There was a moon, so I didn’t need the flashlight. Nor did I turn on Irv’s sorry lamp when I reached the cabin. Perhaps I was showing off for Atherton; perhaps I was just giving in to paranoia and trying to stay invisible to any eyes that might be watching from the forest.
I had no trouble opening Irv’s panel and fetching out the nugget and the photos. But as I was putting the board back, I heard a sound that raised those fine hairs rooted in the nape. Not a creak exactly, or a rustle. It was just a slight noise of complaint that oak trees make if you lean against them when they are bitterly cold and resentful of added burden. I’d had cause to hear that sound all too often that winter.
Unbidden, unwanted, a line from Hansel and Gretel popped into my head: Nibble, nibble, little mouse. Who’s that nibbling at my house?
Jillian. Atherton’s hair was standing up, too. His silhouette in the window looked enormous.
“I hear it.” My voice was hardly louder than a sigh. “Do you see anything?”
No.
The sound repeated. It was soft but not safely distant, and it cast a dank shadow somewhere in my brain, blotting out my earlier confidence that I was doing the right thing by coming out in the dark and cold.
You know what fear tastes like, at least to me? It’s like sucking on a dirty penny. If you never tried this as a child, let me fill this gap in your education. Instants after it hits your tongue, the mouth floods with coppery saliva and the sourness dribbles down the throat where it smacks the stomach. Muscles clench from your jaw to groin and you feel queasy. You get focused on the sick feeling and forget to breathe. The world starts to close in, to go brown and then black. Of course, you spit the penny out, but the taste won’t go away, at least not for a long time. You’ll taste it in your fillings for days.
“Do you smell anything?” I barely whispered. Fear burned up my oxygen and kept my paralyzed lungs from drawing more.
No, but the noise is out front. Atherton was facing the door now. He looked at least twice his normal size. It could have been anything out there—a deer, a raccoon, even a mountain lion—but I didn’t bother suggesting this to the cat. We had to assume that it was something less benevolent.
“Come on. I’ll put you out the bathroom window.” I crawled silently toward the bathroom, testing each board before putting weight on it. If our observer wasn’t certain that the cabin was occupied, I preferred that he remain unenlightened.
What about you? Atherton padded after me. His voice was low and oddly menacing. If he was afraid, it didn’t show.
“I won’t fit. You go around front and see if anyone is there. If it’s safe, I’ll come out.”
If not, I’ll go and get the others. Atherton showed initiative and I was glad he had a plan. I appreciated that tremendously, though I wished that he could fetch Tyler and not just the other strays. Whatever was out there probably required bullets rather than cat claws to discourage it.
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
The window opened reluctantly but without the tremendous amount of sound I feared. My heart was thudding hard enough to make my sweater twitch as I lifted Atherton and put him on the sill.
I’ll hurry, he promised. And then without any hesitation he jumped into the night, disappearing immediately.
He did hurry, but by the time Atherton had crept around to the front and investigated, our visitor was gone. Atherton found no smell except for something that sounded like rubber when he described it—a smell, he said, like the latex gloves I keep under the bathroom sink. I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
I also didn’t know what to make of this odd event, but I didn’t for one minute think that we had imagined hearing someone outside Irv’s cabin. I knew that we could very well still be in danger if our observer had simply pulled back a few dozen yards beyond the range of sight or smell. I thought about calling Tyler, but what could I tell him—I’d heard a noise?
We hurried home, sticking to the middle of the road where we could not be easily ambushed, and once safely inside, we treated ourselves to more tea and tuna, and then tried to embrace the peace of mind that comes with a solid door loaded with deadbolts and chains.
Still, even with every lock in place and the house alarm turned on for the first time in three years, I couldn’t shake the sick feeling of unease. Though Atherton smelled nothing definite as we hurried home, and I saw even less when I looked over my shoulder at the deeper night beneath the trees, I couldn’t put an end to the belief that something malevolent had followed us down the hill and was still watching the house from the deep shadows of the trees up by the road. What it made of me and the cat visiting Irv’s cabin in the dark, I couldn’t say.
I believed then and now that the malevolence was called Peter Wilkes.
I didn’t sleep well that night, but though I kept an ear cocked for any alien sounds, no one came scratching at the windows or tapping on the door. The deck didn’t creak. The bushes didn’t rustle. Whatever it was, whoever it was, it had decided to leave us alone for the time being.
CHAPTER TEN
The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
—Leonardo da Vinci
The phone rang around nine o’clock. I stared at it with dislike, which I was pleased to see mirrored by Atherton. The cat didn’t find the ear-piercing ringtone any more appealing than I did.
Annoyance at the interruption of my first decent moment of writing in weeks, and inclination to ignore it, was soon conquered by my desire to make the noise stop before it drove another auditory nail into my head. I had forgotten to turn on the answering machine again and the damn thing would ring endlessly if the person on the other end was disinclined to take no for answer.
“Hello?” I sounded crabby, but at least my jaw was loose enough to articulate intelligently.
Perhaps surprised at my tone, the voice on the other end said formally, “This is Tyler Murphy, ma’am. Have you got a minute?”
It was nice of him to ask, though this was purely for form. When the sheriff called a person who had reported a murder and then spotted a meth dealer while walking home from the scene of the first crime, one always had time. Anyway, I was curious to hear what he had to say about Stinky foot and what the man had been doing on our hill.
His first words surprised me, though. They were an invitation to dinner for the next night, in celebration of catching the second meth dealer and making our county safer for honest citizens. And probably safer for dishonest ones too. The damned druggies didn’t care whose ox they gored. We were well rid of them.
I said yes and then hung up the phone a minute later with hands that seemed to belong to someone else. Writing forgotten, I went upstairs in a daze. Atherton followed, being typically catlike, which was to say that he was curious.
Bracing myself for bad news, I looked in my closet and realized that the couture situation was as dire as I had feared. I’d lost a fair amount of weight over the last three years, and even if I was willing to take things in, everything I owned was hopelessly outdated. I took down my one cocktail frock drooping on its hanger and shuddered. My only black dress looked like it belonged at the funeral of a ninety-year-old woman and not at a restaurant where they served fruity drinks with paper umbrellas to handsome sheriffs.
“This is pathetic.” Clearly it was time for a visit to Queendom Come to purchase a frivolous frock or two. Thanks to my jaw and grief I was now fashionably thin. With the right bra, I could have stylishly abundant breasts that would look nice in the latest fashions. And as for footwear—I could only shake my head at the sad collection of worn heels huddled at the back of the closet where they cowered in shame. My little piggies still had to go to market and other mundane places, but from here on they were going in new shoes. I would have to visit Golden Slippers as well—and I could get a pedicure while I was there.
“This is sad.” Never mind clearing out Cal’s things; it was time to throw out all the defeated sweaters and frayed pants, faded and sagging into shapeless dust sheets
that made me look like a secondhand chair whose stuffing was gone.
What are you doing? Atherton asked as I began pulling things off hangers and tossing them aside.
“Getting rid of these old clothes,” I said, sweeping the entire shelf of shadowy colored knits onto the floor.
Atherton came up slowly and tested the pile with his right paw.
May I have them? They would make a nice bed.
“Of course,” I answered, pleased that he was showing such promising signs of domestication. “Would you like me to put them in a basket for you?”
Yes, please.
You may have noticed that I don’t coo and talk baby talk to Atherton. It would be all well and good to coochiecoo if he didn’t understand me, but since he does, I have the feeling that it would all be rather embarrassing for both of us if I treated him like a human baby.
I noticed Atherton eyeing a ribbon that had half slipped free of the wrist of one of the sweaters he had appropriated. Feeling inspired, I said, “You know, I could drag a string around for you—if you wanted—and you could hunt it.”
Jewel-toned eyes looked up at me.
Thank you, Jillian, but it wouldn’t be quite the same. I would know that you are dragging the string. Atherton was amused. It’s like I said before. I couldn’t treat this cat like a dim-witted child. Perhaps it was because of his extensive mental contact with me and Irv, but he seemed far smarter than the average animal, and learning more about me every day.
“Well, if you ever change your mind…”
I’ll keep your offer in mind.
He was even using some of my favorite phrases now.
I forgot to put on the heater and my jaw was aching by the time bedtime rolled around. As I did every night, I went to the medicine chest looking for a nightcap. This time, before popping a pill or three, I really stopped to look at what was in there. The catalogue was fairly appalling. Lorazepam—in both the point-five and one-milligram dosages—Seconal, Valium, Vicodin. And that was just on my shelf. On Cal’s shelf, carefully hidden by the aspirin and antacids and vitamins, there were stronger things, among them morphine patches that a part of me had been keeping for…well, a really rainy day.
After a moment I closed the door without taking anything out. I hadn’t used them at the most horrible time, when the cancer was digesting Cal bite by painful bite and eating up my happiness and hope at the same time; there was no excuse for using them now. It was time I started living with the discomforts of daily life. Time to remember that being alive sometimes meant dealing with pain instead of running from it.
I didn’t throw the morphine out, though. That would have to wait for another day when the light was bright and I was feeling strong enough to cut my safety line.
I was up bright-eyed and early the next morning, ready to shake my phantom bushy tail at the new day. For the first time in years my house felt charming. A lot of the old hopelessness had been evicted from the public rooms by new purpose, and the shades of grief were tidied away in other less obvious places. It wasn’t all gone, of course, but the memories were allotted only as much space as they deserved. The fever of despair had broken. I said to myself that the patient was on the mend and that everything would be better from here on out.
I decided to feed the cats and then maybe drag away a few of the downed limbs from the front yard. The outdoors also needed a spring cleaning. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only soul lured out by the sun. I could hear chain saws and weed-whackers starting up all over the hill. Along with the chittering of the goldfinches, this gasoline-driven din was the true sound of spring in the mountains.
Crystal came down the hill in her bright red death machine, sliding to a stop outside my house with barely a fishtail on the loose gravel. She likes to think that her driving has panache. The rest of us tend to think of it as a reckless disregard for property and posted traffic signs. She’s never hit anyone or anything, though, so we haven’t complained to her.
I put down the leaf blower I had been trying to start and came up the wooden stairs, noting they needed to be stained again. Crystal rolled down her window and grinned. She had optimistically discarded her coat and was wearing only a hand-knit sweater in shades of blazing blue and violet.
“Hi, sweetie!”
“Hi, yourself,” I answered. I walked over to her red Honda, crunching drifts of oak leaves underfoot. The wind had once again swept up every leaf on the hill and dumped them in my yard. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about a mission of mercy.”
“What’s that?” she asked, her face looking suddenly concerned. “Is someone ill?”
I shook my head.
“It’s about one of Irv’s cats.” Actually it was about all of Irv’s cats, but I didn’t want to terrify her. My scare up at Irv’s had made me nervous for the felines. The sooner they were safely stowed away, the better. “As you know, I’ve been looking after them since Irv died. Fortunately, they’ve had their shots, but I have no idea if they have been spayed or neutered and am not at all sure how to get them all to the vet’s. I’ve found a home for some of them.” One of them—Atherton. “But I’m worried about…” Who? Which cat did I want to foist off on Crystal? I looked down the stairs where the cats were congregating around the pie tins. It came to me suddenly. Crystal would like the small white female covered in perfectly round black and orange spots. “Tiny Bubbles. You see, she’s missing her tail and I think it’s putting people off. You know how shallow some people are when it comes to looks, and I’m so worried she won’t find a home because she doesn’t look like other kitties.”
“She lost her tail! Poor kitty.” I nodded solemnly, not mentioning that she had been born without a tail. I knew that Crystal’s tender heart would be roused to sympathy even though she was not a cat person.
“She’s a real sweetie. I’d take her in a heartbeat,” I lied, “but I’ve already adopted Atherton, Irv’s big old black tom. And he and Bubbles don’t really get on.” This would be news to Atherton, who seemed to like or dislike everyone equally. But Atherton was big and scary-looking so I was pretty sure that Crystal would believe me.
“You want me to take her?” Crystal asked, a bit doubtfully.
“Just for a while,” I lied. I was getting really good at fibbing. “Just until she’s seen the vet and we know if she needs to be spayed. You know that she has to recover indoors after surgery. And I think we need to fix the females first. What we don’t need are more kittens on the hill this spring….”
“No, of course not,” Crystal agreed. The hill had been battling the problem of ferals for years.
“Wait here. I’ll go get her. Let’s see if she likes you. That’s important, isn’t it?”
“Well—”
I turned and hurried down the stairs. “Bubbles!” I called. Bubbles is not her cat name—she hadn’t gifted me with that information yet—but she knew who I meant and looked up from her dish of crunchies.
Yes? The question was wary.
“Bubbles, there is someone here who would like to meet you. Her name is Crystal. She lives up the hill.”
The cats stopped eating and looked up at the Honda.
The bird lady?
Bird lady. I ran that through my cat translator. I think they were referring to the fact that Crystal kept a small flock of peacocks. She also occasionally picked up road-kill and took it to the buzzards that lived near Eagle Lake. As I said, Crystal has a kind heart. I assured myself that she could learn to like cats as much as buzzards.
“Yes, the bird lady,” I said lowering my voice. “She would like you to come live at her place. She’ll give you lots of food and you’ll have a warm bed to sleep in at night. And you can still come and visit me during the day if you want to.”
Bubbles looked more doubtful than Crystal had.
She likes birds.
“That’s because she hasn’t met you yet. Look, you guys can’t stay here—you know the lady across the street doesn’t l
ike cats, and she will call the catchers if you stay too long. And they are going to tear down Irv’s cabin, so there will be nowhere to sleep that’s out of the snow and rain.” I exhaled, calming myself. I didn’t mention the phantom we hadn’t seen in the night. “Just try it. If you don’t like living with her, you can come back.”
The cats conferred among themselves, then Bubbles said: Very well.
I reached down slowly and picked her up. She wasn’t thrilled with the intimacy, but didn’t fight.
“Try and purr for Crystal. Humans like that,” I muttered and then pasted on a smile.
“Here she is,” I said cheerfully as I walked carefully back up the stairs. “Isn’t she a doll?”
“She has orange eyes,” Crystal said, surprised.
“Like citrine,” I agreed. “It’s very rare. Isn’t she pretty? You hardly notice the poor tail is gone.”
Bubbles turned and gave me a funny look.
“And she’s purring. I think she likes you.” I passed the cat through the window. Crystal took her reluctantly, but smiled when the cat began to purr on cue and started to knead her sweater. The claws were kept carefully sheathed.
“She really is tiny for a feline.” Crystal settled the cat against her ample chest and began stroking her forehead. The purring began to sound more natural.
“Yes, and the other cats pick on her. She’ll never survive out here.” Lies—all lies. But for a good cause, I assured myself.
“Well, I guess I could take her…”
“Let me get you some food—and a litter box, though she will mainly go outside. You’ll hardly notice her.” I hurried into the garage and picked up one of the covered plastic paint pails—unused, of course—I had emptied most of the giant sack of cat food into. I also snagged a disposable paint tray that could be used as a litter box until Crystal got something better.
A Curious Affair Page 14
