The Cat Who Knows Dreams by Karina Brouwer

One rainy evening, as the streets glistened with wet asphalt and lanterns cast soft circles of light, Eva heard a soft mewing. She looked around and saw under a bench a small, skinny cat with bright green eyes. The creature was shivering from the cold, its fur wet and messy.

Eva hesitated. She had never owned a cat and did not know if she could take an animal into her home. But the look in those green eyes drew her to it-a look that released something inside her, as if the cat understood her without words.

Cautiously, she knelt down and held out her hand. "Come on," she whispered. The cat hesitated, but after a few moments he walked towards her and pressed his head against her hand.

From that night on, Eva's life changed. She named the cat Loki, after the god of vice, as she soon discovered he was a master at stealing socks and climbing on bookshelves. But he was also her shadow, her companion on long evenings, when the silence of her flat sometimes became too much for her.

Eva had always been someone who felt a bit lost. She no longer had a close-knit family and her friends all seemed busy with their own lives. But Loki was always there. He jumped on her lap when she felt lonely, gently tapped her hand when she was too much in her head, and lay purring next to her when she fell asleep.

One day, after a long walk, Eva looked at Loki, who was sitting on the windowsill, staring at the birds outside. "Do you think I will ever find my place in the world?" she asked aloud, more to herself than to him. Loki turned his head and looked at her piercingly, as if to say: you're already here. You don't have to search.

It was then that Eva realised she was no longer lost. She had found her home, not in a place, but in a friendship.

And the cat? It had found exactly the same thing.