The Sign of the Cat

by Lynne Jonell

  Fia curled around his neck and patted the telescope curiously with her paw. Duncan showed her how to put her small eye to the lens.

  “Can you see the stone throne?” he asked. “That big boulder that looks like a chair for a giant?”

  Fia pressed against the eyepiece. Her tail went up like a flag. “Why is Grizel on the cliff?”

  Duncan nudged Fia aside. He scanned—it was Grizel! Why had she run all the way to the cliff? She was waving her tail … no, lashing it.…

  Duncan took in his breath sharply. She was signaling. She was not signaling in semaphore, holding flags in different positions, the way human sailors did. She was signaling with her tail in Cataphore, the language of seagoing cats. Unlike the subtle motions of whiskers and ears that cats used face-to-face, Cataphore could be seen at long distances. Grizel had tried to teach him once, but since he didn’t have a tail, he hadn’t paid much attention.

  “Let me see!” Fia’s whiskers tickled as she butted her head against Duncan’s jaw.

  Duncan stared intently through the telescope at the small moving figure on the clifftop. Grizel arched her back, clawed the air, put her tail straight up—no, now it was sideways—and now it was at an angle.

  Duncan clicked his tongue with impatience. He couldn’t understand any of her signals.

  “Have you learned Cataphore yet?” he asked Fia as he yielded the telescope. “Tell me what she’s saying.”

  Fia hesitated. “Cataphore’s kind of advanced. I haven’t even passed my kitten examinations.”

  “Try anyway,” urged Duncan. “You’re a cat. It might come naturally to you.”

  Fia shrugged her tiny shoulders. “That looks like ‘keep your back up,’” she meowed. “And maybe ‘keep your claws out.’ Then … let’s see … she’s making the number seven.”

  Duncan chewed on a fingernail. “Cat tricks go by number,” he said abruptly. “Number seven—that’s Perky Ears, right?”

  Fia hesitated. “Now she’s making letters with her tail, but I’m not very good at spelling yet.”

  Duncan fought the urge to grab the telescope away and see for himself. “Just do the best you can. Say the letters out loud to me.” He fumbled with his free hand for the pen and pulled a fresh sheet of paper out of the drawer. He wrote “Back up, claws out,” as fast as he could, and waited, pen poised, for more.

  “W … A…,” said Fia. “C … H … O … W … T … F … O … R.”

  Duncan looked at what he had written. Wachowtfor. It didn’t make any sense. He mouthed the syllables aloud, slowly, and the sound created meaning in his brain. “Watch out for!” he said, excited. “She’s telling us to watch out for something—what? What else is she spelling?”

  But Fia said nothing. One eye had become distracted by the reflection of light on the water that played across the cabin wall. Now she was swaying on her hind feet, her paws outstretched to catch the dancing bits of light.

  “Hey!” Duncan dropped the pen. “Pay attention! Tell me the next letters!”

  Fia glanced carelessly through the telescope. “E,” she said.

  “E? What’s the rest of it?” cried Duncan. “Come on, Fia!”

  “E, L, S,” Fia rattled off, and pulled her eye away again, entranced by the darting flecks of light.

  “Eels? Watch out for eels? Are you sure?”

  “They’re moving!” cried Fia, pawing the air. “I can catch one, I know I can!”

  Duncan stifled a groan as he put his eye to the telescope. He should have known better than to trust such an important job to a kitten. By the time he managed to focus on Grizel once more, she was so small he could barely see her lashing tail.

  “When she whips her tail back and forth, what does that mean?” he demanded.

  Fia had given up on the dancing sparkles and was investigating the swinging cot, but she answered promptly. “Danger,” she said. “If it’s three long lashes and one short. Or maybe—” She twined her paws together uncertainly. “Maybe it’s three short lashes and one long. And if it’s two long and two short, I think it means ‘you have a wood tick.’ Or maybe ‘your mother has fleas.’ It’s something bad, anyway, I’m pretty sure.”

  Duncan doubted his cat had run all the way to the cliff just to tell him about wood ticks or fleas. Somehow Grizel must have known he was on the schooner and had tried to warn him of danger. But what kind of danger? He was supposed to worry about eels?

  He watched with a strange catch at his heart as Grizel’s form blended into the cliffside and disappeared. The island of Dulle was faded and misty in the distance when at last he took the telescope from his eye.

  Duncan spread out his paper on the polished wooden table and puzzled over the words. Back up. Claws out. Perky Ears. Watch out for eels. They made sense individually, but not together.

  He was thirsty. He picked up his glass of cherry punch and took a sip. It tasted strong, but not unpleasant. He jumped when Fia poked her head out from behind a curtain that hung to the deck.

  “I’m exploring the earl’s closet,” she announced. “There’s a place behind the walls and under the deck where I can squeeze through. And there’s a smell of rat!”

  “Watch out,” said Duncan. He yawned widely, suddenly sleepy. “You’re not much bigger than a rat yourself.”

  “I hope there is a rat,” said Fia. “I can practice my pouncing skills!”

  She popped out of sight. A scrabbling sound came from behind the closet curtain, then faded into the rest of the ship’s noises and was gone. Duncan yawned again and hoped Fia had the sense to run away if she met a rat bigger than herself.

  He looked at the drink in his hand. If he was going to be on the ship for a while, he had better not insult the cook. He lifted the glass to his lips and drank deeply.

  It was odd how tired he was all of a sudden. He leaned his head against the bulkhead wall. In a minute, he would look at the paper again and try to figure out what Grizel had been trying to tell him. It was something important, he was sure. He would just close his eyes for a little while.…

  The glass of punch slipped from his hand and shattered on the wooden planks. Duncan’s knees buckled, and he slumped to the deck.

  CHAPTER 10

  Dangerous Duty

  DUNCAN WOKE WITH A FOUL TASTE in his mouth and a head that felt as if it had been hit by a hammer. To complicate things, he was swinging back and forth, his hair was sopping wet, and he had to throw up.

  He gripped the ropes of the hammock and struggled to sit upright. Immediately he felt worse. He groaned, collapsed on the rough wooden deck, and hit something that felt like a bucket.

  It was a bucket. He crawled after it as it rolled away, and grabbed it with a desperate hand. He put his head over it in the nick of time.

  Afterward the taste in his mouth was worse. He wiped his face with his sleeve and looked around. A shaft of dim light illumined low wooden beams overhead and what seemed to be a space full of hammocks, all swinging gently.

  He hauled himself back into his hammock. He didn’t know where he was or why, but he felt too horrible to care.

  “Meow?” Fia’s inquiring voice came from the beams overhead. “What were you doing with your head in that bucket?”

  “None of your business,” Duncan muttered.

  Fia’s high meow pierced his head like a skewer. “I’ve been exploring all the between-places, but humans keep chasing me—”

  If he shut his eyes, Duncan wondered, would the room stop going round and round?

  Fia dropped down onto Duncan’s chest with a jarring thump and rapped his chin with her paw. “Get up, will you? Come on!”

  Duncan covered his ears.

  Bang! A hatch flew open. A shaft of light filtered down, illuminating the dust floating in the air. Heavy boots clumped down a ladder, and a loud voice called, “Heeere, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

  In an instant, Fia was wriggling her way inside Duncan’s shirt, poking his skin with her sharp little claws.

  �
��You, boy! Have you seen a kitten?”

  Duncan’s shoulder was roughly shaken, and he struggled to sit up. He could feel Fia trembling inside his shirt. “It’s too dark in here to see anything. What do you want a kitten for?”

  “What for?” the sailor repeated, grinning. “You’re new on this ship, aren’t you?”

  The deck swooped beneath Duncan so violently that he clutched for the bucket. He didn’t have the strength to ask what the sailor meant. He bent his head over the bucket one more time, heaving, and the sailor chuckled.

  “Rough waters, mate,” he said. “You’ll feel better once you get your sea legs.”

  “When will that happen?” gasped Duncan.

  “Two or three days. Buck up, lad—they’ll put you to work soon enough, and that will take your mind off your stomach.”

  “I can’t stay here even one day.” Duncan fell back with a moan. “My mother doesn’t know where I am. I’ve got to get home—or at least get a message to her.”

  The sailor shook his head, his loose, stringy hair flying back and forth against the shaft of light. “Take my advice and forget about her. Little nancy boys who whine for their mamas don’t last long on this ship, see?”

  Duncan was determined not to be the sort of boy who whined for his mother, though he thought of her often enough in the miserable night that followed. He lay curled in his hammock, weary and ill, swaying with the roll and plunge of the ship, trying to sleep while the ship’s crew snored in hammocks all around him. Their bodies were so close that if he put out a hand, he could touch one, yet he had never felt so alone.

  He did not know why he had been locked in and drugged, but it seemed clear that he had. Bertram was the most likely culprit—with the cook a close second. Duncan thought back to the way Bertram had first suggested refreshments, then spoken privately to the cook. When the earl had left Duncan in the great cabin, Bertram had been the one who shut the door—and locked it behind the earl’s back, no doubt.

  The next morning, as soon as he could stagger on deck, Duncan asked to see the earl.

  The earl was not quite so friendly as he had been. He ran his eyes over Duncan and did not ask him to sit down. And when Duncan told him of his suspicions, the lines in the man’s face deepened, and his brows snapped together.

  The Earl of Merrick drummed his long fingers against the armrest of his chair. “I was prepared to give you a chance; you seemed a likely lad. But now I am not so pleased with you. First off, Bertram has been my faithful servant since boyhood. He would never do such a thing.”

  “But—” Duncan protested.

  “And I will get exceedingly angry if you continue to make unfounded accusations. For one thing, that cherry punch was meant for me as well. Would Bertram try to drug me? To what end?”

  “I don’t know,” said Duncan stubbornly, “but the cook was in on it, too.”

  The earl laughed. “All the cook did was add rum to the punch, as always. Here on board ship, we drink a great deal of rum, man and boy both—it is the sailor’s drink. Clearly you liked it, for the pitcher was drained when I returned to the cabin, and you were passed out, drunk, on the floor.”

  Duncan gaped at him. Drunk?

  “I was not impressed,” said the earl with a downward flick of his raven-wing eyebrows.

  “I wasn’t drunk—I was drugged,” Duncan said hotly. “And I didn’t drink the whole pitcher, and I was locked in.”

  The earl’s mouth curled in sardonic amusement. “Are you entirely sure that your memory is accurate? A boy who had his first taste of rum might easily overdo it. Here is what I think happened: You got drunk with rum, you fumbled with the door latch and imagined that you were locked in, you fell and hit your head and were knocked out. That’s enough to fuddle anyone’s brain.”

  Duncan shook his head. It had not happened that way—he was sure of it. But he could see how the earl might think so.

  “Drunkenness on board is a punishable offense. You will have extra duties for two weeks.” The earl pulled a piece of paper toward him and made a note.

  “Two weeks?” Duncan cried.

  “Would you prefer a flogging? That can be arranged.” The earl tapped his pen.

  Duncan’s mouth was open, but his voice did not seem to be working. At last he squeaked, “I thought you were going to sail for two days, to Capital City and back to Dulle!”

  “Plans change,” said the earl, waving a dismissive hand. “You were still lolling about in your hammock yesterday when we stopped at Capital City. I got new information that makes it imperative to sail south.”

  “But—you promised—”

  The earl’s long fingers strayed to his bandage, toying with the frayed edge. “Perhaps you don’t understand honor and duty. Perhaps you think I have nothing better to do than to ferry a penniless boy back to his dull, tame, fearful life.”

  Duncan flushed. More than ever, he wished he had not confided in the earl.

  “Some people get drunk because they try to find courage in a bottle.” The earl’s lip curled slightly. “You were afraid to come on as a ship’s boy. Perhaps you drank the whole pitcher to give you the bravery to stay.”

  Duncan’s cheeks burned as if he had been slapped. “I’m not a coward!”

  The earl smiled thinly. “You’ll have the chance to prove it. If you don’t back down from any duty, however dangerous, you will—in time—earn my trust.”

  * * *

  The mast surged and swayed under Duncan like a living thing. He gripped it tightly and pressed his cheek against the weather-beaten wood. He was in the crosstrees, the open platform high on the mainmast, and far below was the ship, looking small and impossibly narrow on the wide, wide sea.

  Looking down gave Duncan a hollow, scooping sensation behind his ribs. He was used to heights—he had climbed the cliffs at home often enough—but he wasn’t used to heights that moved. The ship’s mast didn’t just bob up and down; it swung forward, back, and side to side, and Duncan, clinging near its top, felt as if he were a pen writing great curving loops on the sky.

  If he lost his grip, he would plunge straight into the sea. Or he might fall onto the deck and break his back. Or maybe he would bounce off the rigging, hit the railing, and then fall into the water. Would the ship come about in time before he drowned?

  It was better not to think about it. And it was definitely better not to look down. Duncan twined his legs around the crosstrees, pulled a spyglass from his pocket, and scanned the far-off line where sea met darkening sky. If he saw a sail or land, he was supposed to give a shout to the crew on deck. That was the lookout’s job.

  A small grin spread over his face as he adjusted the telescope’s focus. If someone had told him a month ago that he would have lookout duty on the Earl of Merrick’s ship, he would never have believed it. But it was true! And he did more besides—scrubbed the deck and spliced rope and went aloft in all weathers, learning to set sail, take in a reef, and steer by sun and stars, and the thousand and one things a ship’s boy could learn if he was bright and attentive. He was busy, but not too busy to think—or to watch Bertram.

  Clearly Bertram was the earl’s trusted right-hand man. Bertram was sent on errands to the small islands they stopped at; Bertram gave directions to the sailing master; it was Bertram who was with the earl most often, poring over charts of Arvidia and the surrounding sea.

  Duncan was being careful. He had never taken another drink of cherry punch (or rum, for that matter) or eaten any food that he hadn’t seen another sailor eating first. No one was keeping him safe anymore, so he would have to do it himself.

  All the same, he’d had more close calls in the past month than seemed natural. He’d almost gone overboard twice; he’d nearly fallen off the foresail yard when the footrope broke; and when a backstay parted and a heavy wooden block came swinging at his head, it was pure chance that he’d happened to duck in time.

  Bertram had been standing at the taffrail, a silent, hulking presence, watching each
time that Duncan had nearly lost his life. But Duncan didn’t see how Bertram could possibly have caused all those accidents.

  Still, Duncan made sure he was never alone with the big-shouldered man, or standing too near. And he was always watching for Bertram to make some mistake—to say or do something that would convince the earl that the man should not be trusted.

  For Bertram’s crimes were not just drugging Duncan and locking him in. They also included stealing a crate full of kittens. Duncan didn’t know why Bertram was interested in kittens, but he intended to find out. He felt certain that Bertram had not reported the kitten incident to the police back on Dulle when he went off in the carriage with Duncan’s key.

  Duncan went hot and cold each time he thought of how stupid he had been to give Bertram his house key—and his address. Sure, the earl may have wanted to send Sylvia McKay flowers, but Bertram could have taken advantage of that to harm Duncan’s mother. The one thing that saved Duncan from tormenting himself was the fact that he knew she had been gone, teaching piano lessons, the whole time.

  He missed his mother most dreadfully. During the day, of course, he was too busy for more than a brief snatch of memory or a piercing sense of loss. And most evenings he rolled into his hammock so exhausted that he was asleep within thirty seconds. But when the bell tinged to mark the middle watch and he woke in the night, it was different. There, in the slow-breathing dark, with men swaying in their hammocks all around him, thoughts of his mother, Grizel, and home hollowed out Duncan’s middle and left a stone on his chest.

  Then the bell rang, the sun leaped up, the day’s duties started, and Duncan would run up the rigging with a gasp of laughter as the wind blew through his hair. He had never felt so alive. He didn’t bother to wear his cap; his hair was stiff and harsh with salt. His hands were growing calluses, and he was having the adventure of his life.

  Of course, the sailors were a little rough and teased him more than he liked—but at least they never teased him about having red hair, for which he was grateful. Fia had gone into hiding so she wouldn’t be chased, but there were plenty of spaces where she could curl up in comfort, as she told Duncan at night, and she was learning the passageways between. And though Bertram was an ever-present worry, Mr. Corbie, the sailing master, was friendly.