Cat Bearing Gifts

31

KIT LAY SPRAWLED on the dining table among the last pieces of jewelry that Kate and Lucinda had not tucked away in one bank or another, the gold and sapphires and emeralds reflecting bright shafts of light where the setting sun slanted in through the oak trees. With a soft paw she patted at the brooches and pendants, feeling like a queen counting her wealth, though it wasn’t hers at all. Lucinda was in the bedroom napping, Kate in the kitchen making a light supper, filling the house with the scent of grilled cheese on rye and herb tea.

It had taken Ryan and Clyde only a few minutes, yesterday, to strip the jewelry and money out of the Lincoln before they called the department, before the police were all over the car, lifting fingerprints, taking blood samples, and impounding the vehicle itself for closer inspection. But it had taken the two women all this morning and most of the afternoon to rent seven safe deposit boxes, each requiring them to open an accompanying bank account, to take the necessary cards and papers up to Pedric at the hospital to sign, and then return them to the banks. And then at last to retrieve the treasure from the Greenlaws’ padlocked freezer and tuck it securely away where, they hoped, the banks would keep the gold and jewels safe.

It was last evening after the police arrived to meet Ryan and Clyde at the small garage and go over the Lincoln, that Kit had trotted home shaky from their attack on Vic, and had made a follow-up call to the department. Talking to Max Harper himself, she had laid out in every smallest detail Vic’s murder of Birely Miller there in the hospital. She had hung up abruptly, of course, when Max asked for her name, as he always asked. Both knew he didn’t expect an answer to that question. Secrets upon secrets, she thought, pawing at the mysterious jewelry, and smiling.

Kate and Lucinda, after finishing with the banks, had kept back just this handful of antique pieces that lay scattered around her, now, each one featuring a cat or some mythical creature in its design. Patting at those Netherworld images, Kit thought about Pan’s hunger for that world, and she wondered if he would go there without her. But, then she wondered, would his attachment to Tessa keep the tomcat from leaving, after all?

That very morning when Ryan returned to Debbie’s, to put in the faucet herself, Tessa had whispered to her all about the man with the black car. It was the morning after the cats’ attack on Vic, and Tessa had told Ryan all about that, too, she had seen it all from the window above her bed. She had, much earlier in the day, seen him hide the Lincoln, too. The child had seen more than anyone guessed. “I didn’t tell Mama,” she whispered.

“Why didn’t you?” Ryan had asked her.

“She’d say I was lying. I’m not, that’s what I saw, that’s what happened. My Pan and those other three cats attacked that man to save you. My Pan is back,” she had said, smiling. “But, where is he now? When will he come to live with me again, to be my cat again?”

To that, Ryan had no answer.

No one owns a cat, and yet Kit knew that Pan, in his secret spirit, was indeed Tessa’s cat, just as Tessa was his person. Maybe, she thought, maybe Pan will stay here for Tessa, if he won’t stay for me.

But how will I feel about that? she thought, and she wasn’t sure.

She lay watching as Kate set the table around her, arranging the jewelry in a wicker basket that she put on the buffet. Kit watched her bring in the teapot and cups, watched her go to call Lucinda and help her get up; Lucinda’s cast was heavy and cumbersome, and was tiring to haul around. Walking out with Lucinda, Kate seated her in her own chair and brought in the sandwiches, steaming hot and oozing pale cheese with slices of salami peeking out.

Kate cut Kit’s sandwich in small bites and set the plate on Kit’s own place mat. Over supper they talked about Pedric’s knee surgery, a noninvasive laser technique that was scheduled for early the next morning; they discussed Birely Miller’s simple burial, which would also take place in the morning. Not until after supper did Kate read to them from her mother’s diary, from the later pages that she had found hidden among the moldering Netherworld volumes in the library of a fallen palace, the long passage disconnected from whatever the previous pages had told, from whatever had gone before or after those faded lines.

. . . all along. We have done our best to battle the royal families that would bring this world down. Inconceivable that the very rulers who benefit most from the labor of the peasants are now destroying their only source of food and goods, of the labor to produce what they need. Hatred, not logic, drives them. Hatred and greed. An evil drives them that comes straight from the hell pit and, in the end, will drag them down into the pit themselves. Soon we must get the baby out of here, must make the journey up into the surface world and find a home for Kate. I pray our one friend there, with Netherworld connections, can watch over her until she’s grown. Will there be any Netherworld left, when Kate is grown? I cannot bear to leave her, but we must return here and rejoin the battle, we must keep fighting.

There Melissa’s journal pages ended, the last page torn at the bottom as if whatever came after had been ripped away. “Maybe buried somewhere among the rubble of the palace,” Kate said, “buried in a world where no one reads books anymore or hardly knows what they’re for.

“Do you remember, Kit, the year I was given that other jewelry, by the old lawyer, the pieces he’d held so long for me in his office safe? That big old walk-in safe, the box hidden way at the back containing my mother’s journal, too? Do you remember how excited you were when you first learned of another world, how you had dreamed of such a place?”

“I remember,” Kit said quietly. “But that world was bright and happy, not crumbled and cold, it was not a dead world, then.”

Kate said, “You remember, Lucinda.”

Lucinda said, “Most of the earlier entries in your mother’s journals were bright. There was destruction even then, failure of the magic, but the world still held much of wonder. That was only the beginning, the failure of that magic that your parents tried so hard to prevent.”

Supper ended in sadness, which none of them had intended. Kate rinsed the dishes, and they sat for a long while in the living room before the fire, Kit curled in Lucinda’s lap. She looked up often at Kate, still caught and grieving in the remains of that sad world where her parents had died.

BIRELY MILLER’S FUNERAL, early the next morning, was indeed simple, only a few words spoken by a funeral director who had never known Birely nor, if he had, would have approved of him. A few words and then without further ceremony Birely’s casket was lowered into the ground next to the grave of his sister, Sammie. Only a handful of people attended: Max and Charlie Harper, the Damens, Emmylou Warren, and Kate Osborne. Lucinda was at the hospital with Pedric. Those were the human mourners, if one could call their solemn attendance a kind of mourning. The five cats sat at attention, exhibiting varied degrees of pity, sat concealed behind a headstone featuring the image of a praying angel with lifted wings. Six humans and five cats silently attending Birely Miller’s last contact with the souls of this world. The day had turned heavy, with a wet, gray overcast that made the women’s hair curl willfully, and made the cats lick their fur to try to dry it. What Joe Grey wondered, as he watched Emmylou drop a handful of dirt onto the casket, was, Where’s Birely’s old uncle buried, old train robber Lee Fontana? Where did he end up, carrying with him the secret of that final robbery—escaping without restitution and most likely without remorse?

But maybe now Fontana would make restitution of a kind more valuable than the U.S. courts demanded. Emmylou, like Kate and the Greenlaws, had decided to give some of her newfound wealth to CatFriends, their local rescue group that Ryan and Charlie and a raft of volunteers had helped to start. Money to pay for cat food and supplies, to pay Dr. Firetti, who so far had donated all his services and all the needed medications. There’d be money, too, to build a central shelter where volunteers could care for the abandoned animals that were brought to them. Joe thought about the starving cats the group had trapped when, at the first downturn in the economy, so many householders left their homes with back rent or mortgages overdue, and left their pets behind.

What would Lee Fontana think of this use of his stolen money? Maybe, from the stories Misto told of Fontana—if Joe could bring himself to believe Misto’s tales—maybe the old train robber would like that choice just fine. If the old yellow cat had been Fontana’s ghostly confidant as Misto liked to say, guiding Fontana safely through his self-inflicted troubles, then Fontana must have a warm place in his spirit for a cat, maybe he’d be pleased and amused by his unwitting gift to catdom.

VIC HAD FLED from Ryan badly shaken by the attack of the cats. Headed for open country, he had parked the Suzuki on the berm of the narrow dirt road, as far under a drooping willow tree as he could get it without tilting over into the drainage ditch; the willow was already shedding its small yellow leaves down onto the hood and, in the light evening breeze, its stringy branches dragged back and forth across the metal, scraping annoyingly. It was nearly dark inside the car, shaded by the tree and with the windows blocked by his makeshift curtains; bright-colored cashmere sweaters with their store tags attached hung down from the two lowered visors, and along the driver’s side he’d secured a blue sweater into the crack of the rolled-up window. He sat sprawled in the back where he had pushed the clutter aside, no room to put the backseat up, the whole seat was in one piece, but at least the resultant platform was low, giving him some headroom. He sat bare to the waist, his bloodied shirt wadded up, the ripped tweed sport coat already discarded, resting ten miles back in the trash can of a FastMart where he’d stopped for a dry sandwich, some salve for the scratches, a bag of corn chips, and a Coke.

He’d parked, for that quick shopping trip, at the back of the FastMart building among some scraggly trees. That area up along Molena Valley road was a mix of scattered fields, sad old houses and new ones, pastures with horses, scraggly woods, weedy unused land all mixed together. He’d got in and out of FastMart as quickly as he could, keeping his head down just a little and the collar of his ripped coat turned up. He’d bought a brown sweatshirt, too, off a rack by the refrigerator. There’d be a BOL out on him, with Birely lying dead back there and probably, by this time, Debbie Kraft hollering up a fuss that her old car’d been stolen.

Leaving FastMart after making his purchases, a café two doors down had smelled so good he’d been tempted to chance it, go on in there for a hot meal. But even as he paused, looking down that way thinking about scrambled eggs and potatoes and sausage, wondering if it was worth the risk, a pair of sheriff’s cars pulled up right in front, couple of deputies got out, moved into the restaurant hardly looking around them. Mid-morning snack, he guessed. They didn’t glance his way, didn’t make the Suzuki or they’d have skipped their meal and come after him. As soon as they disappeared inside he’d hightailed it to the Suzuki and got on out of there. As he turned out onto the two-lane highway a cat ran across, he gunned the car but missed it. He’d like to cream every damn cat he saw, his back still stung like holy hell. He’d driven on watching the side roads, looking for a place to get out of sight, to stop and smear some of the salve on, see if that would help. He wasn’t far from Molena Point, maybe only ten miles, he knew he should get on over the grade to Highway 68, head for Salinas and onto the faster freeway.

But then again, maybe not. Maybe not hit the freeway until full dark when the cops couldn’t make him so easy. Maybe hole up until then close to the village where they wouldn’t think to look for him. Lay low for a few hours and then move on. He could use some sleep, catch a couple hours before he headed for the 101, if he planned to drive all night. Up through Eureka, on up to Bremerton, he knew a guy up there he could stay with, place way back in the boonies. Dump the Suzuki, pick up some decent wheels.

Now, bending awkwardly, he smeared salve on his bare back, on the scratches and bite wounds. Damn friggin’ cats jumping down on him like that, as vicious as that cat up at the wreck. He never had liked cats, sneaky and mean. The bloody wounds stung, but then in a few minutes the salve began to ease the pain and burning. And why would that cat chase him, there in the parking garage? Dark, ugly cat, just like the others. He’d never have seen it except for that kid shouting. He’d got one glimpse of the cat racing across the concrete right at him, piled in the car, slammed the door, and when he looked back the damn thing was gone. Shivering, he’d started the engine and peeled out of there, then slowed so as not to call attention to himself.

And then when that contractor woman got in his way blocking the Lincoln and them cats jumped him for no reason. Twice attacked by cats, and chased by another one. Spooky as hell, still made him sick to think about it, unnatural, bloodthirsty beasts. Pulling the brown sweatshirt on over his salve-smeared wounds, he lay down in the space he had cleared. The bed of the station wagon was hard as hell. He pulled an old, torn blanket over him that smelled of peanut butter and sweaty kids. He wondered if Debbie had ever had the backseat down all the time she’d owned the heap. The sun had set now, the car dim under the tree and under his jerry-rigged curtains. He lay there a long time, he didn’t sleep until heavy darkness drew in around him.