Morian said, “You’ve given the girl in the painting the cat’s eyes. How droll—the same green eyes, black fringed. Lovely.”
Braden looked puzzled. “No, they’re Melissa’s eyes. Melissa’s eyes are green, she has dark lashes.” He looked into the calico’s eyes, frowning, staring so hard Melissa shivered. He said, softly, “They are alike.” He was silent a moment, then he rose and took the empty glasses into the kitchen. Behind him Morian said softly, “It’s about time.” She reached a tentative hand to the calico to see what she would do. “You needn’t be jealous of me, my dear. It’s that gorgeous model you need to worry about.”
Melissa relaxed, and pressed her head against Morian’s fingers. Morian grinned at her. “That’s better.” She rubbed Melissa’s ears, knowing just the right places. Braden returned and stood watching them. “That was a quick turnaround. Private conversation?”
“Just girl talk,” Morian said as she glanced up through the windows. “Get a glass for Rye; here he comes. I’m on my way.”
On the terrace Rye Chapman hugged Morian, then she headed for her car. He came into the studio and stood silently looking at the paintings. He spent a long time looking. He didn’t say anything. He backed off, studying each painting, so obviously pleased that Melissa kneaded her claws with pleasure and purred extravagantly. It was much later, after Rye had gone, that she saw the shadow images.
Braden had started a new painting from the drawing with the stained glass window. Already the intricate pattern of reflections was rich and exciting, shifting across her figure, absorbing her, making her a part of the tangled colors.
As she sat in the hall behind him pretending to wash her paws, admiring the painting, she let a mewing sigh of pleasure escape her. Braden turned to look, and she froze. Then she rubbed innocently against his ankle.
He began painting again.
It was the next minute, watching the painting, that she grew disturbed. She padded farther down the hall to see it from a greater distance.
She moved again, looking.
She saw the phantom shape clearly: the faint shadow of a cat woven through her figure, a form so subtle she had to stand in just the right place to see it. Hardly more than a smoky stain, it was nearly as large as her figure: a cat lying up across her body within the folds of the orange and pink silk, its cheek forming her cheek, its muzzle barely discernible within her own face, its paws meshing into the folds of her shirt. A phantom cat, faint as a breath.
She sat behind him feeling sick. Why had he done this? Had he known about her all along? When they argued over the movie about cat people, was he making fun of her? Why else would he do this but to goad and tease her? She moved across the room to study the other paintings, and found a cat’s shadow in each, woven through her figure.
Why would Braden do this?
Or did he not know he had done it?
Did he not know those faint, elusive spirits were there? Could it be that only his inner self knew? That something deep within him knew more than his conscious mind did? Upset and afraid, she felt her stomach churn. She was so upset that within a moment she had thrown up her supper in a little pile on the hardwood floor behind Braden.
He turned and stared at her, annoyed to be interrupted. Muttering, he got a rag and wiped up the mess.
But then after he had cleaned the spot on the floor he picked her up and held her, stroking her. “What’s wrong with you? Why did you get sick? Is it the cat food?” He felt her nose; his hand smelled of paint. “How do I tell if you have a fever?
She snuggled down in his arms, basking in his gentle caring. How could she be angry that he had painted the shadow images, when he was so kind and loving? She couldn’t believe he had done it deliberately. Maybe he didn’t know the images were there. Maybe they came from some hidden inner perception.
Had Braden, in making images of her, touched some power centered around her? Centered around the Catswold?
The next morning she was certain that some power of the Catswold had been touched, for she had dreamed of Timorell. She saw her mother, tall and golden haired, wandering the darkened galleries of the Cat Museum. And Timorell wore the Amulet of Bast. In the dream Melissa looked into the emerald’s green depths and saw the war in the Netherworld, and she heard someone call her name. She woke riveted with the thought that she must find the Amulet, that the outcome of the Netherworld wars could be changed if she could find the Amulet of Bast.
Chapter 48
Efil watched the compound from a nearby hill where he sat beneath a twisted oak behind an outcropping of granite, drinking a Budweiser.
