On the night MeMe flew away and the cats banished me from the farm, you would have found my lonely self hiding in a thick patch of wild grass bordering the big woods. My body had been torn and punctured by the evil Major Mau more times than a catnip mouse at a kitten ranch, from which punishment I’d spent the day trying to heal. Dismal thoughts churned in my mind like a cement mixer full of gum, turning them over and over, until everything stuck together in a big useless wad.

But after the sun went down and twilight faded into darkness, I began to feel a little more like a cat. Night air stirred up primal instincts, mainly consisting of how to find something to eat.

Savoring scents of love and death floating on the air, the aroma of bat guano, deer in the forest, cows in a barn across the field, something that died in bushes nearby, the scat of predators searching the woods.

I was ready to join the hunt.

With a loud clack-clack-clack of its deadly beak, a great horned owl flapping immense wings, shot down from the trees like a devil from the acid-washed swamps of cat hell. Flattening in the grass, my eyes followed the demon bird soaring with empty talons back into the branches.

Behind me in the woods, a hungry young fox yip-yip-yipped. A raccoon screamed loud desperate shrieks that went on and on until my nerves felt like sedge grass was slicing through them. When you’re a kitten, they warn you with stories of little cats who never come back, and now I knew why.

That owl shot down from the trees again, gliding fast and low. This time it hit some poor creature out in the field. The poor thing shrieked for mercy, but the owl heaved into the air in powerful thrusts, back over the trees with its prey still struggling for life.

Slipping quietly through the brush, I thought to make a run back to the safety of the farm. The chilling cries of coyotes froze my bones to the marrow. Sudden death on four smelly feet. Around these mountains they usually didn’t hunt in packs, but here were four adults, along with two pups, working their way along the edge of the field, hungry and coming up fast. If I hid, they’d flush me out and I’d be done.

The leader snapped at one of the cubs and it yelped in pain. The sound broke a rabbit for the woods, with the demons in a furious chase crashing after it. Digging the burrow, crying snarling barking, fighting to be first to drag the poor guy out to his death, the rabbit was smart. Out the back door and gone.

After making a lot of useless commotion and a wreck of the rabbit’s front door, the monsters trotted back with murder in their eyes. Just my luck, they were coming this way again, frustrated, snapping at each other, yelping and growling, hungry and angry.

This time I ran.

They were on my trail with a shout. Barking, snarling, crashing through the leaves. Chasing me toward a stand of cedar trees that I’d climbed with Grace one happy day not long ago. It had been a beautiful sunny afternoon when we were all friends before everything happened.

Coyotes panting, drooling, racing each other to be first, chasing me toward the cedars. I lit up the first one. Thirty-five feet in six seconds. Not my best time.

Lungs hurting, shaking all over, paws wet, scared out of my mind but safe in the tree for now, my mahogany fur bristled from end to end. The coyotes clawed the trunk, snarled, yipped and yowled below, screaming deadly rage, thirsting for my blood in angry baleful howls.

DAY FOUR ~ Wednesday Night

I hadn’t eaten much more than nibbles in two days, which is fairly usual for a homeless cat. But I’d gotten used to better and it made me soft. The thought that something might still be left from our snack the night before pulled my mind back to the barn.

Guts tight as an E string, I cautiously shinned down the tree, praying fervently to Bast the Protectress of Little Cats, that the coyotes had finally gone home. Furtive as a black cat on a baseball field, I raced out of the woods around the Matthews’ field, skidded under the apple tree and greased into a landing through the hole at the bottom of the stable door. The old steps were so thrilled to feel my paws walking up them again they creaked like crows, ignoring all my pleas to be quiet.

A broad splash of moonlight washed the threshing floor, what the farmer calls the main floor of the barn. Except it seems more like the thrashing floor to me.

Romantic moths flitted their careless moonbath dance. The same old bats still recklessly swooped the length of the loft, back and forth, back and forth, shrieking their radar screams. They dove in crazy loops picking off mosquitoes, mayflies, crunchy beetles, and the romantic moths.

So it goes for moths, too.

Hunkered down on the top step at periscope depth, my eyes scanned the dark places where Java might lurk. Maybe behind the old pile of pine lumber, twisted and warped as a weasel’s laugh. Or maybe he was hiding behind that rusty old combine with all its teeth and knives itching to slice an unwary cat into tiny shreds.

My ears swiveled to every sound. But aside from the screech of bats, stampeding mice, restless pigeons, creaking timbers, and not to mention all the buzzing, howling, whistling, chirping, croaking, and peeping outside, all yelling for love or shrieking in fear, the Matthews’ barn was so quiet you could hear the spiders spinning their webs under the floor.

Just as it seemed like the coast was clear, there was Java running in terror across the back lawn for the safety of the barn.

As Sona told me later, she’d been so upset about Mau taking her saucer, she’d shed her fur all over Bill’s brand new black slacks that Susan had draped across a kitchen chair. Already mad about the vandalism in his workshop and the damage to the barn doors, Bill finally blew up and the cats vanished like leaves in a storm.

Java’s shadow crossed the moonlight where the big doors used to hang. He sighed miserably and so did I, because his eyes were on MeMe’s treat dish flipped upside down near the back wall. Java absently ate one of the treats off the floor, with me as helpless to stop him as a feckless flea. I gripped the edge of the step with my claws.

Crunch crunch crunch. He had good teeth, I’d give him that.

Grace stormed into the barn wound up tight as a boiler ready to blow. She was all twisted up inside, itching to take it out on anybody, which brought her sights down on Java.

Watching her brother with fiery eyes, Grace leapt across the barn screaming, “What have I told you about eating off the floor!”

Java inhaled in surprise and fell over in a fit of desperate choking. He gagged and turned blue, struggling for breath with Grace pounding on his chest until he coughed out the bit of kibble he’d inhaled and could finally breathe.

“I once knew a cat who ate a watermelon seed off the floor,” Grace warned. “She blew up like a balloon and had nine kittens, the way you will if you keep that up.”

Java lay back and heaved a miserable sigh, now watermelon was off his list.

After Java left, it seemed like it might be a good idea to finish what was left of the kibble before anyone else came along. Crunching them up one-by-one, each piece led me like a trail of bread crumbs over to the old Egyptian mummy case lying in deep shadow by the back wall.

A fragrant wave of strange scents floated out from under the smashed lid. Licorice scented myrrh, thyme, lavender, almond, cedar wood. Spices not usually wasted on any ordinary cat mummy.

The others wanted to leave the ancient wooden box behind in Egypt, but MeMe begged Sona to hide the relic in her ship and bring it home. Even wicked Mau didn’t know she had it.

So who was the cat inside? It looked like any plain old cat mummy to me, hardly worth much of a glance, just a bundle of linen, rubbed with spices and beeswax. No artistic designs painted around the windings, no little clay cat head on top, no gold and jewels to buy her things in the afterlife.

The whole thing made me so mad. I’d been chased, kidnapped, lost in the dark, I hurt all over from bites and scratches. Everybody hated me and more than ever, I hated myself.

Head-butting the box in frustration, something jingled.

Exploring inside, my claw hooked out a yellow plastic cat toy. It was one of those little balls cats are so crazy to play with, the kind with a smaller ball caged inside that rattles when you bat it around. Some cat must have bounced it in there. Over at the house there’s at least a hundred of them behind all the furniture.

Impatiently batting the ball away, it rolled along the wall, bounding over the boards toward the back stairs. The ball hung teasing the edge for a moment, then it bounced down the steps.

Jingle

Jingle

Jingle

Jingle

Jingle

Jingle

Jingle

Jingle

Jingle

Running after it down into the basement, I wanted to keep going. But I still had to say goodbye to Rose.

She might like that toy ball.