Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives

I thought, My employment here? That sounded like I was the new full-time cat nanny—and then I remembered Ethan saying he’d heard the mansion was filled with hundreds of cats. Of course, my first instinct was to ask him why in the world she’d want to keep it a secret from her own husband, but I figured for now I’d just shut up and nod politely.

He smiled. “I know, it’s unusual. My wife tends to worry too much, especially when it comes to cats. She feels a certain kinship to them and always has. I’m afraid I don’t quite share her love for our feline friends, but I understand that her heart is in the right place. I’ve always been more inclined to the canine species myself.”

I nodded. “I think it says a lot about a person what kind of pets they’re drawn to.”

“Really? Do tell.”

“Well, I can only speak for myself, but I’m drawn to dogs because they make you feel loved no matter what. They’re always there; they love you unconditionally. But then at the same time, I’m drawn to cats precisely because they do have conditions, so if a cat loves you, you know you’re something special.”

He folded his hands together and chuckled. “Well, then, I suppose the best of all worlds would be to have the love of both, wouldn’t it? In my younger days, I was very active with our local dramatic society. We destroyed a nineteenth-century classic, Charley’s Aunt, myself in the title role, and to get ourselves back in the good graces of the community, the entire cast volunteered at the local animal shelter. I’ve still got more than a few cat scars on my arms to prove it. So I do admire their beauty, but I prefer to admire it from a good, safe distance.”

I nodded. “Well, I admire any man who volunteers at an animal shelter whether he likes cats or not.”

He stood a little taller now, and I could tell in his younger days he’d probably been quite handsome. His hair was long and silvery, combed straight back over his head, and his gray eyes were speckled with ocean blue so it seemed like they were constantly glittering. There was a genteel, almost royal air about him. In my cat-hair-covered shorts and T-shirt, I felt a little bit like a country bumpkin in the presence of the king.

“Well, don’t let me keep you, Miss Hemingway. I believe you and Mrs. Silverthorn are going to get along splendidly. She loves cats, and she also has a weakness for chocolate. It’s served daily with tea.”

He winked and bowed slightly and then headed across the courtyard toward the far corner of the house. I took a deep breath and sighed. He seemed like a very nice gentleman, but so far the Silverthorn Mansion was turning out to be just as strange and mysterious as I had always imagined it would be.

“Well,” I muttered to myself, “at least there’ll be chocolate.”

Avoiding the cracked sections, I went up the sweeping marble steps to the front entrance, where I was greeted with a pair of brass elephant’s heads, oxidized in the moist, salty air with a pearlescent coating of emerald green and verdigris. They were hung one each on a pair of arched wooden doors painted a mossy black, flanked by fluted marble urns spilling over with dead weeds and twigs. I was looking for the doorbell when I realized the elephants’ heads were actually giant door-knockers.

I wasn’t sure which door I should use, so I just guessed. I took a deep breath and raised the trunk of the elephant on the right and let it fall back to the door with a solid thud. Little green flecks of oxidized metal chipped off on my fingers. I would have expected the trunk to be polished to a golden shine from years of use, but it was just as green and mottled as the rest of the elephant’s head.

I was about to raise the trunk again when the round handle on the opposite door made a click and then turned slowly. The door swung open to reveal a woman in her mid-twenties, with long dark hair tied in pigtails hanging limply down her back, wearing a simple black skirt and a pearl gray blouse under a white apron. She was alarmingly thin, with broad, bony shoulders and lips stretched into a taut line, as if they were holding something in.

I said, “Hi, I’m Dixie Hemingway. I have an appointment with Mrs. Silverthorn?”

The woman’s eyebrows rose slightly, but she didn’t say a word as she stepped back and opened the door a little wider. Her face was hardened beyond its years and pale—I don’t think she’d seen the light of day in months—and her eyes looked red and swollen. It occurred to me that she’d been crying when I knocked on the door.

We stepped into a large cathedral-like foyer, with vaulted ceilings, parquet floors of faded black and white, and a sweeping staircase big enough for a herd of buffalo to go up and down comfortably. All around the perimeter of the foyer were royal blue velvet drapes, easily twenty feet long, their dusty bottoms ballooned on the parquet floors like a southern belle’s party dress. Every ten feet or so they were bunched open with gold ropes and tassels, revealing tall panels of silvered mirrors, framed in gilded wood. More than a few of the mirrors were cracked, and some were missing altogether, revealing a crumbling layer of horsehair plaster and lathing underneath.

The girl nodded silently, which I took to mean that I should wait here, and then she turned to one of the mirrored panels, which slid open to a long hallway lined with stained-glass windows on one side, but I didn’t see much more than that because she quickly slid the door closed behind her.

I looked around. Ethan had been right. It was obvious the Silverthorns were struggling to keep the whole place from falling in around them—from all appearances, they were holding on to it like a dog to a chew-toy. The floor was filthy, covered in a thin layer of dust and grime, and there were clouds of cobwebs arching across the ceiling, dotted with the desiccated bodies of insects trapped in suspended animation.

I heard three short chirps, like a telephone bell, come from somewhere upstairs, and then I noticed a pathway in the grime on the floor that led from the sliding door the girl had disappeared through across the foyer and up the right side of the staircase. I don’t think the floors had been mopped in years. It made me thankful for my teeny little apartment. I can basically mop the whole place with a couple of wet paper towels.

I thought, If only Michael could see me now. We’d spent practically our entire childhoods fantasizing about what this house looked like on the inside, making up stories about ghosts and missing children locked inside its numerous underground torture chambers, and now here I was, smack-dab in the middle of it, about to meet with the infamous Mrs. Silverthorn, live and in person.

So far, though, I hadn’t seen a single cat.

As if on cue, a woman appeared at the top of the steps. She was long limbed and tan, with a scarlet wrap tied around her head, sky blue capri pants over a flesh-colored leotard, and a long flowery scarf tied around her tiny waist. She practically floated down the stairs and extended her hand to mine in one single fluid motion. She was barefoot.

“Oh, Dixie Hemingway, how kind of you to come. I’m Alice Ann Silverthorn.”

She was in her mid-seventies at least, but her skin was taut and shiny, and her hair was shimmering silver and beautifully coifed in sculpted waves. For a moment I wondered if all her money didn’t go to hairdressers and plastic surgeons, but then I noticed a thin wisp of straight, mousy gray hair peeking out the back.

She was wearing a wig, and her hair underneath must have been pulled back so tightly it was pulling the skin of her face taut. I had to admit, she looked pretty damn good for a woman her age. I decided right then and there that the very moment my hair started thinning, I’d go out and get myself a couple of wigs. Her cheeks were lightly dusted with fine powder, and she’d freshly applied to her lips a thin layer of burgundy lip gloss.