Моника Шонесси - The Tell-Tail Heart

"Virginia," Muddy snapped, "you are not ill. You are under the weather."

Sissy gritted her teeth. I heard it across the room. "Yes, Mother." She blew out the candle and called to me. "Cattarina, come."

I alighted from the dresser and took my place on her chest, curling myself into a ball. As it did each night, her body trembled beneath me, shuddering and seizing with each little cough as it relaxed into a fitful sleep. I longed to heal her but didn't know how. Yes, I loved Sissy, but I loved Eddie even more, and losing her would cast a shadow over his heart that nothing, not even a litter of suns, would banish. That's why I hated to leave her.

But the eye had possessed me.

I tiptoed downstairs in the dark, moving like mist over the floorboards. I'd taught myself how to open the front door latch, letting myself in and out of the house at will. However, the office latch was nearly impenetrable. I knew because I'd tried it before. With no nearby bookshelf from which to launch myself, obtaining the proper trajectory and momentum had proved difficult in the past. Still, I had to—

Scratch, scrape, scratch , scrape .

I paused in the hall, listening to a sound I hadn't heard in days. I hastened to Eddie's office door and found it ajar, firelight streaming through the opening—a welcome sight, as he'd left the room unoccupied for days. I slipped inside to find my companion at his desk, quill pen in hand, furiously scribbling upon the page. But what had lifted his melancholy? When I leapt onto his desk, I found my answer. He'd set the eyeball near the ink blotter where it watched him.

At once, jealousy struck me. Watching Eddie was my job. I batted the thing and knocked it to the floor, startling him. He looked up, his hair mussed, his cravat askew.

"Catters? I didn't see you come in."

I meowed softly, so as not to wake the women.

Eddie set aside his pen, retrieved the eye, and sat down again with it. "Imagine, the last person to touch this was a murderer. Isn't it marvelous?"

Firelight glinted off the glass bauble, bringing it to life between his ink-stained fingers. For an instant, I wondered if it could see us. I dismissed the thought with a switch of my tail. Preposterous. Though if Eddie hadn't taken such a liking to it, I might've carried it to the garden and buried it—just in case.

"In any event, it's got me writing again," he said to me, "and I have you to thank for it." He scratched me between the ears and gave me a rare smile. I liked his teeth, small and square and not the least bit threatening. When he finished petting me, he set his new muse on the desk and picked up his pen again. "If you'll excuse me, I'm deep in the middle of outlining and can't go to bed until I'm done."

I paced the desktop and let him write. I'd gone from liking the eyeball to hating it in the span of a good yawn. But if it gave Eddie a reason to write, I'd fill the house with them. With this in mind, I disappeared down the hall, jumped to the bookshelf by the door, and sprang the front latch on the second try. If I hurried, I'd reach Shakey House Tavern before it closed. Whoever dropped the eye might've dropped another one. And Eddie would be very, very pleased to own it.

Trouble by the Tail

By the time I'd backtracked along Coates to Nixon, the roads had emptied of all beasts sensible enough to shelter from the dipping temperatures. Ziggety-zagging south, I scampered along a combination of alleys and main thoroughfares to reach Shakey House in about the time it takes Muddy's dumplings to boil. While a more efficient route existed, it would've taken me near the Eastern State Penitentiary. While most two-legged citizens considered it a marvel of construction, I stayed clear of it. A large tom named Big Blue lived behind the building, and I didn't know if he'd appreciate an interloper crossing through his territory.

At Callowhill, I skittered around two salted meat barrels and ran down the block toward my destination. The way Eddie had bound eyeball and murder together, I deduced that one human had slain another over the object. Which meant tonight, I tracked a killer. Whether or not this put me in harm's way, I didn't know.

I reached Shakey House in time to catch the last patron—Mr. Abbott—leaving. He ignored me and hurried down the empty street, glancing left and right several times, as one might during daytime traffic. As I neared the tavern steps, I caught that sharp odor again, the one that had caused me to sneeze earlier in the evening. It reminded me of medicine. Before I could ponder the association between the scent and Mr. Abbott, I ran into Josef. I tried to slink past him into the bar, but he blocked me from entering the darkened building. "Cattarina!" he said. "Are you roaming without your master?"

The fur around my neck rose at master . We never used such foul language in the Poe house. I ignored the transgression and batted the door, hoping he'd let me in to search for another eye. But he shut it, locking it with a key that swung from a large ring.

"If you are hunting for food," Josef said to me, "I have the leberkäse . I was saving for the walk home, but I share with you. Yes?" He reached into his coat pocket, crinkled a wrapper, and broke off a small piece of meat that smelled of cow and pig.

I took the offering, gulped it down, and rubbed my chin along his arm to deposit my scent. Before finding Eddie, I could have been persuaded to take care of Josef. "Lucky you came now," he said to me. "I should lock up twenty minutes ago, only Mr. Abbott lost his wallet. Wouldn't leave until he searched the whole bar, die Idioten. But he never found it." He took a piece of meat for himself and ate it. "I know the cheat when I see one. Mr. Shakey will blame me "—he thumped his chest—"when I tell him customer left without paying for drinks." He stroked my back, releasing a crackle of static. "Good thing I have new job at the hospital. If I lose one, I keep the other."

As Mr. Abbott grew smaller in the distance, my mind wandered to the scent I'd smelled upon arrival, the same one on the eye. As the feline philosopher Jean-Paul Catre once said, "There are no coincidences, only cats with impeccable timing." If that were true, then my eyeball snatcher was getting away. Correction, my murderer was getting away.

Forgetting my manners, I dashed down the street without saying goodbye to Josef and chased after Mr. Abbott. Another prize might fall from his pocket at any moment, and I would be there to catch it on Eddie's behalf—a kittenish notion, but one that filled me with hope. He hadn't journeyed more than a half block from the tavern when I caught up with him. I followed the man with ease, dipping in and out of lamplight as it suited me. Not long ago, I'd been a common gutter cat, and I still knew how to act the part—tail in neutral, eyes downcast, ears on swivel. No one would think me a kept feline who ate from a china bowl and slept in a bed and played with ribbons.

Mr. Abbott stopped at the corner to fill and light his pipe. Behind him, a rusty awning sign swung back and forth, squeaking with each pass of the wind. Sensing an opportunity, I emerged from the shadows and perched on a large planter of dead roses to study him. His fingers shook as he lit the match. It was entirely possible he'd killed a woman tonight. He took a long draw from his pipe, releasing the scent of burning leaves into the air, and shifted his gaze to the planter.

"Well, if it's not Poe's cat," he said. "I've had enough of you and your owner." He stomped his foot and drove me back into the shadows.

But he did not drive me from my task.

Once, I stalked a mouse for an entire afternoon, from midday church bell to dinnertime until I caught the vermin beneath the couch. A grave miscalculation on his part; my paw did, in fact, extend several inches farther when I flopped on my side. Now I needed Mr. Abbott to make a similar miscalculation. If he led me to his home, I could sneak in and steal as many eyes as I, rather, Eddie wanted—enough to keep my friend's pen moving for weeks—provided a collection existed in the first place. The man would soon learn we tortoiseshells are tireless pursuers.