Andre Norton - The Gate of the Cat

Now that she had time to observe—to think of more than her immediate plight, she studied what lay before her with eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. She had already shed her coat because of the unnatural heat and now wished she could slip out of her heavy turtleneck sweater into the bargain.

Surely this was not even the brightest of summer days such as she had heretofore known on Ben Blair. Nor were the flowers, rippling gently under the teasing fingers of a light breeze, any she had seen before. And the stones—how had they come to be set upright?

Of course this might be all illusion and she still lay back in the night twilight with her battered head against the stone which had so roughly met her fall. Yet—it seemed so real!

The wildcat stopped her licking and made a small sound deep in her throat. She limped over to the coat Kelsie had abandoned and pawed at it intently as if searching the padded surface for something of her own.

Kelsie did not try to fight the vast fatigue which had settled on her when she had finished the last of her nurse-care. She closed her eyes and then opened them suddenly twice, as if she tried to catch the landscape before her in the midst of some change. However, it remained always the same—the standing bluish stones, the patches of (lowers, the unnatural heat. She began to feel thirsty.

Now if she were indeed on the slope of Ben Blair there should be a spring not many paces away from the place of stones. The very thought of water curling out of the ground made her run her tongue over lips suddenly even more dry. Water-She did not try to stand up, even creeping on her hands and knees made her feel qualms of nausea. However, she forced herself across a quarter of the circle, out between the stones, in the general direction where that spring must lie.

Only there was no spring, at least none where she sought. She slipped down again to lie full length in the midst of a patch of the wild flowers, the perfume of which was so strong as to add to her illness.

Water—with every moment she craved a drink more. Vow it seemed she could actually hear it. Perhaps she had not been headed in the right direction. Muzzily she somehow once more got to her hands and knees heading south. Moments later she was indeed looking at water—down into water, for here was a steep falling away of the land above a pool which mothered a small rill trickling away among moss grown rocks.

In spite of falling painfully once, Kelsie reached the edge of that pool and cupped her hands to drink liquid as chill as if it had just been imprisoned by ice. Still the chill cleared her head a little and she slapped more of it on her face, avoiding the edge of the cut. Until, for the first time since she had awakened, she felt wholly herself again.

There was no such pool on Ben Blair, just as the standing stones had been lying once there. Where was she? Still wandering in the depths of some hallucination produced by the blow on her head? She must not panic, and panic came from just such thoughts and questions without answers. For the moment she seemed to be herself even if the rest of the world had changed.

She pulled out the shirt she had worn under her sweater and soaked it in the cold water, wringing it as dry as she could before tying it around her head. For the first time she became aware of a twittering and flitting at the other side of the pool. There was a bush there bending under a burden of dark red berries and birds were feasting, showing no interest in her at all.

Not grouse, nor any others she had seen before. There was one species with a golden breast and wings of a muted rose color, another a vivid green-blue, such plumage as she had seen before only on the throats of peacocks.

Berries—food—

Just as the need for water had risen in her so now came the need to appease a hunger. She edged around the water. The birds fluttered a little away but did not rise on the wing as she had expected them to do. She drew a hand down one dangling branch and harvested a full palm’s load of the berries. They were sweet, yet had a lingering tartness which somehow added to their flavor, and, having tasted, she straightway set about gathering and cramming into her mouth all she could reach and snatch from the same branches where some birds were still boldly feeding.

Two or three of those with the metallic blue feathers had withdrawn a little and were watching her—not as if they feared any move or attack on her part, but rather as if she herself provided some kind of puzzle they must solve. At length one of them took off, soaring up into the sky, the sun making a rich glory of its wings.

The cat—Kelsie looked at the birds, some of whom were eating fearlessly only a hand’s distance from her. She wondered if the creature was worse injured than she had thought, and she turned to make her way back to that inexplainable circle of stone pillars. The upward slope she took cautiously, now back on her feet to feel the ground swaying under her. Then she reached the top of that rise and looked ahead. There was the yellowish-black patch of her discarded coat and she stumbled her way back to it, concentrating on the garment rather than what stood around it.

There came a tiny mewling cry as her shadow fell across the edge of the coat and an instant answering growl. Then she saw the kittens—two of them, small, blind shapes which the cat had just finished washing.

She knew better than to approach too closely, that growl had sunk to a low sound in the mother’s throat but that she would allow an interference with her family Kelsie doubted. She spoke softly, using the same words that she had used many times over at Dr. Atless’s when she had been the attendant in his veterinary hospital.

“Good girl, clever girl—” she squatted down, with her back to one of the stones, to survey the small family. “You have pretty kittens—good girl—”

She was startled then by a cry which certainly had not come from the cat or her new family. It might have been the howling of a tormented dog, only Kelsie’s knowledge of dogs said no to that. Twice it sounded. The cat’s ears flattened to her skull, her eyes became warning slits. Kelsie shivered even under the strong beams of that sun. She faced outward from the circle toward the heights which lay beyond. For the third time that cry sounded and it was certainly nearer and sharper, as if a hunter were hot upon a trail. The girl looked about her for a weapon, some hope of defense. At last she tugged at the coat on which the cat had bedded down, loosing the belt and drawing it out. With no stick nor stone here that was her only possible choice.

At the fourth howl the creature who had so given tongue came into sight—first only a black blot padding out of a stand of brush. And then, as it came closer, Kelsie had difficulty in stifling a cry. A dog?

No, no hound that she had ever heard of or seen resembled this! It was almost skeleton thin, the ridges of its ribs plainly visible beneath its shiny skin. A mouth which appeared to split two thirds of its skull dropped open and a scarlet tongue lolled out, saliva and whitish foam dripping from it. The long legs seemed only bones with skin stretched tightly over them as it padded forward, not with a rush but steadily as if it had marked its prey and had no idea of losing it now.

Kelsie pulled herself up, one shoulder against the pillar, the buckle end of her belt dangling loose, the other end wrapped tightly about her hand lest she lose her hold on it. She heard a growl and glanced for a moment at the cat. The kittens were half hidden under her body where fur bristled up in challenge. Though she visibly leaned her weight mostly on her uninjured paw, it was plain she was prepared to do battle.

The hound did not leap forward as Kelsie expected. Instead it stopped while still several feet away from the pillared circle. Throwing back its narrow head the beast gave vent once more to its chilling bay as if summoning some companion of the hunt. Though she and the cat were weak enough, Kelsie thought with fiercely beating heart, to give but token defense.