Twilight, with the long cool shadows of early spring, and the streets are quiet. I consider the scent of people passing, of their animals in leash and harness in the business of the day. I spy, as well, others of my type. A nursing mother – her hunger and desperation have driven her out wide and early. I mark a corner; she would know of my passing regardless, but vow not to hunt, not here. Three kittens I can sense, too large for milk alone. The humans who come here, their buildings full of grain and cloth stuffs, should be grateful for her attentive nature.
I steer clear. While I am subject to the usual urges of my nature, there is nothing for me here. The female is of single mind at this point, her energy focused on her young. In truth, I realize as I continue on – her scent fading on the cold stones – I do not care. As I trot, my ears picking up the sounds of the nocturnal world waking, I ask myself if, perhaps, this is the result of age. A dulling of appetite. I try to recall an earlier time of heat and urgency and find I cannot.
I pause, in part to take in the air, mouth open, for all its richness. In part because this thought has troubled me. I have no memory of my life before I came to myself in that drainage ditch. Before the … incident, for lack of a better word, that nearly killed me. Perhaps the girl was right, and I was at some point a pet. My fur bristles at the concept: to be servile. To beg. But as I ponder, I see myself, suddenly, contemplating a fire contained behind a screen. I feel myself warm and well fed and – dare I say? – complacent.
No, I shake it off. If that was my life, it is over now and has left me with my senses, at least, intact. I raise my head, the damp air intoxicating with its riches. Perhaps I am not too battered, too tired, too old.
And then, at last, I find her – the girl. Not in person but in scent, the trace of fear near gone from her trail of sweat and thought and dust. I begin to follow and then stop, pausing as the evening fog begins to settle.
It is not her trail. To my fine senses, her scent is such that I could track her through the city. It is my deductive powers that stop me, here on the frayed edge of this massive city. I could follow, ducking around corners in the dark. To do so is not the best use of my time or my instincts, however, tagging along, always a beat behind. And so I leap onto a window ledge, its glass long since gone, and wrap my tail around my feet to think.
The girl is on the hunt. My senses tell me she is traveling quickly and on her own. That does not make her invulnerable, and I have seen both the size and the tenacity of her enemies. What I need to do is anticipate her moves. One young girl, nearly a woman. For a street cat who has, apparently, survived for years, this should not be too difficult a challenge.
She seeks the boy. Therefore, first I consider the basement where they have sheltered. It is also there she left the book and its continued security, as well as her questions about its utility, might draw her back there. What she does not consider is the boy who found it for her, and who may have drawn his own conclusions about its worth.
I leap down to the pavement and set off. The city reveals itself to me through sounds as well as scents, and I can hear the nighttime revelers begin to gather blocks away. I have not forgotten my last visit to this area, this middle ground between the city and the river, and I plot my path accordingly. The girl is older than her years in many ways, and I tell myself she will devise her own route.
But as I round a battered dumpster and slink through the torn chain link at an alley’s end, I wonder. Her mentor’s office was her last stated goal, and it is a sanctuary, too. Perhaps it is my concern about the boy, about his familiarity with the basement and the book, but I find the thought of that other, more ordered space appealing. Perhaps it is the creak and ache of my old bones, seeking peace and warmth. I think of a fire again, the roaring contained behind a hearth. I think of my standing – a cat of the streets, a feral, a beast – and pause again. No matter, it is a place to start, and I alter my path, leaving behind the boisterous waterfront for quieter streets. If I cannot trust my instincts, I am dead already, one more cas-ualty of the growing dark.
TWENTY-SIX
The building’s door is propped open, the brick inside smelling more of mud than of a human hand. When I see the rags left on the floor, a drying pile left in the shadow of the stairs, I understand. I am not the only creature seeking shelter in this damp and rainy spring. The occupant has gone out, seeking food or solace, but he wishes to return, and no one here has bothered to forbid him entrance.
Up the stairs, I pause before the office. The door – what there was – has been shattered; splinters of the old wood have landed a body’s length away. From inside, I hear movement. Something heavy – a chair, that desk – is being moved. Papers catch and crackle, caught beneath. Not lifted, then, slid. One person, light.
I approach and note her scent, even as she curses, softly, beneath her breath. Care, alone. Tail erect, I step into the doorway, waiting for her to turn.