Beasts of New York: A children's book for grown-ups

by Jon Evans

  He changed direction and moved upwind, following the smells, until he crested a bushy ridge and saw a blocklike concrete structure mostly buried in the next ridge of sandy earth. Part of its flat roof protruded from of the earth, and in that corner there was a depression full of rainwater. It smelled stagnant but drinkable. The cat-scent was stronger than ever.

  Patch approached with caution, but he went unchallenged as he quenched his thirst. At first he supposed the cat had just left. But when he descended the ridge, he saw that there was a large hole, human-made and big enough for a dog, in the side of the concrete block, and the outline of a small cat was barely visible just inside. Its fur was bristling and it stank of rage and fear. Patch froze.

  "Who are you that dares disturb me?" the cat demanded.

  "I am Patch son of Silver, of the Seeker clan, of the Treetops tribe, of the Center Kingdom," Patch said. "Who are you that asks?"

  The cat took two stalking steps out into the light. She was all black but for the two green eyes that stared at Patch with haughty contempt. She said, "My name is Zelina, and I am the Queen of All Cats."

  Patch wondered if the boat had taken him back to the Kingdom of Madness.

  2. The Queen of All Cats

  "Pay no heed to my unfortunate surroundings," Zelina said. "I have been tricked, abused, betrayed and exiled. My throne has been stolen from me. But a throne does not make a queen. I will die here in this broken shell of a ruin, but I will die a queen."

  After a moment Patch said, "Is there any food near here?"

  "No. Three days I have been without food, Patch son of Silver, ever since I was betrayed. I will starve here, and I will die."

  "But you can get food here," Patch objected. "You're a cat. You can catch birds. I've seen sparrows and starlings in the bushes."

  "Catch a bird?" Zelina asked, offended. "And eat it with … with feathers and bones and blood? I, the Queen of All Cats? Don't be ridiculous."

  "You'd rather starve to death?"

  "I lived as a queen, and I will die as a queen."

  "I see," Patch said, although he didn't really. "Are there humans near here?"

  "No."

  "Is there anything near here?"

  "No."

  Patch looked at her suspiciously. "Are you sure? I crossed a fence before. How much have you explored?"

  "A queen does not explore."

  "Do you at least know where we are?" Patch asked, exasperated.

  Zelina looked at him for a moment. Then she said, "Follow me."

  Patch followed her up the ridge, and then up a thick bush atop the ridge. She climbed nearly as well as he did. Once they stood at the top of the bush, Zelina turned to the northwest, and said, "See there."

  Patch squinted. His vision was not near as good as a cat's, but in the very great distance, past the waving field of grasses and bushes, he could see … something … rising above the horizon. Something gray and silver and glittering, and very far away. After a moment he gasped with recognition. What he saw was the mountain range that surrounded the Center Kingdom.

  "There is the heart of the city," Zelina said, her voice soft with longing. "There is the Great Avenue. They left me close enough to see it, but so far away that I can never return. Oh, but their cruelty knows no boundaries."

  They descended from the bush. Zelina had to choose her way down very carefully, and once she almost fell. Cats were not near as good at downclimbing as squirrels. Patch moved without thinking, for his mind was in his memory book, trying to map what he had just seen to his vision of the world when he had hung in Karmerruk's talons, as if the Center Kingdom itself was an acorn he had buried and needed to find. He was almost certain, from the angle and distance of the mountains, and the location of the great waters, that the boat had carried him far beyond the other end of the great bridge, to a distant tail-shaped shred of land on the very edge of the world. He was no closer to the Center Kingdom than he had been before. But at least he had crossed the great waters, and he was alive.

  "Thank you for showing me, Zelina, Queen of All Cats," Patch said politely when they were both back on the sandy earth. He turned to leave.

  "Wait," she said. "Where will you go?"

  "To the Center Kingdom. To my home."

  Zelina looked at him for a long and thoughtful moment.

  Then she said, "Of course I must not accompany you. I am a queen. I cannot demean myself even to survive. Even though my subjects need me, it wouldn't be right to reduce myself to a wandering scavenger, living off refuse, travelling with a ragged, filthy squirrel."

  "I am not filthy!"

  She gave him a look. "Your fur is all clumpy and you are covered with sand and dried salt."

  "Oh," Patch said, chastened. "Well, I almost died several times yesterday -"

  "That is no excuse not to keep up appearances. Look at me. I expect to starve to death very soon, but see how neatly my fur is groomed." And indeed Zelina's fur was clean, neat, and shining.

  "I think I should be going now."

  "My subjects cannot demand of me that I become a vagabond, a tramp, a beggar queen. They cannot ask me to surrender my dignity, my pride, no matter how they suffer."

  "I understand. Now it's time -"

  "But their needs are so great. A traitorous pretender sits on my throne. If I must abase myself, I shall. Because a true queen loves her people as they love her, and will make any sacrifice they require, even stooping so low as the shameful expedient of travelling with a squirrel."

  "But -"

  "Lead the way, Patch son of Silver," Zelina commanded. "Take me back to the Great Avenue. If you serve me well you may be rewarded when again I sit on the throne."

  Patch did not want to travel with Zelina, even if she was Queen of All Cats. But he decided not to protest her decision to follow him. He was sure she would lose interest soon enough, or some event or obstacle would separate them. And he felt sorry for her. Despite her arrogant words, he knew by her scent that she was terribly frightened.

  Zelina followed him north across the grassy wilderness. Patch began to catch the scent of death machines. He found a narrow, pebbly rivulet, and ate beetles from beneath its damp rocks, and purple flowers that grew from its sides, as Zelina watched with fascinated horror. Patch was glad she did not want to eat this food; there was barely enough to take the edge off his own hunger.

  As he picked beetles off rocks, a swirling gust brought a new scent to them, the scent of mice. Zelina leapt to her feet.

  "What is that?" she whispered, amazed.

  Patch looked at her oddly. "Mice."

  "Oh yes. I've heard of mice. They smell delicious!"

  "You've never smelled mice before?" Patch asked, amazed.

  "No."

  "What did you eat, before you came out here?"

  "Caviar. Cream. Sushi."

  The words were gibberish to Patch.

  "Just wait a moment," Zelina said. She advanced into the grass, following the mouse-smell, and soon disappeared.

  When Patch had finished with his food, he moved on, towards the smells and now the sounds of death machines. He thought he had seen the last of Zelina. But as he reached a big, rusting wire fence, she reappeared from the thick grasses. There was blood on her mouth and whiskers, and she smelled of adrenalin and delight.

  "It's a very primitive way of eating," Zelina said. "All that thrashing and screaming and blood. Of course it was disgusting. It was absolutely disgusting. But sometimes queens have terrible responsibilities. And I must say, it has to be admitted, there is a certain savage thrill in the hunt. And the kill. Especially the kill. I've never killed anything before, Patch son of Silver. It's really quite thrilling. I never understood before that queens must know how to kill. We must be revered with terror as much as with love. That was my downfall. I was well-loved but I was not terrible. But that will change. Oh, yes, I see that now. When I return to the Great Avenue, my return will be the dawn of a day of blood and terror and vengeance!"

&nb
sp; Her exultation in killing made Patch uneasy, and he said nothing. She followed him out through a large hole at the base of the wire fence, into a grassy field that was much more to Patch's liking than the tangled wilderness behind them. There were human buildings at the end of the field, and the severed trunks and wires of a sky-road.

  3. Companions

  They travelled east, through human lands much like those of the Kingdom of Madness; clusters of relatively small buildings divided at regular intervals by wasteland strips, with clumps of larger buildings here and there. The sky-road had three levels, two high strands of thin wires, and a lower layer of thick wires intertwined into a cable as broad and strong as a moderate-sized tree branch. Zelina was small enough that she found it easy to climb to the sky-road and follow Patch along even its thinnest wires.

  "I don't object to all this climbing of posts and wires," she said, "it has a certain acrobatic appeal, and the views beneath are undeniably striking, but I do wonder, what is your objection to simply walking along the highways?"

  "The what?"

  She indicated the wasteland strip beneath them. "The highways."

  "We can't walk on those! Those aren't roads. Not for us. Even humans don't walk on them. There are death machines."

  "Automobiles," Zelina said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "They aren't death machines. There's nothing deathly about an automobile. In fact they're extremely pleasant. My attendants have taken me on highway automobile journeys on any number of occasions."

  "Attendants?" Patch said, even more confused.

  "The humans who care for me."

  "The what who what?"

  "Please do remember, I am the Queen of All Cats," Zelina said. "I have a human attendant who lives in my home to feed me and entertain me, and on certain occasions, such as automobile journeys, teams of other humans assist her."

  "You mean cats live with humans? Like dogs?"

  "By the light of the moon, Patch, not like dogs," Zelina said scathingly. "Humans serve cats as dogs serve humans. And sometimes, I fear, as ineptly."

  Her invocation of the moon made Patch uneasy. But he was still curious. "You lived with humans? In a human building?"

  "I lived so high above the Great Avenue that if the window was open, and I went out to the metal stairs and looked down, the automobiles below looked no bigger than ants."

  "Where is the Great Avenue?"

  "Quite near your Center Kingdom, I believe," Zelina said. "I never paid a royal visit to your King myself, having been constantly deluged with affairs of state, but that was the impression I received from the other cats who sometimes visited me on the stairs."

  "Did you ever meet squirrels there?"

  "No. The only squirrels I ever previously encountered were on automobile journeys. But our words grow distant from the point I seek to make, Patch son of Silver, which is that I think it would be faster to simply walk along the highway."

  "I'm staying on the sky-road. You can do what you like."

  He kept walking. Zelina slowed for a little while, but she kept following.

  "Where do you intend to sleep?" she asked.

  "I'll find a tree."

  "I can't sleep in a tree."

  "You can sleep anywhere you want," Patch said impatiently.

  "Why don't we find our way into a house?"

  Patch wished she would stop using strange words. "A what?"

  "One of those little buildings. A human home."

  "I'm not going into a human building."

  "Why not?" she asked, annoyed.

  "I'm just not," Patch said. "Humans are dangerous."

  He expected her to laugh at this and explain again how humans served her; but she only sighed, and said after a few moments, "You are more right than you know."

  Patch didn't understand, but at least she left him in peace for some time after that. They made good time for the rest of the day, and in the afternoon the sky-road happened to lead right past a maple tree. He gorged on so many of its sweet buds that his belly felt a little unbalanced afterwards and he had to be careful not to fall from the sky-road.

  Eventually, when the sun was so low that long shadows spilled over the landscape below them, Patch decided it was time to find a drey for the night. He scrambled down the sky-road onto a patch of green surrounded by several of the buildings Zelina called "houses." This greenery was subdivided into a dozen little plots by tall fences, for which Patch was very grateful, for two of these little plots contained dogs. The dogs did not notice the squirrel and cat, for they were upwind and distracted by what passed for conversation among dogs:

  "I'm here! I'm here!"

  "I'm here too! I'm here too!"

  "This is my territory! Mine and my master's!"

  "This territory is mine! I guard it for my master!"

  "You can't come in here!"

  "You can't come in here either!"

  Patch climbed a wooden fence, leaped from it onto a tree, and found a bowl-shaped hollow at the top of its trunk. It was full of recent squirrel-smells. Patch considered a moment, then followed the most recent smells higher up the tree, until he came to a drey carved by a woodpecker. There was a squirrel within. Patch thought nervously of the squirrels of the Kingdom of Madness.

  "Who's there?" the squirrel inside asked.

  "I am Patch son of Silver, of the Seeker clan, of the Treetops tribe, of the Center Kingdom," Patch said. "Who are you that asks?"

  "I am Waterwatcher daughter of Shine, of the Runner clan, of the City tribe, of the Ocean Kingdom."

  "Would it be all right to sleep in your tree tonight?"

  "Of course. My goodness, are you really from the Center Kingdom?"

  Waterwatcher emerged from her drey and looked at Patch. She was beautiful. Her fur shone and her eyes were bright and inquisitive. Patch was suddenly acutely aware of his own scarred, salt-stained, travel-worn, clumpy-furred appearance.

  "Yes," he said. "It's been a hard journey."

  Then Zelina, from below, cried out, alarmed: "Patch! Help!"

  Her cry was followed by two sharp intakes of canine breath. Then the dogs began to yammer:

  "Cat! Cat! Cat! Cat!"

  "Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!"

  "Did that cat call your name?" Waterwatcher asked.

  "Yes," Patch admitted, embarrassed. He considered abandoning Zelina to her fate. Then he sighed and said, "Just a moment."

  The dimming red light made it difficult to see what was going on, to Patch ran back down for a closer look. He saw Zelina standing on top of the wooden fence that ran immediately beneath the sky-road, and divided the plot of land on which Waterwatcher's tree stood from the plot with one of the barking dogs.

  "What's wrong?" Patch asked, over the din of the dogs. "Just climb down."

  "I can't climb down a wall!" Zelina reeked of terror.

  Patch remembered that cats couldn't downclimb. "Then jump to the tree."

  "I can't!"

  After a moment Patch understood. Zelina could go along the wooden fence, in the same way that she had moved along the sky-road all day; but unlike a squirrel, she was not nimble enough to turn, balance on top, and jump away from it. She could go along the wall to its end - but there was nothing at its end, it was the highest fence there.

  "I'm sorry," Patch said. "There's nothing I can do."

  "Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!" the dog on the other side of the fence screamed, and Patch could tell it was charging as it howled. It threw its massive body against the wooden fence and Zelina began to rock back and forth like a branch in the breeze. Her claws lost their purchase on the fence, and she fell.

  Fortunately for Zelina, she fell on Patch's side of the fence, rather than the dog's side. Her fall had been clumsy but she landed very elegantly on all four feet. Before Patch could say anything to dissuade her she had climbed the oak tree and stood beside him.

  "I nearly died," she said angrily. "I could have died. I could have been killed and eaten. By a dog."
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  "That's life," Patch said.

  She looked around the oak tree. "Is this where you intend for us to sleep?"

  "I was going to sleep here. But feel free to… "

  "To think I am reduced to this. The Queen of All Cats reduced to sleeping in a tree, like a wild animal, like a common beast!"

  Waterwatcher said from above, in a voice full of puzzled hostility, "Patch, is this cat here with you?"

  Patch looked up at the beautiful squirrel and tried to think of an excuse.

  "This squirrel is guiding me back to my home," Zelina said, "and if he serves well and faithfully he will be justly rewarded."

  A few moments passed that were silent except for the yapping of the dogs.

  Then Waterwatcher said coldly, "In the Ocean Kingdom, stranger, we do not consort with cats. You may stay here tonight. But only tonight. And don't eat anything."

  She disappeared into her drey. Patch turned and looked angrily at Zelina.

  "I'm very tired," she said. "I'll see you in the morning."

  4. The Highway Bridge

  When Patch woke, Waterwatcher was gone, and Zelina was still asleep. Patch stood over the cat for some time. He knew he had to abandon her and continue alone. Even if she was the Queen of All Cats, she was only causing problems and slowing him down. But it was with a little guilt that he took to the sky-road alone.

  His guilt did not last long. Nor did his solitude. For before the sun had travelled more than a quarter of its way up the sky, Patch heard shuffling tictictic noises behind him: Zelina's claws against the wires of the sky-road.

  "Very thoughtful of you to let me sleep," she said brightly as she caught up with him.

  Patch groaned to himself and kept walking.

  The sky-road led east, as did the shore to their north. Another shoreline was visible farther north, across the great waters, and above that land, in the faraway northwest distance, rose the mountains of the Center Kingdom. They slowly approached a bridge that stretched across the great waters on their left to the other side of the channel. When they were level with it, Patch gave the bridge a single searching look, and then continued to the east.