Shirley Murphy - Cat Playing Cupid

It was made of dark wood, and when they had pawed open the lid to reveal a leather packet, then had clawed open the packet, they found inside a package wrapped in frail and yellowed cloth. They could see where Willow had unwrapped the thin linen and then rewrapped it, where the cloth was folded differently, revealing darker creases. Several white cat hairs were caught in the folds. There were no markings on the box, or on the leather packet.

Lifting out the wrapped book, they laid it on paper, which they had spread on the bricks. The leather cover was old and dry, and was embossed in gold: Folktales of Speaking Cats and a History of Certain Rare Encounters.

"No one," Dulcie hissed angrily, " no one should write about speaking cats." The author's name was Thomas Bewick. What cruel impulse had made this man reveal their secret? Why had he done such a thing?

But despite its content, the book was frail and beautiful, and Dulcie's touch was feather soft as she turned the dry, yellowed pages.

At the beginning of each chapter was the color etching of a cat, each with a motto or homily.

She speaks of a world beneath the meadow, where the sky is greener.

They prowl the night, listening. And to whom will they tell their secrets?

The cats read in silence, scanning the passages, and soon Dulcie's tension eased and she began to purr: These stories were only myths and folktales, all were innocent enough, folktales about magical cats written in a fairy-tale manner that no human would take for fact. That was all the book would be to the uninitiated, a collection of fairy tales, stories about cats who spoke to kings, cats who vanished into cavernous worlds beneath the earth, cats who led lost children from war-torn medieval cities. Indeed, their own ancient heritage lay between these pages, but so well disguised that few humans would dream there was truth to the stories.

Dulcie and Kit were transfixed, but the tales made Joe edgy, turned him increasingly irritable; he didn't have the temperament for this, his yellow eyes burned with impatience.

It was enough for Joe to live in the here and now, he didn't need fairy tales to explain himself. The world could take him or not, as it chose, and to hell with the past, he preferred to leave all foolish conjecture to dreamers-and Dulcie preferred Joe just as he was. A tough, practical tomcat who faced the world straight on. A four-legged cop who hid very well the tender streak deep within.

"And what," the tomcat said, staring at the gold-embossed volume, "what do we do with this? There's nothing safe to do with it, Dulcie. Except bury it again. It's too heavy to carry, and we can't let someone find it."

Dulcie looked dismayed. "We can't leave it here, it will rot."

"It hasn't rotted yet."

"It's old and frail, Joe. I don't think-"

"If we carry and drag it down the hills, we'll rip the leather, tear the pages. And if we haul it in the box, we'll need our little cat spines adjusted."

She sat down and washed a front paw.

She wanted this book, she wanted to read the rest of it. Wanted to look into the back pages, wanted…

Joe Grey sat down beside her and licked her whiskers. "I guess if you want it that bad," he said softly, "Charlie can get it for us."

Dulcie looked at him uncertainly. "Charlie hasn't been up here since she was kidnapped. She doesn't come here anymore."

"She will for this. She will if we nudge her. She has to be wondering about the book. She has to be as curious as we were. Do you think, after Willow told her there was a book about speaking cats, that she isn't wild to see it?"

Dulcie looked at him bleakly. "Maybe she won't want to come up here, where she shot that man. She's already worried about how to report this grave. Maybe-"

"Leave it to me," Joe said, smiling a sly, tomcat smile. "I have a trade for Charlie. A trade that will make her happy to do what we ask. She'll fetch the book, and she'll do it gladly."

C HARLIE STOODat the top of the cliff watching the sea, thinking about little Sage. It was nearly noon and the tide was coming in, the waves crashing and foaming against the rocks far below, turning them glistening black; the surf's wild and gigantic power, the vastness of the sea and of the earth itself, made a creature as small and hurt as Sage seem to her all the more helpless.

The fear and confusion that that little wild cat must have felt coming out of the anesthetic, waking in a strange world inside a building, not remembering how he got there, finding himself in a cage, hurting and sick and afraid. Even with Dulcie there to calm him, he must have been terrified.

Well, but he was being gently cared for now, with a special understanding that the young cat would find in no other doctor. She was still amazed that for all these years, John Firetti had looked upon the speaking cats as a natural part of his life.

It was strange, too, that she, when she first discovered the truth about the cats, had felt that such cats should have been a part of her life all along, that not knowing about them had left something incomplete in her world, left it flat and dull. She'd not been surprised that, once she shared the cats' secret, a buoyant feeling of richness had filled so many of her life's empty spaces.

She thought about the day she and Ryan and Hanni had been returning from their weeklong pack trip, riding home across the open hills, the day that Willow and her wild band first appeared to her, slipping out of the pine forest.

Glimpsing the little phantom beings secretly following her, wonder had gripped her, the same thrill that had touched her the night Willow had come to her, needing her, trusting her enough to seek her out.

Now, turning away from the cliff's edge, she stepped back into the Blazer and headed down the hills to Dr. Firetti's clinic, down Highway 1, a left at Ocean and a left again at Beckwhite's Fine Cars, where she glanced absently at Clyde 's automotive garage.

Clyde and Ryan on their honeymoon , she thought, amused. She'd never thought it would happen. No little beforehand hints, no asking for help picking out rings, no sharing of plans and secrets, though the three of them were close friends. The two had been dating for a while, but Clyde had dated a long string of women, including Charlie herself.

But then, Christmas Day, Clyde had started calling all their friends with the big announcement. Wilma said Dulcie had been so surprised she nearly did flips. The little tabby had just clawed the wrapping off her Christmas gift, which turned out to be Charlie's portrait of Joe Grey, so she was already giddy, wired with excitement when they heard Clyde 's news. To learn that he had actually proposed, that he and Ryan meant to take the big step…no one had thought it would happen.

Parking at the side of the clinic, she paused to retie her red hair with its ragged ribbon, then grabbed her package off the seat, got out, and locked the car. She had brought half a rare filet for Sage, from last night's dinner. Through the clinic's front window, she could see Wilma inside the crowded waiting room.

The door was blocked by a man in shorts and sandals trying to pull his basset hound away from a pair of fluffy "designer" mutts, while a black cat in a carrier hissed angrily. At the other side of the cheerful room, with its wicker chairs and hanging plants, Wilma was chatting with the receptionist, dark-haired Audrey Cane, about Audrey's young German shepherd; Audrey was radiant with pride in the dog's talents, was sharing her plans for his training when John Firetti came out and led Wilma and Charlie back to the small, quiet recovery room.

Sage lay in his large cage, the wire door propped open, looking helpless in his bandages. When he saw Charlie and Wilma, his eyes brightened and he got clumsily to his feet, wobbling in his cast; the doctor reached to steady him.