That first night, I couldn’t sleep. Jessica curled up and tucked her tail neatly around her pink paws. Looking at her sleeping face I felt the need to be on guard like a dog. I listened to the noises of the wood, the wind whistling in the treetops, the familiar shuffling of badgers, the brisk trot of a passing fox, and the smaller scrabblings of mice and birds. There were no human sounds at all.
I’d never been a wild cat in any of my lifetimes. It spooked me. I’d always had a human to turn to. I’d never before had no owner to love. Now I had gone twenty-four hours without purring. I ached inside. I wanted Ellen and John. But I didn’t tell Jessica.
Gradually we became used to being cold and wet most of the time and hunting for our food. We developed a routine of eating, washing and sleeping. In the early days we had some fun times too, chasing each other and climbing trees. Jessica seemed different from the way she had been with humans.
‘What about your dream of going to live with an old lady?’ I asked her.
‘Oh that can wait,’ she said. ‘Right now I’m having fun.’
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘It’s not what I want to do with my life.’
‘But this is a holiday,’ said Jessica. ‘Can’t you enjoy it?’
I thought about it.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I feel angry, and abandoned.’
‘You’ve got me.’ Jessica gave me a sweet little kiss on the nose and I felt better.
The morning was still and sunny. We wanted to be out of the shady wood with the warmth of the winter sun on our fur. Instead of going back towards the caravan site, Jessica chose to head out of the other side of the wood. We trotted along a tarmac lane and over a high bridge spanning a busy road.
Seeing the road disturbed me. We crouched down and peeked through the railings at the lorries and cars roaring and swooshing along below us. My psi sense was suddenly activated and I turned to face north and stare at the long road curving into the distance. The road home. The road back to the beautiful house where we had lived with Ellen. I stood up and stuck my head through the railings, wondering if it would be possible to jump down onto the roof of a speeding lorry.
‘Don’t do it,’ said Jessica, and she led me firmly away from the bridge. She turned and looked at me cheekily, sparking her golden eyes in the way she always did when she had a secret.
She ran on up the lane and round the edge of a stubble field. The light was changing to an electric brilliance, and there was a new sound in the air, a sound I’d never heard before. Where was Jessica taking me?
We ran up a hill covered in tufty wiry grass, and the horizon was so bright now it was like running up to the sky. I followed Jessica right to the shining edge of it. We sat down and gazed in astonishment at the expanse of glittering turquoise water. It stretched far away to where the horizon was a dark blue line, and all of it was singing and swishing with waves.
‘What is it?’ I asked Jessica.
‘It’s the sea.’
I was awestruck. Now I understood why John had always jumped around and screamed with excitement when Ellen said they were going to the sea. Seeing such a feast of dazzling light and space was incredible.
‘How did you know about it?’ I asked.
‘In my last lifetime I was a ship’s cat,’ said Jessica, ‘and I loved it. The ship was like a big floating house and I was the only cat. But once, I fell in and a brave sailor jumped over the side and rescued me. I was freezing cold and my fur tasted salty. After that they spoilt me and I got fat and lazy.’
‘So why did you bring me here today?’
Jessica looked thoughtful.‘Every cat should see the sea just once before they die,’ she said. ‘You need to know what wonderful things are out there.’
I looked at Jessica with new respect. She had brought me here as a treat, to distract me from my sorrow at losing Ellen.
We stayed on the cliff top, dozing with the sun on our faces, and I kept opening my eyes a crack and soaking up the energy of the sparkles that danced on the water.
Jessica was hungry, and she knew exactly where to go. She led me along the cliff path, winding between gorse and heather and rocks, a long way down to a cove with a harbour and boats. People were strolling about in the sunshine but she avoided them and ran along the harbour wall. I followed, nervously. The water was deep and so far below the wall, with splashing waves on one side and translucent green on the other. It looked cold. The stone quay smelled of fish and there were piles of rope and lobster pots lying around.
It made me hungry, but as much as I was enjoying all the new sights and sounds, I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be at home, in Ellen’s arms, and the moment of missing her was so painful that I lost my awareness of what Jessica intended to do. My angel tried to warn me to stop her, but it was too late.