Кроха: Dedication

Dedication

For 99, a fine, bossy tomcat, and for Joanne, who allowed him to leave this earth with dignity, allowed him not to suffer

Epigraph

For the cat is cryptic,

And close to strange things

That men cannot see.

H. P. Lovecraft, “The Cats of Ulthar”

Prologue

Evening drew down quicker than the old woman liked. She hurried up the wooded hill with her grocery bags; she wanted to be in the house before dark. She didn’t like living alone since her nephew and his wife moved out, and this evening she had lingered too long chatting with a friend at the village market. Around her now there was only silence; nothing stirred on the narrow, shadowed street or in the overgrown yards.

Suddenly she was struck from behind, a hard blow across her shoulders that knocked her sprawling. Pain shocked through her, her hands ground into asphalt where she tried to catch herself; grocery bags flew from her arms, apples bounced away, cans of soup and beans rolled into the gutter. Flailing, trying to right herself, she heard racing footsteps, soft-soled shoes running, and then silence; a dark figure vanished among the dusky trees, blending with the shadows and then gone.

Terrified, she slowly got to her feet, nearly falling again when she put weight on her throbbing leg. She found a tissue in her pocket and wiped at the blood, staring up and down the darkening street and into the neighbors’ yards: tangled trees and bushes, no one there that she could see, no one to threaten her now. And no one to help her. Nervously she studied the unlit houses and empty driveways. Every window was black, folks not home yet from work. A few part-time summer cottages still closed up since winter. She shivered, weak and shaken, cold with shock at the cruel prank.

What else could it be but a prank? She hadn’t been robbed: her purse still hung from her arm, the leather scarred in long scratches where she’d fallen. She’d read about an earlier attack or two, had seen news clips on TV, had thought they were flukes, that such a thing wouldn’t happen again, not in their cozy village. Surely not in this quiet neighborhood, though she was always careful. She wanted to get home. Wanted to be safe inside her own house where she could call the police. Still frightened but growing angry now, she picked up what groceries she could find and hurried uphill toward her own empty house.

1

Spring fog,” Joe Grey said, shivering, lifting a wet paw and licking irritably at his sleek fur. “May is supposed to be sunny, warm.” Though the gray tomcat knew better, he knew as well as Dulcie that Molena Point weather, this time of year, was always unpredictable. The morning fog, in fact, pleased him well enough; the shielding mist was perfect for the hunt as they prowled the jagged rooftops. Their quarry wasn’t pigeons or roof rats but human prey, their attention on the village streets below, on the narrow, fog-shrouded sidewalks. The cozy shops were still closed this early in the morning, the wares in their windows indistinct behind the shifting mist. Here, the hint of a doorway, the vague outline of a cypress or pine; there the corner of a window ledge, a half-seen pot of flowers. Only an occasional pedestrian passed, bundled up against the chill, wool scarf tucked into a down jacket, a warm cap pulled low; each passed into the damp haze and was gone again, the streets empty once more.

In the pearly light, trotting up and down from peak to peak, Dulcie gleamed rich with dark stripes; but the gray tomcat seemed nearly lost in the gloom. Only his white paws and the white stripe down his nose shone out flashing as he dropped from a gable into a hollow between overlapping roofs. Together they slipped along the edge of the shingles, peering over, scanning one street and then the next, their noses and ears nearly frozen. Their warm breakfast of pancakes and eggs seemed a very long time past.

On the fog-wet streets the tires of an occasional vehicle hushed by, then again silence. They watched a lone woman leave her motel, strolling idly, wrapped in a heavy sweater, looking in the shop windows, watched until she disappeared inside a steamy café; the few tourists who had remained after the weekend, maybe hoping for better weather, would still be abed or drinking coffee beside a warm fire. Or the hardiest ones already off running the beach, smug and righteous in their exertion, sweating despite the chill.

But as the cats prowled the roofs alert for the human predator, their moods were deeply mixed. Their urgency to spot the assailant, to pass his description to the cops and help put an end to this cruelty, ran crosswise to their distaste at having to witness such an attack, the brutal terrorizing of innocent citizens, most of them frail or elderly. What was his purpose? The victims were never robbed. This wanton cruelty was the dark side of humanity that the cats hated—the flip side to the love and kindness with which their own human friends embraced them.

But another sadness filled the cats as well. A distress that had nothing to do with the street prowler, one that no amount of their own effort could change. A mourning filled them for the old yellow tomcat: Misto was failing; his debilitating illness would soon take him.

His pain had begun suddenly, the cancer progressing rapidly. Already this morning, just at dawn, Joe and Dulcie had sat with him as he drifted in and out of sleep; as, off in the kitchen of the Firetti cottage, Mary washed up the breakfast dishes, and Dr. John Firetti was across the garden seeing overnight patients in his veterinary clinic. Quietly the cats had tried to ease Misto, to love him. They had left him only when Misto himself hissed and sent them away. Tucked up among the pillows in the big double bed, the fragile yellow tom wanted simply to nap. Joe and Dulcie had gone, looking back wistfully. They were not as resigned to his fate as was Misto himself. He was weak and tired, yet he seemed quite content, facing these last days of his long and adventurous life.

“You can’t change what is,” he had told them. “You can do nothing about my illness. I’m lucky to be among those I love. I’m happy to end up here, where I was born, after my life’s long journey. This life,” he’d said, “this life is not the end.” He’d yawned and pawed at the pillows. “I have known more lives than this one, and I will know more yet to come.

“But right now,” he’d said, flipping his thin tail, “now I need sleep. Go, my dears,” he’d said, extending a gentle paw. “Come back when I’m rested, when the pain meds have kicked in for the day.”

As Joe and Dulcie turned away, Misto had given Dulcie a secret and conspiratorial smile. Joe, catching his look, continued even now to puzzle over it, though he had asked no question. He’d trotted away beside Dulcie in silence as the old yellow tomcat rolled over and started to snore.

Joe had waited for Dulcie to explain, yet she’d said nothing. What secret was this? What could be so urgent that his lady would keep it from him? While Misto’s malaise left both cats steeped in sadness, Dulcie had shared her deepest conscience, her most private thoughts, only with the old yellow tom.

Earlier that morning before Joe arrived at Misto’s cottage, when Dulcie and the old cat were alone together, he’d given her a deep, steady look. “Life and death hang in balance, now, Dulcie. My life is ending. But you alone guard new lives.”

How could he know that? She had looked at him, shocked, her green eyes wide.

But then she smiled. Of course Misto would know her most private secret. How often did the old cat know what was in another cat’s mind, what lay hidden in the past or even ahead, in the future. How often did Misto divine secrets Dulcie could never dream.

“As the end of my days draws near,” he’d said, “three bright new lives have begun for you, my dear. Oh, yes,” he’d said, twitching a whisker. “Three dear little lives snuggled safe and warm inyour most secret world. And,” Misto had said, studying her, “you have not yet told Joe Grey.”