Cat Tales (16 page)

She and Bella used to sleep on bed rolls in the attic. Or not sleep, really. They lay awake all night, giggling about gifts they wanted and gifts they were giving and the happy times and funny things remembered from years before. They crept down at dawn to shake the packages and look at the labels and try to guess what was in them.

All that was long ago. She was housebound since the accident, and money was short with Harry gone. Gifts were a problem, but she had been an art teacher and she had done little watercolors for everybody who would be there. Sketches of the big old house and the old elm beside it. She had put Aunt Miranda in the swing, with Uncle Abner pushing her and laughing. She had the little pictures wrapped in gold paper with red ribbons, waiting till Joe came by in his new Lincoln to pick her up for the dinner.

She wanted her own little place to beneat for the holiday just in case anybody came to see her, though these days very few did. She'd scrubbed and swept and dusted, and set the crystal angel to shine in the window. A cat meowed at her when she opened the front door to sweep the step. She hated cats because Harry had been allergic to them. She swatted at it with the broom, but it didn't run.

“Happy holidays, Mrs. Maupin!”

Mr. Anderson called across the street, laughing at her. He was the postman, a plump hearty red-faced man who might have put on a red suit to be a Santa at the mall. She had known him since last Christmas, when he knocked on the door to deliver the box of peanut brittle from Aunt Miranda.

He knew who she was from the address on the box, and he had known Harry at the lodge. He told her his name and said Harry had been a fine and honest gentleman. That had been Harry's birthday. Thinking of him, she had baked a pan of the chocolate pecan cookies he loved. Mr. Anderson said he was on a diet, but she made him take a cookie.

The house was spotless before Janice called.

“Merry Christmas, Molly!” Her voice was shrill and high, not merry at all today. “If Aunt Miranda didn't tell you, she's had to cancel her Christmas dinner.”

That felt like a jab in the stomach. She gulped and gripped the phone.

“She hates to disappoint everybody,” Janice went on, “but it's her daughter Dawn. The one in Cleveland.

She slipped on the ice and broke her hip. It's fixed with pins. The doctors say she'll be okay, but Aunty has to be there with her now.”

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I'll pray for them.”

“We're all sorry.” Janice waited for a moment and asked, “Molly, are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” she said. “I'll be fine.”

She hung up the phone and limped to the old rocking chair that had belonged to Harry's mother. She sat there, thinking of all the past Christmas times when the family was larger, twenty people at the long table in the dining room and the kids around bridge table in the den. Uncle Abner carved the huge turkey, and Aunt Miranda let Joe serve big brown mugs of hot buttered rum, though she wouldn't touch it herself.

With so many gone now, or busy with new families of her own, there were only seven now, seven of her little gold-wrapped gifts wrapped and waiting on the kitchen counter for Joe to pick them up. He wouldn't becoming now. She had to gulp at a lump in her throat when she counted them, but she was learning to look at the bright side. Painting them had brought back all the good Christmas times she remembered. Everybody loved the big old house. They would have liked the pictures.

She was still there in the chair when the doorbell rang.

“A package for you, Mrs. Maupin.” It was Mr. Anderson, working his way back on her side of the street. “I guess old Santa did remember.”

She thanked him, but he wouldn't take another cookie. The package was only the bottle of vitamins she had ordered from AARP. While she was trying to open it, she heard a hungry meow. The yellow-striped cat she had seen on the step. It had slipped inside with Mr. Anderson.

She opened the door again and tried to scat it. It ran and hid behind the sofa. She scatted it again and slapped the sofa with the fly swatter, but it wouldn't come out. Slow and awkward on the walker, she had to give up the chase. She shut the door again and sat back in the rocker, looking at her little stack of gifts.

Maybe she could get Joe to mail them, if she could find brown paper for a stronger wrapping and stamps enough, but they would be too late to matter. She sighed. After all, her life had been good. She was learning to take things as they came. It always made her happy to think of Harry and all they fine times they'd had together.

They'd met in high school. He'd been tall, with golden freckles and curly red hair, a star on the basketball team. She cried when he didn't ask her to the prom, and laughed when he stammered in the way he had then and told her that he'd been too shy. She did miss him terribly, but then all they'd had nearly forty great years together.

She was dozing in the rocker when she heard the cat again. She didn't want it in the house but it was friendly now, purring and rubbing against her legs. It reminded her of the yellow kitten with a red ribbon around its neck that Bella tried to give her on her fifth birthday. Her mother wouldn't let her keep it, because cats were too much trouble. She'd cried when her father took it away.

Sitting there with the cat at her feet, dozing away again, she thought she heard the doorbell. She thought it was Mr. Anderson, though now he was dressed in red and white and fat as a Santa Claus.

“Well, well, Molly Dolly.” He boomed at her in Harry's hearty voice. That had been Harry's pet name for her. “Why don't you keep the yellow kitten? It won't hurt me now, and it's as lonely as you are.”

The cat woke her, mewing at her feet. It looked hungry. She found a saucer and filled it with the half-and-half she'd saved for her breakfast cereal. Back in the chair she watched it lick the saucer clean. She must have dozed again. The next she knew it was curled up in her lap.

She winked the sleep out of her eyes and stroked its silky yellow fur. It was happy, soft and warm, purring softly, glad to be in the house and full of the rich cream. She forgot the undelivered gifts. She was no longer alone. U

THE EYES OF RA

by Jim C. Hines

J
ACKAL, hawk, baboon, and man gazed with disapproval at what Peshet was about to attempt. The glazed features of the canopic jars flickered with red light from the oil lamp. But the handcrafted jars were as lifeless as the sarcophagus that dominated the tomb. The jars contained Wahankh's organs, but not his
ka
. That had escaped hours ago through the narrow tunnels that angled out from the top of the tomb.

“I do this for Wahankh,” she said, trying to answer her unblinking accusers. The poison in her blood made her voice rasp, and the stone walls swallowed her words into silence. “Wahankh and his daughter, Ruia, sister of my heart. May Bast protect her if I cannot.”

The only response came from the cat curled up in the far corner, who yawned. The brown desert cat had slipped in through the eastern
ka
tunnel shortly after the tomb was sealed. He watched through half-lidded eyes as she turned the bees wax candle, thickening the lines of the sarcophagus drawing that was the hieroglyph for
death
.

“Did Bast send you to chastise me, Bast-ta-sherit?” Bast-ta-sherit . . .
Little Bast
. It would be out of character for the cat-headed Netjert to punish such an unimportant person as herself. Was he here to watch over Wahankh's body or to escort Peshet into death?

So far, the cat had done nothing but hiss and retreat to the corner. She hoped he would remain there. If he damaged the circle . . . the thought sent a tremor through her body.

She had taken most of the afternoon to prepare the circle. “The twin pillars of magic are patience and care,” she quoted quietly. So she examined it again, tracing the wax lines to be certain each hieroglyph was properly drawn. Even Wahankh would be pleased with the quality of this work.

She unclasped the golden badge from her hair and placed it in the center of the circle. A dark eye of green and gold, gleamed in the light.

“It was a gift from Wahankh. You would have liked him, Bast-ta-sherit. He was a kind man.”

The cat flicked his ears and continued to watch.

Her eyes watered as she recalled the first time she had encountered that badge. Wahankh had been wearing it the day he brought a damaged scroll into the shop of her master, Hapu.

Peshet had been busy rubbing criss-crossed layers of papyrus with a polished shell until they merged into one smooth sheet. Making papyrus was her first duty, and as a result, her hands always smelled like crushed plants.

She had worked for Hapu for as long as she could remember. Her mother had died in childbirth, and Hapu took her in after a runaway horse trampled her father. Hapu was a good man, but he treated Peshet like a worker. There was no warmth in her world.

Peshet glanced up as Wahankh and Hapu brought the damaged scroll into the back room. Being young and impertinent, she interrupted to ask, “How did such holy writings come to be burned?”

“Attend your duties,” Hapu snapped. But Wahankh smiled and knelt so they were at eye level. “How do you know these writings were holy, child?”

“I saw the invocation to the Netjeru.” She pointed to the figures in the far column.

“You can read the hieroglyphs?”

“Only some.” She saw that Wahankh was waiting for her to elaborate. “I study the scrolls when there's nothing else to do.”

Hapu's jaw dropped, but Wahankh ignored him. “Do you read Hieratic?”

She nodded. “And some Demotic, but that's harder.”

She was growing frightened. Had she done something forbidden? Would Hapu punish her? Who was this man with such dark eyes that reached down to the center of her
ka
?

Wahankh laughed in delight. “Child, you are a marvel.” He grabbed a golden badge clamped to his hair and showed it to her. “Do you recognize this?”

She bit her lip and looked at Hapu. The air was tense, and she feared saying the wrong thing. “You may answer,” he said.

The sharp, slitted eye of the serpent watched her closely. “It's the eye of Sitma-at.” She looked away, trying to escape that narrow gaze.

Wahankh laughed again. “Hapu my friend, how did you come to have such a treasure in your home?”

It was months before she realized Wahankh had been referring to
her
.

“I
MUST concentrate,” Peshet said, blinking back tears at the memory. She chewed on her knuckles, trying not to think about how unprepared she felt. It took years of study to unite the nine facets of her being into a single channel through which the magic could flow. But the time for lessons was over, and she would not see her teacher again in this life.

She took a deep breath, and the poison sent needles through her stomach. The pain brought to mind Jarha, the man who had poisoned her, and a newfound rage helped her focus. She began the incantation with a chant to Osiris. This spell intruded upon his realm as the Netjer of death, and she asked for understanding. As her voice grew soft, the dim light of the tomb began to fade into darkness.

The red of blood filled the edges of her vision. Her body stiffened, and her muscles tightened like ropes under strain. Magic flayed her flesh, hooking into her soul and tugging like an enraged dog. Salty sweat stung her cracked lips. Her throat burned as she repeated the prayer, begging for release.

Her
ka
tore free from her body. She found herself standing on the west bank of the Nile, staring down at the unimposing tomb. A few days ago, it had been nothing more than a bare patch of land. But money worked miracles, and Jarha had been eager to see Wahankh gone from this world.

The thought of Jarha drew her gaze inward, toward the city. To Jarha, Wahankh's death was a chance to seize his land, his wealth . . . and his daughter.

“You have murdered me,” whispered Peshet. “You will
not
take Ruia.”

P
SHET'S
ka
entered the house through the central air shaft. It looked unchanged, and she wanted to weep at the brief mirage of normalcy. Oil lamps illuminated the red, mud-brick walls. Small, ceramic statues stood in the corners of the room, each one a token of respect to the Netjeru.

The room was empty.
Of course. Only a buffoon attempts a seduction in the dry, drafty air of the central
room.
Jarha was many things, but he was no fool.

She probed the back of the house, stopping to glance wistfully into the library. Her desk was as she had left it. Pots of colored inks held a large sheet of papyrus in place. She had barely finished the first hieroglyph. A brown stain covered the lower half of the page. Ruia's screams had startled her into spilling a pot, destroying an hour's work in an eyeblink.

It took a strong act of will to break away from the library, but she had no time to lose herself in memories. As she moved down the hallway, she heard the faint sound of weeping.