The Catswold Portal

“I guess I do,” Tom said, surprised. “There’s something about him—when he asks, I just—I suppose because he’s a grown-up and—and because he frightens me a little,” he confided. He bent his knee and scratched his leg without leaning over, so as not to disturb the cat. “He wanted to know what my father did before he died. One time, before we moved here, he asked me what my mother did in her work. He knew she was a broker’s assistant, but he wanted to know exactly what she did, stuff that was none of his business.”

“Has he always been gardener here?”

“Since before we came. He does gardening all over the village—for some of Mama’s friends. That’s how we found this house. He told Mama’s friend Virginia about it right after our house burned. He said this house was empty, and the people might be willing to rent until we got settled. My mother thinks that was very nice. But I don’t like him. I didn’t like him helping us.”

“Who—who lived in the house before it was empty?”

“Someone named—Santeth, I think. Did you know someone here?”

“No, I…”

But she did; there was a Santeth in Affandar Palace, a captain of the queen’s guard.

Tom shifted his weight as if the cat was growing heavy. “Do you work in the city?” Then, seeing her expression, “Now I’m asking nosey questions. I’m sorry. I just thought…”

“It’s all right. I—don’t work—just now.”

“You’re out of a job? What do you do?”

“I clean,” she said, trying it out. “I clean and cook.”

“You’re a maid? That’s crazy. You ought to be a model, not a maid. You’re too beautiful to clean someone’s house. You can’t like doing that.”

“It’s all right.” She wasn’t sure what a model was; she was pleased and touched that he thought her beautiful. Something about the word model struck her, but she couldn’t make any memory come. When a car horn honked, Tom turned.

“It’s my mother.” He touched her hand by way of good-bye. “Come back,” he said, spinning around so the cat flicked its tail to balance itself, and he was gone. She watched him set the cat down on the porch rail, where it jumped into a tree. Tom got into the car with his mother. They backed out and turned down the lane, going slowly past another cat trotting across the lane—a dark, tiger-striped animal. Melissa wondered if everyone kept cats; she wondered if they were all ordinary cats. The car was about to turn onto the highway when another car swerved in squealing, spun around at the end of the lane and out again, just missing them. And something had happened. Tom and his mother jumped out of their car. Tom started to kneel, then his mother pushed him aside saying something, and he ran shouting up the garden, leaving his mother crouched in the lane over the small, still form.

“Morian! Morian!” Tom shouted. “Tiger’s hurt! Morian!”

A door slammed and a black woman came quickly from the gray house. She took the boy by the shoulders, staring into his face. He said something, pointed, and she ran down the terraces, her bare feet flying. Melissa forgot all need to hide herself; she ran down the garden and stood watching Tom and his mother and the black woman kneeling in the middle of the road. The black woman’s face was twisted with pain as she rose cradling the little bundle in her arms, and got into the car. Melissa was totally caught up in the drama. A cat had been hurt, and they had rushed to it, were surely taking it for help. In Affandar, a hurt animal would be left to die, no one would attempt to save it. Perhaps no one would love it deeply enough to save it.

When the car had gone, she went quickly down to the portal and stood touching the carved cats’ faces, letting their familiarity ease her confused feelings. She didn’t belong in this world; she was a foreigner here. Maybe she had lived here once, but that time was gone; she had been only a small child then. Now this world reached out too powerfully, wanted too powerfully to draw her into it. Frightened, she pulled open the portal and slipped through into the tool room, and quickly she said the spell.

The wall drew back. She pushed through into the darkness and closed the door behind her.

Alone in the black tunnel she felt tears stinging. She wasn’t safe in the upperworld, yet something of that world held her. Something of herself belonged there, something raw and vulnerable. She felt she had torn herself physically from that world. Confused, she hurried downward into the blackness, heading down fast toward the less complicated comfort of the Netherworld.

She traveled a long way, unable to bring a spell-light, running down through the blackness, trailing her hand along the rough stone, sensing the emptiness and the masses of stone with feline alacrity. She slowed when she reached the first drop.

And as she descended, the upperworld seemed not to diminish in size as a place does when one moves away. It seemed to grow larger behind her, the wind blowing wilder, the sun burning brighter.