by BoJenn
Later, Larry drew her aside. “Cat, I didn’t know you spoke French?”, he said, delightedly. “It is wonderful!”
“I don’t,” Cat said, puzzled. “My parents speak a little, but I? No, I don’t.”
“But you spoke French when you prayed,” he explained.
Cat was stumped as this wasn’t the first time she was told she spoke perfect French. “I don’t know,” she said, “maybe you thought it was French?” She blew it off.
Larry persisted. He knew French; his family spoke a small amount since it was his grandmother’s native tongue.
Unable to keep it to himself, Larry mentioned it to Mary and the few others left at the house, who waited for Tammy’s fate to be decided—not by Cat Dubois, of course, though, as they could never give her any recognition or admiration, regardless of the outcome. But, Larry was delighted hearing Cat’s lovely French recitations. They brought a comfort nothing else could at such a time. But he still didn’t understand why Cat would deny speaking it, as her pronunciation was better than someone who spoke it just a little. Nevertheless, such curiosity would have to wait; he was much more concerned about Tammy’s recovery.
Cat called her mother and father as she started home that morning. She gave Larry’s comments about her French speaking not another thought. As she drove home, the sun crested over the eastern mountains. It was beautiful and warm in appearance. Would Tammy live or die? Larry put his faith in God, who Cat Dubois imitated, in his mind. She was the closest to sainthood as anyone he had ever known.
Tammy slept soundly. Her fever had broken. By midmorning, she was hungry and wide awake.
Larry was thrilled that Tammy was recovering; however, without knowing it, a seed of hateful dissension had been planted, that would backlash even more on Cat. The gossip had already begun— that Catherine Dubois spoke a “devil’s language,” and that Tammy Johnson had been healed by the devil, himself, through Cat and her odd words. Mary had been so surprised and excited that her little girl was well that, without any evil intent, she told everyone she spoke to about Cat’s prayers in another language.
Larry had no idea that would happen, but he was sorry when he heard the rumors. Nothing he could say or do could change the jealous hate-mission of the women who desired to destroy Cat, and evict her from Glory Town forever. Larry tried to tell his wife, Mary, not to be involved in the sordid scheme of tearing Cat down through vicious gossip; but, Mary wasn’t sure.
“Maybe Tammy was healed by the devil?”, Mary actually uttered to Larry.
“How can you say that? Those women are the evil ones,” Larry replied, storming out of the house.
Yes, Tammy was all but completely healed from her illness, but the church women were Mary’s longtime friends. They were like sisters to her, and her loyalties were confused. After all, these woman, whether mean or not, were once the young girls she played with; and they had all attended the same elementary Sunday school back in the early 1950s. And, even though Cat Dubois grew up in Glory Town, having arrived there when she was almost 5 years old, Mary still held to the seniority of allegiances to the Glory Town sisters.
On the other hand, Cat Dubois was responsible for Tammy’s cure—no doubt. It wasn’t an accident. Tammy’s breaths had dropped to 6 breaths an hour. This was a fact. Glory Town’s Catholic priest had even been called, despite the fact they weren’t Catholic, to administer last rites to her. There simply had been no hope until Cat arrived and moved the other ministers aside so she could get down to the business of real healing. And, whatever Cat had done, Tammy got better within hours of her arrival. These facts Mary could not argue with. Cat did something miraculous that night.
But, Mary had always been weak and a follower. She was not strong enough in her own self worth to tell these gossiping bitches to shut up. She still kowtowed to their ill will of Cat Dubois.
Mr and Mrs. Dubois never heard of the slandering whispers, or, if they did, they never said anything in Cat’s defense. Larry doubted they knew, because, had such talk been about his daughter, he would have stopped them anyway he could have; so surely, they were clueless and in the dark about the malicious gossip, or they simply didn’t care. No, he didn’t believe the latter ridiculous thought—not for a second. The folks in town kissed Mr. and Mrs. Dubois’ asses because there was money that was brought to Glory Town by the Dubois family. But, Cat just became an easy target for jealous, mean-spirited idiots, in his opinion. They wouldn’t bully her parents, out of self-serving preservation, but they could sure bully her—an innocent girl. He shook his head, yet again, knowing that Cat was a scapegoat and her parents didn’t see it.
Larry was the town’s grease monkey, but he wasn’t born yesterday. He was a smart man—much more intelligent than most of the population in this town. He just didn’t have clout behind him. The Dubois parents, and their financial endowments to the town, and their prestigious caste, would prohibit any pursuit he could make against the gossipers, so he had denounced that idea many years before. And, although he once held a special affection for Cat that went back years before all this, he had respected the relationship she and Daniel had, even though he knew Daniel’s sexual orientation could not provide a traditional marriage or relationship with Cat. He had just allowed the plan of fate to fall as it should between them. Larry was a gentleman. He was also a good husband and father to Mary and Tammy. Childhood fancies of his fondness of Cat were only sweet memories of what occurred in his imagination, but had not, and were not, to be.
Cat Dubois and The Dogmatists
Cat had separated herself from any worship service of any denomination. Gradually, she had stopped all church affiliations over the five years after her parents’ tragic deaths from the car accident. She had never been truly invited prior to her parents’ deaths, but was included, afterwards, because of them. Invitations were gratuitously sent to Cat because of Mrs. Dubois’ attendance— handed on only out of their respect for her mother.
It may have been after Cat started refusing invitations to Glory Town’s social functions that the townsfolk felt it okay to start openly gossiping about her in an ugly manner, but the exact reasons for their loathing of Cat were not sudden. The animosity had developed ever since she was a young girl. The gossiping only escalated into outspoken frenzy once she was open game, and there wasn’t a parent or sibling around to protect her. Little care had ever been exhibited regarding Cat’s feelings anyway. As far as they were concerned, she was now an orphan who lived in a large, overgrown manor on the hillside of Glory Town. That’s all she was—an orphan—and nothing more. They were uncomfortable with the obvious lovable traits Cat displayed. Her kindness was seen as weakness, and her genteelness was obnoxious to demons. When they saw little Cat place her hands on the forehead of a dying beagle, and revive it from a near death state, they became annoyed and contemptuous.
Meanwhile, Cat hashed and rehashed her memories of childhood, again and again, asking herself where she went wrong? And, what did she do to these people? She refused to accept the simple explanation of jealousy. Jealousy meant she found herself better or higher than them, and yet, Cat wasn’t haughty or overly self-assured. She was simply herself, nothing exaggerated or contrived. However, being herself with her healing abilities, and having wisdom way beyond her age was enough to provoke competitors. Every word that came from her mouth was sincere, lovely, happy, positively delivered; and, for such a young woman, she spoke with solid power built in uniquely pure faith. She didn’t use Christian slang or jargons. Her words were few, but, when she spoke, each word held wisdom beyond her age. She didn’t say “God bless you” all the time, and she didn’t say “Praise the Lord” like everyone else did when something good happened. Her comments were delivered in complete honesty. For example, she would say something like, “This doesn’t look good, but this is what we can do about it,” and then she would deliver the solution, like making dead birds fly again or birthing puppies from an injured dog who later lived to tend to her own pups. But, w
hen she did performed little miracles, she talked to someone beyond human vision.
“I watched her more than once. You could see her whisper responses to another source or place, even though no one else was seen or heard. Her eyelids blinked rapidly, and her face held a golden, white-like glow whenever she was manifesting healing. She never took credit or became pompous,” Daniel had explained at a dinner party that his parents had in their home. Daniel was 10, then. In fact, he talked about her often. When Daniel told others about Cat, even his eyes shown brilliantly. He was proud of his friend; however, the more he told, the less popular Cat became.
Until Cat was around 45, she had ruminated for a long time about what she did to these people. So, another bottle of red wine was opened night after night. It medicated her childhood memory bank. What had she ever done, but be herself? She had tried not to blame it on jealousy because it sounded so childish. But, it always came back to jealousy. That detriment was always holding the gun. It was the culprit. Could she have blamed her parents for letting her be this way? No. Her father was totally unaware that she could heal little animals, and her mother dismissed this attribute as just being kind—just Catherine. Her mother never bragged on her; or, if she did she never heard her do so. She played outside every chance she had no matter what the weather was. Her healing of animals was mostly around Daniel and he told everyone with great excitement and enthusiasm. If anyone bragged about her, it was Daniel.
When Cat, as a young girl, comforted other children or held the hands of the elderly, the people of the town ignored her, as best as they could. They had heard the rumors and believed that she was weird and not a normal child—perhaps they were true. Even though, it was hard to move away from the touch of someone who had an electric warmth healing ability, the warm touch was different and somewhat shocking. Like warm electricity, the vibrations were present and real. Because her eyes changed in colors, this too, was disturbing to an average person. It would be a natural reaction to want to move away or escape the unfamiliarity of touch by warm, finely vibrating fingers, and physical changes of her eyes. The elderly were more accepting because it felt good, but frightening at the same time. Cats’ peers, the young, said she was “creepy.” Fears turned to malicious rumors of little Cat Dubois being a witch, and that she should be avoided like the plague.
Of course, when Cat was seven or eight, parents, teachers and others had to tolerate her and patted her on the head saying, “cute, cute as a bumble-bee,” when her mother or father were present. The way she comforted anyone in need, and the way she healed animals, was startling and astonishing. Anyone could see that. Cat had been afforded the gift of healing just about the time they arrived in Glory Town. She was merely five when she demonstrated her gift on the first day of Sunday School. The church cat had almost died from giving birth earlier that morning. All the children were shooed away, but Cat had refused to listen to the teacher. Instead she went to the suffering cat and stroked her back. While closing her eyes in a prayer, she spoke in a different language to the feline, “S’il te plait sois guéri, chaton.” (“Please, be well, kitty cat,” she had said.)
“Do you speak French?”, the Sunday school teacher asked.
“No,” said young Cat.
“Well, you probably do…your last name is Dubois, young lady! Of course, you’re French!” Mrs. Bulgar insisted, using a deep strong tone of voice that embarrassed the child that first morning in Sunday School. The Sunday school teacher knew it was French. But, she wondered too much why the little girl would lie about it. Lying was the first sign of a dismal, over-imaginative character which was from the devil. She just knew the little girl was not telling the truth as she told others, “The Lord told me so.”
The Sunday school teacher, Mildred Bulgar, made sure all the mothers and teachers knew this truth about Catherine “Cat” Dubois, retelling the story, and it snowballed. She blew it way out of proportion. It started the avalanche of rumors.
“First,” Mildred said, “she was disrespectful by not following the rules and respecting a teacher’s authority, and then she lied.” Mildred took a deep exhaustive breath before she finished her perfect judgments. “Her gifts were from the devils themselves. Beware of wolves in sheeps’ clothing. A wolf can even be a little girl who performs so-called miracles.” Mildred’s face showed the signs of righteous indignation. She shuffled the paper in front of her and put them into perfect alignment.
Surely if anyone knew it would be Mildred. After all, she was a proud upstanding Christian example, whom everyone should strive to become; and because of this reason alone, she knew God’s precise and exact truth. It did not matter to any of them that the five-year-old girl had delivered the kittens without any further trouble, one at a time. The cat and her kittens lived healthily, and the Dubois family adopted all the kittens when they were ready. They wanted them for their barn.
Perhaps her mother and father wanted to smooth over the frantic, fanatical judgements of their 5-year-old daughter. This was hard to know as they never discussed their child's occasionally uncharacteristic behaviors. Light crystal-blue eyes were witnessed when she performed animal healings, and emerald-green when she was angry or intent on getting her way. A young girl shouldn’t be this way; no one should be this way. So that was the way others perceived the strange girl who grew up in Glory Town, whose wisdom seemed ancient or from somewhere else other than this planet.
From the time Cat arrived at five years of age, she seemed before her time when she interacted with others. These traits preceded her and, yet, followed this girl named Catherine Dubois.
One day, Cat boldly stood up in her fourth-grade class, after some rough horseplay among the boys in bullying a fellow classmate. The child was a little more rounded than the other children, and so the boys made fun of him, calling him fat. Cat stood up and announced that she would not sit there and pretend that she hadn’t heard the cruel words. “You most certainly did call him fat!”, she cried. Her eyes looked like green crystal emeralds that were ready to slice all of them into little pieces, one by one. “You’re a liar, Wade. I don’t care if your mother is the teacher. You are a liar.”
Still, for her efforts, Cat was the one who got in trouble for telling on the naughty boys. She had detention for a week with the fat boy, Leslie, nicknamed “Les”, Henry. During that week, Les and Cat hardly spoke. He was ashamed that a girl stood up for him and that he had not done so for himself. After a week of almost silence in a room with Les Henry, Cat knew she could not leave the time spent with Les without offering advice.
“Leslie, my advice to you…” Cat began to share. But she spoke so wisely and confidently, which irritated the one she tried to speak to. After all, no one wanted a know-it-all kid to tell them what to do. [Mr. And Mrs. Dubois had always overlooked Cat’s gift of wisdom, never realizing that it could cause future problems for Cat. They taught her humility, so Cat remained humble and never tried to be superior; but still, no one wanted a 7-year-old to be an advisor.]
“I didn’t ask your advise or for your help” Les snapped back at her. “Leave me alone, witch.” Les Henry scurried away indignantly. He told exaggerated stories about her: how he saw her pick up the eraser from across the room and made it float in the air, cleaning the chalkboard at the end of their day in the school room.
So, the stories grew and magnified. Cat would be doomed in a town this small where a few ran the town and whatever they said was scripture.
The lowly mechanic, Larry Johnson, and his daughter Tammy, and other less influential individuals were considered nobodies at the back of the line of importance in Glory Town. Their opinions were disregarded, and they were judged as being superstitious, uneducated and inferior citizens that could have nothing of significance to say.
In an odd parallel circumstance, this life lesson was mirrored again because the lesson had not been learned. While Cat was engaged in verbal spats with Leslie Henry, the same was true for Tammy and Ethan Humphreys’ dispute. Tammy, who was abo
ut the same age as Cat when she defended Leslie Henry, was put in detention with Ethan Humphreys. She stood up for him when the other boys were calling him “Hog, Pig-Pen, Crybaby,” and other such demeaning euphemisms.
The two young girls had both been courageous and stood up for the underdogs and the unfairness of life in Glory Town. So, in like punishment, Tammy spent the remainder of a week in detention with Ethan.
He chose not to speak to her and she grew angry at his unthankfulness. She blinked rapidly, finding herself vexed at Ethan’s ignorance. Her green emerald eyes pierced through Ethan to see his wilted soul. Ethan was weak and frail which led to poor self-esteem, so obvious, that others could see it. Tammy felt kind of sorry for him, but he was also blind to his own undesirable state of being. If he were stronger, he would have wanted to help himself.
Ethan realized he was in trouble when Tammy’s gaze saw through him. From the look in her eye, he knew she saw his weakness, and that was dangerous. She could expose him. He jumped from his chair. It was time to go. Only five minutes remained in this room with her. He grabbed his books stacking them over and over, but they kept falling off the table or out of his arms.
“What’s the matter? Nervous?” Tammy laughed. Her eyes were no longer their original hue, but had changed to a mystic golden hazel. They were huge and unblinking.
To Ethan, it seemed as if it were an eternity. He dared to look at her one more time, trying to snarl and look mean and manly, but his hands trembled as he fumbled with the books. “Stop it, now. Stop it.” His mouth quivered. He went to push her back, unable to take her gaze anymore. His eyes glared back into hers. Finally, he placed all the books together with papers coming out of the sides, everywhere pencils fell, but this time he left all mess behind and ran towards the classroom door. He didn’t look back this time. He ran as fast as his chubby legs could haul towards the classroom door.
