Cat Tales Issue #1 Page 14

  “What a couple of cute kittens.”

  Judith picked up Francis and he purred at her.

  “They both like to be cuddled,” said George.

  George showed her the food cupboard and where the cat litter was kept.

  She put Francis down after while and picked up Isabel.

  “Oh, she’s a polydactyl. So cute,” said Judith.

  Isabel was okay being held for a few minutes and then struggled to get down. As soon as she hit the floor, she was off, chasing a ball.

  “They like to play,” said George.

  “Kittens,” she said.

  “I’ll leave the number of my hotel. And you have my cell number and the vet’s number. I don’t think there’ll be any problems. There’s a cat door in the back door. Sometimes he goes out, he was a stray after all, I think he knows his way around. I haven’t seen Isabel use it yet.”

  “She’s a little young, if she’s only a couple months old. So’s he for that matter. Wonder what happened to his mom and siblings.”

  “No idea,” said George. “I asked my neighbors, but they didn’t see any stray cats around, not even him.”

  “Okay, well I think I know what I need to. I don’t think we’ll have any problems. I’ll pick up your mail and bring it in. Do you get a newspaper.”

  “No, it’s online. So, here’s they key. And so I guess, I’ll call you when I get back. Well, probably on Friday. I come in late Thursday night.”

  “Okay.”

  The next day George spent at the computer and then packed clothes into a bag. He had another smaller bag for his computer and other stuff.

  They watched him intensely, waiting for the card to appear. But it didn’t.

  “You two trying to get into my bag? Want to come along? Well, Judith will come and take good care of you,” he said, petting each of them.

  They followed him to the bedroom, just as they had every night, jumped up on the bed and curled up in one ball, behind his knees.

  George got up in the morning, showered and dressed in dressy pants, a long sleeved shirt with a suit coat and a tie. They watched, patiently. They followed him to the kitchen. Ate breakfast as he ate breakfast, watched him pack the final things. His small computer, the one that folded up, his phone. He wrote a note for Judith. Then he went to the old bookcase which had been there when Francis showed up. He took a book down from the second to top shelf, More Than Human. George opened the book and pulled the card out of it.

  Francis watched helplessly as George slid the card into his wallet, which he then stuck into the back pocket of his slacks. There was no getting the card before George left. George replaced the book on the shelf. Did he hide it in the same book every time, or did he use a different one?

  Francis looked at Isabel and she meowed a disappointed meow.

  George picked up each of them, petted them until they purred and set them back down, a sad look on his face. He went to a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a couple of new jingly balls.

  “So, I want you kids to be good for Judith. And don’t worry. I’ll be home in a week. You’ll have enough food and you need to keep each other entertained.”

  George tossed the balls for them. Isabel ran and chased one, then the other. Francis sat and looked at George as he took his bags and disappeared out the back door, locking it. A few minutes later, the car started and drove away.

  The days passed slowly. Judith came in the mornings and evenings. She played with them, fed them, petted them and cleaned the cat box. Francis liked her, but missed watching George work on his computer. Missed sleeping with George. Missed his laugh when Francis or Isabel did something funny.

  Anthony came by and they told him what had happened.

  “Well, then the thing to concentrate on is to get it when he returns. At least you know where he hides it.”

  The nights were dark and lonely. The house was quiet except for the refrigerator fan and sometimes the heater. George had left the heat on for them. They didn’t sleep in his bed, but curled up in the cat bed in his office.

  One night there was a huge rain and lightening storm. Thunder roared through the air, shaking the house. Isabel was terrified and hid under the couch. Francis tried to get her to come out, but she wouldn’t. He walked from room to room, jumping every time the light flashed through the windows and illuminated the house.

  Then one day, Judith said, “This is my last visit. George will be home tonight. You’ve been such good kittens. Maybe I’ll see you again some time.”

  After she left Francis leapt around and played like a crazy kitten. Isabel joined him. They chased each other through the house and around and over the furniture. Exhausted, they finally lay sleeping, stretched out on the floor in a sunbeam.

  George came home close to dark. The car drove into the driveway and stopped. Francis and Isabel leapt onto the window sill, watching him. He pulled his bags out of the trunk and walked towards the back door. Francis ran to the back door and Isabel followed.

  George unlocked the door, opened it and said, “Well hello kids, I’m home.”

  Francis and Isabel meowed at him. First it was ‘Hello, hello, how are you?’ followed by ‘How could you leave us for so long. We’re so lonely.’

  They rubbed against his legs, even knowing they could get stepped on or hit with a bag. Somehow he stumbled inside and put his luggage down and closed the door.

  He picked both of them up, one in each large hand and hugged them.

  “Oh kids, it’s okay. Really it is. I’m home now and it’ll be a long time before I go anywhere again. I quit this job. I’d rather stay home with you two.”

  They both purred and purred. Francis nuzzled George’s neck, smelling his familiar soapy scent. He didn’t understand what George was talking about with the job, but he liked that George would be staying home with them.

  George smiled. He walked into the living room and sat in the big comfy chair. Francis snuggled in closer, enjoying the familiar warmth.

  “Aw, I missed you two. Missed all the purrs. It’s nice to see you too.”

  They sat like that for a long time. Everyone fell asleep.

  Finally, George got up and set them on the chair. Isabel curled back up and slept. Francis shook himself awake. He had to watch George. Look for the card.

  George picked up his bags from the kitchen floor and set the big one outside the laundry room. He put the small bag on the table and slipped the computer and cables out, then took them into the computer room and plugged the computer in.

  He unpacked the rest of the bag, recycling some papers and putting other things away. But no card. He’d put that in his wallet. Francis sat on the table watching George’s every move.

  George took his clothes out of the other bag and threw them in the washing machine. Then he took both bags and stuck them in the closet.

  He rubbed his hands together and said, “That’s it. All unpacked. I think I’ll order a pizza for tonight.”

  He went into the kitchen and said, “You guys have enough food I see. Looks like Judith took good care of you.”

  Francis and Isabel followed George around for three solid days. Two people came over and a man talked to George, asking him questions and typing things into a little computer. One of the men even took pictures. Judith came over and brought a key to George and paid a lot of attention to Francis and Isabel. The card never appeared.

  Two days later, George brought the paper in and opened it.

  He laid it out on the table, opened it and said, “Well, there I am.”

  Francis looked and there was a picture of George. The headline read, Local Man Resigns from Being One of Seven Worldwide ICANN Cardholders Controlling the Internet.

  The story took up half the page.

  “I’m famous, buddy.” George seemed to think this was funny. He laughed out loud and snorted. Then went back to his computer.

  “What does it mean?” asked Isabel.

  “I don’t really know,” said Franci
s. “But we still haven’t found the card. I’m worried. Did we miss him putting it away?”

  “You know you didn’t. And neither did I.”

  A day later Anthony showed up outside the window. Francis was sitting on the cat bed looking out and saw him. He hopped down and strolled into the kitchen, then ran out the cat door.

  “Hiya kid,” said Anthony.

  “Hi. I never saw George unpack the card. We waited and waited. He still hasn’t.”

  “Nope. Change of plans. Apparently George gave up his card on his trip. So, we have to find out who the new person is and get the card from him.”

  “You mean I have to leave here?”

  “No. The person probably lives in a different city. That’ll be another cat’s mission. Your mission is done. You’re free to live where you want,” said Anthony.

  “I want to live here. With George and Isabel.”

  “Well, then, there you go. We know where to find you if we need your help with George again. See you around,” said Anthony, and he trotted off down the driveway.

  Francis sniffed. The neighbor’s trees were blooming with white flowers and they sweetened the rain damp air. Maybe later he’d come back outside and roam around the garden. After the grass dried off a bit. He went back in the cat door.

  Isabel waited for him. He told her what Anthony said.

  “I’m glad. I was worried we’d have to do something like tear his wallet apart. It’s filled with cards and I wouldn’t know which it was.”

  Francis settled back into a life of eating, playing and sleeping. One night he was perched in the front room window, watching a flock of chickadees in the trees.

  George came out of the computer room with the baby name book.

  He said, “How about Francis?”

  Francis meowed at him, jumped down from the window and rubbed against his legs.

  “So, Francis it is,” said George. “It’s a nice name. It suits you.”

  About the Author

  Linda Jordan writes fascinating characters, funny dialogue, and imaginative fiction. She creates both long and short fiction, serious and silly. She believes in the power of healing and transformation, and many of her stories follow those themes.

  In a previous lifetime, Linda coordinated the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop as well as the Reading Series. She spent four years as Chair of the Board of Directors during Clarion West’s formative period. She’s also worked as a travel agent, a baker, and a pond plant/fish sales person, you know, the sort of things one does as a writer.

  Currently, she’s the Programming Director for the Writers Cooperative of the Pacific Northwest.

  Linda now lives in the rainy wilds of Washington state with her husband, daughter, four cats, seventeen Koi and an infinite number of slugs and snails.

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  Her other work includes:

  ~Falling Into Flight

  ~Aboard the Universe

  ~Love & the Aliens

  ~To the Stars and Back Again

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  All her work can be found at your favorite online bookseller.

  * * *

  Get a FREE ebook!

  Sign up for Linda’s Serendipitous Newsletter at her website: www.LindaJordan.net

  * * *

  Visit her at: www.LindaJordan.net

  She can be found on Facebook at:

  www.facebook.com/LindaJordanWriter/

  Metamorphosis Press website is at: www.MetamorphosisPress.com

  * * *

  Writers love reviews, even short, simple ones and honest reviews help other readers find the book. Please go to where you bought this book, or Goodreads, and leave a review. It would be much appreciated.

  The Society of Secret Cats

  by De Kenyon

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  Copyright © 2011 by De Kenyon

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  Cover image copyright © 2012 by by Archana Bhartia | Dreamstime.com

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  Cover design copyright © 2013 by DeAnna Knippling

  Interior design copyright © 2013 by DeAnna Knippling

  Published by Wonderland Press

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  All rights reserved. This books, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the author. Discover more by this author at www.Wonderlandpress.com

  For Fafnir, whose luxurious tail guards my daughter’s sleep.

  The Society of Secret Cats

  Mice are delicious. But even more delicious are monsters, ghosts, and things that go bump in the night. Your mother or father might tell you that they are all in your head and that you’re just imagining things. In a way, they’re right. Monsters are all in your head.

  But you’re not just imagining things.

  I was inside Jaela’s head with a tasty monster called an Aranea, dribbling slime and trying to skitter out of the way on its spider claws, when the entire world of dreams shook, as though being shifted around by an earthquake.

  The Aranea crawled up the wall of Jaela’s bedroom, clinging to the ceiling, too scared even to spit acid at me, as I tried to keep Jaela from waking. It is bad when a dreamer wakes before you have eaten the monster, because the monster is able to escape the dreamer’s head, sometimes for a short time, sometimes for a long time, and cause mischief.

  When I was a wee kitten, I let one of her monsters get out, and it threw a tantrum in her room, only disappearing when her parents appeared to find out what was the matter. Jaela hid in a corner and screamed, and wouldn’t stop screaming even when her parents asked her what was the matter.

  She was punished for breaking toys and writing in crayon strange words in letters and languages that none but those who walk dreams could ever read.

  But, even as a kitten, I could read them: Stupid cat.

  It was the first time I had been called a cat instead of a kitten, and I found that it filled me with anger, to have my profession insulted by having a newborn baby dream-walker compared to my fine teachers.

  And ashamed that I had let the dream escape.

  Inside Jaela’s dream, I purred, trying to soothe her. Sometimes she woke suddenly, looked around for a few seconds, and then went back to sleep as she shifted to a more comfortable position.

  Not this time.

  As the dream world shook, it changed, becoming less like Jaela’s closet, bedroom, house, and city, and more like a forest full of long trees with even longer shadows.

  The shaking turned from a constant rumble into footsteps. Some gigantic thing was coming toward us through Jaela’s dream, toward her dream-self. She whimpered, squatted down on the moldy leaves of the forest floor, and wrapped her arms around her knees.

  “Shh,” I told her. “I will defend you. No monster will hurt you while I am here, my princess.”

  It was not often that I spoke her in dreams.

  “Ferntail?” she said. “Where are we?”

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “We are in the Great Forest,” hissed a voice.

  I quickly looked up and saw the Arenea above us, on one of the trees. I growled at it, and it backed up the trunk.

  It laughed through its long teeth at me. “You’ll never catch me here, dream-walker. There are too many ways for me to escape, not like the corner of some bedroom, where you can trap me and eat me.”

  “Run away, little nightmare,” I said. “Lest something bigger come along and snap off your many legs so you can’t run away anymore.”

  “Please,” Jaela said. The ground was shaking even harder than before.

  I shifted form, until I walked like a man on my hind legs, and picked up Jaela in my arms. I ran quickly through the forest, ignoring the branches that whipped across my fur, protecting Jaela in my arms. She put her arms around my neck and clutched me hard, but not so hard that she couldn’t breathe.

  We ran, the footsteps growing louder, until I came upon a little house in a clearing of the forest. I hadn’t noticed that the forest was dark (we cats can s
ee well in dark places) until we reached the clearing, and bright moonlight shone down, making the long blades of grass shine white. The windows of the little house were covered with wooden shutters that let only tiny cracks of light through, but the chimney was puffing smoke. Jaela shivered in my arms, and I realized she must be cold, a human outside at night in only her nightgown.

  I stepped toward the house when the hissing voice laughed at me again. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  I looked up; the spiderlike Aranea hung above us, as though we hadn’t moved a step. The tree even looked the same, for all I could tell.

  “Get back!” I swiped at it with one paw, cutting across one leg, which dripped clear fluid onto the forest floor.

  “Sssss...no need to be rude,” the Aranea said. “But I would avoid the house if I were you. Witches live in houses in the middle of the wood. A word to the wise.”

  Jaela shivered again. “She is cold,” I explained.

  “Better to be cold than eaten,” the Aranea said.

  “She cannot be eaten in her own dream,” I said.

  The Aranea dribbled green slime onto a foreleg and rubbed it over the wound in its other leg. “But she is not in her own dream any longer, as I said. This is the Great Forest, not some little child’s dream. This is something bigger.”

  I turned around in a circle slowly as the shaking, quaking footsteps grew ever closer. “What is it, then? I have never been here, nor have I ever heard of it.”