The Black Cats

by Monica Shaughnessy

  ***

  The gold bug turned our lives catawampus, and Eddy forgot about the black cat story. After the letter, Poe House overflowed with goodness. The first night, we celebrated with a feast to shame Christmas: corned beef with brown gravy, cod cakes, potato whip, succotash, cold slaw, rolls, and teacake. I could not attest to the vegetables or the sweet finish, but the beef and cod were delicious and their supply plentiful.

  In the following days, Eddy lavished everyone with gifts. Muddy, he bought a brass soup ladle. He called it a scepter, and told the old woman to go forth and rule the kitchen when he gave it to her. I did not pretend to understand this. Sissy received a new dress to replace the one she’d burned after burying Snip. Sewn from grey-green silk, the frock rippled about her frame as she walked, mimicking the current and hue of the Delaware River. Tiers of bows, crafted from the same fabric, adorned the skirt hem and neckline. She called it her new town dress. But I thought it more a river dress. Eddy also gave her a mother-of-pearl cameo that she pinned at her bosom and a red leatherette box in which to store the trinket.

  And me, he bought the most wonderful gift of all.

  One hot, prickly afternoon, Eddy snuck from the house and left me napping on the settee. When he returned, he called Muddy and Sissy into the parlor and set a cat-sized wooden box on the floor in front of me. “Watch and be entertained,” he said to the women.

  Sensing the chest had been purchased for me, I obliged him and jumped to the floor to investigate. Wonder of wonders! The smell escaping the interior drove me wild. I bounced straight in the air and chattered my teeth. Had Eddy bought me a hen? When I pawed at the lid latch, he unfastened it, revealing the treasure inside—chicken feathers, heaps and heaps of glorious chicken feathers. I dove into their midst, sending the smaller, lighter ones into the air.

  Sissy and Eddy laughed.

  Even Muddy laughed and stamped her foot. “Where did you buy such a thing, Eddy?” she asked.

  “I bought the box from Fitz. But the feathers came from the butcher. Didn’t pay a penny for them.”

  I poked my head above the box rim and let the feathers cascade around me like falling snow. I loved the smell. I loved the squish. Far and away, this was the best gift I’d ever received, outside of Eddy’s love. I dove again and buried myself amidst the Poe family’s laughter. Sissy laughed loudest until a coughing spell overtook her, and she had to be led upstairs to bed. The gold bug had fixed many ills but could not right the one that mattered most.

  Alas, our joy lasted only until the next wave of misery. After Sissy’s health scare, Mr. Cook gave a copy of the Daily Forum to Eddy that sent my companion into a rage. “‘The Gold Bug,’” he read from the paper, “a decided humbug? What rot!” I wanted to understand the new words that surfaced in the wake of Mr. Cook’s delivery—accusations and plagiarism—to comfort Eddy. But alas, I could not. Then things got worse, proving once and for all that misery plagued every member of the Poe family.

  The Other Black Cat

  LATER THAT DAY, SAMUEL charged into our front garden, crushing the hydrangeas with his immense frame. His white chest puffed in and out with heavy panting. “Cattarina! Silas and I need your help! Urgently!”

  “Whatever is the matter?” I asked. The toad I’d been stalking hopped away.

  “Abner Arnold is adopting another cat!”

  “Goodness gracious.” Earlier this summer, I’d told the brothers about Mr. Arnold and his nefarious deeds, embellishing the tale with my own exploits. Now, they possessed all the facts of the case. “How do you know?”

  “He came to see our Robert about adopting again.” A hydrangea petal sat atop of his head. “After an alarming exchange, Robert threw him out of the house. Told Mr. Arnold to go home and pray for salvation. I think that meant ‘no.’”

  “Most assuredly,” I said. “Then what happened?”

  “Mr. Arnold laughed! Laughed, all the way down the street.” Samuel raked the petal from his head. “That’s not the end of it. As he left, he shouted more things about cats, things I didn’t understand. But I know he means to look for one elsewhere. I feel it in my whiskers.”

  “Your whiskers? Oh, my.” I thought of my own, half-grown at this point.

  “We can’t let that happen, Cattarina. Mr. Arnold must not be allowed to adopt again.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” I walked to the gatepost and waited for him to catch up. “Where is Silas?”

  “He was too afraid to come. But if it’s urgent, I can persuade him to leave by the hole in our roof. That’s how I escaped. Robert is sleeping and won’t miss us for a while.”

  “Gather George and Margaret Beal and Silas and meet me in your front garden. I will be there when the sun is at mid-point.” I said on my way to the sidewalk.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To Rittenhouse!”

  ***

  Midnight needed no convincing. I had but to utter Samuel’s words, and he accompanied me to the omnibus stop for the return trip. Coaxing him onto the conveyance, however, took every argument in my arsenal. When words failed, I bit him in the rump, and he boarded the horse bus without further quarrel. We arrived at Mr. Eakins’s house in time for the meeting. Per my request, George, Margaret, Silas, and Samuel waited for us in front garden by the zinnia patch. Mr. Eakins must’ve still been asleep since the cat social on his lawn had not drawn him from the house.

  Once we’d dispensed with the how-do-you-dos, I opened with a question: “How can we stop Mr. Arnold from killing again?”

  “We show him the error of his ways,” Margaret said. “If he repents, he will be a changed man.”

  “My dear,” George said, “even with the help of an entire meeting house, that sounds impossible.”

  “I know! I know!” Silas said. “We find a giant cage—like the one our Robert uses, but bigger—and we trap Mr. Arnold in it. Then we set him free in the country.”

  “He’s not a rabbit, brother,” Samuel said.

  I glanced at Midnight and thought how very much he looked like Snip. “Does the Thief of Rittenhouse have anything to offer?” I asked him.

  “I’m sorry to not be of help, but—” His eyes grew wide. “I’ve got it! We can steal his shoes. Without them, he can’t leave the house and find another cat.”

  “Did I not mention Mr. Arnold is a cobbler?” I said. “And that he makes shoes?”

  Midnight’s tail tapped the walkway.

  “We could lure a pack of wild dogs to his house,” Samuel offered. “They would do our work for us. I’d tie a mutton chop round Silas’s neck and—”

  “I am against violence,” George said.

  “So am I!” Silas added, his whiskers aquiver. “Listen to George, brother. Oh, listen!”

  “No one is tying meat around anyone’s neck unless it is mine,” I said. “And lunch is near.”

  “What about you, Cattarina?” Margaret asked. “You’re the cleverest molly I know. You must have an idea you’re saving. Tell us.”

  “I am clever, aren’t I?” I cleaned my face, pretending to think. Then I really did think. Mr. Arnold had used devil and hell the night of the fire—two words I’d learned through Eddy’s work—and he’d treated me like a creature possessed. Mrs. Arnold had also used haunt, another term of familiarity, when she looked into the cellar. While I’d never faced these things in real life, I understood their gist, at least in human terms, and I took the cobblers for a superstitious couple. We cats have our own underworld, filled with fanged demons and ragged souls, but it is largely relegated to lore, stories used to scare kittens into behaving. After a fashion, I said, “I think you are right, Margaret.”

  “I am?”

  “You said to show Mr. Arnold the error of his ways, and I have a way to accomplish this feat. I’m not sure he’ll repent, but he may be frightened enough to leave cats alone. Forever. Except my plan involves a fair bit of danger...” I glanced at Midnight. “For one of us.”

  “I’ll do it,
Cattarina, whatever it is,” Midnight said. He fixed me with a round-eyed stare. “I can’t let another cat suffer.”

  “Tell us your plan, Cattarina,” Samuel said.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Snip is about to pay Mr. Arnold a visit…from beyond the grave.”

  ***

  We reached agreement. Midnight would masquerade as Snip and scare Mr. and Mrs. Arnold into giving up the notion of pet adoption. The rest of us would take turns keeping watch over our pal from outside the home, lending a paw if danger surfaced. How I worried for Midnight’s safety! Abner Arnold had already killed once. If he killed again, I’d never forgive myself.

  In order for Midnight to look like Snip, he needed to undergo certain transformations. For this, he accompanied me to Poe House. Outside our garden gate, I asked him to stand by until I secured a route since the last thing we needed was for Muddy to give him the sweep. I crept into the kitchen and found the old woman at the sink scrubbing a cooking pot and talking to herself. I encountered Sissy in her top floor bedchamber, napping. Eddy—my biggest concern—was not home. With the women of the house busy and the man of the house elsewhere, Midnight and I stole through the parlor window and upstairs to Eddy’s chamber.

  “You are lucky to live here, Cattarina,” Midnight said.

  “Our home is cozy, but it is not grand like yours,” I said.

  We leapt to the desk and sat on the blotter pad.

  “What does a cat need, beyond a bowl and pillow? I’m talking about what a cat wants.” He blinked. “You have purpose. A companion who sees you as an equal, not a plaything.”

  I nudged his cheek. “Your Sarah may surprise you one day. She is young.”

  He looked out the window, his pupils narrowing in the sun’s light. “She will never treat me the way your Eddy treats you.”

  I could not disagree. “You have purpose here, Midnight, with Snip. Why don’t we work on your costume?”

  He faced me again. “Where do we begin?”

  I flipped the glass stopper from the inkbottle and drew my paw through the blackish-brown liquid speckling the blotter. Then I wiped it over the snowy mark on his chest, thinking to cover it and make him all black. The effect was less than convincing. The ink obscured part of the fur, leaving several visible patches of white that, when observed at a distance, appeared to form a gallows and noose…or a broiled chicken astride a galloping horse—I could not be sure which. Fiddlesticks. My lack of thumbs had never been a problem before.

  “How do I look?” he asked.

  “Purrrfect,” I said as convincingly as I could. “Now for your eye.” I jumped from the desk and nudged Eddy’s shallow closet open, following the scent of wax to hair pomade on the third shelf. The tin opened like a steamed mussel when it hit the floor. I dabbed a bit on Midnight’s eyelid to seal it, and hoped it would not cause an infection later. “There we are! You look just like Snip.”

  “Do you have a mirror?”

  “Er, no. We do not believe in such things in our house,” I said. “Vanity and all that.” I walked to the doorway and waited for him. He seemed to have difficulty navigating with one eye closed and bumped into the chair. “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  “Purrfect,” he said.

  We were both terrible liars.

  ***

  Unsure of Abner Arnold’s whereabouts, Midnight and I headed to the cobbler shop first. Mr. Arnold was not there, but we noticed his wife outside near the sassafras, a small hand axe in her grip. It would’ve taken days to fell the colossal tree with this implement, especially when wielded by a woman of her stature. Yet Mrs. Arnold appeared resolute. She reared her arm back and let the blade fly. At first chop, Mr. Fitzgerald marched from his hardware shop and into the courtyard to confront her. He stood in the path of the woman’s swing, preventing another. Midnight and I scurried to the mouth of the cut-through and watched the argument unfold.

  “We’ve been through this before, Mrs. Arnold,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “You will not touch this tree. Not so long as I own my shop.”

  “Go away.” She circled the trunk and whacked it again.

  Mr. Fitzgerald met her on the other side and grabbed the axe handle. They wrestled over the tool, stumbling over tree roots. Mr. Cook stuck his head from Mr. Fitzgerald’s shop and shouted, “I say, Fitz! Can I leave payment for the purchase?” He waved a handful of money. “Well?”

  The shopkeepers ignored him.

  “Leave me to my work!” Mrs. Arnold screeched at Mr. Fitzgerald. “Leave me, or we will pay!” She pushed the axe toward him, almost cutting his cheek.

  Mr. Fitzgerald fell backward and, in doing so, wrenched the blade from her grasp. He scrambled to his feet and pointed the weapon at her. “No, you will pay, Mrs. Arnold, if you touch this tree again! Do you hear me?”

  She picked up a chunk of fallen bark and wagged it in his face. “Leave me to my business,” she said, sticking it in her pocket, “and I’ll leave you to yours.” Then she entered her shop and slammed the door.

  Still carrying the woman’s axe, Mr. Fitzgerald gave an exasperated cry and returned to help Mr. Cook with his shopping.

  “What a ruckus,” Midnight said. “Did you understand any of it?”

  “Not a word. But Mrs. Arnold’s aversion to shade is obvious.” I approached the tree and sniffed the newly hewn trunk. It smelled similar to the tonic Eddy purchased every now and again—spicy and sweet. Sarsaparilla, that was the word. “If Mr. Arnold is not here, then he is either at home or at the tavern. Which should we visit first?”

  “I’ll leave that to your intuition,” he said. “I trust it completely.”

  We left at once for Jolley Spirits, traveling at a slower pace than usual because of Midnight’s closed eye. Franklin teemed with fast-rolling carriages and wagons and gigs; it also stunk with the byproduct of progress: manure. One didn’t need street signs to navigate Philadelphia; one only needed a nose. The sidewalks were no less congested. Once, I lost my pal in the folds of a lady’s voluminous skirt until he muddled through the fabric and into the light again. Oh, that eye! We traveled east on Spring Garden, passing by the open-air market across the street, until I spied the familiar ripped awning. Someone had placed an empty rum barrel near the front door of the tavern, providing Midnight and I with a platform. We sprang to the cask and peeked through the window.

  “What does Abner Arnold look like?” Midnight asked.

  “He is the cruel one,” I said matter-of-factly. “With a brooding face and eyes devoid of soul.”

  Midnight ducked his head. “There! The old man who looks like beef jerky!”

  “No, that is Mr. Jolley. He is no friend to cats, either, but Mr. Arnold is—” I set my paws on the glass, aghast at the figure of Mr. Arnold weaving across the tavern floor. The fire had contorted his neck and chin, giving his skin a molten appearance, like that of a melted candle. Bald patches, interspersed with tufts of hair, covered his head. “He’s coming! He’s coming!” I dove from the barrel and hid behind a stack of egg crates next to the grocer’s.

  “Cattarina, how will I know him?” Midnight asked. His closed eye weeped from the pomade.

  Mr. Arnold opened the door before I could answer. He hung onto the frame with hands the color of rare lamb and leered at Midnight. “Hello, pusssssss,” he said to him. “Don’t I…don’t I know you?” He hiccupped. “Why don’t you come home with me tonight, pussssss? I could use the company.”

  Midnight’s good eye opened wide.

  Mr. Arnold looked even more hideous in the daylight. A man of competing ills, his scabby neck and chin contrasted with the sallow tones of his cheeks, forehead…even eyes. He laughed and gave Midnight a shove, depositing him on the sidewalk. As I shadowed the pair to his new home—blocks from Poe House and from the help of feline friends—dread settled in for the journey.

  Big Game Haunting

  MR. AND MRS. ARNOLD lived a few blocks north of Green Street, in an area filled with shanties. The destruction of their old house and the
partial ruin of their cobbler shop had put them in league with humans of low means. The wooden cottage had but a single story, no shutters, cracked or broken panes in almost every window, a walkway made of hand-dug stones, and a lopsided chimney I wagered kept more smoke in than it let out. Mr. Arnold staggered up the walkway, opened the door for Midnight, and shooed him inside with his boot.

  The door shut behind them, sealing my friend inside.

  A window ledge provided a perch from which to observe the interior. This proved less than fruitful since Abner Arnold slumped to the front hall floor after entering, too drunk to stand. There he fell into a deep slumber, allowing Midnight and me the full range of his property. “Hurry!” I said to my friend through a broken pane. “Explore every door and window. You may need an escape route later. I have some experience with this.”

  “I’ll look inside,” he said to me. “You look outside.” With this, he vanished into the next room, but not before bumping into the doorframe.

  The cottage had more in common with a produce crate than a home, yet I turned up no extraneous portals, save for a locked back door. On to the cellar. The home’s lower environs opened onto the street, guarded by a set of wooden panels warped by rain. I slipped through the crack between them, certain I could escape again if necessary, and descended to the flagstone floor below.

  Abner Arnold’s cellar contained nothing of interest, save for a bag of quicklime, a bag of crushed rock, and a tower of bricks in the corner. The earthen room bore but one interesting detail—a recess in the wall near the kitchen stairs. The alcove had the makings of a fireplace, abandoned in early stages by bricklayers. Coincidentally, our cellar at home had a similar niche. Muddy had lined it with boards to store her summer canning.

  A door opened and shut above me. “I’m home, Abner!” Mrs. Arnold shouted.

  I left the cellar and retraced my steps to the rear of the home. With growing concern for Midnight, I became more brazen, alighting to the kitchen windowsill in full view. On this fine and fair day, the sun on my back, the cobblers would never catch me. Mr. Arnold had arisen from his stupor and sat with his wife at the kitchen table. They stared not at each other but at their new guest, who’d situated himself in the dry basin on the washstand. At first Midnight did not notice me. So I scratched one of the intact panes, loud enough for him and no one else to hear. Our gaze met briefly.