Shirley Murphy - Cat Cross Their Graves

When they had listened for some time and had heard nothing, he clawed at the edge of the door. He was able, just barely, to wiggle it in its molding. "Come on, Dulcie." He turned to look at her, his patience wearing thin. "I've never seen you so reluctant."

She'd seldom felt so reluctant. All Lori's unhappiness in this house seemed to have collected like a chill around Dulcie's own heart, and she didn't want to go down there.

Well, the trapdoor was probably bolted, anyway. Padlocked maybe, from the inside. She set her claws in, and on his count of three, she jerked upward.

The door lifted an inch, then dropped back.

Again they listened, Joe as still as a snake about to strike, Dulcie's heart pounding.

When the house remained silent they tried again. With their back paws well under them, and their front claws deeply engaged over the lip of the door, Joe whispered, "One, two, three, heave."

The door flew up-but then dropped back again, forcing some swift paw work to leap clear.

On the next try, they were able to lift it far enough to get their shoulders under it. Cats were not built for this stuff, for using their bodies like wedges. But they heaved, heaved again, and finally with their backs under it, the rest was kitten play. A last heave and the door fell backward onto the rafters. They flew cringing away, out of the sight of anyone below.

But they saw then why the door had given.

"We pulled the hasp out," Joe said, amazed.

Dulcie stared at the softer wood where the hasp had pulled loose. Splinters had flicked off, scattering on the carpet below. When there was no sound, when the house remained as still as death itself, they crouched on the edge, looking down.

Below them down the dim hallway, they could see a living room at one end and next to it a kitchen. Along the hall were four narrow doors that probably led to a bath and three bedrooms. All the doors stood ajar. The rooms beyond were dark. The place reeked of stale air. They could see, inside the door to the farthest bedroom, stacks of newspapers and an unmade bed that even from this distance smelled of unwashed human. Glancing at Dulcie, Joe dropped the eight feet to the worn carpet, his heavy landing causing a muffled thunk. Dulcie, flehming at the smells, dropped down beside him, her legs and shoulders jolted by her landing. And, staring high above her at the attic crawl hole, which was now unreachable, she felt her courage drained away. Without a ladder or a tall piece of furniture, they were not going back out that way. And maybe, with the windows all boarded up, there was no other way out. Crouching on the stained carpet, breathing in the stale smells, Dulcie was filled with the terror of being trapped, unable to escape, a feeling so debilitating that it turned the little tabby cold and weak.

In the children's reading room, Lori had concealed herself as best she could, tucked up among the pillows at the end of the window seat. Story hour was over. She had fetched a book from the shelves and was pretending to read, holding the book in front of her face, glancing out the library window every few minutes watching for the beetle man. The children's librarian was right there at the desk, and another librarian at the circulation desk, two more in the reference room, so she felt safe enough. Ms. Wahl did not come looking for her, and no one said anything to her. She guessed Ms. Wahl didn't really care about what Cora Lee had said, or hadn't believed Cora Lee. Being a grown-up didn't automatically make you real smart, or turn you into a nice person.

Beyond the glass, the library's peaceful garden made a strange contrast with the turmoil in her mind, with the dark shadow of the beetle man, and with worry over what had taken Cora Lee away. Then, when she did read a few pages, the pictures in her head of Harry Potter were equally dark, all among the gloomy caverns.

And when she looked up suddenly, she saw him. The beetle man, standing across the street. Standing inside the door of the china shop, his back to her, standing in shadow and talking with someone inside.

Pressing deeper among the bright pillows, she was mostly hidden behind the wall where it met the window. She could see him gesturing, his hands making stiff movements. She didn't know whether to slip away again, out of the library, to run again, or to stay where she was. Stay here and watch him, see what he would do. It would be worse not to see him, not know where he was. He was waiting for her to come out; why else would he be there in a china shop?

Mama would always stop at a china shop window and stand dreaming, setting in her mind some lovely pattern of plates and silver, imagining them laid out on an embroidered cloth. She and Mama, they ate their meals on Melmac and flowered oilcloth-pretty oilcloth, though, and pale-yellow Melmac. But not china and linen like Mama loved. Their silverware was from the Greenville Woolworth's. He was coming out, turning to look straight across to the library window. Cringing deeper into the cushions, she was telling herself she was safer here, when she saw Pa. Saw his white truck coming around the corner. "Vincent and Reed" on the side. Pa driving real slow, looking out at the street. "Oh!" she said aloud, sucking in her breath.

The librarian looked up, startled. Lori smiled quickly and held up the thick copy of Harry Potter. "I'm sorry," she mouthed in silence. The librarian smiled at her and nodded-she was the children's librarian, she loved Harry Potter, too. She understood how you could get caught up in that world and forget your own. How you could get lost in a world so you just shouted out when you didn't mean to.

Out on the street, Pa had slammed on his brakes and swung out of the pickup, right in the middle of the street with all the cars stopped behind him. Pa ran across, Pa, tall and thin, reaching and grabbing the beetle man by the shoulders, swinging him around.

The beetle man fought him, trying to get away. Pa had on his dark uniform jacket with the red-and-white "Vincent and Reed" emblem on the pocket, his brown hair slicked down under his baseball cap. He shook the beetle man, shouting at him so violently that people crossed the street to get away. Any minute, someone would call the cops. Pa's anger scared her, and excited her, too. Pressing hard against the glass, she watched him shove the smaller man into the cab of his white truck, Pa still shouting in his face as if threatening him. Pa slammed the truck door. The man cowered, crouching down as Pa went around the front, watching him, and swung into the driver's seat. Pa pulled away in a chirp of tires. In a moment they were gone, turning away at the next corner.

Pulling the pillows closer around her, she felt hot, then ice cold. She wanted with all her heart to believe that Pa had come to find her and protect her.

But why would he care, after he'd kept her a prisoner? If Pa hated the beetle man, he hated her, too. He didn't care for no one. She longed to be down in her cave alone but she couldn't go there now in the middle of the day. When she looked back across the street, she saw a cat on the roof of the china shop. Dulcie?

But no, it wasn't Dulcie. A little dark cat, though. This cat had long fur and was darker than Dulcie, with a huge fluffy tail lashing, really comical. It stared down from the gutter, looking after Pa's truck.

It was the cat that had saved her, had chewed her ropes and freed her. Sliding off the window seat, she wanted to run out to it. She was safe now from the beetle man and from Pa, she felt suddenly so free she wanted to race into the street shouting and spinning cartwheels, she could run across to the little cat, she could race away up the street, free.