Because the early morning was unusually quiet, I could hear the faint meow. It sounded like it came from everywhere. Stopping, I waited. I knew the cat had surreptitiously slipped up behind me before I turned around. 

When I bent over to pet it, it arched its back and emitted a soulful sound. The cat permitted me to run my fingers in its fur for at least a minute. I walked away and stopped to see if it had followed. 

It was still perched in the middle of the street, watching me. That its shadow seemed disproportionately large didn’t surprise me. 

Later on my walk, I passed the back courtyard portion of the church. A flash of movement caught my attention. I would have sworn it looked like a cape or veil streaming to the right. Even though the hallucination made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, I stood and let the camera adjust to the dark. 

“Knock, knock,” I said, a little caught off guard by how dead my voice sounded in the quiet. 

No one answered. I was certain a strange voice would respond. The certainty was so intense that I used the angled shadows and light to carefully watch for any movement. 

As I walked away, I heard the faintest scrape of movement. I didn’t turn around to look. Not out of apprehension. I’d rather imagine that whatever had flickered in the corner of my vision would remain a mystery.