Megan Carnes
Author of The Reaching Man series
Meet the Beasts
Taku
Home Town: The winter streets of Waterloo, Iowa
Hobbies: Chewing manuscripts; bidding his underlings petition for food on his behalf; lightly pressing every outgoing letter with a cat butt
Occupation: The Alpha of the Underbed
Lair: The basement known as Takubuktu
Item of Note: He once tried to join me in the bathtub. A whole towel died in his appeasement
Sitka Samwise
Home Town: The winter streets of Waterloo, Iowa
Hobbies: Bellowing into the toilet; initiating Sitka Time, when his chosen must Stop! and do nothing but hold him; playing the piano in the middle of the night
Occupation: Scrounge, Keeper of the Last Tooth
Lair: The milk crate of paper recycling, known as Sitkasamabama
Item of Note: Sitka is a capital scrounge who helped keep Taku alive when someone abandoned the pair in northern Iowa. He has but one tooth, but he’s honed that thing so it can put a slice in a kibble bag. He’ll also kick a couch clean to death.
Ketchikan
Home Town: The back yard
Hobbies: Yawping obscenities at other animals; yawping up the stairs, until I answer three times; running from anyone who doesn’t take off their Loud Feet, before entering the house
Lair: The bathroom crawl space, known as Ketchistan
Item of Note: Ketchi was born feral, and he runs from every stranger. That said, he first approached me directly. I’d made a habit of leaving food for the backyard animals, and we figure Ketchi had watched me for a very long time.