The Black Cats (16 page)

“DOCTOR LEABOURNE,” SISSY
ASKED, “what do you think of Sassafras tea?”

In the
days following the discovery of Mrs. Arnold’s body, Eddy invited Dr. Leabourne to
Poe House. The physician visited often, and though he could not cure Sissy, his
presence always seemed to give the family hope—in my estimation, the
strongest medicine. Late this afternoon, he and I sat on the edge of Sissy’s
bed, examining our patient, who reclined against her pillows.

“Sassafras
tea?” he asked. Robust of frame and nature, Dr. Leabourne was the catch of the
litter. I had never seen a more angular jaw, a fuller head of wheat-colored hair.
But he was no Eddy. “Do you mean taken as a tonic?” He took her wrist and
placed his fingers over her veins. I did not know what covering them would do
but noted it anyway.

“Yes,
do you have any faith in it? I thought it might help my ailment.”

“Sassafras
is a blood tonic.” He released her wrist and felt her forehead, a more familiar
procedure. “It will do nothing for consumption, I’m afraid.” He withdrew his
touch and reached for his black bag. “If you like the taste, you may have it as
a refresher. But I caution you. It has poisonous effects.”

Sissy
sat forward. “Poisonous? How so?”

“It’s
very damaging to the organs, especially if they’re weak to start. If taken for
too long a period, it causes sweating, nausea, even hallucination.”

“Can it
kill a person?”

Dr.
Leabourne snapped his bag closed. “In large doses? Most certainly.” He rose
from the bed. “You are as well as can be expected, considering the fright you
had. Get plenty of good food, plenty of fresh air, and stay—”

“I
know, stay home and rest.” She flopped back against the pillows. “That may comfort
the body, but it positively shrivels the mind.”

“Feel
better, Mrs. Poe. Feel better.” Then he left, as he usually did, to speak Muddy
and Eddy in the parlor and give them his
diagnosis
.
In truth, I had already made my assessment. But I much preferred the doctor’s optimism.

Sissy
pulled me onto her lap. “Cattarina? Did you hear the doctor? He said sassafras
causes hallucinations. Even death.”

Death
. Her glee did not match
the topic. Perhaps the doctor had left too soon.

“Do you
know what this means? Tabitha Arnold didn’t want to fell the sassafras tree. She
wanted its bark for tea. Don’t you see?” She held me up and looked into my
eyes. “Mrs. Arnold wanted to kill Mr. Arnold, and who could blame her? The
debt, the drinking, the violence. Liquor had already weakened his liver, and
the sassafras doomed it.” Her eyes twinkled. “
This
must have caused the delusions that led to his murderous
actions, not the trips to the tavern. Oh, I am so astute!” She hugged me tight.
“We make a grand team, don’t we, girl?”

When I
wiggled, she released me and left the bed to tidy her hair in the mirror over
the dresser. “I give this secret to you and you alone, Cattarina. We must
never,
ever
tell Eddy that any means
other than the bottle moved Mr. Arnold to violence.” She slid another pin into
her bun. “I have my reasons. And besides, it won’t make a bit of difference to
Mr. Arnold since he will live out the remainder of his days in an asylum. And I
do mean days.” She finished by giving the back of her head a partial look in
the glass.

We
arrived downstairs to find Dr. Leabourne at the door. Eddy tried to press a few
coins into his hand, but the good doctor refused and took a handshake instead. Once
we were alone, Muddy revived us with a suggestion. “Who would like an early supper?
If you don’t expect fixins, you can have it now.”

Supper
? Yes, I would take
piece of chicken skin, dear Muddy. I’d already smelled it from upstairs.

“For
once, I have an appetite,” Sissy said. “Let’s eat.”

“That
is no wonder,” Eddy said, guiding his wife by the small of her back. “Dr.
Leabourne says you are in good health.” He ushered her into the kitchen, along
with the rest of us, and sat her at the table. “And to celebrate, I’d like to present
my story, ‘The Black Cat.’”

“You
finished it?” Sissy asked.

“I will
leave that to your conclusion, wife.” He produced a scroll from inside his coat.
“You broke my heart after the first draft. See if this one is to your liking.”
He handed the curled page to her.

The
story had taken but an instant to finish after the horror in the Arnolds’
cellar. That very night, once Sissy and Muddy had been put to bed, he and I
worked at shaping the letters, staying up until dawn to finish them. My crime
solving had yet again inspired him to write. As his muse, this thrilled me
since I had begun to feel my importance slipping as of late, at least with
regard to his work. The document stayed on his desk another day while he
considered it. I likened it to a pie on a windowsill. He must have thought it
cool enough to bring down this morning.

Muddy stoked
the cook stove with a piece of kindling. “Read the story aloud, Virginia.”

Once Eddy
took his seat, Sissy unrolled the paper, her fingers shaking, and recited his
words: “‘One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy, my
attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of
one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief
furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this
hogshead
for some minutes, and what
now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object
thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat—a
very large one—fully as large as
Pluto
,
and closely resembling him in every respect but one.
Pluto
had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this
cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the
whole region of the breast.’”

Muddy floured
and fried the chicken while her daughter read, nodding at parts of the story. When
the old woman turned her back, Eddy took down a tin of jerky from the pantry
and fed me a piece. And then another. I came back again, but he waved me away. So
I settled next to his feet and contented myself with the sound of Sissy’s voice.
I realized now that Eddy could not live without either one of us. To thrive, a
writer must have a muse to bring the story and an audience to appreciate it.
Sissy and I were not exactly a team. But to quote Ariscatle, “Our whole was
greater than the sum of our parts.” Constable Harkness would have to agree.
We’d helped him, too.

“Oh, Eddy,”
Sissy said at the end, “this is a marvelous eulogy.” She handed the scroll back
to him, and he replaced it in his jacket.

“So you
like it?” Eddy asked.

“How
could I not?” she said.

“I
liked it, too,” Muddy said. “Even if it parts from the truth here and there.”

“Some
of the circumstances have been changed to protect the innocent,” he said. He
reached down and patted the top of my head.

“Mother?
Can you give us a minute?” Sissy asked. “I need to talk to Eddy, alone.”

“Watch
the stove,” Muddy said before leaving. “I don’t want it to get too hot.”

After a
quiet period, Sissy spoke. “Your writing had more depth than usual.”

“It
did?” Eddy’s shoes shifted beneath the table. The elation in his voice
heartened me. “I simply paid the black cat the kindness he deserved—”

“That’s
not what I meant,” she said. “Mother may not have heard it between the lines,
but I did. How the main character’s drunkenness led to the ruination of his
sanity? And took away his wife?”

Eddy
did not answer.

“I will
always be with you, Edgar, in life and in death. Do not fear. But our kingdom by
the sea needs a strong ruler. Will you try again? For me?”

“Yes,
Virginia, of course.”

A light
scratch at the kitchen door stirred me. I hopped on the sideboard and peeked
through the window. Midnight sat at the backdoor, waiting for it to open. I
looked to Eddy and Sissy, still in the midst of their talk. Though from her
smile, it had turned to lighter subjects.

“I’ve
been wanting to tell you for weeks, Sissy, but we’ve been so busy,” Eddy said.
“I heard from William again about the collection.
The Prose Romances of Edgar Allan Poe
will soon be for sale. I am the
luckiest man alive!”

When
they embraced, I jumped down to visit with my pal, causing the tom to leap with
fright. “I only meant to startle you, not set your heart afire,” I said to him.

“It’s just
been a few days since my Tabitha’s death, and my nerves are still mending,” he
said. He stared back at me with both eyes. “My infection is mending, too. Mr.
Eakins applies a cream every morning and every evening. But I can open the lid
now.”

“Cats
are his business, you know.” I sat near the nail head that once vexed Eddy.
Muddy had knocked it flat with a rock and a curse in recent days. “Do you mean
to stay with the old man?”

“That’s
one of the reasons for my visit.”

“We are
the others!” Silas said, skirting the corner with his brother. His fur shook as
he trotted. “Greetings, Cattarina! We found a new escape hole in the cellar!”

“You
are looking well,” Samuel said to me.

“I am
resplendent with victory,” I said. “I trust you heard our haunt was
successful?”

“All of
Spring Garden has heard!” Silas said.

“Join
us?” Midnight asked.

Eddy
and Sissy would not miss me if I returned by moonrise. I followed the toms to the
now-familiar courtyard on Franklin. Near the base of the sassafras tree, George
and Margaret waited next to a coiled snake of sausage links. “Hello,
Cattarina!” they said in unison.

“How
marvelous!” I said. “Where did the meat come from?”

“You
may be the Huntress of Spring Garden,” Midnight said, “but I am the Thief of
Rittenhouse.”

And so
he was. He would steal part of my heart this night, the part I considered feral
and free and utterly feline, and he would never return it. We tore apart the
links and ate them by the tree that started it all, honoring Snip with our
camaraderie. Mr. Fitzgerald’s shop was closed this time of day, and Mr.
Arnold’s shop stood vacant and boarded. Aside from the lamplighter working his
way along Franklin, we had our privacy.

When
we’d finished our repast, my pals offered their goodbyes, along with assurances
of future meetings. While our friendship had just begun, I could not say the
same of Midnight. He and I stayed behind, nestled among the roots of the tree.
“Thank you for the gift,” I said to him.

“The
sausage? It was nothing.”

“No,
the gift of memory. I love this tree, and I will be glad to think of pleasanter
things when I pass it. There are so few scaling trees left in this part of
Philadelphia. It’s all in the bark, you know. If it’s too smooth—”

“Cattarina,
I’m leaving.”

Twilight
settled into the courtyard, blending with the tree’s shadow until they became
one. “Yes, I know,” I said at last. “When Sissy took you to Mr. Eakins’s house,
I predicted the outcome. Will you be very far away?”

“I will
be with a family on a wagon. From the way it’s packed, I think they mean to
travel a great distance. They need a mouser for the journey, you see. I put
that much together. Though I still don’t know what a
Missouri
is.”

“
Mizzzzouri
. The word that tickles my
tongue,” I said. “Are you pleased with your family?”

He
stood and arched his back, giving it a stretch, then walked into the open.
“Very pleased. My new companions are a young man about Sissy’s age and his
wife—Ben and Aggie.”

“Any
children?” I followed him and brushed along his side.

“No.
But I expect that will change. By then, I will be king mouser and will have
earned a good place in their home.” His pupils grew very large. “Think of it,
Cattarina, I will have a job. A purpose.”

“All
cats should be so fortunate,” I said.

“Come
with me?” When I did not answer, he licked my cheek. “Then I’ll visit you one
day.”

“Or I
will find you.”

We were
both terrible liars.

Once he
left, I climbed the tree and watched the black cat,
my
black cat, vanish between the darkened buildings of Green Street.
I would miss him, but I could not leave Eddy, for my companion held the other
part of my heart, the part that was constant and pure and completely devoted. From
here, Poe House was no bigger than Sissy’s red trinket box, so fragile and
small. Oh, how I longed to protect that little dwelling and keep its occupants safe
and merry, if not for all time, then for as long as possible.

And I
did until fall, the season of the raven.