by Various
She traveled as fast as a small cat can when she is eager to get somewhere. The mountain towered over her, its white slopes leading into the sky. The bigger it got, the more certain she was that she would climb to the top of Fuji-san, she would see The Cat From The North’s home, and everything would be perfect. She wanted this to be true so much that she ignored all the doubts that came to her: What if she couldn’t find them? What if she was already too far north, or not north enough? Or they didn’t want her?
And because she was ignoring so many important things, she started ignoring other important things as well. She stopped being careful where she walked, and she scraped her paws raw on the rough rock. She got careless about her grooming, and her fur grew dirty and matted. She stopped repeating the stories of her fudoki, and instead just told the fantasy-stories of how she wanted everything to be.
The climb went on and on. She trudged through the forests, her nose pointed up the slope. The narrow road she followed turned lanes and then paths and started zigzagging. There were rock outcroppings everywhere. The mountain was always visible now, because she was on it.
There were only a few people, just hunters and a small, tired woman in a blue robe lined with feathers with a bundle on her back. But she saw strange animals everywhere, deer almost small enough to catch, and white goats with long beards that stared down their noses at her. A troop of pink-faced monkeys surprised her once by tearing through the trees overhead, hurling jeers.
At last even the path ended, but Small Cat kept climbing through the trees until she saw daylight ahead. Maybe this was the top of Fuji-san. She hurried forward. The trees ended abruptly, and she staggered sideways, hit by a frigid wind so strong that it threw her off her feet. There was nothing to stop the wind, for she had come to the tree line, and trees did not grow higher than this.
She tottered to the sheltered side of a rock. This wasn’t the top. It was nowhere near the top. She was in a rounded basin cut into the mountain, and she could see all the way to the peak itself. The slope above her grew still steeper and craggier; and above that the snow became a smooth glacier. Wind pulled snow from the peak in white streamers.
A flash of color caught her eye: a man huddled behind another rock just a few feet away. She had been so caught up in the mountain that she hadn’t even noticed him. Under a padded brown coat, he wore the red and yellow robes of a Buddhist monk, with thick straw sandals tied tightly to his feet. His face was red with cold. How had he gotten up here, and why? He was staring up the mountain as if trying to see a path up, but why was he doing that? He saw her and his mouth made a circle of surprise. He crawled toward her.
She looked the way she had come. The whole world seemed made of mountains. Except for the plain she had come across, mountains and hills stretched as far as she could see. All the villages she had passed through were too far away to see from this height, though she saw wood smoke rising from the trees. She looked for the capital, but it was hundreds of miles away, so far away that there was nothing to see, not even the Rajō Gate. She had never imagined that all those days and all those miles added up to something immense. She could never go back so far, and she could never find anything so small as a single hill, a single family of cats.
The monk ducked into the shelter of her rock. They looked up at the mountain. “I didn’t know it would be so far,” he said, as if they were in the middle of a conversation.
She looked at him.
“We can try,” he added. “I think we’ll die, but sometimes pilgrimages are worth it.”
They sat there for a while longer, as the sun grew lower and the wind grew colder. “But we don’t have to,” he said. “We can go back down and see what happens next.”
They started down together.
The Monk
Small Cat and the monk stayed together for a long time. In many ways they were alike, both journeying without a goal, free to travel as fast or as slow as they liked. Small Cat continued north because she had started on the Tokaido, and she might as well see what lay at the end of it. The monk went north because he could beg for rice and talk about Buddha anywhere, and he liked adventures.
It was winter now, and a cold, snowy one. It seemed as though the sun barely rose before it set behind the mountains. The rivers they crossed were sluggish, and the lakes covered with ice, smooth as the floorboards in a house. It seemed to snow every few days, sometimes clumps heavy enough to splat when they landed, sometimes tiny flakes so light they tickled her whiskers. Small Cat didn’t like snow: it looked like feathers, but it just turned into water when it landed on her.
Small Cat liked traveling with the monk. When she had trouble wading through the snow, he let her hop onto his big straw backpack. When he begged for rice, he shared whatever he got with her. She learned to eat bits of food from his fingers, and stuck her head in his bowl if he set it down. One day she brought him a bird she had caught, as a gift. He didn’t eat the bird, just looked sad and prayed for the bird’s fate. After that she killed and ate her meals out of his sight.
The monk told stories as they walked. She lay comfortably on the backpack and watched the road unroll slowly under his feet as she listened to stories about the Buddha’s life and his search for wisdom and enlightenment. She didn’t understand what enlightenment was, exactly; but it seemed very important, for the monk said he also was looking for it. Sometimes on nights where they didn’t find anywhere to stay, and had to shelter under the heavy branches of a pine tree, he told stories about himself as well, from when he was a child.
And then the Tokaido ended. It was a day that even Small Cat could tell was about to end in a storm, as the first flakes of snow whirled down from low, dark clouds that promised more to come. Small Cat huddled atop the basket on the monk’s back, face pressed into the space between her front paws. She didn’t look up until the monk said, “There! We can sleep warm tonight.”
There was a village at the bottom of the hill they were descending: the Tokaido led through a double handful of buildings scattered along the shore of a storm-tossed lake, but it ended at the water’s edge. The opposite shore—if there was one—was hidden by snow and the gathering dusk. Now what? She mewed.
“Worried, little one?” the monk said over his shoulder. “You’ll get there! Just be patient.”
One big house rented rooms as if it were an inn. When the monk called out, a small woman with short black hair emerged and bowed many times. “Come in, come in! Get out of the weather.” The monk took off his straw sandals and put down his pack with a sigh of relief. Small Cat leapt down and stretched.
The innkeeper screeched and snatched up a hoe to jab at Small Cat, who leapt behind the basket.
“Wait!” The monk put his hands out. “She’s traveling with me.”
The innkeeper lowered the hoe a bit. “Well, she’s small, at least. What is she, then?”
The monk looked at Small Cat. “I’m not sure. She was on a pilgrimage when I found her, high on Fuji-san.”
“Hmm,” the woman said, but she put down the hoe. “Well, if she’s with you….”
The wind drove through every crack and gap in the house. Everyone gathered around a big brazier set into the floor of the centermost room, surrounded by screens and shutters to keep out the cold. Besides the monk and Small Cat and the members of the household, there were two farmers—a young husband and wife—on their way north.
“Well, you’re here for a while,” the woman said as she poured hot broth for everyone. “The ferry won’t run for a day or two, until the storm’s over.”
Small Cat stretched out so close to the hot coals that her whiskers sizzled, but she was the only one who was warm enough; everyone else huddled inside the screens. They ate rice and barley and dried fish cooked in pots that hung over the brazier. She hunted for her own meals: the mice had gnawed a secret hole into a barrel of rice flour, so there were a lot of them. Whenever she found something she brought it back to the brazier’s warmth, where she could listen to t
he people.
There was not much for them to do but talk and sing, so they talked and sang a lot. They shared fairy tales and ghost stories. They told funny stories about themselves or the people they knew. People had their own fudoki, Small Cat realized, though there seemed to be no order to the stories, and she didn’t see yet how they made a place home. They sang love-songs and funny songs about foolish adventurers, and Small Cat realized that songs were stories as well.
At first the servants in the house kicked at Small Cat whenever she was close, but the monk stopped them. “But she’s a demon!” the young wife said.
“If she is,” the monk said, “she means no harm. She has her own destiny. She deserves to be left in peace to fulfill it.”
“What destiny is that?” the innkeeper asked.
“Do you know your destiny?” the monk asked. She shook her head, and slowly everyone else shook their heads as well. The monk said, “Well, then. Why should she know hers?”
The young husband watched her eat her third mouse in as many hours. “Maybe catching mice is her destiny. Does she always do that? Catch mice?”
“Anything small,” the monk said, “but mice are her favorite.”
“That would be a useful animal for a farmer,” the farmer said. “Would you sell her?”
The monk frowned. “No one owns her. It’s her choice where she goes.”
The wife scratched at the floor, trying to coax Small Cat into playing. “Maybe she would come with us! She’s so pretty.” Small Cat batted at her fingers for a while before she curled up beside the brazier again. But the husband looked at Small Cat for a long time.
The Kidnapping
It was two days before the snowstorm stopped, and another day before the weather cleared enough for them to leave. Small Cat hopped onto the monk’s straw basket and they left the inn, blinking in the daylight after so many days lit by dim lamps and the brazier. Sparkling new snow hid everything, making it strange and beautiful. Waves rippled the lake, but frothing white-caps whipped up by the storm had gone. The Tokaido, no more than a broad flat place in the snow, led down to a dock on the lake. A big man wearing a brown padded jacket and leggings made of fur took boxes from a boat tied up there; two other men carried them into a covered shelter.
The Tokaido only went south from here, back the way she had come. A smaller road, still buried under the snow, followed the shore line, but she couldn’t see where the lake ended. The road might go on forever and never turn north. Small Cat mewed anxiously.
The monk turned his head a little. “Still eager to travel?” He pointed to the opposite shore. “They told me the road starts again on the other side. The boat’s how we can get there.”
Small Cat growled.
The farmers tramped down to the boat with their packs and four shaggy goats, tugging and bleating and cursing the way goats do. The boatman accepted their fare, counted out in old-fashioned coins, but he offered to take the monk for free. He frowned at Small Cat, and said, “That thing, too, whatever it is.”
The boat was the most horrible thing that had ever happened to Small Cat, worse than the earthquake, worse than the fire. It heaved and rocked, tipping this way and that. She crouched on top of a bundle with her claws sunk deep, drooling with nausea, and meowing with panic. The goats jostled against one another, equally unhappy. She would run if she could, but there was nowhere to go. They were surrounded by water in every direction, too far from the shore to swim. The monk offered to hold her, but she hissed and tried to scratch him. She kept her eyes fixed on the hills of the north shore as they grew closer.
The moment the boat bumped against the north dock, she streaked ashore and crawled as far into a roadside shrine as she could get, panting and shaking.
“Sir!” A boy stood by the dock, hopping from foot to foot. He bobbed a bow at the monk. “My mother isn’t well. I saw you coming, and was so happy! Could you please come see her, and pray for her?” The monk bowed in return, and the boy ran down the lane.
The monk knelt beside Small Cat’s hiding place. “Do you want to come with me?” he asked. She stayed where she was, trembling. He looked a little sad. “All right, then. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Oh sir, please!” the boy shouted.
The monk stood. “Be clever and brave, little one. And careful!” And he trotted after the boy.
From her hiding place, Small Cat watched the husband and the boatman wrestle the goats to shore. The wife walked to the roadside shrine and squatted in front of it, peering in. “I saw you go hide,” she said. “Were you frightened on the boat? I was. I have rice balls with meat. Would you like one?” She bowed to the kami of the shrine and pulled a waxed packet from her bundle. She laid a bit of food in front of the shrine and bowed again. “There. Now some for you.”
Small Cat inched forward. She felt better now, and it did smell nice.
“What did you find?” The farmer crouched behind his wife.
“The demon,” she said. “See?”
“Lost the monk, did you? Hmm.” The farmer looked up and down the lane, and pulled an empty sack from his bundle. He bowed to the kami, reached in, and grabbed Small Cat by the scruff of her neck.
Nothing like this had ever happened to her! She yowled and scratched, but the farmer kept his grip and managed to stuff her into the sack.
She swung and bumped for a long time.
The Farmhouse
Small Cat gave up fighting after a while, for she was squeezed too tightly in the sack to do anything but make herself even more uncomfortable; but she meowed until she was hoarse. It was cold in the sack. Light filtered in through the coarse weave, but she could see nothing. She could smell nothing but onions and goats.
Night fell before the jostling ended and she was carried indoors. Someone laid the sack on a flat surface and opened it. Small Cat clawed the farmer as she emerged. She was in a small room with a brazier. With a quick glance she saw a hiding place, and she stuffed herself into the corner where the roof and wall met.
The young husband and wife and two farmhands stood looking up at her with alarmed expressions, all wide eyes and open mouths. The husband sucked at the scratch marks on his hand. “She’s not dangerous,” he said reassuringly. “Well, except for this. I think she is a demon for mice, not for us.”
Small Cat stayed in her high place for two days. The wife put scraps of chicken skin and water on top of a huge trunk, but the people mostly ignored her. Though they didn’t know it, this was the perfect way to treat a frightened cat in an unfamiliar place. Small Cat watched the activity of the farmhouse at first with suspicion and then with growing curiosity. At night, after everyone slept, she saw the mice sneak from their holes and her mouth watered.
By the third night, her thirst overcame her nervousness. She slipped down to drink. She heard mice in another room, and quickly caught two. She had just caught her third when she heard the husband rise.
“Demon?” he said softly. He came into the room. She back into a corner with her mouse in her mouth. “There you are. I’m glad you caught your dinner.” He chuckled. “We have plenty more, just like that. I hope you stay.”
Small Cat did stay, though it was not home. She had never expected to travel with the monk forever, but she missed him anyway: sharing the food in his bowl, sleeping on his basket as she hiked along. She missed his warm hand when he stroked her.
Still, this was a good place to be, with mice and voles to eat and only a small yellow dog to fight her for them. No one threw things or cursed her. The people still thought she was a demon, but she was their demon now, as important a member of the household as the farmhands, or the dog. The farmhouse was large enough that she could get away from everyone when she needed.
In any case, she didn’t know how to get back to the road. The path had vanished with the next snowfall, so she had nowhere to go but the wintry fields and the forest.
Though she wouldn’t let the farmer touch her, she liked to follow him and watch as he tend
ed the ox and goats, or kill a goose for dinner. The husband talked to her as though she understood him, just as the monk had. Instead of the Buddha’s life, he told her what he was doing when he repaired harness or set tines in a new rake; or he talked about his brothers, who lived not so very far away.
Small Cat liked the wife better than the farmer. She wasn’t the one who had thrown Small Cat into a bag. She gave Small Cat bits of whatever she cooked. Sometimes, when she had a moment, they played with a goose feather or a small knotted rag; but it was a working household, and there were not many moments like that.
But busy as the wife’s hands might be, her mind and her voice were free. She talked about the baby she was hoping to have and her plans for the gardens as soon as the soil softened with springtime.
When she didn’t talk, she sang in a voice as soft and pretty as a dove’s. One of her favorite songs was about Mt. Fuji-san, which puzzled Small Cat. Why would anyone tell stories of a place so far away, instead of one’s home? With a shock, she realized her stories were about a place even more distant.
Small Cat started reciting her fudoki again, putting the stories back in their proper order: The Cat Who Ate Dirt, The Earless Cat, The Cat Under The Pavement. Even if there were no other cats to share it with, she was still here. For the first time, she realized that The Cat From The North might not have come from very far north at all. There hadn’t been any monks or boats or giant mountains in The Cat From The North’s story, just goats and dogs. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed obvious that she’d spent all this time looking for something she left behind before she even left the capital.
The monk had told her that courage and persistence would bring her what she wanted, but was this it? The farm was a good place to be: safe, full of food. But the North went on so much farther than The Cat From The North had imagined. If Small Cat could not return to the capital, she might as well find out where North really ended.