Love is a Troublesome Tail

Love is a Troublesome Tail

Yoshinobu Akita

 

It’s summer now, but let’s begin with winter.

Every story is rooted in fate. Fate links the seasons together in an unending chain. To know what summer means you have to know winter, which requires an understanding of spring, and so on.

As far as winter goes, some cats loathe it so much they would prefer not to mention it.

Yet it’s not so bad. As vexing as the heavy rains and cold can be, the season is not without its small charms. The blanket that warms Miss Margot’s lap while she waits at the bus stop is thick and comfortable. When she’s not using it, that blanket hangs on the wall, above the shelf with the potpourri. Gold Osmanthus and apple and… Oddly enough, I love the scents I can’t identify more than those I can. They serve as a reminder that there is much I do not yet know about the world.

I began entertaining such thoughts during my second life.

The longer one lives, the more complicated one’s perceptions become. You quickly learn there is more to the world than nuzzling at your mother’s soft fur.

Yes, the world is so complex that one must consider each of the seasons.

In spring, people ecstatically welcome the sun’s return. But as the showers fade and the mist thins, the sun outstays its welcome.

In time the winds change, summer arrives, and none speak of those frosty spring days.

Eventually, the sun grows so strong that humans worry about its ultraviolet light. Humans are the only ones concerned with such things. Serves them right for standing on their hind legs and walking around with their heads so high. To make up for this evolutionary mistake, they invented hats. I’m sure that’s why their ears are so small and situated so oddly. Poor things. Why are other creatures so different from cats? I genuinely pity them.

The world was clearly made for us.

Cats live and reign throughout the known universe.

Ulthar is one such place, a human village where cats have lived in harmony for a very long time.

That day, I was asleep at my usual spot on the wall. Every day I would rise with the sun to leave my bed and patrol my territory. By the time I reached the wall, it would have slipped into the shade of a nearby tree. I always passed my mornings there, enjoying the pleasant breeze.

When Margot walked by, she stretched out her aching back and rubbed my head. I didn’t want to hear the popping of her joints or the accompanying grunt of pain, so when I heard her approach I jumped down off the wall. That way she could remain hunched over.

There was nothing to trouble me here. Even the ghastly sight of Mackowick, who had recently taken up jogging, could be easily avoided by shutting one’s eyes. Sadly, evading the odor of his boozy sweat was far more difficult.

The wall was the perfect spot. I could doze off and ­savor that perfection.

What is the one consistent truth of this and every other universe?

All cats know the answer: There is nothing better than being a cat.

“Wait,” I hear you cry. “Cats know about the universe?”

Naturally. We live with humans, so we know what humans know. As long as cats exist, everything belongs to us.

In return, I suppose, for complete ownership of everything, cats are perfectly willing to share their bounty. Well, unless something is tasty; then it’s wholly ours. We also lay claim to soft beds, animals’ twitching tails, and a few other things. Well, several dozens of things. But we’re not greedy. Cats are capable of great generosity.

People should know they are not like cats. They should be mindful of their imperfections, always an advantageous point of view. It’s a state of mind that benefits not only humans but all non-cat creatures as well.

After all, there is nothing better than being a cat, nothing more right than being a cat, and nothing more perfect than cats.

Fools who cannot understand this will roast in the flames of hell. Not that any such fools exist…

“I hate cats! They’re grumpy, creepy, and useless. Dogs are way better.”

…I could have sworn I heard something, but the statement simply made no sense. How could one comprehend the ravings of a simpleton?

So I didn’t heed it. My ears twitched, but not because those words bothered me. They didn’t. I simply felt someone looking at me and looked back. A human boy and girl stood near my sleeping wall by the fork in the road.

I’d seen the girl before; she was one of the village children. I didn’t know her name, but she came from Tika’s house.

Humans all had so little fur that it was difficult to tell them apart, but I still identified this child as Tika’s girl. After all, she held Tika in her arms.

This girl was likely signaling her special position, a human permitted to live with a refined feline like Tika. But the boy was unimpressed by such elevated status and continued his delusional ramblings.

“You can’t tell what cats are thinking! I mean, look at that cat over there! It’s ugly, doesn’t make any noise, and it’s been glaring at us this whole time! Even though it can’t possibly know what we’re saying,” he muttered.

Drop dead.

This thought came to me unbidden, completely out of the blue. An aimless whim, if you will. Naturally, cats paid no heed to the words of mere humans. The difficulty I had in retracting my claws was totally unrelated to the boy’s words.

I didn’t care at all.

I went back to sleep. This was the most comfortable time of day, and I wasn’t about to allow crazy talk to ruin it. I licked my paws a few times, and my claws retracted.

I slept until the wind died down but noticed the faint, odd scent that lingered in my nostrils.

That boy…

His scent wasn’t human.

 

“Hi, Palul. Haven’t seen you at the Cat Place in a while.”

Before we continue, I must explain two pieces of essential, cat-only information.

You may not believe this, but the Cat Place…was a place for cats.

Cats gathered there. It was a protected zone, where cats came together, exchanged information, peered into the depths of the world, and occasionally performed songs and poetry.

There was no set time to meet and often not even a set place. But all cats knew where the Cat Place was. No invitation required, no call sent out; if one wished to attend, one would find it. Such was the law of the universe; simply a fundamental fact of being a cat.

And the other, perhaps more pertinent bit of information is that my name is Palul.

“Hi, Cole,” I said, returning the greeting. Cole was on his fifth life and like a brother to me. We’d been together since I could remember, and had lived our second lives together. I’d reached my third life first, but Cole had entered his fourth before me. And his fifth. I wondered which of us would reach our sixth first. It wasn’t like we arranged these things, but for some reason neither of us had ever left the other far behind.

Cole had been in charge of this Cat Place for some time. There were no strict rules regarding management; he’d just fallen into the role. He was a natural advertiser, perhaps because his flat face resembled a billboard. A fat housecat with dark gray fur that blended into the night, he may have looked sluggish, but he could strike an enemy faster than anyone. Cole was the go-to cat for any important matters.

“Came across something that bothered me,” I told him.

“When?”

“This afternoon.”

Night had fallen. I’d finished my nap, patrolled my territory again, and come straight here.

Cole thoughtfully licked his paw.

“Then we’ve got just the cat to help you out,” he said, pointing at the heart of the Cat Place. “Tonight is Tika’s stage.”

“Before I go over there, what do you think of her?” I asked.

Cole folded his ears and lay down.

“I think I’m too old for her nonsense.”

“I’m looking for an evaluation, not a knee-jerk reaction.”

“Same thing.”

Cole was being very dismissive of Tika, a young cat in the prime of her second life. Certainly, seeing her ensconced in the center of the room, lapping up everyone’s attention, I could understand how Cole felt. I, too, would rather be at home, asleep, my tail tucked cozily around me. However, this afternoon had put me on edge.

“My nose sensed trouble,” I explained.

Cole raised a single ear.

“Well, then that is trouble. Careful, Palul. If you make a fuss, you could start a panic.”

“I met a child today who didn’t smell human,” I said.

He flattened his ears again, snorted once, and muttered, “Not worth the fuss. I know better.”

“You know what?”

“Human scents are unreliable. Even their breath and sweat can lie. They’re born to be deceitful.”

Simple, and very like Cole.

I headed toward the center of the Cat Place.

Cats had gathered in a circle and were getting all worked up rather quickly. Only the younger cats had come here tonight. Ordinarily, cats of good sense dominated the Cat Place, but today, Tika appeared to have thrown rationality out the window.

As I approached the circle, no cats turned to look. I listened in silence.

“He appeared again! The human devil! The devil child!” Tika shrieked, her white fur standing on end, her tail raised. Her eyes were wide and her whiskers quivered as she threw her entire body into the speech. “Take care! If we leave him be, he’ll become a devil! He’ll start killing cats! He’s the devil’s child!”

“Devil! Devil!”

“And to think, after such a creature had finally been vanquished! The king got rid of it!”

“You can try and cast it out, but the devil will never truly be gone!”

The other cats yowled similar things, their ears up, fur on end.

“We’ll be killed! Killed again!” one of them cried.

“More blight! The blight!” said another.

“Blight! The king got rid of it, but it will return!”

Their lashing tails narrowly missed my nose.

The cats screamed so loud it rattled me. I couldn’t quite figure out how to interject. Second-life cats weren’t terribly sophisticated creatures. They tended to cry often, satisfied as long as their voices were loud and heard. At least they were a sight better than the first-lifers, who often forgot what they were even crying about.

“Tika,” I said, but her performance continued un­abated.

“I’m sure of it! I saw him! Right up close!” she cried.

“Tika, come talk to me.”

“That child hates cats! The devil exists! My poor Emma went home crying, poor thing!”

“Tika, I’d like to ask about him.”

“A cat-hater walks in Ulthar! The outsider! The interloper!” they all shouted.

“If we don’t stop him, we’ll be killed! Whoever kills him will be the next king!” she shrieked.

“Tika!” I roared, leaping into the center of the crowd.

After dragging two or three of them to the ground, the young cats let out a series of screams and fled into the darkness. Fur of all colors scattered. I picked out Tika’s back and chased after. Pouncing on her from behind, I pinned her to the ground.

Tika tried to escape, but I put my teeth on her throat. She froze, giving in.

The commotion transformed into silence. Tika shook like a leaf. My teeth still at her throat, I said, “I’m going to let you go. If you run again, I will rip you apart.”

“Okay.”

Slowly, I let her go.

I spat her fur from my mouth and circled Tika. The young cat, thoroughly cowed, didn’t move.

“Palul,” she said, recognizing me at last.

“I want to ask about the boy,” I said.

“I was just talking about him! Just—”

Maybe she meant that as an excuse. Her breathing grew ragged as fear flooded her.

I couldn’t tell if she was afraid of me or recalling how afraid she’d been of the devil child.

“You smelled him?” I asked.

“I did.”

“What did he smell like to you?”

“Nothing. He smelled just like a child.”

“Okay.”

Disappointed, I shook my head and walked away.

I was done here. But before I left, Cole called after me, sounding just as sleepy as before.

“Like I said, you’re overthinking it,” he muttered.

“Can’t be too cautious.”

“Really? After seeing them?” He flicked an ear at Tika.

He had a point, but I didn’t want to admit it.

“I said cautious, not panic-stricken.”

Apparently, Tika decided I’d moved far enough away. She stood up and began giving the same speech again, but her audience had cooled down considerably. The others kept their distance, cleaning their fur or sharpening their nails to alleviate the tension.

Honestly, I wanted to go home, but I’d stopped in to talk. If I went home now, I’d feel as if I’d done nothing to remove the prick from my paw.

“When the king’s away, it’s hard to rein in the chaos,” Cole muttered.

“It is,” I agreed. “With the help of those visitors, the blight is finally gone. Ulthar is free from danger, but our mission is gone, too. The king quells these sorts of disturbances.”

As I spoke, I realized the king’s absence explained the young cats’ skittish behavior tonight.

“Where is the king anyway?” I asked.

The king had left Ulthar a few days ago, but I still wasn’t sure why.

Cole yawned.

“Humans took her to the next town over.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. Maybe there’s a good vet. Something involving her urethra? She’ll be back next week.”

“What about Jasper and Barney? Didn’t she leave anyone in charge?”

“The humans suddenly threw her in a basket and put her in a car. Didn’t have time to make arrangements.”

“And she couldn’t get word out from the vet?”

I sighed.

“Palul, you’re a wise cat,” Cole said. “Clever, even by our standards. Much more so than I.”

“You think so?”

“But don’t go freaking out over a human child. Don’t go diving for prey that may not even be there, like a rat in a well.”

“You’re plenty clever yourself,” I said. And with that, I left the Cat Place behind.

 

It could have ended there.

I could have forgotten my fears and returned to my routine, relaxed but prepared in case something happened. If… If that child did bring the blight back, I would hardly be the first he killed. Humans like that don’t distinguish between cats. They always start with the ones closest to them.

Tika would be first then.

As dawn broke, I could taste her throat in my mouth again. Well, bits of her fur stuck in my teeth made me sneeze at least. For all her show of strength, Tika was still very weak. I remembered how she’d trembled.

Reluctantly, I left my usual patrol to look for the child.

Ulthar was the perfect-sized town, neither too large nor small. I found him quite easily.

Passing through the hedge behind Tika’s house, I jumped over the drainage ditch and into a field. A grasshopper crossed my path along the way, but I wasn’t distracted. After a scant twenty seconds, I stopped playing with it and made my way forward.

Mackowick was out for a jog, dragging his feet so badly I was able to pass him walking at a normal pace. The longer we walked in tandem, the longer I had to smell him. His breath was ripe with the alcohol stuff that humans drank, and Mackowick drank even more than most. I often caught him staggering home from the pub in the middle of the night. He made better progress then, jogging and mostly sober, than he did now.

Finally branching off from Mackowick’s path, I breathed deeply and settled myself. Nearly there. I ran up a crumbling wall around the old bakery.

There, I heard a voice.

“Argh.”

Well, more of a sigh. One that was intended to be heard.

It was the kid from Tika’s house. I jumped onto the bakery roof to listen and crept along until I had a good view above a bay window.

“I’m never going to get a break. Mum said I could go buy this week’s scone. One scone broken into six pieces to last me a week,” she said.

“That’s not much.”

“Mum’s rule, so how can I argue? I get dessert on Sunday, so that’s No Scone Day.”

The girl continued talking while I hid on the roof, watching the two children outside the bakery.

The girl and that boy.

Tika had said the girl went home crying. I guess either she got over it or her mother had scolded her for getting upset over nothing. Either way, she and the boy were together again.

I’d collected stories about the boy. He’d only just arrived in Ulthar the day before, which was why I hadn’t recognized him. He was a distant relative of Tika’s people, and he and his mother were staying with them.

They planned on renting one of the nearby houses. As the grown-ups were busy cleaning out the place, the girl had been ordered to show him around.

The boy was solidly confused by this scone situation.

“So just buy one,” he said to the girl.

At last she got to the root of the problem.

“But if I go without this week, I can upgrade to a chocolate scone next week.”

“Have you ever tried a chocolate scone?”

“No. But I’ve had dreams about them!”

The girl folded her arms and frowned, facing the toughest decision of her life, one that revolved around sweets and the coins in her pocket.

I could see how that was a difficult issue. No matter how much you wanted something, the amount you received might never increase. Much like how I wished for the world to be overrun with infinite mice.

But the boy just stared up at the sky, clearly not at all interested. Then he suddenly tensed.

“What?” The girl asked.

He looked around. “There’s a cat about,” he said.

I pulled my ears out of sight before he could look my way.

Surprising… I hadn’t expected him to notice me.

He was different than the local children. Ulthar humans wouldn’t mind if there was a cat about, there were cats everywhere. This boy was unusual. Wherever he’d come from, it was a place that clearly lacked cats.

When she saw how rattled the boy was, the girl laughed.

“So it’s not that you hate cats, it’s that you’re scared of them?” she said.

“I’m not scared! Cats can’t do anything to me. They’re useless!” he protested. Then he muttered, “Don’t need anything useless in the family. Nothing that can’t help and won’t understand.”

Then he pointed.

“See! There!”

He was pointing at the alley, not me.

A cat sat there, acting oblivious to the boy’s yell. The boy’s expression darkened.

“Black cats are bad luck,” he said.

“It isn’t black. It’s gray,” the girl said.

“But it’s creepy.”

Obviously, I knew the cat they were arguing about: Jasper, a seventh-life cat, and one of the Ulthar old guard. Not the oldest cat around but one of the most respected—aside from the king.

His dark gray fur was always shiny and immaculate. He was as nimble and hard to catch as a shadow. I need not even mention how clever he was.

I hadn’t expected to run into Jasper here, so this took me by surprise. Ignoring the boy’s cries, Jasper approached. I gulped. If that child really was a devil…

If so, he wouldn’t show his true colors that easily. Jasper moved lightly past the boy’s feet, perhaps playing on the superstition about bad luck.

As the child snarled, Jasper passed between the two kids and dove into the brush. Out of sight, he—

“Palul.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Controlling myself, I found Jasper standing behind me. It had been a mere instant since he’d vanished into the brush on the other side of the road; he was frighteningly fast.

“Jasper,” I said, trying to calm my beating heart.

Jasper lay down next to me, rubbing his head. As he washed his face, he said, “Didn’t expect this sort of behavior from you.”

“Has there been gossip?”

“Cole was concerned enough to come see me. Said you weren’t behaving like yourself.”

“I felt sorry for her,” I said.

This wasn’t an excuse, but it certainly came out like one.

Jasper paused licking his foreleg, confused.

“For who?”

The fact he had to ask just proved I really wasn’t acting like myself.

I hung my head, flattening my tail on the roof.

“For Tika,” I whispered. “She’s a weak fool, but I didn’t want to see her killed.”

Jasper chuckled.

“You’re beginning to feel protective? You’re getting old.”

“I don’t know any devils.”

“Mmm?”

I’d lost him again. This really wasn’t like me.

I thought for a moment, trying not to repeat the error. Be like a cat, precise, and ever nimble.

“No cats do. We all know the blight, but none of us actually saw the one who became that blight.”

“Hmm.”

“So we can’t recognize the signs. I can’t just laugh it off as the young cats overreacting. Ulthar’s history is older than any of us.”

“That makes sense. What is it you noticed?”

“A smell. I was far away, so I couldn’t be certain, but…”

“Your nose doesn’t lie,” Jasper said.

“I’m not so sure. Now he just smells like an ordinary child.”

Today, the boy had seemed perfectly normal.

Jasper pondered this a while.

“Right,” he said at last and sprawled out on the roof.

We were side by side. I watched the boy, and Jasper sunbathed.

Was he disappointed in me? Softly, I muttered, “Am I being a fool?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But Cole said I was looking for trouble, and I thought he had a point.”

“Well, if Cole’s right, he’s right. What’s the use in talking about it?” Jasper purred. He opened his eyes and beckoned to me.

Hesitantly, I pressed my paw to Jasper’s fur, then licked it. Jasper rubbed his face against my ear.

“I don’t know a thing about the boy, but I can say a few words about that nose of yours,” Jasper said.

I perked up my ears. “Oh?”

“The boy didn’t change. You did. You’re about ready to start differentiating.”

“Differentiating what?” I asked.

What a cryptic comment.

Jasper explained, “Your sixth life draws near. Pretty soon you’ll be able to sniff out the nature of human hearts.”

I went still.

“Then what I smelled…” The boy’s heart?

“There’s something on that boy you don’t often smell on the village children.”

“I can’t sense it now.”

I slowly lifted my head, looking down at the boy.

The kids had switched topics. The girl was exclusively interested in talking about muffins, so the boy looked extremely bored. His expression alone told me everything. He wondered if muffins were the most interesting topic to be had in this boring place.

Nothing more, nothing less. Boredom did not a devil make.

Jasper rubbed up against me, mussing my fur. “My nose senses nothing off about the boy either,” he said.

“His heart. Human hearts.”

I believed humans had hearts. Even during my first life I’d been vaguely aware of the idea. Humans gave you food if you begged and would help groom your fur. If you cried in front of the door they’d open it. True, even a dumb, automated device could feed you and groom you and open doors, but humans had moods and free will. Sometimes they’d help, and sometimes they’d refuse. They also lied, so they must have had hearts.

Still, that was all conjecture. Believing in such a weird notion was like the faith humans placed in their God.

“What lies within the human heart?” I asked.

Jasper stood up and said, “You may find this surprising, but the human heart is mostly love.”

“Love?”

My tail twitched. I groaned.

“They have no tails, but they know love?”

“Yes. They have no tails, but they know love.”

“But…they have no tails,” I said.

Love is a troublesome tail.

Every cat knew the meaning of those words.

A first-life cat’s closest friend was their tail. Your tail was always with you, following wherever you went.

In your second life, you noticed the truth. What appeared to be an entertaining friend prone to unexpected movements was actually just part of your own body. If you bit it, you’d hurt yourself.

When a cat made this discovery, they often asked the big question: Are we alone in the universe?

Even poor non-cat creatures felt lonely when faced with this question.

Being alone wasn’t isolation. Being the only one who knew what isolation felt like, now that was isolation. Playing with your tail did not help. Even if one acquired good friends, a mate, and adorable kittens worth fussing over, all those loved ones were no different from tails.

All cats knew love was a troublesome tail.

“If you can smell his heart, why do you say you don’t know the boy?” Jasper asked.

I couldn’t understand the question. It wasn’t that I thought Jasper was wrong, but…

Jasper smiled. “Blights are always born of love,” he said.

His smile faded, but the feel of it remained.

“People’s hearts may grow corrupted. Most humans never discover the worst within themselves, but some fall apart and destroy their own lives in the process.”

“Is this because humans lack tails?”

I wasn’t sure if I was joking or not, but Jasper definitely didn’t think it was funny.

“Maybe,” he said, nodding gravely. “With no tails, humans never realize the extent of their isolation. Perhaps that’s the devil’s origin story. But that’s also exactly why humans seek out love. The power to seek becomes the power to know. Knowledge changes them. Even monstrous, inhuman creatures may take a bride and change. Is that love? Corruption? Are these things as different from each other as the ground and the sky?”

“But we, who already know—” I began.

“Most likely never change,” Jasper said, quietly.

I couldn’t tell if he was speaking out of pride or talking to himself.

A thought seemed to occur to him. He added, “Come to think of it, the king calls the humans she possesses her ‘owners.’”

“I’ve heard as much. It seems a strange way of thinking to me.”

“I actually asked her about it. The king said it means we cats don’t need to change. That to be unchanging was all we could do.”

He left me with one last thought: “This roof is hot! Hmm, ‘cat on a hot roof’ sounds like the title of a third-rate play. I’m gonna find some shade.”

He vanished as abruptly as he’d appeared.

I poked my head over the edge of the roof again. While we’d been talking, the children had both disappeared.

I was alone on the hot roof. My troublesome tail twitched on its own, flitting around the edges of my vision.

 

I no longer had a reason to follow the boy.

Worrying about the danger he posed was meaningless. Jasper and Cole had both said as much, and I knew that perfectly well myself.

Yet the next day and the day after that, I left my patrol to search for the boy.

I no longer bothered to hide, instead choosing to lie in plain sight where the boy could see me. The boy always moaned when he noticed me. When he saw other cats, he let out a cry. After two days, he was walking around town on his own. A cat-hating human was all wrong for Ulthar, and humans tended to isolate what they felt was wrong.

I’d never really understood the problem with being left alone. What was so bad about isolation? We were all alone in the universe, but were humans that unhappy unless they formed little groups?

Cats formed groups as well, of course. We congregated to protect one another, to patrol, to help deliver and raise kittens, to serve our king… But no one was ever as close to us as our own tails.

Love?

Love was a curse humans clung to in place of their tails.

Perhaps I just wanted to talk to mine.

No one criticized me for it. Cats never critiqued strange behavior. They either ignored it or joined in.

In time, cats began bringing me rumors of the odd child.

“Apparently, he came here fleeing a curse,” one of them whispered. I watched the boy standing by the creek, ­doing nothing in particular.

“A curse?”

“They were unable to annul a contract with evil blood.”

Hook-tailed Giovanni wasn’t the type to tease other cats.

“If they’re fleeing a curse,” I said, “is this child the sacrifice? The one offered?”

“Maybe so. He seems rather frail. Doubt he could even catch a mouse.”

“That’s true of most humans. No matter how many catches you bring them, they all just scream.”

If human nature was so changeable, you’d think they would learn more easily. Well, that was beside the point.

“You planning to keep up this surveillance?” Giovanni asked.

I neither confirmed nor denied. All I said was, “Well, we see a world that’s invisible to humans. Perhaps they, too, have a world we can’t see.”

Giovanni snorted, a standard cat reaction.

“Humans are simple creatures. They can’t hide anything from cats,” he said.

A yell interrupted him.

“I-I’m sorry!” the boy said.

Mackowick was lying on the ground, breathing heavily. He waved his sweaty arms around and swore.

“You little brat! Where are you even from?!” he snarled.

Apparently, Mackowick had bumped into the boy while jogging. Unsurprising, as the boy seemed pretty out of it.

“I’m sorry, really!” the boy said.

He backed up, looking ready to cry. He seemed nothing like the sullen kid with a grudge against cats.

Looking at him, Giovanni muttered, “Wrong way to handle this.”

“Yep,” I said. Even if you were to blame, you should never apologize to Mackowick. He’d feel free to get even angrier.

“Man’s been alive fifty years without ever running once,” Giovanni said. “Drunk himself half to death and now he’s jogging out of desperation. You know why he suddenly took up running last week?”

“No.”

“He scoffed at fate. Now he’s paying the price.” Gio­vanni wrapped his hooked tail around himself, wearing a spiteful grin. “A long time ago, he had his eye on a single mother. The kid was in the way, so he conspired to send the boy off to military school. It worked out well for him, and he married the woman. Ten years later, that boy’s a big man who’s been trained to kill, and he’s coming home next week.”

I could see why Mackowick would be desperate. His rage was dangerous. Normally he’d yell a bit and be satisfied, but now he’d grabbed the boy and was screaming.

“You’re one creepy little kid! Can’t tell what you’re thinking! I said, where do you live? Can’t you even answer a simple question?” the man shouted.

Maybe we should step in?

Giovanni and I glanced at each other, then a new voice chimed in.

“What are you doing?”

It was Mrs. Mackowick.

She had Tika’s girl with her. They must have heard the yelling.

Mackowick didn’t seem to notice the girl, but when he saw his wife he leapt like…well, like a startled cat.

“What? Why are you—” he started.

“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re yelling so loud the whole village can hear you!”

“B-but this little brat… I’m trying really hard here, and he mocked me for it!”

“Mocked you for what? Embarrassing yourself in front of the whole village? Everyone’s laughing about the crying barrel that rolls through town!”

“Erp…”

This deflated him.

“Fine then! I’ll never run again! To think I married you hoping for comfort in times of struggle! I quit!”

“Thank God! If you got all healthy and outlived me, how would you ever fend for yourself? Don’t make me worry about what’ll happen to you when I’m gone!”

Her husband collapsed in a flood of tears. She dragged him away.

I watched them go and whispered, “Love, huh?”

“What?” Giovanni said, puzzled.

I just shook my head.

It didn’t matter what humans did.

Mackowick and his yelling wife had vanished, but the boy continued sobbing. The girl hesitantly put her arm on his shoulders.

He just sobbed loudly. He didn’t even thank the girl, who’d clearly gone to fetch help. But I didn’t think he was being rude on purpose. He was so shaken he couldn’t even speak.

“Is it usual to cry that much?” Giovanni asked.

I had no way of answering, but I swore I caught that particular scent from the boy again.

 

It took a while for the boy to stop crying. Giovanni yawned five times and left as the sun began setting. The breeze chilled rapidly.

The boy had recovered to the point where he could talk to the girl again.

“Mrs. Mackowick said sorry for everything and gave me a little money for both of us. Now I don’t have to worry. I can buy all the chocolate scones I want and even more plain ones. Oh, it’s so hard to choose. I can’t decide!” she cried out.

She stared down at the rectangular piece of paper in her hand, looking gloomier by the second.

“I guess there’s no such thing as no worries,” she sighed.

“Thank you for staying. I’m fine now,” the boy grumbled.

They walked away together. I didn’t follow them.

Instead, I went back to my usual resting place and slept. The next day, I returned to my patrol. Giovanni and Cole found me sleeping on the wall and asked if I’d gotten bored. I didn’t answer.

“For sure, that crybaby could never be a devil,” Gio­vanni said.

“Crying isn’t the same as weakness,” I argued.

“You know something you’re not sharing with us?” Cole asked.

“No. But I don’t think there’s any need to watch him.”

The king came home the next day. The cats’ fears subsided, and Ulthar was peaceful once more.

The rest of the summer passed without event. The sunlight dimmed, and it became fall. As the season turned, our thoughts switched to winter once again.

I saw the boy around from time to time, generally once a day. He still didn’t like cats, but apparently the girl and her friends had become used to this. The other children accepted his strangeness, possibly thanks to Mackowick. Crying after an encounter with that old man counted as a rite of passage among them.

Mackowick’s stepson had come to town, but not only had he failed to kill his stepfather, he hadn’t even hurt the man. His behavior toward his family was perfect, and after a brief stay he went back to the city. I suppose his future was promising, and Ulthar was all in the past.

Mackowick kept his word and never went jogging again. He’d also begun drinking less.

That was all of Ulthar’s worthwhile news. I could discuss how Tika’s girl used up the extra money inside of a week and got a scolding from her parents, but it’s not terribly interesting.

Then, as the nights grew longer, the unsettling thing I’d been waiting for arrived.

It was no devil, but something every bit as horrifying came racing into Ulthar.

 

That particular evening, I was in the boy’s house.

Well, in a tree behind the house. I’d heard a violent racket, like a landside, from some distance away. Approaching, I saw light slicing through the darkness.

It was a car, driving at speeds rarely seen in Ulthar.

The stone-paved streets clearly didn’t make for the smoothest of rides. The house’s back door opened, and the boy came running out. He didn’t appear surprised by the racket; he actually seemed to be expecting this. I’d heard him answer the phone a few days before, while his mother was out. The boy had spoken to a man on the other end of the line, discussing a time to meet. This was that time.

The boy wore a sweater far too heavy for the season—likely these were travel clothes. If he’d anticipated their journey, he was probably pretty bright for a human.

Or maybe the man in the car had told him what to wear.

The car tore through the streets of Ulthar. Its flashy red color really drew the eye. The car had no roof, which made no sense to me. It looked nothing like any of the cars I was used to seeing in this town. Some people apparently owned cars designed for pleasure, not practicality. They were the types of cars only people with covered garages (a favorite cat hiding place) could have. The types of cars wealthy people owned.

But this car wasn’t shiny, like most rich people’s possessions. It was dented all over and rather dirty. Had the driver been careless and left it outside? Several large bags waited in the back seat, but I was most concerned by the man behind the wheel. Wealthy people never looked as desperate as he did.

This was the face of a man running from something, yet no one was chasing him. Or perhaps only he could see his pursuers. I thought the latter option seemed fairly likely.

The car stopped behind the house where the boy waited. The moment he saw the man in the car, he yelled, “Dad!”

The man didn’t answer. He opened the passenger side door, beckoning to the boy.

The mother realized something was wrong; I could hear her calling the boy’s name from inside, but she was too late. The boy got in the car, and the man drove off.

The car tore out of Ulthar. It roared along a winding mountain road, one that would take them far away.

When the car had stopped at the boy’s house, I’d jumped down between the bags in the backseat. I’d landed upside down but had managed to quickly right myself. Fortunately, neither the man nor the boy had noticed.

“Dad! Dad! You came!” the boy said, excited.

The man nodded, pretty worked up. “Yeah! I came. I really did.”

“I-I’ve been waiting. I knew! You aren’t drinking! You can drive and everything!”

“That’s right. Don’t worry. I said it would be fine.”

“I didn’t tell Mum. I knew she’d never believe, but if this goes well we can go back and convince her!”

“You can’t trust her!” the man said.

The car bucked, and not because of the bumpy road. The man punched the steering wheel.

“They… They’re all out to get me! They locked me up! No way to treat a man… I’m not letting the same thing happen to you!”

“But Dad—”

“Shut up! This is for your own good!”

He backhanded the boy across the face.

In a car this loud, it was amazing how silent everything could become.

I could clearly smell that particular scent coming from the boy.

“Dad… You aren’t better, are you? Did you run away from the hospital?”

The man didn’t bother answering. The boy clutched his arm.

“Dad. Dad! You can’t do that. Mum said you were going to get better!”

“Shut up,” he growled, glaring at the boy.

I was watching this conversation in the car’s mirror. That little surface couldn’t reflect the whole of the man’s face, but I could read his every expression.

“I told you not to trust that bitch!” the man barked.

“You shouldn’t talk about Mum like that…”

“Why can’t you understand?”

“I wanna go home! Can we go back?”

The kid twisted away, but the car was going very fast. He could jump out if he wanted, but he’d almost certainly die.

So the man didn’t try to grab him. He snorted, hands shaking.

But then the boy said something that changed everything.

“If you run from everything bad, there’ll be nowhere left to go.”

The man gasped.

“So let’s go back. Come on,” the boy said.

At the boy’s plea, the man let out a long sigh.

And then he muttered, “Are you really my kid? Are you?”

“Dad?”

“It’s not some sort of trick? She lied to me a lot. Maybe you’re a lie, too. Get better? There’s nothing wrong with me. Everyone lies to me! That woman, you, the doctors, the cops—”

That particular smell surrounded this man, too.

There is one universal truth: Nothing is better than being a cat.

All cats believe that to be true.

Humans didn’t think like that. They lived precarious lives, shielding their delicate hearts. Often, they grew too feeble to do even that.

I could smell this man’s heart breaking.

In the back seat, I moved on top of the bags and waited for my moment.

I was probably going to die. I wasn’t sure this was worth sacrificing my life. I wasn’t the king. I had no way of knowing what a meaningful death was.

But I was a cat. I ruled over anything weaker than me. And in my domain, I wouldn’t allow that intolerable odor of pain.

The road twisted like a snake. The car slowed. I waited for it to make a big turn to the right, then jumped from the back seat and landed on the man’s head.

No matter how fast the man reacted, to my cat’s instincts he was slow as an inchworm. I jabbed my claws in the man’s eye. The car turned over onto its side, and I was thrown out.

I don’t know what happened after that. My body hit something, or something hit my body. A deep, deep darkness enveloped me.

 

When winter came to Ulthar, I rolled over on Miss Margot’s knees, spending my afternoon telling her where to pet me. She was moving about less than she had a year ago, but the blanket on her knees still smelled good, and she talked ad nauseum. Today she was telling me all about her great-grandchildren.

“Yes, just like that! The whole time, talking about things I couldn’t follow in the slightest. But that’s fine. Instead of buying toys I don’t know, it’s so much easier to give them money. It makes them so happy.”

Miss Margot knew life was full of things one understood and things one did not. For a human, she wasn’t a bad conversationalist.

Then Margot suddenly jumped, though not enough to knock me off her lap.

I looked down and saw a ball at her feet. One of the children playing in the vacant lot had missed a throw. Margot picked it up, and one of the children came over to get it.

“Sorry, ma’am.”

“Be careful, now. Don’t throw it in the road. The bus goes by here,” she said.

“I know.”

It was that boy.

The girl came running up behind him. She seemed more interested in petting me than in the ball. I allowed her to rub my belly.

As they went back to their friends, I heard them talking.

“That cat’s all better now,” the girl said.

“Looks like. Forgot all about his injuries, the lazy thing.”

“You brought him back, Matthew?”

“I found him lying by the road after the accident,” the boy said.

“I thought you hated cats.”

The boy stopped and looked back at me.

He thought about it for a moment.

“I do hate cats. But cats are everywhere here. I can’t run away from them all, and I don’t want to.”

I didn’t really get it. Maybe that boy had grown a tail.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t died. I still wasn’t on my sixth.

My nose hadn’t changed, so I wasn’t sure if that heartache smell had really gone away.

Neither Ulthar nor the universe had changed.

But there was no hurry. No matter how fast you ran, your troublesome tail would follow.

That was good. So I napped in my familiar spot and enjoyed my time in Ulthar to the fullest.

 

The End