The Catswold Portal полностью

The old woman had copied quotations, some from history books, some from collections of folklore and myth, all of them frightening. As the calico crouched reading the entries she felt her paws grow damp with sweat, felt her tail lashing as if it had a will of its own.

Some say that from within this hill they hear strange music. Closing the hill is a stone tall as a man, and it is carven with a cat. Myth says that if the right person knocks at this stone it will swing in, and he will enter into a world of ancient powers…

I asked them how they got under the hill, and they said that a door was hidden among the gorse. They said that door would open to an ancient world but they did not like to go there for the world was filled with cats who spoke like men.

These prehistoric burial mounds were built by an ancient Irish race, a folk whose power was broken when the ancestors of the modern Irish arrived in 3000 B.C. They fled underground and remained there among the were-beasts, and they are the Tuatha, the fairy folk.

There is a burial ground and a cave, both strong in magic, both belonging to the Cat-Kings. Both open into the antechambers of the underworld…

It was here in the British countries, where the Celtic witches dwelt, that the cats were taken down beneath the sod into the knowes and sithens and kept by the Tuatha, and they flourished.

Sudden footsteps made her start—someone was on the front porch. She leaped off the table and slid under the couch on her belly as the front door creaked open.

She heard Olive’s voice, then the velvet voice of the black lady. She could smell her scent, musky and pleasing. Olive was saying, “…much more cheerful, he ate a huge plate of spaghetti at the Iron Pot. He’s always loved spaghetti.”

Morian said, “He’s gaining weight, too. He seems—almost like the old Tom.” As the two women crossed the dining room toward the kitchen, Olive paused by the table and laid her purse down among the books. “I know Anne’s relieved. She’s had a hard time, with things at work so chaotic, and Tom sick, too. Put the kettle on, Mor, while I cut the rum cake.”

Melissa, from the dusty darkness under the couch, could see directly into the kitchen. She watched Morian move to the stove. The black woman was wearing a skimpy white sundress with plenty of honey-dark skin showing. Olive by contrast was so sallow she almost disappeared inside her red and orange flowers.

“The blue cups, or the white?” Morian said. “How’s the research going?”

“The blue cups. It’s going really well. I’m totally drawn in. Today we found reference to an Egyptian grave with a door inside that has a cat’s head carved on it.”

Melissa shivered. Braden had said the door in this garden was likely the only reference to cats Olive had come across.

Olive said, “That door led to a smaller tomb, and there were five mummified cats buried in it. I think that was the part Tom liked, the mummies. He copied the passage for me. I do think the research has helped him. He seems totally engrossed again, as he used to be.”

Melissa heard the tea kettle sing. Morian said, “He seems—Tom seems all right to you?”

“He seems better. I know this has been hard for Anne, with this Lillith business. What is all this about the Lillith Corporation?”

“Anne thinks Lillith is trying to buy out her company. You know her firm isn’t terribly big, but it’s an old firm and it’s always been solid. But since Lillith moved into the Bay area, through some kind of manipulation they’ve gained controlling interest of Meyer and Finley.”