The Underneath

by Kathi Appelt

  He trotted after it, mesmerized, but the tiny bird cast a parting shot of light and flew up into the branches of the cypress tree. Anyone who knows cats knows that they are easily distracted when there is zigging and zagging in their paths. Even a cat on a mission. Puck was no exception. All that zigging and zagging hypnotized him; he was entranced by it, spellbound. Without thinking, Puck climbed the old tree after it. But as soon as he climbed into one of the lower branches, the bird disappeared. Puck looked down. He hissed.

  There, at the foot of the tree, slumped against its thick trunk, Gar Face. Puck felt the anger rise in his chest. He looked at the evil man, the man who had picked him up with his rough hands that smelled of fish and bones. Then he noticed the leg with the wound. The blood. It was Gar Face’s blood that he had smelled besides Ranger’s.

  He followed the line of sight, saw the old chain, the hated chain tied to the tree. And then, not ten feet away, there they were. Ranger! Sabine!

  He started to jump down, to run to them, aching to lick Ranger’s long ears, to wrap his paws around Sabine and lick her face, her nose, her ears. His twin. His match. He started to do all this, but then he remembered—Gar Face.

  There was something else, too, the rifle. The fur on his back stood up. He needed to get to Ranger and Sabine without waking Gar Face. But how?

  He crawled farther out onto the branch to get a better look at the situation. He did not see Grandmother Moccasin, curled tightly around the branch just above his. He did not see her skin so black it looked blue, did not see her slowly uncoil her long body. Puck did not see Grandmother. All he saw was Sabine and Ranger and the terrible man at the foot of the tree.

  115

  A SNAKE WHO has lived in a jar for a thousand years knows something about hunger. She has been hungry for all that time. And now, just beneath her, on a lower branch, sat a small gray cat. She also noticed the little sister, tucked beneath the silky ear of the old hound. She saw the awful rise and fall of the dog’s chest. She took note of the cat on the branch below, took in his huge and hungry longing. Silently, she moved down toward the small, tasty cat on the branch.

  Just beneath the surface of the bayou, the Alligator King was hungry too. He heard the soft tapping of the rain on the water. The dark clouds above made it seem later than usual. And this made him hungrier than usual. He knew that the man was waiting for him on the bank. He had smelled him coming. But he did not expect the man to be so quiet. What was he waiting for? As the alligator raised his snout above the water, he noticed the pleasing odor of blood. Perfect. He followed the scent, held closely on the air. He had known the man would bring an animal to use as bait. A canine would do. But then he took another sniff. Ahhh, he thought, even better. There are two!

  116

  THE RAIN FELL, becoming denser. From the low branch of the cypress, Puck squinted his eyes to see through the heavy drops. He did not know that there was an enormous snake slowly making her way from the branches above, heading directly for him. All of his attention was directed toward his sister and the old hound.

  Below he saw the top of Gar Face’s head, leaning against the trunk. He had to get to Sabine without disturbing the foul-smelling man.

  But it was too late. Just as Puck began his slow descent down the trunk of the tree, Gar Face stirred. Puck saw him wipe his nose with the back of his hand. Saw him push himself up and shake his head. Saw him grab his rifle. Saw him look toward Ranger. Heard him say, “Well, lookee here. The cat came back.” Saw him aim the rifle in Sabine’s direction. Saw Sabine freeze.

  Puck saw Gar Face close one eye to center his target, saw him curl his finger on the trigger. Something terrible was about to happen.

  The knot of anger in Puck’s belly tightened. He would not let Gar Face harm his sister. When the little cat saw Gar Face aim the rifle at his sister and his hound, he opened his mouth and yowled at the top of his lungs.

  Yeeeeeeooooooowwwwww!!!

  Gar Face jumped at the piercing sound and jerked his rifle up, in the direction of the noise, up toward the limbs of the cypress tree, up toward Puck and the enormous snake moving toward him, up, up, up.

  He pulled the trigger.

  BOOM!!!

  For the second time in his life, Puck let go of his limb and dropped, dropped out of the tree, dropped right onto that hideous face that looked like the ancient fish he was named for.

  “Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!” Gar Face howled. The pain was excruciating, pain even more pronounced and sharp than the bite on his leg, still seeping through the dirty towel. Gar Face screamed as the gray cat dropped onto his face with all his claws extended. He threw the rifle toward the bayou. With both hands he pulled the cat off his face, losing more skin in the process. Then, gripping Puck by the neck, he ran the ten feet to the Bayou Tartine. He held on to the cat with one hand, dipped his other into the bayou and cupped the cool water onto his face, his burning face. He was blinded by the pain.

  Blood dripped into the water. He slowly opened his eyes. The last thing Gar Face ever saw was the open mouth of the Alligator King, waiting, waiting, waiting, there on the edge of the Bayou Tartine. Saw the rows of razor-sharp teeth, the strong jaws, open, open, open, felt them close around his neck. And as the Alligator King twisted Gar Face, spun him once, twice, three times in the murky water, darkness, solid and thick, fell.

  117

  WHEN GAR FACE threw Puck and his mother into the Little Sorrowful Creek so long ago, the water had been harsh and unforgiving, making Puck gasp and choke, but here in the bayou, the water all around felt cool and inviting. It soothed the soreness around his neck where the man had choked him. And when the man let go, the water wrapped itself around Puck, soft, tender. He felt as though he were floating, floating, floating.

  He opened his eyes and saw a million bubbles. They were beautiful, so many bubbles. He loved the bubbles. So shiny. He could hear them popping all around him. But that wasn’t all he heard. As he floated, there was another voice, a familiar voice.

  Swim, Puck. Swim.

  Ahh, that voice. His mother’s voice. It sounded so close.

  Swim. Swim. Swim.

  It was there, right in his ear. He could hear it more clearly. Swim. Swim. Swim. And then the other word from his mother, promise.

  He started to sink. He could feel himself going down, his mother’s words echoing in his ear. Then he heard the words again. Swim, Puck, swim! Only this time, it wasn’t the voice of his mother he heard. It was someone else. Someone familiar, as familiar as his own skin.

  Swim, Puck, swim!

  It was Sabine. His sister!

  Swim! she called.

  Oh, he had missed Sabine. So much missing.

  Swim! There was her voice again, growing fainter, dimmer. He was sinking into the missing. He didn’t think he could miss her any more.

  Then he realized.

  Sabine.

  She was there, waiting for him.

  Swim! she called.

  And he did.

  He swam.

  118

  IT TOOK A while for Puck to catch his breath, but when he did, he looked right into the face of Sabine, a face so like his own. He touched her nose with his nose. He rubbed his forehead against her forehead. He rested his chin on her soft back. Then he wrapped his paw around Sabine’s neck and licked her face, her ears, the top of her head. And Sabine reached up and licked Puck’s chin, his nose, even his whiskers.

  And just like that, a fresh breeze sifted through the forest, the trees shuddered, and the rain stopped. Puck looked up through the branches to see the clouds moving past. And what do you know? The sun. Goldy and warm. The sun came out.

  Puck had kept his promise to his calico mother. He looked at his sister, his twin, his match. He had honored his sacred binding.

  Together they walked over to Ranger, where Puck leaned against the hound, his beloved old Ranger, heard the beating of his old dog’s heart, a heartbeat as familiar as his own. He curled up next to Ranger and list
ened to the wonderful thump of that heart, and all at once Puck couldn’t keep his eyes open. Exhaustion rolled over him. But just before he drifted off, Ranger stirred, and Puck heard something else familiar, the old rattle of the rusted chain.

  119

  A CAT WHO followed a trail of blood, a dog who was beaten with a board, and another cat who served as witness even though her heart was broken, all of them needed sleep. But there were dangers in sleeping too hard and too long. Who would look out for them? Who would stand watch?

  Only once every thousand years or so, give or take a century, do the trees call up their own sort of magic. When they looked upon their tiny twins curled up next to the old and tattered hound, they realized then and there that sleep was called for. So they did what they could to help and stirred up the old Zephyrs of Sleep, just as they had for Night Song and Hawk Man so long ago. Sleep, glorious sleep, it settled over the land between the Tartine sisters, that land of shifting sands. It wafted its way into the nests of the muskrats and beavers. Sleep, silent sleep, it fell upon the crickets and hoot owls, the foxes and turtles and peepers. It curled up on the skins of the million snakes, the kings and corals and copperheads . . . and one other, Grandmother Moccasin . . . sleep wound its way around her, too.

  Through the late afternoon, all along the early evening—past the dark of night and into the tender slipping of dawn—the forest, deep and thick, and all of its denizens small and large and in between—all of them—slept.

  120

  MORNING WAS IN full bloom when Puck finally opened his eyes. He stood up and looked over Ranger’s shoulder. All night he and Sabine had curled up against him. All night they had snuggled right next to the old dog’s chest, just under his ears.

  Sabine noticed that sometime in the night, the dog’s breathing had become easier, less erratic. Maybe, she hoped, he would be all right. She stood next to her brother and looked at the hound. His face was swollen and there was dried blood running from the edge of his mouth. One eye was swollen shut. She winced. It hurt to look at him.

  As she watched, she heard a small sigh escape from his mouth. That seemed like a good thing somehow. Right away, Sabine busied herself with cleaning him up as best she could. Puck joined her. Together, the two licked the dog’s wrinkled face and long ears.

  Ranger hovered. He could feel the scratchy tongues of his kittens. Nothing had ever felt finer. He cracked open one eye. There, straight in front of him, was a hummingbird. She shimmered in the morning light.

  The sight of the bird made him blink. He looked again, but she was gone. In her place a kitten, his kitten . . . and another! Was he seeing double? He lifted his head and blinked his one good eye. There was Sabine, looking back at him.

  And yes! Oh yes! There was another, sitting right beside her! Was it possible? Did he dare to believe it? He looked again. He saw Sabine, little Sabine, true as could be. But when he looked at the other cat, there it was, the crescent moon on his forehead.

  It was Puck!

  A surge of happy streamed through the old dog. The pain felt smaller, the bruises and cuts, the bullet in his leg, were diminished in all the happy. He leaned over and licked Puck with as much slobber as he could muster.

  But his happiness was dampened. Where was the man? The man with the face like the prehistoric fish, Gar Face? He scanned the banks by the bayou, but all he saw was the old rifle, half in and half out of the water. At once, Ranger knew what had happened. He lowered his head. There was no celebration in this loss of life, even for one such as Gar Face. You might think that as cruelly as the man had treated Ranger, that the dog might feel something like satisfaction, or even joy, at his demise.

  But the truth is, the dog didn’t feel anything at all beyond relief, relief that the man was finally gone.

  He turned away and looked at his two kittens.

  Here was his family.

  One old hound and two gray kittens.

  121

  BUT HERE ALSO was a chain. Fastened to a tree. And somewhere at the bottom of the Bayou Tartine was an alligator one hundred feet long who would be hungry again soon. Puck looked at the old, rusted chain. He sniffed it. The odor made him recoil. It smelled like the tilting house, like old bones and fish and something rotten.

  He licked it, but the cold, metallic taste made him spit. It left small flakes of rust on his tongue. He gagged. He tapped it with his paw and tried to scratch it with his claws. It was solid.

  He stared at it hard, walked along its length between Ranger and the tree. It was covered in rust, and there were a couple of places where the links appeared thinner than others. He sniffed it again; the smell was the same.

  At last he put his ear against it and listened. He sat there for a long time. Whenever Ranger moved, the chain made a bright, rustling noise. But when Ranger was still, the chain was silent.

  Silence. Puck listened.

  More silence. And then . . . ssssssstttttttttt!!!

  Puck looked up. There in front of him, her face only inches from his face, was a creature as old as the seven seas, as old as the swamp, as old as time itself. Her scales gleamed in the morning light. Every inch of Puck’s small body buzzed. He couldn’t move. She was enormous, as thick around as a small tree. He watched as she glared at him. Behind him, he heard Ranger growl, but he knew that Ranger was no match for the beast in front of him. He felt Sabine walk up beside him, push her body next to his. For one brief moment he thought about running. But he knew that there was no running for Ranger. He looked at his sister. She would not leave either.

  He took a deep breath, tried to scream, but no sound came out.

  122

  GRANDMOTHER LOOKED AT the trio in front of her. They were raggedy and spent, especially the dog. The ache she felt inside was sharp. She wound her massive body into a coil in front of them, never taking her eyes off of them, trapping them in her stare. She could taste the poison pooling in her mouth.

  Three, she thought. She had witnessed three before. All bound together by love.

  Love. Ssssssttttttt!!! What price had she paid for love?

  A husband lost to another. A daughter lost to a man. A thousand years trapped in a jar. She stared at the tattered trio in front of her, the two gray cats and the dog chained to the tree. A price. She curled her tail underneath her and flicked her thin black tongue.

  Morning widened its arms, grew lighter. She could see them more clearly now, and she watched as the three stood motionless, here, right here beside the Bayou Tartine. She knew that the Alligator King was nearby. Knew that he could return any moment. She smiled. Sssssoooooonnnn, she said. But as soon as she said it, she heard a buzz in the humid air. She lifted her head. There, the voices of her reptile cousins, the rattlers, the massasaugas, the Eastern hognose.

  Sssssiiiisster, their voices rang out.

  It was an old call, first heard so long ago, on that day she had swum up the silver Sabine, the warm river to the east, swum here, to this thick and solemn forest.

  For a flicker of a second, she took her eyes off her captives and looked up into the greenly trees, saw the small patches of blue sky resting in their upper branches, noticed the sunlight falling in puzzle pieces on the ground all around her. She had missed this. The venom that slid down her throat was sharp and bitter. She swallowed hard, returned her deadly gaze to the three in front of her.

  The price!

  Ssssssiiiiissssttterrrr!

  Again the cousins called, the rat snakes, the corn snakes, the black and orange corals. She flicked her tongue into the air, tasting the morning dampness that hovered above her blue-black scales, scales the shape of diamonds, scales that looked like mirrors aglow in the thin shards of sunlight dancing on the forest floor. A sharp pang shot through her. There was a price!

  Sssiiiiiissster!

  Their voices buzzed in her ears, the forest hummed. Her body throbbed. She whipped her vicious tail behind her and rose up into the air. She had paid a price.

  She looked again at the threeso
me in front of her. Three bound by love. And all around the cousins called and called and called.

  Sssssiiiisssttteeerrrr!!!

  Yes, she thought, I know a thing or two about love. And with that, she opened her steel-trap jaws and struck!

  123

  DEEP UNDER THE water of the muddy bayou, the Alligator King belched. He settled onto the bottom. Through the murk, he saw his old friend swim toward him.

  “Sister,” he said, and smiled, “your time has come.” He had seen her snap the rusted chain in two with her vicious jaws.

  “You surprised me,” he said.

  And so she had. Grandmother, who had spent a thousand years in a jar, had finally chosen love. She had seen it, pure and simple and clean, seen it in the small beings of two gray cats and an old dog. Love in all its complexity and honor made a circle around them all.

  She had interfered with love before and caused only sorrow. That, she knew, was the price. This time, she did what she could to help it along. She had snapped the chain in two, setting the old dog loose.

  She gave a final good-bye to the Alligator King, thanked him for his long and steadfast friendship. Then she swam to the surface of the bayou, slipped out and slithered back into the large cypress tree. The pain she felt was palpable. There was an enormous hole right in the middle of her sleek black body, the bullet burned inside of her, the bullet she had taken when the man jerked his gun toward the cat’s piercing scream.

  At last, after thousands of years, her time had come. She looked up. The sunlight sifted down through the branches and soaked into her blue-black skin. She could see the sky, the deep and beautiful blue sky.

  As she lay there, wrapped around the branch, she heard the rapid beating of wings. She looked over. There was the hummingbird, aglow in the afternoon sun. Glimmering.