The Catswold Portal

Nine rows of cats, nine cats to a row. She didn’t need to count, she remembered. She was a little girl again, wearing a short red dress, gazing up at the cats, waiting for them to speak, caught in an intense childhood game.

She stroked the dear cat faces and touched their little carved teeth, filled with raw longing for that lost time.

But the memory was connected to nothing. It hung in her mind suspended and alone.

She touched the heavy vine that framed the door, a vine so old and thick that its cut branches, trimmed to clear the door, formed a deep, rough frame. How familiar the feel of the cut stubs, and of the young tendrils that had snaked out as if they would lash the door shut. How familiar the smell of crushed leaves where the vine had caught in the door’s hinges.

Behind her the garden darkened suddenly, as if a huge beast had loomed over her. Alarmed, she spun around.

A gigantic shadow engulfed the flowers and small trees. When she looked above, she remembered Mag telling about clouds. The sun was hidden by clouds, like soft gray islands. And now, below the hill, the houses were absorbed by shadow. But as she looked she realized that the center house was familiar. Puzzled, intrigued, she started down the garden along a winding path. Ducking under small trees, skirting past tangles of flowers, she soon stood at the edge of the brick veranda that spanned the front of the house.

She remembered rolling a wheeled toy, bump bump, over that long expanse of brick. She remembered playing with dolls here.

She had been a child in this house. She had stood looking out at the garden. She could almost bring back the voices. In memory she could smell chocolate, and something lemony and sweet.

But again the memory was attached to nothing.

The front of the house was different. She did not remember all this glass, she had never seen so much glass; the whole front wall and door were glass. Its reflections of the blowing garden cast her own image back at her alarmingly.

She didn’t want to look at her image, but she was drawn to look. She had never seen her full image. She put aside fear and studied her figure, and she liked what she saw. She was slim, long waisted. Her green dress looked darker in the glass. Her face was thin and pale against the blowing garden. She moved closer to look into her face and lost her image and could see into the room.

One big room ran the length of the house. Yet she remembered two rooms, with a little entry between them. In the entry had stood a red lacquer table. This ceiling was different, too. It was higher. There were rafters now where they had not been before, and there was a glass window in the roof between the heavy beams. The house in her memory was changed, as a dream changes.

These walls were white, not flowered. And on them hung images. Paintings—they were paintings. Their bright colors exploded in the light-filled room, forming bright hills and trees and sky and the images of people. Paintings like the small image in Prince Wylles’ chamber, only these were huge.

To her right was a little seating area, a soft-looking chair and a couch covered with lengths of silk and velvet in all shades of reds and pinks and orange. Down at the other end of the room were more paintings, leaning several deep against the walls. A sound made her turn.

On a lane beside the garden, cars were parked. She remembered cars, remembered the feel of movement, the smell inside a new car. A car had pulled up now and was parking, but when its door opened she stared.

Vrech was getting out. She fled for the bushes at the end of the terrace, shocked to see him so suddenly, and amazed to see a Netherworlder using an upperworld machine.

As she huddled beneath the bushes, Vrech crossed diagonally up the garden carrying a bundle, and let himself into the tool room that led to the Netherworld.

She assumed he was going back, and despite her fear of him she was unnerved at being left alone in this world. But then as she watched, he came out again wearing different clothes, and got back in the car. He had hardly driven away when she saw a man running toward the lane. As he crossed it, she moved deeper into the bushes. He came directly through the garden toward her. She didn’t breathe. But he didn’t glance toward the bushes; he crossed the terrace and went into the house. He was tall, dark haired, bronze skinned: he was the man from the Harpy’s montage of visions. His bare legs looked strong and muscled, not like Efil’s pale legs.

Soon he came out carrying a tray with two glasses, a tall bottle, and a bowl. He was pouring himself a drink as another car pulled into the lane and parked. The driver headed for the terrace.

This man was short, dressed in a suit and tie. This pleased her, that she could remember upperworld clothes. So many memories flashed at her, but none with meaning. The tall man poured a second glass and the two went in the house. She moved so she could see inside.