Just after midnight, when he was nearly asleep, it would start up in a choke and then build until she was bleating atonally so loudly that the hounds up on the ridge would actually cease to bay. The cat would dart under the chest of drawers and whimper uneasily for as long as it lasted.
He knew what it WAS, though.
It wasnt revelation or prophecy handed down from the heavens.
It was the sound of infected memories churning out regret and self loathing like bile. It was the slow exhalation of buried secrets and the admission of self caused bridge burning released into the very house where the story lived.
He might not have understood the words, but the truth was their in the agony of the release. It was a confession brought on by a sickness and, in some way, despite having no greater knowledge of the darker truth after she quieted down, he considered himself witness to.........something.
When she died, he did not tell a soul. He simply left on an idle Tuesday before dawn, left with the cat and his memories, left and moved on to somewhere far away where he would live many years, many happy and full years, before dying with a wife and his grown son by his side.
