“No,” Morrie said. “I can’t be here with him. Not now. I have to—”
The front door slammed on its hinges. “Hello, pitiful humans. Did you miss me?”
Grimalkin strode into the shop like she expected a string quartet to announce her presence. She wore a figure-hugging dress in a slinky fabric that I could tell from the cut was a designer piece. Under one arm, she had a series of totes from expensive brands and under the other, she clutched a brown paper bag from The Third Wheel, Argleton’s super expensive artisan cheesemaker. The corner of a carton of artisanal heavy cream jabbed into my thigh as she shoved her way between us, heading for the main room.
“I’m not sure ‘missed’ is the correct word.” I grabbed Morrie’s hand and yanked him after me. “What is all this stuff?”
“Essentials. Now that I have opposable thumbs again, I intend to indulge myself in the manner to which I intend to become accustomed.” Grimalkin set her bags down on the floor. She dug around in the cheese bag and pulled out a wheel of Camembert, which she proceeded to unwrap with gusto.
“But… you’re a cat. You don’t have a bank account. How did you afford all this?”
She pulled a credit card out of her cleavage and tossed it to Morrie. “I’ve seen him use that many times to obtain items he wanted. I figured he wouldn’t mind if I borrowed it to do the same.”
The expression on Morrie’s face suggested that he did in fact mind, very much. “H-h-how much did you spend?”
“I didn’t really look,” Grimalkin said sweetly as she took an enormous bite out of the cheese wheel. “Currency has little meaning to a cat.”
“You sure you don’t want some crackers with that?” Quoth asked. He’d come down from the chandelier and was now sitting in all his naked glory on the edge of the table. “Perhaps a bit of quince paste?”
“Hardly.” Grimalkin took another enormous bite, her eyes closed in bliss. A ring of red lipstick stained the cheese rind.
“You’re not a cat anymore,” I reminded her, but then something occurred to me. “So you can’t transform between your human and cat forms the way Quoth can? You’re stuck as a human now, forever?”
“I tried transforming several times upon my prowlings, and it didn’t seem to work. No matter how hard I concentrate, I cannot—”
Her words cut off into a shriek of surprise as whiskers sprouted from her cheeks. She dropped the cheese as her lithe fingers sprouted fur and pads to form a paw. Her knees cracked against the floor as she toppled forward, her body contorting, her back arching and dark fur sprouting from her smooth skin.
A moment later, a familiar mottled cat stepped out of a rumpled designer dress and strutted across the floor to nibble the cheese. Quoth burst out laughing.
In a flash, Grimalkin the woman appeared again. She shook out her hair and tested her fingers, curling them over and scraping her long fingernails through thin air.
“Hmmm,” she purred. “It appears that I can shift forms, after all. Likely, the shifting is tied to proximity to the spring that delivers the waters of Meles.”
“Where is this spring?” I asked. “If it’s under the house, how come we’ve never had drainage issues?”
“Oh, Homer took care of that decades ago.” She waved her hand. “If you go down to the basement, you’ll see where it’s been diverted. Just don’t expect me to show up. It’s damp down there. I don’t do damp.”
“How do you know all this stuff? About the spring and my father’s comings and goings, and about Dracula?”
Ignoring my question, Grimalkin picked a volume off the table and opened its pages. “Books have a magic of their own. Did you know that? Especially when the tales inside are woven by a master writer. You have felt that all your life, dear. That’s why you spent your youth in this very shop. You were drawn to the waters of Meles and to the magic of words and stories, as was your father before you. But stories can play their own tricks. Certain books… certain characters… they have a magic of their own. And when your father passed his seed to you, he diluted his own magic, weakening the barrier between this world and the world of books. If a character is strong enough – if he or she has been so damaged that they wish to leave their story, to cut it off before it has come to its full conclusion – they can fall through the barrier and become real.”
I blanched, reeling at her words. “Are you saying that the reason fictional characters come to life in this shop is because ofme?”
Grimalkin took another bite of cheese, and didn’t reply. My hand flew to my pocket, touching my father’s letter. This time, it didn’t do much to calm my beating heart.
“How do I know you’re not lying?” I said. “You’ve been a cat for several thousand years. You haven’t had a conversation with Homer since Poseidon cursed you. So how could you possibly know all these things? ”
“Because people, especially lonely people who own bookshops and watch their loved ones from a distance instead of actually telling them the truth, tend to get chatty around cats.” Grimalkin stretched out along the sofa under the window and took another bite out of her cheese. “My son was no exception. Even though Ihadspent centuries looking for him, I did wish he’d just shut up sometimes. Cheese?” she held out a crescent of white rind to me. I shook my head. Grimalkin tossed the rind on the ground and cracked open a carton of cream.
Morrie tugged at me. I tightened my grip on his arm. “Don’t leave.”
“He wants me to go,” Morrie said. “I need to go.”
“I’m sorry.” My heart ached for him. He looked so vulnerable, so dejected.
“What do you have to be sorry about?”
“I should have split you two up sooner. But after our conversation, I wanted to see…”
