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People came, and then they went. That was just the way things were.
He had a bed in the corner of a kitchen, once. A ceramic bowl that a smiling woman would empty cans of tuna into. A perch next to a window over a busy street. He could spend an entire afternoon there, swishing his tail at passersby.
A man moved in. For some time, life was good. Another hand to scratch him behind the ears, another warm lap to sleep in. On a good day—if his performance was convincing enough—he could finesse an extra can of tuna.
Even before her belly grew into a comfortable shelf to rest his chin on, he knew something had changed. It was faint, tiny, but still perceptible. He would crawl on top of her, purring loudly enough to drown out all three heartbeats.
The bed in the kitchen (previously an excellent spot to sit and watch the daily goings-on of the home) was moved to a dark corner of the hallway. He tried to sit in the tall chair that had taken its place, but he kept getting shooed away.
“It’s for the baby,” the people would say. He didn’t know what this meant.
The door to the room that housed his favourite window was now shut most of the time. He pawed at the door and yowled to let them know.
“Crookshanks!” This was the sound they made whenever they noticed him. Lately, it came out in hissed whispers and harsh reprimands instead of coos. “Stop it, you’ll wake the baby . ”
The baby was soft, sweet, warm. It felt like something to protect. He would groom her with his rough tongue and curl up in the bassinet, purring against that heartbeat again.
Each time he did, he was inevitably plucked from the basket. “Crookshanks, no!” They would unceremoniously drop him into the hallway and shut the door in his face. He pawed at it, pointedly, until they never opened it for him again.
His next place was dark, loud, and musty. It was full of mice and rats to chase, but difficult to keep on top of grooming through all the muck.
This is where he learned the language of other animals. They would stamp their feet, he would raise his tail. They whinnied, snorted, or clucked, and he would trill back. He spent most of his time curled up in a tall haystack, pricking his ears to take in all the drama of the barn.
A man who wore heavy boots came through the barn twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. The animals of the barn had a lot to say about him, and not much of it was good.
You could always leave. One of the horses dragged its right hoof on the ground and shook its mane.
Leave? He was in the horse’s stall complaining about how the farmer kicked him away instead of scratching behind his ears when he wound himself between his legs. How the mats around his neck were really starting to bother him. How rats weren’t enough to sustain him. How he missed tuna.
Her nostrils flared. Animals leave this barn all the time. Her eyes widened. We never see them again. A subtle twitch of the eyelid. I can’t figure out how to get past the fence. You could fit under it… She was bitter.
He stared back, unblinking.
You could try your luck with the people beyond the moors. I see cats there when I pull the cart into town. People throw scraps at them, they seem fat and happy.
He fell asleep to the horse's snores in her stall that night.
Dawn broke, new sunlight filtering through the gaps in the walls. He leapt through a window in the hayloft, onto the roof of the chicken coop, then a water tank, a feeding trough, and finally the cool ground. He licked a bit of dew from the grass. The shadows cast by the craggy moor started to recede. A light switched on in the house nearby.
He slipped under the fence and started to trot, then run, then gallop. As fast as his bandy legs could take him, he chased the sun as it climbed over the distant hills.
He hadn’t meant to step foot inside the next house. The garden had plenty of safe places to hide, and he was satiated by the plates of food left for him on the stone patio twice a day.
But he was charmed by the woman’s patient voice, softened and slowed with age. Her inviting hand, the irresistible scent of sardine oil. She unbuckled the old collar that hung loose around his neck and held it for a moment, examining the circular brass tag.
“Poor Crookshanks,” she said, absently scratching behind his ears. “You’ve seen better days, haven’t you?”
She gave him a warm bath (that he knew better than to fight against) and clipped the matted hair from his neck and legs. Once he’d dried off, he stretched appreciatively, his front feet lifting off the ground to rub his face against her knee.
Another cat lived there. She was lithe and athletic, chocolate point, two brilliantly blue crossed eyes.
Listen, I’ve been here for a long time, and this is my territory. What I say goes. She told him this in a low growl with her ears flattened, her body low to the ground. He rolled on his back to show her his belly in response.
Twice daily, they ate paté from delicate china plates in the conservatory. Afterwards, they snoozed on the soft green cushions of the wicker sofa, wound together with their faces in each others’ necks.
The white-haired woman who lived here spent most of her days in the garden, walking slowly between rose bushes. She hummed as she worked, while they chased toads and butterflies through the flower beds. They spent each night at the foot of her bed, two rounded pastilles curled up on top of the quilt.
A day came when the plates in the conservatory sat empty all morning, then all afternoon, and even throughout the night. They howled, they scratched at the window, they kicked the plates across the room. Nothing got her attention; nothing roused her from her sleep.
They woke the next morning to shouts, an incessant knocking. At the sound of the door being forcibly unlocked, they hurried to seek shelter, puffy-tailed, under the wicker sofa. They stared at each other—the chocolate point’s eyes so dilated you couldn’t even tell they were crossed—as the intruders entered.
He spent most of his time on top of the tallest owl cages. From here, he could easily survey the animals and people below. The chocolate point—her soft scent, her sleek fur, her bright blue eyes—were starting to fade in his memory. She’d left, in the arms of a beaming young girl, almost as soon as they’d arrived here.
The rat looked like an easy kill. Skinny and with patchy fur, it looked like it had escaped a predator already—but just barely.
It would be too far to make the jump from here—he wiggled his haunches in anticipation, judging his trajectory—but if he landed on that boy’s head first, and then—
So the rat was faster than he gave it credit for. He sat on the counter and licked his paw to distract from the embarrassment of a missed target.
He was used to weary expressions and huffs of displeasure from the store’s patrons. Enough people came through these doors for him to start to understand what that meant.
He wasn’t used to a stare like this one. Wide brown eyes that fixed on his own; a hand that asked for permission. He hadn’t received a message this clear from a human before. I want to know you. He closed his eyes and turned his face into her palm, purring.
Something was wrong with that dog. He knew dogs at the farm; they walked on leashes past the house with the garden. Dogs were simple. You tolerated a thorough sniff; you backed away if they started to growl. You sought shelter once they bared their teeth. Dogs didn’t talk, because dogs didn’t listen—they only answered to their human.
Rats didn’t normally try to bargain with you, either. Maybe the dog, a loner with no human, had a point.
He was more difficult to understand when he was a man. Still, in that messy old room, where everyone was shouting at each other, it was clear he told the truth. It was only right to jump onto his chest, to purr over his heartbeat. He felt like something to protect.
There was the sprawling castle, full of children and magic and ghosts. Lofty windows and damp dungeons. Expansive grounds and a deep forest, where one sniff was enough to make you run back to the castle with a puffed-up tail.
But there was also a quiet terrace house with lots of soft pillows, low lamps, and hushed voices. A rickety old home full of boisterous red-heads and unpredictable little gnomes to chase. A dark Victorian townhome where tension hung thick in the air along with the dust.
It would have been nice to get out of that house, to feel some fresh air. The dog concurred—he said about as much with his back turned, hackles raised, the whites of his eyes showing.
A change of location used to be a cause for alarm. Everything was so different, the smells were foreign and unfamiliar. It took time to settle into a new territory.
It was easier with her—he put up a fight whenever she tried to close him up in that basket, sure—but she was a constant, a steady anchor to whatever counted as home these days. He always felt protected with her, a safe lap to curl up in no matter where they went.
The house had almost emptied out over the past few days, and he used the opportunity to step away from the sofa he spent most of his time hiding under to explore the rest of the home.
It was smaller than the castle, but bigger than the terrace house. Brighter than the townhome. The moors in the distance outside the large windows pawed at the deep recesses of his memory; so did the wicker sofas and the lush garden just off the kitchen.
He was preparing to jump on top of a cabinet full of interesting, breakable-looking trinkets when he heard the door open. The sound of people filing in, so many different rhythms of footsteps. He froze in place, low to the ground, ready to bolt if needed.
A few of the footsteps broke off from the main group and came closer and closer, until two figures appeared in the doorway. One of them was tall, redheaded, drained-looking. The other: thin; bruised; bushy-haired. She squatted down to the ground and rubbed her fingers together.
“Crookshanks! Come here, Crookshanks…” she said. The sound people made whenever they noticed him. It had been so long since he heard it in her voice.
People came, and then they went. That was just the way things were.
No one ever tried to come back.
He stood very still, fixing his gaze at a point just past her, not meeting her eyes. He raised a paw to his mouth and started grooming. It was a gesture that, he thought, came across crystal clear.
Look, it's great you’re back. But I can’t believe you left me for so long.
“I think…” she said, in a defeated kind of voice that he didn’t understand a word of, “I think he’s forgotten me. I think—I think it’s been too long…”
“Look, let’s just figure out our rooms upstairs,” the man said. “Aunt Muriel collects these really creepy dolls, I want a room with as few as possible.” He was the one with the rat all those years ago, the one who scratched him behind the ears when he thought no one was looking. She turned into his shoulder and sighed.
The man looked down at him, questioning.
“He’ll come around. Won’t you, Crookshanks?”
The words were unclear, but the message wasn’t. He swished his tail lazily across the floor and blinked.
There were more people staying in the house than before, but it was quieter than ever. He plodded past the open doors on the second floor until he found the one he was looking for. The lamps were lit dimly. Its occupants were lying on top of the covers, on their backs, their fingertips barely touching. They were speaking very quietly, in low voices.
He trilled a little to announce his arrival, tail held high. They stopped talking, eyes wide.
“Stay still,” she said. “It’s Crookshanks, I think he’s here to say ‘Hi’... Hi Crookshanks, sweetheart …”
He leapt on top of the bed, the weak springs squeaking a little under his weight. She held her hands near her collarbone, wiggling her fingers a little to beckon him, but it wasn’t necessary. He settled on top of her chest, paws on either side of her neck.
He got a better look at her from this close up. Her hair was singed in places, bruises bloomed over her cheek. He could feel her exhaustion, every breath she took a sigh.
Her heart was beating defiantly in her chest, like it couldn’t believe it was still there. In time, he thought, she would be able to figure out how to tell him where she’d gone. He had to believe she had a good reason.
He found her eyes, brown and shining wet, and blinked slowly as he settled in and started to purr. For now, she seemed like something to protect.