The yellow chintz curtains at the kitchen window were looped back, revealing a bright section of kitchen inside. Aunt Judith was closing the dishwasher. Had Robert come to dinner? Elena wondered.
Aunt Judith moved toward the front hallway and Elena moved with her, circling the house again. She found a slit in the living room curtains and cautiously applied her eye to the thick, wavery old glass of the window. She heard the front door open and shut, and then lock, and then Aunt Judith came into the living room and sat on the couch. She switched on the TV and began flipping through channels idly.
Elena wished she could see more than just her aunt's profile in the flickering light of the TV. It gave her a strange feeling to look at this room, knowing that she could only look and not go in. How long had it been since she realized what a nice room it was? The old mahogany whatnot, crowded with china and glassware, the Tiffany lamp on the table next to Aunt Judith, the needlepoint pillows on the couch, all seemed precious to her now. Standing outside, feeling the feathery caress of the snow on the back of her neck, she wished she could go in just for a moment, just for a little while.
Aunt Judith's head was tilting back, her eyes shutting. Elena leaned her forehead against the window, then slowly turned away.
She climbed the quince tree outside her own bedroom, but to her disappointment the curtains were shut tight. The maple tree outside Margaret's room was fragile and harder to climb, but once she got up she had a good view; these curtains were wide open. Margaret was asleep with the bedcovers drawn up to her chin, her mouth open, her pale hair spread out like a fan on the pillow.
Hello, baby, Elena thought and swallowed back tears. It was such a sweetly innocent scene: the nightlight, the little girl in bed, the stuffed animals on the shelves keeping watch over her. And here came a little white kitten padding through the open door to complete the picture, Elena thought.
Snowball jumped onto Margaret's bed. The kitten yawned, showing a tiny pink tongue, and stretched, displaying miniature claws. Then it walked daintily over to stand on Margaret's chest.
Something tingled at the roots of Elena's hair.
She didn't know if it was some new hunter's sense or sheer intuition, but suddenly she was afraid. There was danger in that room. Margaret was in danger.
The kitten was still standing there, tail swishing back and forth. And all at once Elena realized what it looked like. The dogs. It looked the way Chelsea had looked at Doug Carson before she lunged at him. Oh, God, the town had quarantined the dogs, but nobody had thought about the cats.
Elena's mind was working at top speed, but it wasn't helping her. It was only flashing pictures of what a cat could do with curved claws and needle-sharp teeth. And Margaret just lay there breathing softly, oblivious to any danger.
The fur on Snowball's back was rising, her tail swelling like a bottle brush. Her ears flattened and she opened her mouth in a silent hiss. Her eyes were fixed on Margaret's face just the way Chelsea's had been on Doug Carson's.
"No!" Elena looked around desperately for something to throw at the window, something to make noise. She couldn't get any closer; the outer branches of the tree wouldn't support her weight. "Margaret, wake up!"
But the snow, settling like a blanket around her, seemed to deaden the words into nothingness. A low, discordant wail was started in Snowball's throat as it flicked its eyes toward the window and then back to Margaret's face.
"Margaret, wake up!" Elena shouted. Then, just as the kitten pulled back a curved paw, she threw herself at the window.
She never knew, later, how she managed to hang on. There was no room to kneel on the sill, but her fingernails sank into the soft old wood of the casing, and the toe of one boot jammed into a foothold below. She banged against the window with her body weight, shouting.
"Get away from her! Wake up, Margaret!"
Margaret's eyes flew open and she sat up, throwing Snowball backward. The kitten's claws caught in the eyelet bedspread as it scrambled to right itself. Elena shouted again.
"Margaret, get off the bed! Open the window, quick!"
Margaret's four-year-old face was full of sleepy surprise, but no fear. She got up and stumbled toward the window while Elena gritted her teeth.
"That's it. Good girl… now say, 'Come in.' Quick, say it!"
"Come in," Margaret said obediently, blinking and stepping back.
The kitten sprang out as Elena fell in. She made a grab for it, but it was too fast. Once outside it glided across the maple branches with taunting ease and leaped down into the snow, disappearing.
A small hand was tugging at Elena's sweater. "You came back!" Margaret said, hugging Elena's hips. "I missed you."
"Oh, Margaret, I missed you—" Elena began, and then froze. Aunt Judith's voice sounded from the top of the stairs.
"Margaret, are you awake? What's going on in there?"
Elena had only an instant to make her decision. "Don't tell her I'm here," she whispered, dropping to her knees. "It's a secret; do you understand? Say you let the kitty out, but don't tell her I'm here." There wasn't time for any more; Elena dived under the bed and prayed.
From under the dust ruffle, she watched Aunt Judith's stocking feet come into the room. She pressed her face into the floorboards, not breathing.
"Margaret! What are you doing up? Come on, let's get you back in bed," Aunt Judith's voice said, and then the bed creaked with Margaret's weight and Elena heard the noises of Aunt Judith's fussing with the covers. "Your hands are freezing. What on earth is the window doing open?"
"I opened it and Snowball went out," Margaret said. Elena let out her breath.
"And now there's snow all over the floor. I can't believe this… Don't you open it up again, do you hear me?" A little more bustling and the stocking feet went out again. The door shut.
Elena squirmed out.
"Good girl," she whispered as Margaret sat up. "I'm proud of you. Now tomorrow you tell Aunt Judith that you have to give your kitty away. Tell her it scared you. I know you don't want to"—she put up a hand to stop the wail that was gathering on Margaret's lips—"but you have to. Because I'm telling you that kitty will hurt you if you keep it. You don't want to get hurt, do you?"
"No," said Margaret, her blue eyes filling. "But—"
"And you don't want the kitty to hurt Aunt Judith, either, do you? You tell Aunt Judith you can't have a kitten or a puppy or even a bird until—well, for a while. Don't tell her that I said so; that's still our secret. Tell her you're scared because of what happened with the dogs at church." It was better, Elena reasoned grimly, to give the little girl nightmares than to have a nightmare play out in this bedroom.
Margaret's mouth drooped sadly. "Okay."
"I'm sorry, sweetie." Elena sat down and hugged her. "But that's the way it has to be."
"You're cold," Margaret said. Then she looked up into Elena's face. "Are you an angel?"
"Uh… not exactly." Just the opposite, Elena thought ironically.
"Aunt Judith said you went to be with Mommy and Daddy. Did you see them yet?"
"I—it's sort of hard to explain, Margaret. I haven't seen them yet, no. And I'm not an angel, but I'm going to be like your guardian angel anyway, all right? I'll watch over you, even when you can't see me. Okay?"
"Okay." Margaret played with her fingers. "Does that mean you can't live here anymore?"
Elena looked around the pink-and-white bedroom, at the stuffed animals on the shelves and the little writing desk and the rocking horse that had once been hers in the corner. "That's what it means," she said softly.
"When they said you went to be with Mommy and Daddy, I said I wanted to go, too."
Elena blinked hard. "Oh, baby. It's not time for you to go, so you can't. And Aunt Judith loves you very much, and she'd be lonely without you."
Margaret nodded, her eyelids drooping. But as Elena eased her down and pulled the bedspread over her, Margaret asked one more question. "But don't you love me?"
"Oh, of course I do. I love you so much—I never even knew how much until now. But I'll be all right, and Aunt Judith needs you more. And…" Elena had to take a breath to steady herself, and when she looked down she saw Margaret's eyes were shut, her breathing regular. She was asleep.
Oh, stupid, stupid, Elena thought, forging through the banked snow to the other side of Maple Street. She'd missed her chance to ask Margaret whether Robert had been at dinner. It was too late now.
Robert. Her eyes narrowed suddenly. At the church, Robert had been outside and then the dogs had gone mad. And tonight Margaret's kitten had gone feral—just a little while after Robert's car had pulled out of the driveway.