and confused.
“The gift of God to humanity. Eternal life.” The woman took Muffins by one hand. “Oh my dear, have you never heard?” When Muffins shook her head, the lady said, “Then perk up those ears.” Her eyes glowed. “I have a story to tell you.”
Muffins was excited and leaned forward. She had never heard a story before.
“Well it begins with God making the world, and he was so good at world making, he did it in just a week. Made humans too, and gave them clear instructions, but they disobeyed. And because they were disobedient, all their kids and grand-kids were too.”
“Ah,” Muffins said. “Do you mean they taught their kids to disobey the way they did?”
The woman frowned. “No. The disobedience, the wickedness, they passed it on in their blood. And all their offspring after that were sinners.”
Muffins tried to imagine what sin looked like when suspended in blood. “So they had no choice but to sin?”
“Well, yes and no. Once the evil got into their blood, they were bound to sin. But everyone has free will, child. Otherwise, being moral makes no sense.”
“But how?” Muffins felt even more confused that she had before. “How can it be both ways?”
The woman dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. “Such questions we of mortal flesh were not meant to understand. The good news is, God will forgive you; all you have to do is ask.”
“Please, if I had no choice but to sin, why must I be sorry for it?”
The woman heaved an impatient sigh. “So that you can receive the gift of eternal…” A new customer came in and a bell chimed, which made the last word hard to understand. Mittens was still thinking of the string she had played with as a kitten, and maybe that was why she thought the word was, “twine.” Eternal twine.
Muffins had never heard a phrase so lovely. “Please tell me. What is the Eternal Twine?” She was thinking of the calm she had felt when introduced to the sparkling string long ago, and how afterward Evie had treated her to a warm bowl of milk, rich, more like cream really, and how perfectly at home and at peace she had felt, all warmth, cream, and sparkles. To her twine was not just a string; it was a feeling. And a twiny feeling that continued forever sounded wonderful.
“Twine? My goodness, no,” the woman said. “Something much better. Eternal life.”
Muffins was confused. “Do you mean some lives are not eternal?” Muffins had never heard of death and had always assumed her life would go on forever.
“My lord, child, have you been living in a cave? Death was the penalty for disobedience. All living creatures die, as punishment for the first people sinning.”
“But if it was the humans who sinned, why did he punish all the creatures? Like cats, say?”
The lady huffed. “Stop talking so much and listen. You, Miss Muffins, are a terrible sinner. That makes you an abomination in the sight of God. But he loves you. And if you ask him to forgive you, he will. And you will get to live in a pretty mansion with floors made of gold instead of writhing around in fiery agony in the stench of hell for all of time.”
Muffins was more confused than ever and afraid of the fire the woman described. She had walked across a hot stove once. She had never done it again. “I do not remember sinning,” Muffins said, “or disobeying anyone.”
“Well, let us look at the facts. Not long ago you shoplifted a pair of slippers and slapped a holy cross. Not to mention,” the woman sniffed, “that you are reeking of the harlot stench. What are you wearing anyway? Oh, my lord, did you raid a perfume factory?” She sneezed. “Never mind. It is easy. All you have to do is ask God to forgive you, and he will. And give you the greatest gift of all: eternal life.” The woman smiled beatifically. “Pray to him. Ask him to save you. And because he is gracious, he shall.”
“What is pray?”
“I will show you. Come, child. Bow your head with me.”
Muffins only blinked and stared blankly at first. But then she thought of the Eternal Twine, which was really eternal life; she did know better now. But to Muffins they were one in the same, a feeling of comfort and love never-ending, and security against having to turn into other things without warning.
The woman had bowed her head, so that Muffins could see the soft billows of neck beneath her chin. She had cut her eyes toward Muffins. Muffins bowed her head and the woman closed her eyes. “Okay now. Repeat after me,” the woman said.
“Dear heavenly father, hallowed be thy name.” Muffins did not understand what the words meant, but she said them anyway. She was particularly baffled about how a name could be hollow since names were usually not solid to begin with.
The lady went on, with Muffins repeating every word. “Dear Lord, I know that I have sinned and I humbly beg your forgiveness. In particular, for shoplifting a pair of mouse slippers and batting at your holy cross like it was a dirty old carport rug.”
Muffins was not exactly sure what sinning was, but at that moment, she was deeply remorseful about having done it.
“Thank you,” the woman continued, “for dying on the cross for my sins and washing them away with your precious blood.”
Muffins dutifully repeated the words, although she could not see how blood could wash away anything. She thought about the last time she had decapitated a mouse. There was blood everywhere, all in her fur. It had been sticky and had taken a while to lick off.
“Amen,” the woman concluded. Mittens opened her eyes, half expecting to see a room awash in endless glittering string, the Eternal Twine, and a saucer of creamy milk. But everything looked, disappointingly, the way it had before.
She became aware that the woman was staring at her. “Well? How do you feel, my dear?”
Muffins blinked. “Where is it?”
“What?”
“The twine.”
The woman frowned deeply, and Muffins watched how the corners of her mouth slanted, creating little puckers in the surrounding skin.
“I would feel better if there were twine,” Muffins said.
“I am sorry. I have no idea what you mean. What I want to know is, do you feel forgiven? Do you feel pure? Like a newborn babe?”
Muffins thought about it. She wanted so much not to disappoint the woman, she even tried to feel what the woman meant. But Muffins had not been human for long enough to lie. “I feel nothing,” she said.
The eyes that stared at Muffins flashed, and she had trouble identifying the emotion: Disillusionment? Anger? Pity? Or maybe all.
The eyes that looked at Muffins softened as their owner reached one hand forward and touched Muffins on the knee. “It can be tricky when there is nothing for the eyes to see. I think I know what will help.”
Before Muffins could respond, the woman got up and disappeared into a room behind the checkout counter. Muffins heard water running and soon the woman returned with a damp cloth rag. “Where did you put your perfume, honey?” Muffins pointed to the spot above her clavicle and the woman swept the warm rag over it again and again until the rough texture hurt. “Consider this your baptism,” the woman said.
The woman finally set the rag aside and withdrew something shiny from her pocket. “Now you are ready. Hold up your hair and bow your head.” After a moment of confused hesitation, Muffins scooped up the locks that fell down her back, bent her head forward, and felt something cold against the skin at the top of her spine. After a moment the woman said, “Okay, now you may raise your head.”
The woman handed Muffins an oval handheld mirror, which she had taken from one of the shelves. Muffins could now see what the woman had done. Aside from a red patch due to all the rubbing, a gold chain fell toward her breasts and at the end, at the topmost point of her cleavage, hung the golden cross pendant with the red gem set inside.
“There,” the woman said. “That is what you are supposed to do with a cross necklace. At last you are pure, for you have made yourself worthy of it in the sight of God.”
Muffins performed an emotional self-examinatio
n. And this time she did feel something, a shiver from a kind of nonphysical wind. The air glittered. She felt strange. Her skin tingled. “Yes,” she said. “I do feel different.” She felt…great. She felt a sense of rightness. She felt…furrier. And hotter. The room was either growing taller, or her eye level was sinking, but not so far down that she could not see the look of alarm – and even horror – evident on the pale grey eyes that stared at her.
She was becoming too small for her clothes and soon felt herself engulfed in a sunken tent of fabric, and struggled to extricate herself. She no longer had hands to grip. When she tried to use her paws, her claws became hooked into the fabric, so she was forced to use her nose to sniff and push her way out of the darkness.
When she finally did, the woman could only stare at first, her face frozen. When Muffins mewled to try to ask what had just happened, the woman let out a piercing shriek, “Get thee behind me Satan!”
The way the woman had said “Satan” Muffins had a feeling that if he was around, she had better run, and that is what she did. She jumped down to the floor and hurtled herself through the open door. She fled through the streets, the wind in her face, seeing better than she had before in all the darkness.
She hid behind a metal garbage can in the back parking lot of a square building and tried to catch her breath. She clung to the cool shadows, but after a few minutes it became clear that no one was chasing her.
Cautiously, she emerged, a
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