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(with a normal tail) appeared in O Toyo’s bedroom, sprang at her, and crushed her throat in its teeth until she died. The cat dug a grave beneath one of the verandas and buried O Toyo’s body. It then shape-shifted, taking on O Toyo’s form. The prince never realized that his lover was dead. Night after night, the false O Toyo came into his bedchamber and drained the blood from him. The prince soon became sickly and weak and suffered from terrifying nightmares. He had no idea that he was sleeping with a vampire instead of his beloved consort. The prince’s retainers guessed that something was attacking him at night, but whenever they kept watch over him, they fell asleep—bewitched by the vampire cat. Eventually, with the help of a priest, one of the prince’s young retainers managed to stay awake and fight the false O Toyo, who turned back into a cat and vanished into the mountains.
(A more complete version of this story can be found in Tales of Old Japan , by A.B. Mitford [1871]. It’s also posted online at www.sarudama.com/japanesefolklore_vampirecat.shtml.)
    Despite the apparent risks, oriental cats were kept for their hunting ability and their beauty. When cats were introduced to Japan sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries, they were first kept as exotic pets that only the wealthy could afford, but they soon began to earn their keep. Silk was one of Japan’s most important industries, and mice were eating the silk worms, as well as the grain stores. Cats were the solution to both problems.
    Oriental cats were also believed to bring luck. An old Buddhist superstition says that there will be silver in the house of a light cat, gold in the house of a dark one. The belief in cats as agents of luck and prosperity can still be seen in Japan in the Maneki Neko, or the Beckoning Cat, a white cat with a raised paw that’s displayed in many business establishments. There are at least three legends of how the Maneki Neko came into being, and all of them involve cats that brought luck or protection to their owners; one cat even killed a snake to save its geisha-mistress after the cat was beheaded. (You can find some of these legends at www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneki_Neko.)
    All of which brings us, finally, to the cats of the House of Night series.
    THE CATS OF THE HOUSE OF NIGHT
“Cats choose us; we don’t own them.”
— Marked
    The cats of the House of Night resonate with all of these traditions, but—though they are never referred to as such—their role is most like that of the familiar. Familiars are usually associated with witches, and vampyres aren’t exactly witches, though their worship of the Goddess and their rituals are very closely aligned with Pagan and Wiccan beliefs. The whole time I was reading the books, I couldn’t help thinking how much these cats were like familiars. And in The Fledgling Handbook 101 , the ritual for saying good-bye to a deceased cat is called “Release of a Familiar.” But, as with the other mythical influences in the series, the idea of cats as familiars has been creatively modified to fit with the House of Night universe.
    Familiars are exactly what their name implies—creatures who are familiar to you, as if, long before you first meet, you already know each other. Cats that are familiars are attuned to you on a psychic, possibly magical, level. It’s as if you and the cat are friends for all time, before this lifetime, in this lifetime, and in lifetimes still to come. The Casts nail this perfectly.
    In Marked , before Zoey and Nala find each other, Zoey dreams of a little orange tabby who’s yelling at her in an old lady’s voice, asking what had taken her so long to get there. Then, when Zoey meets Nala—or, more precisely, when Nala finds her—Zoey recognizes the cat from her dream. They are already familiar to each other, because they share a psychic link.
    Many people who have cats will tell you that cats are exquisitely tuned to their humans’