Tag: House of Cats

George Ellison’s SUV chirped behind him as he locked it and walked through the parking lot to his building. The headset of his cell phone glowed faintly blue by his ear. “Try ruling the world,” he said.

Susanna’s voice sounded as though it was inside his head with him. “I know. Maybe tomorrow, then.”

The phone crackled slightly as he entered the elevator. “Sure. Of course. I’ll take you someplace nice.” He strode into his company’s headquarters and snapped his fingers at his secretary. She jumped to her feet and followed him.

“Sounds good,” Susanna said. “Okay, big shot. Go sell ice to Eskimos.”

“Will do.” He ended the call just as he stepped into his office and rounded on the secretary. “Speak to me,” he said as he sat down heavily.

“I have your messages here, sir.”

George picked up a rubber band and stretched it between his hands. “Anything worth my time?”

“Two, sir.”

The rubber band popped and flew towards the door. “Oops. Would you get that for me?” He admired the view when she picked up the rubber band. Between those heels and that skirt, the girl was a walking distraction. Which was why he had not fired her yet. “So, two important messages.”

“Yes, sir,” she said and put the rubber band back in the pile on his desk. “The board of directors is requesting a meeting.”

“What the hell for? I don’t want to spend an afternoon with those wind bags.”

“That’s what the second message is, sir. Lewis, over at Bank of California, has called three times today.” She tapped a pen against the clip board in her hands. “He says you never returned his calls from last week, either.”

George lounged back in his office chair. “Tragic bore. What does he expect?”

“He says you are late on repaying the loans from building North Acacia.”

George launched himself forward and slammed both fists on his desk. Objects jumped and clattered on top of it. “You tell that son of a bitch the next time he calls that I will pay him when the place opens, just like we agreed.”

“Yes, sir, I did.” She hesitated and looked down at her clip board. “Only he says that since the loans specify the opening date as July and it is December now–”

“I know what month it is, damn it.”

“He insists that you are overdue on beginning payments. Sir, if you don’t mind my saying–”

“Well, I do mind,” George pouted.

“I don’t think he will stop calling until he speaks to you personally. The board is getting nervous as well.”

George thought for a moment. He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Get out.”

“Sir–”

“I’ll handle it.” He pointed to the door. “Now get out.”

She gave a slight bow. “Very good, sir.” She shut the door behind her.

George unlocked his brief case. “The name Ellison used to mean something,” he muttered. “I need to remind them.” He took out a folder of papers on the North Acacia development. “I’m the biggest thing in real estate development in three states. They’ve all gotten cocky. They think they can push George Ellison around.”

He took the building plans for South Acacia from his desk drawer. He spread them out. It would be another eighteen months before it was even close to ready. At the rate those bastards were going, they would pull out of the project before then. “I just need one good turnaround,” he said. “That’ll show them. Inspire a little confidence.”

He flipped open a notebook. In block print was a list of potential projects. But which one, he thought, which one would impress them?

—

In the solarium, Heather clapped her hands. “Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” Around the room, cats turned bright eyes toward her. “Is everyone here?” There was a murmured chorus she took to mean yes.

“Thank you all for gathering here. I know you all have things you would rather be doing.” The cats looked at each other. Heather smirked. Maybe not as many pressing engagements as she anticipated.

“As you may know, a few days ago, there was a human here examining the house. The porch has a termite infestation, but so far the rest of the house is safe. So today, his company will be out to treat it.”

All the cats started speaking at once, to one another and to Heather. There was a din of high, mewing voices. “Just listen to me,” Heather pleaded. “I have been assured that their methods pose no danger to us. We don’t have to move out and they won’t be tenting the house.”

Heather braced herself. Now came the hard part. “However, they will need access to the house. And something like six dozen cats in a single house, even a large one like ours, is going to draw attention. Attention that we can ill afford.”

There was a mutinous whisper going around the room. Heather had no idea how she would convince them to go along with this idea. “So I’m going to need every able-bodied cat to temporarily relocate to the woods outside.”

The whisper became shouts of dismay and rebellion. “We can’t stay outside all night. We have kittens to think about,” someone shouted.

“It won’t be all night. Just during the day, while they work. It won’t take long. But there’s a lot of house to cover and I can’t risk them seeing all of you.”

“Couldn’t we just move to different rooms in the house? We can track their movements and avoid them,” a cat suggested.

“I don’t dare try. If something goes wrong, it will be even worse if they find a room of wall-to-wall cats. I would sooner let everyone stay scattered than risk that.”

“But what about the gray-whiskers?”

“Like I said, able-bodied cats only. I want all the sick and elderly moved into my office. I can explain a few charity cases easily enough.”

“Charity cases?” Another cat repeated, sounding outraged.

“That’s just the story, okay. Look, everyone,” she said and crouched down to talk to them. “I need you to see my position here. I am doing everything I can to protect the secrecy of the House of Cats. And yes, that is more important than the inconvenience of making you spend the day outside.”

“Who will protect us? The coyotes and bobcats keep their distance after the taser incident,” Dorian said. Heather had no idea what the taser incident might have been, but she rather liked the sound of it. “But we also don’t tempt them. Only the hunters venture far from the house alone. The rest of us travel together–”

“And you’ll be together today. What kind of creature is going to be stupid enough to approach six dozen cats at once?” Heather said.

“Could we take cat’s bane?” Annabelle asked.

“The woods aren’t dense enough to hide that many people. Which is why we’re doing this today instead of tomorrow, when the moon will be in effect. Cats will be harder to spot.” Heather checked the clock on the wall. Nearly ten. “We need to move now. I want everyone settled down before they get here.”

She opened the sliding doors into the yard and watched cat after cat leave the house. Mothers carried their kittens, who wanted to romp and play. The younger cats mostly accepted the experience as just another opportunity to play outside. The older cats seemed resigned to the humiliation of being kicked out of their own home. Heather thought they were being rather more dramatic about it than necessary.

She jogged up to her office. Soft beds were set up for all the cats too sick or weak to go outside, ten in total. Evergreen had organized the movement of them from their usual rooms. “Is everything ready?” Heather asked.

“Yes. I think they’re as comfortable as we can make them,” Evergreen answered. “But stay with them as much as you can. They’re used to constant company.”

“I’ll do my best, but I’m going to have to talk to the people arriving. Go catch up with the others. I’ll be out to check on everyone later.” Heather checked the clock in there as well. The exterminators could arrive at any minute. She hated waiting. She eased herself to the floor by one of the older cats and started a quiet conversation, moving from cat to cat as she did.

—

Carlisle watched a koi swim across the pond and under the tiny waterfall coming from the higher one. In that pond, a fountain sent arcs of water into the air. Beyond that, cars trickled past on the street. Behind him, voices traveled softly from the shops along the promenade. A breeze blew light spray from the fountain across his face. A cup of coffee appeared in front of him. Topaz smiled down at him when he took it then sat down on the bench next to him. Topaz slipped his hand into Carlisle’s and squeezed.

“Whatcha thinking?” Topaz asked.

“Are you sure Heather will be all right by herself? I have to admit, I feel rather guilty.”

Topaz sipped his drink and licked a line of foam from his upper lip. “It’s not our fault she scheduled them to come out today. You asked a week ago to take today off.”

“I didn’t ask for the day off, precisely.” His coffee gave off a spiraling column of steam in the cool morning air. Thick clouds glowed, lit from behind with sunlight like lampshades over the world.

Topaz rolled his eyes. “Sure. You just announced that you would be going out.”

“Maybe I asked if she had any particular need of me,” Carlisle admitted.

“Uh huh. That’s what I thought. The first step is admitting you have a problem.”

“Very well. I promised no work today,” Carlisle said. He stood up and wrapped his scarf around his neck once more. It was too cold to sit still for long. “So what do you want to do instead?”

“We should have ice cream for breakfast,” Topaz said solemnly.

Carlisle chuckled. “I don’t believe the ice cream parlor is open this early.”

Undeterred, Topaz said, “So lunch then.”

Carlisle tapped the toes of his shoes on the concrete pathway to shake off the dew from the grass. “And until then?”

“We could go ice skating.” Topaz pointed to the tiny rink set up at the far end of the lawn. It was decked out in red ribbons and bells. Tinny Christmas music played over the speakers. “They just set it up last weekend. It could be fun.”

Children shouted to one another as they banked off the high railing around the raised rink. On the side, employees rented out ice skates. “I cannot begin to describe the horror I am imagining.”

“Oh, come on. Changing-cats, hello?” Topaz lowered his voice when Carlisle shushed him. He still grinned, full of mischief. “Preternaturally agile compared to humans. We’ll knock their stripes off.”

“Have you ever actually ice skated before?” Carlisle asked.

“No. But that’s why it’ll be fun. New experience.” Topaz must have seen Carlisle’s reluctance and he turned on him with a pout. “Come on, let’s try it.”

Carlisle sighed. “How can I deny that face? Let’s go see. At least it isn’t crowded yet.”

“Yeah! This will be so cool!” Topaz hurried ahead then doubled back when Carlisle took too long. “Do you think you can do a back flip while skating?”

“I don’t do back flips when on solid ground.” They reached the ticket seller and Carlisle took several bills from a bundle in his pocket. “I am certainly not going to try now,” he said as they moved on to the rental skates.

Topaz laced up his skates haphazardly in his hurry to get out on the ice. Carlisle made him sit and tighten them properly. “Do you think I can?” Topaz asked while enduring the delay.

“I would honestly prefer if you restrained yourself in that particular aspect,” Carlisle said as he tested his balance. Topaz had been right about that at least; balancing on the edge of a blade was dead easy for a cat.

They stepped through a gate and onto the ice. Carlisle could feel the subtle changes in the quality of the ice, smooth and grainy and ridged in turned where previous skaters had marked the surface. The feeling was not unlike the sensitivity of one’s paws.

He held Topaz’s arm at the elbow under the pretense of steadying himself. “Let’s not make too much of a spectacle of ourselves, shall we?” He whispered. “I don’t want to come home with broken bones or our faces in the local newspaper.” He squeezed Topaz’s arm and released him to glide away, weaving in and out of the awkward humans with showy ease. “But do let’s have a little fun.” Topaz grinned and took up the challenge, chasing after Carlisle through the crowd.

—

Rune was not going to take any catnip. He stood on his hind legs to look out the tiny circle of window in the attic’s secret compartment, over the tops of trees and beyond to the city far below. He had never meant it to go this far. All he had wanted was a way to avoid changing under the moon. It was never supposed to be an all the time thing. Now he hid from his friends for days and spent the rest of the time moody and sick. He could not go more than a handful of hours with out it, less when the Leo moon drew near.

Rune sank back and watched the pile of catnip in the corner as though he expected it to jump up and bite him. He did not like who he was when he ate it. So he would not eat it. It was that simple. He could smell it from across the tiny room. If he did not have to see anyone else, did not even have to see himself, how bad would it be to change? It had been so long. Maybe long enough. He paced the length of the room.

He stopped when he realized his pacing had brought him closer to the pile of dry leaves and hard button flowers. He sniffed and he could feel the heat and rattle and noise of the plant in his body just from that. There was a promise in it: I will let you forget and I will make everything go silent.

So Rune chewed morosely on the catnip he had crammed in his mouth with such initial enthusiasm, frenzied after just a few moments of restraint. “You’re a real loser,” he said. In the privacy of the attic’s secret compartment, he need not fear being overheard. “Totally pathetic.”

The sound of chewing filled his skull. His ears rang. He shook his head, trying to dispel the noise. He shook so hard, his head hit the nearby wall. The blow sent a flash of white blankness through his head and gave him a moment of clarity.

There were strange shapes in his vision, like gnats flying around the room. He batted at them and chased them around the room. They were impossible to catch but he tried until his heart raced. He stopped, unable to go on, and gasped for breath. The tiny room was so stuffy. There was no air.

Then the high really hit him. Color and sound and phantom sensations exploded in his mind. He purred and mewled and rolled on his back to bat at the gnats, which became butterflies. His body chanted cat, cat, cat. It forgot that there was such a thing as humans, forgot that it could ever take any other shape. The body forgot and the mind went with it. Rune could think of nothing but the strange sensory delights that assaulted him. Everything was fine. Would always be fine.

But no high ever lasts. In time, his mind trickled back into his head. It brought memories, the alien faces of humans that grew familiar again as still more memory returned. The memories were worse as he came down than when he was sober. Rune covered his head with his paws. He scratched at his face, trying to scrub out those memories.

“Go away!” He knocked his head against the floor where he lay. The pain granted him a second of reprieve, so he did it again. “I don’t care, so leave me alone,” he pleaded to the empty room.

He rested with his eyes closed and tried to just concentrate on his breathing. In. What an ugly thing I’ve created. Out. She depended on me. In. That was someone else. Out. The blame is mine alone. In. I had a responsibility. Out. I never want to see them again.

He yowled and clawed his face. He left bloody trails through his fur. It was never going to end, he was sure. This would be the time that killed him. This time he had gone too far. He was sure. He wanted to lie down and die. If he could just get a little quiet, everything would be okay. Just a minute of silence in his head, that was all he asked.

He wound down slowly. The shakes left him. His vision cleared. The hallucinations, faces painted against the walls, faded. The voices went silent. Everything left after that was a monster of his own making. He breathed deeply, chest tight.

“I need help,” he whispered.

—

Heather hovered by the door to her office. “Well? Are we okay?”

The man in the white uniform nodded. “All clear.”

“Good. I want to disturb these folks as little as possible,” she said indicating the cats watching warily from inside. “Thanks for your understanding.”

“Not a problem,” he said and shut the door behind himself and his team members.

“Then if you don’t need me for anything else,” Heather said as she followed them downstairs and out to the patio, “I have some work of my own to do on the property. You have the run of the place.”

“Sure thing, ma’am.”

Heather made her way, as casually as she could, into the back yard. She puttered with cleaning up carpet shreds from the cat trees and pulling weeds from the garden. She could hear the exterminators drilling into the wood of the porch.

They had explained the bait stations that would go in the attic and back rooms and under the porch and the orange oil that would be injected into the wood of the porch, the worst damaged area. She had tried to keep track, but it did not mean much to her. And all the time her mind was on the cats — her people, she thought hesitantly — out in the woods on their own.

She finally made her way across the yard, checking over her shoulder too many times to be inconspicuous at all, and entered the woods. Dorian and Phyllo met her just inside. “How goes everything?” Heather asked.

“We have a patrol monitoring our perimeter and guards at the four points. We’re okay.” Dorian reported.

“Did you bring us a picnic, then?” Phyllo asked. He had a rough, street urchin sort of look about him, no matter how well-fed he might be and his cream coat had a permanent layer of dust on it.

“Sorry. That might blow our cover, me taking a picnic basket into the woods by myself.”

“How ’bout just a little something for me then? Smuggled in your pocket, perhaps,” he said, standing with his front paws on her leg to nose at her pants. “I don’t mind a bit of lint and I won’t say a word to the others.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Heather said and left them to move deeper into the shadows of the trees. She caught glimpses in the darkness of bright eyes and dark bodies moving like liquid shadow. The cats knew how to hide well. Up ahead, a familiar tuxedo cat spoke in hushed and hurried tones to another that Heather did not know personally.

“Ask around then. See if anyone saw him come out. He wouldn’t just leave, you know that,” Dopple said with increasing anger.

“I did ask around,” the other cat protested. “No one has seen him at all.”

“What’s the matter? Is someone missing?” Heather asked.

“It’s Rune,” Dopple said. She kept lifting her front paws up from the pine needle bedding of the woods. They must have been painful, more so than usual, on the prickly material. “I don’t know where he is.”

“And no one saw him come out of the house?”

“No. I think he’s still in there.”

“But I had the cats do a sweep to make sure all the gray-whiskers were accounted for. They should have found him then,” Heather said.

Dopple looked torn. She cleaned her whiskers fitfully. “He has a place he likes to go to be alone. He might be hiding there,” Dopple finally grumbled.

Heather came to a sickening realization. “Was he at the meeting this morning?”

“I didn’t see him.” Dopple swayed her head, indicating it was neither here nor there to her. “I don’t think so.”

“Don’t you understand? He doesn’t know that humans are going to be in the house. If he notices them–”

“He’ll try to kill them,” Dopple said, finishing the thought.

“And he’ll get himself killed trying. Dopple, where is this place? I have to get him out,” Heather said in a rush.

“It’s in the attic. There’s a hidden button on the baseboard. It opens a door and leads to a secret room. He’s been going up there more than usual lately. That’s where he’ll be,” Dopple said with enough certainty to satisfy Heather.

Heather spun on her heel and ran, dodging around thick tree roots blocking the path. She slammed into the sliding door in the solarium before she could get it open. She did not bother to close it behind her. She took the stairs two at a time. She had to get him out before the workers came into the house. She had to get him out while she had a chance.

—

Carlisle stopped and looked in at the display of cell phones behind the huge glass windows of the shop. Topaz, at his side, popped the last bite of his ice cream cone into his mouth. “Whathup?” Topaz mumbled.

“Do you think we should get phones?”

“Cell phones? I didn’t think you knew they existed,” Topaz said, nudging him playfully.

“Despite your assertions otherwise, I have ventured out of the House more recently than 1973.” Beyond the front display, customers bundled in coats and hats mingled with employees dressed for summer in polo shirts.

“I don’t think Rune would ever stand for it.”

Carlisle grimaced. “Rune is no longer leading the House of Cats.”

Topaz held his hands up in surrender. “And I both know and respect that. But you have to admit, he has influence in the House even now.”

“Yes. I wake each morning half expecting everyone to be as out of their minds on catnip as he is.” The look on Topaz’s face was reproach enough. Carlisle sighed. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. He has a problem and needs help, not ridicule.”

“What would we use them for, anyway?” Topaz asked, watching the preprogrammed video clips playing on the screen of a giant mockup of a phone. “Games?”

“Think of today. If we had phones, I could just call Heather to check that everything is going well there.”

“Yeah, see, that is exactly why I wouldn’t want a phone. Wasn’t it nice to get away from all that for a while? Let someone else take care of things?”

“Of course. Very nice. But for emergencies.”

Topaz shrugged, obviously grown bored with the topic. “I guess. I think you need to give Heather more credit though. She is, after all, an adult. She should be able to handle even an emergency without you talking her through it.”

“Objectively, I know that.” He let Topaz lead him away from the shop, rejoining the ever-increasing stream of people on the promenade. “But after being involved in the day-to-day affairs of the House for so long, I find it rather difficult to leave well enough alone.”

“What about a land line that everybody could use?”

“How many other cats will have access to phones? Who are they going to call?”

“We could get pizza delivered,” Topaz said, pointing up at the pizza parlor’s sign under which they were passing.

“You are hopeless.”

“Hey, speaking of hopeless and winning the prize for most awkward transition ever–”

Carlisle shook his head. “This should be good.”

“I haven’t seen Rune taking any catnip in at least a week.”

The hope in his voice was enough to break Carlisle’s heart. “Topaz…”

“Hey, I’m sure he’s not clean or anything. But if I’m not seeing him use it, it’s got to mean that he’s cutting back, right?” Topaz said with strained cheer. “I think he might only be using it around the moon.”

Which happens to be now, Carlisle thought, but did not have the heart to mention. “We can always hope,” he said gently. “Come on.” He took Topaz’s hand, giving it a squeeze, and veered out of the stream of people and across the lawn. “I noticed an arcade when we arrived and, if memory serves, you said you are something of a pinball wizard.”

“Oh, yeah, I kick ass at pinball.”

“Would you care to make a small wager on that? Because I do not imagine the game has changed much since 1973 and I do believe that my own skills will put yours to the test.”

—

A panel popped open beside Heather’s face where she knelt on the floor. It was about the size of a large dog door. She heard voices and people moving somewhere in the house. She was running out of time. She slid one arm through, intent on at least attempting to get through it. She could see, at the end of the short passage, Rune sprawled out on the floor. Her forward motion suddenly stopped. Her hips! They were too wide.

She rolled on her side and shimmied a little farther. She would have given anything to be twenty pounds lighter or possibly male right then. Then her arms were free, her head, her shoulders. She put her hands on the wall on either side of the passage and pulled herself the rest of the way out and into the room.

She knelt beside Rune. His eyes were half open and unfocused. Was it possible he would stay in the attic for the remainder of the day and never notice the workers in the house? But no, they had said they would put a bait station in the attic as well. She could not count on him sleeping through someone bungling around on the other side of the wall.

“Rune? I need to take you out of here,” she said. She reached out and, after some hesitation, touched his shoulder lightly. When that elicited no reaction, she shook him gently. “Rune, wake up.”

He made a small, questioning noise and raised his head. His eyes slowly focused on her. “I’m awake,” he said. His voice was slurred and rough.

“I need you to come with me.” She looked at the wall. The door had closed. How would she ever get through with him? She could not carry him and still fit through. And he did not seem inclined to walk, since his head had flopped to the floor again. “I can’t get out,” she finally said.

“Just push the button.”

“I can’t fit both of us through there.”

Rune lifted his head and squinted at her. “Have you put on weight?”

She put her hands on her hips. “Oh, very nice. Very charming.” She lowered them when she realized that it just brought attention to her hips. “I can’t fit through that tiny little door with you too.”

“Not that door,” Rune mumbled and lolled on his back.

“There’s another door?” Heather scanned the wall, looking for a sign of a second doorway. “Is there a button for it?”

“Up high. One for cats, one for…” His voice trailed off, but she assumed he meant one for humans. Changing-cats after their change. It was a foxhole. Changing-cats could come and go, but strangers of the human variety could never get in.

“Where is the second button, Rune? I can’t feel it,” Heather said, bumping her fingers along the wall where it met the ceiling.

“There, right there,” he said, waving a paw at her in an oddly human gesture.

Heather smashed the palm of her hand against the wall. Where she had expected a button, she found a hand-sized pad. Dust and disuse had stuck it over time and there was an audible squeak as she pushed it in. A narrow opening, just big enough to let a person through sideways, slid open on a mechanism she could not begin to imagine. With it open, she could once again hear voices and movement in the rest of the house.

Heather knelt back down next to Rune. “Can you walk?” Rune shook his head. She shimmied a hand under his neck and the other under his hips. “I’m going to pick you up, okay? Don’t take my arm off for it this time.” She lifted his rag doll body and cradled him in her arms. He offered no resistance.

Heather slid out of the foxhole room and back into the attic proper. The narrow steps were treacherous to take without the use of her hands for balance. She stopped at the bottom and listened. The voices of the workers were closer, perhaps even on the second floor already. She did not dare attempt to sneak him out to the woods. She ducked into her room and closed the door with her foot.

She sat down on the edge of her bed. “You really overdid it this time, Rune,” she said when she looked down at the insensible cat in her arms. “You’re going to go too far one of these days.”

Rune burrowed his face into the crook of her elbow. Then the most unexpected thing happened. Rune started to purr. It was broken by hiccups and long pauses, as though he forgot what he was doing, but he always started up again and as long as he did, Heather could not bring herself to let go.

—

George Ellison drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he idled at the red light. Call from Susanna Dahl, an automated voice said over his headset. How many times did they have to talk in one day? “Hello,” he said.

“Hi. What’s wrong? You sound upset.”

He ground his teeth and forced his voice to perk up. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m still at the office, that’s all.”

“Oh. I just wanted to let you know, I got some paperwork from the accountant today.”

He moved the headset closer to his mouth to drown out the sound of the engine. “Meaning?”

“You asked me to tell you if Heather Lee was fixing up her house.”

George did not have to feign interest any longer. “You found something.”

“All the time she was gone, there was activity on the account. Probably a gardener or caretaker of some sort to watch the place for her. Nothing too expensive. Lots of cash withdrawals. Probably spending money.”

He turned into the driveway of the gated community where he lived. “Yeah, yeah. What’s she doing now?”

“She’s spending five times as much now. It’s still nothing compared to the assets her family has set up. Their portfolio could probably buy a small state.”

He rolled his window down and punched in the gate code. “Is she fixing the place up?” George insisted.

“Half her expenses are going to local home improvement stores, nurseries, and an exterminator company.”

“What about the other half?”

“That part is a little strange. She must have had a lot of guests over for Thanksgiving. Maybe someone’s living with her. But she’s buying a ton of food. I mean, there is no way she can be going through hundreds of dollars of groceries in the time span I’m looking at.”

He drove to the top of the hill, where the houses had the best view. “Interesting. Was that all?”

“Yes. So, are you sure you won’t be able to get away at all tonight?”

George turned into his driveway. “They’ve got me chained to the desk, sweetheart. But I’ll call you tomorrow, I promise.” He killed the engine and fished in the backseat for his briefcase.

“Tomorrow then.”

“And keep me posted on any new developments with Lee.” He popped the latches and took out a notebook and pen.

“Sure. Bye-bye.” There was a click as the line disconnected.

On the first page, he circled one item on the list then snapped the notebook shut. “That’s the best damn news I’ve heard all day,” George said to himself.

—

Previous Episode :: Back to Index :: Next Episode

Heather tickled the kitten under the chin. He squeaked and mewled and squiggled across her palm. She set him next to his mother. “He’s beautiful. He looks just like his daddy.”

Lana chuckled. “One of them, at any rate.” His eyelids were just beginning to part in the corners. Once they opened, he would begin exploring in earnest. For now, he was content to bump around Lana on wobbly legs.

Heather leaned back against the couch where mother and kitten were currently nesting. “Have you decided on a name yet?”

“A few of us are all going to ask today.” The kitten cried and squirmed as Lana cleaned him.

“Ask?”

Lana paused mid-lick. “We’re going to ask Rune to choose for us.”

“He’s the, that is, one of the fathers?”

“Oh, no. That’ll be the day.” She laughed. “He barely even looks at any of us. Pity, too. He’s a good-looking tom.”

“So why?” Beyond the window, the hillsides were a patchwork of green and brown and orange. The damp and mild California autumn had allowed a new crop of thin, bright green grass to come up all around the house. Heather thought of Thanksgiving Day dinners being served at Mitchell’s. She had not thought of Mitchell and Marty and the rest of the staff in months.

“Because he’s a wise cat, when he has his head on straight,” Lana said, snapping Heather out of her reminiscences.

“You’re serious.”

She cocked her head. “You don’t believe me?”

“Before I got here, I imagined this dictator, a mad Caesar. Something worth fearing.” Heather tipped her head back to rest on the seat. “Rune’s just a junkie.”

“You’re wrong about that. Come on. I’m supposed to meet them now.”

Heather followed Lana as she carried her single kitten in her mouth. Changing-cats always had small litters, which was a blessing when they all tried to fit into the House. They went upstairs and into a room Heather walked past every day, but never entered. It opened onto a balcony overlooking the front drive of the property. Rune slept in the midmorning sun.

“You’re late,” one cat called to the newcomers.

“We almost started without you,” said the second.

Heather sat a few feet away. Rune did not look at her. The three queens sat with their kittens, all eager to escape, held under firm paws.

“What can I do for you, ladies?” he asked. He seemed relaxed. Must be coming down, Heather thought. He’ll need to fix again soon.

“We were hoping you would choose names for our little ones,” one cat said.

“You know so many cats,” said another. “You’ll know better than we do what’s been taken too many times.”

“Very well. Let me see.”

Lana put her tuxedo kitten in front of him. Rune swept him up with a paw and pulled him between his front legs. The kitten burrowed into the thick fur of his chest and tumbled over his own paws. Rune tucked his chin and gave the kitten a swipe with his tongue.

“His father is a two-color as well?”

“One is. The other had a two-color mother, but he’s all black himself.”

“He’s strong for his age.”

“He likes to kick, too,” Lana said with an indulgent smile.

“I think…Rugby, with your permission, madam.”

So it was in that way that Rugby, Cottonwood and the twins, Castor and Pollux, received their names. Their business finished, the three queens all left Rune. Heather lingered. He had his back to her, once again basking in the sunlight. Beyond the balcony, the tops of trees were transformed into an unbroken sweep of color.

“What do…Did you need something?” Rune eventually asked when she did not leave.

“How do you feel about yams with marshmallows?” Heather asked.

She could not see his face and he did not turn around, but she thought she could hear a smile in his voice when he answered. “I am partial to garlic mashed potatoes, actually. And chunky cranberry sauce.”

—

Dopple watched Carlisle hook a nail under the edge of the envelope and rip it open. From the doorway to the kitchen, she could look out the sliding doors to the backyard. Heather sat on the lawn, still fighting with the same cat tree she had been trying to assemble for the past twenty minutes. Dopple thought she could hear her cursing through the closed windows. Carlisle slid a neatly folded sheaf of papers from the envelope and unfolded them.

“Any new reports?” Dopple asked, sliding into the seat next to him at the kitchen table.

“Oh, Miss Dopple,” he said. His fur puffed and relaxed in a flash of surprise. “Not as of yet. Though I have developed something of a backlog. Everyone is writing in before the winter sets in.”

“Oh. I see.” She rose from the chair. “I guess I’ll be going then,” Dopple said.

“There was one thing,” he said with a smile.

Dopple’s heart skipped a beat. “Yes?”

“I got a letter from a certain calico beauty queen.”

Dopple was back in the chair in an instant. “When? Where is she? Is everything okay?” She grabbed the pile of letters and started sifting through them. “Can I read it?”

“Ahem.” Carlisle pushed a lone red envelope toward her. “It’s all yours. I’ve not read it yet myself. But she used the perfumed paper, so I imagine that all is well in her world.”

Dopple tore the envelope open with her teeth. A fresh burst of perfumed air filled her nose as she pulled out a single sheet of paper. Dopple scanned the letter once through, searching for any sign of disaster, and then read it a second time more slowly.

“She’s in Canada,” Dopple said. “But she’s heading south soon.” She looked up at Carlisle. “Maybe she’ll come out here,” she said hopefully.

“Perhaps she’ll winter here with the rest of them.”

“That would be nice,” Dopple said wistfully. “It’s been six months, you know, since I saw her last. We met up in Baton Rouge.”

“I remember. She’ll be fine, you know, I’ve no doubt of that. Your fine lady is quite competent.”

“I know. But there’s so much…” She sniffed and tucked the letter into the pocket of her jacket. “I guess we’ll find out when she feels like it, huh?”

“I can send word to a friend in Alberta, if you would like. He can check in with her.”

Dopple put a gloved hand on his head. “I’m tempted. But I don’t need to spy on her. I’ve got to just trust that she’ll come back to me.”

He moved his ears under her palm. “Ah, you can keep that up as long as you like,” Carlisle said.

“Is she okay out there alone?” Dopple asked.

“Who, Mysti?”

“No, our esteemed Queen.”

“I do wish you would give her half a chance.” Carlisle looked out. “Oh, dear.”

Heather had moved on to a larger cat tree and was struggling to keep the central pillar upright long enough to attach the base. It kept tipping while she tried to screw it into place. More often than not, it hit her in the head. Shelves for the tree were scattered around her. A cardboard box, full of tiny nuts and bolts, threatened to spill whenever she moved and bumped it.

“I’d better…”

“No, I’ll go,” Dopple said.

Carlisle twitched his nose at her. “You’re not going to pick a fight, are you?”

“You wound me. No, I just figure I should leave you to your correspondences.” She paused then said without looking at him, “I’d be lost without you.”

“Very well.” Carlisle nodded. “I shall remain here then.”

Dopple went through the sliding screen door and into the backyard. She stood over Heather for a minute until Heather noticed her.

“What?” Heather snapped.

“Give it here.”

“You’re actually going to help?”

“I am trying to be nice right now,” Dopple ground out. “It will go a lot better if you don’t talk.”

Heather stared then nodded without a word. She passed the pillar to Dopple, who steadied it while Heather bolted it into place. They worked in silence, moving around each other on sense and instinct and rhythm, until the last tree was assembled and placed around the yard.

—

When Heather tried to leave, Carlisle was waiting for her. He pushed away from the door of the hall closet where he had been leaning. “I’d like to come along,” he said, “if you’ll have me.”

“What’s the occasion?” Heather asked, looking over his slacks and sweater.

“Do I need one?” He opened the door and motioned her out.

“Hey, I won’t argue. I’m going to need an extra set of hands to cart all this home,” she said as she looked over a list of groceries.

“I thought we could get a taxi, just this once,” he said as they walked down the long and sloping gravel drive that led from the house to the main road at the bottom of the hill.

“Big spender,” she said with a laugh. “Sounds good. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, though.”

He shook his head. “No other shoe.”

After a few minutes, they reached the main road. It was a treacherous stretch, favored by motorists cutting from one side of town to the other. On either side of the House driveway, the road turned sharply and overgrown brush obscured oncoming cars until the last second. Carlisle and Heather listened and waited. Then they dashed across to the wide shoulder on the other side and turned right into town.

“I spoke to Dorian and the others about what happened when you went out,” Carlisle said.

Heather kicked a small stone farther down the road ahead of them. “They ratted me out, huh?”

Carlisle reached it and sent it ahead again. “I am under the impression that they were rather impressed by you.”

“No kidding. And what about you?” Heather sent to stone flying off to the left into the brush where it was lost. They continued in strained silence until they reached the first shopping center in town.

—

Carlisle pushed a shopping cart after Heather, who stalked the aisles with determination. “I should not have spoken to you as I did,” Carlisle said while Heather compared two brands of boxed stuffing mix. “I’m not surprised you failed to tell me about Topaz’s escapades, after the way I acted.”

“It wasn’t really his fault,” Heather said as she put two of each in the cart. “I should have thought it out before I let them go wild.”

“He’s a grown cat. He should have shown a little restraint,” Carlisle said as he struggled to open a plastic produce bag.

Heather took it from him, opened it, and handed back. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say he was distraught over a certain bobtail cat I know.” She poured in several scoops of green beans from a bin.

“Distraught? Hardly,” he said. He spun the bag and tied off the top. “He was in a snit because I did not show sufficient enthusiasm.”

Heather dropped a huge sack of potatoes into the cart. “If you say so.”

“You seem to have seen something I did not,” Carlisle said. He leaned on the handle of the cart while Heather picked out yams and chives and garlic bulbs.

“There’s a first for everything, I know,” she said. She tossed three onions to him in rapid succession and laughed when he scrambled to catch them. “Just, ease up on him. He takes it hard when you treat him like a kitten with muddy paws.”

“Then perhaps–” Carlisle started to snap then broke off with a huff. He followed Heather as she moved on to the meat department and the search for the perfect turkey. Or three perfect turkeys, as the case proved to be.

“You two might as well pull each other’s pigtails,” Heather said as she hefted the last one in.

“I beg your pardon?”

Heather rolled her eyes. “You’re sweet on him and you don’t want to admit it, so you both snap and snarl at each other. It would be cute if it wasn’t becoming a pain in my ass.”

“I would like it if he showed a bit more restraint, more forethought.”

“You might like it, but you wouldn’t like him the same way.” She leaned a hip against the meat counter and crossed her arms. “Come on, I know you. You’re convinced your bad boy days are behind you.”

“As evidenced by my four-week stretch of reading mail and paying bills without setting foot outside,” Carlisle admitted.

“Uh huh. So you’ll let Topaz be the bad boy for you. You like him this way.”

Carlisle snorted. “I do believe I will change the subject now, if you are quite finished analyzing my love life or lack thereof.”

“Fine. You go get two cans of pumpkin pie filling,” she said, taking the cart.

“You mean you don’t plan to puree it yourself?”

“Shush, you. Even I know when to make things easier on myself. And cooking for fifty cats is one of those times,” Heather said as he left.

Carlisle paused. “I do believe we have rather more than fifty right now,” he said.

“But I thought they all went away again after the Festival of Black Cats,” Heather said, sounding desperate.

“Winter is closing in and the House is a popular place to spend the cold months.”

“So how many are we up to?”

“At least seventy-five, for now,” he said with a sympathetic wince.

Heather sighed. “Make that three cans, then.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Carlisle wandered the aisles and shivered in the cold. A wool sweater was no substitute for a cat’s coat. Everything smelled vaguely of packaged chicken and floor cleaner. He grabbed a stack of pumpkin pie cans and took a meandering path back to Heather.

“I’ve got everything, I think,” Heather said, tossing a can of condensed milk from hand to hand.

“Famous last words,” Carlisle said as they got into line to check out.

“Why don’t you go use the payphone out front to call a cab while I check out? But don’t let them send one too soon. I have one more stop to make.”

“Very well. Am I forgiven for my misdeeds yet?”

Heather passed food from left hand to right and onto the conveyor belt in swift succession. “I’m not mad at you.”

“Good. Does that mean I don’t have to help you cook all this?”

Heather made as if to kick him. “Get out of here, wretched boy, before I change my mind.”

“As you wish, milady,” Carlisle said and dodged out of the way.

—

Heather knocked on the door. It was another room she had never seen inside.

“What?” The voice on the other side sounded annoyed. At least she knew she had the right room, Heather thought.

“It’s Heather,” she called back.

“Will you leave me alone if I ask you to? I can even be polite, if that helps.”

Heather grinned. So accommodating, she thought. “Not really.”

“Fine, whatever, open the door.”

The room was furnished like a human bedroom. Curtains hung in the window and matching sheets and blankets made up the bed. It was the mirror image of Heather’s private quarters, if all the papers and books and clothing were tidied up.

“I spend so much time human,” Dopple said when she noticed Heather staring, “that I got the luxury suite.” She sat on her bed cross-legged with a pile of fluffy pillows behind her back. “You’re going to catch flies that way.”

Heather closed her mouth. It was a very nice room for just one cat. Heather understood that Dopple managed all the rescue missions the House undertook: buying changing-cats from pet stores, adopting them from shelters, and stealing them from human owners. It was not done just out of charity; it was essential to maintaining the secrecy and safety of the whole changing-cat community. But Dopple lived like an ambassador among cats. Heather began to wonder if Dopple actually outranked her.

“Did you want something specific, or were you just going to admire the decor?”

Heather tossed a small tube to Dopple, who let it drop to the bed before picking it up. “I’m trying to be nice right now. It will go a lot better if you don’t talk,” she said.

Dopple raised an eyebrow at the mimicry. She turned the tube over in her hands then tore the plastic seals off it with her teeth.

“Pepper spray. So you can defend yourself the next time you need to go out. I made them let me try one. You can make it spray just using your thumb, so it shouldn’t be a problem with your hands.”

Dopple tucked it into the pocket of her jacket. Then she rolled over on her bed and started reading something. Heather’s audience with the ambassador had evidently ended. She shut the door and jogged downstairs. Debt repaid, she started planning her strategy for Thanksgiving dinner.

—

Topaz watched the sun set from his perch on a warm rock. He had slept most of the afternoon away, but awoke just in time to go on the prowl once night fell. He cleaned his face and rubbed the sleep grit from his eyes. He yawned and stretched and stepped down into the tall grass. Then he saw Carlisle, just beyond the first trees of the woods. Human. Topaz thought about turning away, finding somewhere else to hunt. He could not bear the thought of yet another argument. But Carlisle raised a hand in greeting and Topaz wove his way over, following furrows in the grass left by other cats.

“Take this,” Carlisle said and offered him one of those cat’s bane pills Heather took all the time. Most everyone else just made do with the powder by itself, though it was something awful to choke down that way.

Topaz crunched it until he could swallow. Carlisle looked away while he made the change to human. Then he handed him the ragged jeans Topaz liked to wear. He pulled them on, wishing for something warmer. The night was cold, colder still without fur.

“What’s up?” Topaz asked.

Carlisle took him by the wrist and pulled him onto a path between the trees, nothing more than a foot-wide strip worn smooth with use. “Walk with me,” was all Carlisle said.

They had to squeeze close to fit between some of the trees, whose upper branches were woven into a solid canopy over their heads. Their shoulders brushed, the wool of Carlisle’s sweater scratchy against Topaz’s bare skin.

“You’re not just taking me out here to murder me, are you?” Topaz asked.

“I had not planned on it, no.”

“That’s good. Because it would be a real bummer if you killed me.”

Carlisle stopped walking. “You are so strange, sometimes I think you are just doing it to anger me,” he said. His voice was soft, but frustrated.

“Did we come out here to argue?” Topaz asked.

“No. On the contrary, it was my intention to make amends for my no doubt intolerable behavior recently.”

“Just in general or did you have something specific in mind?”

“Heather said, if I recall, that I should ‘ease up’ on you.”

“Well, good on Heather,” Topaz said. He rubbed his hands over his arms to warm them up.

“Are you cold?” Carlisle asked. He placed a hand above Topaz’s and squeezed his arm. The touch of skin to skin — not even fur to separate them — sent a shiver of foreign pleasure through Topaz. Carlisle pulled him closer and moved his other arm around Topaz’s back. “Better?”

Topaz swallowed, mouth gone dry. “It’s a start,” he said. He took a step closer again and now their chests were touching. “Is this you making amends?”

“It’s a start,” Carlisle echoed, his face close enough that his breath warmed Topaz’s face when he spoke.

“I thought you said I was too young for you,” Topaz said, because he was not going to let go of his hurt feelings just yet. He was not that easy.

“You must have heard me wrong.” Carlisle’s thumb traced the furrow between the muscles of his arm. “As I remember it, what I said was that you were too young to know that I was once far more exciting than I am now.”

“Is that so? And now?”

Carlisle moved his hand up to Topaz’s neck, thumb now sweeping over the line of his jaw and making the pulse there stutter. “And now, I begin to see the wisdom in reliving the recklessness of my youth,” he said.

They both closed the distance between them and so there was no telling who started the kiss. Topaz brought both hands up to cup Carlisle’s face, all hesitation gone, all bitterness forgotten. One kiss turned into many, short and long and longer, while their fingers skimmed over the unfamiliar smoothness of human flesh.

Carlisle put a hand against Topaz’s chest and pushed him just far enough away to speak. “I can’t give you much more than this,” he said. “I’m no tom and–”

Topaz curled his fingers into Carlisle’s hair. “Shut up, man,” he said. “First lesson in living a reckless youth: live in the moment.”

“Well spoken,” Carlisle said and drew Topaz back into his warm embrace, where Topaz was content to stay the rest of the night, no matter how cold.

—

Rune paced along the island in the kitchen. He had seen Topaz change and disappear into the woods with Carlisle. Were they planning to spend the whole night out there?

“Should I find someone else?” Rune wondered aloud. “Dopple can’t cook, or so she says.” He shuddered at the thought of asking any other female to change. “It has to be Topaz. He’s the only one I can trust myself with.”

Then Rune heard footsteps approaching and he hid himself in the pantry. Through the gap by the hinges, he watched a satisfied-looking Carlisle walk through the kitchen and into the living room beyond. Rune braced himself. He’s just a man, he repeated in his mind again and again. You can cope with a man.

When he heard the door open and close a second time, Rune stepped out of the pantry and jumped back onto the island. “Topaz. Come here.”

Topaz jumped like he had been caught sneaking in after curfew. “Nothing! Fine! What?” He relaxed when he saw Rune, though Rune wished he could feel the same way. “What’s up, bro?”

“I need your help,” Rune said. He tried to not look at Topaz directly. Out of the corner of his eye, Topaz still looked like a golden blur. That was good. No big deal. It had worked when Heather came in with the queens that morning. It would work now.

“I kinda had plans,” Topaz said and jerked his thumb in the direction of the rest of the house, though Rune had no doubt that he meant a room with a door, more specifically.

“Please?”

The golden blur grunted and hopped onto the counter. “Shoot. What do you need?”

“Can you cook? Do you know how?”

“Not really. Be honest: not at all.”

“If I tell you exactly what to do?”

“Just be your hands?”

“Yes. Just, just be.” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, because it would mean imagining it too. “That,” he finished lamely.

“So are we cooking now? It’s kinda late.”

“That’s the plan. I need everything ready right when Heather wakes up.”

“Heather?”

Rune rubbed his paw across his nose, suddenly embarrassed and wishing he had never said anything. “I want to make breakfast for her. She’s getting up early tomorrow to cook Thanksgiving dinner.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a human holiday. American humans. It’s a meal for families.”

“And she’s cooking it for us?”

“That’s the rumor.”

“And you’re cooking for her.”

“She– She did something nice for me when she had no reason to.”

Topaz nudged him with an elbow that Rune tried not to notice. “You’re going to ruin your badass reputation, man.”

“Be quiet. So are you in or not?”

“Yeah, I’m game. What do we need?”

“You have to get her cook book. She keeps it in her office.”

“Has she gone to bed?”

“Yes, yes, of course. She insists on sleeping at night.”

“Back in a tick then.”

Rune went back to pacing while he waited for Topaz to return. Pancakes. Eggs — but how did she like them? Scrambled? Over easy? Was there any juice in the fridge? Would she like toast too? No, toast and pancakes, that’s overkill, he thought. Bacon! Did they have bacon? What was breakfast without bacon?

“You don’t seriously expect me to cook something from this book, do you?” Topaz asked, flipping through the pages of the book while he walked.

“Why not? Is it complicated?”

“Man, I have no idea what any of this means. I read the words, but I don’t get it.”

“Just find me a pancake recipe. I’ll worry about the rest.”

The two brothers both leaned low over the book. Then Rune said, “Right. First thing is flour. Big white sack, in the pantry.”

“Got it,” Topaz said. “Next?”

“Salt and sugar.”

“I can handle that.”

“Baking powder. It’s a little — there, that one. Yes. Now, in the fridge. An egg. Butter. Just grab a stick. And the jug of milk.”

“All this for breakfast?” Topaz asked with his hands full.

“This is just to make pancakes.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. How does Heather do it?”

“I wonder that myself. Okay, check the cupboard there for a big mixing bowl. The measuring cups and spoons are in that drawer.”

“Humans seriously do this to all their food?”

“Not everyone cooks,” Rune said, reluctant to start a conversation about humans.

“I would hope not,” Topaz said.

“Now, the hard part,” Rune said when they had all their ingredients and tools assembled on the counter. “We’ll make the batter, and then cook everything at the same time. I think. I hope.”

“Don’t look at me. This is all on you.”

“Just be quiet and break the egg in the bowl.” And so Rune and Topaz bumbled their way through cooking in the dead of night.

—

Heather fidgeted in her room. She could not bring herself to walk out. On the other side of the door, Topaz called to her. “How ya doing?”

“I’m not sure I can do this.”

Carlisle said, “Yes, you can. You’re ready.”

“Come on,” Topaz said. “I have to go carve the turkey.”

“Okay.” Heather took a deep breath. “Right. Here goes nothing. Open the door.”

Topaz opened it for her and he and Carlisle waited expectantly. Heather stepped into the light. One step at a time, she walked out of her room and into the hallway.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Topaz stooped down. “You’re fine. You look great.”

“Are, are you sure? I mean, I look–”

“You’re the prettiest cat in the House,” Topaz said.

“Are you ready to go downstairs?” Carlisle asked.

“I think so. Just, let me go slow.”

“Take your time,” Carlisle said. “We’ll stay with you.”

The house looked so different. Everything loomed over her. Tables and lamps became threatening giants.

“Breathe,” Topaz reminded her.

“Breathing. Let’s go.” Heather eased herself down the first stair. Then the next. She took them a little faster, letting her body move the way it wanted to over the wide steps. She reached the bottom without realizing it. Then they rounded the corner and walked into the kitchen. Around the room, the eyes of twenty cats turned to watch her. Another fifty milled through the living room and dining room and solarium. In the entire house, there was only one human. And that was Topaz.

“Want to help me carve the turkey?” Topaz asked in the silence.

Heather whimpered her assent and jumped up onto the counter. She looked around from her perch. The other cats had gone back to their conversations. No one was paying any attention to her. No one minded. Heather let out a soft sigh.

“See? It’s all good,” Topaz said. He brandished a carving knife. “Let’s see what I can do to butcher this.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine. You managed pancakes, eggs, and bacon well enough,” Heather said very quietly.

Topaz glanced over to where Rune was talking to Dopple. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Rune made you breakfast.”

“Carlisle did tell me that Rune had a sous-chef.”

“Meh. I’m just a pair of hands.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Something about you doing something nice when you didn’t have to. So, does this mean you’ll help me?”

Right, Heather thought. Operation Detox. “I’ll help. But only as a friend to you. And maybe to him. I still won’t seduce him.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so.”

“Check it out,” Topaz said to the rest of the room. “Turkey dinner for all.” He carried the platter of turkey, sliced more or less nicely, into the dining room. There it joined mashed potatoes, yams, chunky cranberry sauce, green beans, stuffing, gravy, and several pumpkin pies.

Topaz and Heather had brought out the cat benches for the occasion earlier that day. So some cats jumped up onto the high benches that brought them level with the table. Kittens ate from plates on the floor, which was covered by several old bed sheets to save the carpet. More cats ate at coffee tables and at the kitchen counters. The whole House had come together for the meal.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” Carlisle asked Topaz. “I can change and serve with you.”

“Nope. I’m doing community service today,” Topaz said brightly. “It’ll take a little while, but I’ll get it done.”

“He certainly is being mature today,” Heather said when Carlisle joined her. She sat at one end of the table. Carlisle sat next to her, while the space on her other side was reserved for Topaz.

Down at the opposite end, Rune jumped up onto the bench between Dopple and Evergreen. Heather scanned the faces at the table. Dorian and Annabelle and Lana, Valoria and Rafflesia were all there and many more besides. Heather was still learning their names and faces, getting to know them as friends. It was a slow process for her. But suddenly, in a room full of cats, Heather no longer felt like an outcast.

She looked up from her plate, where Topaz had just given her a slice of turkey that smelled, if she did say so herself, absolutely amazing. At the other end of the table, Rune caught her eye. He did not look away. Heather cocked her head and smiled. A cat’s smile is rare and lovely indeed, for they smile with their whole body, not just their face as a human does.

They had not spoken since Heather had come down to the kitchen that morning to start cooking and discovered a covered platter of breakfast. She had asked Carlisle if he knew anything — after taking a pancake to eat on the walk upstairs — and found out about Rune and Topaz’s midnight kitchen foray.

Rune made a point of sniffing in the direction of the mashed potatoes — garlic strong in the air — and smiled back. Heather’s stomach did a flip-flop that had nothing to do with transformation nervousness.

“Everybody, let’s eat,” Topaz said when he had served everyone what they wanted.

“Enjoy,” Heather said just as the cats took their first bites. “We have a lot to be thankful for today.”

—

Previous Episode :: Back to Index :: Next Episode

It is the private business of every changing-cat how and where they make their monthly shift, as well as what they do while human. There are a number of lockable rooms in the House of Cats, which afford privacy for those who desire solitude or, perhaps, just more exclusive company. But if you prefer to change in the woods behind the house, or up on the roof, or in the tub in the second-level bathroom, no one would question you. You would be left alone for two days, until the change had ended, and welcomed back when you emerged, thirsty and hungry and a little battered.

So it was with a rather guilty conscience that Topaz decided to follow Rune. He could feel the moon ticking along its path, no longer visible in the night sky, moving from Cancer to Leo by astronomical degrees at once tiny and vast. Topaz passed a pair of cats at the top of the stairs, where their tender ritual of grooming began to take on a more determined air. The change would come to them all within an hour. But what of his brother, with his stashes of dried catnip in untouched corners of the house? Topaz had never before dared to pry, but how did he spend two days as the only cat in a house of humans?

Rune’s gray tail disappeared into the attic. Topaz followed, glad that he had not yet changed and could walk silently. No other cats had chosen the attic that month, at least so far, so Topaz was the only one to see Rune trip a hidden button along the baseboard. A previously invisible panel slid back and Rune entered a secret room through a door just barely large enough to accommodate a human, but generous for a cat. Topaz chased after, seeing his chance to follow disappearing, but the panel slid back into place just ahead of him.

Topaz paced along the wall. He could not exactly find the button and waltz in there. He had never heard of or seen that secret room before, though it was well-known that the House of Cats had its share of hidden nooks. Rune would surely see him if he followed now. The door had been big, however, certainly big enough to allow a modestly sized human though. Maybe Rune slept in hiding while everyone else changed. He hated the sight of humans enough that seeing his friends turn into them probably traumatized him. Topaz sat down. He would wait. He would change and then he would go through. And if Rune was still awake and saw him, well, at least he would be large enough to not be killed outright.

—

When the change started, Topaz lay down in the middle of the attic, in an open space amongst the boxes of old papers and keepsakes. When the change finished, he had one leg over an old steamer trunk and the other crooked around it, while his torso and neck curled uncomfortably against the wall. He thrashed and squirmed free. He always thought he was smaller as a human than he turned out to be. He felt along the baseboard with fingertips that tingled with their newness. Every particle of dust felt like sandpaper against his skin. It felt like his ears were full of cotton. His nose too. Being human was hard. Something gave under his questing fingertip. The panel opened again.

It was much smaller than he had realized. He had to slither and use his folded arms to pull himself forward. Even if Rune was asleep, he would certainly wake from all the noise Topaz knew he was making. But curiosity had a hold on him and there was no turning back. Actually, there was no turning at all, he thought as he angled his shoulders this way and that to fit through.

When he finally made it out of the passage, he had to lie panting on the floor until he caught his breath and his arms stopped aching. When he rose, he brushed the dust and cobwebs from his bare shoulders and chest, then looked around the tiny room. The ceiling was low and slanted, situated as it was at the far edge of the attic. At the highest point, it was still too low for Topaz to stand upright. It was as empty as the main attic was cluttered. But on the opposite side, tucked between wall and floor and ceiling, slept a man whom Topaz had never seen before, but knew instantly.

Topaz inched forward on his knees. Topaz still had trouble judging age in humans, but thought he looked forty or so. He did not have that tired look of older humans. His hair was solid gray, but then, Topaz expected that much. He had a strange quality about his skin, Topaz thought as he looked down at him. Then he realized he was still shifting. Except he was shifting back to a cat.

A pile of dried catnip, curly leaves and tiny faded blossoms, had been pushed into an arc by Rune’s arm as he slept. The fingernails of his visible hand flexed and retracted and made a bloody mess of his fingers. As Topaz watched, his ribcage crushed itself and forced a pained groan out of Rune’s lungs. His tail came and went, as did pads on the soles of his feet. His knee jerked forward and hit the wall with a thud as he started to writhe.

Topaz recoiled in horror. He had never seen a transformation like that. Sure, it always hurt a bit. It was not fun or anything. But this was awful. Rune shrank down to cat size again, though his skin still had heat haze fuzziness to it, still changing minutely. He shivered and shook with exertion. His fur was wet with human sweat.

Topaz reached out and set a hand on him. He relaxed under the warmth. Topaz settled next to Rune with his head braced on his free hand. He looked down at the familiar tabby markings on Rune and shook his head. “You’re a mess, bro,” he whispered. “What are we going to do with you?”

—

The house was full of people. Humans. Men and women. Heather glared at a mother who was licking her child’s forehead. “You might use a cloth for that,” she suggested. She admitted that they did not all make very convincing humans, but it was so nice to be surrounded by people again. There was not a tail in sight.

There was a knock. Heather walked to the door then saw that the front room was occupied by an assortment of cats-turned-human, most of whom were blissfully ignorant of their nakedness. She hissed and shooed them out of the room as quietly as she could.

There was another knock. “Just a minute,” she called. She grabbed one man on his way out of the room. “Don’t let anyone come in here. Got it?” He agreed and hustled the lingering people out of sight. Heather smoothed her hair and opened the door.

The woman at the door wore a pearl choker. The hand she offered had manicured acrylic nails. She had the timeless face of a well-kept older woman. Heather immediately tagged her as high society and wondered what she could be doing all the way out at the House, which was not exactly next door to the nearest country club. Heather could not tell what kind of car she had parked a few feet away, but it was entirely shiny and new.

“I’m Yvonne Waverly,” she said. Her voice, when she spoke, was unusually low for a woman. “I am the president of the homeowners’ association here in Shadow Hills. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Heather Lee and likewise,” Heather said while thinking that she did not even know there was a Shadow Hills community to which she might belong. “Can I help you? Is there something wrong?”

“Not at all. I heard you had moved back here and I wanted to introduce myself.” She lifted her left hand to display a covered bottle of wine. “A little housewarming gift.”

“Would you, um, mind waiting here a minute? I’ll get you something to drink.”

“I would love to see your home. If I could.”

“Er. Well. I’m kind of in the middle of unpacking. Cleaning. Fixing the place up. You know. So.”

“I’ll just wait here then, shall I?” She gestured to the old porch swing like it might give her tetanus. Or plague.

“Please. And I’ll be right back with drinks.”

When she came back outside, Yvonne was sitting gingerly on the very edge of the swing. “Thank you,” she said as she accepted the glass of lemonade. Yvonne took a sip and left a perfect lip impression in red lipstick. “How long have you been here?”

Heather leaned back against the railing around the porch where the sun could warm her back. “A couple months. There’s been a lot to do, so it’s passed quickly.”

“I’m sure. Do you need any help?”

“Thanks, but we’re doing okay.”

“Oh, are you married?” Yvonne asked.

Heather began to feel that there was nothing this woman overlooked. She checked her clothing surreptitiously for stray cat hairs. “I just, that is, I have some friends who have been helping me. Locals.”

“That’s nice.”

“So, homeowners’ association. That must be a big responsibility,” Heather said.

“It does keep me busy. I’ll admit I did have an ulterior motive for being here, though,” Yvonne said with a not-very-abashed smile. “Your predecessor–”

“My mother.”

“Yes, of course. She was not active in our group, I’m sorry to say.”

Heather took that to mean Mother had not been interested in a cross-species game of keeping up with the Joneses. “So she never gave you the grand tour.”

Yvonne leaned forward with an expression of child-like delight. “I grew up in this town, but I never heard of anyone coming up to this property. It was the local haunted house.”

“I never knew that. I didn’t play with local kids much.” Heather steered her mind away from the one time she did play with the local “kids.”

“I didn’t either. You know what it’s like to have overprotective parents. An only child too?”

“As far as I know,” Heather said with a shrug.

Yvonne laughed. “Very clever.” She patted the space on the swing next to her. “I really just wanted an excuse to check the place out.”

“I would give you the full tour, but–” Heather sat down. There was a terrible tearing noise and the swing, both women, and two glasses of lemonade crashed to the porch.

“Remodeling. Right,” Yvonne said breathlessly after a moment. “I can see why.”

“Are you okay?”

“A little damp, I have to admit,” she said and wiped at the lemonade all over the front of her suit. “But otherwise uninjured, I believe. You?”

“Oh, swell,” Heather said as she rolled to her knees and up to her feet. She offered her hand to Yvonne and pulled her up. “Let me get you something.”

“I think I’ll go towel off at home,” Yvonne said.

“Sorry about that,” Heather said as she picked up the fallen glasses.

“Nonsense. But you get that fixed up, before someone does get hurt,” she said. Heather thought it sounded like more of a threat than a friendly comment. “You ask me, I think you have termites.” Heather prayed it was not so.

—

Heather nudged the sagging remains of the swing with her foot and pushed it out of the way. She set the step ladder where the swing once hung. With the hardware it hung from and a screwdriver from the kitchen in hand, she ascended the steps to see what the damage looked like.

“I see you got rid of that dozy cow,” someone said from the front door.

Heather, startled, lost her balance and stumbled down from the ladder. “Don’t do that,” she said. It was Dopple in the doorway. “Going out?” Heather asked when she saw the coat slung over Dopple’s shoulder.

“Maybe. What’s it to you?”

Back up on the ladder, Heather scraped at the splintered wood with the screwdriver. “Nothing much. I just wondered. Anyone else headed out?”

“None of my business if they are.”

“Seems a pity,” Heather said as she tried to tighten a screw back into the wood. “Not to enjoy the change.”

“Yes, it’s no secret how you feel about it,” Dopple said. “Most cats,” she said with emphasis, so that it meant sane cats, “don’t like to advertise the fact.”

Heather tugged on the screw and it fell out of the wood easily and released a flurry of wood shards behind it. “Damn thing,” she muttered. “You spend more time human than the others.”

“I have a job to do.”

“You’re a rescuer.” Heather twisted a screw into place with her fingers then tightened it with the screwdriver. It turned easily. “But you mean to tell me you don’t enjoy it too? You never go to a nice restaurant or do some shopping for yourself?”

“Would that serve some purpose? Would it make anyone’s life better?”

“Maybe yours.” The screw fell out of the wood on its own this time. “Shit.”

“I don’t enjoy cutting myself off from my kind, so no, I don’t think it will enrich my life. Thank you for your concern.”

“You’re welcome,” Heather said. She was no longer really listening to the conversation. She chipped off some more wood. “How do you tell if you have termites?”

“What, on you? I would recommend a flea collar, if you’re concerned.”

“Not on me. In the woodwork. Yvonne said she thinks this is from termites. But I can’t see anything that looks like one.”

“Well, if Yvonne said it, it must be true.” When Heather made no reply, she slipped on her jacket and went down the steps. “I’m going to buy some more cat trees and have them delivered to the bottom of the hill.”

Heather stopped what she was doing and looked at her. “Thank you. Ours are looking pretty ragged. You have money?”

Dopple flashed a debit card.

“Let me know when they’ll be delivered and I can take some people down to pick them up.”

Dopple shrugged and walked away. “Whatever,” she said as though Heather had been needling her.

Heather got down from the step ladder and put her hands on her hips. She looked at the overhang of the porch. It was pockmarked from time and weather and had gone gray with fine patches of mold. It did not look good, she thought, but termites sounded serious. She would have to call an exterminator or something. That meant going into town, as the House had no phone line.

Heather folded up the step ladder and tucked the screwdriver in the back pocket of her jeans. Maybe Carlisle would come with her. Or Topaz. Surely someone in the House enjoyed the human side of life. Dopple’s comments had her out of sorts, but she would prove her point if she could get a bunch of cats together in town. It could be a field trip. The termite problem fled from her mind in the face of a more pleasant project to plan. Heather put her tools away and went in search of recruits.

—

Susanna tapped her glass against the bar and checked her watch for the third time in ten minutes. He was late. She sipped her drink, which tasted only of melted ice by then. How dare he stand her up, she thought, but could not seem to muster any anger behind it. It had been a long day, which was why she was still in the bar, drinking alone, when she should have stormed out long ago.

She felt the person behind her before he ever touched her. His breath warmed her neck as he said, “You must hate me.” A hot hand curled over her shoulder and lingered as he moved around to her side and took a seat.

“Hate is such a strong word,” she said coolly. “But if you wanted to say loathe, I wouldn’t stop you.”

George Ellison didn’t laugh. His eyebrows furrowed, which made him look a little like a sulky puppy, if they came in six-and-a-half foot sizes. “My assistant informed me, on my way out the door to meet you, that the building permits for South Acacia had been sent over by courier an hour before.” He signaled to the bartender to give Susanna another drink. “I’m going to fire that nitwit, if she doesn’t ruin me first.”

“And they had to be dealt with tonight,” Susanna said. She accepted the drink when it arrived and took a sip before saying, in slightly more sincere tones, “Because your work won’t wait.”

“I wish I could disagree with you,” he said and he had that easy grin on his face again. “But you know what I’m talking about. All those clients with hands to hold. Always certain that their problems are the only things that matter.”

“I suppose,” Susanna said and favored him by turning towards him a bit, no longer half ignoring him.

“Unlike that Lee woman,” George said after he ordered a drink for himself.

“How so?”

“All those years, she couldn’t be bothered with the place. Hardly a peep out of her. Now she shows up and takes control of everything, again without a word. Doesn’t it seem a little strange?”

“Hey, it’s less work for me either way. Maybe she just got sentimental.”

“You know better than I do, I’m sure.” Susanna noted the return of his hand to her shoulder. “It would make me wonder though. Personally, I think she wants to sell the place.”

“Oh, not this again. I’ve told you, it’s set up to remain in the trust always, even if there’s no family left, even if they don’t want it personally.”

“Never underestimate the determination of a seller.”

“Or a buyer, in your case.”

“Too true. I would be curious though, to see what she’s buying,” George said lightly.

“You mean if she’s fixing the place up to sell,” she said and tried to sound as bored as possible so he would change the subject.

“Exactly. Do you still get copies of everything?”

“We’re still working with the same accountant, so yes. But I don’t see anything until she sends it to them now.”

He ordered yet another drink. Did that make it her second drink? Or her third? Susanna giggled. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stop herself, which only made her giggle more. “Mr. Ellison, I do believe you are trying to get me drunk.”

“Nonsense,” George said. “A gentleman never lets a lady become intoxicated.” The hand moved around to the small of her back.

“A gentleman should take a lady home once she is,” she cooed.

“Not a bad idea. Only I think I’ll need a few more drinks myself before that.”

“Oh, you beast. What a terrible thing to say.” She tried to slap his hand away, still giggling.

“What can I say? You bring out the animal in me.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Let me know when the next batch comes in. I’ll swing by your office and take a look,” George said.

“Oh, will you now?” Susanna asked as he helped her out of her chair and put the strap of her purse in her hand.

“Come on, you know you’re curious too. We won’t be hurting anything. Just taking a peek.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, remember?”

“Good thing we aren’t cats then, hm?” George said. She let him maneuver her out of the bar. The cool night air did nothing to clear her head. “What do you say we get out of here?”

—

Topaz looked up from the trunk of clothing when he heard someone come into the room. His human body did its best to purr at what he saw. Carlisle as a human was a dish, Topaz knew, but he had nothing but a towel around his waist at the moment and water dripped from his curly hair. It seemed that a spotted coat meant curls as a human.

“You took a shower?” Topaz asked.

Carlisle blushed, yet another human detail that Topaz loved. “It’s impossible to get this body clean otherwise. That’s all.”

“You don’t have to convince me. I like water,” he said and pulled out a pair of jeans, these ones more intact than the cut-offs he favored.

“You’re a cat.”

“Most of the time,” he replied with a wink. “What are you wearing tonight?”

Carlisle snorted. “I’m not going.”

“What? But I was looking forward to getting a little alone time with you.” He held a shirt up in the mirror. Bleh. Ugly.

“With six other cats?”

“No reason why we have to stay with the class for the whole field trip,” he said and nudged Carlisle with his hip when the other cat came over to find clothing of his own.

“Field trip. Unbelievable,” Carlisle said with undisguised scorn.

“Problem?” Topaz watched him in the mirror as he searched.

“It’s a bad idea; that is my problem. Something could go wrong.” He dropped his towel and pulled on a pair of black slacks.

“Heather’s going to bring some of her cat’s bane pills,” Topaz said when his brain got back on track. “So if anyone starts to change back early, we’re covered.”

“Oh, what a comfort. More drug use.” Carlisle flapped a shirt in his direction. “I would think that you of all people would see the danger in this plan.”

“Cat’s bane isn’t nearly as bad as catnip. And Heather has it under control,” Topaz said, surprised as well to be defending her.

“Hah! That’s rich. She disappeared for twenty-five years thanks to the stuff.”

“Okay, I’m sensing outstanding issues here,” Topaz said.

“You’re too young to understand. You weren’t here.” Carlisle buttoned his shirt and refused to look at Topaz.

“Excuse me, what the hell?” Topaz felt his face go red. “Too young? Give me a freaking break!” Nettled, he plunged on, deaf to what he was saying. “I bet I saw more on the trip over to the House than you have in, ooh, twenty-seven years.”

“Don’t imagine you know what my life was like prior to your arrival,” Carlisle said, voice as cool as if they had been discussing what he ate yesterday morning.

“I don’t have to imagine. I can see for myself right now. Going to get Heather was probably the first time you had been away from the House for as long as you’ve been here.”

“What business is it of yours, regardless?”

“Oh, hey, just gut me for wanting you to loosen up a little. I thought it would be fun to go out. You know, fun? Sounds like fun?” He waved his arms wildly as he spoke.

“Yes, how droll. I should have known you would side with her.” Carlisle turned to leave.

“I’m not siding with anybody. I just want to go on a damn date with you, you jerk,” he shouted.

“Compelling though that invitation might be,” Carlisle said from the doorway, “I believe I shall remain a recluse for one more night. If it’s all the same to you.” He shut the door — shut, not slammed — and left Topaz red-faced and miserable.

—

“So, what is anyone getting?” Heather asked as she looked over the menu. She and six other cats were seated at a long table at the back of the restaurant. She made a note to plan ahead next time, so they could get a better view. But so far, nothing horrifying had happened.

“Do they have fish here?” asked one of the others. Her name was Annabelle, a small and bright-eyed white short-hair normally.

“Yes, but don’t forget that everything will be cooked,” Heather said. She kept her voice low. “Well, they have a sushi appetizer, but this really isn’t a good place for sushi. There’s salmon under the chef’s specials.”

“I want another drink,” Topaz said. He rattled the ice in his cup for emphasis.

“You finished it already?” Heather asked. “Slow down, will you?” Topaz had been out of sorts all evening but he would not tell her why.

“Do I really have to wear this?” Evergreen, an unfortunately named cinnamon tabby, tugged at the long sleeves of his shirt. Heather had helped them all dress and had done her best to cover up their more unusual markings. In his case, it was the swirl of light and dark tan patterns on his skin, which looked like a bad tanning lotion accident. He undid the buttons and started to roll the sleeves up.

“Hey, remember what I said? We’re incognito,” she said and he reluctantly rolled the sleeves down again. “Come on, what sounds good? I’m thinking about the pot roast.”

“The chicken will be dead, won’t it?” Dorian, a truly huge, wire-haired cat, asked. He looked like a Viking with his tangle of red and brown hair and his chunky forearms. “What’s the point of any bird if it’s already dead?”

“Okay! Let’s not discuss dead things at the table,” Heather said with strained cheer. “Just try to pick something that you think you’ll enjoy. It’s one meal; if you don’t like it, no one will make you eat it again.”

“What’s a salad?” Annabelle asked. She pronounced it sa-LAHD. Cats at the House were taught to read, but some took to it better than others.

“It’s lettuce and other vegetables. I’m not sure you’ll like it much.”

“Is it like grass?” Rafflesia asked. Heather had marveled, upon meeting her for the first time, at her mother’s taste in baby names. She looked about twelve as a human. Her mother, Valoria, sat next to her and fussed over her kitten whenever a human walked by their table. They were both long-haired calicoes with green eyes that looked utterly wrong in a human face. “I like grass, but sometimes it makes me throw–”

“And again, let’s not talk about that right now. It is a little like grass, I suppose. In a manner of speaking,” Heather said, now reluctant to say more for fear the kitten would decide that salad was a good idea.

“These drinks are fantastic,” Topaz said to no one in particular. He must have asked a waiter for another while Heather was distracted by the others. “They taste like pineapple. And possibly lighter fluid.”

“Oh, that does sound great. I think I’m going to impose a two-drink limit.”

“Spoilsport,” Topaz said. “I thought we were going to have fun!”

It became increasingly apparent to Heather that Topaz’s idea of fun that night would consist of getting rip-roaringly drunk. She tried to prevent him from getting a third drink, but there was only so much time she could spend watching him. The other cats all needed her attention more than he did. She had to teach them to use silverware and straws and napkins, all of which were mostly foreign to them. She could not believe she had thought it a good idea to choose cats who were less experienced with human life. “To give them a good introduction,” she had said to Carlisle. Good god, what an idea.

Once the food was there, everyone settled down a bit. Their manners were not attractive, but they did not growl or fight over anything either, for which Heather was grateful. Topaz had gone silent some time before that. Heather wondered, watching him pick at a salmon steak, if he had ever had alcohol before. He was by far the most experienced one there, second to Heather herself. Yet Rafflesia was the only one younger than he. She wondered who he had been before he came to the House.

“I think we should go dancing,” he said suddenly after his plate had been cleared away by the server.

Heather recognized that inebriated gleam in his eyes from her own time working in restaurants. “I don’t think there are any clubs around here. This is a small town,” she said.

“Who needs a club?” Topaz asked. He pushed his chair back and Heather had visions, horrible visions, of him jumping up on the table and stripping.

Dorian clamped a huge hand on his arm and pinned him to the chair. “Behave yourself, kitten,” he rumbled.

“Check, please,” she said to the server. “Quickly,” she added with a nervous glance at Topaz.

—

“I don’t feel so good,” Topaz said. He had an arm draped over Heather’s shoulders and leaned on her heavily.

“Big surprise there,” Heather said. “Point yourself in some other direction if you decide to throw up.”

“Don’t talk about it,” he whined.

“I can take him for a while,” Dorian said.

“Thanks.” She rearranged Topaz against Dorian.

“Hey, big fella,” Topaz said. He patted a hand against Dorian’s stomach. “Nice six-pack you have there. You want to have some fun with me later?”

“Oh, this gets better and better,” Heather muttered. “Topaz, don’t hit on him. Please. I’m sorry about this,” she said to Dorian. “This isn’t quite the evening I had in mind.”

Dorian grinned. “I’m not complaining.”

Rafflesia piped up. “Yeah, this is fun!” Her mother chuckled and shook her head.

“I appreciate your saying that, but it isn’t necessary.” Heather jammed her hands in her pockets and slouched like she could shrink and disappear. “Carlisle was right. This was a mistake.”

“Are you kidding? Nothing this exciting ever happens at the House,” Dorian said. “Best we can hope for there are fights over field mice. This was cool.”

“You really didn’t hate it?”

“Naw. What’s to hate?” Dorian said. “At least he isn’t–”

And of course, that was the moment when something happened, something unexpectedly worse. Topaz started twitching. He shivered. His skin seemed to ripple.

“Shit! He’s changing,” Heather said. They were still making their way out of the shopping center where the restaurant was located. She pulled Dorian towards a narrow passageway between two storefronts. It opened on one end to the stores and the front parking lot and on the other end on the back lot.

“In here. Yeah, set him down there. Valoria, you two stand out front and look like you’re waiting for someone or shopping or something. Just keep anyone from seeing us. Annabelle, you go with them.” She dug out her bottle of cat’s bane. “Take these first. It must be the alcohol. He had more to drink than the rest of you.”

“I didn’t have any,” Rafflesia said. “Do I have to take it?”

“No, sweetheart, you’re fine.”

“What about Topaz?” Evergreen asked as he gulped a pill down.

“Too risky. It’s started. It’s really rough to force the change to stop in the middle,” Heather said and thought of her own unpleasant experiences with the same problem.

“Why didn’t you warn us about this before you let us drink?” Annabelle asked quietly, trying to make it look like she was talking with Valoria.

“I don’t drink,” Heather snapped. “I didn’t know this would happen.”

“Can we do anything for him?” Evergreen asked.

“We just have to wait for it to pass. Then we can carry him home. I’m more concerned about avoiding any unwanted attention in the meantime.”

Topaz moaned quietly and the three out front raised their voices a bit to cover it. His shaggy hair shed away and melted into the air. Fur sprang free of his skin, changing from a five o’clock shadow to a full coat in a few minutes. Bones creaked as they changed shape and size. His abdomen roiled as his organs shuffled into position. When his body finally settled, he gave one great sigh and fell asleep.

Heather lifted him and pulled off the clothing he had been wearing. Dorian cradled him in his big arms while Heather folded the clothes. “We’ll go this way,” she said and pointed to the back lot. “There’s less light. We’ll pick the road up once we’re out of sight.” So six humans and one cat slipped into the shadows between streetlights and made their silent way into the open night on the streets.

“What were you saying about excitement?” Heather asked when they were alone on the road that would take them home.

“Nothing bad happened,” Evergreen reminded her. “No one saw us.”

“That we know of,” Heather said. “I’m really sorry I put you all in danger like this.”

“Psh. Danger,” Valoria said. “Rubbish. We’re in more danger just going into our own backyard. Life is danger, dear.”

They walked in silence a while longer. Then, in the dark, Evergreen’s soft voice spoke. “We should do this every month,” he said.

“Next time, let’s go shopping for toys,” Rafflesia said. “Auntie Heather, do you know where there’s a toy store?”

Heather could not help but laugh. “I’ll make sure to find one before next Leo moon.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“And we can bring all our friends along,” Rafflesia said.

Drunken escapades and high society ladies aside, Heather found she was happy to think of these people as her friends. A little company, she decided, after all those years living alone, might not be so bad.

—

Previous Episode :: Back to Index :: Next Episode

Heather set another stack of folders onto the desk with a thump and a cloud of dust. Then she dove back into the pile with a sneeze. Her mother had folders for taxes and folders for budgeting and folders for contracts. Some of them were labeled. All of them were stacked haphazardly around the office, breeding like rabbits in neglected corners. Heather dug the oldest files out of the desk drawers; she had already sorted the newer folders by subject. She wiped her forehead against her sleeve and left behind a streak of sweat gone brown from dust. A breeze blew in from the open window, but she could not feel it, crouched as she was behind the desk.

Last drawer. She wormed her hands down into it and pulled out the last stack of paper folders and envelopes gone yellow with time. That stack was heavier than the others. She placed it on the top of a tower of similar papers and bent down to shimmy the drawer shut. The bottom ones had both rusted with age and disuse and had to be shoved back into place. This one finally slid and Heather’s shoulder bumped the desk. Something rustled. Something slid. Something fell and bounced from her head to her shoulder to the floor.

“Ow, ow, ow. What did you keep in here, Mom? Bricks?” Heather asked. She rubbed her smarting head and looked at what had fallen. In with the folders, their papers now fanning across the thin carpet, there was a book.

Heather picked it up. The dust jacket had pulled free on one side in the fall and she tucked it back into place with reverent fingers. Joy of Cooking. All the O’s had happy faces with whiskers drawn in them with colored pencil. Her back and knees crackled as she stood up. She pushed back the papers on the desktop, sat in the leather chair, and opened the book.

On the title page, her mother’s round script waited for her. “For Heather, on her 3^rd birthday. May you have the best of both worlds, all your days. Love, Mommy.” Heather ran her fingertip across the blue letters. She flipped the pages and let the book open to the most used pages and the ones with scraps of paper marking them.

There was Caribbean banana; they hated the taste, but loved the blue flames when they flambéed it. All the cats in the house came running when they made shrimp, crab, and oyster gumbo. They made stuffed potatoes for Heather’s fourth birthday. Heather once got it into her head to make vanilla cream caramels and burned herself so badly with superheated sugar syrup, she still had a scar on the back of her left hand almost thirty years later.

She took out a slip of bright orange construction paper. A cat’s face was drawn on it in marker. On the back side, in a child’s enthusiastic printing, it said I Love You, Momy. Heather laughed and scrubbed her tear-filled eyes. Idiot, she thought fondly. She tucked the paper back where it marked baked fish fillets Spencer.

Heather closed the book. When she had found out that no culinary school would take her, that rent cost more than she had ever imagined, that working in a restaurant was tiring and demoralizing and paid a pittance unless you were the one in charge, she had thought of the book and wished she had taken it with her when she left home. She had thought of it and told herself, someday, she would cook feasts for one hundred people and her food would haunt their dreams. Someday, she would get her dream. Someday had sustained her through pubs and burger joints and cafes and more dead-end jobs than one person should have to endure.

A scratch and a meow at the door pulled her from her reminiscing. “It’s open,” she called out. The door swung inward.

“Not busy, I hope,” Carlisle said as he came in.

“Actually, I was thinking of taking a few people down with me to pick up groceries.”

“You just went three days ago,” he said.

“Yes, Carlisle. But since there was nothing but cat food in the house when I got here, there’s rather a lot of restocking to do. And I can only carry so much in one trip with no car.”

“Sorry, but that will have to wait,” he said. Heather did not think he sounded terribly sorry. “There are some new arrivals today.”

“And? What’s that got to do with me?” Heather asked. Carlisle just gave her a pointed look. “Right, right. Queen of the cattery. Okay. Bring them in then.” She sat on the floor and leaned up against the desk. Her queen’s throne left something to be desired, she thought as Carlisle ushered three black cats into the office.

—

Carlisle spared a glance at Topaz when he came into the upstairs lounge room. He was so loud, it was impossible to ignore him. This time he was singing show tunes. He had been through the room three times that day alone.

“Who will buy this wonderful morning?” Topaz sang at the top of his lungs. It lost something in the translation. It came out meaning “to whom will I present this dawn territory,” but it did still fit the tune. He sat down next to Carlisle.

“Was there something you needed?” Carlisle asked just as he drew a breath for another line.

“Not particularly,” Topaz said. He pawed at the papers Carlisle was reading. “What ya doing?”

Carlisle pushed an envelope from one pile to another. “Going through the messages from cats living abroad.”

“Is someone AWOL?”

“We haven’t heard anything from Lynne West and her clan in eighteen months. I think we have to assume they’re dead.”

Topaz kneaded Carlisle’s shoulders. “Can I ask you something?” His claws rumpled and smoothed Carlisle’s fur in turns. When Carlisle purred in response, Topaz went on. “Now that Heather’s here, isn’t this her job?”

“No, not at all. As her second in — oh, just a bit to the right — in command, I am in charge of a host of domestic affairs.”

“Sure, sure. I get it. Only…” His paws stilled.

“What?” Carlisle asked.

Topaz went back to massaging. “I was just thinking that she has a lot of catching up to do. She needs to reacquaint herself with how things work here.”

“I suppose that’s true enough,” Carlisle agreed readily when Topaz switched to grooming behind his ears.

“And she can’t exactly do that if you baby her all the time. So you should take some time off.”

“What?” Carlisle craned his head around to look back at Topaz. The tom had an excessively innocent look on his face. “Oh, no. I can’t do that. There’s too much work to do.”

“Right, of course. I mean, you wouldn’t go away or anything. Hah! No.” He went back to kneading with one paw. “I just mean, you know, let Heather have the reigns for a while, see how she does, what responsibilities she wants you to handle for her.”

“Yes,” Carlisle agreed reluctantly, “that might be wise.”

“Great! That means you’re free to go climb the big pine tree in the back yard right now.”

“Well, wait, I–”

“Come on! This stuff can wait. If they’ve been missing for eighteen months, one more morning won’t hurt anything.”

As Topaz chased him out of the room, he tried to think of a counter argument that would let him stay with his paperwork in his quiet room. But there did not seem to be one. Ten feet up the pine tree, he forgot about it anyway.

—

Heather inched backwards. “Just don’t destroy the place or kill anybody else,” she said. Chocolate smells wafted through the room. She gave a frantic stir to the pot on the stove then pulled on a pair of oven mitts. “Hang on a minute, will you?” She opened the oven door and a fresh blast of hot air, laden with tangy chocolate, washed over her. She gingerly set the cake pan onto the cooling rack.

“Cake? You can make cake?” One cat asked her sharply.

Heather looked back. Five cats, all perfectly black, sat lined up on the kitchen island. They stared at her. One licked her lips. “Um. Yes. Yes, I can make cake. It’s chocolate though. You’ll have to change if you want some.”

They looked at each other. The same cat, their leader, spoke again. “You have cat’s bane in the backyard? We’ll be right back.” They all hopped down and dashed for the yard, chatting as they went.

“Let it cool before you cut into it,” Heather called after them. This is getting ridiculous, she thought. That’s the fourth batch today. Two yesterday. Another five over the past week. She gave the pot on the stove another stir and sniffed it. “And now my ganache is burnt on the bottom!”

She flung down her oven mitts. She moved the ruined pot of ganache to a back burner, checked that both oven and stove were turned off, and set off in search of Carlisle and some answers.

Carlisle, as it turned out, was up on the roof, having his belly bathed by that talkative ginger tom, Topaz. Heather cleared her throat as she clamored up through a door intended for cats, not humans. Carlisle jumped away, but Topaz just looked annoyed.

“I could have sworn I closed that door,” he said.

“So sorry to interrupt,” Heather said and rolled her eyes. “But I kind of need to talk to your boyfriend.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

Topaz grumbled and slunk to the hatch in the roof. Heather straddled the peak of the roof. She waggled her eyebrows at Carlisle when he finally looked away from where Topaz had disappeared into the house.

“I’m not his, that is, I mean,” Carlisle sputtered.

“Oh, come on.” Heather petted his head until he calmed down.

“Really, I barely know him.”

“If you say so,” she said with a shrug. “But he totally digs you.”

Carlisle’s stump of a tail puffed in embarrassment. “You said you needed to talk to me?”

“What’s with all the cats arriving? Every time I turn around, someone new wants temporary lodging at the House.” The roof was hot and smelled of tar paper. Summer was holding on as long as it could. But the breeze blowing in from the ocean was a breath of chill.

“Heather, October is almost over.” Carlisle seemed to think that explained everything. When Heather still did not get it, he went on. “It’s the Festival of Black Cats.”

“What, here?” He nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me? I, I’ve got to clean and cook and oh my god, I’ve only got a few days!”

Carlisle snorted. “They will take care of all of it. We just provide the venue, remember? Have you ever been to the festival?”

“Long time ago.”

“You should make an offering now that you’re back. For Poppy.”

“I’m not–”

“Just think about it. And relax. No one expects the Queen to clean house. Now, if you don’t need me, I think I’ll get back to my paperwork. Before Topaz finds me again.”

“Have fun,” Heather said absently. She stayed up on the roof for a long time after Carlisle left. She could feel her face burning in the sun and wind. What was the point of being Queen if she didn’t get to do anything, she wondered. She stood up and leaned over the edge of the roof a bit. Stretched out around her was a paradise of cats, green and warm and secluded. And she was in charge of it all.

“Time,” she said to herself, “for a new kind of Queen.” She watched the cats milling around in the backyard. “First, to rally my troops.”

—

Dopple kicked the front door. “Can I get a little help here?” She had two cat kennels with carry straps over her shoulders and a third in her arms. “Anybody?” There was still no answer. She could hear voices, so she knew someone was human at the moment.

She sighed. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen. I’m going to let you out here.” She let the straps slide off her shoulders one at a time. The kennels hit with little thumps. “Sorry, sorry,” she muttered. She set the third on top of another. “These doors are impossible to get open,” she said as she struggled with the pinch locks on the front of the first cage.

Two cats bolted out as soon as she got the door open. They mewed and scratched at the door. Dopple popped it open and went back to opening doors. Five changing-cats in total this trip. Just from one pet store and a cat show. She left the kennels on the front porch and went inside.

“Anybody home?” She hung her leather jacket up in the hall closet and followed the voices into the solarium, known conventionally as the room closest to the garden with all the windows.

The room was full of cats-gone-human, all cleaning and polishing and redecorating. Some were clothed, but most were naked as though they had changed suddenly and gone straight to work. Some were washing windows. Some were polishing wood with dust rags. Some were conversing over a half-assembled coffee table.

“Hold this, will you?” someone said and shoved a lamp into her arms. “I mean it: one more broken lamp and you can go without lights. You all have night vision for a reason,” she shouted to the room in general.

“I hardly recognize the place,” Dopple said, since the other woman was still standing nearby. Dopple did not recognize her either. “I go away for a couple weeks and the whole place changes.”

“Oh, no,” the woman said. “We’ve just done this in the past two days.” She took the lamp back and put it on the end table against the wall. “Everyone’s pitching in for the festival. Are you here for it as well?”

“No. I live here. Who are you?”

“Oh, sorry. There have just been so many new cats coming in.” She stuck her hand out. “I’m Heather. I’m in charge here, apparently.”

“Is that so?” Dopple smiled tightly. “Sorry,” she said and pulled off one of her leather gloves. “I don’t shake,” she said over Heather’s gasp.

Dopple’s fingers had all been cut down to the first knuckle. No nails, no fingertips. The ends were blunt and scarred. The remaining fingers hung limp due to the clumsily severed tendons. The pale skin of her hands abruptly turned darker at the wrist, belying the tuxedo pattern of her coat. She tugged the glove back on by holding the edge between her thumb and the side of her index finger, avoiding the painful ends of her fingers.

“You were declawed?” Heather asked. She gave Dopple a serious case of soulful eyes. Dopple could have vomited.

She shrugged. “As a kitten. That’s what happens when humans get a hold of cats, you know? Anyway. I take it you’re Heather Lee.”

“Yes. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Depending on who you talk to, it’s Heather Lee.”

“Huh?”

Brilliant, this one, she thought. “Your mum had me pose as you on the phone.”

“Oh! You must be the one who talked to Susanna, the lawyer.”

“So, you met her then. Well, you must have found your credit card if you’ve been buying furniture.” She gestured to the rather laughable attempts of the group to attach all four table legs at once. “But I can give you the PINs for the accounts. That is, if you’re planning to stick around this time.”

Heather clucked her tongue against her teeth. “They can put the table together on their own. Why don’t you fill me in on everything?” She smiled with lots of teeth. “That will leave you free to go out of town whenever you like.”

Dopple narrowed her eyes. Cookie wanted to play that way, huh? “That’ll be swell.” She walked up the stairs to the office several respectful — and watchful — paces behind Heather.

—

On the last day before the festival, Heather was chained to the stove. The cold foods, the foods that needed time to mellow, and the reheatable foods had all been made. Now she had a chicken — the fourth chicken, in fact, to account for the still-swelling population of the house — roasting in the oven. Two cats from the New York Chinatown had shared a recipe for tiny, crunchy fish things, which were sautéing at the same time. A pan of liver and onions was doing the same. There was a knock at the swinging door into the kitchen.

“If you make me burn this food, I will serve you instead,” she shouted.

A shaggy blonde head peaked through the door. “Permission to enter, ma’am?”

“Topaz? You’re human. What’s up?”

Topaz scooted two casserole dishes farther down the island and hopped up on it. He was wearing a pair of jean cut-offs and nothing else. “Went with the last shopping team for you. Are you taking any requests?”

“Unless you have a specific cultural obligation, no.” She looked him up and down. He looked like a surfer. “And Cujo Mescal with a worm at the bottom does not count, grom.”

“Huh?”

“Sorry. I’ve been working near the beach for too long. Never mind.”

“It wasn’t for me. It’s for Rune. I hear your mom used to make these little finger sandwiches he really liked. Cream cheese and olive.”

Heather switched off the heat on one pan and turned it up on another. “Is he still living in the attic to avoid the sight of me?”

He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. He looked about sixteen and too cute for words. He had human mannerisms down pat, as well. “Er, yeah. Pretty much full-time. I think I caught him in the garden the other night, but it might have been a raccoon.”

“Might I ask why, exactly, he hates me so?”

“That’s before my time, I think. I’ve only been here a year.”

“He’s hated me for more than a year? My, I do make an impression on people, don’t I?” she deadpanned.

“It’s something to do with your mom. Uh, anyway, I think he likes you.”

“Good god, Topaz, what does he do to the people he doesn’t like?”

“Naw, really, he liked you when you first arrived. I saw him look at you, ya know? Like, really look.”

“Mm, I wouldn’t know anything about that.” Which brother was the stoner again, she wondered.

“It’s the catnip,” he said fiercely, as though he read her thoughts. “It messes up his head. If he could just get offa it, he’d be fine.”

“I sense a request in there somewhere.” She set a finished dish on the island and smacked his roving fingers away from it.

“I’m trying to help him, but, like, I’m his baby brother.”

“Really?”

“Same father. He lets me tag along and all, but he’s not going to quit just to make me happy.”

“And you think I can convince him?”

“If he likes you enough.”

She turned off all the burners and faced him. “Are you asking me to, to seduce your brother so he’ll kick the habit?”

“Well, yeah. Kinda. I mean, you might like him,” he said in a rush. “He’s cute, in the growling, I’m-so-tortured way. Queens dig that, right? I mean, it’s not my thing, but I’ve heard.”

She laughed. “Yes, I’ve noticed what your thing is. On the roof with Carlisle?”

“What’s it to you?” She could almost see his ears pinned.

“Carlisle is my friend, is what.” She sighed. “Do I have to go through the whole, hurt him and I’ll feed your spleen to weasels speech?”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Consider it said.”

She turned back to the counter and started chopping vegetables. “I’m not going to seduce Rune. I’ll be lucky if I can get him to stay in the same room with me.”

He hopped down from the counter. “Finger sandwiches, babe. I’m telling ya. Just give it a try.” He sounded hurt, or maybe just disappointed. “Can’t make things worse, right?”

“He hasn’t tried to kill me in my sleep yet, so I’m going to say, yes, it can get worse.”

He shrugged and headed for the door. “Whatever. See ya.”

Heather paused, knife poised over a stalk of celery. Finger sandwiches. Well, the way to a tom’s heart is through his belly. And a catnip-free Household can only be a good thing. It did not have to mean anything more, did it?

—

Firelight twinkled in the yard and turned each cat into a lion in its shadow. Heather knelt, the only human form in a row of cats facing the shrine. It had been erected that morning by the last three cats to arrive. They were the shamans and their bodyguards had driven them across the country to conduct the ceremonies for the festival. Each was a black cat and though they were all shaky and rail-thin with age, there was not a single white hair on them.

One motioned the first cat in the row forward, while the other two chanted. Their chanting rose and fell over a handful of octaves, sweet and jarring at once. They sang as only cats can. The first supplicant bowed before the shrine, head down and tail up, and deposited a little paper box heaped high with bright orange fish roe. He returned to the line and the next went up.

It was the duty of every cat to attend the moving Festival of Black Cats at least once in their life and make offerings to the illustrious dead of their pedigree. This was the Day of the Dead for cats. Heather fidgeted in line; she had never before made an offering by herself, though she had accompanied her mother once. A Siamese left a bowl of rice and an Abyssinian arranged an open oyster with a shining pearl balanced on the gray flesh.

Finally, it was Heather’s turn. She shuffled forward on her knees. She felt terribly self-conscious as she towered over a shrine proportioned for cats. She had thought of skipping her cat’s bane so she could shift back, had even mentioned it to Carlisle, but she chickened out at the last minute. She told herself it was because they needed someone to move dishes of food and light candles, but she knew better.

In front of the shrine, she bowed as best she could without bumping her head into the first step of the tiered platform. Her hands shook at she unwrapped her offering. She folded back layers of wax paper so that the contents were visible, then scuttled back to her place in line.

Amid the rare delicacies and the artifacts and even the traditional offerings to the dead, a little pyramid of vanilla cream caramels stood out in their nest of wax paper. Heather touched the scar on the back of her hand. Mother, wherever she was, would certainly recognize them. Heather thought she would laugh when she remembered that particular kitchen disaster all these years later. It was a good offering, Heather decided.

—

When the ceremony ended and the shamans retired to the custody of their guards, six acrobats in succession took flying leaps at a huge hanging gong, ringing it with their bodies as they ricocheted off. Then the feast began.

Tables laden with Heather’s food were set upon by cats of every type and color. They shared and argued and ate endlessly. In the firelight, more acrobats performed while choirs of cats sang until dogs half a town away howled along with them. Kittens staged mock battles in the tall grass while their mothers, some of them long-distance friends reunited for just one night, gossiped and teased and flirted with passing toms. Overhead, bats flew through the warm air and snatched up airborne insects, while below them cats chased crickets and low-flying moths.

In the shadows by the house, where the firelight could not reach, Heather stood with one more plate of food. It was not a platter of silver, nor was the food a fine rarity. She stood and she watched and she worked up her courage.

Carlisle pushed past a clump of cats sampling a fine lager and trotted up to her. “Sure you don’t want to join in? You’ve only got an hour left on your last dose. There’s plenty of time.”

Heather shook her head and knelt down to pet him. “I don’t think I’m ready just yet. Eat a cricket for me, though, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

“Oh, and don’t keep Topaz waiting.”

“Hm?”

Heather jerked her chin to indicate where the leonine tom waited, just at the edge of the wooded area beyond the yard. “It looks like he’s got plans for tonight.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Carlisle said, but he ran off to meet him all the same.

Heather took a deep breath and a dose of cat’s bane. “No more stalling,” she told herself. But she clutched her plate like she wanted to use it as a shield.

Rune camped out in one of the many carpet trees in the yard to watch the festivities. He spoke in low tones with the tuxedo cat she had met the other day — the much-mentioned Dopple, she finally learned from Carlisle. Dopple offered an insultingly tiny bow when she noticed Heather approach, then left. She walked gingerly on her mutilated front toes, which gave her an odd, rolling gait. When Dopple struck up a lively conversation with several other cats, Heather was unsurprised to learn Dopple’s cold shoulder was reserved for Heather alone.

On a plywood platform covered with shredded carpeting, Rune watched Heather with eyes that shone lime green in the dark. She kept her eyes averted. She did not want to pick a fight, she reminded herself. She set the plate in front of him. Before he could say or do anything to reject the offering, she retreated toward the crowd of cats watching the acrobats.

While a cat balanced a tightly curled kitten on her head, Heather stole a look at Rune from the corner of her eye. He sniffed at the food. Did she imagine the look of pleasant surprise on his face? She found she was holding her breath. Then Rune took a bite from a cream cheese and olive finger sandwich. He chewed. He looked at her, one woman in a sea of cats, and she pretended to look at the moon, the acrobats, her nails, anything but him. When she dared to check again, he had his mouth full, chewing contentedly.

She let out a relieved sigh and turned back to watch the performances. Of all the fancy dishes she had slaved over for the festival and whatever praise she had been offered for her luxurious efforts as hostess, a humble finger sandwich gave her the most satisfaction that night.

—

Previous Episode :: Back to Index :: Next Episode

Heather had the twitches that day, which made walking even more tiring. Before that, it had been insomnia for several days. She thought there had been some hallucinations in there as well, but she did not want to talk about it. Withdrawal was a bitch.

“Just over the next rise, you said,” Heather complained as they followed the road steadily uphill from suburbs to country. “How many rises ago was that?”

“You’ve not been exercising properly,” Carlisle shot back, his normally polite tone turning distinctly snippy.

“When we get there, the first thing I’m doing — after changing back and finding Mother’s stash of cat’s bane, that is — is taking a nice long bath in that old claw-foot tub.” Heather sighed wistfully. That tub had been her favorite hiding place as a kitten, whenever the other kittens started picking on her for spending so much time as a human with her mother. She found herself moving a bit faster; for the first time in as long as she could remember, she was eager to return to the House of Cats.

Heather had begun to recognize details as they neared their destination: a street name; a storefront where a bakery once was, since replaced by a clothing boutique; a large oak tree in the middle of a mall parking lot. Insignificant locations suddenly carried the weight of nostalgia. The House rose in her mind as a monument of feline comforts, safe and green and quiet. Her fear at returning had diminished in the days of travel and been largely replaced by longing for the pleasures of her youth.

The first glimpse of the House did come when they crested the next small hill. The first thing Heather noticed was not the small valley they would have to cross between the hill they were on and the hill the House occupied, alone amid a crowd of pine trees. Rather, it was something not there to be noticed.

“Where did the tower go?” she asked, blue eyes wide in shock. The tower had been one of the many architectural oddities of the House, a miniature spire connected to the main roof by a widow’s walk. The walk formed a parabola of wrought iron around the top third of the tower. Now, there was only a streamer of twisted metal hanging from the main roof. The tower was no more; a round patch of darkness amid the masonry of the second floor was all that remained.

“Some of the young ones bought fireworks a few years ago,” Carlisle said. “There was an accident. No one knew that water was leaking in. Everything crumbled away.”

Heather stared at him. “And, what, the tower just fell over?” she asked in disbelief.

“No, no. A branch of the tree there broke off in a storm and hit it. We had to pull it down with ropes. The tower gave way.”

“Burned down then sank into the swamp, too,” she muttered. “Nothing,” she said when Carlisle asked what swamp. As she looked across at the House, she could make out the overgrown remains of the gardens. The front lawn had gone brown. Rubbish formed dark heaps around the exterior of the house. The whole area had the lonely, tumbled down look of ruins. “Why didn’t anyone do anything? Why didn’t someone take care of it?”

“I think it would be best if you did not mention exactly who your mother was,” Carlisle said. “Or use your real name.”

“What kind of an answer is that?”

“This will be easier if no one knows who you are. And you’ll see why things have been–” He hesitated then said, “–complicated these past few years. But things will be better, now that you’re home.”

“That’s not my home,” Heather said and wished it was true. She wished the home she had once, maybe, loved still stood as it did in her mind. She wished she could at least come home to someplace warmly familiar. “That is not my home,” she repeated even as she started down the hill toward it.

—

Topaz licked a spot of blood from his golden paw. Mouse juice. The juvenile next to him sighed appreciatively. She had been trailing him all day. First she scared off the sparrow he had his eye on, and then she interrupted him mid pounce to ask if he preferred the wet or dry food at the House. He batted the mouse over to her and got up in a huff. He left her gnawing on it, still moony-eyed, and walked from the garden in the back to the sunny side of the house. Rune would be there, either sulking or intimidating cats into being friendly with him. Dopple was away from the House; Rune would not be able to play king-and-court until she returned and would be out of sorts about it.

Rune’s gray tabby body was obscured by three kittens, black, calico, and tortoiseshell, who were tumbling over him, tugging on his ears, and batting at his twitching tail, respectively. The older cat giggled and lolled in the tall grass with them. He playfully nipped at one until it cried in alarm and waddled on young legs back to its mother. The mother paced and hovered uncomfortably. Rune tried to follow, but his legs gave out and he rolled onto his back with a hiccup.

“I think the little ones have explored enough for today,” said their mother nervously as she rounded up her kittens. Two followed after her while she carried the third.

Topaz bumped heads with Rune and flopped down on the grass next to him. His brother’s breath smelled intensely of catnip again and a few shredded leaves were crushed under his gray paws. Just finished his morning fix, then. That explained the giddy behavior.

“Has anyone heard from Dopple?” Rune asked while he watched his front paws waggle in the air above his head. “Want to hunt mice?” he added abruptly.

“There aren’t any mice this close to the house. We could go into the woods, though. I caught a mouse there this morning.”

Rune rolled to his side so he faced away from Topaz. His voice, high and jittery a moment ago, had gone flat. “Don’t want to go out there.” The catnip high was wearing off already.

Topaz stood over him. “Come on,” he said and nudged Rune’s shoulder with his head. “It’ll be fun. You’ll be able to see the house the whole time.” No response. “We could bring along that Persian. I think she fancies you.” Come on, Topaz thought, give a damn about something!

Rune stretched out and closed his eyes. “I think I’ll just take a nap. Wake me when it gets dark.”

Topaz started to walk away, thinking maybe he would take that kid along with him to hunt, just to pass the time, when Rune leapt to his feet. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated impossibly wide even in the bright sun, and his tail puffed to three times its size. He sniffed the air.

“Someone’s here.”

—

When Heather and Carlisle arrived at the House, hungry and sore-footed, they found two toms fighting in the front yard. Carlisle and Heather pulled them apart by the scruffs of their necks and sent them off to opposite ends of the estate. But the noise alerted other cats and they came to meet Heather and Carlisle. Once they found out there was a new cat in the House, they herded her along to the back to meet everyone else who was at home then.

That was how Heather ended up just five feet from a straggly patch of cat’s bane, persistently unable to eat any, while twenty cats of all sizes and colors and breeds congregated around her. It was all rather cheerfully suburban. She truly hated all of them, however, for standing between her and her cat’s bane.

“You lived by the beach?” asked a cat with long white fur and a Persian snub-nose. “I have a cousin who lives out that way. There’s nothing better than fish eaten straight out of the water. By the time we get it up here, it’s hardly worth eating any more.”

“Did you live with humans? How come you’re so old?” a kitten, barely old enough to open his eyes, asked. She knew he meant cats normally showed up at the House as young adults and kittens, when it became clear they were different. But all she heard was the same refrain: you’re not a real cat. Oh, she could taste the cat’s bane in the air.

Suddenly, a ginger tom with shaggy fur bounded into their midst. “Best behavior, everyone,” he said in a whisper. “He’s awake, so he’s probably on the warpath.” He grinned at Heather. “Hi, new girl. You must use his brand of kitty litter. Just, um, watch what you say.”

“The hell?” Heather said, baffled. The cats around her had their ears flat against their skulls. Mothers gathered their kittens up and ushered them inside. “What’s happening?”

A few of the bigger cats, Maine Coons like the ginger tom and Ragamuffins and Siberians, grouped themselves into a defensive formation around her then pretended it was all accidental, grooming and staring off into the distance. Nobody was fooled. Something was rotten in the state of cats.

—

Heather would not have given a second glance to the cat that came around the corner of the house at that point, except that all the others tensed when they saw him. She looked from him to them and back again, trying to figure out what the big deal was. Blue-gray tabby, perfect moon face, short, dense fur that stuck straight out from his body. He listed to one side as he walked, like his legs did not want to work right. His eyes were foggy and had a wild, scared way of rolling from side to side. He looked, Heather thought, like a drunk having a mildly paranoid night. She was unimpressed. Only the array of cats who seemed to guard her prevented Heather from going for the cat’s bane right then.

“Who is he?” she asked the ginger tom, who was to her right. Carlisle had retreated behind her back and was feigning ignorance of the whole situation.

“Head honcho,” the tom said. “Be as normal as you can.”

“Normal?” Heather squeaked as the tabby stalked closer.

“Don’t. Act. Human.”

That sent a fresh rush of desire for cat’s bane through her. She would have given anything to be human for this confrontation. Heather had not interacted with another cat in two decades and change and had, in fact, done her best to forget she knew anything about cat society. She had no time to think of a strategy which would cover up that fact.

“Who are you?” the gray asked as he reached her. He did not stop moving, but circled around her, smelling her, letting his whiskers graze her sides. Utterly possessive and intrusive, Heather thought bitterly. He might as well just stamp her with his initials.

Wired to explode from being so close to the cat’s bane she desperately craved, Heather found herself incapable of submitting to this treatment. She circled with him, touching and smelling and almost sick with the felinity of it, but she never let him get away from her. They said nothing for long minutes, until circling turned into tentative grooming. He nipped at her ear and she knocked him upside the head with a paw. He tried to stand over her and she butted her head against his shoulder. He lost his balance and ended up sprawled at her paws.

He looked up at her and his eyes cleared. The lights were on upstairs, finally. She stared back and, without breaking eye contact, licked the back of her paw in an off-handed kind of way, as if to say, did you want something?

The message, it turned out, was clear. “Welcome to the House of Cats, ma’am.” The cat word for ma’am really means “queen in her territory and mother of infinite kittens.” The languages of cats are very efficient. “I’m Rune,” he said belatedly. Then he left, headed back to the bright sun on the other side of the house. It was all a bit of a letdown, Heather thought.

Everything was still. He disappeared from sight. And the ginger tom exploded into sound and motion, pouncing on Heather with wild laugher. “You’ve got balls, honey,” he said. “No one ever stands up to him. I can’t believe he let you do that. I can’t believe you’ve still got both eyes after that.”

Heather tuned him out and shoved him away. “‘cuse me,” she said and ran for the cat’s bane.

She heard nothing but the sounds of her own body changing as the transformation took her. She let it roll over her, offering no resistance. It was like putting on a favorite sweater, fresh from the dryer.

She sat up, human once again and feeling magnanimous about everything. “That’s better,” she said. “Anyone got any clothes?”

—

Heather tried to not look at her reflection in the store windows she passed. The stockpiled clothing at the House had seen better days. Heather did not look like she had any good business in the rather upscale shopping center that was closest to the House. Her aimless wandering had started to attract a few curious glances as well. She tried to look purposeful, but she just ended up pacing and staring and pacing some more.

She sat on a bench by a small fountain in the middle of the shopping center. A couple teenage girls were sitting on the edge, each holding one side of a fashion magazine. Heather watched the mist of the fountain float down over them. If Rune was really the “head honcho,” he must want to defend his position from Heather, the hereditary leader of the House. Was that why Carlisle was so worried? But why bring her back if he was just going to keep her undercover? And why be afraid of the resident catnip fancier?

She stood up and started pacing the sidewalk again. She could not imagine why anyone would want to use catnip. Trapped in that body all the time. Powerless. Mind full of cobwebs. She swore she could smell the stuff even now, it had been so heavy on Rune’s breath.

Carlisle had tried to talk to her after she changed back, but she had dodged him. Some of the other cats showed her where the clothing was kept. She broke into her mother’s untouched office to get a copy of the family credit card, her name printed on an unused card in the desk drawer. Then she walked (oh, how she was tired of walking after her journey home), following half-remembered routes into town, and ended up at the outdoor shopping mall.

She stopped and sniffed. She really could smell catnip. She looked in the direction of the smell. A home and garden store. She followed the bright tang of catnip and the rich, damp smell of packaged potting soil. She paused at the door. Would they suspect her of stealing things? What could you steal from the garden department? She grabbed a cart to be safe and pushed it down the first isle of seedlings.

Even in fall, everything was a riot of colorful blooms. She stopped at a familiar sight. White vinca. She remembered that the walkway up to the House used to be lined with vinca flowers. She reluctantly passed it by. She tried to avoid the section that smelled of catnip, afraid that it might change her back from smell alone. Nasturtiums would be nice and tasty in the backyard. And lilac and sweet peas would attract butterflies, which were wonderful fun to chase.

She stopped and stared out the far side of the garden, past a clump of elephant ear, to a patch of blue sky above the nearby rooftops. She closed her eyes and saw, in perfect detail, what the House used to be like. Cats were happy there. Everyone was free to come and go. Everyone helped out with chores. Everyone got to do whatever felt right to them. There were good things to eat and creatures to hunt and plants to nibble.

It was not, she thought tentatively, that she hated the House. It just had been all wrong for her. She had bigger dreams. She did not want to be a cat. She was not a very good cat, after all, she added hastily. But the others. She did not have anything against them. The building they lived in now was a disgusting heap of rubble. Not like the one she had grown up in. Maybe…

She picked up a tray of leafy nasturtiums and put it in the cart. She would be stuck at the House until she could get up enough money to strike out on her own again. She could get a job while she was there, though the walk every morning would be awful. So. She had some time to kill.

Why not spend that time fixing the place up a bit? She hefted a potted lilac shrub into the cart as well and was smothered by a wave of sweet scent. She would fix it up so that Carlisle and the rest of the cats could be comfortable. And they would be grateful. And they would let her go in peace. They would owe her that much, after all.

She backtracked to the vinca and picked out a dozen healthy plants, feeling suddenly full of confidence. She had her right body back. She had a plan for the House that would make Carlisle happy. Most importantly, she now had a way to get out again.

—

Rune pulled his gaze away from the blue jay carrying on in the pine tree and focused on the intruders again. He had trouble concentrating. A man and a woman, both completely human, both dressed in suits. This would never have happened when Poppy ruled the House, rest her nine souls. They were speaking in low voices. He really wanted to kill that noisy jay. The women kept shaking her head no to whatever the man was saying. The blue jay carried a bundle of twigs up to her nest.

Rune felt the thump of someone jumping onto the balcony from the nearby window. He looked back. Topaz shook a cobweb out of his tail and stalked over. “Can you hear them?”

“No. They’re the same ones from last week, right?” Rune asked.

“Yep. And I’ve seen his car cruise past a few times besides.” Topaz looked through the railing of the balcony, ears perked forward.

“Do you think we could get fish up here while it’s still fresh if we had a car?”

Topaz looked over at him and cocked his head. “Bro, you have too many thoughts. Concentrate.”

“Right,” Rune muttered. Why did he have to get saddled with a little brother, and a smart-ass at that, at his age?

A voice finally drifted up to them from the front yard. It was the woman. “Well, I haven’t heard from her in a couple months,” she admitted grudgingly. “But all the bills are getting paid from here. The money is going out from the account and the lights are on here. So there must be someone taking care of the place.”

Dopple took care of all those things. But why was the human talking about their House?

“But look at it,” the man said. “It’s gone to pot.” Rune bristled at that. “All I’m saying is, maybe you could mention that she could get some good money for the place. That you have a buyer who’s interested. That’s all.”

Rune and Topaz shared a confused look. A buyer?

“I went through the records, after you asked me the first time. The trust has been in place longer than our agency. The paperwork doesn’t even go back that far. I can’t figure out how long her family has owned the place, but I don’t think–”

“These are hard times,” the man interrupted. “I’m sure a nice chunk of money would be more advantageous to your client than a rundown mansion.”

Rundown, indeed. Rune flexed his claws, growing more agitated by the minute. Then he spotted a pale figure trudging up the road. It had something in its arms. He sniffed: flowers and cat. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“Uh, the new girl,” Topaz answered. “I didn’t catch her name.”

“Who let her get into the cat’s bane?” Rune asked. She made a pretty human, he thought, and hated himself and her for it.

“Not me, that’s for sure.” Rune glared. Topaz might as well have whistled, he looked so falsely innocent.

“I’ll mention it,” the woman said and her voice dropped steadily as she noticed the newcomer, “but you have to understand my position. I’m just the executor; the family made the rules. I don’t think this old place is going anywhere any time soon.”

“Excuse me,” the man snapped. “Who are you?”

The new girl wiped sweat from her forehead with her wrist. “I live here,” she said, puffing with exertion.

“Bullshit.”

“George, stop,” the woman said. “Are you the caretaker?”

“No. I’m, well, I guess I’m the owner.” Rune froze. Next to him, Topaz stood up. “I’m Heather Lee.” Topaz threw himself onto Rune even as she spoke. He did not need to hear her say it to know, but the words seemed to boom from the sky now. “Poppy Lee was my mother.”

—

Heather shifted her cardboard box of flowers to her left arm and hip and offered the woman her hand. “Sorry about the dirt,” she said when the woman hesitated. “I’ve been picking out plants all afternoon and I guess I got a bit grubby.” Finally, a chance for human interaction and Heather could not properly enjoy it. She was hot and sweaty and tired from lugging the plants all the way home and she was freaked out to see humans at the House.

“Oh, no, not at all,” the woman said quickly and shook her hand. “I’m just surprised to see you. I thought you were still in Alberta. You sound so different in person than on the phone.”

Heather smiled blankly. Who the heck was this woman? There was a commotion over at the house and Heather turned away from her. A cat yowled. That was just what she needed — a bunch of cats coming out to investigate. She realized that the woman was still talking and looked away from the house.

“Oops! Where are my manners? I’m Susanna Dahl.” She took a business card from her purse and handed it to Heather. “We’ve talked so many times over the phone; I forget we haven’t actually met before.”

The card said Susanna Dahl, and then Meyers, Parkhouse, and Young Law Firms. “Oh! The executor,” Heather said. She wondered what she could say to make the woman leave soon. “Right. Great.” She noticed that the man had slipped away and his car had just started down the dirt road leading to the street.

The racket at the house increased. Something was coming closer. “Do you hear–” Susanna started to say.

But it was too late. Something gray and spitting launched itself out of the grass and toward them. She heard Susanna scream and guessed that the flash of moving color beside her was Susanna cringing away. The cat headed for Heather, rather than the human as she expected.

But if there was one thing good about being a cat, it was the reflexes. As a waitress, she had avoided many a spilled drink and dropped tray by dint of her inhuman speed. She twisted away from the cat and caught it as it sped straight past her.

Forward momentum halted, it turned into a hissing, clawing ball of fur. She held it by a fistful of loose skin at the back of its neck, arm stretched away from her body to avoid the flailing claws and bared teeth. “Will you excuse me? I need to do something about this. I’ll be sure to call you sometime.”

Heather hefted her box of flowers and headed off to the house, while Susanna waved goodbye with a bewildered expression. So much for human interaction, Heather thought.

—

She gave Rune a little shake as she stomped up the porch steps. He had grown tired and stopped to catch his breath, but this sent him into a new fit of rage. “Are you out of your mind? Oh, that’s right, you’re probably high on catnip and hallucinating that I’m a giant fuzzy mouse toy.”

“False pretenses!” Rune howled along with a stream of incoherent, raging babble. “Sneaking bitch! Betrayer!”

When Heather threw open the front door, the pack of cats basking in late afternoon sunlight all leapt in different directions with fur bristling. They realized it was another cat and relaxed. They realized that Heather had Rune by the neck, carrying him around like a human and her pet, and panicked all over again.

“I’ve got something to say, so you all better listen up.” The golden tom rushed in from the hallway then skidded to a stop when he saw her. “I guess it’s big news that I’m Poppy’s daughter.”

Carlisle appeared in another doorway and she brandished Rune at him. “I am told that I’m Queen of the friggin’ House.” She started slurring, mouth not yet reacquainted to cat-speak. “I am told that the House needs me. You couldn’t take care of things by yourselves. You needed mommy to clean your room for you. So, YOU GOT IT.”

“Heather, I think Rune is–” Carlisle tried to say.

Whatever he thought was wrong with Rune, Heather was not hearing it. “He should have thought of that before he made a scene in front of a human. I am not going to put up with this catnip-eating, house-destroying, cover-blowing bullshit. Everyone will clean and everyone will hunt and everyone will patrol. Anyone who doesn’t had better be nursing still or on their deathbed.”

More cats had joined the crowd when she started her rather loud speech. They whispered amongst themselves when she paused. She tossed Rune so that he landed on a fur-covered couch. He backed into the corner between the back and the arm, crouched and ready to attack again.

“If anybody would rather leave him–” she stabbed a finger at Rune– “in charge, feel free to speak up. No? Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The cats could not quite meet her eye. No one looked at Rune either. It was not quite the mandate Heather would have liked to receive as the new queen, but she could make it work. “Now I’m going to lock myself in my new office for an hour,” she said. “When I come back, I’m going to fix dinner for anyone who wants it. If you can’t handle the new management, clear off before then.”

Carlisle spoke up again. “Our laws state–”

“Yes, thank you,” she snapped. “I’m not kicking any cats out of the House. I’m just giving a friendly suggestion to anyone who might not be able to cope with having a new queen in the cattery.”

And with that, she stepped over a bank of cats assembled to watch her, walked calmly up the stairs, and closed the door to her mother’s old office. She took a deep breath and shook with tension. She swallowed a cat’s bane pill from the bottle on the desk. She sat down in the leather office chair. Then she stared out the window and wondered what the hell she had just done.

—

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