Cat Tales Issue #1

by Steve Vernon

  This time the caregivers did hear over the monitor and smiled knowingly.

  “Morningstar’s up to his magic again,” said one.

  The other nodded. They were accustomed to the mystifying cat with his unusual yet therapeutic ways.

  When Morningstar had appeared on the doorstep of St. Joseph's, there had been a multitude of questions. Should they take him to a shelter? Should they adopt him? Would it be appropriate for a nursing home to have a live-in kitty running loose? Morningstar had made the decision for them—‌he would not go away.

  At first, he was relegated to the business office, but he could not be confined. No one knew how he got out, but suddenly there he would be, in the lap of the wheelchair-bound or napping beside the bedridden. The residents loved his impromptu visits and it soon became obvious the cat did nothing but good.

  Morningstar had the canny ability to be in exactly the right place at the right time. If Buck’s nightmares had gone on much longer, one of the girls would have had to attend to him, and nice as Buck was with the cat, everyone else got his gruff and surly side. As long as Morningstar was there, they knew Buck would be alright.

  John Charles Buckley had been a sergeant in the army during World War II. He’d been taken prisoner and sent to Berga where he endured the very worst humanity could dish out. Now those past images resurged, often clearer than his blind and feeble present. Malnutrition, sickness, beatings, and all the terrors of war descended upon Buck in his aged vulnerability. He sighed with relief as he petted the cat, knowing it had only been a dream.

  Morningstar slid into the crook of Buck’s arm and folded against his body, sending his cat warmth through the thin sheet. He kept his sunset eyes pinpointed on Buck’s forehead, the third-eye place if one believes such things. Although Buck couldn't see the cat’s stare, he sensed it. With another sigh, this one of relaxation, he closed his eyes and let himself go. That was what Morningstar needed. He knew Buck was afraid, but until the old man slept, the dream spinner could do no good.

  Buck’s breathing evened and Morningstar grabbed his chance. Slipping between his thoughts like a panther threading the dense green jungle, the cat found what he was looking for. He meowed gently, and the memory began to rise in Buck’s mind like a bubble through dark water until it reached the surface.

  The breeze was cool against Buck’s face, as was the water rushing over his high-wader boots. The sun climbed the hill across the river, putting Buck in shadow, but it was better that way; the fish were less likely to see him as he stood quietly casting, out and in, rhyming the water’s song.

  Suddenly Buck felt a tug, so slight it could have been the whim of the current. But then he felt another, and that was no current! That was a big one by the feel of it; maybe even a steelhead. With excitement excluding all other thoughts, Buck began the timeless seduction of reeling in his catch.

  Morningstar was dozing beside Buck, immersed in his own fishy dreams, when suddenly his mind was assaulted by chaos, sharp as a claw in the chest. He burst awake, immediately on all fours in the middle of the bed. He stared at Buck but the old man was still restful, his hand gently twitching as he played the fish. Whatever had roused the cat, it had not been Buck.

  So who, then? Morningstar brooded in alarm. The turmoil he perceived was far more than an unpleasant dream. Someone was in trouble. Someone was being brought kicking and screaming to the very brink of their mortal end.

  Morningstar vaulted to the floor and began to race through the halls. He felt a small wrinkle of disturbance as he passed Mrs. Hobson’s, but he would have to come back to that later. Nightmares could wait; this—‌whatever this was—‌could not.

  The chaos increased as he drew closer to its origin. By the time he got to Edith Elizabeth’s room, he could barely discern what was real from what she had manifested in her frenzied mind. Chairs flew through the air, crashing through walls; small objects—‌a hairbrush, a Kleenex box, a bar of soap, a string of beads—‌whirled as if in a blender. The bed itself hovered near the ceiling, its occupant as still as stone, the elusive eye of a hurricane.

  Morningstar knew what he saw was only a projection of Edith Elizabeth’s own tempestuous illusions, but he had never experienced any dream so fierce before. It took his entire concentration to keep from being swept into her floundering oblivion. Mustering his strength, Morningstar bunched his muscles and leapt for the careening bed. He landed by the old woman and looked deep into her fearful, red-rimmed eyes.

  As he stared at those marble orbs, all semblance of reality fragmented, and Morningstar found himself adrift in her craziness. Stairs rose to nowhere, twisting insanely like those in an Escher scene. A tornado of ashes swept by, blustering glass-dust that raked at his sensitive eyes. A high wind blew, shrieking as if in pain. Nothing was quiet in that writhing, hurting universe. He knew he must act fast if he were to survive.

  Edith Elizabeth had disappeared and other, stranger forms had taken her place. He needed to find her, to save her, but how could he manage in a world that made no sense? Closing his eyes didn't help since nothing was real in the first place. Inhaling deeply, he centered upon the only thing he controlled, his own small body.

  The whirling, dizzying pace cranked down a notch. All thought was on his breathing now. Again and again, he let the motion guide him. Then finally, for a split second, the chaos focused. In that hard-won moment, Morningstar searched for his mark.

  She was clinging to one of the multidimensional stairways, nothing more than a white amorphous form, but Morningstar knew it to be Edith Elizabeth. He also knew she was crying.

  Navigating the non-reality with his dream spinner’s insight, he manipulated his way to her side. He dove into her ghost-lap and took charge. The staircase made one last whip-crack and then fell quiet. The wraith solidified into the shape of a stocky girl, Edith Elizabeth’s younger self. She turned questioning eyes on the shadow cat. Though her face was still wet and blotchy, the tears no longer fell.

  Morningstar sighed with relief, amazed he had been able to pull her through so quickly. Then, with a tomb-cold shiver, he realized this was only the start.

  Leaping onto the lushly carpeted stair, no longer surreal but ancient and polished mahogany, Morningstar compelled Edith Elizabeth upward. She followed guilelessly, though the imprint of terror still flashed from her bloodshot eyes.

  As the pair reached the top, the room opened into an expanse of a well-furnished library. Row upon row of bookshelves lined high walls. Sunlight streamed through soaring beveled windows, casting rainbows across the floor and spangling the tooled leather spines of ancient books with undulating brilliance. Plush chairs crouched throughout the room, welcoming the cat and girl like comfortable old friends.

  Morningstar stared in wonder. Unlike most of his dream work, this was not a memory he had pulled from his subject’s mind. This was completely new, completely foreign. Even so, his instincts told him what was required.

  Edith Elizabeth glanced around, beginning to take interest in her surroundings. Her eyes had lost their frightened glaze, holding instead a veiled expectation, as one who thinks something marvelous might be close at hand.

  “Morningstar!” she exclaimed as her eyes came to rest on the big cat. “What are you doing here?” She paused. “What am I doing here, for that matter?” She studied the unfamiliar room, then crossed to the bookcase and ran her fingers over the soft tomes. “Is it something I’m supposed to do for school? I can’t seem to remember.”

  Morningstar meowed. He wove twice around her ankles, then lifting onto his back legs, he balanced front paws against a book of grand size and meowed again.

  “What, Star? Is that the one you want to read?”

  Morningstar meowed a third time and Edith Elizabeth smiled. His replies seem so fitting, she thought to herself, it’s almost as if he understood every word I said.

  The girl wrestled the large book from its niche and opened it.

  “Oh, Star, it’s an album. A family album, and
I’m in it!” She took the book and plopped down onto a velvety chair. Swinging her legs across the rounded arm, she turned the heavy pages.

  Sepia-toned photographs and dark, shiny tintypes stared up at her. Youthful cavaliers and lace-clad ladies; a confederate soldier with a bushing beard; a dark-robed judge; a sea captain. A young man in a rakish hat and a wasp-waisted girl with a Gibson hairdo cradled a baby festooned in white tatting. “That’s me,” Edith Elizabeth pointed out to the cat who had joined her on the armchair. “And there’s Uncle Frank, and Aunt Evangeline. These are my grandparents, and those must be my great grandparents. I’ve never seen this album before. I wonder where it’s been all this time?”

  A look of concern darkened the young face, casting the shadow of her older self, but it did not last.

  Morningstar returned to the bookshelf and pawed toward a higher volume. Without thought, Edith Elizabeth got up to see. Although large as the last, this one was newer. The black gloss cover was offset by letters of gold: Our Family. Elizabeth pulled it out and opened it with glee.

  On the first page was a picture of a beautiful lady in a flowing silk gown. Her hair was bobbed short under the rosebud wreath. Her eyes sparkled and a half-smile sweetened her lips, as if she were about to say something slightly naughty. Edith Elizabeth smiled in concert, a twin to the photograph. “That was my wedding day,” she told Morningstar proudly. Turning the pages on her married life, she was swept away over and over, each time giving account to the cat, her only confidant.

  “This is my husband Harry. And this is when Eva was born. Oh, here’s our fifth anniversary. Harry took me to Atlantic City. What a grand place. We ate hot dogs, then danced until the sun came up. I had the time of my life, but between you and me...” She gave Morningstar a wink. “...I was glad to get home to mother and little Eva.” She turned another page onto a photograph of a woman with a baby. “I didn’t know it then, but Peter was on the way.

  “Sweet boy,” she crooned to herself, rocking the heavy album as if it were her child.

  “I want to see another,” she told Morningstar with simple eagerness when she closed the final page. The big cat obliged, leading her to a farther shelf and looking up expectantly.

  “This one?” she asked as she reached where Morningstar indicated, but he was silent.

  “This?”

  Still no response.

  Her hand hovered over a big red book. “How about this? Oh, you don’t have to tell me—‌I know it's the one.”

  Without wavering, she yanked it out. From its celluloid-covered pages danced a parade of color images. Edith Elizabeth laughed with joy as she took in page after page: pot-luck parties with friends and family; birthdays of children, then grandchildren; travel logs of the post-retirement trips she and Harry had taken.

  Suddenly she sobered. The scenes were becoming sparser. No more parties, no more Harry; just her tired, aged visage smiling wanly into the lens.

  “Why do I look so old?” she reflected.

  Then she turned a page and the pictures stopped. She flipped on but her frightened fingers found only stark blank white.

  “Why?” she asked again as she pushed the book aside, but the bewildered look had left her face, the same aged face that had stared up at her from those final photos.

  “Star?” Edith Elizabeth called, realizing the cat was gone.

  A meow came from the brightest corner of the library room. The sunlight was so dazzling, she had to squint to see Morningstar perched high upon a near-empty shelf. She hobbled over to him as he smoothed his sideburns along the edge of the shelf’s only occupant, a large volume, nearly as broad as it was tall.

  “That can’t be for me,” she told him brusquely. “There aren’t any more.” She brushed a strand of silver hair from her eyes.

  Again Morningstar caressed the book.

  “You are mistaken.” Edith Elizabeth’s reedy voice had turned harsh. “I saw them all. The red one was the last.”

  The cat paid no mind, still rubbing insistently against the sharp corner of the tome.

  Edith Elizabeth was beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable. “Why are you being so stubborn?” she accused the shadow cat.

  Morningstar pierced her with his sunset gaze. She stared back into those pools of light and suddenly she knew.

  “No!” she exclaimed, backing away from the book as if it were a spider. “No, I can’t look. I don’t want to.” She collapsed to the floor, tears springing to her rheumy eyes. “I’ve seen all the ones from my life, which means that book would have to be...”

  Morningstar rose to his full size and gently nudged the book from its shelf. It landed next to Edith Elizabeth with a thud, the cat following second. He crawled into her lap and curled up in a circle, his eyes never once leaving hers. Something about his warm power gave her courage. She chanced a glance at the fallen volume.

  It was the most beautiful book she had ever seen! The intricately tooled leather shone as if brand new, and in the sunlight brilliance, the gilt-edged pages blazed. There was a scent as well, of lilacs, of the sea. A knowing smile played across her face. The fullness of her life rejoiced in her mind.

  She reached out and opened the book.

  About the Author

  Native Oregonian Mollie Hunt has always had an affinity for cats, so it was a short step for her to become a cat writer. Mollie is the author of the Crazy Cat Lady cozy mystery series featuring Lynley Cannon, a retiree and cat shelter volunteer who manages to find more trouble than a cat in a catnip patch. Mollie also published a non-cat mystery, Placid River Runs Deep, which delves into murder, obsession, and the challenge of chronic illness in bucolic southwest Washington. Mollie lives in Portland’s eclectic Hawthorne district with her husband and a varying number of cats. Like Lynley, she is a grateful shelter volunteer.

  THE SPRITE & THE FAMILIAR

  A Pact with Demons (Story #1)

  Copyright © 2018 Michael Adams

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  A Pact with Demons: The Website

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  All rights reserved.

  This book is licensed for personal reading only.

  All aspects of this work are intended as fiction.

  The Sprite and the Familiar

  My mother stepped on a cat’s tail and laughed. I didn’t believe him when he told me. My father always said she liked animals, especially cats. She tried to bring home a kitten but he said no. She couldn’t keep her. In three days, her nose would run, her eyes would itch, and her face would swell. He seemed sincere. The cat, I mean. But also my father. She liked cats, but a cat said she stepped on his tail and laughed. The feline believed the act to be deliberate and malicious. ‘That made it a crime,’ I said. ‘I know,’ he said. I asked him what he had done to upset her. He hissed and pawed. I told him what my father had told me. She had found an orange kitten under the bridge, the same bridge we were under now, Tarago Bridge. A thunderstorm had scared the kitten. The wild creature slipped on the steep bank and scurried under the structure for shelter. My mother was also under Tarago. She cradled the shivering animal until the rain ceased and the thunder had rumbled passed. She brought her home and tried to keep her. My father said no.

  The big cat, black with honey stripes, commended me on my poetic details. ‘How else could it have happened?’ I asked. He pondered. Maybe she loved small animals. He was fully-grown and fat. That was his answer. Personally, I felt being fat made up for him being grumpy. Fat made him cuddly. People wanted pets to keep them warm. His lumbering walk, hips shaking, offset his bad attitude.

  ‘Are you calling my mother a liar?’ I asked.

  ‘Technically, it’s your father’s veracity in question,’ he replied.

  ‘Well, it’s not necessarily related. My mother’s grudge with you is with you not all cats.’ As I had said the words, I knew the door I opened.

  ‘Then that gives me even
more reason to take this assault personally.’

  The cat told me he knew the story. The kitten was no larger than the dead rat I now held in my hand. And it was not a kitten. It was a cat, a lucky cat, a gulukkugakat, bright orange with a golden belly and black eyes. Only one was born in sixty-six days of every three millionth litter with six cats. I believed those numbers to be too round. It’s easy for people to make rules up and say it’s magic. Regardless, the lucky cat sacrificed its fortune of nine lives and bestowed that karma to its possessor. On the day in account, a gulukkugakat had slipped down the trickling stream’s banks and scurried under Tarago Bridge during a thunderstorm. She climbed up the pier’s bricks and sandwiched herself in between the gaps. My mother had fallen into the river, and the lucky cat gave its seventh life to save her.

  ‘Belug is a stream not a river,’ I said. ‘Ducks can’t even squat to float.’ They slapped their feet about, splashing the water as they waddled up and down the rocky bed. The cat claimed that Belug was a river for two days. Torrents swelled the gentle stream into a rapid river.

  Local history established the Belug was originally a river that dwindled into a stream. A mayor had it reclassified in order to avoid the sense that our town was diminishing. As I explained these origins, the cat tilted his head. He had not known. I found that telling of his age. He wasn’t ancient. He probably didn’t read. Everything he knew he had witnessed; everything he had witnessed he knew. He was not as old as the drying of the river. He had been born since the stream, less than a century, a youngin’. A familie like him was not one for travel. Where they were born, they would die. Where they died, they had been born. So where they lived was where they had been born and would die. They figured themselves superior to mundane animals, but I betted this one liked yarn like any other cat.