Clowders

by Vanessa Morgan

  Despite the light mist that hung between the hills, the town of Clervaux was coming into

  view.

  They had driven the entire way in silence. Aidan was the first to speak. “You've been making a face the entire night,” he said with a tone of reproach.

  “You know clubbing is not my thing.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  She looked at him in disbelief. “To do you a favor. Because you asked me to. That's what you wanted, right?”

  “If you're having fun, yes. Not if you're going be grumpy all night.”

  “I wasn't grumpy. I just don't pretend I'm having the time of my life when I'm not.”

  “I want to go to sleep.” Aidan turned his face away from her and toward the window.

  The policeman drove into the town and dropped Aidan and Jess off at the beginning of their street.

  “Thank you so much, officer. Have a good night,” Jess said. She opened the door, stepped out, and immediately went toward their house, not waiting for Aidan.

  Aidan went after her. “Jess? What's gotten into you?”

  She didn't put in the effort to answer or look at him. She unlocked the front door and put a radiant smile on her face to greet the babysitter. “Hi. Sorry for being so late. How did it go?”

  “Everything went well,” the babysitter said. “Eleonore tried to fool me a few times, though. She pretended she always goes to bed at 10.”

  “It's never later than nine.”

  “I know. She also said she's allowed to watch scary movies. I'm pretty sure you'd never let her.”

  “She's smart. She's trying to see how far she can go with you,” Jess said.

  Jess dug into her purse and handed the babysitter several notes. “Thanks for the good work.”

  Once the babysitter was out the door, Jess went to the bathroom without uttering another word to Aidan. She took out her contact lenses, put the cleanser on her hands, and rubbed it on her face to remove smudges of mascara around her eyes.

  Aidan looked at her from within the doorframe. “What's the matter with you tonight?” he tried again.

  Jess held her silence. She splashed some water on her face to remove the excess makeup and cleanser, grabbed a towel, and wiped dry her face. Only then she said: “You think I didn't see you eyeing Lorenza? She's a bit too young for you, don't you think? How old is she anyway?”

  Aidan blinked at Jess. “You're overreacting,” he muttered.

  Jess brushed her teeth. She spat out the toothpaste, rinsed her mouth, and turned to Aidan. “I left my country for you. I came along to the nightclub for you. Everything I do is for you, to make you happy. But the only person you want to make happy is yourself.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered. “I wasn't feeling quite guilty enough.”

  Indeed, she thought. You aren't feeling guilty enough. Otherwise, you wouldn't behave like this.

  “Can we go to sleep?” Aidan ordered. The irritation in his voice annoyed her. Why did he make it sound as if she were to blame?

  “Good idea,” she said, but in her mind, their fight was far from over.

  ***

  Jess had the impression her husband fell asleep as soon as his body touched the mattress. She, on the other hand, kept replaying images of Aidan and Lorenza in her head. She wondered if there was something she could have done to prevent his attraction to that woman. Okay, she hadn't been her best self tonight. She wasn't too happy to be in the club; she had not been cool. But was that a reason to immediately hit on other women? Was that all their marriage was worth?

  After almost 45 minutes, she finally started to fall asleep. In the distance, she could hear the sound of fighting cats.

  CHAPTER 11

  Eleonore woke Jess and Aidan up a little before eight. She stood next to their bed, yelling: “Goodmoooooorning!” Her lips twitched humorously as if she had vicious fun waking her parents at this ungodly hour, knowing full well they had come home late. How long had they slept? One hour? Less?

  Jess rolled over and let the momentum carry her out of bed. “You can sleep a little longer. I'll take care of this,” she told Aidan. He stifled a groan.

  First coffee had to be made. Then Avalon got some kibble and was let outside. She prepared Eleonore a soft-boiled egg and French toast, and she put on some TV for her.

  “Do you want to watch television, E?” She had recorded her favorite European show, and with some luck, it would hold her attention span so she could get maybe an hour of extra sleep.

  “Yessss!” was her answer. Her daughter was surprisingly energetic this morning.

  The show started, and Eleonore was instantly transfixed. “Don't forget to eat, E,” she said. Eleonore always ignored her breakfast whenever she focused on the television.

  Jess went back to the kitchen to finish her coffee when she heard a door open in the background. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure appear in the doorframe. The posture had something feline – with the front arms straight between the feet. At least, that's what it looked like. Without her contact lenses, everything was so vague she could hardly distinguish anything. Eleonore was probably imitating one of the monsters from her show.

  “What is it, Eleonore? Do you need to use the bathroom?”

  No answer. Jess took another sip from her freshly-brewed coffee.

  She thought back to the figure she had seen in the forest a few hours ago and to the way that pair of reflective black eyes stared at the group from behind the trees. There was something off about those eyes – as if there wasn't a soul behind them. Only something twisted. Something befouled. Even more so, it sat in the same position as the figure next to her. Could it be that–?

  The idea made her jump and she turned around toward the doorframe.

  Nothing.

  How much had she drunk last night? She had never seen things before. Had one of Aidan's colleagues put something in her drink? But then again, she had probably never drunk as much as yesterday either. Alcohol and fatigue weren't a good combination. It was time to go to bed. By no means could she stay awake now after so little sleep. She wasn't 20 anymore.

  All of a sudden, Eleonore screamed as loudly as if she were being torn to pieces. Then Jess heard her shouting: “Ad inferos! Ad inferos!” It was the magic spell that supposedly sent monsters back to hell in her favorite TV show. The screaming continued as she raced toward the living room. Jess skidded to a stop in front of the sofa.

  Eleonore sat still on the sofa, stick-straight and terrified.

  “Mom! Mom! The monster is in the living room!”

  “A monster? Where is it, darling?”

  “It ate my egg and jumped out of the window when it heard you coming in.”

  Jess' looked out the living room window and searched the area in vain.

  “There really was a monster, mom. Like a giant black cat with long hair. It sat on my bed this morning, too, looking at me. I think it's angry with me. It looked angry.”

  “Probably a cat or something,” Jess said.

  Eleonore showed Jess the size of the “cat” with her hands. It must have been the size of a predator. “It was so big.”

  “I bet it was,” Jess said. “Maybe you had a tiger in the living room.”

  “It didn't look like a tiger, but I think it's the one who's making all the noises here.”

  “What noises?” Jess asked.

  “You know,” Eleonore said. “Like click... click...” She lifted both hands to make tiny claws to show her mom what she meant.

  “I'll make sure the monster will never steal your eggs again,” Jess said, as she sat down on the sofa and put her arm around her daughter. She always meant it when she spoke those words whenever Eleonore had a nightmare. Today, however, she didn't believe them anymore.

  ***

  Aidan thought the “giant cat” was a welcome change from the wolf Eleonore thought was in the attic back when they lived in Connecticut, but Jess knew better than that. Because she was always home,
she knew something was wrong. Aidan couldn't have noticed anything because he was always at work. She was 100% certain it wasn't Eleonore's imagination. Food had been stolen lately. There was no doubt about that. And Jess heard noises and felt a presence as well. Right after they'd moved here, it had been only once in a while, but since the accident, she had an almost constant feeling that something was in the house with them.

  However, Jess wasn't sure it was a cat that was stalking them.

  What if a wild animal had broken into the house?

  What kind of wild animals lived in the surrounding forest anyway? Feral pigs? Wolves?

  She took her iPad from the coffee table to look it up on the internet. First, she typed in the description of the creature she saw in the forest after the accident - forest animal; long limbs; hairy; demon-like. She waited for the results to appear.

  No, wait. It couldn't be possible.

  The only thing Google showed her were cat pictures. She wondered if it had something to do with living in Clervaux because the images had nothing to do with what she was looking for.

  Next, Jess typed in a few other search terms to look for possible animals that resembled the “giant cat” Eleonore had mentioned. She googled “giant cat Luxembourg” and “wild animals Luxembourg,” but the only things that remotely resembled a large cat were wild boars or red foxes, which could hardly have been the case.

  But the last one she found was probably correct. There was something called “wild cats” in this part of Europe. She learned they were hunters, mainly rodents and birds, but also reptiles, fish, and insects. “Males have an average weight of 5 kg (11 lb) up to 8 kg (18 lb), and females 3.5 kg (7.7 lb). Large males can reach 65 cm (or 26 in) in length, with a 34.5 cm (13.6 in) long tail,” it read here. Apparently, wild cats weren't dangerous for humans and the majority of other animals. Still, Jess wasn't reassured. From now on, she would make sure doors and windows remained closed at all times so no animal apart from Avalon would ever get in again.

  CHAPTER 12

  On Monday morning, Avalon did something he had never done before. He hissed at Jess. And he picked the perfect timing – when she set out a dish of his favorite Almo Nature food. She spoke to him severely. The moody feline put his head between his front legs and obediently let himself put outside.

  After the incident, Jess went into the town for groceries and didn't think about Avalon anymore.

  When she came back home, he was sleeping on a chair in front of the bakery next door. The baker's pudgy ginger slept on the chair next to him. The two felines had become the best of friends lately.

  As Jess opened the front door, Avalon got up, ran inside, and immediately fell asleep on the sofa. Jess wanted to cuddle him as she always did when he came home. When she approached him, Avalon started to tremble over his entire body and whimpered softly.

  “What's wrong with you, Avalon?” Jess whispered, but the cat didn't respond to his name. His usually lively personality was flattened, and his somewhat comical appearance dimmed. “Do you want a treat?” It was a question Avalon knew all too well, one that usually resulted in running excitedly toward the kitchen. But again, the cat did nothing. It was almost as if he hadn't heard Jess at all.

  She squatted next to him, placing a hand on the cat's back. She put her nose into his fur, inhaling the smell that was so familiar to her.

  Avalon's muscles coiled up, tight as springs. He reeled back, his teeth bared, and Jess jerked her hand away, her heart thudding in her throat. She fell backward, putting distance between herself and the growling cat by pushing away with her feet.

  She'd better take Avalon to the clinic to get him examined. He was probably in pain; otherwise, he would never behave like this. But how was she ever going to put him into his pet carrier if he was in such a bad mood?

  ***

  Now that the initial shock had ebbed away, David was able to look at what happened with a more accepting point of view. That didn't mean he had a grip on the situation – he felt numb. In a few days at the latest, he would be confronted with that which he feared the most, and he didn't know whether he should wait it out or put matters into his own hands to prevent his mom from falling victim as well. His poor mom. She had asked several times if he was okay and why he was home from work, but David had to come up with a lie about the stomach flu, after which she'd glanced sideways at the empty beer bottles and hamburger boxes and then back at him, but she hadn't said a thing.

  David didn't put any more effort into showering or cleaning up. He could only wait for fate to unfold. David didn't know when it would happen or how. He only knew for certain that when the time came, he wouldn't be able to escape.

  He wondered how he wanted to spend the last days of his life, and the answer was: at home, gaming, with his cat, Pim, in his company. That's why he had called in sick at work and stayed home. He felt sorry for Simon and Aidan for giving them all the extra work with the patients, but he preferred to die while doing something he enjoyed in the company of those he loved. So he had put The Last Guardian in his PlayStation 4, and the hours had flown by. Later that day, he would order a pizza, maybe even two, and uncork a bottle of wine.

  Pim snuggled up against him, even closer than usual, as if he felt that their time together was limited. Luckily, David didn't have to worry about Pim's well-being. His mom would take care of him, no matter what. And if something were to happen to her as well, he knew there would always be someone else in the town to provide food, care, and shelter. Because whatever happened, the cats always came first in Clervaux.

  ***

  After school, Jess and Eleonore took Avalon to the cat clinic. It had been a pain to put him in his carrier. He had always been stubborn, but he had been so savage today, hissing and yowling, that Jess was certain he was in a lot of pain. It was only when Eleonore had approached that Avalon had let himself be handled willingly.

  In the car, Eleonore kept her cat close to her so he could remain relaxed. Subsequently, in the waiting-room, Avalon stayed on her lap, while she whispered words of encouragement to him. Hoping to take Eleonore's mind off Avalon's condition, Jess grabbed a lollypop from the goblet on the coffee table in the middle of the room and handed it to her.

  It was good to see the place where Aidan came to work every day, though Jess would have preferred to be there for another reason.

  Everyone in the waiting-room seemed relaxed compared to Jess, who was hunched over in her chair, her knees bouncing nervously. She told herself Avalon was just fighting an innocent parasite, nothing more, but her intuition told her they were on the brink of losing their furry family member.

  Across the room, a little blonde girl with a pony tail tried, to no avail, to make Avalon look at her by dancing in front of him. She then tried to get another cat's attention by putting all the cat toys lying around the waiting-room onto its sleeping body. Her mother hardly noticed as she was conducting business via cell phone. A stranger told the girl it wasn't nice of her to annoy a sleeping cat. She pouted.

  An elderly lady sat in a wheelchair on the other side of the waiting-room and held a large cat carrier on her lap. She was talking to the woman next to her whose cat, a Maine Coon with a recovery collar, sat on the chair next to its owner. The Maine Coon owner explained that she had named her cat Lionel, because the name started with “lion” and that's exactly what her pet looked like.

  Not wanting to think about all the horrible diseases Avalon could have contracted, Jess got up to look at the posters in the waiting-room. The one closest to the entrance had drawings of all the different cat breeds, and the one next to it an informational message about not automatically giving antibiotics to your pet.

  Her gaze turned toward a message board on which people had pinned lost cat announcements, pictures of kittens to give away, offers for pet sitting services, and publicity for an artist specialized in pet paintings. A great idea for Eleonore's birthday, Jess thought. Her daughter would love a painting of Avalon, so she saved the name and p
hone number of the artist on her phone. Hopefully, their cat would still be with them by then.

  After a few minutes, she went back to her seat and grabbed one of the nature magazines on the table in the corner next to Eleonore. The magazine was in French, so she didn't understand the majority of what was written, but she flipped through it anyway, hoping she would at least pick up a few new words of French – if her concentration allowed it.

  A young couple came out of the cabinet, and the elderly lady in the wheelchair rolled herself forward. Her wheelchair hardly budged. She must have been heavy, considering the cat carrier on her lap was huge.

  “Do you want me to help you?” Simon asked, but the woman insisted on accomplishing the task herself.

  Jess raised an eyebrow, flipped a page of the magazine.

  Aidan, too, entered the waiting-room, surprised to see them. “Hey, what are you doing here? Something wrong with Avalon?”

  “I don't know,” Jess said. “He's extremely agitated today. When E's around, he seems fine, though.”

  “She relaxes him if he's unwell. That's good,” Aidan said.

  Jess looked around her at the full waiting-room. “Lots of work today, I see. I suppose you'll be home late again.”

  “It's hard to tell. I'll try to be there around seven.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don't know if I'll be the one to examine Avalon,” Aidan said. “Otherwise, it'll be Simon.”