by Patricia Correll
Takeo hid in the barn, cowering away from the too-bright summer sun, the clatter of wood and men’s voices, the sharp smell of grass that made his eyes water. Inside the barn it was cool and the light slanted through cracks in the walls in warm yellow bars. Takeo counted them. One-two-three-four-five-six. There were more, but he didn’t know any numbers beyond six so he just counted those first six over and over. One-two-three-four-five-six. One-two-three-four…he was nearly asleep when something soft and yielding brushed his bare leg. Takeo jerked his chin up, scooting back against the stall door in terror. The cat paid him no mind. It was gray with black stripes across its back. Its tail twitched in short jerks as it stalked the lines of sunlight on the ground.
Takeo drew his knees to his chest and watched the cat. His fear shrank as the little animal thrust its tail in the air. It wiggled its rear and pressed its ears flat against its head. Takeo liked the cat’s movements, the deliberate way it held its paws. Light shone through its thin ears, turning veins to tiny red rivers. The barn faded from Takeo’s sight, the warped boards and smell of manure and dust, the hard-packed dirt beneath him. Even the faint pulse of his heart vanished as he stared at the cat.
The cat sprang forward and landed with paws outstretched over a bar of sunlight. Dust rose up in gentle, glittering puffs. From somewhere inside Takeo, someplace deeper even than his stomach, a voice spoke. It didn’t sound like a voice exactly, but he didn’t know what else to call it. It tolled deep inside him like the bell at the shrine where Uncle took him on festival days. And Takeo suddenly knew he had to have the cat’s beauty. The cat drifted away as had the barn, but the image of the cat remained firm in his mind, every curve, every whisker. Takeo uncurled his knees and planted his feet beneath him.
Leaning forward, he plunged his index finger into the dry dirt. He drew a gracefully curving line. With another gesture the line became a tail. More strokes created an arched back, four paws, ears and a face. Takeo sat back on his heels. Despite being only a series of lines in the dirt, the cat was perfect. It was as lithe as its counterpart which sprawled on the ground, chewing its toes. Takeo’s cat seemed ready to lift its sleek head off the floor and gaze around with wondering eyes. The longer Takeo looked at it, the more convinced he became that this would happen. Perhaps a whisker quivered here, or the muscle of a leg twitched there. Takeo waited.
“Takeo!” The shout split the barn’s quiet and threatened to crack his head. Takeo clapped his hands over his ears. His cat immediately became still, pressing itself flat into the dirt. The gray tabby leapt up and vanished through a crack in the wall, gone between one breath and the next. But Takeo hardly noticed the beast’s flight or the heavy footsteps that drew near. He stared in anguish at his cat, still now. Hot tears welled up in his eyes and his chest heaved in a convulsive sob.
The stall door swung open. Uncle stood in the doorway, so wide and tall he took up all the space. He glared at Takeo with eyes the color of storm clouds.
“Boy!” He barked. “Why don’t you do as you’re told? Go sweep the yard!”
Takeo stared numbly at his cat. Uncle growled. The earth shook under his angry feet. He stepped squarely on Takeo’s cat, scattering dust, erasing lines. Takeo opened his mouth to scream a warning, forgetting for a moment how the gods had taken his voice when he was a baby. Uncle reached down and closed his fingers around Takeo’s arm. He hauled the boy to his feet. “Why are you crying? Get out there, you useless whelp!”
Takeo knew it was no use to resist Uncle. He scrubbed his eyes with his fist and followed Uncle’s broad back. Uncle trailed heat and noise and the sweltering smell of grass. As they stepped over the stall’s threshold, Takeo glanced back longingly at the sun-striped ground. His cat lay where he’d drawn it, half its body scattered and vanished. But the front paws and the head were intact. As Takeo watched, a whisker moved, just the tiniest bit.
His tears dried on his cheeks. Smiling to himself, he followed Uncle outside to the yard.
Takeo didn’t stop drawing cats. When Uncle wasn’t looking he snuck away to the barn or the spring house to trace elegant lines in the dirt. He shivered with delight when one of his cats twitched a paw or flicked an ear. But they never did more, never raised their heads or lashed their tails, and often they did nothing at all. But he drew them, and when he wasn’t drawing them his fingers itched to draw them.
The year Takeo turned seven- he still couldn’t count beyond six, and only knew he was seven because Uncle told him so- a man came to work for Uncle, hammering together the cylindrical coffins where people went after they died and before they were burned on the pyres. The man smiled when he saw Takeo and called to him. After a while Takeo sometimes crept into the bright, noisy yard where the men worked, to hear the man talk about his four sons, who were older than Takeo and attended the Emperor’s Common School in town. The man tried to show Takeo how the coffins were made, but Takeo couldn’t bear the riot of the work yard for long. When the man tried to make him examine how the boards were fitted together, Takeo ran away. Staring at the straight lines made him dizzy, and when the man stood close the acrid smell of his sweat made Takeo gag. When he ran away Uncle shouted at the man, “Stop trying to teach that worthless idiot! I don’t pay you to be his mother!”
But the man still tried to teach him. One day when Takeo ran away the man followed him. He saw Takeo drawing a cat on the side of the barn with a chunk of chalk he’d found. When Takeo noticed him, he dropped the chalk, leaving the cat without hindquarters or a tail. But the man only smiled. “Tomorrow, I will bring you a gift.”
The gift was a brush with stiff bristles and a grainy black ink stick. Takeo glared suspiciously at the stick. He refused to touch it until the man showed him how to rub the stick in a cracked bowl until tiny grains flaked off. He mixed the grains with water, then dipped the brush into it.
“Ink.” He told Takeo. “Now you can paint proper cats.”
There was no paper in Uncle’s house, but Takeo didn’t care. He painted cats on bits of wood left over from the coffins. He tore strips of cloth from his robes and painted on them. The cats he created with ink were varied and beautiful; tabbies with long whiskers; three-colored cats with stubby tails, kittens with too-large ears and old, dignified cats. If anyone had seen the paintings, they might have taken them for real cats trapped in cloth and wood. But no one saw the cats. Takeo tucked the scraps of board and cloth in hidden places in the barn loft and beneath his sleeping mat. The cats belonged to him. When they finally chose to move, he alone would see.
One day Takeo noticed the man who had given him the ink was gone. He no longer appeared in the yard at dawn with the other coffin-makers. He no longer brought Takeo ink sticks. Takeo heard Uncle say he was dead, and there would be no more presents for him. But it didn’t matter, because soon after something strange began to happen.
Once a week Uncle went into town, rarely returning before Takeo fell asleep. Most nights Takeo didn’t know Uncle had come home unless he tripped over the water bucket and started cursing. The morning after he went to town Uncle always smelled bad, a smell like rotting plums. Most of the time Takeo hardly noticed, until one night when he woke to Uncle’s broad face bent over him. Uncle’s eyes were swollen and red. Takeo was frightened and tried to pull away, but Uncle crushed him to his chest in a fierce embrace.
“Poor Takeo!” He wailed. “You’ve started to look so much like your mother. My poor, poor sister! Your poor father! I’m an unfit guardian, I know that! Poor boy! What can I give you to make it up to you?”
At these words Takeo ceased struggling. Holding his breath against the smell of decaying fruit, he wiggled one arm until Uncle released it. Then he pointed at the little shelf where his brush and the ink stick, now nothing more than a nub, lay.
“Ink? You want ink to paint your little cats? You shall have it, my boy! I’ll…I’ll go wake up the ink grinder right now…” Uncle stood up, dropping Takeo roughly to the floor. He staggered out of the house, shouting about giving Takeo anything he wanted, until he was too far away and Takeo couldn’t hear him anymore.
In the morning the shelf held a new ink stick and a new brush. Takeo picked them up, running his finger through the brush’s bristles. Uncle was hunched over the low table, holding his head and staring into a cup of tea. Without pausing Takeo took his new tools and walked past Uncle, out to the barn.
From then on there was always a new ink stick on the shelf once a month. Uncle said nothing about it, and he shouted at Takeo as roughly as ever. Takeo didn’t care, as long he had enough ink to paint cats.
Time passed, and Takeo painted cats. His hiding places became stuffed with cloth and wood, and he had to find new ones. Uncle grumbled about the raggedness of his robes.
“How do you tear them like this? You don’t even play like other children!” He growled. Takeo added another kitten to a litter he was painting on a scrap of wood. Black stains covered his hands and wrists. Uncle stared at him for a moment, then rose and stomped out of the house.
One day Uncle commented, “You’re eleven years old today.”
Takeo frowned, trying to block out his voice so he could concentrate on completing his latest cat, a slim beast with black patches on its ears.
“Boy!” Uncle snapped. “Are you listening?”
Takeo ignored him. The patchy cat was moving. It blinked, lifted its lip to expose pointed teeth. It hit Takeo’s knee with its paw, warm and solid. Then it withdrew, sinking back into the wood. Takeo gaped at his knee. A mosquito was squashed against his bar skin, a black smear with half-crushed legs jutting out at odd angles.
“Boy?” Uncle repeated. He sounded uncertain. Takeo looked at him. Uncle stared at the cat. What had he seen? Takeo scowled. He gathered up his cat and his ink and stomped off to the barn. Uncle made no move to stop him.
Shortly after Takeo turned eleven, the men who made coffins for Uncle began coming to work with dark circles under their eyes. Sometimes they were injured, with bandages on their hands. Some of them stopped coming altogether. They spoke in whispers, as if afraid someone would overhear. One afternoon as Takeo listlessly swept the yard he heard two of the men talking to Uncle.
“The people say the demon is a huge rat.” One man said, his eyes wide with terror.
“Where does it come from?” Uncle leaned in close to hear the answer.
“The shrine.”
“The shrine?”
“After the monster killed the Ogawa girl, her father chased it. He saw it enter the shrine with his own eyes! He told everyone in town about it, and they went to the shrine the next morning. The head priest came out to talk to them.”
“He was frightened.” The third man added. “I was there.”
“He said the demon came out of a painting in the shrine. He was ashamed to warn the townspeople, to admit that such a thing happened in his shrine. The priest offered all the shrine’s wealth to anyone who could slay the rat.”
“It came out of a painting?” Uncle frowned.
“Yes. Until the monster is slain we’ll just have to lock all our doors and burn incense to the ancestors.” The third man nodded wearily. “If I could afford to move my family, I would.”
Takeo felt someone staring at him. He looked up from the broom. Uncle gazed at him, chewing his lip thoughtfully.
The next morning Takeo woke to Uncle shaking him. He tried to squirm away, back under the blanket, but Uncle caught his arm and hauled him to his feet.
“They say idiots are sometimes blessed by the gods.” Uncle. “We’ll find out today whether you’re one of the lucky ones.”
He dragged Takeo out of the house, into the sunlight and sharp air. Takeo moaned and struggled, but Uncle was much stronger. They came to the path that led to the town. Takeo twisted and fought, even sank his teeth into Uncle’s wrist, but Uncle ignored him. After a long while they reached the town, a scattered collection of buildings. All the straight lines drove spikes of pain into Takeo’s head. He threw his free arm over his face, going limp so Uncle had to drag him. His bare heels dug furrows in the dust. There were people in the streets. They glanced at Takeo and Uncle with wary eyes, then hurried away. Some of them wore white robes, the color of mourning.
The town wasn’t large and they soon reached the shrine. It was a long, low building surrounded by a wall with a plain wooden gate. Inside the wall lay a garden of neatly arranged trees and paths of crushed rock. Uncle pulled Takeo down one of the paths and up the steps to the open doors.
Inside it was dim and cool. Takeo stopped whining as soon as the sun was off his head. He blinked into the darkness until things began to take shape: the collection box, a rack of wooden prayer cards, a great braided tassel hanging from the ceiling. When Takeo tilted his head back he saw the tassel was hooked to a metal bell. He vaguely remembered its purpose; Uncle had brought him here once or twice when he was younger. He’d seen people pull the tassel and ring the bell to wake the gods, so the gods could listen to their prayers. Though the bell remained silent he slapped his hands over his ears and began to cry.
“Stop it!” Uncle hissed. Someone came toward them. He held tight to Takeo’s arm as he bowed to the person. Takeo blinked. It was a monk in a plain brown robe, his head shaved and his feet bare. He bowed to Uncle.
“What’s wrong with the child?” He asked. His voice was gentle. Takeo stopped crying.
“He…he’s grieved to think that such a beautiful shrine has been sullied by a demon.” Uncle spoke quickly, with uneven pauses between words.
“You are very kind.” The monk smiled at Takeo. Takeo looked over his shoulder at the wooden collection box.
“He doesn’t speak.” Uncle hastened to explain. “His mother- my sister- and his father died in the fever that plagued this town some years ago. The boy survived, but the gods took his voice and most of his wits.”
“Do you seek healing for him then? I’m afraid what the gods have done cannot be undone.”
“No.” Uncle paused. “I think this boy may be able to slay the demon. The giant rat.”
“This boy?” The monk raised his eyebrows. “This child? This demon is very dangerous. How is a mere child going to fight this creature, when even the head priest of this shrine failed?”
“It sounds strange, I know. But I believe it can be done.” Uncle let go of Takeo’s arm. Takeo jerked away, rubbing the red marks where Uncle’s fingers had pressed deep into the flesh. “Let me speak with the head priest. I’ll explain to him.”
“Very well.” The monk turned abruptly and started across the room. Uncle bent down, grabbing Takeo’s chin in his hands.
“Don’t move from this place.” He rose and followed the monk, disappearing through a door.
Takeo stood very still. The floor was covered in reed matting. He reached out his toes and put them on the next mat. When Uncle didn’t come back he moved to the next mat. One-two-three. Then the next mat, then the next. Four-five. The last mat ended at the opposite wall. Six. Uncle still wasn’t back. Takeo looked at his feet, but the matting was all rows of straight lines. He yanked his gaze up, to the wall in front of him. It was covered with a painting.
The painting showed flat ground littered with rocks, but no trees or grass. There were creatures with legs and arms like men, but they were naked and their heads were wrong; they had snouts like boars. There were ordinary people in the painting too, with white faces and mouths open in red O’s. One man was being eaten up by fire, the orange flames licking his hair. A woman leaned out of a palanquin that was being carried by four of the man-creatures. Another man cowered at the feet of a giant rat. In the background rose a mountain. On the very top of the mountain sat a throne made of dead tree branches, and on the throne reclined a man dressed in magnificent robes. Long claws protruded from the robe’s sleeves, and he had sharp teeth and red eyes.
Takeo examined all the curving lines. He liked the colors, red and yellow and orange.
Uncle came back with another monk. This one looked just like the first, only with more wrinkles.
“The boy was drawn to the painting.” He said to Uncle, in a voice like paper being crumpled. Uncle bowed. The old man limped over to Takeo, who backed away a step.
The old man gazed at Takeo a long time. Finally he sighed, his bent shoulders heaving. “I suppose he can do no more harm than has already been done. As long as you understand we are not responsible for any injury the demon may do him.”
Uncle bowed again. The monk turned away from Takeo. “The beast will emerge from this painting when night falls. What does the boy need to prepare?”
“Only a brush and some ink, Shrine Master. And the largest sheet of paper you have.”
“He will defeat a demon with ink?” The Shrine Master reached out to the painting. His fingers hovered just above its surface. “You’re an artist, boy? Look well. This was painted by the great artist Harima, who died a hundred years before you were born. He was blessed by the gods. His picture of Hell is so vivid, so accurate, the demon is able to use it as a gateway between this world and the Unseen World, and takes on the guise of that rat. Yet we cannot destroy it, lest we anger Lord Enjo, the god of death.” He pointed to the clawed figure on the throne.
Uncle went away and came back with a bowl of noodles for Takeo to eat. The old monk called two more monks, who brought in a screen. It was a great long piece of blank rice paper attached to two wooden supports. They placed the screen near the wall opposite the painting. Takeo slurped the noodles, gazing at the painting of Hell. He paid little attention to the commotion around him until Uncle took his shoulder and pulled him away from the painting. Takeo’s brow knitted in protest, but it smoothed over again when he saw what Uncle held in his hands. A wooden box, polished until it shone. The lid was open. Tucked inside was a new ink stick, a smooth carved stone with a depression at one end, a jade bottle and three brushes of different sizes.
“Takeo,” Uncle said. “You must listen to me.”
Takeo reached for the brushes, but Uncle swatted his hand away. “Listen, boy! You’re going to sleep here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll go home, but tonight you stay here. See that screen? Use this inkstone like you use the bowl at home, to mix the ink. Tonight the shrine master wants you to paint the biggest, most fierce cat you’ve ever painted. Paint it on that screen. I’ll return for you in the morning.”
Takeo snatched the box from Uncle’s hands. He took it to the screen and crouched down, setting the box carefully upon the mat. The jade bottle was full of water, and he used that to make ink. The screen was very long, but only a little taller than he was, so Takeo could reach every part of it if he stretched a little. He selected the longest brush and dipped it into the ink.
It was a long time before he looked up from his work. Everyone had gone. He was alone in the empty shrine. The door was closed, and the light streaming through the paper panels had become gray and dim. Takeo was thirsty. But the cat was nearly finished. He drank what water remained in the jade bottle and took up the brush.
The light faded rapidly. All around the shrine sank into shadow, until Takeo couldn’t see the brush he held. But by then it didn’t matter, for the cat was finished.
Despite the darkness, Takeo made out the screen perfectly; the creamy paper seemed to glow as if someone had placed a candle behind it. Against this faint light his black brush strokes stood out bold and clear.
The cat was beautiful. It was a three-colored cat, white and brown and gray, with a long tail. Its head was held low, its ears pricked forward in concentration. Long, drooping whiskers sprouted from its muzzle and above its eyes. It gazed out of the screen with watchful eyes. The cat’s body covered nearly the entire screen.
Takeo moved to the middle of the room, where he sat down to admire his work. It was completely dark now. He heard a noise behind him, a strange sound like a branch being snapped in half. Annoyed, he pressed his hands to his ears to block out the noise. A rush of warm air struck the back of his neck. Takeo shook his head. He stared at the cat. And as he watched the cat began to move. The tip of its tail twitched; the fur on its flank rippled. Takeo smiled. Color seeped into the painting. The patches on the cat’s fur slowly became brown and gray, its eyes green.
The cat extended its claws. Slowly it rose, stretching each leg. It yawned, exposing a pink tongue and curved fangs. With a leisurely hop it leaped off the screen and down onto the mat. The screen was left empty. With a sudden movement, too quick for Takeo to follow, the cat rose up on its hind legs and sprang, landing lightly behind him. He turned, his eyes brimming with delight. And then he saw what the cat was after.
A giant rat crouched on the mat before the painting of Hell. It was bigger than Takeo, bigger even than the brawny men Uncle hired to hammer together coffins. It was even bigger than Takeo’s cat, but just a little. It had a pointed face and sharp teeth the protruded from its mouth and curved under its jaw. Its fur was wet and stuck up in spikes, and it had no ears. Its eyes were too large and the colors of the painting: red and yellow and swirling orange. Takeo could see no tail. In fact, it didn’t look much like a rat at all, as if a poor artist had tried to draw a rat.
Takeo’s cat bent its legs, hissing. The rat responded with a low growl.
The rat moved first, lunging at the cat with its mouth open. It lifted its forepaws from the mat, and Takeo saw that its claws were long and sharp. The cat danced out of the way, tail lashing, and slapped the rat’s face with one paw. Its claws raked away the skin over the rat’s nose. The rat howled. The floor shuddered beneath Takeo as it pounced on the cat, closing its jaws around the cat’s ear. The cat shook itself, flinging the rat across the room. It struck the collection box. The box splintered under its weight, and coins spilled through the cracks. The rat slipped and struggled to regain its footing on the silver flood. The beast had torn off part of the cat’s ear, staining the white fur of its face red. Takeo frowned but remained still. His cat would win; it was much better-drawn than the rat. The cat lowered its head and stalked toward the rat.
The battle went on for a long time. Takeo counted to six over and over as he watched. When the battle was finished, his cat was battered and limping. The rat had bitten off the very tip of its tail. Its fur was stiff and matted with blood; blood soaked the woven-reed mats. The rat demon lay dead on the floor. Watery light began to creep through the door panels. Takeo kept his attention on the cat. It sat next to its dead enemy, licking its paws and rubbing them over its face.
He blinked. He must have fallen asleep sitting up, for when he opened his eyes the cat was gone and the shrine door was sliding open. He got to his feet. His knees were rusty-red with blood, but Takeo didn’t care. Nor did he pay any attention to the figures that stood in the door. He turned his head back and forth. There! He sighed with relief. His cat had returned to the screen. It lay just as he’d painted it, but now it was missing part of its tail and one paw was tucked under its chest.
The figures in the door murmured to each other. Slowly they filed into the shrine, a crowd of monks in brown robes. They stared at the blood-soaked mats, the crushed collection box. They gathered around the dead rat. It was already beginning to rot, the flesh melting off the bones, which were brittle and yellow. The stink of death flooded the room. The monks held their sleeves over their noses. Takeo gazed happily at his cat.
Something touched his shoulder, and he jerked away. The head priest’s arm fell limply by his side. “Well done, boy! You gave the cat life, and it protected you.” Tears rolled into the cracks of the old man’s face. “We will keep the screen here in the shrine, so the villagers can worship it.”
“Takeo!” Another figure lumbered through the door, trailing the smells of grass and raw wood. Uncle. He halted, eyes wide. Suddenly he laughed, white teeth splitting his beard in two. “Boy, you did it! You slew the demon!”
He was so loud Takeo covered his ears with his hands.
The monks kept them there a long time. They brought Takeo sweet buns and pears. They set bottle after bottle of plum wine before Uncle. Villagers crept in, peering nervously at the rat, which by now was nothing but a pile of bleached bones. Many of them prostrated themselves before Takeo and Uncle before they left. Takeo chewed the sweet buns and stared past them, at the cat. The monks lit incense at the cat’s head. Takeo liked the twisting pillars of smoke.
In the afternoon Uncle left with the head priest. He returned carrying a wooden casket. The priest held a smaller casket, a rectangular box polished so that it shone. The priest held it out to Takeo, who put his hands behind his back. The straight lines were ugly, and he didn’t want the box’s sharp edges to poke into his skin.
Uncle narrowed his eyes. He smelled of rotten fruit again. “Take it, boy!” He growled. Reluctantly Takeo obeyed. The box was heavy.
“This is all the wealth our poor country shrine can offer.” The priest bowed deeply to Takeo. “Take it with our thanks.”
Uncle returned the bow, awkward with the box in his arms. The monks followed them to the gate, bowing all the way.
The walk home took longer than the walk to the shrine had. Villagers stopped what they were doing and bowed deeply when Takeo and Uncle passed. Uncle paused to return every bow.
The yard was empty and silent. They carried the caskets inside and lay them by the fire pit. Uncle threw open the lids. The larger box was full of coins like the ones that had spilled from the broken collection box. Uncle held up a handful. “These are ryu.” He explained. He showed Takeo a silver piece. “This is a tai. And look, there are even gold sengokus! This is more money than we’d make in ten years! We’ll live like the Reborn Emperor himself! You can have all the ink you want, and real paper!”
But Takeo wasn’t interested in the money. He liked the contents of smaller box better. The box was lined with orange silk, and filled to the brim with ornaments: ladies’ lacquered hair pins, a collar set with dark red stones, a dozen rings in silver and gold, a pair gleaming gold bracelets. He reached for one. When Uncle saw he slapped Takeo’s hand away. “Those aren’t toys! I’ll go through the box tonight and maybe find something you can play with, but keep your hands out until then!”
Takeo reached for the bracelets. Uncle slapped him again, so hard it woke tears in Takeo’s eyes. Scowling, Takeo ran out of the house. Uncle was counting the money and didn’t notice.
He took refuge in the barn loft. In the dusty light he took his cat paintings from the crack in the wall where he’d hidden them. He laid them out in the straw, gazing at them, but the image of the bracelets danced behind his eyes. He stayed in the loft until the sun disappeared. Then he put the cats away and climbed down in the dark.
A lantern burned in the little house. Takeo went to the door, which stood open in the summer night. He peered around the corner. Uncle was slumped over the table, snoring. The box of coins lay open. The smaller box was empty; the treasures scattered over the table. They sparkled in the wavering light. The bracelets lay near the edge of the table.
Takeo eased inside the house. The hair on the back of his neck rose. Puzzled, he craned his neck around. Something was coming out of the barn.
He’d left the barn door slightly open. Something slipped out of the crack, something small. Even in the dark Takeo knew what it was. A grin cracked his lips. He sat down on the step and wrapped his arms around his knees.
The shape was followed by another, then another. Some were smaller than the first, some larger, but they were unmistakable. The cats poured out of the barn and streamed toward the porch. Some ran, others ambled. Some kittens were so small their mothers had to carry them.
A sound from inside made Takeo tear his gaze from the parade of cats. He peered through the door. In the pale light of the lantern his sleeping mat was moving. It shifted and rolled, and a bump appeared in the middle. The bump moved and wiggled. A small gray head lifted the mat, and the cat eased out from beneath the woven reeds. It shook itself and leaped to the table. Takeo held his breath, but Uncle didn’t wake. The mat moved again, and a second cat appeared to join the others. More followed.
By now the first of the barn cats had reached the low porch. They paid Takeo no mind. They padded up the steps and through the door. The floor became covered with a rippling carpet of cats. The gray cat sat on its haunches, licking its paws. Once all the cats were inside it stopped bathing itself. Its green eyes glowed in the lantern light. As if they had seen a signal, the other cats grew still. The gray cat rose and stalked toward Uncle’s sprawled form.
The men who worked for Uncle came as the sun rose over the trees. Finding the yard empty, they stood together a moment, murmuring. There was something odd in the air, a thick smell of fur, not unpleasant. A low hum came from the house. Two of the braver men broke away from the group and went to the door, calling Uncle’s name. When there was no reply they went inside.
The little room was full of cats. Old cats lay sprawled in the sun. Kittens nursed from their mothers. One sleek gray cat wore a collar set with red stones. It sat before the fire pit, washing its whiskers. Others were draped over the dresser and shelves, or nestled on the sleeping mats. A few cats playfully batted around small things that sparkled in the light. Slowly the men realized what the humming sound was; every one of the cats was purring.
There were so many cats in the room that at first they didn’t see the idiot nephew. Then a cat jumped off the low table and they noticed him, bent over something. He showed them no more interest than he ever had. He lifted an ink brush with a flourish, and they saw he was wearing something strange: gleaming gold bracelets, one around each wrist.
About the Author
Patricia Correll lives in Kentucky with her husband and their cat-demon. She has been previously published in A Thousand Faces, Reflection’s Edge, and Les Bonnes Fees. She enjoys zombie movies and ice cream.
©2009 Patricia Correll
