Unknown - Cat_shining_bright_Merfi_630007

The tomcat scratched his ear. “I don’t know why they’d bother the cats, but … their interest in the Bewick book with pages about speaking cats … and Voletta’s interest in the feral cats … I want my family away from there. I want them home, and Kit and Pan, too.”

Clyde picked up the phone and called Ryan. Briefly he gave her the picture. “You have time to bring the cats down, or shall I come up?”

“I’ll bring them now—as soon as we round them up, as soon as we find Courtney.” Joe imagined Ryan on the jobsite, pulling off her cap from her dark, mussed hair, hastily putting her tools away. How long would it take to round up the cats? They’d all come to her … all but Courtney, who, at times, had surprisingly selective hearing.

But the cats were all together, crouched on a bed of boulders high above the ruins. Courtney sat straight and wide-eyed among the circle of ferals, joined by Dulcie and Kit and Pan. A little breeze stirred their whiskers and stirred the tall grass. They sat fascinated as the ferals took turns telling tales. The ancient Celtic and Irish and Scottish myths, the Welsh legends. Kit had told Courtney a few of these but they both liked hearing them again, they liked best the way pale-calico Willow told them. Nine ferals were there, some of them having returned only recently from the underearth lands of the Netherworld.

It was the tales of the Netherworld that Dulcie really didn’t want Courtney to hear just yet, but that was hard to prevent. Already Kit had told the kitten enough about that land where Kit and Pan had ventured, that realm of mythical beasts, and of powers that had destroyed many parts of its kingdoms. One could hardly stop Kit from telling the stories around the fire at Kit’s own house, or at Wilma’s house, with Courtney ever demanding to hear more. (Striker and Buffin preferred sagas of the Irish wars.) Dulcie didn’t want Courtney’s head filled, yet, with the Netherworld, to which the strong-minded calico might decide to slip away alone and wander down into its deep tunnels, to see its marvels for herself.

But before the tales began, Dulcie had asked Willow about the lights at Voletta’s and the gathered cars.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen them,” Willow said, “we watched them pull out, but we didn’t see them come in. That must have been the night of the terrible wind, we were deep in a cellar, out of the blow, sleeping warm and cozy. We couldn’t have seen the cars drive in, and in that storm we couldn’t have heard them.”

“But had you seen them before?” Dulcie said. “Maybe weeks ago?”

“No. We’d see a car or two pull into the woods behind the barn, but never a whole fleet of them. Not going into the barn or coming out. Those few we saw parked back in the woods were lovers, the way young people do.”

“They could have put a lot of cars back in the trees,” Sage said. “That night maybe they put them in the barn to keep them from being dented and scratched with falling branches, there were trees down all over.”

Kate found them there, the cats so immersed in the stories they had ignored her searching calls, ignored Ryan’s calls farther up the hills. They were gathered among the boulders, and for a few moments she crouched nearby, enjoying the stories, too. But there was another event tangled in that moment, a glimpse that shocked and thrilled Kate. Watching Courtney, Kate started suddenly when she saw movement in the deep shadows of a crumbled doorway, a tall shape that disappeared at once beyond the door’s darkness, a tall figure, as she had seen that night standing at the office window looking out.

Had Scotty been standing there listening to the cats’ stories? Listening to them speak, and had slipped away when she saw him? A thrill of amazement filled Kate, a joy that brought tears—or had she not seen him at all, was it only the breeze stirring the vines that grew up the side of the house?

If Scotty knew about the cats, why hadn’t he told her? She almost ran to find him. But no, it couldn’t have been Scotty. Why would he not tell her? Shivering, she remained crouched in the grass not looking in that direction, pretending to have seen nothing.

It was here that Ryan found Kate and the cats. She waited for a tale to end, then told the Molena Point cats that Clyde wanted them at home, that he felt Rick Alderson might be a danger to them—and that the ferals should stay away from him, too. She bundled up Kit and Pan, Pan shining golden against her dark hair. Kate settled Dulcie and Courtney on her shoulders, and they returned to the shelter to find Wilma.

When Wilma and the four cats had headed home in Ryan’s king cab, Kate turned back to the rocky meadow. She approached the back of the mansion where she thought Scotty had stood.

She paused and stepped back.

Scotty sat on a boulder, his back to her but in plain sight, talking with Willow, the faded calico comfortable on the smooth rock next to him, one paw on Scotty’s knee. Willow was saying, “Kate has known for ever so long, for many years. But how could she agree to marry you, when she thought you didn’t know? When she would, for all your lives, have to keep the secret?”

“But—” Scotty began.

“But what?” said Willow. “You only found out by accident, when you were moving those boards. When we weren’t careful, and you heard us talking.” The matronly cat looked hard at him. She had the look of the leader she was, queen of the feral band, a cat who had reprimanded and coddled generations of kittens and perhaps a human or two. “I think,” Willow said, “it’s time you two had a talk.” She patted Scotty’s knee with a soft paw, sprang from the boulder lithe and quick, and bounded away, losing herself among the walls of the old house, leaving Scotty and Kate alone.

Scotty looked at her, and took her hand, and for some time, neither spoke. A little breeze blew the tall, wild grass against the rocks. Scotty took her in his arms. If a feral cat or two watched from among the fallen walls, neither Kate nor Scotty minded.

“So now,” Scotty said, “so now that you know my secret—was this your secret, all along?”

“It was,” she said shakily.

“And now,” he said, “now that all is clear between us, will you marry me?”

She couldn’t answer, she could only nod against him, and try to wipe away her tears.

25

The four cats rode crowded on Wilma’s lap, spilling across the front seat as Ryan’s king cab headed for the highway. Dulcie and Kit dreaming of the old tales, Courtney with lingering visions of the Netherworld. Pan stretched out between the girl cats and Ryan, and who knew what he was dreaming?

“You can take us to my house,” Wilma said. “Egan’s in jail, and Randall’s in the hospital, there’s no one to bother us.” She smiled. “No reason to toss my place again, anyway. They got the book, or think they did. They know the police have it.”

“Rick and Lena aren’t in jail,” Ryan said.

Wilma was silent.

“Lena isn’t stable,” Ryan said, “but she’s clever. She might guess there was another volume, might wonder if that one was a substitute, if you still have the valuable copy. Who knows, at auction, what the original would have been worth? And if she knows the whole story, she might come after …” She glanced down at the tangle of cats. Dulcie and Kit stared up at her, wary and silent.

“No one knows if she’ll break in,” Ryan said “no one knows what she’ll do—she knows she could never catch the feral cats. And Rick, he has a long, ugly record—while they’re both still free, you’re coming home with us.”

“But what about your quarantine?” Kit said.

“Joe and Rock can stay in my studio, it’s nice and light and there’s a soft couch to share. The isolation will be over by tomorrow night, the two of them will be free. Striker and Buffin can come home, Joe and Dulcie can cuddle their kittens. Maybe, by that time, Lena and Rick will be locked up, instead of our poor animals.”