The Familiar (9 page)

Cassie replies, "I'm sorry. My grandmother, who owned the shop, died last week. I haven't seen a package." Cassie stops for a second, taking a deep breath as tears begin to well up again. "I'll be happy to prepare Mr. Liu's package if you can tell me what he ordered."

The young man looks at her stonily. "No. I need to talk to Mr. Liu before I talk more to you. Mr. Liu may make another arrangement, or he may send me back." He turns and leaves briskly.

Kevin is suddenly in a hurry. He waves a quick goodbye to Cassie and follows the man out of the shop. I scurry after him and coast out the door in his wake. He calls to the man, and they talk briefly, then Kevin hands him his card. It's worse than I thought—Kevin is definitely following through on his plan to move in on the darker side of the business now that Eunice is gone. Too bad for him he doesn't have either the client or supplier list. All that illicit business Eunice keeps locked in the storage room is about to come to an end, and I can't see how Kevin is going to manage to keep it going without some very bad juju going down for Cassie. She has no idea, none at all, how dangerous things could get.

Kevin turns back toward the shop and looks me right in the eye before I scramble back into the recessed doorway. His eyes narrow as he hurries toward me. I mewl like my tail's on fire to get Cassie's attention, and it works. She opens the door and scoops me up, scolding me for ducking out. Back on the counter I go before Kevin can get to me. He peers in the window briefly, then moves on.

"Granny never let me in to the smaller storeroom, Tom. What do you think I'll find there? Fairy dust? Voodoo dolls?" She smiles weakly at her own attempt at a joke. Her spirits are brighter tonight. It must be a relief to have the funeral out of the way.

What's in the closet, Cassie? A whole lot of trouble, that's what. Without any way to know what Kevin is up to, and, trapped as a cuddly kitten, I've got no way to protect her from what's going to go down if someone comes for the treasure Eunice locked up in there. When an interested party comes to take it, I sincerely hope it's cowardly Kevin instead of a more dangerous threat.

Cassie tries every key on the big metal ring. None of them fit, but I already know that. Eunice used a spell not a lock. The spell won't stop someone who's determined to get in and would remove the door to do it, but it will prevent casual snoopers such as a curious granddaughter or a business rival with a roving eye.

Cassie gives up on the lock and scoops me up on her way upstairs.

It's cozy in the upstairs parlor, cuddled up in Cassie's lap while we watch TV. But my thoughts, when I can put a non-Cat thought together, are starting to focus almost entirely around two little words: say it.

I tried the jumping-on-the-table manipulation on Cassie as soon as she knew my real name, but she hasn't had the same response again. Frustrating. I was so sure I'd be freed with a couple of quick jumps. Or failing that, she'd have to go to Eunice's room for something and read the words out loud as I follow her in. But she hasn't ventured into that room. I know. I've been her shadow.

To keep the pressure on, I've been at my most adorable for days, bringing Cassie presents whenever I find something new she might appreciate—mostly things I've batted under furniture over time and Eunice never went searching for. Why in the world can't she just say it? I'm being as good as I know how to be.

All I get as I drop off my packages is:

"Tom, how sweet! I've always wanted a ball of rubber bands."

"Tom, you shouldn't have! A dusty old spool of thread? Thank you."

"Would you look at that—this must be at least twenty years old. Where did you find it?"

Then, Eureka! I remember something that has to work. I leap from her lap and race into the guest bedroom, then return to the parlor and drop a gold ring on the table in front of her. I just rank a "Where did you get this, Tom? Was it Eunice's?" She slips it idly onto her pinky and twists it as she finishes watching her show.

Why can't she just say it? Just one "good Tom.” How hard is that?

I can't tell her that the ring was payment for a potion to precipitate miscarriage. The desperate woman had nothing but her wedding ring to pay with, and the baby she was carrying would have been the wrong color for her husband's genetic background. I thought she would have been better off with the father of the child—the one who cared about her—instead of the one who'd have killed both her and the baby if she'd delivered him a mixed-race child. She lost her ring but got to keep her marriage. I hid it in a fit of pique after watching the glee it gave Eunice. But I can't tell Cassie that. I can't tell her anything.

The longer things go on this way, the fuzzier I feel: I constantly lose focus and get distracted by all the things a cat can find under counters and couches and crawling up the walls. I want to focus on Cassie, but she's becoming less and less interesting unless she's giving me a meal or a scratch.

 Cat even gets in on my gift selections because I'm now too instinct driven to stop him. He dropped a dead spider in front of her on the counter this morning. That one earned a "Yuck!" and a quick cleanup.

I crawl back into her lap, discouraged. The words are never going to happen. Never.

“Well, come on Tom, might as well put this ring in Granny's jewelry box for safekeeping.” Cassie holds me close as she gets up and turns the TV off.

Eunice's jewelry box is on the vanity. It's finally happening. I feel like I'm floating as we travel along the short upstairs hall together.

And the words are still there, perfectly shaped. I know they are.

Cassie stops dead about three feet from the vanity. “What the?”

I hold my breath. She reads the words.

“6000 ton? This wasn't here before! Who would have snuck in here to write something stupid like that? Are they trying to scare me, make me think Granny's trying to communicate? What does it even mean?”

That's it. I'm done with her. She's a moron.

I get a nice chunk of her arm between my teeth, and she drops me, looking surprised. I show her my backside as I run down the stairs, heading for something satisfying to break or, even better, something to kill.

Movement under the bed. I leap to it. It's nothing. Wait...behind me. A crawly. A meal. I bat at it, hold it down, let it up, let it run, bat at it, hold it down, let it up, let it run.

The fun is gone. Crunch it up.

Shine from the window. Warm. Wait...what is it? I turn, I pounce, I turn, I pounce, I turn, I pounce.

"Come on, Tom, stop chasing your own tail. Breakfast time."

I look at her. I know my name. My name is Tom. Good Tom. Say it! Say Good Tom.

I jump along behind her down and down.

Each step down means say it.

Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it.

I stalk shiny head. He talks. I stalk.

Shoelaces. Pounce. I arch. I spit.

"Tom! What's gotten into you?"

Grabbed. In my cage now.

I'm alert. I keep my eye out. Shiny head talks. Talks and talks.

Cassie helps girl. Shiny head looks. I know you, shiny head. Do you know me?

Cassie comes back. Shiny head talks.

He goes. I'm free again.

I purr, I rub.

Say it. Say it. Good Tom, good Tom, good Tom, good Tom, good Tom, good Tom.

She has the broom. Swickswickswick. She opens the door. One hand on the door. One hand on the broom.

I chase to the door. The smells, oh the smells. I dart to it. Hand grabs. Broom falls. Door closes. Still inside.

"What's wrong with you today? Be good, Tom!"

Oh, it hurts, but it is good tom, good tom, good tom...

I've gone nuts, right? Granny's kitten starts to stretch and grow and morph. Its little legs start to look like arms at the front and thighs in the back and oh, wow…that's not right to see
that
on a cat. And in just seconds, my kitten Tom is a naked man with shoulder-length, messy brown hair, green eyes, a smooth chest, thin hips, a smooth, nicely rounded bottom...and well...a naked man! What the hell? I scramble away, backing up fast, afraid to take my eyes off of him.

He twists himself over to sit, his arms wrapped around his knees, rocking, looking up at me and mumbling rhythmically like that homeless, crazy guy in Boston who slept in the alley across from my apartment.  It's crazy talk. It sounds like, “say it” and after that it's “goo tah”, “goombah”, or maybe “gouda”?

How did a bum—a young, buff, naked bum—get into the shop, and why is he talking about cheese? He gets to his feet, standing there in all his hot hobo glory, and I have no idea what to do, so I just act.

The door's open. I run at him and shove him in the middle of the chest. He staggers back. I push again, and he's outside, and I'm slamming the door closed.

Then the man is changing, shrinking, until it's just poor little Tom out there, looking up at me with pleading green eyes. His meowing is pitiful. But, do I let him in? What's going on?

I know what's going on: I've gone insane. I've lost it. It's the stress, right? My fiancé sleeping with my best friend. The wedding I'd been so busy planning is never going to happen, and the two most important people in my life betrayed me with each other. Then, my favorite Granny dies unexpectedly. Out of nowhere, I own a business and rental cabins and a bunch of other stuff she never even told me about, if Mr. Mayor Robert Andrews, Kreepy Kevin's daddy, told the truth while he talked my ear off today.

It has to be the stress. There's no way I'm talking to a kitten and it suddenly presto-changos into a sexy guy.

I'm having freaky-sexy hallucinations, but whatever my problem is, how can I leave a defenseless kitten out there by himself?

I open the door, but Tom turns and runs after a scrap of paper as it blows by down the street. I run after him, but he slips through a picket fence and under a porch.

All I can do is stand there calling, "Tom, come here kitty. Kitty, kitty, kitty. Come home!"

I call for a long time, but Tom doesn't come.

I walk back to the shop. The door is standing open for anyone to just walk in and take off with everything in the till. Granny would have given me an earful for that one. I start to tear up for the fifth time today.

I don't sleep well. I miss Tom's warm body pressing into the small of my back. It's comforting to have him around so that I don't feel so alone. But I
am
alone, I feel that sharply. My dad always said, to anyone who would listen, that Granny Eunice was a crappy mom which is why he went to his father's to live when he was small, but she was a good grandmother to me, and I loved her. I miss her.

I make breakfast, trying not to feel deranged. Trying not to dwell on the strange things happening in this house: the sexy catman, the weird writing on the vanity mirror, and the scary sounds it makes now that I'm alone in it. Whatever. Too much stress and too much imagination. Why wouldn't I dream up a hot guy and project him out into the real-life world? At least breakfast is completely normal, although I wish Tom was here to eat from his little blue bowl and keep me from feeling so deserted.

If I'm going to make a home here, I want my kitten back. A girl needs another heartbeat in the house.

Did I seriously just say I want to make a home here? You know, I think I did. It's as good a place as any, now that Boston doesn't feel like home any more. I'd spend every day afraid I'd run into Dan or Charlie—or worse—Dan
and
Charlie.

Even though most of the kids I hung out with during my summer visits have moved away or are at college out of state now, Gilly's an old sweetie, and if Robert really does need someone to run the gallery when Mr. Simmons retires, it would be too good an opportunity to pass up. Well, at least as long as Kreepy Kevin wasn't around all the time. I don't like him one bit. And Gillian told me Daria is back now! She graduated this year and hasn't found a job either. We had fun when we played softball together. I could look her up. We could hang.

After breakfast, I scrabble through the kitchen drawers, looking for any other keys I might have missed. Nothing. I don't want to get a locksmith for the back room, but I can't just leave it locked and not know what's in there if it's related to the shop and its inventory. Omigod, inventory—when do I have to do that for taxes? Is it already done for the year? I haven't even found the accounting books for the business yet.