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Rough outline, a woman loses her husband to violence and takes their young son to a more rural community to get away from the urban environment which has too many ghosts and memories.
Partial inspiration:
https://youtu.be/mzKEZZYTCnY
She settles into the small town, in an old house that needs work, but she needs the work to put her mind on other things. Lots of quirky locals offer advice, want all up in her business, and she's polite but shuts them down.
Working on the house, a large, ropy, brown tail dangles from a tree branch outside the window and she's startled to see a full grown-ass cougar just hanging out. Apparently it liked the place when it was abandoned and sees no need to move on.
She doesn't know what to do, and throws a home made cheese ball at it, a welcome gift from one of the quirky locals. She didn't really want the thing, or know what to do with it. The cat bats it out of the air and carries it off.
So now, she didn't really want to talk to the locals, but has to. She wants to build a fence to keep the cat out.
She has part of it in place, and the cat leaps over it without any trouble at all. The fence wasn't complete, it could have gone around the fence, it jumped it because it could.
Then, the town erupts. A big cat has been killing livestock at nearby farms, everyone is up in arms and they blame her for moving into the old abandoned house and "stirring up trouble."
Locals go on a literal torch weilding mob rampage to kill the cat causing all the damage, and they kill one, so everyone thinks the problem is resolved.
But the color on this one isn't quite... right, is it? And it's bigger, a male, she's certain the one by her house was female.
She gets home, pretty much revolted by the mob action, and finds an impossibly small cougar cub, asleep on her porch.
That's an incredible outline! Got a working title? Maybe "Out of the Bag" or something?
I like the idea that you start with "quirky" locals who are presumably likeable and the main character is probably a bit off putting at first but then later the mob mentality comes out and your sympathies are reversed.
"Ghost Cat". It's another name for mountain lion.
Reminds me of this haunting/terrifying song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OELFgreDw5M&pp=ygUgUGluZSBoaWxsIGhhaW50cyBvbGQgd2hpdGUgdGhhbmc%3D
You told it well here, I enjoyed this story.
You might really enjoy the short story '26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss' by Kij Johnson.