Cat Chase The Moon

17

Early sun shone in through the display windows and big glass doors of Seaver’s Antiques. The store wasn’t yet open but passersby, glancing in, could see Bert, in his brown store smock, vacuuming the ornate rugs and carefully dusting the intricately carved furniture and brightly glazed porcelain. Bert was quiet and shy but he was a good assistant, he knew his antiques, and he had a businesslike and friendly way with the clients; he wasn’t reluctant to shop the auctions for a special piece for a customer, or to call around the country for an item a client wanted. Now as he did the daily cleaning he paid no attention to Courtney; he knew where she was, could see her sleeping in a stack of pillows. The doors were all locked, and he had strict instructions to keep her inside. He did not see Dulcie beneath the pillows, he had no idea she was in the building. When he heard the garage doors slide open he turned, smiling. Ulrich was back. Courtney raised her head to look, then tucked her nose into her paws again as if she were asleep.

Where, she thought, had Ulrich been all night? Did he have a girlfriend on the side, besides his supposed wife? She felt Dulcie wriggle deeper under the pillows and slip to the floor, heard her brush against the furniture looking for a way to escape. Courtney belonged here. Dulcie didn’t. Her presence would stir questions as fierce as nesting hornets.

They heard the outer door open and close, footsteps coming through the workroom then the inner door opened and they heard voices, two people coming in, and one was a woman. That made the cats stiffen with alarm. Bert kept vacuuming but gave the arrivals a smile and a wave—while behind the couch Dulcie vanished, racing for the powder room. Praying she was unheard over the continuing sound of the vacuum, she pushed open the powder room door and was on the counter at the window. Fighting it open a few inches, with fierce claws she ripped the corner of the new screen. Made a hole big enough to slide through, the rough edges tearing at her tabby fur. She pushed the window closed behind her but not enough to lock. She hit the crate below, leaped soundlessly onto the sand and kept running, into the weedy, tree-shaded park.

Courtney lay listening to the couple. Was this Ulrich’s wife, did he have a wife after all? Or was this his lover, visiting while his wife was absent?

Absent for good? Courtney thought. Or could this be the victim from the grave, healed and able to move about once more? That didn’t seem likely, as badly as Joe said she was hurt. And why would she be here with Seaver, if he had attacked her so cruelly? So many questions. If she was his girlfriend, if he had nearly killed her, she couldn’t be dumb enough to let him lure her to him again.

And if this was his wife, returned from some trip, Courtney didn’t know whether to hide from the woman or play “loving kitty,” and pretend to like her.

When Ulrich switched on the hall light and Courtney got a look at her, she was so elegant and neat, and with no scars or wounds, that Courtney was sure this wasn’t the injured woman.

Wife, Courtney thought, and she even smelled like the lavender scent in their bedroom. Wife or not, this was the woman who lived with him and who talked to him on the phone—he called her Fay. Fay Seaver? They talked about their grand plans for “the calico,” about exhibits and crowds and flights to New York, causing her shivers of excitement, but then of fear. With the two of them together keeping her captive, maybe she should escape right now, chase after Dulcie—if Dulcie had gotten out.

Yet if she ran away, how could she find out any more about Fay, any more than she’d learned from prowling her closet and her dresser drawers? How could she find out the rest of their plan? Because there was more. Little innuendos on the phone—she thought that was the word—that she didn’t understand, but things that Ulrich didn’t want the cops to know.

But now, when Seaver switched on the desk light, too, so it shone across directly on Courtney, Fay stood looking at her, smiling with delight. “Oh, my, she’s beautiful! She’s elegant, with those striking bracelets, and that wonderful mix of colors down her back—like the queen’s robes. She outshines all the photos you sent me.”

Fay was nearly as tall as Ulrich, slim and sleekly dressed in a tailored suit as handsome as the others in her closet. She was wearing expensive hose and low leather shoes that looked hand-stitched, striking but comfortable. Courtney was surprised at how much she’d learned about people’s clothes and the habits of humans in the short time she’d been on this earth—or maybe she’d known from lives already past, and was just beginning to remember. Or maybe, she thought, amused, she had learned from watching those mind-numbing TV shows?

Seaver set Fay’s small suitcase and leather overnight bag down by the stairs. Her luggage had carry-on tags. Her hair was the color of deep maple, sleekly styled, with a bun in the back, a gold pin through it. Her eyes were brown. She watched Courtney sit up taller between the pillows. She took a step toward the calico and gently put out her hand.

“You’re lovely, my dear.” She said nothing more, she didn’t gush; but her eyes were bright with pleasure, and only softly did she move closer, as if wondering whether Courtney would tolerate being petted or stroked on their first meeting; as if Courtney might be too shy, or too austere, and would need to be courted, like the real queen she was. “And you’re smart,” she said, “I can tell by your looks; you’ll learn your tricks in no time.”

Courtney went very still. Tricks. She considered Fay for some time, then decided to play Fay’s game, for a little while. She lifted her right foot prettily, her three black bracelets bright in the lamplight. Fay looked and looked at the calico’s vivid markings. “So perfect,” she said, and gently she sat down near her.

Courtney eased closer, sniffing her scent, admiring the looks of this finely turned-out woman who intended to make her famous . . .

This woman, a little voice in Courtney’s head whispered, this woman who means to keep me captive just as Seaver is doing? This woman who, no matter how nice she seems, means to teach me tricks and show me off to crowds of strangers and make lots of money on me?

Sitting close to Fay and enjoying her petting, or pretending to, pretending to be a loving kitty, Courtney was all mixed up. Was she, all her life, going to be so excited by fame one minute, but as confused as a trapped mouse the next?

While Bert put away his vacuum and opened the shop, the three of them went upstairs, Fay carrying Courtney tenderly over her shoulder—a tender but very firm grip that offered little chance of escape. Upstairs in the little kitchen, Ulrich made a cup of tea for Fay, while Fay opened her overnight bag and spread out a stack of oversized photographs across the coffee table. He set her tea on an end table, and they sat on the couch, Fay shuffling the pictures as they looked. “All taken at the museum gallery,” she said, “a preview of the show, though the finished exhibit will be far more wonderful.”

Ulrich exclaimed and admired, and Courtney couldn’t help purring as she was held across Fay’s shoulder. Some were of Courtney herself that Ulrich had sent Fay. Some were of tapestries of her. All were framed, and some already hung on the gallery walls; some were of the museum building itself, so elegant that the calico was wide-eyed with pride.

“You see how much she likes the pictures,” Fay said inanely. “And she’s already cuddling up to me. Oh, she’ll love her new home, and she’ll love learning her new tricks—she’ll love the audiences’ applause, she’ll be so happy in her new life.” She turned to rub her face against Courtney’s. “Oh, you’ll be such a wealthy cat, my dear,” but her glance at Ulrich held a twisted smile that turned Courtney cold; it might be a very long time before Joe Grey’s daughter learned to trust this woman.