Кроха - Dedication

The large living room had also been freshly painted, white and airy. Big bay windows at the back, white canvas slipcovers on the upholstered furniture. A pale wood floor, no throw rugs for a cane or wheelchair to get caught on, the room uncluttered and welcoming. They had no trouble following Bonnie’s scent to the guest room, which appeared to share a wall with the garage. Slipping in, they could hear the mumble of voices where the four were working, heard small metallic clicks as the cages were bolted together. Following the smell of Hoppe’s to the dresser, they leaped up.

They landed nose to barrel with a businesslike revolver.

Dulcie backed away before she saw that its action was open and empty, the weapon bright from a recent cleaning. It lay on folded newspapers beside gun-cleaning equipment, a bottle of Hoppe’s, gauze patches, a long rod, and a little brush. Beside these lay a box of .38 cartridges.

They wanted to paw the box open to see if any rounds were missing, but they didn’t want to smear fingerprints. They still didn’t know if pawprints would be picked up. But why not? They had never yet gotten in trouble over pawprints, but the thought haunted them.

The sounds from the garage changed suddenly. They heard water running as if bowls were being filled, hands being washed, the chores were done. Dropping to the floor they fled the room, fled the house. They were through the truck window, in the backseat of the king cab, when Ryan and Billy headed their way. Dropping to the floor, Dulcie was panting with tension and exertion. Joe nosed worriedly at her.

He’d been so interested in Bonnie Rivers and the gun that he’d nearly forgotten his lady’s condition. I nearly forgot the kittens, nearly forgot how stressed Dulcie must feel, ramping around the village trying to sort out this tangle while she worries about the kittens. Gently he licked her ear. Maybe all Dulcie really wanted was to loll around the house enjoying little treats and listening to music. Maybe she didn’t want to be out chasing a killer, just wanted to be calm and cosseted, for herself and for the kittens.

How much strife can the kittens sense, he wondered, when they’re still inside the womb? We don’t want frightened babies. Will the tension that Dulcie feels, will that weaken them or strengthen them? Make them more fearful or make them bold and strong? Maybe, he thought, no one knows the answer to that. But for his lady and the babies, he’d prefer restful and tender care.

Kit and Pan had emerged from the tunnels among the Pamillon ruins just where they had entered to go down seeking the Netherworld. Emerged from beneath a stone porch between tumbled pillars and vine-covered buildings. “Home.” Kit mewled again softly. “Oh, we’re home.”

They stared up at the endless sky above them; they drank in the scents of pine and cypress, the smell of the grassy fields and of the distant sea. This world’s breeze caressed them, rippling through their fur, made them race in circles. They were fiercely hungry. In the tall grass among the broken carvings Pan lifted his nose scenting for mice, for rats or squirrels, for anything edible, and Kit did the same. The tunnel had provided water and an occasional blind lizard or sightless fish snatched from the black waters, but never enough, nothing substantial enough to truly sustain them. Now they dodged through the ruin on the trail of a wood rat, doubled through overgrown bushes working together hazing the little beast until they took him down. Quickly they shared their kill, but left the tail. They spied and cornered a big wharf rat, attacked it with businesslike urgency. Soon, killing and gorging and feeling stronger, they finished off their meal with a pair of small and succulent field mice.

They drank from a little spring within the overgrown garden, and at last, sated, they lay washing blood from their paws. They wanted a nap after their long and stressful climb, but Kit hungered too passionately to be home. Had Lucinda and Pedric returned? Would they snatch her up and hug her and cry over her and comfort her? Would they hold her warm and safe and hug Pan, make a loving fuss over both of them? Were her humans home to welcome and comfort them?

Eagerly she headed down the hills, Pan following close beside her, down and down where the hills dropped away, dotted by cottage rooftops. Down they fled, racing belly-deep in grass, paws flying, crushing dandelions and wild nasturtiums, leaping through tangles of honeysuckle. Down and down the familiar hills where, far below, the sea reflected late afternoon sun; down through cottage gardens that smelled of onions and rotted leaves, down until at last they could see Kit’s own roof among the distant oaks. She could see her tree house. Racing steeply down they bolted at last into Kit’s own garden.

The house towered two stories above them. Kit’s tree house thrust higher still. Up the oaken trunk they scrambled, up into her aerie into scattered leaves and cushions. Kit rolled among her pillows, lay on her back looking up into the tree’s sheltering crown, up into the sky beyond. Hersky, her tree, her house, her gardens all around. Their world, their village, their rooftops stretching away where they could travel the shingled byways as familiar as other cats’ firesides. Among the leaves and pillows Pan sprawled beside her, his amber eyes laughing. “Our world,” and it was theirs, their own sky rising high and away without any stone barrier, high and away forever.

But even now, even so content, Kit couldn’t be still. Restlessly she rose again from among the cushions, peering toward the big house. Were they home? Could she hear them? Could she catch their scent?

She heard no sound. She saw no movement at the kitchen windows, the shades were still half drawn. There was no smell of cooking, no lingering scent of recent and comforting meals. The big house smelled distant and empty.

But maybe . . . Maybe they’d just gotten home, maybe they had just now come in. Maybe . . . Leaping from her aerie, Kit raced along the thick and twisted branch that led to the dining room window. In through her cat door that was set into the lower pane. One leap from the windowsill and buffet to the dining table, Pan close beside her, the cat door swinging behind them.

No one cried out at hearing the flapping door, no one came running. All was still. The house was empty. But even so they went racing through the hollow rooms, one room to the next, and in each room scenting out and listening and rearing up, looking for an open suitcase, sniffing for some hint of new smell.

All was still. All was as Lucinda and Pedric had left it. Nothing in the house was changed, no book or magazine moved from where Kit had last seen it. Wastebaskets empty, clothes hamper empty, clean towels hanging on the racks neatly folded, double bed carefully made, bedroom shades at half-mast. Nothing out of place in the kitchen, trash basket empty when Kit stood on the foot lever and Pan reared up to peer in.

The only change was the stack of mail piled on Pedric’s desk in the living room, where Kate must have brought it in. Yes, Kate Osborne’s faint scent where she had been through the house making sure no tap was leaking, no intruder had entered.

“Maybe Kate’s home,” Kit said, “the downstairs apartment,” and she was out the cat door again, along the wandering branch and down the oak tree, Pan close behind her.

“Her car isn’t in the drive,” Pan said behind her, but Kit paid no attention; down the hill she fled and around the lower wall of the house to Kate’s sliding glass door.

They could smell her scent stronger there, beneath the edge of the door. They pawed at it, Kit yowled, they tried the knob, swinging and kicking, but that did no good, the dead bolt was in place. They pawed and scratched and meowed together in a fine chorus, but there was no answer. They scrambled up bushes to peer in through the windows. At last, discouraged, they gave it up and headed for Wilma and Dulcie’s. They needed welcoming. Kit needed hugging. And, in spite of being full of rodents, they longed for a bite of home-cooked supper. No wood rat or even field mouse was ever as succulent as a meal prepared lovingly by human hands.