A possibility occurs to Bella, so disturbing and frightening that she pushes it away.
No, that would be as preposterous as . . . as Jack the Ripper lurking in the mist that shrouds the Dale.
Still, she can’t help but look over her shoulder, up the staircase. She half-expects to see someone looming there, but the hall above is dark and still.
“I have boy instinct,” Max is saying.
“Hmm?”
“You have mom instinct, and I have boy instinct,” Max tells her. “I told you the kittens would be born today, and I told you how many there would be.”
Yes, he did.
Boy instinct . . . or prophecy?
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,” Max counts, as if to make absolutely sure, and then he casts a fretful glance at the door. “I really think she forgot one.”
“She didn’t, Max,” Bella assures him again. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“I don’t know. I just do.”
“What made you say the kittens were coming today?”
“I made me say it.”
“Yes, but how did you know?”
He shrugs. “I just knew.”
It could have been a lucky guess. Thinking back to their conversation at the animal hospital, she remembers that Doctor Bailey had said the kittens were due within the week and that there would be quite a few of them.
Maybe seven was another lucky guess. Anything between two and ten would have been sensible—though how would Max know that?
Then again, she reasons, he did say seven or possibly eight, giving him even greater odds of getting it right.
Good. See? All you have to do is take a step back from this mystical Lily Dale mentality and apply logical thinking.
She can probably come up with a rational explanation for most of the so-called psychic phenomena around here if she just—
“Mom! What is she doing?”
She looks up to see that Chance has left the crate and is staring at the door. Her ears standing straight up, twitching as if she’s listening intently.
“I don’t know. Maybe she heard something outside. An animal or something.”
“It’s her other kitten! She got lost and Chance the Cat couldn’t find her in the dark, and now she’s crying out there all alone.”
“Did you hear her crying?”
“No, but her mommy did, because she has instinct and great hearing.”
He may be right. Chance emits a sudden, agitated chirping sound and practically throws herself at the door.
Max hurries to open it. The cat scoots past him and is swallowed by the darkness, leaving seven crying kittens behind.
“It’s okay, guys. Your mommy will be right back.”
Bella certainly hopes Max is right. She peers outside, wondering what it was that lured the cat from the nest. Did she really drop one of her kittens?
Maybe she heard a bird out there, or a rodent, or . . .
What if she heard someone prowling around the house?
Oh, come on, Bella. She’s a cat, not a guard dog.
“Hurry up, Chance the Cat!” Max calls. “Your babies are crying!”
After a brief rustling in the bushes near the porch, the cat springs up onto the porch, another kitten clasped in her mouth.
“It’s Spider!” Max hollers.
Dumbfounded, Bella watches Chance trot calmly into the house and drop a wee black speck of a kitten into the nest with the others.
“Number eight! My boy instinct was right, Mommy, see?”
Bella nods as if she does. But she doesn’t see anything at all, while her son somehow sees . . .
The future? Really?
What, exactly, did Odelia say about . . . wow. Was that only yesterday?
Entire seasons seem to have passed since Bella sat lounging in the sun-splashed yard, so new to all this, so naïve. Everything Odelia told her seemed farfetched.
And now . . . what? Now you believe it? You’re an overnight convert to Spiritualism?
No. Of course not. It’s just that things have happened since yesterday that she can’t quite explain, including this latest experience with Max and the kittens.
So what was it Odelia had said about children and psychic experiences?
Unlike adults, they haven’t yet fully learned what they’re supposed to see and feel—and what they aren’t.
She was talking about Jiffy, Bella reminds herself. His mother is a medium, and it runs in families. That’s what Odelia claimed, and yet . . .
She also said anyone is capable, didn’t she?
If anyone can do it, and if kids are more susceptible, then maybe Max is . . . one of them.
Bella abruptly closes the front door, as if that might somehow keep Lily Dale from seeping in.
“He’s so tiny, Mommy.”
“What?”
“Spider. He’s really, really, really small. Like this big.” Max presses his thumb and forefinger together.
“Let’s see.” Bella settles on the floor beside the crate to get her first good look at the brood. Most of the kittens are still prone and nursing, kneading their mama’s soft fur with their tiny pink paws as they suckle. It’s impossible to discern the tiny black latecomer from the wriggling, mewing heap of fur babies.
“I love them!” Max declares. “I want to keep them all.”
“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” she murmurs, mulling the latest twist in their Lily Dale stay as her son talks on about all the fun he can have with “his” cat and kittens.
She’s grateful when a key turns in the lock and Helen and Karl Adabner, in the midst of animated conversation, step into the house.
“I know you did, but I don’t care. I just didn’t think—” Karl breaks off, spotting Max. “Well, hello, young man. Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“No.”
“Yes,” Bella corrects her son, looking up at the clock. “Is the evening message service over already?”
“Not quite, but it’s past our bedtime, too.” Catching sight of the crate as she follows her husband toward the stairs, Helen stops short. “Oh, my! What do we have here?”
“We have here Chance the Cat and her eight babies,” Max reports.
“What a neat surprise!”
“Don’t get too close. Mom says we have to stay back here because they need privacy right now.”
“Your mom is right. I just want to take a quick peek.” Helen leans over the crate. “Oh! They’re precious! Look, Karl. Oh, I want one!”
“I want them all,” Max says.
“We can’t have five cats, Helen.”
And we can’t have any at all, Bella thinks.
“You said we couldn’t have three cats, either,” Helen tells Karl. “Or four. And now look.”
“Yes, now look,” he says flatly, shaking his balding head.
“You have four cats?” Max is impressed. “Are they here?”
“No, our neighbor is taking care of them this week, which means I don’t have to sleep with a cat on my head for a change.” Karl yawns and walks toward the stairs.
“Mom and I are going to sleep with Chance the Cat and all her babies. Mom promised. Right, Mom?”
“What a nice mom. But what happened to your leg, Mom?” Karl asks, and she looks down to see her scraped knee and bruised thigh.
“Oh, that? I . . . I kind of fell up the stairs,” she says with a laugh.
“Up the stairs? That’s a twist.”
“Yes, well . . . I like to shake things up a bit.”
Karl grins again, yawns again, and looks at his wife. “Are you coming up to bed?”
“In a minute.”
“I thought you were exhausted.”
“I am.” She kneels on the floor beside the crate. “I just want to see them for a second.”
“Don’t fall in love, Helen.”
“Too late, Karl,” she returns lightly.
Smiling, Bella moves aside to let him pass her on his way up the step
s.
“Looks like you’ve got your hands full, there, Mom,” he says, and winks at her. “Good night.”
He seems sweet and harmless, though the wink gives her pause, and her good-night isn’t as warm as it might have been if Pandora hadn’t warned her about his friskiness.
Oh, come on. He’s just being friendly, not flirtatious. Plenty of older men wink. Maybe not in New York, but Iowa . . .
Besides, look at you.
Checking her reflection in the mirror earlier, after Grant had retreated to his room, she’d noticed a purple grape juice stain on her T-shirt to match the circles under her eyes, the lovely scrape where she’d hurt her knee earlier on the stairway, and a fresh bruise where she’d bumped her thigh.
“Aren’t you the sweetest little things?” Helen coos, and Bella turns to see her stroking the nursing kittens with a gentle fingertip.
Max is crouched beside her, boldly daring to get a better look now that Helen has breached Bella’s safety perimeter.
“I love their markings. I see four gray tabbies like mama and a couple of black-and-white tuxedo kitties . . .”
“There’s one that’s only black, too, but he’s getting smushed in there, see?”
A few of the kittens have formed a squealing little heap with a tufted tip of black tail barely poking from beneath.
“They’re just trying to stay warm,” Helen tells him. “It’s okay. It’s what they do.”
“You must have mom instinct, too.”
She smiles a sad smile and shakes her head. “I’m not a mom.”
“Why not?”
“It just . . . it wasn’t meant to be. But I did grow up on a farm, and I’ve been around plenty of newborn litters, so I guess I have . . . kitty instinct.”
“I’m glad,” Bella says, “because I’m new to this.”
“In that case . . . be prepared to keep them all.”
Predictably, Max says, “I want to keep them all.”
“I wish we could, sweetie, but we can’t.”
“Then I’ll just keep Spidey,” Max decides. “And Chance the Cat, too.”
“How do you know which one is Spidey?” Helen asks.
“He’s the teeny tiny black one under there. His name is Spider, but I call him Spidey for short, because he’s short. Extra short. He’s a boy. There are four boys and four girls.”
“Wow! You’re not such novices if you can already tell what they are, because that’s tricky when they’re this little,” Helen says.
“Oh, we can’t tell. Max is guessing.”
“I’m not guessing! Four boys and four girls. I’m not sure which is which, except Spidey is a boy. And I’m worried because his mommy dropped him outside and now he’s the only one who’s not eating.”
“Let’s have a look. Come here, Spidey.” Helen gently reaches into the pile of kittens to extract the black one, and gasps. “Oh, my goodness. He’s a true runt.”
“What’s a runt?”
“It’s a baby that’s much smaller and more fragile than his littermates.” Cradling the mewing, writhing kitten in her hand, she tilts it so that they can get a better look.
Bella realizes Max wasn’t exaggerating much when he indicated that Spider would fit into the fraction of space between his thumb and forefinger. The others may be tiny, but they’re twice his size.
“This litter is too large for one poor tired mama cat to feed,” Helen says, as a door creaks open upstairs followed by footsteps in the hall. “And this fellow is too weak and tiny to get his fair share. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but he needs to see a vet right away. He needs nourishment immediately.”
Max clutches Bella’s arm. “We have to go to Doctor Bailey!”
“Max, we—”
“Please! Don’t let him die!”
“Don’t let who die?” a deep voice asks from the top of the stairs.
She looks up to see Grant Everard standing there. He’s changed into a pair of jeans; sneakers; a T-shirt that reveals tanned, muscular forearms; and, indeed, a watch she can tell is expensive even from where she stands. A sweatshirt is slung over his arm, and there are keys in his hand. Even dressed down, he gives off an air of casual sophistication.
“Spidey needs to go to Doctor Bailey right now!” Max tells him. “It’s an emergency!”
“It’s going to be okay, Max.” Bella puts a calming hand on his shoulder. “Come on, we’ll go borrow Odelia’s car and take her.”
“You’ll have to take them all,” Helen tells her.
“What do you mean?”
“If you take her away from her mama, she might be rejected even if she survives. And the others are nursing nonstop, so mama can’t leave them either,” she continues, as Bella absorbs the seriousness of the situation. “But Odelia is at the service. She’s not scheduled to read until the end, so she won’t be done for a while, and you can’t pull her away. You don’t have a car?”
“It’s in the repair shop.” She remembers that the Adabners arrived in a cab, so they can’t help her.
Grant walks down the stairs and peers at the kitten still cupped in Helen’s hand. “What’s going on?”
As Helen briefly explains the situation, Bella can see exactly where this is going.
Sure enough, he says, “I’ll drive you to the vet. I was just going out to find some food.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m afraid he does. You really need to get this kitten some help right away,” Helen says anxiously, stroking the kitten’s black fur with her forefinger.
Grant nods. “We’re on our way. Let’s go.”
“Thank you, Mister . . . um . . .” Max hesitates. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Grant.”
“Grant?” Helen raises her eyebrows, looking surprised. “Are you Leona’s nephew?”
“I am.”
No, you’re not, Bella thinks, wondering why he doesn’t bother to correct the mistaken assumption. True, Leona is the one who, for whatever reason, had told everyone she was his aunt rather than his foster mother, but it wouldn’t be that big a deal for him to clear that up now, would it?
It’s a white lie, and not even his own—or so he claims—but still, it doesn’t sit well with her.
Even though you yourself called your godmother Aunt Sophie?
She wasn’t Bella’s aunt. She wasn’t even a blood relative—just Mom’s best friend and the person who stepped in to do all the things a mom would do: bake birthday cupcakes, make her a first communion veil, and help pick out a prom dress.
“I’d shake your hand, but I can see that it’s full.” Grant gives Helen an easy smile. “It’s nice to meet you . . .”
“Helen. Helen Adabner. I’d heard about you from Leona. You’re not quite what I pictured.”
Wondering what she’d pictured, yet knowing now isn’t the time to ask, Bella tells Grant, “You don’t have to drive us to the vet. When Odelia gets out of the service, we’ll borrow her car and go.”
“Not to upset anyone,” Helen speaks up, directing a meaningful glance at Max, “but I don’t think you can afford to wait that long.”
“I have to call the animal hospital to tell them we’re coming.”
“You can do it from the car.” Grant jangles his keys—and alarm bells jangle in Bella’s brain as she watches him pull on his sweatshirt: a dark-colored hoodie.
Chapter Fourteen
“Drive faster, Mr. Grant! Please?” Max says, buckled into the back beside the crate containing the cat and kittens.
“You got it, buddy.”
Undaunted by the winding road, inky black beyond the headlights’ glow, he gives the luxury sports car a little more gas.
Sitting in the front beside him, Bella watches the speedometer edge even higher above the speed limit. She flexes her foot as if there’s a brake beneath it and wishes she could tell him to slow down. But time is of the essence, according to Doctor Bailey, who told her to come right over with the kitten.
Somehow, he seems to know exactly where he’s going, even though he said he’s never been to the animal hospital before. When she pulled it up on her phone and showed him the map, he glanced, nodded, and said he knows where it is.
She’s been trying to convince herself that isn’t unusual for someone who isn’t from the area and supposedly doesn’t visit very regularly.
Supposedly? So you don’t believe him?
She isn’t sure that she doesn’t . . .
She just wishes she were sure that she does.
Her thoughts are muddled, and he seems lost in his own. He hasn’t spoken much, other than to ask Max how the kitten is holding up.
Each time, the answer is the same: “He’s sick. He’s crying. Can you go faster?”
Of course he can. Bella has a feeling Grant would drive too fast even without an endangered newborn kitten on board.
Suddenly, though, he slows the car and makes a sharp left turn off the highway.
Startled by the abrupt move, she looks down at the map on her phone. They’ve just veered off course.
“What are you doing?” she asks, and her voice sounds too high-pitched. There goes that jackhammer in her chest again.
“I’m driving the car. What are you doing? Besides holding on for dear life and pressing your imaginary brake, I mean.”
Under drastically different circumstances, that might have struck her as amusing. Right now, she’s in no mood for banter.
“You were supposed to stay on the highway.”
“I’m taking a shortcut. It’ll shave off a few minutes. Trust me.”
She doesn’t.
I don’t like this. Not at all.
The winding road, bordered closely by dense woods, is paved, but so pothole ridden that Grant has to weave into the other lane to miss one, and then another.
There’s no oncoming traffic, yet she finds herself white knuckled. It isn’t just the harrowing car ride, it’s . . .
It’s him.
What if . . .
Come on. How can you think such a thing?
Is it just because he’s wearing a dark hoodie?
No. But that doesn’t help matters.
Lots of people wear them, though. She herself had one on the other night. Sam’s hoodie.
Nine Lives Page 18