The frog bounded from the table onto the ginger cat’s back. Tab crumpled under the weight and velocity of frog’s leap and let out a pained scream. The frog opened its mouth and bit the cat, tearing at its ears and savaging its face. Tab didn’t fight any more, or scream, or make any more noise. She just shrank under the frog, which seemed to be growing on top of her.
“The damned thing is going to kill Tab!”
“Don’t curse,” Gisele said. “Tab knew it. She told me today.”
“The cat told you a wooden frog was going to kill her?”
The frog leaped away, bigger, leaving Tab lying splayed face and, belly down on the woodpile. Carly froze at the dark slash of blood that soaked the back of Tab’s neck. Gisele dropped her hand from Carly’s arm. “No. She simply said it was her day to die.”
“She is dead. She’s dead!” Carly walked over to the still form. Blood had pooled under the cat’s head and stained the wood blackish red. She touched the cat with a finger, and it moved like a lump of clay might move, or any other dead thing.
Carly felt dizzy. Did the cat die for her? Gisele talked to animals, and even Carly did, a little, to the horses and dogs and goats she usually painted. So the cat had
known it was going to die and told Gisele. She believed it. Maybe. Bloodsucking frogs and dead cats who lay down on woodpiles to die. She’d been coming here and painting animals alive for three summers now, and even so she barely believed in the High Hills when she wasn’t here. The anger had all left her with Tab’s death. Even though all the cat had done in the last year she’d been living here was sleep, and even though Carly had only seen her maybe ten times, the old cat had become part of her haven here. She’d liked it. Carly half-expected Tab to turn into wood, except all the magic she and Gisele made was small and Tab was, had been, full sized.
A soft indrawn breath drew Carly far enough outside of herself to look over at Gisele. A single tear ran down the old woman’s cheek and splashed onto her cloak. Gisele was hard on her sometimes, like today, and she was sad. Incomparably sad. But Gisele wasn’t her mom, and didn’t drink, and didn’t run away, and didn’t lie to her. Carly pulled Gisele into her, ignoring the dead cat and the murderous frog. “Is it Tab? Why are you crying?”
Gisele shook her head, and another tear slid down her cheek.
“I’ll help you bury Tab,” Carly whispered to the old woman. She’d hardly been nice to anyone today, not herself, not her mom, not Gisele, and maybe—maybe she’d killed the cat. Remotely. If she hadn’t painted the frog when she was so mad . . . Oh damn. Her own eyes started leaking warm, salty tears down her cheeks. “I’ll go find a shovel.”
Gisele pulled a little away from Carly. “Don’t open the door.”
Carly blinked at her.
“The frog will get out.”
Oh.
Gisele started crying harder, papery sobs like her papery skin.
What was Carly supposed to do? “If it’s not Tab, then why are you crying?”
Gisele turned away and looked around her workshop. “Surely I have a box around here somewhere. I’ll put Tab in that until you catch the frog.”
Now the old woman sounded like Carly herself, avoiding a question. Carly tried to use her command voice, the one she used with her mom when her mom was drunk. “Tell me why you’re crying.”
Gisele sank down to sit on a large block of wood that waited to be broken up to become carving blocks. In spite of the rain, dusty light from the high window gave a brighter cast to her old gray skin, made her look almost transparent. “My boy.”
Carly knew the story but only because Jack had told her. Gisele had never said anything.
“You’re like my own boy, who went through the magic gate and went away. He used to have your strength, and there was one day he did what you did. A friend of his—Steven—beat him up over something the way boys do when they’re twelve—I never found out what for, but Jory came home one day with a black eye and a bruise on his cheekbone and so much anger I didn’t recognize him. He came out here without me—which he wasn’t supposed to do—and he painted a poison snake.” She paused. “He put it in Steven’s house.”
“Did the snake kill his friend?”
The old woman’s shoulders started shaking, and Carly knelt down in front of her, so she looked up at Gisele, and took her hands. Gisele gave a little bit of a half smile. Her tone softened. “I’ve not been a good
teacher. I should have taught you about your dark side and what you could do. At least told you. But you were always so happy to be here.”
“I thought it was a dream to be here. A good dream. It makes me happy.”
Gisele wiped at her cheeks and looked quietly at Carly.
“What happened? What did the snake do?”
“It killed Steven’s baby sister.”
“How awful.” Carly checked to make sure the frog was where she’d last seen it. It was. “So you knew it could kill Tab,” she whispered.
“You needed to know it, too.” Gisele answered. “Maybe now you’ll have the strength to kill it.”
Carly shivered. She didn’t want to kill anything. She didn’t even kill spiders at home; she put them outside. “No.”
Gisele looked away from her as if Carly’d slapped her.
Carly clutched the old woman’s hands harder. “I won’t kill it. Not here. But I’ll catch it and take it back. It will just be wood there, and it will have teeth, and it will stay black, and it’ll remind me not to get so mad.” And she’d take back the twenty and buy her mom a lemonade for the heat, which would just be slipping into a warm night.
Gisele turned her gaze back to her, blinking at her, as if trying to decide what she thought of what Carly’d just said. She glanced at the frog and back at Carly, and at Tab’s still form and back at Carly. One more tear, just one, rolled down her cheek and she sniffed. “Okay.”
“You miss your son, don’t you?”
Gisele didn’t hesitate. “More than I can express. But there’s no point in hanging onto things you can’t change. You have to get on with life.”
“Yeah.” Maybe looking at the frog would give her
enough strength to tell her mom that if she didn’t stop, Carly was going to find another job and start saving money. And maybe this time Carly would do it even though her mom wouldn’t stop. Or maybe she’d leave school and her mom, and come back here and ask Gisele to take her for the winter as a full time apprentice. Whatever, she’d better make some decisions before the gate wouldn’t open for her at all any more.
She sighed.
It was going to take strength to catch the frog. “Do you have anything to eat?”
Gisele smiled. “I have some cheese and an apple in my drawer.” She hobbled round to the front of her desk and used her carving knife to cut the apple in two. She handed half to Carly, along with half the cheese. Carly chewed on the cheese and watched her black mood, contemplating how to catch it.
Three hours later, the summer storm had finished blowing through, and the long-beamed afternoon sun poked in the window, burnishing a few pennies and a pile of wood nearly gold and throwing long shadows across the workshop and burnishing some items gold. Gisele had carved two matching fish and was starting to expose the tall fin of a third, so focused she hardly seemed to be in the room at all. At this stage, even her knife was fairly quick, just a low snick, snick, break, snick.
Tab waited patiently in a box.
Carly sat back in her chair, the desk in front of her neat and tidy, her paints put away for the day. She glowered at the frog.
The frog sat on a windowsill, more catlike than amphibian, and watched her back.
Carly’s stomach was empty again, and she’d banged her elbow—twice—trying to catch the frog. She’d found
an old towel that used to be white, and now it trailed out of her hand and across the floor beside her.
The frog was faster than her. Nastier. It was teasing her, Whenever she got near, it got away; then it sat and waited for her to get near again. It was ugly. Why the heck had she painted the thing ugly? And how ridiculous was it to be sitting in a world that might be imaginary chasing a big black frog she’d painted to life around a little crowded room? She was even effectively trapped in here by the frog.
She giggled.
And her giggle turned up into a full laugh.
Gisele glanced up and raised an eyebrow at her.
If only her friends, or even her mom, could see her now. Even putting her hand over her mouth so the towel draped down like a bib didn’t stop her laughing. It made her laugh harder.
The frog jumped down on the desk in front of Carly.
She threw the towel over it.
Frog and towel jumped up off the table at her.
She gave a little scream and caught the bundle up. She made sure she had all of the edges of the towel.
The frog struggled.
Carly grinned.
Gisele looked over at her and winked. “I thought you were going to take all day to figure out how to catch that frog,” she said dryly.
It took Carly a second to get it. “Laughter! It breaks a bad mood any time.”
“Best go home now,” Gisele said.
Carly glanced at Tab’s box. “I need to—”
“Go home,” Gisele interrupted her. “I’ll deal with Tab after I finish this fish. I told Tom Jenson he’d maybe have to help me with that this morning anyway.”
Carly tied up the edges of the occasionally squirming bundle of towel and frog with twine, making sure some air could get in, and that the knots wouldn’t come undone. She kissed Gisele’s rough, wrinkly cheek and whispered, “Thanks. I’ll be back.”
“I know.”
Carly carried the frog carefully, both so she wouldn’t hurt it and so it wouldn’t bite her. As soon as they passed through into the noisy, bright early evening, the frog stopped kicking. She peeled off the towel and grinned. The long-toothed frog had been caught with a truly evil look in its eyes, the kind that would remind her how being angry was filled with unintended consequences. But it was also a little funny-looking with its long teeth, to remind her to laugh at the look in its eyes. At herself.
Their booth was nearly empty. Just her mom, sitting in the chair by the cashbox, frowning. A quick look convinced Carly she’d only sold a few things; a good day left the shelves half bare until they brought in stock. Her mom looked up as Carly came in. “What’s that?”
“A frog. I made it.” Carly opened her hands so her mom could get a good look.
“That’s . . . a. . . .”
“Ugly,” Carly finished for her.
“A little. Except it looks so real.”
Carly nodded. “I had help.” Maybe her mom would ask where she learned how to carve frogs, or anything else for that matter.
Her mom didn’t. She just shrugged. “Some days, my pottery doesn’t come out right either.”
“Sorry I was gone so long.”
Her mom stood up and started prowling around the booth quietly. She was smiling at Carly, but her tone of
voice had that little edge that meant she was missing alcohol. “I was getting worried about you.”
“I know, I didn’t mean to be gone so long.”
“Look, I’m hungry. I’ll go get us food, okay?”
And herself a drink. She’d just gotten back. They hadn’t spent five minutes together, and if she left she wouldn’t be back for half an hour. Or more. And she’d be half drunk when she got back. A sharp edge on the wooden frog dug into Carly’s palm as her fist tightened, and she let it go and let out a long breath. “I’ll go with you.”
“I can do it.”
Carly grabbed the cashbox. “It’s not that busy tonight. We can be back in a few minutes.”
“But—”
Carly shook her head. “No drinks. Not yet. I want your advice.”
Her mom’s eyes widened. “About?”
“I’ll tell you on the way.” Maybe about where she should look for a job this summer. Or about whether or not Carly should go live in the women’s shelter sometime. Or just about anything. She couldn’t keep her mom from drinking, except maybe for the next hour. But she could stop being mad at her and start planning on a future. Surely her mom knew she was going to grow up sometime. Or maybe not. But she could show her. She set the “Pay at the next booth” sign in the window and took her mom’s arm. As she led them toward the food booths, Carly smiled.
NINJA RATS ON HARLEYS
By Elizabeth A. Vaughan
Elizabeth A. Vaughan is the author of
The Chronicles of the Warlands
and
Dagger-Star.
She still believes that the only good movies are the ones with gratuitous swords or lasers. Not to mention dragons. At the present, she is owned by two incredibly spoiled cats and lives in the Northwest Territory, on the outskirts of the Black Swamp, along Mad Anthony’s Trail on the banks of the Maumee River.
I
t was a dark and stormy night.
Well it was, damn it. The cold air slapped me in the face as the glass doors of the ER waiting area slid open. Any warmth my tattered bathrobe held was gone in an instant as the wind wrapped around me. The rain had stopped for now, but the entire parking lot gleamed under the lights, as did the ambulances, their flashing lights reflecting off the puddles and my van.
My bloodstained slippers were soaked as I slapped across the parking lot. I cradled my purse and those damned discharge instructions as I fumbled for my keys.
I opened the passenger side door, set the purse carefully on the seat, and then slammed that sucker shut with all my strength.
I was pissed, and who could blame me?
Nothing like being attacked in your own home by a hideous, stinky white possum and his ninja hench-rats at an ungodly hour of the morning. We’d fought them off, Wan and I, with naught but our bare hands and a bottle of toilet cleaner.
Well, okay, Wan had a sword. And he killed most of them. But I’d done my fair share, although it was my own blood on my slippers.
Wan is a mouse. An ancient Chinese mouse, as far as I can figure. He hasn’t been very forthcoming. He’s been good company since he moved in about a month ago. He was teaching me tai chi, and I was teaching him football. I had to admit, it was nice to have someone around . . . to have company. And yes, my social life does suck that bad.