Tag: House of Cats

George knew, when he saw her car in the driveway, that he had company, but he hoped it was not so even as he opened the unlocked front door and walked into the living room. The coffee table had sprouted a forest of Chinese take-out boxes and paper-wrapped chopsticks and plastic packets of soy and chili sauces. He let his briefcase drop to the floor by the hall closet, thudding on the hardwood floor. On the couch, Susanna jumped and twisted around to face him. She had that nervous, twitchy expression, like a panicked bird, on her face again. Obviously, the two weeks of peace he had bought himself when he gave her a key to the house had run out. They were back to clinging again.

“You’ve been having so many late nights; I thought you would like this better than going out somewhere. It’s from the one you like,” Susanna said. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear then repeated the gesture a few more times as he crossed the room.

“Is it still hot?” He undid his tie and draped it on the back of the couch. He wanted to ask her if she didn’t have a job of her own, but lately she was on some sort of personal crusade to mother him.

“I reheated it a few minutes ago. This is about the time you’ve been finishing work lately.” Her eyes flicked to the time display on the stereo. “How was your day?”

George snapped apart a set of chopsticks and stabbed them into a container of chow mein. He grunted as he slurped up a mouthful of noodles. Over the edge of the container, he saw Susanna’s hands fidgeting in her lap. He flicked the chopsticks towards the other containers. “Eat,” he said after swallowing the noodles.

Susanna picked pieces of slightly limp zucchini from a container. She chewed at the ends of her chopsticks between bites and watched him. She was in a determined mood then. He stood the chopsticks up in the noodles and leaned back. “You want to know how my day was?” She smiled and grimaced and winced all at once. “Not good, that’s how. You want the details? Of course.”

He picked up a different container and shoveled some kind of chicken into his mouth. It tasted like soggy cotton to him. Greasy, soggy cotton. “Well, three of the developments have run over budget. Two of the completed ones are having trouble filling.” The beef had too much chili in it and he felt it burn down his throat and settle in to rot around his heart. “One of my top luxury developments is experiencing some sort of goddamn exodus.” He pushed the food away and wiped his face with a paper napkin. “Oh, and the board of directors is holding a vote on Monday.” He threw the wadded up napkin across the room.

“What kind of vote?” Susanna asked. Her fingers dimpled the paper carton in her hands. Like she couldn’t guess. Who had told women it was attractive to play dumb all the time?

“A vote of no confidence.” His voice rose. He shouldn’t have to put up with this shit in his own home at the end of a hard day. He wanted a beer and a basketball game and some frigging peace and quiet. “A vote to replace me as president.” He slammed a foot into the edge of the coffee table. “Of my company. I made that company.” A tower of cartons tipped over and tumbled to the floor. The top one popped open and spilled white rice across the carpet.

George heaved himself off the couch and turned to the kitchen to get that beer. It was the only thing he seemed likely to get that night. He heard Susanna slide off the couch and start scraping spilled rice onto a napkin. For once, George did not have to worry about cleaning up some pointless mess.

—

Heather danced from paw to paw on the counter as Carlisle took out the platter of food she had put in the refrigerator the night before. She could hardly remember the years when Saturdays were a source of dread. Now they meant an excuse to spend Friday cooking something frivolous and delightful and Saturday eating and lounging and walking with Rune. Carlisle took so long easing the plastic wrap away from the plate of deviled eggs that Heather almost grabbed it with her teeth.

Rune sniffed. “Curry?”

“Curry eggs and BLT eggs and Mediterranean eggs. I love deviled eggs. I may die of cholesterol poisoning, but at least I’ll die happy.”

Valoria jumped up on the counter with them. “Something smells good. Having a picnic again, dears?”

“Sure are,” Heather said. “Try some. I made more than enough.”

Valoria nibbled politely on half an egg. “Carlisle, have you heard anything from Rafflesia?”

Carlisle folded the plastic wrap into a little square. “Not yet, but you know what teenagers are like.”

Valoria licked a bit of bright yellow filling from the tip of her nose. “I suppose it was too much to expect a letter as soon as she got settled.”

Rune looked up from his second half. “I am absolutely certain, if she had so much as a stuffy nose, Umber would have written to you herself.”

Valoria cocked her head. “I’m quite surprised to hear you say that.”

“I spoke to her extensively before Rafflesia decided to go with her. I have complete confidence in her.”

Heather twitched an ear at him. Complete confidence? But Valoria seemed substantially comforted by this. She finished her egg, praising Heather rather excessively, and left again. When Carlisle started to leave, Heather hooked a claw in his sweater sleeve to slow him. “Why not take the day off? We can’t eat all this by ourselves.”

Carlisle scratched behind her ear for a second. “Thank you, but I have work to do. Save me some leftovers.”

“Sure thing,” Heather said to his disappearing back. He had been distant and weird lately, but she was more interested at the moment in Rune’s unlimited esteem for Umber. She slid an egg off the tray with a paw and said around a bite, “You could have just told me Raff was going to find Topaz.”

Rune coughed on his food and stared at her with big, guilty eyes. “What makes you think she did?”

“Oh, please, don’t give me that. I knew you two were up to something when she left. I thought maybe you were just taking a special interest in Raff’s well-being, but you’re way too relaxed about her being with a human. You knew all about it, didn’t you?”

Rune looked around and lowered his voice. He spoke over his egg like it would muffle what he said. “It was her idea in the first place. I expected her back before now.”

“So what went wrong? You must have an idea.” Heather gulped down the last of the egg and reached for another. They really had turned out exceptionally well.

“If something had happened to Topaz, she would have come home by now. I’m sure she’s with him.”

“So why wouldn’t they come home?”

Rune snorted. “Because Topaz will find out that Rafflesia and I were the only ones in on it and he’ll come up with some damn fool idea that no one wants him to come back. No one who counts, because your own brother apparently never does.”

Heather smirked. “I’m sensing this is an ongoing problem for you two?”

The tip of Rune’s tail twitched in annoyance. He did not, however, stop eating the eggs any more than Heather did. “I hoped he was over it. I hoped Rafflesia would convince him. If we don’t all greet him with hugs and dead mice, he thinks we don’t want him around.”

“So he has self-esteem issues,” Heather said and got a flat-eared glare from Rune. “Well, that’s what it is.”

“If you say so. Point is, I don’t think he’s going to come back without a royal invitation.”

Heather glanced back toward where Carlisle had left the room. “I think it’s the second-in-command he’s more concerned about.” She groomed her whiskers fitfully. “How am I going to get Carlisle to let him back?”

“That’s your department, not mine.”

Heather unfolded the plastic with her teeth and paws and tugged it over the platter. “Is there a rule that says every house must have at least one oddly surfer-styled, cheeky ginger tabby with an endearing inability to hold his liquor?” Heather jumped down from the counter and pawed open the back door. “Because that would be really helpful right now.”

“I hear he’s a good cat burglar. Need any locks picked?” Rune asked as he followed her out into the yard for their Saturday walk.

—

When George heard the click of heels across the floor, he just kept looking out the window. The hillside dropped off beyond the backyard and created the illusion of isolation. Mountains in the distance and open patches of cloudy sky were the only things to see. “You have a lovely view here,” he said, turning as he did. “Yvonne.”

Yvonne did not offer him a hand or an air kiss. She looked like a soldier at attention in her crisp suit and brass buttons. “Mr. Ellison. Is this a social call, or are they still making you work weekends?”

“Neither. I had a little private business to discuss with you.” He helped himself to a chair by the window, setting his cowboy hat in his lap. After a long pause, Yvonne sat across from him. “Are you familiar with Heather Lee?”

Yvonne’s expression revealed nothing. Botox and Aqua Net did wonders for her poker face. “She owns property within the Shadow Hills community.”

“You’ve met her?” George pressed.

“Of course.” Yvonne picked a stray thread from her skirt without seeming to take her eyes from him.

“Of course. I don’t know if you’ve seen the old place lately, but I think it’s gone to pot, don’t you?” She stared steadily at him, just waiting. “It doesn’t reflect well on Shadow Hills when something like that happens.”

“Since you are not a member of the Shadow Hills homeowners’ association, I fail to see the cause of your concern.” She waited a single, charge beat. “Well-meaning though it may be.”

“Things like that can get people thinking, maybe it’s time to move to greener pastures. Properties go up for sale, land starts opening up. It gets very attractive to men like, well, like myself.” He gestured the brim of his hat toward his chest.

“I was under the impression you preferred to establish housing developments of your own. And cut from a rather more, hm, efficient cloth than Shadow Hills. The parcels here can’t be broken down to less than ten acres.”

“Oh, certainly. And I’m all about quality. I certainly wouldn’t want to see Shadow Hills change. But my colleagues, say, the ones who specialize in strip malls, they would love to buy up every parcel here. And once you get something like that up here, more people lose interest and move on. More land ends up in the hands of–”

“Men like yourself?”

George smiled tightly. “Exactly. Well, to make a long story short, it seems to me, it would be in your best interest if someone more capable than Lee owned that place.”

Finally, Yvonne’s face showed a flicker of uncertainty. “Someone?”

George nodded as though admitting a somewhat embarrassing secret. “Like myself.”

“I see.”

“I don’t presume to know your business, but I would be surprised if the issue hasn’t already come up.” There. That hard, strained look at the corners of her eyes told him what he needed to know. “Just a little friendly, unsolicited advice. I know how important it is to you that Shadow Hills not turn into another housing track or shopping center.”

“I’ll certainly keep that in mind,” Yvonne said and stood.

George allowed her to direct him to the front door without protest. “You do that. It’s not often that someone comes along who wants to buy a place like that. Not these days.” He settled his hat on his head and tipped it to her. “You wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to see it go to someone you can trust.”

Yvonne opened the door for him. Her glare said she trusted him as much as a rabbit trusted a fox. That was fine by him. He wanted her fear more than he would ever want her trust. He tipped his hat to her again. The door shut, but he felt her watching him from the window as he walked back to his car. Trust might get him a friend, but fear would get him everything else.

—

Carlisle took a stack of new blankets into one of the common rooms even as he felt the last of the day’s cat’s bane fading from his system. He probably knew as well as Heather did the signs of impending change and had certainly gone through it more often than she had. He too stood apart from the normal experience of being a changing cat. He smiled to the cats alternately bedding down and waking up for twilight as he swapped used blankets for fresh ones. Polite distance separated him from the rest of the House. He traded familiarity for responsibility when Poppy took him under her wing as a replacement for Heather.

Over in the corner, between the trunk of shared clothing and the window, he bent down to gather up one particular beach towel that had been left untouched for months. His fingers unconsciously curled into it, possessive and jealous. He shuffled it into the pile with the rest, but it did not end up in the laundry room when he finished. He hardly liked to even let it touch the other blankets for fear that they would contaminate it.

Back in his room, Carlisle spread the towel on his bed. Fastidious though he was, he did not pick off any of the stray hairs and he would never dream of washing it, even if it had kibble crumbs scattered on it. He shed his clothing just in time for the change, when the cat’s bane finally ran out and his body just gently turned itself inside out for a few seconds. If a full day of work did not leave him tired, changing certainly did. He did not so much jump onto the bed as climb paw over paw.

He hooked his claws in the terry cloth loops of the towel, slightly worn with age. He knew it on sight, but only when he changed could he smell the traces of Topaz that still lingered there even after so long. It was covered in his golden fur. Carlisle burrowed his face against it. He had resisted the urge to retrieve it after Topaz left. He felt betrayed and so much in the house fell on him — again — while Heather helped Rune recover. When heart-sick longing finally swallowed up the anger, there was no time to indulge it.

He used his claws to hook an edge and pull it around his body, cocooning himself in the familiar scent. But now Heather spent all her time with Rune, suddenly enthusiastic about the responsibilities of caring for the House. Even Dopple had Mysti, neither of whom had much desire to spend an afternoon discussing the newspapers Heather brought him when she went into town. And they all had other people with whom to climb trees or hunt grasshoppers.

The smell of Topaz grew stronger as Carlisle’s body heated the air in his cocoon and he started to drift to sleep. Change. Work. Change. Sleep. Change. His life took on unprecedented monotony and he had no one to blame but himself. He sent away his own grasshopper-hunting, tree-climbing, paper-reading partner and he did not know how to get him back.

—

The cats got used to bailing out of the front room whenever there was a knock at the door, so Heather did not have to tell them anything and they were gone by the time she reached the door.

On the other side, Yvonne waited and wrung her hands. “Hi, sweetie. May I please speak to you?” The polite request from someone who seemed to take it as her right to help herself to your time and space surprised Heather enough that she just stepped aside and let her in.

“We can sit in the kitchen and have something to drink, if you’d like,” she said in a clear voice intended to warn away the cats who had just relocated there. No small part of her also wished Rune would hear her and stay close by.

“The place looks nice,” Yvonne said as she hovered on the edge of the chair.

The day was just full of surprises. “I’ve been working hard on it.” She almost amended that to “we” when Rune slipped into the kitchen to hover behind her chair.

“You should paint the exterior. A fresh coat of paint would really liven the place up.” Yvonne accepted the glass of iced tea Heather offered her. “No lemonade this time?”

Heather smiled weakly. Yvonne’s new demeanor should have put her at ease, but instead she found herself bracing for the inevitable jibe that had to follow. “Was there something you needed to talk about?”

Yvonne stared into her glass and stroked lines through the beads of water on the sides. At last, she said, “You need to get this place fixed up. And I know I’ve told you that before,” she continued in a rush, “and I suppose I might have been a bit harsh about it.”

Heather gave a breathless chuckle and glanced over at Rune to see what he thought. “A little harsh?” Yvonne winced at the tone of disbelief. “You implied that I could not be expected to successfully wipe my own nose.” Rune watched in silence. Couldn’t he at least say something? It would not mean anything to Yvonne.

Yvonne nodded and kept her eyes down. “I should not have been so rude. But I’m trying to make up for it.”

“And how are you doing that?”

“By warning you.” The ‘duh’ at the end was almost audible. “You need to make this place impeccable. So people can see that you are a responsible owner for the place.”

“He’s gotten to you,” Heather said and it stared her in the face, the obvious fact that George Ellison would do more than just make idle threats.

Yvonne nodded and finally looked Heather in the eye. “I couldn’t bear it if he or one of his buddies tore this place up and turned it into a movie theater and a boutique.”

“He can’t have the house. He just can’t.” Heather thought she sounded pretty confident, which was reassuring. She did not really feel confident. Rune trotted out of the kitchen again. What, this was old news, so he had better things to do?

“He won’t stop trying. He will get something you care about and hold a knife to its throat until he gets what he wants.” Yvonne looked out the window wistfully, as though she loved the house as her own. Heather hoped she did not notice any cats out there.

The image her words brought up made Heather’s stomach turn to ice. Because she could think of all the very real, very much alive things she cared about that he could threaten. “So he sent you here to back up his threats.”

Yvonne shook her head frantically. “He sent me here to get you to sell. To tell you the association didn’t want you here or to make you think you couldn’t handle the house.”

“Jeez, you were doing that before he came along. I’m afraid of what you would be like when you try to drive me away.”

Yvonne pushed her chair back. “I told you I was sorry.” Heather did not remember her saying any such thing, but she supposed Yvonne considered her actions as good as an apology. “Please, don’t underestimate him. Whether he gets this property or another one, know that you won’t be the only one to suffer. I’ll show myself out.”

Heather hoped the cats got out of the way for Yvonne. She didn’t know what to make of the conversation. Yvonne hadn’t told her anything she didn’t already know. Including just how far the damage would spread if Ellison put his mind to it. She knew better than Yvonne could imagine just how many people would be unhappy. Or worse.

—

Even on the weekend, George recognized half the people who filled the bar as ones who worked in his offices. It was not a bar to take a date or a client. It was a bar to get thrashed with coworkers because you had lost the client and couldn’t get a date. It matched George’s mood better than he would have liked as he hunched over his scotch like a junkyard dog with a bone. After last night, even Susanna had left him in peace, making no mention of going out over the weekend when she left his house. He scattered a handful of peanuts onto a cocktail napkin and crushed the shell of one between thumb and forefinger.

The mirror behind the bar gave him a view of the rest of the room without turning. There was James something or other, who worked with Hill over in PR. He chatted up a woman George did not know, but who seemed to be cut from the same cloth as his own secretary and who could very well have brought him faxes and coffee on any given day. He thought a few people were from accounting, but he could not be sure. The peanut shell crumbled into fibers and salty dust under his fingers. While he watched, someone — he knew her from somewhere, didn’t he? — stared back at him in the mirror. She ducked to say something into the ear of her nearest companion, whose eyes flicked up to him and darted away again. George looked away when they laughed, heads bowed together.

He took a gulp of his drink. These peons probably didn’t know him from Adam, never mind that he was president of the goddamn board and had been in this line since they were picking their noses in grade school. The alcohol welled up behind his eyes and he crunch peanuts in the palm of his hand to drive away the wave of maudlin stupidity. The board would never vote him out, he told himself. It was just office politics rearing its ugly head. Well, he had better things to do than kowtow to that lot.

He swallowed the last of his scotch and tucked a couple of bills under the glass. The laughing girl did not look at him as he left the bar. Outside, the buildings obscured the setting sun so that all he could see above their tops was blue sky gone white at one edge and purple at the other. It would all blow over, he told himself again. They could say what they wanted about leadership and profits and new directions. It was his company. Nothing would change that.

—

Rune trotted up the spiral staircase. A huge clang shook the close quarters and he winced and pawed at his ringing ears. On the landing, Heather heaved another shattered chunk of masonry into a metal wheelbarrow. Rune skirted around it and sat on a pile of bricks. “Why is there a wheelbarrow in the house?”

“I couldn’t think of a better way to do this,” Heather said. She did not stop working and she did not look at him. The clangs turned to thuds as the wheelbarrow slowly filled. Heather wiped her arm across her forehead even as sweat continued to drip from the end of her nose.

“Why not wait until I can help you? This is a two person job.” To him, the small space radiated pleasant warmth, perfect for a cat nap.

Heather pulled more bricks from the pile blocking what remained of the doorway onto the tower’s walkway. They tumbled down in an avalanche and she jumped back to avoid getting her toes crushed. “I can do this alone. It doesn’t take any special knowledge to haul bricks away.”

“You’re going to have trouble getting it down the stairs again if you fill it much more,” Rune said after a minute.

“Why don’t you go see if someone else needs help? I’m fine here.”

Rune rubbed up against her leg. “You’re upset. Is this about what that woman said?”

Heather sidestepped him. He had to back off to avoid the next cascade of bricks she brought down without warning. “No. Yes. I don’t know,” she said impatiently.

“Maybe you should take a break for a while. You’re probably just tired.”

“I’m not tired,” Heather snapped. “And I should have done this months ago, especially after Elly got lost up here. It’s dangerous. It can’t wait just because you have the wrong body today.”

Rune sat down heavily. “Is that what this is about?” He batted at her leg when she didn’t answer. “Are you mad at me because I’m not human all the time?”

Heather passed a hunk of brick from hand to hand while staring at the half-dismantled wall. “I’m mad that you aren’t human when I need you to be.”

“I told you this could wait for a while. Elly was a fluke. No one’s going to go up here.”

“It’s not about this,” Heather said and flung the brick into the pile. It set off another little tumble. “It would have been really nice to have some backup when Yvonne showed up.”

“Like when Ellison did?” Because really, Yvonne was nothing compared to that son of a dog.

“I need more than what you can give me with two days out of every month.” Heather still stared at the wall, like she could not look at him and speak her mind at the same time. He knew that feeling. Her hands hovered in front of her with nothing to hold, covered in red dust. “I wouldn’t ask you to be human all the time.” She chuckled and wiped at her face again, but he did not think it was sweat she rubbed from her eyes. “Guess that was a once in a lifetime thing, huh?”

They were not going to have a conversation about his old life. “You’re not being fair. I’m doing the best I can.” She had him doing more than he had been able to do in years. He had walked halfway down to the road with her the other day to get the mail, for heaven’s sake.

“I’m sorry. It’s not enough.” She shrugged. “I can’t schedule my whole life around the Leo moon. Not for you, not for anyone. Things come up all the time. I have to know you can be there.” She turned quickly and picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow. Her progress down the stairs was slow and torturous, but Rune did not attempt to catch up to her.

—

George stood up from the table, hands planted on the reflective surface with a loud slap. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, I guess that settles that.” Half of the board of directors looked uncomfortable and the other half looked defiant. He plucked a stale Danish from the plate in the middle and gave the whole table a cocky grin. “It’s no skin off my nose. I think I’ll leave you to your business. Good luck picking the new guy.” No one said a word as he left the board room with a swagger and a mouthful of pastry.

He circled through the hallways with his head up. Out there, no one noticed anything different. The same meaningless faces greeted him, people he never needed to bother remembering. He positively strolled into his office. Behind her desk, the secretary visibly relaxed, smiling at him with the phone pressed between her ear and shoulder, taking his good mood as an equally good sign. He slashed a finger in front of his throat to tell her to hold all his calls and locked himself in his office.

He dropped the pastry in the trash and sank into his chair. He opened his cell phone. When Susanna answered, he said, “We’re going out tonight. Somewhere nice. Dress accordingly.”

“Does this mean the meeting went well? You’re still president?”

“Who the hell else could they get to put up with this crap? Of course I am. I’ll pick you up at six.”

He picked up the sign on the edge of his desk proclaiming George Ellison the President, Board of Directors. He threw it at the door hard enough to leave a nick in the wood after it clattered, chipped, to the floor. It would need replacing anyway, when he handed in his inevitable letter of resignation as president. Next, he opened his filing cabinet. Slowly and systematically, he flung folder after folder across the room. They flapped and landed on the floor. He wrenched the clips from contracts and released them in a downpour. He stood in a storm of paper and hurled bolts of rolled blue prints. When the cabinet was empty, he gently slid each drawer shut.

He swept papers from his chair and sat down again. Then he took out a little notebook and a pen. He flipped to a page of lists, where one entry was circled. He circled it again. He let the pen run around it, circle after circle, each one more erratic, until you could hardly tell that the name Lee had been there at all. The pen tore though the first sheet of paper and turned the name into a paper cut-out covered in black ink. It popped free. Without removing it, George snapped the notebook shut.

The secretary was off the phone when he walked out again. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Clean up the paperwork in there and file everything.” He grabbed his jacket from a hook by the door. “I’m done for the day.” I’m just getting started, he countered in his head.

—

Previous Episode :: Back to Index :: Next Episode

Carlisle dug his hind claws into the tree trunk and shoved himself up another foot. The pull in the tendons of his front paws felt wonderful after a busy week spent cooped up inside. His spine stretched and bunched as he propelled himself up to the first branch. He stopped there to twist and roll the kinks out of his shoulders. With Heather on her Saturday break from the cat’s bane, the office was probably off-limits anyway. Below him, a gopher inched out of its tunnel, took a look around, and disappeared again. Carlisle stretched out on the branch to watch it.

Behind him, he heard a soft voice speaking. The gopher bit off a sprig of a weed close to the tunnel entrance and ducked away. The voice moved closer and Carlisle looked back toward the house to see who had come to interrupt his holiday. Heather wove between clumps of grass with her tail high over her back. Next to her, Rune listened in silence as she chatted away.

While they were still far enough away, Carlisle bolted higher into the tree. He picked a spot where the branches were close together and the pine needles would hide him somewhat. Heather and Rune slipped into the shadows of the trees. Perhaps the office was available after all, Carlisle thought bitterly. She had ordered Carlisle out the last time he tried to talk to her while she was a cat. Her tail brushed Rune’s as they walked together.

“I think we should paint the house next,” she said. “The weather is supposed to be good for a while. And it’s not too hot yet.”

Rune kept his head turned towards her. Carlisle had no doubts that he only ventured this far from the house because Heather distracted him from his fears. Rune ducked his head in agreement. “Sure. Some of the older kittens might like to help.”

Heather stopped right below Carlisle’s tree to watch the gopher as it ate a bare patch in the grass around its home. “Good idea,” she said quietly, eyes fixed on the tunnel entrance and the quivering whiskers that cleared its mouth now and then.

Rune watched her with the same intense focus. “Should I leave you two alone?”

Heather looked up. Carlisle could see even from fifteen feet above her the way her eyes widened when Rune spoke to her, how her whole body tuned in to him when he was near. “Sorry. Got distracted. Do you want to go farther or head back?”

Rune tipped his head side to side, debating. “I can go a bit farther,” he said at last.

“I left tuna salad on the counter for us this morning,” Heather said as they set off again. “I put an ice pack with it to keep it fresh. And its covered, so hopefully no one will decide to steal it this time.”

“Did you leave a note?”

“One on each side, just to be certain.”

Carlisle let their voices fade from his mind as they walked away. Heather fixed food for him all the time when he worked longer than she thought appropriate. It was hardly something to feel jealous about, he told himself. He scrambled down from the tree. Maybe he could read letters in the garden today, if it was not too noisy with cats enjoying the sunshine. His solitary holiday just did not seem like much fun any longer.

—

Carlisle waited at the bottom of the hill by the mailbox for Dopple to return from town. He tugged at the ratty t-shirt fitfully. He wondered what it would be like to see her after twenty-five years. He tried to think of her as the Queen, her mother’s daughter. But in his mind, she was Heather, a teenager forever.

A taxi pulled into the driveway. Dopple slid out of the backseat. She looked him over once the car disappeared around the bend. “You look like hell,” she said. Her own leather jacket was slick black.

Carlisle grimaced and tried to pull the shoulders straight on the shirt. He would have given anything to wear his own clothes. “I had to wear something I could afford to leave behind when I change again.”

“He didn’t see you leave, did he?” Dopple reflexively looked up the hill toward the house.

“I saw him go upstairs around noon. I hope you’re right about him staying up there.”

“He won’t come down while everyone is changed,” Dopple said. “I have directions for you.” She held out a scrap of paper. Her handwriting wobbled across it.

“How far is it?”

“Two weeks, unless you hitchhike while you’re human.”

“I’ve no money to offer and I’d rather not take the chance of changing around a human.” Carlisle looked down the road and tried to get his heart to stop beating so hard.

He saw Dopple cock her head out of the corner of his eye. “You sure are a mess over this girl of yours. And I thought you and Topaz had something going on.”

Carlisle coughed. He was certainly too old to be of any interest to Topaz, who had every queen in the place following him around and several of the toms as well. “I just want to find her as soon as possible.”

“What’s her name?” Dopple asked. Something in her voice made Carlisle wonder if she suspected his deception.

“Crimea,” he said. The lie came easily, though he almost ruined it by laughing at the idea that he had been involved with Crimea. His younger self wished it so, but he had sense enough now to know a pointless crush when he saw one.

Dopple shrugged and turned up the road. “I’ll make excuses for you to Rune if he notices you’re gone.”

“That would be very helpful,” Carlisle murmured, but Dopple just trudged on.

He read her directions again and again while he walked. It was essential that he memorize them. In two days, he would be a cat once again and he would have no choice but to work from memory.

He chuckled a little. If Dopple spread his story around the House, he would certainly come home to an interesting reputation. Ex-girlfriend, indeed. He hoped no one mentioned it to Heather when they got back. She always hated it when people gossiped about them. At least, she used to. He wondered if that had changed in the years of their separation. He wondered what else might have as well.

—

Carlisle opened the door warily. Dopple was not due back so soon. Poppy was not expecting any visitors today. He squinted at the young man on the doorstep. He had a long scrape on his cheek and his clothes were filthy. He rather looked like he had been run over by a truck. “Rune?”

His posture relaxed a bit. “Hey, is Poppy around?” When Carlisle stepped aside to let him in, he walked with a terrible limp.

“What happened to you?” Carlisle steadied him with a hand on his arm.

“Got in a bar fight. You should see the other guys.” Rune’s grin was shaky and made pathetic by the slight swelling at the corner of his mouth.

Carlisle snorted. “Ridiculous. Were you too drunk to find your way home? Last time you wrote, you were in Nevada. What are you doing here?”

“This is my home,” Rune said. He clamped a hand on Carlisle’s wrist. “This is my home,” he repeated.

“I wasn’t going to send you packing,” Carlisle said. He patted Rune’s shoulder with his free hand. “There’s an open room down the hall. Come on.” He pulled Rune’s arm over his shoulder and helped him walk.

Carlisle looked up when he heard the thump of Poppy’s cane on the wood floor.  She looked past Rune as though she expected to see someone else with him. There was a smudge of flour in her hair, white on white, and she smelled of vanilla. When Rune looked up at her, she clicked her tongue against her teeth. “You always have to pick a fight, don’t you?”

He ducked his head. “Yes, ma’am. I waited until I got back though.”

“Very wise of you, minimizing how far you had to walk on that leg,” she said and poked it, carefully, with the tip of her cane. He winced. She sighed and handed the cane to him. “You need this more than I do. Tell me what happened.”

She stood at Rune’s side so that Carlisle had no choice but to move out of her way. “Ma’am, I can get him set up. Please don’t trouble yourself,” Carlisle said.

“That won’t be necessary,” Poppy said without looking back. “Rune and I have private matters to discuss.”

Carlisle watched them hobble down the hall to the room he had in mind for Rune. They closed the door. Well. That was fine. There was plenty of work Carlisle could get done, since they did not need him. He went upstairs to Poppy’s office in search of letters to answer or bills to pay. He did not know Rune all that well anyway. He was just being nosy. Better to mind his own business.

—

Carlisle slit his eyes against the hot light coming through the window. He could hear Vince gathering up a crowd of hunters for a trip into the woods. He wished there was a door he could slam here in the front room. Vince had asked him along, but he had better things to do than hang out with that rabble. Scarborough would never hang out with that lot. They had never even been out of this town. Boring.

Someone stroked the top of his head. Dreaming of Heather again. Wherever she was. The stroke turned into a tap between his ears. “Wakey wakey,” Poppy said. She knelt by the windowsill he occupied. “Would you be willing to help me with something?”

Carlisle stretched and stood up. “Like what?”

Poppy offered him something leafy on her open palm. “Eat this, then get dressed and come to my office.”

Carlisle shrugged and ate the cat’s bane. He fell off the windowsill when he changed, but no one was around to see, so he brushed imaginary dust off his knees and went upstairs to find some clothing. Dressed in jeans and a sweater, pleasantly warm but tragically lame looking, he entered Poppy’s office without knocking.

She gestured him into a seat on the opposite side of her desk. “Why aren’t you out with the others today?”

Carlisle looked away. “Didn’t feel like it.”

“We’ll find her eventually,” Poppy said.

“Whatever,” Carlisle said and knew it was a small and lonely word compared to the store of curses and pleas for Heather he kept inside. “What did you need me to do?”

Poppy pushed a stack of envelopes towards him. “Do you know what these are?” He shook his head. “I receive a great many letters from cats around the country.” She tapped a finger against the stack. “They tell me who has died and who has had kittens. Where they are and if they will be near our House in the future.”

Carlisle picked up an envelope and, when she did not stop him, unfolded the letter inside. It was several pages of stiff paper, written in an erratic hand. “Long,” he said.

“Yes. And I have many other things I need to take care of today. Do you think you could help me with these?” She set a pad of paper and a pen next to the letters. It had been divided into columns, labeled with things like “clan name” and “number of births (include pedigree)” and “current residence.”

“Sounds deadly dull,” Carlisle said, but his eyes kept slipping back to the letter in his hand, curious about what it might say.

“It would be very helpful to me,” Poppy said gently. “Heather was supposed to help me with these,” she added after a hesitation.

Carlisle scooted his chair up to the desk and picked up the pen. “Maybe just this once. ‘Cause I got nothing better to do.” He as much as he wanted to see Heather again, he wanted to prove he was better than she was as well. She left him behind and he didn’t think he would ever forgive her.

“You have nothing better to do,” Poppy corrected him.

He raised his eyebrows, which was his favorite expression from Scarborough. “I said that.”

“How you speak with your friends is your own business, but I expect you to speak properly when you are working,” Poppy said with a mild smile. He would not know it for a few months, but he would need to brush up on his language for when he started writing letters as well as reading them. By then, he had forgotten he was just Poppy’s second choice after Heather left.

—

Carlisle picked at the plastic bracelet they had snapped on him when he walked in with the rest of the dout. “Why do I have to wear this?”

“So they know not to serve you alcohol,” Crimea said. She wore a spiked collar. Carlisle had never met anyone as hopelessly cool, except Scarborough, their leader. “Human bars aren’t allowed unless you’re old enough.” Everyone in the dout spoke her dialect. Learning that fact made it harder to imagine Crimea had any special interest in him, almost as much as when he found out she and Scarborough went together. His crush had not abated, nonetheless.

Scarborough roughed Carlisle’s hair up so the short curls stood on end. “And you look about twelve, kid.”

Carlisle shook his hand off. “Why come to a human bar at all?”

Crimea smirked and rolled her eyes. Carlisle felt his face flush up to his ears. “If I didn’t know you were so smart, I would think you were pretty dumb. Have you met any cats running bars?”

Brig practically bounced in his chair. “Oh, oh, I have,” he said in his usual explosion of noise. “In Louisiana, there’s this–”

“Rhetorical question, Brig,” Scarborough said. “We’re here to meet another dout.”

A big man clapped a hand on Scarborough’s shoulder. “Present and accounted for.”

Scarborough stood and they exchanged friendly thumps to the back. “John. Thought we’d have to send out a search party.”

The man pulled a chair up to their table and sat by Scarborough. Two women slipped into the circle as well, their chairs pulled up so close to each other they were almost sitting in each other’s laps. They were tiny, positively dwarfed next to John, and perfect twins, down to their oddly short arms and legs.

Scarborough flung an arm around Carlisle, who peered at the newcomers from around his leader’s side. “This is our newest member, Carlisle. This is John, Naomi and Natasha. Border Crossing Dout.”

Carlisle waved awkwardly. John grinned, all teeth. “You robbing dens now? Or was he born with you?”

“Nope, picked him up at Poppy’s House. Kid knows his stuff. He’ll really be something in a couple years.”

“Were you up at Poppy’s when her kid bailed?” John asked. Carlisle wrapped both his hands around his glass of water and brought it to his lips, the ice trembling inside. Scarborough shook his head and John said, “Happened a couple months ago.” The bar seemed quiet, all the background noise dropping away.

Before he could say anything more, one of the twins, Natasha maybe, interrupted. “Word has it, she ran away.” “And no one has been able to find her,” Naomi added. “She stole all the cat’s bane at the House,” Natasha said. Naomi leaned forward to say in a scandalized voice, “Rumor has it, she’s gone full-time furless.”

Carlisle did not have to ask to know what that meant. Heather had made good on her threats. In some human city, dressed up as one of them, Heather had disappeared. Carlisle did not realize he had stood up until Crimea pulled him back down into his seat. “I have to go back,” he said.

“Now, hang on,” Crimea said. “She’s not your problem. Poppy will take care of it.”

Carlisle shook his head. “You don’t understand. Heather is– We were– I might be able to bring her home.”

“We’re at least four weeks hard travel from the House,” Scarborough said. “The trail will be cold long before you get back, even if you leave now. And we won’t be headed back there for another year, at least.”

The noise in the bar crashed back to full volume. Carlisle hovered on the edge of his seat. “I know her. I can find her.”

“You can’t go alone,” Scarborough said.

“I’ll go,” Brig said, waving his hands and pointing to himself.

Crimea smacked him on the back of the head. “You’re worse than no one at all.”

“Listen, I’m headed west myself,” John said. He turned his big palm up on the table. “We can take him most of the way, if it’s that important.”

“We didn’t know you knew her,” Natasha said. Naomi said, “We’re sorry.”

Scarborough leaned back in his chair and took a swig of his beer. “You won’t be able to connect up with us again until we come to the House again.” He raised an eyebrow. “You know we don’t follow a plan.”

“I have to go,” Carlisle said helplessly. He had to get Heather back. That was all there was to it. He saw the Blue Road dout the next time they happened his way, but he never did roam with them again. Some things, he told himself, just aren’t meant to be.

—

Carlisle licked a swath between Heather’s ears, grooming the fur against the grain, and then smoothed it again with short strokes. She purred, the vibration transferring from her back to his side where she curled. But her purring stopped as soon as he stopped washing her. “What’s wrong?”

Heather flopped over so they faced each other, all four paws touching. “I want to try something,” she said and looked away.

Carlisle liked trying new things with Heather. She never made fun of him, even when she laughed at him. Heather was his favorite cat in the whole world. The answer was always the same: he wanted to do whatever she wanted.

She stayed silent and stared past him. When her eyes met his, her pupils were dilated so large they eclipsed the blue in a black with more depth than should have been possible in her small, fine-boned face. She leaned forward until her nose touched his. “Like humans,” she said. The tip of her tongue touched his upper lip. “I want to kiss like humans.”

Carlisle copied what she did, but went no further. Heather had never proposed something like that before. She pressed her mouth next to his. Her whiskers tickled his nose. She licked again and the ticklish rasp of her tongue made him jerk away. “Sorry. Whiskers,” he said and rubbed a paw against them to relieve the tingly feeling at the sensitive base of each one.

Heather looked away again, obviously disappointed. “It looked like more fun than that,” she said.

Carlisle hooked a paw over her shoulder and rolled her back to curl beside him again. “We can try it the next time we change.” Carlisle always felt ridiculous, all oversized hands and feet and skinny legs, compared to Heather as a human, who already looked like a woman.

Heather rested her chin on his paws. “When I run away,” she said and the list of things that followed that statement was longer than Carlisle could easily remember. “You have to come with me.”

“Yes,” Carlisle said. Whatever Heather wanted. “We’ll travel the world, just like my mum does.”

“Tell me about England again,” Heather said. She always liked to hear about Carlisle’s fragmented memories of his homes before his mother left him at the House.

Outside their nook, someone said, “hey, the Blue Roads are here,” in a voice loud enough to summon every cat in the house. Carlisle slipped out from under Heather’s weight. “Let’s go see who’s here.”

Heather sighed and followed him. He knew she hated meeting new cats, but Carlisle was curious. In the solarium, a whole crowd of cats surrounded the newcomers. They all talked rapidly, exchanging bursts of information in a flurry of sound. Lost in the back of the crowd, Carlisle saw the prettiest cat — next to Heather — he had ever seen, sitting by herself.

He looked back as he crossed the room. Heather sat in the doorway, watching with a wary expression. Carlisle went over to the forgotten cat and said hello.

She grumbled under her breath and chirped a greeting back. It was a different dialect, which explained why she was not part of the larger conversation. She had a highly domed forehead, aristocratic and exotic, and the blue of her coat made even Carlisle’s rosettes look like simple gray.

“You’re a Russian Blue then, aren’t you?” He asked in her dialect.

“You speak,” she confirmed with a smile. “I’m Crimea. No one in this territory speaks.”

“I speak three dialects. And human English,” Carlisle said.

Crimea tipped her nose toward the door and Heather. “Your friend speaks too?”

Heather’s fur puffed and she disappeared from the doorway. “Ah, no,” Carlisle said. He would have gone after her, but just then Crimea swiped at another cat. When she had his attention, she introduced them and it was hours before Carlisle could get away long enough to tell Heather, coolly disinterested, all about the Blue Roads and how they wanted him to join them.

—

Heather told him not to follow her around but what she didn’t know, Carlisle thought as he nosed aside a loose board in the garden fence, couldn’t hurt him. He squeezed through the opening, getting the tip of his tail pinched for his efforts, and walked through the leafy corridor under the branches of a flowering bush. The junk heap, where kittens’ voices could be heard, was in the back corner. Carlisle was tired — Heather had walked a long way before stopping at this rundown house — and he flopped down in the prickly grass as soon as he found an opening big enough to see through.

Heather played with the other kittens. They were a little younger than she was and a little older than Carlisle. There were five of them, all different colors and coats. Heather explained to them in a tone of great authority that food always tasted better cooked. The kittens expressed vociferous disbelief. Carlisle watched the way Heather’s eyes flashed in the dim light.

“Mommy always cooks all my food,” Heather said.

“Cats can’t cook,” one of the kittens insisted.

“We can when we’re human,” Heather explained with a roll of her eyes. Carlisle sat up, a bad feeling itching under fur. Mum always told him not to talk to strange cats. There were the right kinds of cats and the wrong kinds, she told him. In the shade of an overturned bathtub and a rusted bicycle, Heather described cooking in elaborate detail.

Carlisle backed away. If he told Heather to come home, she would get mad at him for following her. She would pull his ears and refuse to talk to him for the rest of the day if she got really mad. Carlisle slunk back out of the garden. Outside, he broke to a run. Heather’s mum would help.

When he got home, he did not even have to explain to Poppy. She met him at the front door. “Where is Heather?”

Walking the path there and back made it easy to remember. Carlisle always remembered where he had been. Explaining to Poppy just which lumpy rock he had turned left at proved harder. In the end, she carried him in her arms while she ran, flat human feet pounding the ground.

Poppy broke the latch on the garden gate to get in. The noise distracted the kittens’ mother, which meant she loosened her death grip on Heather’s neck. Poppy grabbed the cat by her neck in turn and flung her across the yard. She landed in a flower pot with a yowl.

Heather refused to even look at Carlisle while Poppy carried them home. “You must never, ever go near them again,” she said. “Cats that don’t change will hurt you if you let them.”

“You’re the right kind of cat,” Carlisle said helpfully, “and they’re the wrong kind.”

Heather twisted away and buried her face in Poppy’s arm. He heard her say in a sniffle, “I’m not a cat at all.”

Poppy stopped walking. “Don’t say that. You are a perfectly good cat.”

Heather looked up at her mother. Carlisle could see bite marks, red and puffy, behind her ears. “She said I’m just like a human.”

Poppy bundled Heather closer to her chest. “They don’t know what they’re talking about,” she said. “Just forget all about it.”

It took three months for Heather to forget about Carlisle tattling on her and start talking to him again. She never did forget what the cat told her that day though.

—

Previous Episode :: Back to Index :: Next Episode

If George Ellison heard one more advertisement about how the housing market was turning around, he would kill something. If it was doing so much better, why couldn’t he afford to hire a private investigator to skulk around in bushes in the middle of the night for him? Instead, George panted and pushed his hands against his thighs to propel himself up the steep hill to the house. Why would anyone want to live this far off the beaten path?

He ducked into the trees that lined the property as he reached the summit of the hill. There were lights on in the house even at almost two in the morning. Wild party? He could use that if he talked to the homeowner’s association. But there was no music. In fact, the house seemed deathly quiet. It was waiting for something.

He crept out, knees aching with the effort to stay crouched close to the ground. The closest window was dark but he looked in all the same. His eyes had adjusted to the dark on his trek up the hill, but he still could not quite make out the shapes he saw in the room. He squinted until his eyes and temples throbbed. The things moved. George moved lower so his eyes barely cleared the ledge of the window. Something bright flashed orange and green in one of the dark shapes. Then it disappeared as the shape moved away from the window.

George moved on tiptoes, feeling out each step before he took it, wary of sticks and dry leaves that would give him away. Around the corner of the house, he found a bright patch of ground from an illuminated window. This time he stood beside the window and leaned in, inch by agonizing inch, to see through it.

Cats. Maybe six of the furry bastards. That’s what he had seen before — cat’s eyes shining in the low light. Between the two rooms, there were at least a dozen, maybe more. Who needed that many cats? A little thrill of satisfaction went through him. Maybe she was a hoarder. He could easily parlay that into losing her house.

He crouched down, ready to move on to another window, but a sound made him look once more. A cat looked like it needed to hack up a hairball. It stretched out on the floor and writhed a little. Then another cat did the same thing. One by one, they all lay down in what started to look like death throes. His mind rushed through possibilities. Rabies? Poison? Distemper?

Then things turned weird. His mind could not quite follow what happened, registering just a few isolated moments: fur falling off a cat in flurries; a leg and paw stretching to impossible lengths; a mouth full of fangs opening around a human laugh. He blinked and a room full of cats became a room full of people.

Each one naked as the day they were born, they sat up and started talking in a language he had never heard. They rubbed their eyes and scratched and stretched. Some of them walked out, some of them moved from the floor to furniture, and some of them stayed sprawled on the floor. English words started to filter into the foreign babble.

George Ellison moved away from the window. Whatever the hell he just saw, it made hoarding cats look like a harmless hobby. It would take a lot more work, but he would find a way to use this as leverage.

—

Age had robbed the old cat of her teeth and she lisped her words. “It won’t be long now.”

Heather pulled her sweater tighter to ward off the chill of more than just early morning. She too could feel the moon changing, tuning into it like flicking one ear to listen to a distant sound. “Can I do anything for you, Sarna?”

The ancient queen curled and stretched, trying to get comfortable on the heating pad under her blanket. Her legs shook with even that tiny effort. Fragile skin showed through her thin fur. But her eyes, though barely open, were still clear. “Water, please. Just a little.”

Heather tipped a spoonful of water into the cat’s mouth and set the mug aside again. “Carlisle sent word to your sons, like you asked. Are you sure…”

“That I’m dying?” Sarna asked with a wheezing chuckle. Heather knew the only answer was yes. But she was young and hopeful and it seemed impossible to just know your time was up. To announce your death before it had come. Sarna set a paw over Heather’s nearby hand. “I can’t survive the change this time.”

Heather stroked her thumb across Sarna’s paw. “Your friends will be back as soon as they finish changing.” No one wanted to disturb Sarna, so Heather, the only one who would not be changing that night, had watched her for the hour around the moon change.

“I’m not afraid,” Sarna said. “I’m in my home. I had my fair share of good kittens. I had my nine lives.” She rested, her breathing shallow. For a moment she seemed to sleep, but without opening her eyes, she said, “I danced on Broadway as a young woman. Not that you’d know it to look at me now.”

“Not in Cats, by any chance?” Heather asked with a wry smile. Laugh so you don’t have to cry, she told herself.

“No, I was before it’s time. I was in Oliver! though.”

Heather smiled. She wondered what Mother had said when she died. What had she remembered as the highlight of her life? Would she have sent word to Heather if she knew where her prodigal daughter lived?

When the change came, Heather felt it as a little twinge in her body as it started to change before realizing it already had. Under her hand, Sarna took a sharp breath and her heart beat harder and louder than should have been possible. The change took energy and strength she did not have. It did not even start.

Heather waited, hand on Sarna’s side, until she was certain there was no breath and no heartbeat to be felt. She folded the blanket around the body, covering Sarna’s face last, and switched off the heating pad. Eventually, the others came back and relieved Heather. In the time between, though, she tried to think of something to say, knowing that Sarna would not hear it anymore than Mother would, but longing for some sentiment that would give her closure. In the end, she had to settle for just staying by her side. It was still more than she had given Mother.

—

Rune relished the burn of fatigue in his arms and shoulders as he counted push-ups under his breath. The change woke him every time and left him sleepless, even though he had been adjusting to Heather’s daytime routine. His muscles ached anyway from raking leaves and fixing the porch and falling out of a tree while trimming it. He had a fantastic bruise on his right shoulder from that last one.

He let himself collapse to the carpet and roll onto his back. Heather probably slept soundly at that moment. She would want to get back to work once real morning came. Rune stumbled into the bathroom. Splashing water on his face made it easier to avoid looking at himself. His strength returned, coaxed along as a cat and as a human, but his face did not change. He buried his face in a towel as he walked out of the room and tossed it behind himself, mirror successfully avoided.

Clean and dressed, he padded barefoot down the hall to the kitchen. Foraging for breakfast yielded leftovers thoughtfully packaged and labeled by Heather. He chewed a hunk of cold chicken at the table and watched the sky lighten like a gas flame turned higher and higher, blue to orange to white. It was just a sliver of sky directly over the hills. The rest held on to night.

In moments like this, Rune longed for the comforts of human life. A television did wonders for drowning out self-doubt, even if it did nothing to encourage sleep. Instead, he folded his arms on the table and refused to think about what it meant that he scheduled his life around Heather now. Or what would happen if — when — she decided he made a better handyman than husband. Heaven knew, he made no kind of husband.

Rune walked to the sliding doors, entertaining thoughts of walking outside, in time to see the coyote make a dash for the house. Rune threw the door open before he saw the cat in its path. Time seemed to compress then, as all three animals tried to adjust to the new information. Rune moved to intercept. The cat wheeled for the open door. The coyote swerved to follow even as it dodged Rune.

The coyote had speed over the other two and snapped, yellow-toothed, at the retreating cat. Had it not attempted to avoid Rune, which it only registered as big and human, it might have captured more than a tail. As it was, the cat spun, screaming amid the hisses, and dug little claws into the coyote’s eyes. The next snap immobilized one paw and would have been the cat’s doom, but Rune, forgotten in the momentary fight, half tackled and half fell into the coyote.

Cowardice won over hunger and the coyote retreated, rubbing its bloodied eyes every few steps. Huddled over the cat, Rune saw it stop just inside the trees, watching and waiting and hoping, and he roared at it, a noise of fury beyond species. Below him, the grass bent under a dew of blood from the shredded tail and crushed paw. The cat moaned, too hurt to speak or clean the wounds.

Rune bundled the cat into the kitchen. “Easy, easy. You’re going to be okay.” Blood loss was the first problem, Rune thought as he pressed one dish towel around the tail and another around the paw. Heather could get antibiotics for infection later. Such a small cat, he thought. He tried to soothe it long enough to let him call for help. Just a kid, not old enough to change yet. “Stay put and I’ll get Heather. Heather will make it better.”

—

Heather shook a pill out of a bottle. “Swallow this. It’s for the pain.”

The young cat stopped tugging at the bandage on his foot long enough to gulp the pill down. “How long do I have to wear this?”

“Until your foot doesn’t look like it got put through a meat grinder, stupid,” Heather snapped. He made Rune look like an ideal patient. “The same goes for your tail. And you get antibiotics twice a day from me or your mother. No arguments.”

Rune helped him down from the counter to the floor. As he limped away, Rune said, “He’s awfully calm about the whole thing.”

“He’s young and indestructible, remember? And he could have taken that coyote by himself, easy.” Heather snorted. Young and foolish was more like it.

Heather packaged up the medical supplies, restocked by the vet during Rune’s detox, and Rune scrubbed down the kitchen counters, which had been press ganged into serving as an operating room. Heather looked up from washing her hands when Dorian came barging through with another cat and Valoria hot on his heels.

“She’s one of our best hunters,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Valoria was having none of it. “It’s a fool’s errand anyway. That coyote is long gone and I need her help.”

The cat in question took a knife from the butcher’s block on the counter. “This is more important. And we can track it.”

“Better to do it now,” Dorian said, “while we’re human and can put up a fight.”

“My knives?” Heather asked as the pair disappeared out the back door. “What are they doing with my knives?”

Valoria huffed. She took a large pot down from the cupboard and ran hot water in the sink. “Everyone’s up in arms over the coyote. It’s been years since one came this close to the house.”

“Are the farthest trees still booby-trapped?” Heather asked.

“Yes and if it didn’t get hit with rocks on the way in, it probably did when it left. Come with me,” she said and lifted the pot of steaming water out of the sink.

“But I-”

“I just lost a midwife, so I’ll need someone to fill in.”

“Midwife?” Heather looked back at Rune, who shrugged and followed after her.

“Donya is in labor and she’ll need help now that she’s changed. She’s panicking over the baby going through that.”

“I didn’t know it was dangerous,” Heather said as she accepted the pot while Valoria fished more towels out of the linen closet upstairs.

“It’s not ideal. She’s in a state over it though.” Valoria dropped her voice as she opened the door to one of the shared bedrooms, which had been cleared out of everyone but Donya and a young woman who looked like her daughter. “How often are the contractions?”

“Five minutes apart,” the daughter answered.

“Good, we’re getting down to it.”

Heather hovered awkwardly by the makeshift bed. Her stomach lurched nervously. “I’ve never, uh, seen someone give birth before.” By the door, Rune averted his eyes politely, but she saw him smirking. Jackass. Easy for him to laugh; he’d had a kid — and that thought really did not help her calm down.

“Thankfully,” Valoria said with a wink, “I have. I just need an extra set of hands. I’ll tell you everything you need to do.” Heather thought that sounded like a swell change of pace from being asked to take care of everything herself.

—

Rune closed the door on the new mother and kitten and joined Heather where she had slid down the wall to sprawl in the hallway. He sat not quite touching her. It felt nice to just close his eyes, her warmth on one side and the cool of the wall against his back. “Hell of a morning,” he said. It had been a mistake to follow Heather up there because it meant he played errand boy for Valoria.

Heather mumbled in reply. Then her head settled on his shoulder. In the space between their bodies, her fingers grazed his. “Wake me next week,” she said. She shifted and got comfortable against him.

Rune let his cheek rest against her head. His neck bent too far and his arm felt numb as he held still too long. But he would not move for the world in that moment. Consciousness faded only to snap back as suddenly as if someone had pricked him with a pin.

Against his shoulder, Heather stirred and groaned. “I can’t even fall asleep now. I’m thinking about paying bills. And fixing the sink in the downstairs bathroom.”

Rune curled his fingers around hers. “It’ll keep. Just rest for now.”

Heather scooted closer. “While we have a chance,” she agreed. What Rune missed in sleep then he made up for in contentment.

—

George poked buttons on his phone fitfully. Damn thing. How the hell was he supposed to get anything to work? And why did “menu” have to be represented by four little squares? What kind of sense did that make?

He shifted his weight from foot to foot in an attempt to get comfortable while perched on a steep slope. The tree he leaned against had a trunk as thick as three men and even the lowest branches were far above his head. It was an oak and its branches were few and thick. Through them, dawn light filter and grew stronger by the moment. On the cell phone’s screen, the menu flicked out of view, replaced by a wobbling view of the rocky ground at his feet.

Perfect. If he hurried back to the house, he might be able to get a glimpse of someone turning into a cat again. What the hell were they, werecats? Was it just some parlor trick? But no, what he had seen defied that explanation. George did not consider himself the sort of fool who would deny the evidence of his own senses just because he saw something fantastic. No, something weird was afoot here and he bet good money Lee would want to keep it quiet.

Stumbling over a tumble of rocks, George turned back up the hill. He had never seen a car there when Dahl brought him there, but he stayed off the road all the same. Sweat soaked his shirt under the arms and where his belt bit into his belly. Even if a few seconds of shaky video — how much could this thing record, anyway? — would not impress an outsider, he thought Lee would see things differently. Secrets, when revealed, always seem worst to the person who’s been keeping them.

Deeper in the trees, a branch snapped loudly. George ducked around the opposite side of a tree and listened. Someone cursed, too low to make out anything more than the sentiment behind it. Paying attention now, George made out more than one set of footfalls crunching through the fallen leaves and brush. George chuckled to himself. They were obviously even less suited to this damn wilderness than he was.

He started walking again, fiddling with the video capture settings on his phone as he went. Something gave under his toe, a hunk of rock worn away by lichen and rainfall trickling through the trees, and his leg slid backwards. His knee smacked the rock and his foot sent a little cascade of shards and pebbles tumbling down. He caught himself with both hands. He started to scramble up when he heard the voices, intense and focused in his direction.

He knew if he ran, he would only attract them more precisely to him and outrunning people in forests was not part of his skill set. So he froze, crouched on the ground, cell phone under one palm, body partially hidden by a tree. He tried to think of what he wore in terms of how well it might blend in with the scenery. If he held still, would he look like a fallen branch? A cluster of rocks?

The voices swelled and retreated. His knee ached and his palms stung and his back and armpits dripped sweat. An eternity later, a bird chirped. Another answered. Ambient noise returned. George eased his stiff body out of its crouch. He picked up his cell phone. A fat spider web of black broke up the display where the heel of his hand had shattered the LCD. He mouthed swear words, too scared of the phantoms moving through the trees to use his voice, and pocketed the phone.

Even if he had dared return to the house now, knowing someone hunted nearby, no phone meant no video. He turned back downhill. He would take his car, obtain breakfast, and come back when it could be called reasonable visiting hours. Even without the video, this was such a particular sort of secret, even the thinnest of allusions would get Lee wound up. And maybe that little bit of pressure was all he needed to push her to sell. Losing the fun of seeing her really squirm would be worth it if he never had to trek through these godforsaken trees again.

—

Heather pulled a pile of mail toward her across the desk. Gray-whiskers dead, kittens born, half the damn house out hunting for one coyote in the California hills. Sorting junk mail and paying bills seemed like the most relaxing thing she could do that morning. She checked that the door was closed then slid open the long drawer in the desk. She wriggled her hand under the address book she had started to build for herself from Mother’s records. She fished out the postcard hidden under it.

It was just junk mail, she knew. Probably everyone in the county had received one. It didn’t mean anything. She stroked a finger over the image on the front: a smiling woman, dark hair disappearing under a tall chef’s hat, flipped a pan over a tall fire, a wave of vegetables and grain caught at the peak of a toss. She did not have to turn the card over to know what it said. She had memorized it moments after it arrived, the lines refreshed in her mind every time she looked at it in secret.

Shelley University offered Heather a degree in culinary arts in just ten months, even while she worked full-time, along with financial aid, a fast-track to the restaurant of her choice, and more testimonials than you could shake your tail at. It listed a phone number to call for more information, but she had not worked up the courage to try. The last time, she had looked too young to even be out of high school and when she could not produce transcripts or a GED, well, no school wanted her when the system said she had been born yesterday.

She slipped the card back into its place and closed the drawer. She sorted the stack of mail in front of her into bills and junk mail and letters, each with its own spot on her desk. Maybe this time it would be different, she thought as she idly flipped through a catalogue offering the “Weirdest Goods on Earth,” which was not much of a selling point in her opinion, especially when weird meant ironic and scatological. She knew Mother had at least marginally authentic records for her stashed away somewhere. If she had access to that, it would change everything. She could go to school and learn to be a real chef.

Her hands stilled in their sorting as her eyes lost their focus. Working on the other side of those double doors for the first time. Maybe she could even start her own restaurant one day, right here by the House. She imagined fanciful names for her new restaurant, names for cafés and sushi bars and steak houses. She shook herself out of the daydream, but a little smile stayed on her lips. She opened each bill with a smile, wrote out the due date with a grin, and noted the balance due with a giggle.

She lifted a rubber band-bound stack from a basket and pulled off the band. The new bills were sorted into the older ones, all in order of the date they were due. She bound them up again and set them aside. On the opposite corner of her desk, the box for all the mail directed to Carlisle waited for his attention. Carlisle liked to keep those alphabetized, which Heather thought was taking organization just a bit too far, but he got his fur in a mat if she just tossed them in.

Her smile faded when she found an envelope between M, Marcel, and O, Olive, from AmeriCard Platinum. It had not been opened. With a wince, she ran the letter opener along the fold and tore out the contents.

“Well, shit.” She rubbed her gritty, aching eyes. Two weeks past due. She would have to go into town and phone in a payment before they imposed whatever punishment they used on late customers. Fees or broken knee caps, increased interest rates or indentured servitude. All much the same thing.

She thought of the day’s score again: dead cat, hurt kid, and late bill. That was three bad things for the day, outweighed by just a new kitten being born. Maybe that meant she had met her quota, she thought as she replaced the letters and stuffed the bill back in its envelope.

—

The funeral procession marched through the trees and down the far slope of the hill. Rune’s feet turned leaden and dragged him to a stop at the edge. The procession was somber and raucous by turns — crying and laughing and talking and singing, the cats mourned and celebrated their illustrious dead without restraint. Rune’s breath came fast and hard and he felt pinpricks of sweat spring up all over. People streamed around Rune, bumping into him. He could not take another step.

When he returned to the House after… after leaving Caroline, he had one intense catnip binge, during which he first encountered the specter of his wife which would haunt him for another eight years. The catnip offered no solace, only disguise; she could not find him if he never again walked the earth as a human. And if she could not find him, he need not face his own self-loathing. Even now, birds chirping and the promise of new things to eat and explore could not tempt him an inch farther from the house.

Something warm curled over his clenched hand. In the bright sun, he shivered. Heather hovered near his shoulder. “You don’t have to go,” she said.

“I want to show respect. I want…”

Heather curled her arm around his, linking them at the elbow. When she stepped, he followed. At the very end of the procession, behind the mothers with their armfuls of kittens and the dancing children and the cats so old they might join the ranks of the dead at any moment, Rune and Heather walked arm-in-arm like an old couple, taking their time.

The woods had grown only a little in the decade and change since he had last walked the paths there. This year had been damp, so toadstools sprouted in abundance and the smell of leaf mold rose heavy behind their footsteps. He realized they walked faster now. Even so, the last of the procession disappeared beyond the curve of the hill. Brush began to fill in the spaces between trees and their path narrowed to a gap between knee-high walls of gray-green foliage.

“I haven’t been this far either,” Heather said suddenly. “Mother’s buried out here.”

“I didn’t go then either,” Rune confessed. They walked over the peak of the hill and the valley opened up below them. Spines of pine trees and clouds of oak rolled away in dense ranks. The valley did not belong to them, but the rest of the hill did, just until you reached the bottom. The path opened up again, deliberate this time, and twisted around the ribs of the hill. It ended in a long terrace carved into the hill, back when such work was done with dynamite and shovels and life. The graveyard.

Three hundred years of cats were buried here, dating back to when California was little more than a fever dream of gold in the minds of Europeans. A house had come later, but the House was their home in this part of the world even then. They had come on the ships of earlier explorers. Sometimes they were the explorers themselves. They had come up from the high deserts of South America and from stranger places still. This was where they ended.

The party was in full swing down below them. Sarna had already been lowered into her grave and covered with respect, but little ceremony. The living needed the funeral more than the dead. Rune and Heather lingered at the edges of the crowd where those who knew her best told the story of Sarna’s life in wild theatrics.

Heather crouched by a grave marker laid flat into the ground. The letters, struck from black stone, crumbled into each other until the name they shaped was a long blob of paler stone. “I should see her. Finally.” She stood up. “Come with me?”

Rune slipped his arm through hers. “We’ll both pay our respects.” He could not longer tell who led whom, but they walked forward just the same.

—

Rune’s voice seemed to echo up to Heather through the sink drain. “Hand me the glue.”

She passed the slightly rusty container of glue to him through the cupboard door then peered into the gloom to watch him work. Curled partly on his side, he daubed the brush around the exposed end of the pipe. “Wrench,” he said then twisted the pipe into place. He tightened it with the wrench, gave it a tug to check that it held, and slid out from the emptied cupboard.

“Good to go?” Heather asked. She picked up a package of toilet paper and, when Rune nodded, pushed it back into the cupboard. Spare towels and soaps followed, all repackaged after the leak had slowly soaked them. “Is there anything you don’t know how to do?”

“Fixing a leaky pipe hardly makes me a jack-of-all-trades,” Rune said as he turned out the light behind them. “What’s the next test?”

“I could use help on the–” There was a knock at the door. “Hold that thought. I’ll go see who it is.”

“Expecting someone?”

“No and uninvited guests will pitch me straight over the edge today.”

“Maybe it’s just Dopple back again,” Rune said, but she saw him disappear down the hall nonetheless.

On the list of unexpected guests, if she had to contend with them at all, George Ellison was the absolute dead last one she wanted to see standing on their doorstep. “Yes?”

“Miss Lee, you’ll have to forgive me for stopping by unannounced like this. You are rather difficult to contact though.”

“What can I do for you?” Heather made no motion to let him in the door. If he thought for one minute he was walking into her home, he had another thing coming, she thought with a fierce swell of protective pride. He could intimidate her all her wanted in some lawyer’s office, but this was her home. Nobody messed with the Queen.

“I hoped you had an answer for me about taking this place off your hands.” He leaned on the door frame with a hand curled around it; she could not close the door without shutting his hand in it.

“If that’s the case, then you’re in luck,” Heather said. She jutted her chin out and stood up straight so that she could look him in the eye as he slouched. “I have no intention of selling the house. Thank you for your interest, but I don’t think we’ll need to have any further dealings.”

The man smiled slowly. It was not a good look. “I thought you might feel that way. But I think it would be in your best interest to make a home somewhere else. Somewhere a little better suited to your lifestyle.” He leaned in more so that, when Heather did not back away, his breath ghosted across her face, smelling of burnt coffee. “Someplace that allows pets, you know? Like cats?”

Heather was too paralyzed to pull away, so she just stood her ground. He knew. Somehow, he knew. Absolutely knew.

The first thing to get through to her was Rune’s smell, clean and dark and faintly chemical from the glue today. His arm curled around her waist so he could squeeze into the doorway as well. “Good morning, sir,” he said and extended a hand past her. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Ron Rutherford. I’m Heather’s boyfriend.”

Ellison recoiled from the door even as he shook Rune’s hand. “Pleasure. Heather and I were just discussing business.”

Heather looked over her shoulder to watch Rune’s face. It was one part gruff blue-collar guy, two parts Tom Sawyer-esque charmer. “It’s much too early in the morning for business. Why don’t you join us for coffee?”

“Thank you,” Ellison said as he backed away from the door. “I have a business to run, even at this hour.” He looked like he wanted to say something more to Heather, make another sly reference to whatever he had learned about them, but his eyes flicked involuntarily to Rune and he turned back to his car without a word.

The door shut with a tiny snick. Heather sagged against it. She held on to Rune’s hand when it slid away from her waist. “He knows,” she said with a hopeless shrug.

“I heard. We may have to do something about that.” He leaned against the door, facing her, and folded their hands across her stomach.

“I’m glad you were listening in. What did you do to drive him off?”

Rune grunted. “Men like him bully women, but they’re scared to death of other men. He’s nothing but a coward.” He laughed. “I haven’t used that name in a while.”

Heather looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Boyfriend?”

He blushed under his stubble. “Well, that too. Hell of a morning though, huh?”

“I don’t think I can take another one like it,” Heather agreed, but she thought maybe, with the warm weight of their hands against her, she might be wrong about that.

—

Previous Episode :: Back to Index :: Next Episode

Heather was having a good dream. She was not sure what it was about, but it was definitely good. She was warm and comfortable under a nice heavy blanket. She was…shaking? She told her eyes to snap open and her body to sit up suddenly. Instead, her eyes cracked open and she sort of rolled over and ended up on her side, feeling like a beached whale. “Mhrph?”

“Heather, wake up,” Carlisle said in a tone of voice that suggested he had said it rather more than once. Heather grumbled and tried to suffocate herself under a pillow to avoid the issue. Carlisle snatched it out of her limp hands and tossed it aside. “Wake up. I have to tell you something.”

Heather flopped onto her back, arms spread and eyes half open. “Why are you in my room? What time is it?”

“Seven. And I need to tell you something.”

“I picked up on that. Couldn’t it wait?”

Carlisle cleared his throat. “They may be here in an hour, so I thought it best to wake you now.”

Heather sat up on her elbows. “‘They’ had better be a delivery of donuts or I am never speaking to you again.”

“Humans, actually.”

“Buh?”

“The coven.”

“Buh?”

Carlisle fussed with straightening her blankets as though he intended to make the bed with Heather still in it. “I didn’t want to be the first to tell you. But there’s no avoiding it now.”

“Well, what are they coming here for?”

“Poppy never told you because the whole thing never sat right with her. She didn’t want you involved. I suppose she planned to tell you eventually, but… At any rate, they are coming here to get familiars, now that Rune can’t stop me from inviting them.”

Heather had lived as a human long enough to pick up most of the American culture. She knew what a familiar was supposed to be. She knew what humans thought about black cats, too. “They’re adopting cats? What are we, the county animal shelter?”

“Changing-cats are particularly adept familiars for them.”

“Real, honest to goodness witches?” The extent of her exposure to the occult, even just the spiritual, was the Festival of Black Cats. With all the things she had to do as a human, what time was there for anything as impractical as magic? She flopped back in bed. “Is it April already?”

“Heather, this is no joke and we are not the only House of Cats to deal with these people.” Peering at him from one eye, Heather saw him sit up a little straighter. “This has been going on for a very long time.” When she did not respond, he pulled open the curtains, letting in a wave light.

Heather groaned and curled an arm over her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice muffled by her elbow. “I’m having a very hard time wrapping my head around what sounds like slavery.”

She felt Carlisle settle on the edge of the bed. “Cats who are so inclined make the choice to go with a human to work as their partner.”

“This is just rife with potential for abuse.” She nudged him with her knee, vaguely thinking of shoving him off the bed. He did not budge and it was too much work anyway.

“Naturally.” He scooted back several defiant inches and leaned across her legs, pinning her, to rest his elbow on the other side. “Which is why they all keep in touch with the House they came from. You don’t really think all those letters I get just come from cats vacationing in Florida, do you?”

“You talk to them?”

“They write so I know they are well. Several, in point of fact, were here for the winter. They do get vacations, you know.”

Heather squiggled back to sit against the head of the bed. “And Mother never told me about this why?”

“Cats are taken as young adults and she felt it was too big a decision for them to make at that age. And it is each cat’s decision.”

“So, if I had found a human who wanted me, I could have just left and there would be nothing she could say about it.” Under the slow-burn anger, because Mother had known Heather longed to leave, she felt a twist of comfort. It was a confirmation that Mother had been, at least in part, the person Heather had known and not just the immaculate Queen everyone else seemed to worship.

Carlisle sighed and patted her leg. “Cats value their independence above all else, to be certain.” He had known, better than anyone, how deep her desperation had run.

“Do the cats live as humans?” Maybe Heather was not as unique as she had thought. Was there a world full of cats who could have helped her make her human life succeed?

Carlisle hedged, offering no encouragement. “Some establish human lives to one extent or another. Others do not.”

“And are these humans…they aren’t…involved with the cats?”

Confusion cleared into an expression of horrified amusement. “What? Oh, no. My, what cat would choose a human?”

Heather cleared her throat. “What cat, indeed,” she muttered. In her mind, a woman’s long hair twined around the words “married, 1999.” The beautiful and terrible specter of Caroline Summers haunted her. “And you’re telling me that in an hour, the House will be full of these people — with permission, no less — hunting for the perfect familiar?”

“There are only a few of them in our area, but yes.”

Heather thought of Yvonne and Ms. Dahl and the exterminators and all the humans she was not allowed to bring home. Now this, like a big joke, like Mother still telling her that Heather had to live by different rules from everyone else. “I need coffee before I cope with this. Lots and lots of coffee.”

—

Topaz shook out his hair and tugged his shirt down. He was glad he had stolen so many of Heather’s cat’s bane pills. Not to mention the money. He stepped out of the bushes near where he made his home and picked his way down the small slope to the back side of the shopping center. The trash bins smelled of mice and the walkways were littered with gold-eyed, black-feathered birds pecking after human leavings.

The woods had emptied of everything small enough for Topaz to eat, all of them gravitating to the French fries and bread crusts and popcorn bags. There was all the food you could eat, if you could dodge the people and the cars. And if you were not cute enough for someone to try to take you home. Topaz sniffed and veered towards the fast food restaurant. Eventually, his hunger would outweigh the risks of catching birds in the plaza, but as long as the money lasted, he would hunt bacon cheeseburgers instead.

With his burger in hand, Topaz sat on one of the benches in the middle of the center, where he could watch people going by. He would have to stop at the gas station that night and scrub his clothing clean in the bathroom; the stains were starting to outnumber the clean patches. It was still early, so most of the people were adults. As it got later, the teenagers would come out in droves, especially on a Saturday night. Topaz looked wistfully over at the movie theater, their preferred destination. He would love to see a movie. But his cash pile was dwindling rapidly.

He stuffed another bunch of French fries into his mouth. Maybe he could get a job. He had never tried that before. He wished he had asked Heather about her jobs when he had the chance. Homesickness turned the food into dust in his mouth. He missed Heather’s food. He missed Carlisle, even if Carlisle was never going to speak to him again. His missed everyone.

He wanted to go home.

As his hunger subsided, he noticed a scent beyond meat and grease, some foreign familiarity. He looked up. He knew that woman, rattling through the parking lot with a cart full of groceries. Where had he seen her?

Topaz was out of his seat before he realized what he was doing. She had been at the House with that man. She had talked to Heather the day Heather came home. His instinct to avoid cars fell away as he jogged after her through the parking lot. “You know Heather,” he said without preamble.

The woman jumped and flinched away. She would not recognize Topaz, of course. He had not thought of that. And he looked awful, he knew, grimy and foul, not like a proper cat should. “Heather Lee?”

“We’re friends. We–” Topaz almost said they lived together, which was both no longer true and not in line with Heather’s cover story. “I helped her move in. Do you think you could–” Get a message to her, he wanted to say.

“I’ve got to talk to her,” the woman said, running right over Topaz’s plea with one of her own. She grabbed his forearm when he leaned away. “You’ll be seeing her, won’t you?”

Topaz could not bear the thought of never making it home. “Yeah, I’ll see her sometime.”

“She doesn’t have a cell phone or a home phone. What am I supposed to do, send her a letter?”

“You could,” Topaz said and wondered where he could get a postcard and a stamp to send one. Dear Carlisle, he thought. No, dear Heather. Dear Rune? Who would bring him home? Dear home.

“George won’t wait forever,” she said. She touched her cheek then rubbed her left hand. “She has to accept our offer. We need the money — We want to close the deal.” She turned away. With the press of a button, the trunk of her car swung open and she started loading paper bags into it.

Topaz fidgeted. The cars moving around the lot made him nervous and something ugly twisted around in his belly. He remembered the name George from Heather’s first day as well. He remembered George and the woman had talked about a buyer being interested. They had been talking about the House. “She won’t sell,” Topaz said, sick in his certainty that this was the reason the woman wanted to talk to Heather.

The woman’s back tensed. She straightened up but did not turn to face him. “Please inform Ms. Lee that I would like to speak to her at her earliest possible convenience.” Her voice cracked at the end.

Topaz backed away. She did not see him shake his head in mute denial. Then he turned and dashed away. He ran past the remains of his food and the bird pecking at it. He stopped. He hated to do it, but he went back, shooed the bird away, and bundled up the leftovers. Eventually, he thought, his appetite would probably return, when that ugly feeling stopped gnawing at him.

—

Freshly showered and barely dressed, Heather rushed downstairs to answer the door. She had no idea how to deal with this situation. What was she supposed to say? Welcome to the House of Cats; please don’t adopt anyone I like?

She opened the door. A truck and two SUVs were parked in front of the house and eight people clustered on front step. One woman started to say something and offer her hand, but Heather stared past her. “I know you,” she said.

A woman in her forties peered around from the back of the group. “Heather?”

Smooth out the lines. Lighten the hair. Drop back thirty years. “Umber?”

Umber pushed her way to the front of the group and threw her arms around Heather. “I can’t believe it’s you. It’s been ages.”

Heather cautiously returned the embrace. “A few lifetimes. What are you doing here?”

“Same as last time,” Umber said. “I’m picking out my own changing-cat this time.” She still had a hand on Heather’s shoulder.

It would be rude to shrug her off. Heather tried to hold still. “Is that why you were here last time?”

“What else would we be doing here? You guys won’t let us get near the place. I’m surprised you didn’t meet us at the door with a shotgun and a nondisclosure form.” Her laugh was bright and warm and had not aged at all.

“I was kind of young at the time.” Heather smiled reluctantly. “I don’t remember anyone but you being here.”

“Naw, my parents were here to get a familiar. I was just along for the ride.”

Someone coughed discretely. “May we come in?”

Heather looked up. Oh, right. Everyone else. “Please. Welcome to the House of Cats. I’m told there are rooms ready for you down here.”

Heather led them to the rooms Carlisle had said would be set up for them. They were down at the far end of the house, past the kitchen and tucked away. The room where Rune had convalesced was down there as well. She did not know if he was still sleeping there. “There are two, so I’ll leave it up to you to decide who goes where.”

Umber tossed her overnight bag into the room and took Heather by the arm. “Come on. We’ve got thirty years to catch up on. See you guys later,” she called over her shoulder. She steered Heather towards the kitchen. “I can’t believe how little the house has changed. That was the coolest weekend ever. I never forgot it.”

Heather had thought of that time over the years with protective fondness. She had warmed herself over that memory whenever human life became too difficult. Umber could do this, she would tell herself. “I had never met a human my own age before,” Heather said.

Umber looked her up and down. “Speaking of which, you’ve got to tell me what wrinkle cream you use. You’ve barely aged.” She turned into the solarium without looking, as though she had long since mapped the whole house in her mind.

Heather shook her head. “Extenuating circumstances. I always thought of you as still being ten years old.”

“I wish! Well, no,” she said as she sat down. “Then I would have to go through being a teenager again. No thank you.”

Heather curled up on the couch facing Umber. “This is so weird. I never knew why you were here. I thought there must have been some mistake, that you got lost here or something. I didn’t know there were regular humans involved with the House.”

“Try being ten years old and seeing a changing-cat for the first time. When Wendell died, it was like losing my brother.” Umber looked away, her mouth pressed thin. She sniffed. “Sorry. You would think I would be okay after five years. Everyone said he died young, even for your kind.”

“I’m sorry. I just found out this year that my Mother had died.”

“You didn’t know?”

“It’s a long story,” Heather said.

Umber spread her hands. “I’m not going anywhere. Truth is, it’s a little hard to even look at cats. Replacing Wendell, well, it’s just not possible.” She shook her head and gave Heather a lopsided smile. “So. Let’s hear it.”

—

Rune had been trailing the humans all day and every time he thought he would be able to get one of them alone, another cat came along and interrupted. He suspected they were trying to keep him away from them, rightly concerned that he would take exception to them being there. But that was before he found Heather with one of them. No one else was around. The two women sat on the couch, gossiping like school girls. They had not moved all day.

“Excuse me, Heather,” he said and jumped onto the back of the couch.

“Hi. What’s up?”

“I’m afraid I have to borrow her,” he said and tilted his head towards the human, “for a while.”

Heather looked suspicious. “You’re not going to do something hideous to her, are you?”

Rune glared. “You’ve never seen one of these events before. So you will be no help at all in doing background checks on the humans.”

“Background checks? What, you’re our security guard now?”

“As a matter of fact. If you don’t believe me, just go ask Carlisle,” Rune said, hoping against hope that Heather would not call his bluff.

Heather finally shrugged. “Umber, I’ll catch up with you later. And if he’s rude to you,” she said with a glance and a raised eyebrow at Rune, “just give him a good shake by the scruff of the neck. You have my permission.”

Umber laughed. “Sure thing. I’ll see you later.” When Heather was out of earshot, she patted the seat cushion. “It’s funny you should bring up Carlisle. Because he already did background interviews on all of us by mail. So I’m wondering what you really want to talk about.”

“You won’t tell Heather, will you?” Rune asked as he jumped down to sit with her.

“That depends. Is it something bad?”

“It’s something devious. But not bad.” He curled his tail around his body like a bolster. “She’ll be happy about it. Eventually.” He grimaced, baring his teeth momentarily. “I need a favor,” he bit out at last.

“What sort of favor?”

“You’ve been talking to her all day. You haven’t looked at any of the cats here or talked to anyone else. Are you really going to choose a familiar?”

Umber leaned sideways and rested her head against the back of the couch. “I thought I was ready to have a changing-cat in my life again. I think I was wrong.”

Jackpot. “My friend needs to go into town. But there’s no way her mother will let her on her own.”

“You need a taxi service, in other words. And a chaperone.”

“My brother is out there somewhere. He did something to help me and got banished for it.”

Umber sat up with a look of disgust. “You banish people here? I mean, how can you? Where else is a cat supposed to go? You are the place, aren’t you?”

“Stay focused,” Rune snapped. “Are you willing to go without a cat this year? I would make sure that it doesn’t reflect poorly on you.”

“Why aren’t you taking her into town?” Umber asked archly. “Or Heather?”

“I can’t leave the House,” Rune muttered. “And Heather can’t because Carlisle is her best friend and he did the banishing.”

“So you’re going behind everyone’s back. Sounds dangerous.” But her eyes sparkled with mischief. She no doubt thought the House was a magical paradise. There could be no real danger there. Idiot.

“I just need to get my brother back here. I won’t let them send him away again.”

“What about this kitten?”

“It was her idea,” Rune said with an embarrassed smile.

“My kind of kid.” She reached out like she would pet him or ruffle his fur but stopped even before he glared at her. “Introduce me to her then. I’ll go along with this.”

“You understand that if anything happens to her, if you prevent her from coming home or–”

“Stop,” Umber said and slashed her hand through the air to cut off his words. “Don’t even go there. I grew up with a changing-cat for a brother. I’ll make sure your kitten stays safe.”

Rune hesitated. But Heather knew this woman and seemed to trust her. And Carlisle might be a cold-hearted, brother-banishing son of a dog, but Rune believed he took his job seriously. Umber had to be the safest choice. “Wait here. I can’t be seen setting this up, so I’ll send Rafflesia out to you.”

—

Heather waited one short second between knocking on the door and opening it. Voices bloomed as it opened, cats and humans chatting amiably in cat-speak. The humans, all veterans in a part of her world she hardly knew, spoke fluently. By the window, Umber had Rafflesia on her lap and the two were speaking in low voices.

“Hey, Heather,” Umber called and waved her over.

Heather dropped to her knees beside them. “Rafflesia, your mother is beside herself.”

“She’ll calm down in a while. I just told her and she took it pretty hard,” Rafflesia said.

“That’s an understatement.” She chewed on a thumbnail, trying to decide what to say. Good luck out there? Don’t go? It’s harder than you think?

“Auntie Heather, this is my decision,” Rafflesia said firmly. “I want to go on an adventure.”

“Heather, you know I wouldn’t pressure her into this,” Umber said.

Heather did not know that. She liked the idea that she had a childhood friend, a human she could trust. But Rafflesia was her friend now as well. “Just, just give us a minute, would you?”

Rafflesia stretched and jumped down to the floor. “Come on, then. We’ll talk outside.”

Heather followed Rafflesia past the other humans, who were all listening intently while trying to pretend they were not. The cats made no such pretense for their part.

Out in the hall, Heather knelt again. “Are you really sure you want to do this? You’ve hardly ever been away from home and never without your mother.”

“Are you saying I’m going to get homesick? I know this is a big deal. But it’s not like Umber’s going to lock me up for the rest of my life. I can come here on holidays. I’ll see everyone again.”

“It’s not just that. Your whole life will be different.” There were so many things Heather could teach her, so many warnings she could give her, so many mistakes she could save her from, if only Rafflesia would wait.

Rune trotted up to them. Heather noticed Rafflesia’s eyes dart to the side before she shook her head.  “I would expect you to encourage her.”

Heather sputtered, “You? You’re telling her to go?”

“I talked to Rafflesia about it before she told her mother,” he said as though that explained everything.

Rafflesia hissed to get their attention. “I don’t want you two playing tug-o-war over me. It’s not your decision.” She put her paws up on Heather’s knees. “But it would be nice if you gave it your blessing. You have all these great things you’ve done, all these places you’ve seen, and I want to see them too.”

Heather sighed. What she would not have given for someone to offer her permission, even encouragement, when she wanted to leave. She would have known she was welcome to come back without fearing she would be trapped again. “Of course.” She stroked a hand over Rafflesia’s ears. “You should do what you want. And I know we don’t have much time, but ask me any questions you have.”

Rafflesia purred. “Thank you.”

“Go on. Umber will be wondering what you’re doing.” Heather closed the door behind Rafflesia. Then she turned on Rune, who had been watching in silence. “I can’t believe you.”

“Because heaven forbid I change my attitude towards humans or living outside,” Rune grumbled.

“No, I mean, I actually fail to believe you. I think you’re up to something. I’m not sure I like it, whatever it is.” Heather lurched to her feet. “But I hope you know what you’re getting Raff into,” she said. “She’ll pay the price if this goes wrong.”

Rune shrugged. “Not if I can help it.”

—

Rafflesia purred as Valoria groomed her one last time. “Are you sure you won’t come down to see me off?” She did not even mind when her mother’s rasping tongue rumpled the fur between her ears and smoothed it down again for a second time.

Valoria rested her chin on her daughter’s head. “I’ll just make a scene, dear.”

“I’ll be back before you know it. I promise.” She knew it was true and even so, her stomach churned.

Valoria bumped their heads together. “You’d better get going.”

Rafflesia jumped up onto the bathroom counter and gulped down the cat’s bane pills Heather had given her. As she dressed and pulled her hair up into a bouncy pony tail, she admired herself in the mirror. She had to touch the mirror and watch her hand connect with its reflection, hardly believing it was really her in the mirror. She grinned. Even if she was not really leaving for good, she planned to enjoy her adventure all the same. When she left the bathroom, her mother had gone. Nodding to herself, trying to remember it would be easier without mom there, she slung the backpack over her shoulder and headed downstairs.

All the other cats were going unchanged. The humans loaded them into carriers, ready to go in the various vehicles. Heather and Carlisle presided over everything, but Rune was no where in sight. He had come to her in the night with last pieces of advice:

“Don’t leave Umber for any reason. Don’t let anyone separate you. And if anyone asks, she is your aunt and you’re with her for spring break.”

 

“And Topaz? What do you want me to say to him?”

 

“Just get him back here. You have enough cat’s bane for both of you?”

 

“And a change of clothes for Topaz. Everything’s packed.”

 

“Okay. Get home safe, kid.”

Umber looked up from the cats she was talking to and saw Rafflesia. “Hey, check you out. Looking good.”

Rafflesia stood beside her. Her hands would not stop sweating. “I’m ready to go.” Her voice shook as she said it.

“Not so fast,” Heather said. Rafflesia felt a jolt, part fear and part hope, at the idea that Heather would stop her at the last minute. But all she said was, “Aren’t you going to say goodbye to me?”

Rafflesia willed Heather to sense though the hug they shared that she intended to come home again. She hated to make Heather worry. “Thank you,” she said.

“For what?” Heather asked, still holding her.

“For trusting me to do this.”

In a whisper, Heather said, “I trust you and Rune both.” She pulled away. “I know you’re going to be fine. You’ll make us all proud. And we’ll see you again.”

Rafflesia waved goodbye as Umber’s truck pulled away from the house. She watched, twisted backwards in her seat, until the rise of the hill blocked it from sight. She turned around with a sigh. “That was harder than I thought it would be,” she said.

Next to her, Umber said, “Growing up always is.”

—

Rafflesia turned in a slow circle. “He’s not here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do you see someone who looks like that?”

“So? Can you just sniff him out?”

Rafflesia gave her a look of withering scorn. “Do I look like a dog to you?”

“I just thought –”

“Shh. Let me think.” She scanned the plaza. When they came here with Heather, they went home through the back lot. She pulled Umber after her by the hand. “Through here,” she said as they slipped down a small path running between the end of a block of stores and the unused patio of a restaurant.

“But there’s no one back here,” Umber said.

“If he’s not out with the humans, he’s holed up for the day,” Rafflesia said and crossed the parking lot. A hill of scrubby brush and oak trees rose behind it, headed in the direction of the House. A billboard planted halfway up proclaimed it the location of the Shadow Hills Plaza Extension, but the hill was otherwise untouched. Rafflesia walked past the first tree and stopped.

“What–?”

Rafflesia hushed her again. She turned her head; stupid ears, fastened in one place all the time. Umber watched her with interest, her own head cocked as well. Nothing. She continued up into the trees.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Umber said.

“Neither did I. I just have to think like him. He has to be staying out here to sleep and change.” She braced against a tree trunk as she climbed over a ledge of rocks. “Not too close to the edge — he could be seen as a human.” Heather said that when they all had to hide in the woods behind the house. “Up in a tree, out of reach.” Elly and Rune knew that; a cat in danger always seeks higher ground. “But Topaz will be here, around people. He loves them, which is, okay, weird.” But the heart wants what it wants, Mysti had told her when she asked about toms and queens and kittens and why Mysti went away all the time.

“Up there,” Umber said. She was out of breath and leaned back against a tree, pointing up into another. “Bag.”

Topaz’s bag was wedged into the crook of a tree. Rafflesia tipped her head back. Up in the high branches there was gold amid the green. “Topaz,” she called, low and soft. He moved, but did not come down. He smells Umber, she thought. “Topaz, it’s me, Rafflesia.”

There are taboos against picking up cats, but when Topaz jumped and clawed his way down the tree and catapulted into Rafflesia’s waiting arms, there was nothing she could do but clutch him to her chest and rub her cheek against his head.

He pushed back against her, tucking his head under her chin to share scent, purring all the while. At last, in a ragged voice, he said, “Man, are you a sight for sore eyes.”

Rafflesia laughed and clutched him tighter. “It’s time to go home.”

—

Topaz watched as Umber shut the door to her motel room behind her. On the bed, Rafflesia sprawled on her stomach, TV remote in hand. Topaz jumped from floor to bed to her back. He kneaded her shirt gently, getting the feel of her under his paws, then settled down. Rafflesia turned up the volume on the TV with a glance at the far wall.

“We’ll need to put in an appearance later,” Umber said in a low voice as she sat next to them. The TV almost drowned her out, even side by side. But next door was another room where a cat and human stayed and they did not want to be overheard. “Everyone is going to eat dinner in there.” She jerked her thumb towards the wall.

“How are we going to explain when I leave?” Rafflesia asked. Her breathing pitched Topaz like a cork on a wave.

Umber shrugged. “Just tell them. If you say you want to go home, that’s that. I’d be in more trouble if I stopped you. Maybe Heather will let me stay a bit when we get back.”

“Do you think Carlisle will talk to me yet?” Topaz asked. He spoke to Rafflesia, but he watched Umber. A human talking in cat-speak. She looked different somehow, not like a cat when changed. All human. It was amazing. He watched as she got up again and pulled a plastic bag from her suitcase. Inside were bottles of shampoo and soap. He concentrated on her movements, which had an odd elegance to them, even if they were so much clumsier than a cat’s.

Under him, Rafflesia made an unhappy noise. “I think he’s still pretty upset. Did you know he and Rune don’t get along? They make nasty faces behind each other’s backs.”

“At least I can count on Rune and Heather being happy to see me. Did she give you all that stuff?” Topaz asked with a flick of his tail to indicate her backpack.

“Some of it,” Rafflesia said slowly. “Rune and I didn’t exactly tell her what we were doing.”

Hearing Rafflesia speak with anything less than bright, teenaged enthusiasm surprised him. “But she knows, right?”

“Oh, sure. I mean, she pretty much said so before I left.”

“You mean she just figured it out?” Topaz’s tail thrashed so much Rafflesia had to bat it away from her head. “Did Carlisle actually rescind my banishment?”

“Not exactly.”

“Had Heather overruled him?”

“Not exactly.”

“Raff, did anyone other than you and Rune decide I could come back?”

“Not exactly,” she said with the misery Topaz suddenly felt. “But Rune said all you had to do was come home and he would take care of everything.”

Topaz jumped from her back and paced across the bed. “I’m still banished. I’m not allowed back.”

Rafflesia rolled onto her side so she could gesture at him with one arm. “Heather will let you back as soon as she sees you.”

“No, she won’t! You don’t understand.” Quietly, he said, “You didn’t see the way she looked at me after the fire.” Like he had betrayed all her trust. Like their friendship had been irrevocably spoiled. “She won’t forgive me and neither will Carlisle.”

“Heather said she would see me soon,” she said, a desperate edge to her voice. Her cheeks flushed red under a smattering of freckles. “She meant she knew I would come home with you.”

“You think. You think that’s what she meant. I bet she didn’t really know what you were doing.”

“Topaz, you have to come home with me. Look at you. You’re skinny. Your fur is matted. You can’t stay out here.”

“I won’t go where I’m not welcome.” His fur bristled at the thought. He had been kicked out of a home once before this. She could not imagine what it was like to be driven away by someone you loved. “I won’t go.”

Across the room, Umber crinkled the plastic bag in her hands. She looked between Rafflesia and Topaz, eyebrows pulled together and a tooth biting into her lower lip. “This is an unexpected complication,” she said with a sour twist to her mouth. “Maybe I won’t be seeing Heather again as soon as I thought.”

—

Previous Episode :: Back to Index :: Next Episode

The vet snapped off his rubber gloves and tossed them into the pile of used gauze pads and paper wrappers. Rune, propped up by pillows in bed, rubbed his nose to clear the antiseptic burn. The human’s noise and smell and mess were so different from Heather’s quiet, efficient attentions. “Everything looks fine,” he said. “Your girlfriend has done a good job taking care of you.”

Rune and Heather looked at each other and back at him. “She’s not–” and “I’m not–” they muttered together.

The vet did not seem to notice. “I want you to take it easy on those hands– paws– er, anyway, for a little while longer. I can’t say if the scars will fade when you change, but the new tissue will be tender at the very least.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Heather said. “Though after four weeks, I’m not sure I have the heart to make him rest any longer. I’m going pretty stir crazy myself.” Heather followed the doctor out, chatting away with him, probably saying what an awful patient Rune had been.

Rune swung his feet over the side of the bed and put them down. It felt like he had not set foot out of bed in all that time. It was like learning to walk all over again. He wiggled his toes. He flexed his ankles. He failed to swish his tail or twitch his ears. Human.

He had gotten used to the idea after what must have been the fiftieth change out of three hundred. But he had been out of his head anyway. Now, weak but lucid, he was no longer sure he was prepared to go back to his dual life. The closed door of the bedroom looked like the edge of the world.

He stood up, letting the sheets fall away from his bare skin. Heather had brought him clothing, which was laid out over the back of the desk chair. She had asked him what he used to like wearing, as though she expected him to demand silk slacks and a top hat. He was happy enough to just pull on the faded jeans and the long-sleeved t-shirt. Anything to ward off the cold that seemed to suffuse his body down to the marrow.

Once dressed, he washed in the bathroom and examined his face in the mirror. The last time he had seen himself, he had been what, twenty? Twenty-five? By human looks, at least. He leaned close to the mirror and pushed his skin around with a fingertip. There were lines where once there had been none, laid down around his mouth and eyes, roads running across his forehead. He ran a hand through his hair. At least he still had that, a gray dandelion puff cropped close to his head.

He went back and sat on the edge of the bed, but that felt like a retreat. He got up and opened the blinds, letting in the milky light of an overcast day. He shivered and rubbed his arms; it looked cold out, like rain was on the way. He looked back at the door. He could go out any time he wanted. He sat down at the desk. Maybe in a minute.

Heather leaned in the doorway, one hand on her hip. “Well? What are you waiting for? A royal invitation?”

He had gotten used to seeing her, too, during his recovery. In the long stretches between bandage changes and bathroom runs, it had been her face in his mind. For a time he had thought of Caroline, remembering snippets of their time together. Somewhere along the way, though, Caroline had begun to look like Heather. The memories shifted. Where there had been human life, he started to remember cat life.

He closed his eyes and saw Heather; he opened them and found her looking down at him as though she had been there all along. “Yes,” he said when she just kept watching him.

She smiled and held out her hand. “So, I’m inviting you.” He took her hand and let her lead him from the room, out into the rest of the house and the rest of the world.

—

Heather tottered from side to side, each arm held out stiffly, each hand full of plastic bags, each bag heavy with newly purchased seedlings. She lowered them gently down onto the back patio and flexed her stiff and reddened fingers. She poked idly at the debris in the yard with her toe. No one had bothered to clean up the charred remains of Topaz’s bonfire and Heather had not had time while caring for Rune. Now that he was well again, though, she could go back to work.

The house had a small, attached shed at the corner, just past the reel of garden hose, which contained all the household tools. There was an old red toolbox with unrecognizable wrenches and drill bits and spare bolts. There was a bundle of rebar, left over from god knows what, a lawnmower with no gasoline, a slightly tattered tarp, and a sawhorse. The walls were studded with nails and hooks, on which everything from shovels to hammers hung. Heather grabbed a trowel and a shovel from the wall and slammed the creaking door behind her.

The trowel waited with the plants while Heather, in a new pair of garden gloves, shoveled burned wood fragments and stinking lumps of melted plastic into a garbage bag. She shuffled back and forth from the scattered ashes to the bag, sweating under her sweater despite the cool and damp air. When everything had been cleared away, she looked down at the patch of ground where once the garden had been. It was an awful lot of work, she thought, for something that might be a huge mistake. But she knew what it was like to be a young cat; they would get it somewhere else if they had to.

She glanced over at the plants, out of sight for the moment in their bags. Cat’s bane and catnip, a dozen small plants of each. She had considered leaving the garden fallow. She needed too much cat’s bane on a regular basis to rely on the garden alone, so she had no personal need to replant it. And if she had asked Carlisle — which she had somehow forgotten to do before leaving to do her shopping that morning — he would no doubt have told her putting catnip in front of Rune would be a mistake. It would, in fact, doom him to a relapse.

Heather stomped the shovel deeper into the ground then pushed up a clump of damp dirt. Rune would never be able to touch catnip again, Heather knew, like any other recovering addict. But if he never faced the object of his addiction again and lived in a bubble, how could anyone be sure that he could resist? That would be no better than his edict against cat’s bane before Heather arrived, just another way of running away.

Heather worked her way across the plot of ground, turning up dirt and breaking the lumps apart with the point of the shovel. On the other hand, she thought, it would all be wasted effort if they moved. She had not forgotten about George Ellison’s offer, though she had still not brought herself to tell Carlisle. Would it be so bad, moving to a new house? It never crossed her mind to abandon her duties; she must rule a House of Cats here. But ‘here’ could be flexible, couldn’t it?

Heather put the shovel back by the shed and uncoiled the hose. A new house, one that did not fall apart if you looked at it funny, she thought as she sprayed water over the tilled soil. Someplace closer to town so that running errands did not require a map and a day’s supply of water. Someplace with flatter land that they could protect with fences and gates to keep the humans out. Mind in turmoil, Heather settled in with her seedlings and her freshly turned ground to plant and debate.

—

Rune barely recognized anyone. Even before the catnip became a problem, a real problem, he had avoided everyone during the Leo moons. Now, everyone looked like as much of a stranger as his own reflection. Everyone was older. He recognized some of the kittens from Christmas when they had changed to open presents. He walked in a daze through the house, passing cats without knowing who they were. But there was one face he would welcome.

“Have you seen Topaz lately?” Rune asked a cluster of cats playing poker around the kitchen table. They all shook their heads. He heard them whisper as he walked away, but could not make out what they said.

Rune looked through the upstairs bedrooms. He checked the backyard, but did not go out. Mist hung in the air and everything looked sodden and cold. He checked the kitchen and the room in which he had recovered. He checked the attic. Finally, he found Carlisle going through folders of receipts in Heather’s office. “Good. You’ll know.”

Carlisle smiled between fastidiously sorting slips of paper into piles. “Good to see you up and about. What will I know?”

“Did Topaz go into town today?” Rune was startled by the expression of deep pain that passed over Carlisle’s face. Had something happened to Topaz? He remembered his brother coming to visit him and apologizing for something, but it was all very hazy.

But Carlisle’s expression cooled even as Rune watched. “You’ve been very sick. I’m not surprised you don’t remember. I’m sure Heather did not want to upset you by bringing it up.”

“Tell me.”

“Topaz set fire to the garden, not to mention a good quantity of lumber and all the catnip in the House. He’s gone.” Carlisle stood up and leaned with his hands resting on the desktop. “There was nothing anyone could do.”

Rune’s lip curled as he said, “You banished him,” and he crossed his arms over his chest. Carlisle had not been able to boot Rune from the House, at least once because of Topaz’s loyalty. Now Topaz had taken the fall for Rune once again.

Carlisle stood up straight. Even in a vest and slacks and all tousled hair, his age made him intimidating. He might not be a gray-whisker yet, but he made Rune feel like a naughty schoolboy all the same. “He made his decision.”

But Carlisle was still an intellectual and a bureaucratic wimp and apparently also a cold-hearted bastard, because you had to be blind to not know there had been something going on between him and Topaz. There was no way Rune would turn tail to him. “Undo it.”

“I can’t–”

Rune unfolded his arms, drawing attention to his broader chest and bulkier shoulders. It was no substitute for a properly bristled tail, but it was better than nothing. “Undo it and bring him back. He only did it to help me. Besides, I deserve it more than he ever could.”

Carlisle tucked his chin and made a wide-mouthed hiss to one side before speaking again. “And the next time he decides to do something for your own good? Or any other reason? Will he burn something else down to make a point?” Carlisle looked away. “I’m sorry, but he’s a danger to the House.”

“Heather would want him to come back.”

Carlisle flinched. “And do you think I’m happy he’s gone? This is about more than what I want.” Carlisle sat down again, forearms braced on the desk and head hanging low. “Besides, I don’t know where he is to tell him to return, even if I could.”

“You’re banishing an innocent cat just so you can follow the letter of the law.”

Carlisle laughed weakly. “I can hardly imagine the word innocent applying to Topaz.”

Rune stalked out of the room before he decided to jump Carlisle just to get some sort of concession out of him. Rune hadn’t the strength for it anyway. He pounded down the stairs, anger giving him a burst of energy. If Carlisle would not help him, Rune would just go over his head. Heather would agree with Rune and she never followed the rules in the first place. Rune just had to get Topaz back to the House so Heather could reinstate him.

—

Heather jogged from the backyard to the kitchen, chasing after Carlisle as he passed through. “Just the person I wanted to see,” she said.

Carlisle looked at her grass-stained knees and the dirt under her fingernails. “You certainly are a wreck.”

“I’ve been gardening,” she said as she scrubbed the dirt from her hands in the kitchen sink. “I need to talk to you.”

“Is this about what Rune said?”

Heather looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Huh? No, why? Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing. My mistake.” He uncrossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “What’s on your mind?”

Heather dried her hands off on the dish towel then stood fidgeting with it. “You know how I met with Ms. Dahl a while ago? There’s something I didn’t tell you.”

“Are we running out of money?”

“No, no,” Heather said and hopped onto the counter. She worried the faded towel between her hands, looking at it instead of Carlisle. “She invited this man to the meeting. George Ellison. He’s the one who was at the House with her when I first arrived, remember?”

“Vaguely,” Carlisle said with a dismissive tilt of his head. “Who is he, a coworker?”

“I’m not sure what he is. He didn’t really say what he does. But he doesn’t work with her.” Heather stopped then. She could not think of how to tell Carlisle, no matter how many times she had gone over the conversation in her head.

“What did he want?” Carlisle prompted her.

“The House,” Heather said then fell silent again.

“The–?”

Heather threw down the towel before she tore its thin fabric. “He wants to buy the House from us. From me.”

Carlisle laughed, but it sounded strained. A muscle in his cheek jumped. “Ms. Dahl must be worse at her job than I realized. Or else she did not speak to him before inviting him to your meeting. It’s not possible.”

“She says it is,” Heather said meekly.

“Nonsense. The trust has to remain in the family.”

“Yeah, but it’s not really hereditary. The last holder writes their successor into the trust. Just like Mother did with me.”

“Well, yes, I suppose you could theoretically name anyone. But I don’t see the point. You won’t name him, so it’s not possible.” Carlisle stared at her intensely, no doubt waiting for her to jump in with agreement.

“I just wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea. Selling. This house.”

Carlisle put a hand on her knee. “I understand how much stress you’ve been under, caring for Rune the way you did. It’s only natural that you feel the need to escape.”

“We could buy a new place. Land we can fence, a house that doesn’t fall down around us.” She started to remember all the arguments she had constructed. “This is open land in California. It’s worth a lot of money.”

“Out of the question,” Carlisle snapped. “You’re not to see that fellow again. We’ll find someone new to handle the estate if we must.” He turned his back on her, but paused before leaving. “I know you hate it here, but scheming to take the House from all of us… I expected more from you, Heather.”

Heather leaned back on the counter so her head rested against the cabinet doors. She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “That went over like a lead balloon,” she said to herself. She repeated the annoyed click then hopped down. She opened the refrigerator. Only one thing to do in a situation like this: cook something amazing.

—

Rune’s back ached and his fingers were throbbing with his pulse and all he wanted was to lie down somewhere. “If you see him,” he said to the cats in front of him, “in town or so, let him know I’m looking for him.”

The cats all nodded in agreement. “Of course we will. Don’t you worry.”

Rune nodded and plodded back up the hall and into the solarium. He sank boneless into a recliner and curled up on his side. He had been all over the house, talking to anyone he recognized and just about anyone he did not. Everyone assured him that they would do their best to find Topaz. Without, that is, actually agreeing to look for him. They were appeasing Rune, he knew, and he had no way of getting them to do more. He had no authority since Heather arrived, no respect since his last bad trip, and no charisma since he slithered out of bed.

“Hey,” a female voice said somewhere in front of him.

He cracked an eye open. Rafflesia waved to him, but her normally animated face was serious. “You’re the first friendly face I’ve seen since morning,” he said.

“I wanna help you find Topaz.”

Rune closed his eye. “That’s nice. Thanks. Everyone is very willing to talk to him if they see him.”

He felt her snap her fingers in front of his nose. “Wake up! I mean looking for him. Finding him and bringing him home.”

Rune uncurled and sat up. “And how do you propose to do that?”

Rafflesia pouted. “I don’t know. I just figured I would go look for him. Outside. You know,” she said and leaned close to him, “outside.”

“You’re a little young to be running away from home,” Rune said.

Rafflesia rolled her eyes in such a theatrical way, he half believed she practiced in front of the mirror. “I’m not going to stay out there. Jeez. I’m not dumb. But if I borrow some of Auntie Heather’s cat’s bane, I can stay human and nothing will attack me.”

“You’ve thought this through.”

She sat on the couch beside him, tucked her feet under her butt and leaned across the armrest. “Yeah, hello, I told you: I want to get Topaz back too. And you’re not going to go after him yourself, are you? You never go beyond the yard.”

Rune winced. From the mouths of babes, he thought. “I’m not healthy enough yet,” he said, which was true as far as things go, but rather missed the point. “So you’re just going to walk out the door and start calling his name? You need a better plan than that.”

“I have a plan,” she said with her nose in the air. “But you won’t like it. And if you tell anybody, I’ll, I’ll tell Heather you like her.”

Rune smiled at the little girl threat. “I wouldn’t want that, now would I?”

“Do you promise not to tell?”

“Promise.” He drew a cross over his heart with a finger. She probably had no idea what that meant, but she seemed satisfied. “What’s the daring plan?”

“It’ll take a while,” she hedged. “I know you want to find him now, but if we wait a couple weeks, I heard Carlisle saying that the coven is going to come here.”

Rune growled and lurched forward. The longer the day wore on, the more he missed the feeling of his coat puffing when he was angry. “You are not going with them.”

Rafflesia retreated not an inch. He could have pitied his inability to intimidate her, except he thought it had more to do with her strong personality than his weak state. “I just need them to take me along for a while. Mom will never let me go otherwise.”

“And what if they don’t want to let you go? You never know what humans are really capable of.”

“Please. I’ll take cat’s bane all that day. No one’s going to do anything if I’m human.” She rolled her eyes again. “I’ll just ask them to take me into town. Topaz will be there. He loves humans. He’ll be near them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Completely. I’ll find him there and we’ll come home together.” She nodded once, the look so serious as to be comical. Her confidence was absolute, even if Rune had his doubts. “But I need you to help me convince one of the humans to take me with them.”

“They won’t be allowed to take another if they do. It will be difficult.”

Rafflesia grinned as if to say, yes, of course, where’s the fun otherwise? “Are you up for it?”

Rune massaged his eyes. He would live to regret this, he was certain. But Topaz would have done this and more for him. He already had risked everything. And even if she did not really know what she was getting into, Rafflesia was willing to take the same risks. There was only one possible answer. “I’m in.”

—

Heather sat on the front steps with a sandwich and a big mug of hot tea. It was not the amazing food she had originally intended, but the passion for cooking had left her almost as soon as it arrived. But cheddar and apple on sourdough had just the right blend of sweet and savory that made the sandwich seem above ordinary. Cooking had fallen by the wayside while she nursed Rune. With all her free time broken up, it had felt like she spent weeks just waiting for it to be time to check his bandages or bring him food again.

The front door opened and she heard two sets of feet leave the house — clomp-clomp and tap-tap. “Aren’t you cold out here?” Dopple asked as her black boots appeared at Heather’s side. She dropped to a crouch and, when Heather moved her plate, sprawled next to her on the steps.

Heather leaned forward to look at the sky past the overhang of the porch. Dark clouds scudded across the sky, blown by a swift wind. They piled up against the western horizon. She rubbed her hands over her arms, chaffing warmth into them with the thick wool of her sweater. “Smells good at least,” she said. She took a bite of her sandwich and leaned back again.

Mysti leaned against the column at one side of the steps. Her own top was low-cut and goose bumps stood out on her exposed skin. Dopple looped an arm around one of Mysti’s legs. “Carlisle told me.”

“Whatever he said, it’s not like that,” Heather said. “I’m not trying to close the House of Cats.”

“You can,” Dopple said.

Heather twisted around to face her. “When did you get replaced by a robot?”

“Dumb ass. You’re the Queen. You have all the power here.”

Heather laughed. “The prime minister just scolded the Queen. He might as well have sent me to bed without dinner and grounded me from going out with my friends, just to complete the humiliation.”

Dopple looked like she swallowed the first five things that came to mind in response, which made it even worse when the first thing that actually came out was, “Are you feeble-minded in some capacity? Do you have a spine?” Dopple glared at her. “He only does that because you let him.”

“Yeah, this is building up my confidence by leaps and bounds,” Heather said.

“Oh, Carlisle, pay the bills for me,” Dopple said in a sing-song whine. “Talk to people for me. Do my job. I have to go fry a soufflé.”

“That is it!” Heather leapt to her feet. “First of all, you bake a soufflé, you cretin, and second, you and Carlisle and everyone else, you can say what you want about my leaving, but I have busted my ass since I got here.” Heather gestured with her sandwich so violently, a slice of apple flew out and landed in Dopple’s lap. “What’s more, if I’m so important to the House, it would be swell if someone actually listened to what I have to say.”

Dopple applauded. So did Mysti. It was such an unexpected response Heather sank back onto the steps, all the wind taken from her sails. “Finally,” Dopple said. “It shouldn’t take you so long to get to this point. You’ve got to start out spitting fire and bile at everyone else.”

Heather set her abused sandwich back on the plate. “I’m afraid I don’t have your substantial charms.”

Mysti patted Dopple on the head. “She is something else, isn’t she?”

Dopple pulled off one of her gloves and held her hand up, palm facing Heather. Her fingers were a grisly sight. “I can’t live anywhere else. And I’ll throw my lot in with whoever has the most power to keep me safe. I’m not proud. You tell me that your House will be L.A. or Utah or Canada and I’ll go there, because I think you’re in charge.

“But there is more here than just stone and wood.” She pulled her glove back on. Her fingers curled into protective fists. “Our kittens are born here and our dead are buried here. You know what my vote is.” She stood up and turned to go inside. Out on the lawn, the first drops of rain started to fall. “But whether you or anyone else likes it, you make the decision. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

—

Rune awoke with a snort and a grunt when someone shouted near where he slept curled in the recliner. “What? I’m awake,” he said, rubbing his eyes like a child. “What’s going on?”

“The rain is ruining the new plants,” Heather said.

Rune shuffled over to her at the sliding door. “I thought plants liked rain.”

“They’re just seedlings. They’ll get all pounded down by rain this hard. And see? It’s washing away all the dirt around them.” She pressed her hands to the glass, but made no move to go outside. With the rain pelting down, he couldn’t blame her for that.

“Aren’t you going to do anything?”

“I don’t know what I can do. I guess I could dig a moat around them to drain off the excess.”

Rune rubbed at his arm, which had lost feeling while tucked between his body and the seat. “Just cover them. Don’t we still have that tarp in the shed?” Standing at her shoulder, he could smell her hair in the rain-clean air.

Heather looked over at him. “I think so. But if I just lay it flat, it’ll squash them with the weight of the water.”

Rune grinned sleepily. “Are you willing to get rained on for a while?” Heather nodded. “Come on then.” Without waiting, he threw open the door and ran, barefoot, out into the muddy yard.

He splashed through puddles on the concrete, one arm up to ward off raindrops so fat and frequent as to be painful. Heather burst into the shed after him, huddling against him. Rune put an arm around her without thinking, even when she shook water out of her hair and onto him. He handed her the shovel and the bundle of rebar and the hammer. Heather wrapped her arms around it all with difficulty. Rune laid the folded tarp over the sawhorse and hauled it back out into the rain.

“What are we doing?” Heather asked, shouting to be heard over the din of rain and rising wind.

Rune put the sawhorse on the uphill side of the yard, pushing it into the soggy ground to anchor it. He motioned for her to set her bundle on the ground. The tarp unfolded with difficulty until the wind caught it and snapped it up. “Take that over to the other side,” he said once Heather caught the free end. He pulled his side over the sawhorse.

While Heather stood with her feet on the edge of the tarp that threatened to blow away, Rune hammered rebar into the opposite end. The sawhorse held it up over the plants at an angle. The stakes punched through the tarp easily and he had to drive them at an angle, pinning the tarp to the ground so it did not slip up and off. He came around to the other end and dropped the rebar on the edge of the tarp.

Heather’s sweater hung to her knees, stretched by water weight. “Dig a trench to divert the run-off,” Rune said and knelt in the mud to secure that side of the tarp. The wet scrape of the shovel mingled with the thud of the hammer, all the noises going dull in the rain. He was too cold to feel uncomfortable any longer. His fingers burned with blood rushing to warm them.

Rune stood up, tarp completely secured. Heather dug out hunks of mud, soupy on the top and firm deeper down where the rain had not yet soaked through. The line of the trench filled with rain as she worked her way down past the edge of the tarp. “It’s going to flow right to the house,” she said.

He looked under the high edge of the tarp to see the plants. “Yeah, but these things will be happy. Here, give me that.” He took the shovel from her and dug a second trench along the high side, where the rain was seeping downhill into the plants. He carved a corner into it so it connected around to the first one and emptied downhill.

Heather grabbed the remaining pieces of rebar and Rune took the shovel and they ran back to the shed. Suddenly, the tiny room seemed warm and safe. Heather stood in the doorway and rung out the hem of her sweater while Rune wiped mud off the shovel against the grass before hanging it up again. “That should protect them. Rain never lasts that long around here.”

“It was a great idea,” Heather said. “How did you remember all that stuff was there?”

Rune wiped the muddy sole of his foot across the concrete floor, leaving a streaked print. “I was in charge here for a while. Rumor has it, anyway. I’m not sure I remember that part right. But it was my job to be able to protect everything here.”

“Even plants?” Heather said.

“Even plants,” Rune agreed. “And damsels in distress.” Then he put his rust- and mud-stained hand around the back of her neck and pulled her in for a brief kiss. “I remembered that though,” he said. It seemed like a bad move as soon as he let himself think about it. She had looked so pretty though, face flushed and hair dripping and actually grateful to him of all people. It had been all he could think about for days now, ever since he sorted out his memories enough to realize it had not been the phantom of Caroline who kissed him late one night.

He held very still under the speculative look Heather leveled at him. Then she said, “I don’t suppose you know how to build things, do you? I seem to own a house in need of repairs. If I’m going to live here, I’ll have to fix things up.”

He had waited so long for someone to need him again. Doctor’s orders be damned. Rune had rested enough. “Whatever I don’t know, we’ll figure out. What’s the first step?”

—

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