He shoved the ladder aside, grabbed the metal wheelbarrow and swung it, hitting the stone with all his weight and force. Chips of stone flew in his face, pale gouges bloomed in the dark stone. The wall didn’t move. She was gone, where he could no longer reach her. He found the shovel and dug into the mortar, trying to pry the stones apart. Then he dug into the earth beside the stone. He would dig into the damned tunnel that way.
But then digging, jamming his foot hard on the shovel to ram it into the earth, he felt a draft behind him, and a beam of light hit the dirt in front of him. He swung around.
Morian stood looking, taking in the toppled wheelbarrow, the broken ladder, the shovel in his hand, the broken earth where he had begun to dig.
“She’s gone,” she said softly.
“Yes, she’s gone! Through the damned wall! You knew!” He stared at her, totally enraged. “She went through the goddamn wall. She went into the goddamn hill—and you knew it.
“You saw her go through the wall?” She was so damned calm he wanted to hit her.
“Yes, I saw her. The damned wall
Morian laid her flashlight on the work table, leaving it burning. It cast a pool of viscous yellow onto the wall and left the rest of the room dark. She took the shovel from his hand. She pulled his hand into hers, holding it tightly. She picked up the flashlight again, its beam flashing across her silver cocktail dress. “Come on, Brade. Maybe I can help.”
He glared at her.
“I’ve been up in Olive’s empty house,” she said. “I left the gallery just after you did. I’ve been up there at Olive’s dining table reading her research.” She squeezed his hand tighter. “Before that, when I left the gallery, I followed you.”
He felt himself shiver.
“I saw Melissa, I saw her on the street. I saw the flash of her eyes in the headlights. I saw a crowd of people around her—around you both.
“And after you got in the car I saw people change into cats and run away into the darkness.”
She led him out of the tool room and up the dark garden. The only sound was their footsteps and the faint brushing of his pant legs against the tangled flowers. She said, “After you and Melissa drove away, and the cats ran away, I came home and let myself into Olive’s. I dug into her notebook.” She led him up the steps to Olive’s front door. Lights were on in the living room, the draperies closed. Inside, the room was cold and damp from being unoccupied. Morian sat him down at the dining table as if she were herding a small child, and she opened the notebook.
He didn’t want to read it; he pushed the book away. “I don’t need this, Mor. I know all this. She told me.”
She sat down at the table across from him.
“She went down there, Mor. Hell, it doesn’t help to know where she went. She shut me out. She shut me out of her life. I saw her go through a damn solid stone wall into another world, another life.”
He stared at Morian. “I have known Terrel Black for years. We have taught each other’s classes. Got drunk together, won awards in the same shows. Tonight I saw Terrel Black change into a black cat with one white foot.
“And I saw Melissa go through a solid stone wall into a world that can’t exist. And you knew about this. All the time, you knew.” He slammed the notebook shut.
“Not all the time, Brade. It took me a while to work it out. It took me a very long while to believe it.”
“She promised to wait for me in the tool room, but she didn’t wait. Christ, Mor, she’s going down there into the middle of a war. She told me that. She can’t—she can’t go back there alone.”
“Are you sure?”
“She went into the Cat Museum. She insisted I stay in the car. She came out wearing an emerald pendant. She said it had powers, I could—I could feel the powers.”
“She loves you, Brade.”
He stared past her toward the drapery-shrouded windows, realizing that for some time lights had been flashing and shifting against the pale cloth.
Morian turned to look, then rose and opened the draperies. “Sam’s is crowded, the lane is jammed with cars.”
He got up woodenly and went into the kitchen and began opening cupboards looking for a bottle. “Doesn’t Olive have a damned thing to drink in here?”
“The tool shed door is open, Brade. I know I closed it behind us. It—Brade…come here.”
He couldn’t find a bottle. Where Olive usually kept a fifth of brandy there was only a half pint of seltzer. He went back into the living room and stood beside Morian, who was looking out at the arcing lights swinging across the window as more cars pulled into the lane. He saw that the tool room door stood open. Beyond the door in the lane where cars were parked double, triple, the people getting out were not heading for Sam’s; they were heading for the portal. That was what it was called: the Catswold Portal. The damned door that had lured Alice.
