Mistress Mau is both a character’s name and how I refer to a writing project starring the character as the primary protagonist. It’s taking inspiration from the Midnight Louie mysteries by Carole Nelson Douglas in the main narrative conceits — First person POV when following the cat, third-person POV when following the human — but the setting is a softer-edged 1920s era Cthulhu mythos. Softer-edged because I want to focus less on the mind-numbing cosmic horror and the racism that’s quite frankly not my place to talk about, and more on the cozy missing-persons mystery that starts off the story and the hope that Francine represents in defiance of Lovecraft’s real-world politics for the majority of his life.
Mistress Mau mysteries (there may be more than one in the future! I’m undecided yet) will star two primary protagonists: the titular Mistress Mau, a dilute calico manx cat that comes from a line of cats called Lorekeepers, and Francine Hart, a black woman attending Miskatonic University for a librarian’s degree.
Mistress Mau’s mother taught her and her littermates about a specific grouping of Mythos lore, both far in the past and yet to come, because time is weird for creatures like cats. They use scraps of this lore to trade for information or favors, or as a thank-you for helping them. Lorekeepers are highly respected, but hard to find for the average cat. You’re considered very lucky if you know one.
Francine is a skeptic in an age of spiritualism and superstition, surrounded by misinformation and disinformation. This is why she wants to become a librarian, to help educate people by giving them the resources to come to their own conclusions rather than be led around by con artists and popular entertainers.
This excerpt is from a first draft, and is subject to change. But I thought it would be fun to show off how cats, such as local library cat Pattons, view Mythos information in books compared to the information passed down from Lorekeepers.
I shake myself all over to fight off the feeling of my fur standing on end. I do not like the thought of that book even existing anywhere near me. “I don’t think I’m cut out to be a library cat. I don’t think I could stand letting that thing just be, day in and day out, with people looking at it all the time.”
Pattons is gracious enough to groom my face a bit. It’s a little calming. Only a little, though. “If it helps, most humans don’t know what they have. They know it’s a rare book, or they’ve heard of some curiosity in another book, or several, and they’ve read that this or that one held here has more information. But it’s not a lot of information, even still. Nothing like the depth a Lorekeeper might have, for example. Maybe more like the scraps one might trade for other things.”
My ears perk up at the mention of Lorekeepers. “Have you met Lorekeepers before?”
“My mother was one. Passed on all the gruesome details of Ulthar, and I decided long ago that I was going to warn others of the lessons learned there, the usual trades be damned.”
“I’m a Lorekeeper too! My mother taught my litter of Carcosa. I’m the only female kitten from that litter, though, so none of my brothers will pass any of it on. What happened at Ulthar that was so important?”
And Pattons told me of how at Ulthar, none may harm a cat, and why. He left out some of the worst details, that much I could tell, but it all left me with shivers down my spine and my fur standing on end. I give myself a quick groom to compose myself, but it doesn’t help overly much.
“You certainly know how to make it sound chilling. I can see why you pass that one on without the usual trading.”
“Aye, you can have that one for free. As for something about what might be going through an exit gate… Let’s have a look.”
