Andre Norton: Catfantastic II

The Soulsinger looks up at me, his eyes glinting too brightly. "They were not total fools, the humans who named you. But let me give you your true name now; your inner name."

He jerks his head so our noses touch, and I feel his pain jolt through me. I know I do not want to hear this, but those eyes hold me. " 'Healer' I name you. Be the healer of souls you were born to be."

No! Careful not to yowl, I back away. I do not want to be a soul healer. I do not want to care so much-or care at all. I have already done too much. I am Puff who stands aloof, who takes my food and whatever else I can. I give as little as I can, and I go my own way.

"Who understands more than 'now'?" he asks me. "Who fears for humans, even when he most scorns them? Who watches the sick Kindred and fails to hold aloof-even from one as sick as I?"

No! I start to yowl as I back out of his cage, then mute my cry lest I wake the sick kindred. I do not want to be like Merlin whose body fails and who yearns for the Dreamtrails-but who forces himself to stay and watch… because he loves. I do not want to heal bodies or souls and run the risk of failure, or of fear. It is too hard, too much for me.

The whole lair is empty, except for the breathing of the Folk. Many are caged. I sense their fear as if it were my own.

Fenster and Purvis lie curled up together. They blink when I try to edge into their warm huddle. I do not think they are altogether pleased.

"You have always gone your own way, slept your own sleep, dreamed your own dreams. Why should we welcome you?" Fenster asks.

How happy they look, wrapped in warmth and the forever "now" of happy Folk. Please let me share, I ask. It comes out as a kitten's whimper.

"Because I am alone, and I'm frightened," I confess.

Kinder far than I, they lick my shoulder till I sleep. I fear that Merlin stays awake, watching his two-legs dream.

I vow to myself I would stay away. But morning finds me again at Merlin's cage. He is cooler, weaker, and his eyes have dulled.

"Good morning, Healer," he mocks me. "Making your rounds like the human doctor?"

I show him my teeth. "Keep that up, and you can haunt your human's dreams alone today."

But I lie, and I know it.

"Rest," I tell him. "I will follow your trails for you until she returns."

I no longer doubt that she will do so.

Lazy Puff, the two-legs would call me. But I am not lazy. I hunt the strangest trail I have ever known as I track Merlin's two-legged she.

It is hard, the life they have, these people. They ride, all crammed, standing together, on fearsome wagons through runs worse than the maze of any mouse, deep beneath the ground: places of fearful sounds and smells. They do not look at each other because, if they do, they may fight.

We know the rules for who goes belly up, who slinks away, and when. These two-legs have no such rules that I can see.

And yet, I saw a male offer a female heavy with young a seat, saw people pull back to give kittens room to breathe. Merlin's human sits, too, blinking at a paper that she holds. "Child Snatcher At Large," huge letters shout at her above a darkened square. She shuts the paper and blinks. An old male leaning on a stick limp into the wagon, and she rises for him. I sense his surprise and his pleasure. She has courtesy, this she of Merlin's. He has trained her well.

Courtesy and neat hands; and yet she fears and remembered her fears. It must be hard for any two-legs, harder still for one with the rudiments of proper conduct.

Noise in the lair forces me back. I leap from Merlin's cage just as Dr. Colt comes in. He too is neat-footed-for a two-legs male. He lifts Merlin from the cage, and the Soulsinger yowls.

"Did that hurt, boy?" he asks. Why does he have to treat the Soulsinger, whose mind and spirit outshine him as catnip outshines sawdust, like a kitten? But Merlin lowers his head to rub against his hand. "Wish I knew what you had." He is suddenly grave.

I run out. All that day, I dream in a chair, not even noticing when people draw close and pet me. "Puffs gotten friendly. Think he's all right?" someone asks.

"He's not friendly. He's sleeping," replies the female who carried Merlin to his human. "Aren't you, Puff?"

I'm not. Instead, as often as I was drawn back to my lair, I send my spirit forth in dreams to hunt the strange trails of a two-leg's-a human's-mind. It is like setting weight on a leg too recently broken. It hurts, but I have to try it.

So much the humans have that they fear-not just dogs or claws or hunger; not even rogues like the mad two-legs who stole human kittens. But of being cold inside, as I was last night, without friends to curl up beside, of long, long years of being cold. They live far longer than we do. I used to hate them for it. Now, I know it is nothing I should envy.

Fears and sounds and scents boil about me, a frightening brew that causes even a human to freeze in her footsteps. Abruptly, I am a kitten again, jerked from my mother and littermates, dumped in a bag, then left on cold stone.

These two-legs feel that way every day, I realize, and yet they go about their lives not complaining, just as we do not complain when we are ill. Things get better, or they do not.

"How are you?" they greet each other.

"Fine," they reply, though they are not.

They are not cowards, though they are often fools.

Except the rare ones: the singers and healers of souls. I am not fit to be one of that breed. I will admit it-I fear the task. Yet I cannot look away.

When Merlin's human returns that evening, she arrives with red eyes and a sack that looks most gratifyingly heavy. I think I scent catnip. The cans in the sack are the tiny, delectable ones.

"These are for Puff," she declares. "I promised I would, and here they are. Besides, I may not need them. And if I do, I'll buy more. Lots more."

Everyone makes comforting sounds. No one is fooled. Whatever else they are, two-legs-I mean "people"-are not always stupid.

"Chicken," I tell Merlin, licking my lips. "Very good, too. Don't you want any?" I would have given all of mine if he had eaten.

He blinks his eyes shut. They are glazing. Any other cat would have turned his face to the wall, abandoned his traitor body, and set out on the Dreamtrails long before.

"Do you want more strength?" I ask. I do not want the bitter water and the thorn and the weakness again, but they might make him strong for a little while.

"It would be wasted." Even with the sunshine pulsing through the pad beneath him, he is cold. "She thanked me and said I was free to go. But I am not!"

"Don't you want to go?" I ask.

Merlin sighs. "I want the pain to stop. It would be good to be young again and leap into the air for the joy of it once more. I want to see those trails I've dreamed of and learn whether the water is as sweet, the birds as fat and slow as instinct tells me. But the Dreamtrails will be very lonely without humans."

He meets my eyes.

"Do you still deny your inner name is Healer?"

There is something he wants of me-hope, perhaps?

I put my head upon my front paws. "I looked, Singer. I did. I cannot help you any more than they can. But your spirit is too strong to slip away. You must choose, or they will send you."

"Not yet," Merlin tells me. "The thing I dreamt lies in wait, and I must track it to its lair. That is my gift, as sharing strength in yours. Help me hunt."

I hunker down by the big cat. He smells old now and sick. His fur is dull, and his mouth dry. But the spirit that leaps forth to hunt his human's thoughts is-young and spry.

"You won't admit it, but I think you like her," he says, his whiskers set at a smug angle. "Most Free Folk do."

When we next track her thoughts, she is walking down a street, her eyes following the movements when a movement catches them. From a narrow way between two lairs darts a two-legs, lean and thin and fast. Though his jaws do not foam, I know he is mad. A long thorn glints in one hand. Quickly, he stalks his quarry: a female pushing another's kitten in a wheeled box. No sooner seen than pounced upon.