jenn Reese

After the last guest had left, Grace de la Vega crawled into bed still wearing her black dress and tried not to float away. The cats were on her instantly: Toby a plump Thanksgiving turkey atop her chest, MiniMeow curled above her head like a hat, and Jenkins tucked into the suffocating space of her underarm. The four of them had been sleeping like this for months, grabbing naps between Grace’s many trips to the hospital to be with Alma; Grace barely tethered to her life and the cats desperate to provide ballast.

They had—Grace had—three cats, so when a fourth cat jumped onto the bed, onto the wrong side of the bed, onto Alma’s side, Grace kicked it away, breath sharp, and told herself she was merely tired. After everything, after all of it, just tired.

She awoke in the early dark and stumbled to the kitchen. She removed all the casseroles from the refrigerator, pulled back their foil, their cling-wrap, their rubber lids, and put them on the floor, a patchwork of rice and chicken, of tuna and pasta and roasted carrots. The cats sniffed and nibbled, confused. Grace did not see Fourth Cat, but when she turned to put the kettle on, to let her muscles perform the rote motions of morning, she heard Pyrex slide across the linoleum. The casserole dishes were empty. Picked clean. All of them.

Fourth Cat sat in the shadows with its too-long body and its too many joints, with its shiny black fur and its hollow midnight eyes. It licked a paw with a bifurcated tongue.

“Shoo,” she told it. “I have enough cats!”

It slid into the narrow darkness between the cabinet and the refrigerator and was gone. But not for good. She knew that much.

Fourth Cat watched as she started to sift through the mountain of unopened mail on the desk, some of it bills, some of it flyers, some of it painfully white cards, thick and embossed, with birds and flowers and ugly words written in swirling, silver type.

Fourth Cat watched her scrub the makeup from her face. It watched her stand in front of the mirror, not moving, for minutes, for hours, as she looked for the person she’d once known, the one who laughed, the one who smiled. The one who did not look like an old, faded photograph. Her feet drifted up, off the bath mat, and she reached for the hairbrush, the sink, for any anchor she could find. Fourth Cat watched and swished its articulated, razor-sharp tail, but Grace did not, would not, reach for it.

“Go away,” she said.

Fourth Cat smelled like the funeral home, like Earl Grey tea, like an old sweater left too long in a drawer. Grace didn’t know what it wanted from her, but it wanted something. She had already given too much of herself, far too much, to give Fourth Cat any more.

The nights grew harder. Toby shifted his weight on her chest, never comfortable, and MiniMeow’s claws dug at her scalp. Jenkins was a fiery pit lodged against her side. Again and again, Fourth Cat jumped on the bed, always onto Alma’s side, and always Grace kicked it off.

Fourth Cat grew bolder. It smashed dishes, shredded letters, destroyed books. One day, it broke Alma’s music box—ripped the tiny dancers from their pedestal and scattered the jewelry across the floor. Grace spent three hours digging earrings from the carpet, untangling delicate gold necklaces strung with simple, happy charms. A pinecone. A paintbrush. A cat.

That night when Fourth Cat jumped onto the bed, its fur a serrated ridge along its twisty, unnatural spine, it tore at Alma’s pillow, at the place where soft grey curls had once cushioned Alma’s cheek. It was too much. Grace rose toward the ceiling, her breath gone, her lungs full of helium. Frantic, she grabbed Fourth Cat and pulled it to her, crushed it against her body. Its spiked fur punctured her flesh. Its tail lashed her ribs. Its barbed-wire tongue scraped her face.

“I don’t want you,” she told it, holding it tight, tighter. “I never wanted you.”

Grace sank to the bed. Fourth Cat settled and curled up on her chest, and though it was still painful and sharp and hard to look at, Grace allowed it to stay. Toby sat beneath it on her stomach, MiniMeow on her head, and Jenkins in the crook of her arm, and they were finally, all of them together, enough.

Thanks for reading, friends.

Jenn

PS. Signed books are always available through Annie Bloom's.