The Underneath

by Kathi Appelt

  He knew the crack of the horrible rifle and the way the bullet split the humid air. These were familiar sounds to Ranger.

  But now, there was a new sound in his ears, a soft, low, fluttery sound. Anyone who knows a cat can recognize it—a purr.

  Cats are famous for purring. And this is what the calico cat did as she curled up next to Ranger’s massive chest, safe and soft. Until he heard it, Ranger had not realized how much he needed this sweet, friendly sound. How much he needed someone to settle in next to him. He didn’t know that he needed to not be so solitary until at last he wasn’t. So many needs in one old dog.

  And while the calico purred into his ears, he realized he had another need—to tell a story. As it turns out, loneliness makes a well for stories, and now that Ranger was no longer alone, his stories began to bubble up. As the calico listened, Ranger told her all about when he was a puppy, when his mother taught him how to put his nose to the ground, how to follow the scent, how to bay at the moon’s full face. That was before Gar Face took him.

  “But you had those good times to remember,” said the cat.

  “Yes,” he replied with a deep heave of his chest. He did have those good times.

  Then she told him of her own good times when she was a kitten with her brothers and sisters, all the games they played, silly games, kitten games. That was before she was taken to the pound, before she was forsaken by her family in town and left on the side of the road. That was before she met Ranger. She licked the hound’s silky ears. He loved this. Loved to have his ears washed by this small cat. “I had those good times to remember, too,” she added. Then she settled in next to him, close. They had these good times to remember. But the best was yet to come.

  Kittens!

  They arrived on a moonlit night. The calico cat gave birth as she lay right against Ranger’s chest. She listened to his steady heartbeat as one after the other she delivered two beautiful babies. One boy. One girl. She was astonished at their identical sameness, two kittens exactly alike. Silver from head to toe. Silver like the stars that peeked down through the night sky. The same. But then she looked again, looked at the boy cat. On his forehead was a tiny white patch of fur, just above his eyes. A small crescent moon. Yes, her little boy cat bore the moon’s own mark. Then she looked at her little girl kitten, small and round, and smiled.

  The calico knew that a kitten born in the presence of a hound was rare. Surely, she thought, this will hold them in good stead. This will give them courage.

  Alas, these kittens will need it.

  At first they were so tiny, no larger than Ranger’s big toes, not quite that large, and all they did was offer up soft, almost imperceptible mewls. For days they stayed tucked beneath their mama, attached to her milky belly. To Ranger they were just mewls and milk, so small he barely noticed them. But kittens grow fast. Mewling and milk were only temporary.

  Soon enough, they opened their eyes and began to venture away from the calico cat. At first they wobbled. Then they tottered. And before they were the size of Ranger’s nose, they climbed! And what did they climb, or rather who did they climb? Ranger! They dug their tiny little claws into his coppery red fur.

  No father has ever been prouder of his brood. Ranger watched over his cat family like the pharaohs watched over the Nile, like the stars watched over the sleeping Earth, like the beach watched over the sea. He never took his eyes off of them, sleeping only when they slept, eating only when they ate. And what he loved most: to hear their purrs. There was nothing finer.

  13

  IN ANOTHER PART of the forest, the old tree that stands by the creek has given up its upper limbs. One by one they’ve tumbled to the ground, taking the lower ones with them. Bit by bit, the tree is coming down.

  And little by little, the jar, the old jar that is trapped beneath its roots, is coming loose. This jar.

  Before the ancient potter fired it, she pressed her thumbnail into the soft red clay over and over, a hundred times, a hundred crescent moons that ring its rim. Inside, the creature stirs. Trapped.

  And the other trees, the yaupons, the beautyberries, the red oaks shiver beneath the watching stars and glimmery moon.

  “Grandmother,” they whisper. “Grandmother is waking up.”

  Ssssoooooonnnnn, she says, my time is coming. Ssssoooonnn!

  14

  SHE HAS BEEN trapped for a thousand years. But she is older than that, much older. Lamia. She is cousin to the mermaids, the ondines, the great sealfolk known as selkies, perhaps the very last of her kind. Clothed in her serpent shape, she swam up the great river to the east, the silver Sabine. She swam in her scaly skin, so black it looked blue. So sleek it gleamed. For ten thousand years she had swam the seven seas, floated on the great Sargasso, sailed along on the mighty currents. And oh, she loved the open oceans.

  But once she found the great pine forest, this pine forest, she slipped out of the brackish water and slithered onto the boggy ground. She looked around at the deep and lazy bayous filled with turtles and fish, the giant palmettos, an abundance of rodents, perfect for hunting. She loved the darkness provided by the welcoming trees, the oaks and cedars, the shumards and willow. And the snakes! Here were millions of her reptilian relatives, the small and deadly corals, the bronze-colored copperheads, the massasaugas and their cousin rattlers.

  Sssssssiiiiissssttterrr, they said. The air hummed with their voices. She listened again.

  Sssssiiiiiissssstttterrr!!! The sound of it settled on her skin. All around, the forest sizzled with the sound of her cousins, large and small and in between. Once more, they called to her.

  Ssssiiissssttterr!!!

  “Ahh,” she replied, “home.”

  And there she stayed, stayed so long that she became as much a part of the forest as the silent panthers and the black bear, stayed so long that she became known as Grandmother Moccasin. Ssssssss. Do not look into that mouth of cotton. Do not.

  15

  IN THE DEEP and muddy Bayou Tartine, the Alligator King floated to the surface. Already today he has eaten a dozen turtles. Caught them sleeping in the dappled sun atop a cypress root. He was always hungry. Always. Before the night fell, he would eat a giant bullfrog, a wounded mink, and several fish. Fish are his primary sustenance, the fist-size perch and bottom-dwelling catfish, but he prefers the creatures of the land. They’re not quite so salty.

  Beware.

  16

  ONE MORNING, RANGER asked the mama cat if they could name the kittens.

  “Of course,” she said. Ranger knew this was an important task, and he did not take it lightly. He already knew the name for the girl. “I think Sabine is nice.”

  When the calico looked at him, he told her of the Sabine River, the silver-watered river that divided Texas and Louisiana, a river that ran all the way to the sea. The Sabine. He remembered seeing it long ago when he was a puppy. A good river. Full of moonbeams. Sabine. It was a good name. And with his long tongue he licked the girl kitten in one big slurp. Sabine. She sat straight up and tried it on. The name suited her. She licked her paws and rubbed her ears.

  “What about the boy?” asked the calico.

  Ranger looked at the little boy cat, at the crescent moon on his forehead. Except for the white-patched moon, the two kittens had been identical at birth. But as they grew, Ranger noticed that the little male had grown one shade darker than his sister, Sabine. In fact, he was the same color as a possum, not so much silver as gray. “How about Possum?” he asked.

  “No!!!” said the boy cat. He did not want to be named Possum!

  His sister started laughing. “Possum!” He watched as she tumbled over backward, filled with giggles. If that had been her name, he might have giggled too. Possum!

  Mama licked his face. She stepped back and looked at him. The moon fur seemed to glow. As she watched, she saw him grab his sister and pull her down into a wriggling ball of kitten fur. She smiled at his puckish ways.

  “Ahh,” she said. “Puck.”

&
nbsp; Puck was paws down better than Possum.

  Ranger shook his head so that his ears flapped against his neck. “Puck.” He let the name sit on his tongue for a moment. The word felt good, quick and clever like the kitten himself. Then he announced it. “Puck.” The calico smiled. So did Puck.

  Puck and Sabine. A matched set.

  17

  THERE ARE MANY kinds of messages. Some are delivered by wire, some are sent by pony, some are written on a slip of paper and tucked inside a bottle, then set out to sea to hitch a ride in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.

  Trees send out their own messages. Here, in the languages of cottonwood and beech, of holly and plum, they announced the names of this new son and this new daughter.

  And deep beneath the old and dying pine, the roots that held the jar vibrated. A son. A daughter. And the creature inside stirred.

  Daughter. Once there had been another daughter. Yessssss!!!! Grandmother remembered her, a daughter she had loved, loved harder than any other, harder than she loved the night breezes or the brackish bayous or even the man who had been her husband. Harder than that. Oh yes, Grandmother had loved her beautiful daughter. The daughter who had been stolen. Taken from her while she slept. She thrashed her tail against the hard surface inside the jar.

  A priiiiicccccce, she hissed. A price will be paid.

  18

  THE SPACE UNDERNEATH the tilting house was native land for Puck and Sabine, the only home they’d ever known. To Puck and Sabine, it was where they snuggled up with their mama and Ranger. It was the country of their sleeping, the nation of their dreams, but it was also a land of constant entertainment, full of interesting items for exploration. Here was the old boot, the leather of it moldy and cracked. Here were the battered wooden fish crates, shoved there long ago and left to rot. Here could be found a variety of bottles and boxes and odds and ends. All places for kittens to hide and climb and tumble. This area beneath the tilting house, the Underneath, was not so large that the calico mother and the redbone hound could not keep a constant eye on them. They both knew that Gar Face would not take kindly to kittens. And they told them, “Do not leave the safety of the Underneath! Do not, under any circumstances, go out into the Open.” It was a serious rule.

  You’ll be safe in the Underneath.

  But to Puck and Sabine, Gar Face was just the noise they heard as he clomped across their ceiling, he was just a pair of boots that stomped down the steps at night and returned early in the morning. He was a creature of habit. Leaving the house right at sunset, sometimes driving off in his old pickup truck, sometimes heading out on foot, and always returning just before the sun came up.

  Most mornings he remembered to feed Ranger. On these mornings, the mother cat waited until she heard him stop moving above them. Then Ranger invited her to join him at his food bowl. She crept out and ate as quickly as she could, looking over her shoulder to make sure the kittens were still asleep. She would feed them later, but first she had to fill her own belly.

  Some mornings Gar Face forgot to set out the food, or maybe he didn’t forget, he just didn’t do it. When this happened, Ranger kept an eye on the kittens while the mother cat slipped away. She was a good hunter. Often she brought home a tasty rat or a peppery lizard. It wasn’t really enough for a dog the size of Ranger, but he never complained. It was better than the empty dish. He often watched her go and wished that he could join her, could somehow break his chain, the one that kept him tied to the post beneath the porch.

  How long had it been since he had run freely through the forest? He wasn’t sure how far his old legs could even take him now, especially the one that was damaged, the one that still carried the misfired bullet, the one lodged in his front leg. Probably not very far. But maybe far enough to catch a squirrel or a raccoon or a rabbit and bring it home for his family. His family. What a family—one old hound, one calico cat, and their two kittens.

  19

  TREES OFFER THEMSELVES up readily for homes. They provide their branches for wrens and robins. Skunks and rabbits nest at the feet of their thick trunks. Beetles and ants burrow beneath their barky skins.

  But what about the old loblolly pine along the creek? The one that was struck by a single bolt of lightning a quarter century ago? It’s only half as tall now, the upper stories have crashed to the ground. Its pulp, once so thick and sturdy, has turned soft, perfect for grubs and insects and other small inhabitants, an occasional vole or salamander.

  This old pine has been a home to generations of animal families, mostly gone now. But there is one who is not gone, one who is trapped among the tangled roots.

  She is still here.

  Here in her remarkable jar.

  Here.

  20

  A TREE’S MEMORY is long, stored in its knots and bark and pulp. Ask the trees, and they will take you back a thousand years, before she was trapped in the jar, when Grandmother Moccasin slipped through the branches of the old elms and blackjacks and the shady chestnuts. Even a thousand years ago, the forest was old, and so was she. Her days were filled with the songs of birds and crickets. She reveled in the moon’s waxy light and drifted on the soft, cool currents of the waterways. Often, she napped on the broad backs of the alligators floating like logs in the musty bayous. One alligator in particular, the largest of them all.

  “Sister,” he called her. “Brother,” she replied. Two beasts of both water and land.

  Together they stretched out on the sunny banks of the Bayou Tartine and snoozed in the languid afternoons. He often brought her a salty catfish, and she in turn brought him a swamp hare or a fox.

  “I thank thee, sister,” he always said, admiring her shimmering scales.

  And she, in turn, thanked him, taking note of his bright yellow eyes.

  • • •

  But despite her affection for the Alligator King, she longed for one of her own kind, one of her own species. Here in the swampy forest, there were millions of snakes, both venomous and not. But there were none from her ancient lineage, no other lamia.

  Ahh, lamia, half serpent, half human.

  Blood that ran both cold and hot.

  Serpent.

  Human.

  Ssssssssstttttt.

  Yes, there were humans in this forest, a thousand years ago, the ones called Caddo. Grandmother had seen them in their village alongside the wandering creek. She had seen them gather at the water’s edge, heard them sing their songs, watched them dance their dances and hold their children.

  Humans.

  Grandmother knew about humans.

  Hadn’t she once fallen in love with a son of Adam? Hadn’t she once shed her gleaming scales, so black they looked blue, and donned her own human skin, smooth and tender? Hadn’t she handed over her large and generous heart to this man? Once?

  A snake’s memory is long, and Grandmother remembered. Remembered wrapping her own two arms around her beloved partner, remembered his voice in her ear, remembered the touch of his hand on her back. Hadn’t she loved him so much that she had turned her back on her watery family, her reptilian cousins, the creatures of the warm and silvery seas? Hadn’t she?

  And hadn’t he betrayed her? Hadn’t he wrapped his arms around another? Sssssttttttttt!!!!! She remembered this, too.

  The venom rose in her mouth at the thought of it. She had lived in the world of humans and found only misery there. So she had stepped back into her beautiful scales and slithered into the warm Aegean sea, leaving her betrayer and his kind behind forever. And for thousands of years she stayed in the waters, avoided the coasts of Africa and Majorca and the sunny beaches of Baja, the rocky tors of Newfoundland and Wales and the black sands of the Pacific Isles, stayed in the deep, blue seas.

  There is a rule: Once a creature of enchantment returns to its animal form, it cannot go back. The rule was fine with Grandmother Moccasin. She would choose her reptile cousins over humans any day. She would remain in the tribe of water moccasins, known for their steel-trap jaws.
r />   • • •

  Centuries later she spins in her jar and remembers a different man. A man with coppery feathers in his hair. Remembers how he stole her daughter. Her eyes blaze in the unforgiving dark.

  Venom pools in her cotton white mouth.

  Sssssssoooonnnnnnn!!!

  21

  BEFORE A MAN becomes a man, he has to be a boy. Gar Face was a boy when he walked into this forest, a boy whose face was battered and scarred, a boy who left behind the tar-covered wharves of the Houston Ship Channel.

  When he first stumbled into the woods wet and humid, every part of him ached. His face ached from the swollen wound placed there by his father. But other parts of him ached too. His legs ached from walking. His mouth ached from thirst. His hand ached from gripping his father’s rifle. His stomach ached from hunger.

  For days he stumbled through the woods, moved deeper and deeper into the darkness, where the ground puddled beneath his steps and the thick moss hung from the branches like tangled beards on ancient trolls. He did not miss the sun, the way its light illuminated his sorry face, but the unfamiliar terrain ate at him. The sounds of the woods edged their way into his nerves.

  Despite this, he moved farther and farther into the darkness.

  When at last he stumbled onto the swift-flowing creek, he slipped down the bank and into the salty water, where, despite its brackish taste, he drank and drank and drank. Then he pulled himself onto the creek’s edge beneath a towering pine tree.

  He tried to sleep, but couldn’t. Hunger kept him from it, a hunger that reeked, that oozed through his pores, through his whole body. He had staved off starvation by eating the thin grasses that poked up in the small spots of sunlight, he dug for grubs and worms along the bank. But these were not enough for a growing boy. Yes, he was still a boy. He needed more.