Shirley Murphy - The Catswold Portal

She gained the curb ahead of a squealing car, but nearly fell when she caught her heel. She was panting. She righted herself and ran, trying to lose herself in the blackness between street lights.

But feet pounded behind her and Terrel shouted her name. When she glanced back, four sets of eyes reflected headlights. She ran as she had never run, but she heard them gaining, their feet pounding…

Terrel was too fast; he grabbed her, spinning her around. She scratched at him and kicked.

“We won’t hurt you, we only want…” He held her in a steel grip. “Tell us, Melissa. Tell us how to change.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She faced him shivering. And then in spite of herself, his pleading touched her.

They stood frozen staring at each other. “Please, will you tell us? That is all we want, only to know how to change.”

It was no good to pretend. It was too late to pretend. She said, “You don’t know. None of you know.”

“None of us. We…” Light flashed suddenly across Terrel’s eyes as Braden’s station wagon skidded to the curb. Braden jumped out reaching for her, but Terrel jerked her away. “Tell us, Melissa!” But Braden was on him, knocking him aside, pulling Melissa close. She pressed against him, hid her face against him.

“What do they want?” Braden said.

“I don’t know. Please, will you take me home?”

He tilted her chin so she had to look at him. “I think you do know.” The others stood poised. Braden looked from Terrel to the blond girl to Melissa. “I think you know, Melissa. I think you must do what they ask. I think you must help them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you must free them, Melissa. As you are free.”

She couldn’t take her eyes from his. The two worlds tilted and fell together and she was falling, destroyed.

“Free them, Melissa.”

He held her away, his hands tight on her shoulders. “Do you think I didn’t wonder? You caught a mouse in your bare hands. You were shaking it and smiling until you saw me watching you. You fell from the ledge, turned over in mid-air and landed on your feet. Do you think I didn’t wonder?”

His lips were a thin line. “Don’t you think I saw how the birds in the restaurant upset you—excited you? And the day you got so angry when we talked about people changing into…” He shook his head, his eyes pleading. “Don’t you think I wondered why the cat was never there when you were? Not once did I see you both at the same time.”

“But Morian said she was there.”

“Morian lied.”

“But…”

He drew a breath, silencing her. “Tonight for the first time I saw the shadow-cats in my paintings.” His face was like stone. “Images I did not consciously put there.” His hands were hot on her shoulders.

“And just now, Melissa, when you turned and saw my car, your eyes…” He swallowed. She could see the muscles working in his jaw. “Your eyes reflected the headlights—like mirrors. Like jewels. Like a cat’s eyes.”

She tried to pull out of his grasp.

“Tell them what they want to know. Tell them now.”

She looked at him a long time. It didn’t matter anymore, nothing mattered, she had lost him. She turned within his grip and faced the waiting Catswold. There were more now, ten—twelve—more coming out of the shadows.

And within the shadows someone said, “There is a world—other than this. There is a passage, my family told of it. Tell us about that land. Tell us where the passage opens.”

“There is war there,” she said. “The passage leads to war, to death for the Catswold. Please…” She didn’t believe this was happening. This couldn’t be happening. “I—I can only free you. I can only give you the spell. I won’t tell you how to go there. There is danger there.” She felt displaced, sick. But she must help them, give them the spell. It no longer mattered what Braden saw and heard, she had already destroyed his love.

She said the spell quickly and turned away, pulling Braden toward the car. She didn’t want him to see the changing. As she got in the car she heard the words repeated behind her, and repeated again. She got in. “Go quickly, please.” But he had turned and was watching them. He saw in the darkness the tall shadows vanish into small swift beasts, saw the cats running away into the night.

Chapter 61

Outdoor lights brightened the fluted borders of the museum’s tile roofs, and the brick paths. Light slanted down through the gnarled limbs of the oak trees to cast their twisting shadows along the garden walls. Braden parked on the empty street and Melissa left him quickly.

She had remained silent as he drove up Telegraph and then up Russian Hill. She didn’t know what to say to him and she didn’t want to know what he thought; she couldn’t bear to know. She didn’t want to hear his accusations. She had lost him. She was filled with the pain of that loss and if he spoke to her she would weep.

She moved quickly away from the car through light then shadow, and in the darkness beyond a garden wall where Braden couldn’t see her, she changed to cat. She crouched uncertainly, then leaped up the wall and over.

She searched the gardens one by one for the sculpture of the rearing bronze cat which Timorell had commissioned. She was not alone within the gardens; other cats prowled, hunting mice and crickets or eating the cat food the museum put out for them. Some challenged her, but none attacked. They seemed more possessive at night, when the museum was exclusively theirs. She found the sculpture at last in a small circular garden planted with lavender. She changed to girl and stood against the sculpture stand touching the cool bronze. The cat was rearing up, the texture of its coat rough with the clay that had originally formed it, from which the cast had been made. She ran her hands along its rough flank, tracing the texture of the metal until her seeking fingers found one perfect oval.

She pressed it, fingered it, but it did nothing. Maybe this was simply the tear-shaped symbol of the Amulet. She could feel no cracks along the cat’s body where the sculpture might open. She tried to tilt the cat but it was bolted down. Discouraged, she whispered an opening spell.

The bronze cat fell apart in two halves.

Within lay the Amulet of Bast, gleaming green in the faint garden lights. When she lifted it, it was heavy and cold to her fingers. She touched the setting that circled it, could feel the two rearing bronze cats. She tried a spell-light, not believing one would come, but her bright light struck across the emerald and deep into it, glowing green.

She saw that the two golden cats circling it were not mirror images. One looked gentle, that was Bast. The other, Sekhmet, was fierce. And deep within the emerald, cut by some magic she didn’t know, shone the sun. Here was the trinity of the cat goddess: Bast the gentle; Sekhmet the warrior; and Ra the sun.

How many Catswold women had looked into this emerald and considered their dual natures? How many women, over how many centuries? She slipped the chain over her head and let the Amulet drop against her, heavy, powerful.

Now the commitment was made. Soon she must face Siddonie and try to destroy the dark queen—the Lillith woman. The power of the Amulet held and terrified her. She felt as if generations of Catswold women had come alive within her, as if their spirits had joined, waiting to see what she would do.

And when at last she faced Siddonie she would be facing not only the queen of Affandar, but the eternal evil. As Bast had killed the Serpent, so she again must kill it.

She returned to Braden, needing desperately to be with him for the few moments more they had left. In the car he sat looking at her, and reached for her, drawing her close. “Can you tell me what you did in there? Can you tell me any of this?”