As soon as the child had left, Olive brought the kitten to Melissa and settled it in her lap. Melissa cuddled it, hardly aware of Olive. It was so very small, so vulnerable. She lifted it to her cheek, felt its warmth against her, its baby-scent powerful. She stifled the urge to press her mouth into it, to lick it, to wash that lovely fur, to wash its little face and clean those tiny delicate ears.
She spent a long time stroking the kitten, playing with it, and holding it while it slept. Across the table, Olive seemed busy with her notebooks. The kitten purred so passionately that Melissa longed to feel a responding purr in her own throat. She longed to change to cat and snuggle it properly, let it chase her tail in the age-old hunting games. Meanwhile, Pippin stalked the room, watching her. She was sure his thoughts, as her own, still echoed with Olive’s half-spoken spell. And then quite suddenly Olive looked up from her books and began to read the changing spell loudly and deliberately, shocking Melissa so she hardly breathed. In panic she said a silent counter-spell and felt the change in herself subside. But Pippin had leaped up, his yellow eyes agleam.
Olive’s eyes were hard on Melissa.
The change came quickly to Pippin. He yowled, was pulled straight, rearing and twisting, crying out, reaching with claws that became fingers as he was jerked tall.
The big golden cat was gone. A man stood before them, golden haired and naked.
He was a fine, muscular man, pale of skin, with short golden hair and the cat’s golden eyes. He looked at his arms, at his naked body and long straight legs. He held one leg out and then the other, hopping like a marionette wild with pleasure; he seemed to have forgotten the two women.
But he stopped suddenly, regarding them with an expression of victory. “I am a—
“Why do you laugh at me?”
“A laugh of happiness. Like a purr.” She could feel Olive’s excitement. She thought, giddily,
“I am not—cold.”
“To cover you,” Olive said.
Obediently Pippin draped the blanket around his shoulders, covering nothing of importance. “What were those words? A—a spell. I want to know the spell.”
Olive said it slowly. Pippin repeated it. In an instant he was cat again, his tail lashing.
But the next minute he returned to man, smiling wickedly.
Olive sat down at the table, regarding Melissa with composure. “I have read about this possibility. I have thought about it for a very long time.” Pippin began to roam, looking at everything in the room, touching, sniffing. When Olive began to read the spell again, Melissa said hastily, “There is terrible danger in attempting things you don’t understand.”
“I did not attempt it, my dear. I did it. But why didn’t you change? You are the same—your hair, your eyes. The way you hunger over the kitten.” The kitten, innocent of the fuss, slept in Melissa’s circling arm.
Melissa said, “Even with your research, it seems strange that you would believe.”
“I believed because, when I was a young woman, I saw such a thing happen—or rather, I saw the results.
“I worked in the city, at the main library. I worked late two nights a week, and going home one night I saw a man step into an alley, and a cat come out.
“I thought little of that until it happened again. This time, the same cat went in and the same man came out.
“I grew curious, and began to wait near the alley on my late nights. I thought at first it was a man walking with his cat, though I never saw them together.
“I saw this happen three times more—the same man, the same cat, one emerging, the other disappearing into the alley.
“I began to investigate books on the occult, but they were so warped in their view that they told me nothing. I turned to folklore and then to archaeology. That was when I began to read about the doors with cats’ faces.”
She looked at Melissa coolly. “You are a part of whatever is happening in this garden. The gardener, Vrech, is a part of it. And Tom—I don’t know what to think about Tom. I’m not sure that boy
Olive poured cold tea from the pot and sipped it. They heard Pippin rummaging in the refrigerator, and he soon returned eating a fried chicken leg. He had forgotten his blanket.
He said, munching, “When I was cat, I didn’t know…” He tried to bring up words from a language he had heard all his life but never used. “I didn’t know…”
