Софи Келли - Cat Trick

Wren smiled at them. “Hi, guys,” she said.

Owen craned his neck and sniffed. He seemed to like what his nose told him because he took a step forward.

Wren turned to look at me. “He’s so cute,” she said.

He knew the word “cute.” He dipped his head for a moment, trying to give the appearance of being modest, too.

Hercules raised a paw in a bid to get Wren’s attention. “I see you,” she said. “You’re just as handsome as your brother.” He murped his agreement.

“You found both of them at Wisteria Hill?” Elizabeth asked as Wren continued to talk to both cats, leaning forward with her arms propped on her thighs.

“I think it’s more like they found me.”

I told her the story of how I’d gone exploring out at the old estate a few weeks after I’d arrived in Mayville Heights—had it really been a year and a half ago?—and Owen and Hercules, just tiny kittens then, had persisted in following me until I’d scooped them up and brought them home.

“And there’s seven more cats still out there?” Elizabeth asked. Hercules took a couple of steps sideways and looked at her, green eyes wide with curiosity. She crouched next to Wren and extended her hand. He sniffed it and then sat down again.

“That’s right,” I said, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “I guess you could call Lucy the alpha cat of the group. Where she goes, the rest of the family pretty much follows.”

Wren shifted so she could look at me. “What happens in the wintertime? How do they stay warm?”

I explained about the shelters Rebecca and Roma’s other volunteers had made and how Harry used straw bales for insulation in one corner of the carriage house.

Wren frowned, two lines forming between her eyebrows. “Why doesn’t someone just adopt them? I’d take one. I’d take two.”

“They aren’t like an average house cat,” I said. “They aren’t even like these two. They’re not going to bond with you. They’re not going to curl up at your feet and start purring.” I pointed at Owen. “He likes you. Most people don’t get that close to him, but I promise if you try to pet him, he will scratch you.”

“It just seems . . . cruel,” Wren said, “you know, to leave them outside to fend for themselves.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard that reasoning. “They don’t have to fend for themselves. Volunteers go out every day with fresh food and water. If the weather is too bad for a four-wheel drive to get up the driveway, Harry uses his snowmobile. The carriage house and the shelters keep them dry and warm. And now Roma’s going to be living out there.” I braced my hands against the counter on either side of me. “Wisteria Hill is the cats’ home. What would be cruel would be forcing them to live somewhere else, to be what we think they should be instead of who they are.”

Elizabeth looked up at me with a wry smile. “That’s what Harrison said.”

I nodded. “He’s pretty smart.”

I reached behind me for a bag of sardine cat treats, took out a couple for each cat and handed them to Wren. “Owen’s stinky crackers,” I said, “but Hercules likes them, too.”

Wren handed two of the crackers to Elizabeth, and then she held one of the two she had left out to Owen. His whiskers twitched and he looked from Wren to me; then he pawed the ground with one foot.

“He wants me to set it down, doesn’t he?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt anything.”

She set the cracker down on the floor. Owen hesitated, but not for long. He picked up the cracker, took three steps backward and set it down again. Then he dropped his head and carefully sniffed it. I wondered sometimes what he thought his keen nose was going to discover.

By this time Hercules’s patience was almost worn out. One paw moved through the air as though he were reaching for the crackers Elizabeth had in her hand. She held one out to him, her fingers just touching the corner edge, and to my surprise, after hesitating for a minute, he took it from her.

“He almost never does that,” I said. “I think you’ve made a friend.”

She offered the other treat, and this one he took without any hesitation at all. Elizabeth smiled, clearly pleased.

“How about a mint-chocolate-chip cupcake?” I asked. “And I have tea or hot chocolate.”

Wren looked at Elizabeth. “Do we have time?”

She nodded.

“Hot chocolate, please,” Wren said to me. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s not,” I said.

“Me too,” Elizabeth said, brushing her hands on her jeans and getting to her feet. “Could I help?”

I pointed to the bubble-glass plate sitting on the counter. “You could put the cupcakes on the table.”

Wren sat on the floor, talking to Owen and Hercules until the hot chocolate was ready; then she stood up and joined us at the table. I showed them a couple of pictures I’d taken of Lucy walking in the long grass behind the carriage house. Both Wren and Elizabeth had a lot more questions about the cats, and I tried to answer them all as honestly as I could.

Hercules came to lean against my leg, and I reached down to stroke his fur. I noticed he was watching Wren. Owen sat halfway between my chair and Wren’s, watching her too, but not with the same goofy adoration that he gave to Maggie. If he’d been a person instead of a cat, I would have said that he seemed concerned. Wren had an air of sadness about her, and given that both cats seemed to be able to sense someone’s mood, maybe he was concerned.

After a few minutes, Wren grew silent. She was rubbing her thumb against her finger again. A couple of times she caught the edge of her lower lip between her teeth.

“Wren, is there something you wanted to ask me?” I said. Twice it had looked like she was going to speak but then she hadn’t.

She traced the rim of her cup with a finger. “Yeah,” she said, “but it’s not about the cats.”

“That’s okay,” I said, folding my hands around my own cup. “What is it?”

She took a deep breath as though she were trying to work up her nerve. She seemed very fragile. “Is it true that you found Mike Glazer’s . . . that you found him?”

I nodded slowly. “Yes. It is.”

Elizabeth reached over and gave her friend’s arm a brief squeeze.

“Did he . . . did it look like he . . . suffered? I hate thinking he just lay there alone for hours.” Wren lifted her head to look at me, and I could see the grief in her pale blue eyes.

I took a moment before I answered. I wanted to say something that might make her feel a little better, but I didn’t want to make up a story, either. “From what I saw, I don’t think so,” I finally said. “I didn’t see anything that made me think he’d had a fight with someone. There were no signs of a struggle. No overturned furniture. He was just there. There wasn’t any blood.”

She swallowed a couple of times, gave Owen—who was still watching her—a small smile and then looked at me again. “Just so you know, I, uh, I’m not trying to be some kind of a ghoul. When I was little, I was really close to Mike and his family.”

“I know about Mike’s brother,” I said.

“I hadn’t seen Mike in a long time . . . years,” she said. She picked up the cupcake on her plate, broke it in half and set it back down again without taking a bite. “I was so happy when I found out he was involved in this tour thing. I thought about going to see the whole family a bunch of times, but I didn’t exactly know how to find them and I didn’t want to make anybody feel bad.”

She shrugged. “It probably sounds dumb, but us both being here at the same time just kind of seemed like a sign.”

“It’s not dumb,” Elizabeth said. She might not have been raised by the Taylors, but like her father and her half siblings, Elizabeth seemed to be fiercely loyal to the people she cared about.