Cat Bearing Gifts (26 page)

Authors: Shirley Rousseau Murphy

“They picked Debbie up at home,” Ryan said. “Her prints match those on the store tagsâfrom four upscale village shops, and even two small pieces from Melanie's, and their security's pretty tight.”

“It'll do Debbie good to cool her heels in jail,” Wilma said. “But what about the children?”

“Emmylou has them,” Ryan said. “We took the girls up to her, helped her fix them some supper. Left both girls tucked up in Emmylou's bed, Emmylou making up a bed on the couch for herself. Every time Vinnie opened her mouth to sass her, Emmylou scolded her. By the time we left, the kid wasn't saying a word, she'd crawled into bed and curled up around her pillow, real quiet.”

“They'll be all right with Emmylou,” Wilma said, smiling. Though what the girls' future held, no one could say.

It was after the Damens left, that Wilma returned to the computer to read Dulcie's newest poem, and the lines made her very sad. But one doesn't choose a poem, the poem chooses the writer. Dulcie couldn't help that this one left them both filled with a dark mourning, a strange uneasy balance, tonight, to the sadness of Birely's unfocused life that was now ended, and to their satisfaction that Vic Amson would not torment and hurt anyone else.

A shadow in the somber stillness

Sways serenely.

The river in its roaring race

With the waning, woeful wind

Laughs loudly, luxuriously at the loser.

A mockingbird, moved by the midnight moon,

Trills tender notes

To the shadow standing silently now

Before a ruined barbican and bail

Now dead, decayed

Only the devil left within its fallen ranks.

The shadow sways,

Slumps sadly to the dark and hoary ground.

Nothing left but emptiness.

No bird sings now

No castle stands

Where ran the laughing river.

Dulcie herself didn't know what to make of the poem. It just happened, a shadow of the lost Netherworld. Wilma put out the fire, stifling the cheery gas logs, and they tucked up in bed, Dulcie stretched out quietly on her own pillow. “What will happen to the children now? The law won't let Emmylou keep them, an older woman without a husband. And their aunt won't want them.”

“If the court lets Debbie out on her own recog,” Wilma said, “and then if she gets probation, maybe Emmylou would keep the girls during the day. Debbie will have to get a job, or try to, that will be a condition of her probation.” Stroking Dulcie, Wilma smiled. “Tessa would have a little more love in her life, with Emmylou. And Pan would be there for her, too. Emmylou won't throw him out.”

“Maybe,” Dulcie said, “if Pan has his little girl back where he can be with her, maybe he won't long to travel so far away. He knows Tessa needs him.”

“And Kit needs him,” Wilma said. “What's that sigh about? What are you thinking?”

“Thinking how strange life is. Still thinking about that dark world where Pan wants to go, so different from our worldâand thinking about that long-ago time in
our
world, where Misto once lived, that was so different from today. Two strange and different places,” she said, “but each is only part of something bigger. So many centuries, so many chains of life, and each one unique and different. So much we don't know,” she said, “and in the end, what's it all about?”

“It's about the
wonders
,” Wilma said. “That's what it's about.”

Dulcie looked at her, purring.

“Wonder, and joy,” Wilma said. “No matter where you are in time or place, joy and wonder are what stand between you and the evil of the world. That, and love, are all we have against our own destruction.”

A
ND AWAY IN
the night, in the dark garden, there was wonder, too. Kit and Pan, coming out from beneath the waterfall, sat on a rock away from the mists, licking themselves dry. “Maybe,” Pan said, looking around the garden, “maybe
this
world
is
pretty amazing, maybe what Joe Grey says is true.”

“What does he say, that pedantic tomcat?”

“That the greatest adventure of all is right here in our world,” Pan said, twitching the tip of his tail. “That the biggest thrill of all is to outsmart the bad guys right here, not go chasing off somewhere that's already destroyed and beyond help.” He looked deeply at Kit, his amber eyes gleaming. “Maybe Joe's right that it's more fun to work the system right here, take down the bad guys right here. âHold the fort,' Joe says, âand make our own world better.' ”

“Maybe,” Kit said. “But what if somewhere in the Netherworld, down among those dark caverns, some small portion of those lands did survive undamaged, as Kate thinks might have happened? What if there
is
some small country there that's still strong, some hidden village that managed to escape the dark?”

Pan said nothing. They sat thinking about that. Maybe it was the enchantment of the garden that made everything seem so different tonight, that made them come together in their thoughts, that helped the two resolve their conflict. Sitting close together looking around at the garden and down into Pedric's lighted hospital room watching their human friends, they no longer bristled at each other; they sat thinking about the amazing world around them, and about their roles in it. And when, at last, they returned through the narrow window, their ears were up and they were ready to move on, to trot boldly on into whatever amazements waited, there ahead of them.

About the Author

Author photograph courtesy of the author

In addition to her popular Joe Grey mystery series for adults, for which she has received ten national Cat Writers' Association Awards for best novel of the year, Shirley Rousseau Murphy is a noted children's book author who has received five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards. She and her husband live in Carmel, California, where they serve as full-time household help to two demanding feline ladies.

www.joegrey.com

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A
LSO BY
S
HIRLEY
R
OUSSEAU
M
URPHY

Cat Telling Tales

Cat Coming Home

Cat Striking Back

Cat Playing Cupid

Cat Deck the Halls

Cat Pay the Devil

Cat Breaking Free

Cat Cross Their Graves

Cat Fear No Evil

Cat Seeing Double

Cat Laughing Last

Cat Spitting Mad

Cat to the Dogs

Cat in the Dark

Cat Raise the Dead

Cat Under Fire

Cat on the Edge

The Catsworld Portal

Credits

Cover illustration by Beppe Giacobbe/Morgan Gaynin Inc.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CAT BEARING GIFTS.
Copyright Â© 2012 by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-180694-0

EPub Edition Â© DECEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062200310

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OV/RRD
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