The Catswold Portal

In the cool dark she stretched out full length, digging her claws into the earth, then lay washing herself. Drawing her barbed tongue across bright fur, she soon eased into a contented rhythm of purrs and tongue strokes. Soon she slept, exhausted from her long journey. The garden cats came down the hill and circled her. One by one they sniffed at her, then turned away puzzled. The big orange tom stayed a long time staring at her. The sun dropped behind the woods. The sky held a last smear of brilliance, then the garden darkened. The wind came up off the bay blowing branches and vines, but the calico slept on. She didn’t hear the tool shed door push open. At first sign of the hunch-shouldered man, the orange cat bristled and fled. In sleep the calico smelled something unpleasant and her ears went flat and she curled up tighter, but she didn’t wake.

Vrech stood in the low doorway staring around the garden, watching for activity in the six houses. The lights were on above in Morian’s house. At Olive Cleaver’s, only the porch light burned, suggesting that the old woman had gone out. In the low white Cape Cod, just the living room was lit. This was Anne Hollingsworth’s night to work late. Likely Olive Cleaver was sitting with the boy. Tom would be asleep, suffering from the fever his mother thought was the flu.

Below, the yellow house on the left was dark. It was Wednesday, the Blakes’ bridge night. He watched the center house as West left his easel and went down the short hall to the kitchen, likely to fix himself a drink. To the right of West’s, the musician’s house had lights on in the bedroom and bath. Wednesday was jazz night; soon those lights would go out and John the clarinetist would go up across the garden to Sam’s Bar.

Vrech smiled. Olive Cleaver’s hearing wasn’t sharp, and the wind was making plenty of noise. With wind moving the foliage, he might never be noticed; he might seem just another blowing shadow.

He watched John cross the garden with his clarinet case, but decided to wait a few minutes more. Maybe the artist’s model would go across to the tavern, and maybe West as well. They were both jazz freaks. Jazz made him nervous; he didn’t call it music.

When neither Morian nor West came out, he grew impatient. Stepping back inside the door, he lifted his burden, bound in the burlap bag, easing its weight across his shoulder.

He left his lantern burning behind him on the tool table, pulled the door to, but not closed, and made his way up the terraces. The drugged prince was a heavy weight, and he was already tired from carrying Wylles up the tunnel.

He had neared the white house when the screams of trumpet and sax cut the night. The band was warming up; that would cover any sound he might make. As he moved in between the bushes beside Tom’s window, something crashed past him, yowling. Damn cat.

He hid his bundle in the bushes, watching the house and thinking about the cat he had left on the highway. He saw it in his mind as the girl—a sexy creature. Suddenly another cat sped past his feet. They were all over the garden tonight—moonlight made them crazy.

He moved to the window and looked into the living room. Yes, skinny old Olive Cleaver was there reading a book. He returned to Tom’s darkened window and felt with sensitive fingers for the hinges he had loosened earlier.

The blaring of loud, dissonant horns jerked the little calico awake and on her feet, cringing at the noise, staring with terror at the swaying, tossing garden. In the blowing moonlight the carved cats on the door seemed alive, and she reared up, looking at them with widening eyes. At that moment, the wind fingered open the door, exposing a crack of light. She stared at it and crept forward.

She sniffed the cat faces but was drawn, too, by the light space beyond the door; and by falling spaces on beyond the light. She hesitated, then she pushed through the door into the tool room, moving directly past the wheelbarrow and ladder to the stone wall, and stood looking up expectantly. She pressed her shoulder to the wall, then pawed at it. She was clawing hard at the stone when Vrech returned carrying his bundle. The cat tasted his scent and spun to face him. Her back pulled into an arch, her teeth bared in a spitting yowl.

Vrech set down his burden, swearing, wondering how the hell she had found her way back. He shoved the bundle against the wall, making sure Tom was too far gone to cry out, then closed in on the cat. When he lunged, she leaped clear.

He worked her into the corner behind the wheelbarrow. She darted past, upsetting two oil lamps and breaking a chimney.

He was sweating and furious by the time he caught her. She had clawed him in three long wounds; his hands and arms were bleeding. He grabbed a gunnysack and shoved her into it, but before he could close it she sank her teeth into his wrist. He knocked her loose, pushed her deeper in, then tied the bag and threw it against the door.