Клеа Саймон - An Incantation Of Cats

She slowed as she began poking at her phone.

“I’m sending that photo to the police.”

What happened next was too fast for Clara to react. Like a real jungle beast, the man they knew as Tiger lunged, grabbing for the phone in Becca’s hand. But Clara jumped as his bike clattered to the ground, tripping him as he surged forward.

“No, you don’t understand!” The fake Tiger struggled to his feet, reaching for Becca as she stumbled backward. Stumbled to the curb, desperate to get away. “I was trying to protect you. I would have if I could—”

To Clara’s dismay, Becca stopped. “What?”

“My bosses.” He stood and brushed off his knees as two women in suits pushed by. When he looked up, his face was sad. “They are not people you cross.”

“His new business partners…” Becca could have been talking to herself. “The ones Ande knew about but Margaret didn’t. The ones Gaia didn’t like…”

“I’m just the messenger,” he said, taking a careful step forward. “I pick things up and I drop them off. Sometimes, they have me clean up the mess.”

“Like Frank Cross?” Becca took another step backward. Already, the noise of the busy traffic was enough to nearly drown out her quiet query. “You knew about his affairs. About how he’d died before anyone else did.”

He nodded, coming closer. “He had a sweet deal, but he panicked. All he had to do was change out the plates and keep his mouth shut.”

Waves. The Ocean State, the symbol of Rhode Island. Clara didn’t know if she was picking up Becca’s thoughts or if she had heard this. Only that it was true.

“The hit-and-run?” Becca must have made the same connection. In the midst of the square’s bustle, she was a point of quiet inquiry.

The man before her nodded once again, his pale face sad. “It was an accident. One of the boss’s sons. He was drinking.” He shrugged. “We could get rid of the car, but we needed clean plates right away to make the trail disappear. All Frank had to do was keep quiet.”

Pedestrians parted around them. Behind her, the morning traffic was only beginning to die down.

“That’s all you have to do, too, Becca.” His voice was soft. The warmth had returned. “I don’t want to hurt you. Never did. Honest. I really like you. Now, just give me the phone.”

Time stood still as Clara looked from the man back to her person. Surely, the little device wasn’t worth the trouble. As the calico looked on, Becca held it up and took a step back.

He lunged. Grabbing the arm that held the phone, he wrestled it from her grasp. Only then did Clara see the cold glint in his eye as he pulled it free and pushed her backward into traffic.

“No!” Clara yowled. She was too small to push Becca to safety, too small to take down this predator with the assumed name. But appearing out of nowhere, she had the element of surprise. As Becca’s hat went flying, the calico leaped, making herself visible as her person stumbled after the little cloche, into the street.

“Clara?” Crying out the name, Becca caught herself, and, turning, fell to her knees beside the curb as a passing pickup truck crushed the hat into the pavement. “How…?”

But whatever she was going to say was caught up in a thunderclap of pain and noise, and Clara knew no more.

Chapter 38

“Wake up, little one.” A kind voice, long remembered. “Wake up!” The rough warmth of a tongue. “ Wake up!”

“Mama?” Clara struggled to open her eyes, only to find Laurel’s steely blues glaring down at her.

“Move it!” Her sister’s hiss had an edge of—could it be?—fear, and Clara struggled to her feet. “Quickly!”

She was in Harvard Square, with Laurel’s shaded body, the merest hint of milky coffee in the afternoon light, propping her up against a curbstone.

“What happened?” Clara took a step and nearly fell as her right front leg gave out. Before she could hit the pavement, however, she felt herself pulled upright. Laurel had her by the scruff of the neck. Despite the pain—her paw was throbbing—the grip was strangely comforting, and Clara relaxed.

“Great Bast, you’re heavy!” Laurel muttered, her breath warm on Clara’s neck. “All righty, then. Off we go!”

Clara felt herself being lifted into the air, and the strange tingling of her guard hairs that signaled a passage through an earthly barrier. “Wait!” she managed to yell as she felt her sister begin to take flight. “We can’t leave Becca!”

“Becca’s fine.” Laurel growled through clenched teeth. “See for yourself.”

She turned, maneuvering Clara like a kitten. Sure enough, Becca was standing on the sidewalk, alone. The man she had known as Tiger appeared to have fled, leaving her gaping, her head swiveling between the sidewalk and the hat that now lay squashed flat in the road before her. But it wasn’t the cloche she seemed to see.

“Clara?” She was blinking at the traffic, which sped past unabated. “Clara kitty?”

“She can’t see us.” Laurel muttered. “Not now.”

“But she’ll be worried.” Despite the pulse of pain, she yearned to be back on the ground with her person.

“She’s about to be very busy,” said her sister. Sure enough, a siren added its wail to the noise, causing Becca to turn in its direction and set off at a run. “Now are you content, you silly clown? Because I’ve got enough to do to get us both home without having to answer all your questions.”

With that, Laurel began to purr, and the rising and falling vibration lulled Clara, who closed her eyes and felt herself a kitten again. She was carried like this once. She recalled a storm and a sudden exodus. The abandoned shed where she and her sisters had been born was no longer safe, a soft voice purred. They were going to a new home and to a new responsibility. They were to take up the mantle of the cats before them, joining forces to assist a young woman who was also just beginning to make her way in the world.

“You’ll be fine here.” She recalled a gentle push. A nudge with a wet nose sending her waddling after her sisters into the box trap the shelter worker had set out. “Look out for each other, girls!”

“We will, Mama,” Clara called. And her sisters? They must have been there before her. All she could remember was that rough, warm tongue.

“There we go. Almost all better now.”

It felt so good. The pain was almost gone, and Clara looked up to see not green eyes but gold. Harriet’s warm bulk towered over her as she groomed Clara’s injured leg. They were on the sofa, in Becca’s apartment. Safe.

“Harriet?” Clara blinked, confused.

“Hush, little one.” Between Harriet’s warm bulk and the reassurance of her purr, Clara relaxed. Strangely, she did feel better. She didn’t know Harriet could heal.

“There’s lots you don’t know, Clown.” Laurel, washing her own booties, murmured from her perch on the sofa’s back. “Not that you’d ever listen…”

“Hush.” Harriet looked up. Clara felt it too, the rapid patter of footsteps running up the stairs. A moment later, the sound of a key in the lock, and then Becca, their Becca, was racing in. She scooped Clara up in her arms.

“Clara! I was so worried.” She hugged the calico close. “I thought I saw you outside. I thought you were hit by a car. I was so scared.”

Clara mewed softly and squirmed to be put down. The affection was lovely, but the embrace was making her leg ache.

“Clara?” Becca held her pet before her, then gently placed her on the floor. Clara stepped gingerly. Yes, her leg no longer throbbed, and it bore her weight. Still, she lifted it ever so slightly. “You’re limping,” her person noted.