He posed her sitting at the veranda table, and drew her against the leafy reflections in the studio windows. She liked his absorbed excitement as he worked. In one sense he was very much with her, seemed so close to her it was as if he touched her. But in another sense he was totally removed. Strangely, the two feelings were compatible. She sat at the table thinking about her search in the Cat Museum and wondering if the Amulet could be in McCabe’s safe deposit box. At mid-morning when he stopped to make tea for her, she asked if Alice might have had any keepsakes of Timorell’s.
He seemed puzzled by her stubborn interest in possessions, and that embarrassed her. She rose, pretending to look for the cat, and went to stand at the edge of the veranda.
He said, “When we remodeled, Alice took some cartons and boxes up to Olive’s to store in her attic. I think we got them all, but you could look.”
She did look, late that afternoon. While Braden worked she went up the garden to Olive’s.
The yellow cat watched her from the railing, then followed her into the house. She and Olive searched the attic but found nothing. Olive insisted on making tea, and when they sat down, Pippin jumped onto his chair and sat intently watching her. His golden eyes searched hers deeply, and when she let him sniff her fingers, he put his paw on her hand with innocent, almost pleading confidence.
“He likes you,” Olive said. “He’s nearly human, that cat. Much more intelligent than my own cats. He has been here constantly since Tom—since Tom turned so strange toward him. I feel sometimes as if Pippin could almost speak to me.” She passed Melissa the thinly sliced pound cake.
“Some cats seem so perceptive. As if they have a second side to them, secret and hidden from us.”
Melissa sat sipping her tea, not daring to look at Olive.
Olive said, “Sometimes I wonder if that secret side could be—liberated.” She reached to the sideboard for her leatherbound notebook.
Alarm spilled through Melissa. She rose hastily, tipping her chair and catching it before it fell. “I—Braden is waiting. I’m afraid I’ve kept him too long.”
Olive paid no attention. “I copied this from Chaptainne’s journal. He lived in the twelfth century, when people believed in magic. Or perhaps,” the old woman said, as if Melissa had not risen to leave at all, “magic really existed then.” And as Melissa backed toward the door, Olive began to read the slow, measured cadences of a spell.
Chapter 50
Melissa dared not run away and leave Pippin here alone to be changed. Sick and shivering, she felt her body want to change, and she blocked the spell. For while Olive could not make a spell,
The powers pulled at her. She stopped them, but when she looked at Pippin his tail was lashing, his eyes blazing. The expression on his face was so intense she reached out to him, stroking him, hoping to calm him, and for one instant she saw an aura around him, saw the faint, shadowed form of a man.
The sudden ringing of the doorbell made the yellow cat leap from the chair and streak for the back of the house.
Olive stared after him and rose to open the door, her expression unreadable. “He’s heard that bell a million times. What gets into him?” she said innocently. “That will be my grandniece—I’m kitten-sitting for her.”
A little blond girl came in carrying a tiny reddish kitten, and clutching a paper bag and a small quilt under her elbow as if her mother had tucked them there. From the window, Melissa could see a woman waiting in a green car parked in Olive’s driveway. Olive took the bag and quilt, but the child didn’t want to give over the kitten. The pale-haired little girl held the yawning cat baby against her cheek.
Olive knelt, hugging the child and stroking the kitten. “I’ll take good care of her, Terry. A week isn’t so very long, you’ll see.”
The child finally managed to hand the kitten over, reaching on tiptoe to kiss its nose as the little thing snuggled deep into Olive’s hands. Melissa watched, very still. The kitten was so tiny. She wanted to hold it. She wanted to feel its soft fur, its delicate body. She wanted to lick it; she felt her tongue come out and had to bite it back. She could hardly keep from reaching out to gather the baby to her; she could smell its scent, infinitely personal and exciting. When she looked up, Olive was watching her.
