The Catswold Portal

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  His feline gaze was searing, daunting. “I will go to find Tom.”

  “There are times for patience.”

  “I know that. I am cat, I know how to be patient. One is patient before a mouse hole. This,” he said imperiously, “is not so simple. I will go into the Netherworld and I will return with Tom.”

  She sighed, stroking the sleeping kitten, filled with misgivings. Pippin was stubborn and hardheaded, truly Catswold. She said, “I will teach you all I can.”

  Chapter 51

  Pippin sat naked in Olive’s dining room reciting Netherworld spells. Already Melissa had taught him to bring a spell-light, to turn aside arrows, to open locks. He delighted her with his quick, thorough Catswold retention. She soon had taught him every spell he might need, and some just for his pleasure. He took her sandal from her foot and made it dance and hoot like an owl. He called forth a fear that made the kitten spit and left Melissa trembling, unable to pull herself free until he released her.

  He said, “I am ready now. I am going now to find Tom.”

  “You aren’t going naked.”

  “Why not?”

  “You can’t go around naked.” She swallowed a laugh at his puzzled look. “You will be cold, Pippin. And you will have no pockets to put things in. You must wait until I buy you some clothes.” She rose. “Just stay here until I come back.” He nodded, perplexed, she was out the door before he could argue.

  In the village she bought jeans and a sweatshirt, sandals that seemed the right size, and a backpack, a blanket, a rope, some candy bars and something called trail food, and a good knife. She was back at Olive’s within an hour. Pippin dressed himself clumsily, complaining, and they went down through the garden. He had hugged Olive and rubbed his face against her by way of good-bye. The old woman had made him some sandwiches and put a thermos of milk in the pack. Melissa had drawn a map for him. She was nervous with worry, but there was no changing his mind.

  In the tool room she brought a spell-light and spread out the map. She showed him how to travel from the tunnel to the palace, and from there to Mag’s cottage. She showed him the three rebel camps he would pass, and described and named the rebel leaders she knew. She gave him enchantments to manage a horse. She was describing the inside of the palace, and how to get to Wylles’ chambers, where Tom was likely to be, when something scraped against the oak door and it swung open.

  Olive slipped in and shut the door quickly. She was dressed in heavy pants and a sweater, and carrying a faded backpack. “I took the kitten to Morian’s. I got it settled in the bedroom and left her a note by the front door. I told her I was going to my sister’s.”

  Pippin said, “You don’t think—you don’t plan to go with me? You…”

  “I am going with you. I told Morian I was taking Pippin with me to my sister’s in his carrier, that I thought it would do her good to have an animal around.”

  Pippin said, “It is not possible for you to go. I move too fast; you will be lost.” He stood over Olive glowering down at her. “You are an upperworld person, you have no magic. What will you do when I turn to cat?”

  Olive looked hard at Pippin. “I am an old woman. No one will miss me. I want more than anything to see that world. I will not hinder you. If I do, you can leave me behind. I want to see that world, and I want to help free Tom.”

  “But you don’t—you aren’t—”

  “You can tell me what I need to know as we travel. And perhaps I can tell you a few useful things. I have gleaned many old spells from my research. Now open the wall, Pippin. I am older than you, and more stubborn.”

  He opened the wall.

  Olive stared into the darkness and strode through beside Pippin. Just before the wall closed she glanced back at Melissa. Her look was filled with wonder, with the excitement of her final amazing discovery.

  Melissa watched the wall seal itself and turned away drained—and she was facing Wylles. He stood in the open doorway, white with rage.

  He came in slowly and shut the door behind him. “They are upperworlders. You had no right to let them go through.”

  She said nothing.

  “I saw you come down here, you and that Catswold—that nasty yellow cat. I saw the old woman come down. What are they up to? Why are they going down?” Wylles started for the wall, but she grabbed him and shoved him back.

  “I am prince of Affandar. You dare not touch me, you are my subject.” He swung to slap her, but she caught his arm. He was only twelve years old, and he had been near to death, but he was strong enough now—it was all she could do to hold him.

  “Get out of here, Wylles. Go on back to Tom’s house. What harm can two upperworlders do in the Netherworld?”

  “What magic did you teach that Catswold?”

  She only looked at him.

  “You will pay for this. My mother knows what to do with meddlers—with a Catswold slut from my father’s bed.”

  She clenched her fists to keep from hitting him. “I’m surprised at your loyalty to your mother, after she got rid of you.”

  “I admire my mother’s power. She does what a queen must. My illness was a great hindrance to her.” He moved away and picked up the hoe, watching her. “Siddonie lives for the grand plan. I admire that. I admire her skill for intrigue—both at home and in the upperworld. Anne Hollingsworth is beside herself because Lillith Corporation is disrupting her neat little life. She is like a beast caught in a trap; she has no notion what is happening to her, or why.”

  “And you would not help her.”

  “Why should I help her? I like seeing her squirm.”

  “And what would you do if you didn’t have her to feed and shelter you?”

  “I would manage.” He smiled. “I won’t be here long. When my mother has defeated the rebels, when she rules every kingdom in the Netherworld, I will return to take my rightful place.”

  “If you go back to the Netherworld you will sicken again.”

  “If I sicken I will return here to become well.” The idea seemed to amuse him. “I will come here, just as upperworlders take winter vacations in Hawaii. I can return as I please. What is to stop me?” He balanced the hoe, testing its weight. She laid a silent spell to deflect it, and realized that his own spells touched her; she felt suddenly weak and fearful. This was the real battle, the silent battle of enchantments. She wanted to run, and she knew that desire was born of Wylles’ power warping her senses.

  He said, “Siddonie will die in her time. And my father will die. Then I will rule the Netherworld that Siddonie is now winning for me.” His weight shifted slightly as he tensed to swing the hoe.

  She made the hoe so heavy he couldn’t lift it. He dropped it and grabbed the shovel; their spells crashed between them, too evenly matched. “Catswold,” Wylles spat. “There will be no Catswold left when I am king.”

  “Why do you hate the Catswold? Why does Siddonie?”

  His eyes darkened. “The Catswold stole Xendenton from us. They killed my grandfather and my uncles.”

  “It’s more than that,” she hissed, wanting to slap him.

  “You fear the Catswold powers. You fear the Catswold’s stubborn independence because you can’t defeat that independence. You fear their freedom. You can’t admit the real reason you hate the Catswold—any more than you can admit why you fear images.”

  “You should know about images, Catswold girl. You stir them brazenly. You encourage West to do irreparable damage.”

  “Braden’s paintings harm no one.”

  “West’s images draw evil forces.”

  “Nonsense.”

  Wylles’ face clouded. “Already evil has come to this place. I saw my father here with you, planning evil. I want to know what you are planning.”

  When she laughed at him, he turned white. “You are my subject. When I ask you a question you are obliged to answer.”

  “I am no one’s subject. I am Catswold; I bow to no ruler.”

  He screamed a spell and swung the sh
ovel; she drove heaviness into it so it dropped, and grabbed his hands. He struggled but soon they stood locked together by her grip, and by their powers. She burned to weaken him. He was only a boy, but he filled her with cold fear. Suddenly he jerked free and snatched up the hoe, and his spell, born of rage, overrode hers. They scuffled, she hit him. The hoe struck her in the head a blow that dizzied her, pain warped her vision. She faced him, dizzy, her back to the wall. She felt herself changing and was terrified to be small. Gasping, she shouted a forgetting spell as she felt herself change to cat.

  She was cat, staring up at him. Wylles stared at her blankly, then looked at the hoe he held, puzzled, and he lowered it. She watched him, her ears back, then wiped her paw at the blood that ran down her cheek. She didn’t know whether he had changed her or whether the pain had changed her.

  He looked down at her, puzzled, made no effort to harm her though she was small. Silently she brought the changing spell, and brought it again—she became a woman again with effort. When she stood tall before him, he seemed startled. “Where did you come from? I don’t…”

  “We came in here together, don’t you remember? I was just behind you. You were telling me your name. I had asked you where you live.”

  “I—Tom,” he said, confused. “Tom Hollingsworth. I live up—up the garden. In the white house. You’re hurt—you’ve hurt your head.”

  “I hit my head. I must go and tend to it. Maybe you’d better go home, Tom.”

  Wylles nodded obediently and went out. She stood outside the portal watching him meander up the garden. Then she headed for the studio, dizzy and weak.

  When Braden opened the door and saw the blood he put his arm around her and helped her to the couch. “Better lie down. I’ll get some ice.” She lay down gratefully on the vermilion silk. He left her, and soon she could hear the rattle of the ice tray. He returned to hold an icy towel to her forehead and cheek, his dark eyes intense. “Are you dizzy? Can you see clearly? Are you sick to your stomach? Melissa? My God, what happened to you?”

  Gratefully she let him doctor her. Even under the cold pack she could feel her cheek and forehead swelling, and then, terrified, she felt the falling sensation that came with change. Pain made the change, she was sure of it now. She blocked the metamorphosis stubbornly, willing herself to hold human shape, sick with terror that she would become the little cat as he watched.

  “Are you dizzy, Melissa? Do you feel nauseated?”

  “Not dizzy, not sick. It just hurts. The ice makes it better.”

  Kneeling beside the couch he drew her to him, holding her close, his lips against her hurt forehead. “Will you tell me what happened?”

  “I fell, up in the woods—I tripped on something, a branch. So stupid.” She was steadying now. The sense of turning to cat was fading. “I fell against a tree and hit my head.”

  “But you’re trembling.”

  “It frightened me. It hurt.”

  He tilted her chin up, kissing her. “You’re completely white. Is that all that happened? Or was it someone—did someone hurt you?”

  “No, there was no one. The pain made me dizzy, the fall frightened me. I—I’m all right now.”

  “Rest a while. I’ll get a blanket.”

  She watched him tuck the blanket around her, already she was drifting.

  He said, “Don’t go to sleep. If it’s a concussion you mustn’t sleep. Talk to me.”

  She didn’t want to sleep; she was terrified of going to sleep and changing. But she was very sleepy. Fighting to stay awake she rose at last, went into the bathroom, and washed her face. When she came out of the bathroom she stood behind him looking at the new painting, one from the Victorian house.

  This painting had a dark quality. She saw herself standing beside the bevelled mirror in a bedroom of the Victorian house, wrapped in reflected shadows. She stared into her own face, startled.

  She had, in this painting, a quality the other paintings did not show. Her face reflected power. Her eyes, within the shadows, reflected magic.

  He was working away, oblivious to her. She stared at his back, frightened. Braden was seeing too much. First the secret cat shadows through her figure, and now this revealing glint of magic, far too explicit to be comfortable.

  But he didn’t know anything consciously, she was convinced of it. Whatever Braden perceived was seen not with his conscious mind.

  When she had stood behind him for some minutes held by the painting, and upset by it, he turned. He was frowning, annoyed that she was standing there. But she supposed this was natural—no one wanted someone looking over his shoulder. He said, “Do you feel any better?”

  She nodded.

  “I have some steaks,” he said. “Will you stay for dinner?”

  “I—I’d like that,” she said softly.

  He glanced toward the darkening garden and began to clean up his paints. At his direction she washed two potatoes and put them to bake, feeling smug that she was cooking in an upperworld kitchen. He went to wash, then put some records on and fixed her a whiskey. He made a salad, and while the steaks broiled he called the little cat. He looked disappointed when she didn’t appear. “I guess it’s silly to be concerned, but she’s gotten sick a couple of times.”

  “It isn’t silly at all, just very caring. But I don’t think she’ll come while I’m here. Cats always avoid me.”

  They ate on the terrace by candlelight, watching the garden for the cat and listening to records. The music was strange to her, exciting. There were trumpets, clarinets; he called it swing. Then one number struck her memory, making her unbearably nostalgic, and Braden said Alice had liked it.

  They washed the dishes together and played another stack of records and talked about nothing and about everything—about McCabe, about Alice and the Kitchens, about the city, its galleries and museums. Isolated memories touched her, of pollarded trees in Golden Gate Park, and then of wind on the ocean. Of a room with a skylight and a fountain. Ugly memories touched her, too—pictures of a dozen different schools where she was always the new child, picked on, hazed. He had the same kind of memories, from moving so often as his father followed the oil fields. She remembered being thought a strange child because she liked cats, but she kept that memory to herself. As they discovered mutual childhood fears and pains she found her need for him rising in a way she had never felt before.

  She got him to talk about his work, though she had to read between his remarks. Slowly she began to understand the search he embarked on with each new painting. She began to see how he groped, each time, for some entity almost beyond the painter’s grasp. He laughed at himself. “Late night talk.” But she liked very much the way he explained his feelings.

  He was not self-conscious. His words seemed to be a way of exploring, as if he seldom put his intentions into conscious thought. She understood that his vision of the work came from deep inside; she thought that his deep response to the world was almost like an inner enchantment.

  Late in the evening he called the cat again, then brought Melissa a cup of tea. She said, “The moon’s full—it makes cats crazy. She’s probably playing up in the garden, climbing trees.” She smiled at him. “She’ll be home in the morning, don’t worry.”

  Leaning to set the cup down he touched her hair, then tilted her chin up, looking deeply at her. She swallowed, ducking her head to press her face into his hand. Rubbing her cheek against him, she rose and led him to the bedroom.

  In the dim moonlight, touched by the cool salt wind, she let him undress her. She was already used to his nakedness, and was amused because she couldn’t tell him that. She rose to his stroking, to his lips on her, as if she had never before been loved, as if this was the first time.

  Chapter 52

  Wylles reached the top of the garden filled with rage at Melissa for the spell she had tried to lay on him. There was too much power in the Catswold woman. Though her spell hadn’t destroyed his memory, he had felt his face go slack, had felt himself starti
ng to drop into the dull state of forgetfulness, had used all his power to counter her enchantment. He was pleased that he had hurt her, saw the blood as she turned away. Saw with disgust Braden West open the studio door for her and put his arm around her. And then at the top of the garden, when he spied Olive’s two kittens sunning on her porch, all his fury focused on them. He thought about cat blood spurting and thin bones broken, thought how the kittens resembled Melissa, if not in color, at least in their soft, furry weakness.

  He approached the kittens casually, as if he didn’t really see them. Ignoring them, he sat down on the top step.

  They looked at him with curiosity and soon the bolder kitten approached him. It was gangly despite its thick, soft fur. The thought of wounding it made him hard; he cupped his hand over his crotch. With a sudden hot, shivering bliss he pictured not the gray-and-white kitten rent in his hands, but Melissa: he saw the calico rent and torn.

  The kitten approached innocently and stood looking up into his face. The second kitten skittered close behind it. He waited until they were both winding around his knees, then he grabbed them suddenly, one in each hand, meaning to bash them together, seeing Melissa crushed.

  Pain hit him: hot pain shot through his neck and throat. Then someone knocked him up off the porch, hitting him from behind.

  The blow was so sharp his arms jerked and his hands released the kittens. His vision faltered, blackness washed over the garden. He felt himself being shaken, hard. The porch and garden warped and swam before him. He was jerked around, hands biting into his arms.

  He was facing the black woman; she held him in a grip like steel.

  Morian slapped him. Her eyes blazed. His fear of her was so complete and debilitating he wet himself.

  Morian tried to control her rage; she didn’t want to injure him, just terrify. Whoever this boy was, he needed to experience the terror of quick retribution. She shook him until she was afraid she would do him damage, then she held him away, staring into his white, frightened face.