# Nine Cats Guard a Port Vesper Temple Located Behind My Left Eye

Sven Torkelsson has climbed the thirteen steps of Ammerwick every night for years. The search parties went home. The cats stayed.

By Sven Torkelsson · 2026-11-07 · Weird · Port Vesper

It's ten past three and I'm on the fourth step. Left paw first on the even ones, that's the rule, and the cats watch to see whether I remember. I do. Hello, you. Stay up with me.

The temple is called Ammerwick. It has thirteen steps, a roof the colour of old tea and a bell on a wooden frame. Nobody has ever found it. I want to be fair to the people who looked. In 2019 eleven volunteers from Kelp Row searched the hill above the Dust Quarter for two weekends with flasks and a laminated map. They found a car park. A surveyor from the Slate came with a laser and found the same car park. It is a very good car park.

The head cat is Oska Vell, grey, one ear, a voice like a drawer being opened. Below her sits Mr. Salt, who keeps the steps. Below him sits Tuppence, who keeps the gossip. Little Marrow is the only one allowed to sit on the bell. She is deaf, so the bell has never once bothered her, and this is considered holy.

There are three bowls. The chipped blue one is for Oska Vell. The tin one is for guests. The one with no bottom is for anyone who isn't here anymore, and you fill it anyway. They accept sardines in oil. They refuse tuna, and they are not shy about it. They have also taken a bus ticket, a left-handed glove and, once, a really good sentence I said on air at 4:40 in March.

Everyone asks why the maps come back empty. I tell them it's in my head. It has always been in my head. That isn't a failure of the map.

So check yours. Try behind the dentist appointment, past the thing you said in 2014. If you find a seventh step, skip it. They'll know if you don't.

Source: https://oddy.one/a/2026-11-07-nine-cats-guard-a-port-vesper-temple-located-behind-my-left-eye/