Realization made him stop in his tracks. He
He reared back at the thought, sitting on his haunches. And when he did, Shadow discovered the real reason the lost she had come up here. Somehow, he caught a whiff of fresh air!
Shadow peered up at the ceiling above him. It wasn’t like the walls or floor—or the ceiling in Sunny’s room, which he’d explored one day from the top of her bookcase. The noise she made when she found he’d left a paw print up there! But that had been all in one piece, solid and immovable. This ceiling, though, was broken into squares, with thick borders. Looking more closely, he saw seams at the end of those borders. That’s where the trace of fresh air came from.
He stretched out a paw—no, still too short. So he pushed up with his rear legs. That was dangerous; it nearly sent him toppling to the floor. Was that what had happened to the she? Had she perhaps fallen and injured herself? Maybe she was just too short to reach that tantalizing square above.
But Shadow was longer than most cats. He backed up a little on the shelf and then extended his rear legs as strongly as he could, trying for a vertical jump while pressing up with his forepaws. He struck the rough-textured square—and it moved!
Again and again he tried, leaping at full extension, sometimes having to dance back desperately to avoid plunging off. A low guttural growl came from deep in his chest as he leaped, catching his claws in the rough-textured stuff . . .
He fell back again. But he had dislodged the square so that a narrow sliver of darkness showed above him.
A way out!
*
Sunny sat at her desk, watching the clock on the wall reach quitting time. At least, it would have been quitting time, except for the hour that Ollie the Barnacle was holding over her head.
She made a face, looking down at her computer screen. The problem was, nothing was happening now. No one would be calling or getting in touch when they expected the office to be closed. It wasn’t just unfair, putting in an empty hour to make up for what Ollie had described as an empty hour. It seemed stupid.
“To hell with this,” Sunny muttered, closing down her computer and then the office. Standing outside, she still felt rebellious—ready to do something stupid. So she left her Wrangler parked on the street and started walking toward the harbor.
The weather was milder this evening, and the wind had died down. When Sunny reached Spill the Beans, the café had a lot more people. Sunny could care less—she didn’t want a table; she just wanted a whoopie pie. All they had to do was sell her one, maybe put it in a bag so she could carry it to eat on the drive home.
Sunny looked around to ask if they did takeout—and froze. The table in the corner, the one where she and Will had sat and talked, was occupied by people she knew. Jane Rigsdale and Tobe Phillips sat with their knees touching below the tiny little tabletop, and their faces nearly touching above.
They burst into laughter.
A waitress finally noticed her and came over. “How may I help you?” she asked.
Sunny shook her head. “You know, I don’t think you can.”
She got out of there. Better to leave the two some privacy. The whoopie pie would have to wait.
20
Before going up into the darkness overhead, Shadow climbed down to the floor, to the food and water bowls. Better to finish off what he had before venturing into the unknown. With a full belly, he scaled the shelves again. Then he positioned himself under the opening he’d created and leaped. After a brief, undignified scrabble, he was up in a dim world, sneezing. Well, he’d learned one thing: the unknown was dusty.
Using his forepaw, he batted at the square he’d dislodged. Finally, he managed to get it back in place. That made the dimness darker. But unless the One Who Reeks could track by scent, she wouldn’t know where he’d gone.
Shadow set off across this new domain, walking slowly and carefully. Now that they were underfoot, the squares that made up the ceiling tended to give alarmingly as he stepped on them. By trial and error, he learned where to put his weight—and where not to.
