Kelly Sofie - Curiosity Thrilled The Cat

I shifted to see which cat was coming. It was Hercules, probably returning from Rebecca’s gazebo, stalking across the lawn like one of his jungle cousins. He paused beside me for a moment—long enough for a quick stroke of his fur—then went to stand in front of the old man. Old Harry patted his leg. I opened my mouth to explain about the cats, and Hercules jumped up onto his lap.

My lips moved—I could feel them—but no sound came out. If someone had poked me with a feather I probably would have fallen over onto the grass. In fact, I almost did fall over when Owen came out of nowhere and brushed against my back. I turned, but like his brother he moved around me, stopping in front of the big wooden chair.

“Hello. I didn’t realize there were two of you,” Old Harry said. He didn’t even have to pat his lap. Owen jumped up without an invitation. As usual, it took him a moment to get settled. He shifted, kneading Old Harry’s leg, apparently without claws, nudging Herc a tiny bit sideways.

I just sat there, staring at the three of them, wondering when I’d fallen down Alice’s Wonderland rabbit hole. I didn’t say a word. I wasn’t sure I could trust my voice to work, anyway.

“I see the rosebushes and the blackberry canes aren’t the only thing you have from Wisteria Hill,” Old Harry said. He was scratching Owen behind his ears and Herc just at the top of his white face patch. How he knew what each cat liked was beyond me. The whole thing was so . . . weird. The White Rabbit in his waistcoat, glasses and watch could have come around the rosebushes muttering, “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date,” and I wouldn’t have been surprised.

Old Harry smiled kindly at me. “It’s all right, my dear,” he said. “They know.”

From somewhere I found my voice. “Know what?”

“That I’m dying,” he said, in the same matter-of-fact tone you might use to say it’s Tuesday.

“But . . . but you look fine,” I said stupidly, shifting on the grass so I could pull up my knees and wrap my arms around them.

“You’ve probably heard the expression ‘Looks can be deceiving.’” Both cats were purring now. Loudly. “What are their names?” the old man asked.

I pointed. “That’s Hercules and that’s Owen.”

“This one looks like Anna’s cat, Finn.”

I rubbed my damp hands on my shorts. “Everett’s mother? You knew her?” I asked.

“My first job was out at Wisteria Hill,” he said. “Everett’s father—Carson—built the place for Anna when she said she’d marry him. He was older than she was and hard as nails, except when it came to her.” He smiled. “She had that effect on people.”

I leaned forward. “What happened? Why was everything just abandoned?”

For a moment I wasn’t sure he’d heard me. He gave Hercules a last scratch under his chin and said, “Time to go.” The cat jumped down, shook himself and came to lean against my leg. “You too, puss,” Old Harry said to Owen. Owen yawned, stretched and hopped down, as well. He came across the grass and leaned against my other leg, pushing his head under my hand in a not-so-subtle attempt to get me to pet him.

The old man finally looked at me. “I don’t know why Everett gave up on the place. I was in St. Cloud—had been for six months.” He shook his head and I could see the sadness in his eyes. “By the time I got home again Anna was . . . gone. Everett didn’t completely abandon the house, mind you—there was a caretaker—but I don’t think he ever went near the place again.”

He stroked his beard with his gnarled fingers. “There was a lot of loose talk, but nothing you could hang your hat on. And by the time Everett came back to stay”—he shrugged—“he wasn’t saying anything, and nobody liked to push.”

Old Harry gestured to the cats, both still leaning against me, and his face softened. “Now, they’re most definitely descendants of Anna’s Finn.” He pointed at Hercules. “That one looks just like the old cat. And that one”—he gestured at Owen—“has the same eyes.” He pulled himself forward in the chair. “The old mother cat, she picked Anna, you know. Showed up one day at the back door of the house. Didn’t care much for anyone but her. Just the way these two chose you. They know how things are meant to be.”

Before I could ask him what he was talking about he started getting to his feet. I jumped up to help him and saw Young Harry was headed toward us.

“Time to put me back in the truck,” the old man said, giving one of my hands a squeeze. “It was a pleasure to finally meet you.”

I squeezed back gently. “For me, too.”

“Are we headed down the hill?” he asked Young Harry, who had joined us.

“Yes, we are. I have to mow at the Stratton and the library.”

“Good,” Old Harry said, his blue eyes twinkling. “Maybe I’ll crank down my window, stick my head through with my tongue hanging out, and see if it’s as much fun as it looks when Boris does it.”

His son was unfazed. “Yeah, well, try not to shed all over my front seat, Dad,” he said as they headed for the street.

I crouched down so I could talk to the cats at their level. Owen put a paw on my knee. Hercules, on the other hand, decided it would be a good time to catch up on his grooming. “What was that all about?” I asked. Owen suddenly decided that he should wash his face, too.

Was Old Harry really dying? Was it possible the cats could tell? Neither cat so much as twitched an ear in my direction. I sat back on my heels. I was turning into one of those people who talked to their cats and actually expected an answer.

I got up and went back to the house. It didn’t take long to get my things together, change and fix my hair. I put fresh water out for the cats. When I went to the back door, they were waiting to come in. They moved past me, avoiding eye contact. I locked up and headed down the hill.

The library was deserted—again—but two of Will Redfern’s men were there, pulling the temporary desk into sections so they could take it out. Mary waved at me from the new circulation desk, where she was getting organized.

“Isn’t this great?” she beamed, pointing to the new book drop with separate slots for fiction, nonfiction and other media like CDs and DVDs.

“It looks good,” I agreed.

“What are you doing here so early?” she asked.

“I have some paperwork I need to get at,” I said. “Is Jason here?”

She nodded. “He’s shelving, and Abigail is upstairs, sorting books for the sale.” She looked at the boxes piled on either side of the counter. “I could stay an extra couple of hours, if it would help,” she offered.

I looked at the boxes. “It would help, yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

Mary nodded with satisfaction. Organizing things, making labels, setting up files were her idea of fun—aside from kickboxing. She’d be able to get the circulation desk organized faster and better than anyone else.

I let myself into my office, closing the door behind me. I had an open-door policy, generally, but I had only an hour to see what I could dig up on Gregor Easton.

I turned on my laptop, spreading lunch on the far right side of my desk, and started Googling.

The basics were easy to find—concerts Easton had given to great acclaim, a catalogue of his CDs, a bibliography of the music he’d written. There were photos of the man at Carnegie Hall, at the Grammys, joining an eclectic group of other musicians to record a song for charity—always with some beautiful, younger woman on his arm. But I could find very little about his early life. It was almost as though Gregor Easton hadn’t existed before graduate school. What little information I could find was sketchy and one source seemed to contradict the next. There was lots of information about the public Gregor Easton. But I wanted to know about the private man. How could I get the personal details, the rumors, all the things that didn’t seem to make it into the public record?