Shadow and I heard Angel make a noise.
He had snapped out of his fear or fugue.
He had drug something along with him.
Something not as big as him but a thing he could not carry
easily.
"I have found a thing. You might want to see it. I have seen it and
am not sure I want to see it again." Angel said.
Pulling it out of the hollyhock stalks into the silver light
The thing was square, thin and made crackling sounds
as he drug it. A people animal paper thing I think it was.
Why would he pick it up? It did not look like something to eat.
It had no smell to make it attractive in that way. Hmmm. Shadow
was dubious about it. She did not step forward to examine it.
I wanted to. Finally she said "Bring it here Angel.
Lets see what you have found."
He did this. He placed it in front of us. More in front of Shadow than us.
Angel was afraid of Shadow. At least nervous around her. I did not blame him
this fear. Shadow was predictable only in her unpredictableness.
The thing was wrapped in red crinkly paper on one side. Torn a little.
It WAS a people animal thing. And now Shadow and I could smell it.
A strange smell. A bad smell. Like something burning or burnt.
With an under smell of too much people animal thingness.
This was never good.
Shadow got up and walked around the thing as it lay before us.
She began to tease at it with her right paw. Driven both by curiousity and
her infinite right to know what it was. I watched no less curious but somehow
more cautious. The red paper appeared creased and folded like some secret
thing. It told us little more than this. Soon Shadow flipped it over.
Our three pairs of eyes opened wider to at the surprise of what we saw.
Angel made a "pfffttting" noise with his mouth and took off immediately as if a hell
hound had jumped at him. I could not move or take my eyes off of it.
But not from fear. But from a shock that not only took my breath away but made
a sound in my head like the snapping of one of those evil metal things the humans
hid in the grasses to catch animals with. What was I seeing?
Shadow sat back down now. And she did not move except for her green gold eyes.
She slid them back and forth sideways as if to check to see if something might sneak up on us.
Then she looked back down at the image on the thing on the ground.
It was a black cat. But a black cat unlike any I had ever seen.
Terrible. Powerful. Devilish. Sort of like my sister but much more than her.
A cat with a face beyond any cat we can know of. Black. Its mouth open wide and very red.
White fangs ready for the kill. Its yellow eyes burned through mine. What was it?
Who was this cat?
But much more was the question:what is a most terrible face of such a
cat doing on a people animal thing?
Some terrible cat under the power of the peoples?
What darkness was this?
NEXT: MEOW I SAY
-Jeff Falk
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