Possess

is the file?”
    Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat .
    Phantom paws padded across her bedroom floor. Bridget sat up in bed. Almost immediately, the scratching commenced at the door in the back of her closet.
    Always the same pattern: Bridget heard the animal’s paws pattering down the hall or across her room, ending with the scratching in her closet. She fell back against her pillow. If she waited long enough, maybe it would go away.
    CREAK! Bridget sat up again. That was new. That was different. She crawled to the edge of her bed and peeked into her closet. A thin sliver of light shone through the darkness. The door into her dad’s study was ajar.
    Weird. Matt must not have closed it all the way when they rushed through, and whatever had been making the scratching noise was able to push the door open.
    Bridget slipped out of bed and into her closet. Her dad’s study was tiny: one open door and no place to hide. If a real animal came that way, it was trapped.
    Bridget peered into the study. It was exactly how she and Matt had left it—wardrobe angled away from the door, coffee table with its grime-encrusted magazines, single bookcase, single chair. No cat—real or supernatural—anywhere to be seen.
    Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch .
    Not at the door this time. From inside the room.
    Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch .
    Bridget’s eye caught a flurry of dust from the far corner, as if something was clawing at a spot on the floor, disturbing the layer of fine dust. It billowed upward, thousands of tiny specks illuminated in a shaft of sunlight streaming through a crack in the blinds. The scratching continued, and as the cloud of dust thickened, it began to condense, contorting itself into a definite shape. Bridget’s mouth went dry. A figure formed before her eyes: bushy tail and squat legs, furry head and lopsided ears. The dust cloud looked exactly like Mr. Moppet.
    She crouched in the closet, terrified of disturbing the ghost cat’s frantic digging. Digging, yeah, that’s what it was. Mr. Moppet’s ghost was trying to dig its way into the floor of her dad’s study.
    What had she said just before Mr. Moppet scurried across her bedroom floor? “Where is it, Dad? Where is the file?”
    Bridget sucked in a breath. It couldn’t be, could it?
    “Dad?”
    The undulating figure of the cat stopped clawing at the floor and craned its neck around until it stared right at her. Tears welled up in Bridget’s eyes. Staring back at her from the ethereal dust cloud of the phantom cat were the soft, almond-shaped eyes of her father.
    Those eyes held her gaze for what felt like an eternity as heavy drops spilled uncontrollably down Bridget’s cheeks.
    The cat gave the floor one last scratch with his paw. Then the force holding the dust cloud together vanished in an instant, and the individual particles drifted upward into a shapeless blob.
    “Dad!” Bridget cried. She scrambled into the study. The dust hung in the air, no longer her father. Just dust. Just nothingness.
    He’d been there all along, trying to help her. He was trying to show her something.
    Bridget knelt on the floor. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he was gone, that she’d been left with all this. The ache in her heart was back, sharp and cold like she’d just been stabbed with an icicle. She’d hidden the grief for so long, but she’d never really escaped from it, and now the full force of her father’s death engulfed her. Bridget hung her head in her hands and wept.
    Bridget wasn’t sure how long she sat there, her chest heaving with each wretched sob, her eyes clenched tight against the raw, searing pain of loss. As her breath slowed, she felt a warm, furry body brush against her legs. It rubbed its face against her knee, then turned and pressed its whole body into her, just like Mr. Moppet used to do with Sammy.
    Without opening her eyes, Bridget reached down and felt the soft fur of a cat. She stroked her hand down its back and up through the bushy tail, and she felt Mr. Moppet’s throaty purr. In her memory, no cat had ever voluntarily been that close to her.
    “I miss you, Dad.” Bridget squeezed her eyes closed as she continued to run her fingers through the cat’s velvety fur. “I miss you so much.”
    The cat let out a single meow, then the firm body faded to nothingness. Bridget was alone.
    She sat with her eyes closed for a few moments. Her tears had stopped, her breath came calm and easy, and the tightness