"But she might really be here," Patrick insisted.
"All right. Walk around the building and see."
He did, calling Patricia's name softly, woefully. Then he hollered suddenly from the other side, "Hey, Kate. C'mere!"
Rounding the comer, I found him standing five feet from the orange cat that had perched in the window last night. The cat dismissed my appearance with the briefest of looks, then ventured toward Patrick, rubbing against his leg.
"He likes me," Patrick announced happily, momentarily forgetting about his hamster. "I told Daddy he liked me."
The cat flicked his tail, then broke into a quick trot in the direction of the tennis courts.
"I think he knows where Patricia is," Patrick said.
I hoped not, given that this wild tabby was used to catching his own dinner. Patrick followed the cat past the screen of evergreens that shielded the house from the courts, and I hurried after him. He and I caught up with the tabby near the in-ground swimming pool. The cat crossed the concrete deck and began to pace along the pool's edge, as if he had quarried something. As we walked toward him, the cat stopped and peered into the deep end.
Curious, we did the same.
The water had been removed from the pool, but leaves clotted the drains and rain had formed a half-frozen crust beneath the diving board. I thought I was seeing just another brown leaf, then Patrick started screaming, "Patricia! Patricia!"
I grabbed him by the collar as he took off for a set of metal steps. "I'll get her."
I descended the steps at the shallow end of the pool. Patrick kept wailing his pet's name.
Perhaps if she hasn't been outside too long… I thought, hoping against the odds. The first seven meters of the pool were dry, but there was a steep drop down to the diving section, and there the footing became treacherous. My feet slid out from under me. I flew down the concrete slope on my back, my feet crashing through the layer of ice and water covering the bottom of the deep end. The freezing mix sloshed over my shoes. I walked as quickly as possible toward Patricia, then scooped her up in my gloved hand.
"Is she okay?" Patrick called.
"I'll know better when I get out of the pool."
The hamster was dead, but I wanted to be close to Patrick when I told him. I had to scramble to get up the pool's slope with only one free hand. Patrick was waiting for me by the steps at the shallow end, anxiously beating his mittens together. The cat lurked a short distance behind, interested in what I was doing, staring the way cats do, as if they can see so much more than people.
I knelt down in front of Patrick, opening the hand that cradled the hamster. "I'm sorry."
He gazed down at her. "Her eyes are open," he said. "She's alive!"
"She's not. I'm really sorry."
"But her eyes are open, Kate. Look!"
I shook my head. "Animals die with their eyes open. See, she isn't moving. She isn't breathing."
"Maybe she's just frozen," Patrick said. "Let me hold her, I'll warm her up."
I laid the hamster in his cupped hands. Tears brimmed in his eyes.
"Come on, Patricia. Come on," he pleaded. "Wake up. We'll take you inside. We'll get you warm enough. We'll make you okay."
"Patrick, listen to me," I said softly. "She's frozen, and when a hamster freezes, its heart stops. Patricia is dead. There is nothing we can do."
"You're wrong!" he shouted, then lowered his eyes.
His dark lashes were wet against his cheek. He buried his chin in his chest. Tears rolled silently down his face, then he started to sob.
I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close. "I'm so sorry. If I could make her be alive for you, I would."
He cried hard. The cat watched us for a moment, then slipped away, as if he had fulfilled his mission.
At last the sobs grew quieter. Patrick rested his head against me, his hands still cradling his pet between my chest and his. I reached for some tissues in my pocket. Patrick sneaked a peak at the hamster, probably hoping that she had warmed up and come back to life.
"Would you like to bury her?" I asked, handing him the tissue.
He nodded mutely, more tears rolling down.
"There's probably a shovel in the orangerie," I said.
Patrick wanted to bury Patricia in the family cemetery. I could have called Adrian on my cell phone and asked permission to dig there, but the hole for Patricia would be small and I counted on him to understand how fragile his son was at that moment. We fetched a shovel from the orangerie, then cut across the formal gardens to the main drive, and passed through the keyhole in the tall hedge.
Who did this? I wondered as we walked silently toward the graveyard. It seemed unlikely that the lazy Patricia would have so quickly made her way down three stories of the large house. But even if she did, I could not believe that a home-bred hamster would venture far in the cold, certainly not as far as the pool, an open area without vegetation, where no animal would seek refuge.
It was possible the orange cat had caught her close to the house and dropped her in the pool, for the cat had led us there. But why hadn't he eaten hersurely, hunting rodents was how this wild cat survived. And if he wasn't hungry, why didn't he do what a domesticated cat would-keep its prey in a cozy place where it could play with it. More curious still, how did the cat know what Patrick was searching for?
I caught myself in the middle of that wild leap of an idea. The cat was just a cat, despite what Joseph had said about the silent communication between the tabby and Ashley. People who are good with animals often seem to have an intangible connection to them. The only unnatural, abnormal thing on Mason's Choice was Patrick's heartless relatives; for, no matter what the chain of events, the crisis started when the hamster was let out of her cage.
Most adults wouldn't believe a child who said he had put the top back on a cage. I knew if I started making accusations, that's how Patrick's family would respond. But I believed him. Someone had let Patricia out, someone enjoying a bit of cruel entertainment at Patrick's expense. Brook was the most likely suspect.
We had reached the cemetery. The large plot, surrounded by an iron fence, was barren of trees. The obelisks and statues, some standing upright, some leaning, cast long shadows in the late afternoon light. No winter birds stirred here, no squirrels scurried through. The only animals inhabiting the plot were the carved stone creatures placed around Ashley's grave.
There was quiet but no peace here-I had felt it as a child, and felt it again now.
Ashley had said that the ghosts in this graveyard spoke to her. She had said they watched me when she and I were apart, that they told her what I did.
Even now it was hard to shake off the feeling of being observed.
"Where should we bury her?" Patrick asked.
"Sorry? Oh. How about here?" I suggested, pointing to a patch of grass behind the gate that was unlikely to be used for anything else.
He knelt, solemnly watching as I dug into the hard earth. I wrapped Patricia in my scarf and laid her in the hole. Patrick helped me cover her with dirt.
"She'll rest warm and happy now," I told him, and wiped the tears from his face.
"Kate, when you're dead, do you have bad dreams?"
"No, only good ones." How I ached for him!
He glanced toward the new corner of the cemetery.