Ширли Мерфи - Cat Chase The Moon

Max rose from the table. But Jimmie said, “I know where they are,” and he was out through the tiled mud room that served as the house’s one entry. Heading for the stable, the two big half-Danes leaped all over him barking and licking his face. Jimmie ruffled their ears and told them to get down. They obeyed him, watching as he put a shovel and a spade in his car, then stood waiting for Maurita.

“We won’t be long,” Maurita said in the doorway as she stopped to hug Charlie. “I’ll do dish duty tomorrow, and I’ll cook.” Zeb and Max watched her with interest. Already she looked stronger, as if doing a day’s work, as if beginning to make a new home, was already driving back the weakness that had overwhelmed her.

In Jimmie’s car, they turned north up the highway, then left down Ocean Avenue to the beach. Here it was darker as thick fog rolled in, hiding the last of the sunset. Jimmie opened the trunk while Maurita prowled the sandy park, stepping carefully, looking down at the sand and the way the fallen trees lay. When she had her bearings she took the shovel, and slipped the spade in her belt. When he moved to help, she looked at him with an expression he couldn’t read.

“I want to do this, Jimmie.”

She dug for a long time, but the sandy dirt was soft. She dug nearly as deep as she could reach, then she used the spade to make a tiny hole. She dropped in the box. She wrote nothing on it, she said no word. She filled in the little hole, pounding the dirt with the handle of the spade, then shoveled back the dirt she had removed. She smoothed it over roughly with the shovel, then walked across it a few times, kicked some grass across it and tossed on a few small stones so it resembled its surround, matching the rest of the park.

She cleaned off the tools with a tissue and put them back in the trunk. He closed the trunk and took her hand. They walked across the little road that ended where the beach began; the waves were high, crashing in. They climbed the cliff high above the sand, sat hand in hand, in silence, Maurita’s long black hair blowing in her face. Her expression was a church kind of look, deep and thankful. As if she had buried the last of her hatred. As if her anger and resentment would lie there deep beneath the earth until time ended, completely removed from her. She looked past the breakers to the soft blanket of fog, and she leaned silently against Jimmie.

29

It was dark when the cats gathered in the mansion’s north grotto, deep down but where, in one adjoining alcove, their human friends could crowd in. Those who could speak to them, who could say good-bye to Courtney and the ferals. The ferals had, most of them, promised to return. Courtney made no such promises. She said only, “I’ll try. I think I will come back.”

Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw had picked up Dulcie and Courtney and Wilma at her cottage. Ryan and Clyde and Joe Grey had squeezed John and Mary Firetti and the two boy kittens in the back of Clyde’s Jaguar. Kate and Scotty had walked down through the ruins and were already in the cavern. Charlie was absent but she had sent a loving message by way of Ryan; there was no way she could leave her new guests tonight when they needed the warmth of friends around them. And no way she cared to leave Max when he was still scowling with suspicion about Joe Grey.

Dulcie was crying as they gathered in the grotto. Kit was crying so hard she had to keep wiping her nose on Pan’s golden fur, which didn’t please him. His own eyes were both sad and yearning. He’d very much like to go back with Courtney, as would Kit. They had traveled to the Netherworld, they had thrilled and shivered at its wonders and they were sharply drawn, now, to return with the calico and the ferals.

But Kit couldn’t leave Lucinda and Pedric a second time, nor could Pan. How many years did their old couple have left? When she watched Courtney’s two brothers licking and snuggling their sister and listened to their sad mewls, it was too much. Kit yowled until Pan cuffed her and she went silent, pressing against him; and Courtney watched them all with painfully mixed feelings.

She knew she had to go down, she wasn’t safe here. She knew there was a place for her, a special place for the calico with the three bracelets, she believed what the ferals had told her. She was filled with excitement at what she would discover in that new world, and was terrified at what she might confront. She looked helplessly at her family and friends, confusion boiling in her heart—but something called to her, from that world. And she was glad the ferals would be with her, she would be terrified to go down alone.

She rose. She faced her parents and her dear friends. She whispered, but then she said boldly, “Good-bye. I love you. I love you all as I love the spirit who made us. I will come back to you.” Turning, not looking back again, she headed for the little hidden cave that would drop down to the rocky tunnel that would lead, by morning, into the Netherworld: the ferals were all around her, some disappeared ahead of her, racing down into the black tunnel, dropping down and down, abandoning the upper world.

They were gone. Courtney was gone.

Courtney’s friends and family went away silently, in twos and threes, back into the village where the calico would no longer be present; leaving the Pamillon estate where there would no longer be any speaking ferals. Everyone was crying, Scotty and Clyde hiding their tears.

What would occur in the world of speaking cats, in the future, no one knew.

That night, Joe and Dulcie sat together atop Wilma’s roof looking east toward the hills where hidden chasms fell down into that other world. There was fog low over the hills, veiling a thin smear of moonlight. They didn’t speak. Until Dulcie said, “We raised a strong girl. What amazing things will she do there?”

“We raised three strong kittens,” Joe Grey said. “Each has chosen a useful life, each will make their mark. This is not the end. This is the beginning.”

But there would be many nights when they would sit together brooding, looking up at the hills or out across the sea. Or they would sit with Wilma watching the moon rise, contemplating the lives that had come before and those that will come after. Knowing there was cruelty and pain in this world, but knowing this wasn’t the last life. Knowing that the true living spirit was courage, mixed with love, and Courtney had that. And, as Ryan and Clyde reminded them, the calico carried within her the genes of their own spirits. A part of Joe and Dulcie would always be with her.

About the Author

SHIRLEY ROUSSEAU MURPHYis the author of twenty-one mysteries in the Joe Grey series, for which she has won the Cat Writers’ Association Muse Medallion eleven years running, and has received ten national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year. She is also a noted children’s book author, and has received five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards. She lives in Carmel, California, where she serves as full-time household help to two demanding feline ladies.

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Also by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Cat Shining Bright

Cat Shout for Joy

Cat Bearing Gifts

Cat Telling Tales

Cat Coming Home

Cat Striking Back

Cat Playing Cupid

Cat Deck the Halls

Cat Pay the Devil

Cat Breaking Free

Cat Cross Their Graves

Cat Fear No Evil

Cat Seeing Double

Cat Laughing Last

Cat Spitting Mad

Cat to the Dogs

Cat in the Dark