The Catswold Portal

He scrambled the eggs, put the burned bacon on a paper towel for the cat, and took his breakfast to the veranda. The sun rising at the back of the house left the terrace in shadow but washed golden light across the upper garden. The whole garden was torn and tangled from the wind, scattered with broken limbs. He put the burnt bacon by the bush, and his own plate on the table at the other end of the terrace.

He had eaten only a few bites when the cat came out. She sniffed the bacon but didn’t eat it. She sat down, staring the length of the terrace directly at him. Directly into his eyes. He looked back at her for some time, strangely caught by her clear, green gaze. She blinked, and blinked again, then bent her head and began to eat the burnt bacon.

When she finished the bacon she looked up as if she wanted more. He set his plate down at his feet, knowing she wouldn’t have the nerve to come for it.

She approached the plate slowly, her body tensed to run. Her green stare didn’t leave him. She was as dark as mink in the shadow of the terrace, her white markings sharply defined. She stalked the plate and watched him, seeming to hold both Braden and the plate in her wide gaze.

And, crouched at his feet, she licked up his scrambled eggs and bacon then got to work on the half piece of toast, holding it down with one white paw, tearing off small, neat bites, glancing up at him with a complacent warmth.

When she had cleaned his plate she gave him a slow shuttered look and flopped over at his feet to lie sprawled totally unprotected and trusting. Upside down, she began to wash her paws and face, glancing coyly up at him.

Amazed, he sat still, watching her. He guessed he didn’t know much about cats. He would never have thought one so frightened would so quickly turn bold. Amused by her, he studied the painterly mixture of russet and black that patterned her thick coat with intricate swirls almost like batik.

Her four feet were white like small white gloves, and the bottoms of her paws were pink. Where the fur parted at her white throat, the skin was pink, making her look frail and vulnerable. Her mouth and triangular nose were pale pink, her ears so thin the light shone through.

When he moved to get up she fled to the bushes.

He scrambled four more eggs and ate them in the kitchen, put his plate in the sink, made more coffee, and got back to work. Working, he glanced occasionally through the glass at the cat, who lay trustingly asleep on the terrace.

Satisfied with Natalie, he tackled Lady with a Yellow Buggy. Garcheff wasn’t having his gallery date. They were good friends; Garcheff would say he never dreamed of such a thing, unless of course Braden wanted to get off the hook. He was working steadily now, with a calm, sure sense. All he’d needed was Morian in his bed. He glazed gold into the shadows, worked life into the woman’s face where before it had been stark, wove light into her figure and into the tree-tossed background until the painting began to glow. The old sure, elated feeling lifted him. When he looked up the door was ajar.

The cat was asleep on the model’s couch, stretched across a piece of vermilion silk. He moved to grab her by the back of the neck and dump her out, but he thought she might scratch.

If she got behind the stacked canvases he’d never get her out. He bent and took her up carefully, sliding his hands under her warm, relaxed body. She hardly woke, she lay limp and trusting in his hands, raising her gaze full on him, her eyes languid.

He stood looking down at her, holding her. Her warmth radiated through his hands. At last he put her back down on the couch, on the warm indentation she had made in the silk.

This way, he’d know where to find her when Morian got home.

It was evening, almost six, when he finished Lady with a Yellow Buggy. Drained, he avoided looking at the work, had looked too long, the colors burned into his mind so he couldn’t see anything clearly. But he knew the work had life now, resonance. Somewhere he had gone heavy-handed with this series, working as if with dead people. Still, maybe this was a false high, maybe he’d hate the stuff tomorrow. The cat was awake, staring up at him all languid ease and long emerald eyes, her mouth curved as if she were smiling. She jumped off the couch with a soft thud and came to him, wound around his bare ankles. The sensation was so strange he stepped away. Where the hell was Morian?

When the cat rolled onto her back, her white belly and throat exposed, he thought he could have crushed her throat with one kick. Before he knew it he was kneeling, stroking her.