Then I go to the garden and dig up the knife. I shake it free of earth and hang it on my belt.
Olivia
Lauren’s voice reaches deep into my dream. It has the biting edge of panic. ‘Help,’ she hisses. ‘Olivia, he’s taking us away.’
I twitch an ear. The dark is quiet around me. I had been dreaming of sweet cream and it was very pleasant. I am not perhaps at my most receptive.
What?
‘Ted,’ she says. ‘He’s taking us outside, to the woods. You have to help.’
Oh, I say coldly.I’m just a stupid cat, I’m afraid. I can’t help.
‘Please,’ she says. ‘Please, you have to. I’m afraid.’ Her voice is like scratched glass. ‘Please, Olivia. It’s happening now. He’s making us into gods. This is our last chance.’
I say,I don’t exist. So that sounds like ayouproblem.
She starts to cry, in broken ragged sobs. ‘Don’t you understand that if he kills me, you die too? I don’t want to die.’ She sniffs. And despite myself I feel a little sorry for her. She is a hurt child. She didn’t mean what she said.
I’ll try, I say slowly.But I can’t promise anything. Now leave me alone. I have to focus.
As usual, everyone is relying on the gd cat. Honestly, teds are gduseless.
I crouch in the dark. I am hoping it will help. The crate was a sort of door between Lauren and me, once. Perhaps it can be opened again. I listen to the sound of the house – the drip of the tap, boards creaking, a fly caught in between plywood and glass. I smell the linoleum in the kitchen, and the air freshener Ted uses when he remembers. I sheathe and unsheathe my claws. They curve out in beautiful wicked points. I don’t want to wear the horrible ted-suit and have hands. Horrible. Got to.
Right, I mutter.Time.
I look up at the landing and try to think about something I love. I try to think about the lord, and then I try to think about the cream that coated my tongue all lovely and white and thick in the dream. But I can’t concentrate. My tail lashes and my whiskers twitch. My thoughts are everywhere.
Come on, I whisper, closing my eyes.
All I can think of is Lauren. Not how she looks, because I have never seen her. I think of how clever she is, making this plan to save us, and how annoying, especially when she calls mestupid cat.
Nothing happens. No good. I tried my best! I should really go back to my nap. Bad things are happening, and it seems best to sleep until they stop.
But each time I close my eyes and try to sink back into my comfortable doze, doubt needles me wide awake again.
Ihavetried everything, I say out loud.I can’t do anything else!I am answered only by silence. But I can feel His opinion. Irowwith unhappiness because I know the lord disapproves of dishonesty.
I push with my head and the freezer door lifts up an inch. A slice of light greets me, blinding.
As soon as I’m out, I can hear Lauren screaming. Her voice fills the walls, runs through the carpet under my feet. Her fear comesin through the portholes in the plywood, and I can hear it running out of the faucet in the kitchen. I have to help her.
The thought of climbing inside the Lauren-sack is truly horrible. My tail stiffens in distaste. So gross! That smooth piggy pink skin in place of my nice coat. Those creepy things instead of paws! I hiss, horrified at the violent intimacy of it. But she’s counting on me.Think, cat.
I go to the Bible. I nudge it off the table. As it falls to the floor with a great crash, I feel the house shake. It’s like an echo, but louder.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
Gd it. Sometimes it’s annoying, being right. An idea has been forming in my mind for a while. I may be just an indoor cat, but I have seen the many faces of the lord, and I know there are strange things in the world. Lauren thinks she knows everything, but she doesn’t. We are not like a staircase. We’re like the horrible doll on the mantelpiece. Lauren and I fit inside one another. When you tap on one it reverberates through all of them.
Think, think!
When I opened the refrigerator door I was angry. Maybe angrier than I have ever been. I didn’t feel the cord connecting me to Ted. I was myself, alone.
So I make myself angry. It’s not hard. I think about Ted and what he’s done to Lauren. It’s really difficult to think about. She was right about one thing; what a stupid cat I am, really. I believed his lies, didn’t want to know the truth. I just wanted to sleep and be stroked. I was a coward. But I don’t want to be a coward any more. I’m going to save her.
My tail bristles, becomes a spike of rage. The fire begins at the tip, spreads down the length of my switching tail, into me. It’s not like the heat when Lauren hurt me. I made this feeling. It’s my fire.
