Planet Earth was slowly spinning the threads of another glorious July day back into evening with skeins of golden light that wove the mountain into an emerald blaze. Waves of shadow swirled up from the field, around the barn, and over the house where Dr. Mina and I sat on a second floor windowsill looking down on the back yard.

Susan had moved Rose into the bedroom across the hall, while Bill worked on the broken window in the sewing room. The antique radio was a total loss, its beautiful cabinet shattered into kindling wood, the radio inside was a burned out wreck. But the worst part of it was, Dr. Mina hadn’t been able to bring Raya back since Java had expectorated the Pearl along with a wad of grass from the Detlow’s yard. Java would do anything to save his sister Rose, he even tried to swallow the pearl again, but the doctor stopped him in the nick of time.

Frustrated he couldn’t do more, Java wandered out to the barn. Grace was in the yard with her girlfriends, so Java felt safe enough to sniff around the barn floor for some comfort food. While nipping up bits of kibble around Raya’s coffin, he swallowed his fears enough to explore inside and discovered something unusual.

We watched Grace and her girlfriends scrape their claws in the pine needles under the trees. Sniffing the ground around her feet, Grace jumped away suddenly.

“Eeew! . . . I think Watson’s been here.”

The girls quickly moved out onto the lawn.

On his way back to the house, Java saw Grace standing in the middle of the yard. He tried to casually stroll past his sister on nervous feet, but when he impulsively sniffed her tail, she whipped around with drawn claws.

“JAVA! . . . Where have you been? When those lights started breaking windows, we all ran up the road to hide. I was WORRIED half to DEATH about you!”

Before he could say anything she cut him off, “Have you been down at the barn eating that old cat food off the floor again?”

AGAIN? . . . Java’s eyes flew wide.

She tilted her head, examining him curiously. “What is that strange thing you have in your mouth, Java?”

“Isss um-ing or ah ock-or,” he mumbled between clenched teeth.

“Java! I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” Grace stamped her foot. “Spit that thing out and talk like a normal cat.”

Setting the small object down on the grass with great care, Java shouldn’t have said anything, but the words tumbled out on their own.

“You won’t believe what happened, Gracie!” which wasn’t a good line to take with her, since she usually didn’t believe much of anything he said.

“We flew up over the woods in a real flying saucer with Raya. She helped us lead that other saucer, the one with the space cats, away from the farm — those same cats who were shooting at the house!”

Glamorous Mira batted her eyes, curious to know the one thing that would be on everyone’s mind, and she wanted to know it first.

“Who’s Raya?”

The girls crowded around Java with big eyes, eager to know.

“She’s from Egypt.”

“Egypt?” Mira tilted her head coyly, “So, Java, tell us about this new cat Raya who you met last night. Is she as pretty as your sister?”

Oooh! . . . Why had he mentioned Raya? If they found out what really happened to him there would be no living with any of them from now on. No living with them at all.

“Don’t be shy, Java,” Mira probed beguilingly. She groomed his whiskers, rubbing her scent in his face. Grace watched with admiration as the other cat worked. Mira could charm a mosquito into donating blood.

“Yes, do tell dear brother,” Grace pushed, wrinkling up her pretty pink nose, “You didn’t take her down into that dark basement with all those rats, I hope.”

Java gave his sister a look. Girls made him nervous. In spite of his hopeless resolution not to say more, the words stumbled out.

“When the house was attacked, Ridley and I ran to Raya’s golden saucer behind the barn.” He caught Grace’s sharp look, saying quickly, “And Ridley flew Raya’s ship . . . and led those dangerous cats up into the woods . . . where we turned off the lights and hid.

“Hiding in the woods with Raya.” Mira batted her eyes, “With the lights out. It sounds so romantic!”

The other girls sighed, obviously wishing they could have been the one, alone in the dark with the handsome Bengal cat.

Grace shook her head suspiciously. “Java! Is this another one of your fantastic stories? Like when you said you were kidnapped by demon cats who took you out to Three Mile Island to make you light up.” She swished her tail impatiently. “So where was it this time? Peach Bottom for a swim? . . . Your fur will fall out if you wade in the water down there!” She gave him a hard look. “I know you, Java. It wasn’t up in the woods with you. You were up in a tree hiding from Butch again — like the last time, weren’t you?”

Java winced. Watson must have told.

Grace looked away, considering. “And anyway, where was this Raya all the time Ridley was flying her . . . golden whatever it was?”

Mira touched her nose to his. “You’re so handsome, Java! Tell me what else you did with Raya in the dark last night.” She looked into his eyes and slow-blinked. “You know I won’t tell a soul.”

Grace rolled her eyes. Telling Mira your secrets was about as discrete as confiding in a flock of crows. But she wanted to know too, so she coaxed, “Yes, Java, do go on. Tell us what else happened?”

In the hot seat, Java stammered, “This was serious Gracie. Those space cats had, like, two and a half million of those purple cats hidden behind the moon ready to pounce down on —”

Grace cut him off. “So, what else is new? . . . Sona told us all about that, Java. What I want to know is why you were out running around with that Egyptian cat . . . I know who you mean, I saw her mummy.” She looked her brother in the eye.

“Are you nuts? She’s DEAD!”

The girls edged away from Grace’s brother like he had fleas.

As Java ran for the safety of the house, the girls exploded into speculations about his night out and what he might have been doing with a mysterious Egyptian cat who Grace claimed wasn’t quite alive.

“Hey! Java! . . . You forgot something.” Grace called after him.

The girls tried to suppress their giggles as Java doubled back. Avoiding their eyes, he gingerly snatched up the golden object he’d brought from the barn and dashed to the house.

Rose was sitting at the head of a huge bed that was so big, you could sleep fourteen cats without anyone getting into a serious fight. Susan had placed pillows around Rose to make her comfortable. Watson, Big Eddy and Khui sat near her, while Chocolate fiercely guarded the foot of her bed, and JJ peeked out from behind a chair. As much as Rose wanted to sit up and talk to everyone, especially to the mysterious Neko, the recent excitement had worn her out.

Dr. Mina told Java to set the object on the carpet. Ignoring it, she continued speaking to the Pearl, hoping to discover a password that would coax the small sphere back to life.

MeMe drew close to the small curio that Java had found. She gazed with huge round eyes at a faintly glowing amber disc that pulsed with a hypnotic rhythm. The disc was set in the middle of a golden ring, thin as a coin and not much bigger across than her paw. The curious object was embossed with delicate serpentine foliage, matching in miniature the rain forest motif inside Raya’s ship. It stood paw-height above the carpet on three short silver legs with little cat feet carved on their ends.

“What do you suppose it’s for?” Dr. Mina muttered to herself.

“Maybe we’re supposed to set the Pearl in the middle,” suggested MeMe.

Before Mina could stop her, MeMe gave the Pearl a nudge with her nose. It rolled toward the ring, picking up speed until it was a paw width away, then jumped up to the amber disc, seating itself in the center with a click.

Turning from amber to light pink, the wafer glowed softly with a pulsing rhythm. Stars orbited like sparks inside the Pearl, it’s electric blue swirls grew dark, spinning faster and faster. A purple luminescent mist poured out the way it had the night before, becoming a pair of ears, blue whiskers, and intense green eyes. Down the hallway, we heard the drumbeat of Java’s terrified paws thundering away like the hooves of a runaway horse wearing sneakers.

While the others drew back in alarm, Rose sat prone at the edge of the bed, paws tucked under her chest, gazing down at the Pearl with wondering eyes.

“It’s Raya. She’s back!” Rose whispered in awestruck delight.

Warily hovering over Rose to keep her safe, loyal Chocolate watched the blue ghost with an expression of wild concern. On Rose’s other side, Eddy craned his head in amazement with the biggest puffed-up caterpillar tail I’ve ever seen on a short-hair cat. On the carpet behind MeMe, stood Neko with his head tilted curiously. JJ was hiding. Dr. Mina flashed withering glare toward Khui when he finally crawled out from under the bed.

“It’s about time, Raya,” the doctor scolded impatiently. “We’ve had a devil of a job getting in touch with you.”

The phantom cat ignored the doctor. Turning to MeMe who was standing frozen with her right front paw in the air, Raya said, “Let me guess. You must be the one who was lost.”

MeMe took a step closer and sniffed.

“So Ridley finally found you.” Raya said, bending down to tenderly groom the top of MeMe’s head.

Turning toward the window, where thankfully I hadn’t fallen out, Raya winked in my direction, telling MeMe, “Ridley wouldn’t give up hope.”

“And that’s an inspiration to us all,” Dr. Mina waved her paw toward Rose on the edge of the bed. “Nevertheless, we have some unfinished business with our patient. You may recall, last night you were about to tell me something about using sound, before we were interrupted.”

“We must close the saah-trrit kerr,” recalled Raya, looking up at Rose. “It penetrates this house like a sword ”

Chocolate growled, flexing his dangerous nails, so white and sharp, they seemed to glow in his dark brown paws.

Raya looked over at the Siamese cat with a smile, “The dimension behind the saah-trrit forms the shape of life, and the beautiful world we see. But it also contains the Chaos that’s tearing Rose’s body apart. We must close the fabric so Rose can survive.”

“How do we do that?” asked Chocolate in his vibrant voice.

“She said it works with sound,” the doctor answered. “But the radio is broken.”

“Our voices penetrate the subatomic world where languages and music are shaped.” With her eyes on Neko, Raya said, “When we sing in gratitude, or cry out for help, we open the pathways linking us to each other. We cats are spiritual creatures in tune with the infinite Universe.”

“Oooh! Don’t ask me to sing, I can’t carry a tune,” Java muttered from the doorway, and the tension in the room was broken by Rose’s musical laugh.

Raya spoke again. “Besides sound, your five temporal senses harmonize to the vibrations of light. Your spiritual senses react even more intimately. The patterns of your thoughts control everything around you. It may not seem that way, because the effect is often gradual or in slight increments. So you see, your senses influence your thoughts, which affect your world down to the innermost depths.

Raya looked over at me, frozen on the windowsill wearing a blank expression, and smiled.

“We will see what we can do,” she said. “Bring me your tablet, if you will, Doctor, and we will penetrate the depths of light.”

With the tablet settled on the carpet near the Pearl. Raya stroked her paw in a circle over the screen, forming patterns reflecting back and forth in waves. The shapes vibrated into pale colors, but as we waited, the colors faded into black again.

“That didn’t amount to much,” sniffed the doctor.

“Quiet!” warned Raya, sharply.

She brushed her paw back and forth over the tablet screen, tracing quick circles over the surface until her paw became a blur. Leaning over the screen, Raya shrieked strange words, pounding rhythmically with her paws.

When she pulled back, shapes in waves swirled into chains of symbols, turning on themselves, in and out, rapidly whirling into a vortex of light.

Raya floated back from the tablet as the light inside became a silvery rippling surface, like a pool of mercury on a sheet of glass.

The edge of the shiny surface grew wider, pouring over the tablet screen, spilling out on the carpet, until it lapped in tiny waves against Raya’s golden ring. Raya rushed toward it in alarm, too late to stop the ring from tipping into the silvery pool. Her Pearl dropped below the surface, pulling the phantom cat down with it. In a terrifying instant, both Raya and the Pearl disappeared into the shimmering liquid mirror and were gone.

Dr. Mina gasped, “The Pearl! We can’t lose it!” Without hesitation, she reached in with her paw, grabbing for it, and was instantly pulled under.

Jumping down from the windowsill, I reached into the pool to pull the doctor back. A force like a strong undertow pulled me tumbling down under the surface after her.

I was drifting away from the rectangle of light that I’d fallen through. I saw Chocolate stop MeMe from reaching into the pool or she would have fallen in after me. Above me were the floorboards, beams, electric wiring, plumbing of the house. Down I floated, through the first floor, through the basement, under the concrete, and into the ground.

The earth above was the canopy of a giant gallery. Roots reached down, roots in neat rows from vegetables in the garden, roots from grass in the yard, roots of the trees, everything that grew reached down into the ground above my head. Boulders deep underground had roots. The house, the barn, the cars on the road, someone standing in their yard, people in their houses, even the mountains far away were reaching into the Earth with spindly fibrous roots, drawing life-giving energy from deep within the Earth.

I tumbled down into a blue sky below, where clouds opened, revealing a vast fleet of round ships by the thousands, flying away into a brilliant light.

Hearing cries for help, I turned to see Dr. Mina. We held onto each other until powerful paws reached down and grabbed us up, back into the familiar room, where Rose watched from her bed in horror.

Laying on the carpet out of breath, I saw that it was Chocolate who had bravely reached in and pulled us both to safety, with the help of Neko and Eddy, who held onto him tightly to keep him from falling in.

Over by the door, Java was singing in a language I might have heard somewhere long ago. It seemed funny and wonderful at the same time, because no one had ever heard Java sing and he had the most beautiful voice. From her perch on the edge of the bed, Rose joined him in harmony in a language she later insisted she’d never spoken before. As their voices blended together, the silvery window in the saah-trrit kerr closed and the air cleared, as if an oppressive fog had lifted from the room.

After the pool dried up and the doctor’s tablet returned to normal, Raya explained that the ships I saw leaving were the space cats’ invasion fleet, departing Earth for their own planet.

And then Raya told me a curious thing. She said, “Ridley is your Earthly name. Your true name is Zarah, a direct descendant of Orla royalty. Your firstborn will be twins, a son Oran, and a daughter Heru. Teach them well, they will be of great service to this world and a credit to your name.

Dr. Mina opened her paw and we saw she was holding the Pearl. She sat down and cried and never told us what she saw on the other side, but she was a different cat from then on.

Down in the back yard, Java’s friends were patrolling the kitchen door with growling tummies. As they waited for Susan to let them in for their supper, Java strutted up to the gang with his head held high because he’d flown in a real flying saucer and had eluded the evil Major Mau.

Java had enough material from that one short flight to spin yarns well into his gray years. In fact he had so many balls of the stuff, his grand kittens would be singing his praises for generations to come.

But he also had something else. With a knowing smile, Java pulled the screen door out with his claw and braced it against his back. Grasping the brass knob with both paws, he pulled a little as he turned it. When the kitchen door popped open, the cats gasped in amazement.

Java told his friends proudly, “Ridley showed me how to do that.”