Cat's Claw

by Amber Benson

  The construction of the house took the better part of two years to finish, but while she waited for her dream home to be completed, Sophia was anything but idle. She hired a young man named Edwin Bell, formerly of the landscape design firm Olmstead and Vaux—the very firm that had designed Brooklyn’s jewel, Prospect Park—to help her conceive of the gardens that would surround the house.

  It was during the course of their collaboration that the upstart young landscape artist fell in love with Sophia, a fact you can see directly in the small tokens of his affection that are interspersed throughout the gardens. Only pink roses—Sophia’s favorite—bloom in the delicately sculpted English rose garden; forget-me-nots pop up like clockwork every spring with a pugnacious vitality; summer sweet and wild honeysuckle proliferate along the stone pathways and in the pink tulip tree-shaded overlooks that dot the edge of Sea Verge’s grounds.

  At the lip of the most northerly cliffs, there are three small stone benches overlooking the water. The benches, all three made from the same polished white marble, are overgrown with a strain of Virginia creeper whose leaves turn a dusty shade of rose at the first sign of autumn, making the benches appear as if they’re upholstered in pink fabric. That same vine has become so prolific that it’s made its way back up to the main house and has slowly been taking over the entire north side of Sea Verge for as long as I can remember.

  One summer my sister Clio and I discovered an inscription hidden underneath the middlemost of the three benches. Time and the salty ocean air had almost destroyed the words, but if you looked closely enough, you could still make them out: “My love lingers here always—EB.”

  Clio and I thought it was the most romantic thing we’d ever seen . . . until we discovered that Edwin Bell, heartsick over his unrequited love for Sophia Miles-Stanton, had purportedly leapt to his death from that very spot. The official story was that he had accidentally slipped off the edge of the cliff, but still, can you say creepy, anyone?

  Needless to say, Clio and I weren’t all that supercrazy about hanging out by the benches anymore, so that part of the yard stopped being our favorite place to play in, which I think really pleased my mother. She was always afraid that we were gonna fall off the cliff face or something equally horrible.

  This absurd fear of my mother’s was something that just didn’t compute with me because I’d known my family was immortal from a reasonably early age, and I really didn’t understand what difference falling off a cliff made in the grand scheme of things. Maybe it was just a little vestigial humanness left inside my mother that hadn’t worn off yet, or maybe she was just a nut about people’s body parts remaining intact.

  Who knows?

  Anyway, to this day, whenever I look at the benches sitting out on the headland covered in firm pink leaves, I get the willies.

  Barring the “accidental” death of the talented young landscape designer, the day Sea Verge was completed was as glorious a day as there ever was in Newport. People from all over the island trooped up to see the finished project, marveling over the beautiful limestone façade and the overflowing gardens of sweet-smelling flowers and greenery. It was the beginning of an era in Newport. Over the next few decades, the town would see Bellevue Avenue and its surrounding areas become a bastion for the highborn and the nouveau riche—a place where money was an anodyne to whatever eccentricity made its home there.

  In the end, Sea Verge was exactly as Sophia had imagined it in her mind that feverish night of creation. She felt so much love for the house and its sprawling gardens that she lived there until the very day she died.

  I looked at my watch and saw that my time was almost up. I stood up stiffly, my butt sore from the long sit on cold stone, and stretched. As much as I hated going back down to Hell, I knew it was a necessary evil. I would go and see Cerberus, find out what he wanted—if it was the favor, I would do it, and if it concerned Runt, well, I would beg on my hands and knees to keep her if I had to. Having sorted out in my mind how I intended to deal with the Cerberus situation, I began the long march through the gardens and back up to the house.

  It was only when I was halfway to the back door that I realized I hadn’t thought of Daniel once since I’d left Clio’s room.

  It wasn’t a huge victory, I decided, but it was a start.

  six

  I did not like Hell.

  It was hot and sticky and extremely good at ruining whatever outfit you happened to have on. And since I hadn’t known a trip to Hell was on the day’s agenda when I got dressed that morning, I had not known to attire my person accordingly.

  In fact, I’d been feeling so good about myself when I’d woken up that morning that I’d forsaken my usual Juicy sweats (my Saturday ritual) for a cute little “impulse buy” Missoni sweater I’d gotten on sale at Loehmann’s, pairing it with a pair of black, stretchy stovepipe Seven Jeans that I just adored because they always made my butt look way rounder than it actually was.

  The feeling of contentedness continued as I admired my clothing selection in the bathroom mirror. I looked so well dressed and put together that it gave me the confidence to take out the new taupe Steve Madden high-heeled boots I’d just bought (with money squeezed out of my already too tight food budget) and had promised myself I would return, unworn, for a complete refund. As I stared at the beauties, I decided that food could be forgone—I didn’t really need to eat lunch for the next two weeks, did I?—but a good pair of boots that went perfectly with any choice of ensemble, well, they were worth the forced starvation I was now going to have to endure. Besides, there was always my favorite place at work, the kitchen, to save me from complete anorexia. I knew no one would mind if I filched a few extra blueberry-crumble muffins from the kitchen’s stash of work-time goodies, instead of ordering one of those to-go sandwiches (that cost a small fortune anyway) from the downstairs deli.

  As I slid the boots onto my feet, they felt so good that I knew, once again, that my decision to keep them had been right. I felt like I was serving destiny . . . and looking fabulous at the same time.

  Now, standing in the middle of the kitchen, waiting for Jarvis to open a wormhole in the fabric of time, I realized it must not have been destiny’s work that morning—or if it had, then destiny was a nasty bitch whom I was prepared to dislike intensely for putting my new boots at risk by sending me to Hell.

  “Are you sure you want to go alone?” Clio said as she picked at a piece of cinnamon-raisin toast she’d just pulled from the toaster.

  She’d come down a few minutes earlier to let me know that even though all the Death Records were kept in Purgatory, you had to have a writ from the Board of Death in order to get a look at any of them. That was good to know, especially because I was on decently friendly terms with one of the members of the Board of Death, the Goddess Kali. She had been instrumental in helping me rescue my dad a few months earlier and we had sort of become friends during the effort. I knew from my prior dealings with her that she could be moody as an ass and hard to deal with, but ultimately she was pretty fair. Getting her help would be a difficult, yet probably rewarding, proposition, I decided.

  “I think that bringing anyone else with me might piss him off,” I said, even though I was only half telling the truth. I wanted to deal with Cerberus on my own terms, with no worries about endangering anyone else in the process.

  “If you think so,” Clio said, crunching into her toast, “but Runt isn’t just yours, so, you know, don’t let him have her without a fight.”

  Having heard her name, Runt thumped her tail, and nuzzled my hand.

  “I won’t make you go back to Hell unless you want to,” I said, petting her silken head. Then to Clio, “Just trust me, okay?”

  Clio nodded, but I could see that she looked worried. After everything we had been through together, I realized that she still didn’t 100 percent trust me. I guess trusting someone to do the right thing and not screw it up was hard . . . and when the whole “not screwing it up” thing dealt directly with
the fate of someone (Runt) that you loved, it was even harder.

  I took Clio’s hand and gave it a firm squeeze.

  “I promise I will do everything within my power to make sure that Runt goes where she wants to go and not where her father tells her she has to go,” I said, looking right into Clio’s eyes. She nodded and I could see that she was trying not to cry.

  “I promise, Clio.”

  I hated to see my little sister cry. She was usually the stalwart one and I was the emotional mess. It was weird to have our roles reversed.

  It seemed like the terms “adulthood” and “responsibility” were quickly becoming my new buzz words—even though I had consciously been trying to ignore them. I didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else—I didn’t even want to be responsible for myself most of the time—but it seemed like the more I fought it, the more it got foisted onto my plate.

  “I trust you, Cal,” she said, squeezing my hand back.

  Stupid responsibility, I thought to myself wryly. Now I had to make sure that Runt stayed at Sea Verge with us, or else Clio was gonna hate my guts for the next century.

  “Want some toast?” she said, interrupting my thoughts and offering me a bite of her cinnamon toast. I laughed, shaking my head.

  “No, thanks, you know how queasy wormholes make me.”

  I wasn’t very good with the whole “traveling through time and space” thing. I had a very delicate stomach and all the sloshing around your body did inside a wormhole always made me feel like I was gonna throw up my breakfast along with my pancreas and maybe my spleen.

  Like stuffing something into a blender and hitting pulse, it’s a very quick and simple way to travel, but there’s always a trade-off for such efficiency . . . You get pureed!

  “You ready?” Jarvis said, his voice pinched as he prepared himself for the effort of calling up the wormhole. Jarvis was a real pro at it; basically all he had to do was just snap his finger and the ether would instantly start swirling all around him. A minute or two later and there would be a full-fledged wormhole in the middle of the kitchen.

  I watched as Jarvis closed his eyes and began to concentrate. The only thought that kept running through my brain as I waited was: How sad and silly was it that I couldn’t call up a wormhole for myself? Even Clio could do it and she was only seventeen. Why had I been so averse to learning this little bit of magic that would and could make my existence a heck of a lot easier? I had no answer for myself. I guess I did need Madame Papillon’s help way more than I even realized. Which reminded me that I should probably thank my parents for sending her my way in the first place . . . but apparently that was something I’d have to wait to do until they got back from Scotland.

  Unbeknownst to me, they had decamped to the Scottish Highlands for some kind of foodie tour/second honeymoon—which no one had bothered to tell me about, of course—and wouldn’t be back in the country for two more weeks. Boy, I wish I’d gotten to experience that side of my dad’s job . . . I definitely could use a serious vacation after all the family and work crap I’d been dealing with recently.

  There was a loud pinging sound and suddenly the wormhole was there, a black, eddying mass whose sheer power beckoned me toward it. I swallowed hard, my throat tightening and making it hard to breathe. I so did not want to step into that thing even though intellectually I understood why I had to. It was funny, but every time I was forced to travel this way, I always found myself wanting to take the stairs instead.

  Maybe I could just take the Devil’s express elevator down to Hell—I’d done it before—and damn the consequences? I looked around, hoping that some higher power would hear my plea and make my wish a reality, but of course, no express elevator magically appeared in front of me. Cursing my fate under my breath, I did the only thing I could do in the situation:

  I stepped into the wormhole.

  it was just like I remembered it . . . awful.

  The trip was so bad that once I landed in Hell, I did exactly what my stomach had always threatened to do, but had never done before: I threw up Jarvis’s delicious goat cheese and sun-dried tomato sandwich all over my new boots. Yep, when I stopped retching, I saw that my Steve Madden high-heeled boots had vomit (mostly churned-up tomato) all over them.

  “Not the shoes!” I wailed in desperation. I tried to rub them in the sand, but it was a no go. Instead of getting rid of the throw-up like I’d hoped, the sand grains just made translucent scratches in the soft pleather, which the vomit then seeped into.

  Crap!

  After a few moments of intense grieving for my new shoes, I began to check out my surroundings. Apparently, Jarvis had miscalculated or something, because I wasn’t in the right part of Hell. Somehow, I had ended up in the superhot, superyucky desert part of the place instead of in the Marc Ryden-looking foresty part of Hell by the North Gate, where Cerberus lived. I’d spent enough time here in the past to know that I definitely wanted to get out of the desert part as fast as humanly possible, and the only thing I could do to make that happen was to start walking.

  It took me three hours and a whole lot of luck, but I made it. My feet ached from walking in sand, I smelled like vomit and sweat, plus I was way past my forty-five-minute allotted time to meet Cerberus. Things are not looking good, I thought as I stepped out of the tree line and onto a grassy verge. Across from the grassed-off section, I saw a long, thin dirt trail that would lead me, hopefully, to the North Gate and to my appointment with Cerberus.

  The last time I’d been here was to steal one of Cerberus’s puppies, so there’d been a fair amount of sneaking involved. I’d had Jarvis with me at the time, but other than giving me a lecture about the different gates of Hell and what departed souls entered what gate, he hadn’t been too much help. Later, he’d been worth his weight in gold, but not in my dealings with Cerberus.

  I stepped onto the trail, picking my way across some fallen tree branches, not even daring to look down at the mess I had become. Like I said before, when visiting Hell, one does not want to wear one’s Saturday best . . . and I was living proof of that fact.

  “Poor babies,” I said out loud, looking down at my shredded boots. “My poor, poor babies.”

  There was a rustling in the underbrush to my right and I sped up, trying to get away from the sound. I didn’t want to get tangled up in any other weird business while I was in Hell. I just wanted to find Cerberus, hear him out, and then get back home, where I belonged—and by “home,” I meant my apartment in New York, not Sea Verge.

  The rustling in the underbrush got louder, causing me to pick up my pace even more. Whatever was making the noise hadn’t gotten close enough to warrant an all-out run yet, but I was totally starting to feel like one of those middle-aged, sweat suit-wearing ladies you saw fast-walking at the mall.

  Suddenly, I caught a flash of bright yellow shooting toward me from out of the brush and I took off running. I hadn’t really gotten a good look at the thing, but it seemed quick and compact and ready to bite my head off without the least provocation.

  “Leave me alone!” I screamed, too freaked-out to look back and see if it had gained any ground on me. “I don’t taste very good, I swear to God!”

  Trying to run in a pair of high-heeled boots is sort of like trying to run barefoot: You step on anything less flat than the road and you end up face-first in the dirt. It didn’t take but two seconds for me to step on something hard and round, probably a rock, and go flying. I was moving with so much velocity that I actually think I was airborne for about thirty seconds before I began my descent and landed on the ground, smacking my chin into the hard, compacted dirt. I felt my jaw slam together like a pair of those fake, plastic, windup toy teeth, the taste of blood strong in my mouth. I had impacted the ground so hard that I’d nearly bitten my tongue off.

  I ignored the burning pain in my mouth as I crawled to my feet and started running again—“limping” is really the correct term—fear making my heart jump around in my chest in quadruple time.
Yep, abject terror is a really great motivator. It kept my feet moving long after the rest of my body had already given up.

  After a few minutes of run/limping, I realized that I wasn’t being followed anymore, or if I was, whoever was doing the following had no interest in catching me. With my breath tight in my chest and a stitch in my side, I slowed down to a walk and took a tentative look at my supposed pursuer.

  Sitting in the middle of the path, about fifty feet behind me, was a tiny yellow dog—not bright neon yellow like I’d thought I’d seen out of the corner of my eye, but a dusty, muted animal yellow.

  “Really?” I said under my breath. “Really, that’s what I was running from?”

  I wiped my hands on my jeans, smearing dirt and blood from my abraded palms all over them—hey, they were black, so no one could see—and hobbled back the way I had come. The poor little animal just sat there in the middle of the path, looking cowed. As I got closer, the acrid smell of urine filled my nostrils and I saw that the tiny thing had peed all over itself.

  I guess I had scared it as much as it had scared me.

  “Hey, little guy,” I whispered, crouching beside it. “You okay?”

  The little animal just shivered as I spoke to it, not responding to my words. I reached out, wanting to comfort it, then immediately thought better of it when I remembered how badly pee stank when it dried . . . on Missoni.

  “Oh, crap. Whatever,” I muttered, picking the little creature up anyway and holding it to me. It looked up at me, still shivering, and licked my face.

  “You have foul dog breath and you smell like pee,” I said to the little guy as I cuddled him close to me. “I’m gonna smell just like you when this all over.”

  The dog gave a short yip and began struggling to get out of my arms.

  “Hey now, boy, calm down,” I said, clutching the dog tighter to me. The little animal squirmed even harder and this time toenails were involved.