What the Cat Knew

by P. D. Workman

  She was plump, but in a grandmotherly sort of way. Reg couldn’t imagine her skinny; it just wouldn’t have fit. Adele, Erin’s witch friend back in Tennessee was tall and slender, and that worked for her, but it just wouldn’t work for Sarah.

  “So why don’t you tell me about this cottage of yours?” she asked. “Bill seemed to think that we’d be able to come to terms.”

  “He’s very empathic,” Sarah said. “He reads people.”

  “Ah. Of course.” It made sense for a bartender. Reg had known her share of good and bad barkeeps.

  “It’s just a little two-bedroom,” Sarah said, answering Reg’s question. “But it’s just you…?”

  “Yes. No dependents.”

  “So you could use one room as your bedroom and the other as an office, and still have space for entertaining in the living room.”

  “Right,” Reg agreed. She hadn’t thought about seeing clients in her home. She wasn’t sure she wanted anyone to know where she lived. If they didn’t like what she had to say, they wouldn’t know where she lived to confront her. She had thought she would go to them, do readings in their own spaces. She could read a client a lot better if surrounded by their own things. People gave a lot away by the way they lived.

  “It’s separate from the main house, so we wouldn’t be on top of each other. We can each keep our own hours. That can be a problem with night people and day people mixing. The kitchen is small, really just a prep area. You could come use the big kitchen if you needed to do any major baking or entertaining. I really don’t use it that much.”

  “I don’t expect I would either. I don’t do a lot of my own cooking.”

  “You see? You’d be perfect. You wouldn’t be complaining to me that there’s no oven. It really does have everything you really need.”

  “Well, maybe we could go see it after dinner, and talk business.”

  “You’re going to like it just fine. I can tell.”

  As Reg wasn’t that picky, Sarah was probably right. If Reg didn’t like it after a month or two, she’d have a good idea by that point of where to look for somewhere better. It wasn’t a long-term commitment.

  Which was good, because Reg Rawlins didn’t like long commitments.

  ⋆ Chapter Two ⋆

  Cold, clammy fingers traced across Reg’s face, awakening her in the wee hours of the morning.

  She sat bolt upright, her heart racing. She looked quickly around her, trying to remember where she was and who was there with her. A chaotic childhood had conditioned her to be instantly awake and ready to fight. Strike fast to protect herself and escape to somewhere safe. But there was no one else in the room. Maybe the roof leaked and a drop of cold water had traced its way across her cheek.

  She touched it, but it was dry, with only the memory of those icy fingers lingering behind.

  Reg listened for a long time, hearing the lap of the waves in the distance. It was a restful, peaceful noise, and gradually the slamming of her heart slowed to its normal rate, though it was still pounding too hard to get back to sleep.

  “There’s no one here,” Reg said aloud, very quietly. “You’re perfectly safe, Reg. No one is going to hurt you.”

  It was comforting to hear those words.

  When she was a kid, therapists had told her social worker and foster parents she had PTSD, and that was the reason for much of her unwanted behavior. It was nonsense, of course. Reg had never been in a war or terrorist attack. She’d never been kidnapped. Sure, she’d grown up rough, but a lot of kids had. And Reg was good at adapting. You couldn’t call a few nightmares PTSD just because it was the fashion.

  She listened to the waves for a long time. It was growing light as she drifted off to sleep again, still not sure what had awakened her in the night.

  When she got up in the morning, it was with the clear plan to get a cat. She needed a cat. It would be a good prop. Witches had cats or other familiars. People instinctively felt that people who owned pets were kinder and more trustworthy than those who didn’t. And it would give her a little company, without having to resort to having another person around the house. Reg liked company, but she liked having her own space.

  A cat was the perfect idea.

  Reg giggled to herself at the pun. A purrfect idea.

  She checked addresses on her phone, thinking about what else she would need to buy in order to settle into her new living space. The fact that it came furnished was a bonus. She packed and traveled light and was used to operating on a shoestring. A fully-furnished cottage was a level of luxury she wasn’t used to.

  She picked up groceries and the basics she would need to care for a cat before going to the pound, patting herself on the back for thinking ahead and realizing that she wouldn’t be able to do the other shopping once she had the cat in the car. She’d have to go straight home, and she wouldn’t want to just abandon the poor critter there to go run errands.

  At the animal shelter, self-styled as a pet sanctuary, before she was even allowed to look at the animals, Reg had to fill in a bunch of paperwork indicating her willingness to take care of a pet for the rest of its natural life and to follow all of the rules that the shelter set forth, such as not declawing a cat.

  The place was noisy and smelly. Every effort had been made to make it a nice place, comfortable and humane for the animals, but it still stank. Reg thought about Erin. She probably would have run out of there puking, she was so sensitive to bad smells. Reg wasn’t sure how she even managed to keep pets of her own, what with having to change litter and clean up after any accidents. They hadn’t been allowed pets when they had lived with the Harrises, but Reg had seen enough examples of Erin reacting to human smells and accidents that she had no doubt she’d have difficulty cleaning up after animals.

  There were old cats and tiny kittens and everything in between. Orange cats and tabbies and calicos. Short hair and long. Unlike the dogs, most of the cats didn’t interact with the people walking by their cages, but simply slept, curled up in the corners of the cages. Occasionally, one of them would open its eyes or lift its head for a moment, but mostly they just continued to sleep.

  She had thought she would be tempted by the playful younger kitties, but she thought of them keeping her up all night and wasn’t sure that was what she wanted.

  Maybe getting a cat had just been an impulse. Buying a pet was one of those things you were never supposed to do on impulse.

  There were good reasons for getting a cat, but there were reasons not to as well. It might be noisy and wake her up nights. Have hairballs. Scatter litter and shed all over the house. It might jump up on the counter and get into things. Get out of the house and run out into the street.

  It was probably a bad idea.

  Reg looked into the next cage. The black and white cat raised his head, then climbed out of the nest of blankets in the corner, stretched, and walked up to the front of the enclosure.

  “Hey, cat,” Reg murmured.

  He sat up tall and gazed at her, serious and still. Reg poked her finger through the bars at him, hearing a voice in the back of her head warning her never to poke her finger into an animal’s cage. Even a hamster would bite you if you stuck your fingers through the bars. But just like she had ignored the foster mothers who had warned her not to do dangerous things, Reg ignored the voice in her head.

  The cat’s nose twitched as he caught her scent. For a minute, he just sat there. Then he leaned forward and took a step closer, touching his nose to her finger, and then rubbing his cheek against it. She felt his teeth brush over her finger as he rubbed. She scratched under his chin.

  “Hey, you like that? Does that feel good?”

  He rubbed against her and started purring a deep, satisfied rumble.

  One of the shelter workers walked up.

  “Wow, you connected with the tux!”

  Reg looked at her. The girl was a teenager, maybe sixteen or seventeen, blond, with round cheeks. “The tux?”

  “See, he’s
black with a white chest. Like he’s wearing a black tuxedo and white shirt. So we call him a tuxedo cat.”

  “Oh, that’s cool.”

  “And he has two different colors of eyes, too. I love that.”

  Reg looked at him and realized he had one green eye and one blue. “I guess that means he’s special.”

  “I think he is.” The girl poked her finger through the bars to try to scratch the tuxedo cat as well, but he only rubbed against Reg’s finger. “He’s been pretty depressed since he was brought in. His owner died and he hasn’t really clicked with anyone. We’ve tried to play with him and to get him interested in things, but he’s been so sad, pretty much all he’ll do is sleep. He barely even eats.”

  In direct contradiction to her words, the cat stopped rubbing against Reg’s finger and went over to his food bowl. He sniffed at the food, then began to eat, crunching the kibble.

  Reg laughed.

  “Well, he wouldn’t!” the girl protested. “It must be you. Maybe you remind him of his owner.”

  Reg watched the cat. “What do you know about her?”

  “Her? He’s a he. A boy.”

  “No, I mean his owner. What do you know about her?”

  “Oh. Well, he’s also a he. A man. Don’t really know much about him, just that Tux must have really been attached to him.”

  If she were going to get a cat, then it was obviously going to have to be that one. None of the other cats had shown Reg any interest at all, and she hadn’t been particularly attracted to them. She clicked her tongue, thinking about it, and the noise made the cat turn his head to look at her again. He left his food bowl and again walked to the front of the cage, purring.

  “I guess… this is the one,” Reg said.

  At least he was a short-hair, so he wouldn’t get too much fur scattered around the cottage. And he seemed very quiet and sedate, not like a kitten that was going to jump on her face in the middle of the night and keep her awake.

  “Oh, good!” the girl exclaimed. “I’ll go get Marion, and she can help you with the adoption.”

  “Okay. Sure.”

  Reg waited there, scratching and quietly communing with her cat until the older supervisor approached to talk to her about the process.

  If Reg had been expecting to just walk in and get a cat and walk out ten minutes later, she was sadly mistaken. Even the intake had taken longer than ten minutes. Apparently she needed counseling, needed to be walked through how to care for a cat, all of the things that could go wrong, budgeting for food and vets, what to do for behavioral issues, and on and on.

  Reg had a headache by the time they were done and was ready to just pack it in and go home without a cat. But that would make the hours that she had been there wasted time, and she wasn’t going to waste her first full day in Florida. Half of her groceries were already sitting spoiling in the car, and she wasn’t going to walk out of there empty-handed.

  Marion finally decided that Reg was ready to go and took the tuxedo cat out of his cage and settled him into a cardboard box, transferring the furry blanket he had been sleeping on into the box as well.

  “That will help him transition, having something that already smells like home with him. Now you be sure to call if you have any questions about his care. Normally I would recommend that a first-time pet owner start out with a smaller animal, like a hamster, but… that tux needs a home badly, and he seems to like you.”

  Reg watched Marion close the box securely, and then took it from her. She didn’t want to stand there discussing it any further. She wanted her cat home.

  ⋆ Chapter Three ⋆

  When Reg returned to the cottage, Sarah had obviously been watching for her and immediately came out to talk to her. She grabbed a couple of bags of groceries to help Reg carry them into the house and eyed the cat box.

  “We didn’t talk about pets,” she commented.

  Reg had never had a pet before, so it hadn’t even occurred to her that it was something she should clear with her landlord.

  “Oh… you’re right. I just assumed that it would be okay. I mean… witches use familiars, don’t they? You don’t have a cat?”

  “I’ve never actually hit it off with cats,” Sarah said with a sigh. “There just isn’t any connection there. I’m more in tune with birds.”

  “Oh. Do you have birds?”

  “I have an old Amazon gray parrot that has been in the family for years. I guess having it around for so many years is what probably encouraged my affinity for birds and antipathy for cats. If you’re going to keep a cat here, it needs to be kept indoors. I don’t want it stalking the bird feeders and birdbath in the yard.”

  Reg nodded. “Sure. That’s fair. And I’m sorry for not talking to you about it first. I just got up this morning with the clear idea that I needed to get a cat. So… here he is.”

  They carried their respective loads into the cottage. Reg put the cat box down carefully and went back to the car to get the last couple of bags of supplies. When she was inside and had closed the door, the tuxedo cat let out a demanding yowl. Reg and Sarah both looked at the box.

  “I guess he wants out. Do you want to meet him?”

  Sarah bit her lip, taking a step back. “Oh, I don’t know. Is he trained?”

  “Trained? You mean not to bite people? I don’t think you can do that. But they don’t usually go around attacking people anyway, do they? It’s not like he’s going to come after you.”

  “Well, okay…”

  Reg went back to the box and pulled open the flaps, moving slowly and carefully so as not to scare the animal.

  The black and white cat stared up out of the box at her, with an imperious look that seemed to say, “Well, pick me up and get me out of here!”

  Reg leaned down and slid her hands around the cat’s body, and she lifted him up. His body draped heavily around her hands, and she put one hand under his back feet to support him. She turned to face Sarah, showing the cat off.

  “He is pretty cute,” Sarah admitted. “He looks very dapper in his little tuxedo.”

  It surprised Reg that someone who didn’t like cats would immediately know the common name for his markings.

  “What’s his name?” Sarah asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet. They were calling him Tux at the animal shelter, but I imagine half the cats in the world with his markings are probably called Tux. I’d like something a little more imaginative.”

  The cat gave a squirm and a kick, and Reg put him down on the floor. He turned and licked his back fur down, then began to clean his front socks, ignoring the two of them.

  “He has a third eye,” Sarah said.

  “What?” Reg had expected her to comment on his mismatched eyes, and didn’t understand what Sarah meant.

  Sarah pointed to the cat’s head. “That white marking on his forehead. That’s where the third eye is. It’s the locus of the sixth sense. Psychic intuition.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I’ve heard about that.”

  “As a medium, I would expect you to know about the third eye.”

  “Of course. I just didn’t know that cats could have it too.”

  Sarah looked down at the cat, nodding. “Like you said, witches can use familiars. Animals who help them to focus their powers. With a third eye, this cat probably has advanced psychic powers.”

  “Ah.” Reg nodded. “That’s probably why I was attracted to him, then. Or why he was attracted to me. Maybe he could sense my calling.”

  Sarah nodded her agreement. “I have a client for you.”

  “What?”

  Sarah gave her a cheerful smile. “I have a lady who is looking for someone to contact her dead mother. I told her to come by to see you.” She looked at her watch. “I wasn’t sure what time you would be back, she should be here in about half an hour.”

  Reg couldn’t believe that Sarah would just go ahead and schedule a client for her. But she couldn’t find a reason to complain about it. First, the woman had given her
a great deal on a living space—and not just an apartment or basement suite, but a sweet little stand-alone cottage—and now she was sending work Reg’s way. The kind of work that Reg was actually looking for.

  “Oh, well thank you for that. I guess it’s good to know people with connections!”

  “That’s the beauty of having the close-knit community we have here in Black Sands. We know who does what and can refer work to each other.”

  “You must have other mediums who could have done this job. You really don’t know anything about me yet.”

  Sarah laughed. “Amy Calvert has already seen every other medium in a hundred-mile radius. She needs someone new.”

  “Oh. Hasn’t anyone else been able to contact her mother?” Amy sounded like she might be a tough nut to crack. If she’d seen that many different mediums and hadn’t been satisfied that any of them had been able to reach her mother…

  “Oh, yes. Certainly. But she’s always looking for something more.” Sarah straightened and smoothed her flowered shirt. “Just the kind of client you need. If she’s happy with your services, she’ll give you lots of repeat business.”

  “But apparently she’ll still go shopping for another medium…”

  “Eventually. But you can make a lot of business from her in the meantime. Good when you’re just getting established. Once you’ve got a good clientele, you can send her on her way.”

  It sounded like a reasonable approach. Reg looked at herself. She’d just dressed in shorts and a t-shirt for her errands. “I’d better get ready, then.”

  “You go ahead, I’ll get these groceries put away for you.” Sarah opened a bag and started pulling out boxes and jars. “These are warm. You can’t leave things in the car around here. They’ll spoil.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out.”

  “You go ahead. I’ll deal with these.”

  Reg retreated to her bedroom to get changed. Her hair was in cornrows and didn’t really need any attention, so it was just a matter of putting on the right clothes and some makeup. She took her time, wanting to keep calm and focused for her appointment. If she got flustered, she wouldn’t be able to pick up on all of the infinitesimal tells and microexpressions that she would need to read in order to keep on the right track during the session.