So much they know, those two-legs. So many words they have for what they think they know. Like the way they take away our names, replacing them with noises of their own. They make a lot of noises.
I have learned to turn my head away when the two-legs push through the door here. The bells above the door ring, startling decent Folk into breaking off their leaps. All the other two-legs stare rudely as the newcomer, its face sat and sad, sets down a box holding yet another of the Free Folk, who is sick. Those who share my dish in this place of strange smells, cold ground, and unexpected aches sniff at the two-legs and purr for them: but not I.
There is little good in pleasing two-legs, as my kindred, trapped in small cages and waiting for the two-legs healers to hurt them, could tell you.
The two-legs who come here call me Puff. A foolish name, but I have learned that the words "Puff doesn't warm up to people" do keep the other two-legs away. I do not know my own true name. Two-legs took me away too early from my mother and dumped me in this place, where the air reeks of fear and pain and the bitter waters that the two-legs bathe us in or make us drink.
Any Soulhealer of the Free Folk knows better, not that I know so much about them. Lick the hurt. Keep the injured creature warm. But let the willing spirit go. Two-legs, I suspect, do not have Soulhealers. Instead, they have two-legs wrapped in loose white pelts, who rush from room to room to run clever hands over the Free Folk or prick them with thorns. Because they do not have quiet, hidden lairs, they make places like this one where two-legs come in with water pouring from their eyes as they bring in the Free Folk they have captured. Some of these Folk are simply scared or spoiled-idle beasts who have forgotten their pride because life is easy and food is free.
Night, though, is the bad time. At night, the two-legs lug in what they call the "critical cats."
Truly, these kindred of mine are not "critical." They are simply ready to start on their Hunt, abandoning the bodies they have outlived like a gnawed bone. But foolish two-legs pull them back.
I said that I, Puff, do not go to the two-legs and let them stroke me. Nor do I watch them. Not where they can see me do it. Still, I learn much. They are a troubled lot, but they make their trouble for themselves.
This past night, they have come in again with the trapped Free Folk they claim to "own." Too many have brought with them kittens of their own breed. They watch with even more fear than they study what they call "their cats." What a breed they are, these two-legs. Outcasts of their kind turn on their kittens and they fear to fight back!
"Puff isn't comfortable with children," says the two-legs who sits behind a low wall and stops a bell from ringing by talking to it. Usually, then, a two-legs bats away its youngling, which saves me from a pounce by a staggering two-legs kit. It is dangerous to approach such kittens. Two-legs will let others of their kind hurt their young; but the bad manners that would earn our kittens a swift cuff must go uncorrected, lest I start to hunt the Dreamtrails before my body is outworn.
I run from where the two-legs and the sick Folk wait into the inmost lairs where the food bowls are. Enticing smells of meat and fish rise from the bowls. The other two Folk who live here, Fenster and Purvis, are not around. For the moment, all the bowls belong to me.
"There you are, Puff! We need your help, boy!"
Big hands sweep me up. The food was just a trap! I squall and kick out with my strong hind legs, but the two-legs female holds me fast. So clever they are, those two-legs, with their deft hands. So much they take from us.
The two-legs holds me. Her littermate brings up a stick that buzzes like hornets and chews away my fine full ruff. Bitter water splashes upon my now-bare hide. I see the glint of the thorns the two-legs healers use, and I kick wildly.
"Now, be good, Puff!" I hear, and a hard hand scruffs down upon my neck. Trapped like the Folk outdoors! The thorn in the eldest's hand pricks me and hurls me out into the sleep that has no Dreamtime.
When I wake, I know the two-legs have taken something else from me-strength. Now I lie in the inmost lair where the smells of bitter water and sick, frightened Free Folk make my nose twitch. Gum clogs my eyes, and I feel weak, like a female after her first litter. My breath pants in and out.
"Puffs awake now. Here, Puff. You were a good boy." A piece of chicken, too cold from how they keep it fresh, drops beside me. I wrinkle up my muzzle and turn my face away. Let them worry.
Bloodscent tinges the air: mine. This time, the two-legs have stolen my blood itself from my poor body while I slept. What won't they sink to? I trace the scent over to a cage. One of the Folk is lying in it on the special cushion that brings the warmth of sunlight to lairs where the only light comes from the walls.
The newcomer is of a fine size. He has a deep, sleek coat, except where his neck is bound with cloths. They smell of bitter waters and hold in place the clear, hollow thorn that feeds my blood into his throat.
He twitches and flexes his paws. They have seven toes, and that, as all Free Folk know, means strength and craft. I fight up onto my haunches, nip up my bribe of chicken to give me strength and walk unsteadily to stand before him.
He opens his eyes, and I am trapped. His eyes are huge and wise as the full moon, full of shadow from the Dreamtrails. And then I know.
"I greet my younger brother," purred a voice inside my head, "and thank him for his gift, which makes me strong." For now, the sense came, though the voice does not admit it.
I drop my head to my paws. I would bow further and show my underbelly, but the stranger flicks up a corner of his lip: no need. Respectfully I curl my tail around my haunches and set myself to listen. It is not every day that one meets a Soulsinger; cut off too early from my mother's teaching, I have never met one before.
My fur fluffs up and I start to squall with rage. It was his time, yet two-legs had drawn him back, him, a Soulsinger, and stuck him with their awful thorns. How dare they?
"Be quiet, or you'll bring them here," he warns. Again, he uses the inner voice. "Yes, we can talk thus. Your blood is in me, as much as if the same female had borne us."
He looks as if he has to fight to raise his head. He closes his eyes, and I know he fights his body for more strength.
Why would a Soulsinger fight the call? Surely the Dreamtrails can hold no fear for him.
"Do you wish to take the Trails?" I ask. So clever these two-legs are, yet it is not hard to puzzle out their tricks. I could open that lock, dislodge the thorn, and send the Singer forth.
The Singer twitches his head: no. When his eyes blink open again, they are calm. The leafshadow has grown dim.
"I would not profane your gift by wasting it. Stay and talk with me."
"What is your name?" A Soulsinger, he has the right to ask that, and I, the obligation to reply. Untaught in the ways of the Free Folk I may be, but I know what is owed to those who deal with souls.
Not knowing my true name, I put my nose down again in shame. "I am called Puff," I say, wrinkling my muzzle in contempt for the two-legs sound.
"Perhaps you are too big and strong for a Puff," he agrees, then pauses. "I am Merlin."
"That is a two-legs' name," I sniff before I think.
"My name," he corrects me. "I am a named being, named by my human after a Soulsinger and healer of the human kind. Many songs come with this name, my human says. He who bore it hunted in a great wood and was accounted very wise in human dreams-which, you may be surprised to know, are as rich as our own. My human gave me the singer's name, but I have taken it for my own."
He holds his head proudly, despite the thorn. Then his eyes soften, fond as a tabby with one fine kit.
"Did you see my human when she brought me in?" he asks.
Was it for his two-legs he had stayed? I would not have thought a Soulsinger could be so great a fool. And yet, there it shone in his eyes. Love for a two-legs. Worry for a two-legs, though he was the one who was ill.
I start to tell him I do not look at two-legs, but those wise, troubled eyes force me to hunt back on my memory's trails. His human-there had been just one. Had she brought a kitten of her own? No, not that one… I shut my eyes… yes!
"The short two-legs with the long head-fur. The she who yowled all the while she brought you in-was that your two-legs?"
Merlin glares at me. "You should not call them two-legs."
"We are the People, the free kindred. They are just two-legs."
"You can still be polite!" A hiss tinges his mind-voice.
"The… person," I correct myself, unwillingly obedient. "I saw her."
"She is a fine human," Merlin tells me. "I do not wish to leave her. We have been together all my life. Kind hands, a soft voice, a generous heart. And pleasant to look at, once you know how to judge humans as they judge themselves."
Sickness had turned his brain. What a disappointment! Cut off so early from my kin, I had hoped to learn more of the ways of the Free Folk from this Soulsinger. And instead, what does he do? Maunders about a pretty two-legs. Some Soulsinger, indeed.
"She looks like the kind of two-legs who would feed a kitten till he cried with pain, but walk past a starveling stray," I snarl.
"I was a stray! You speak with less sense than a sick kitten!" This time, Merlin uses his voice as well as his mind. His yowl would have sent me flying against the wall if it had been a swipe of his paw. With it came an image of his human, crowned with light, bringing food to the Free Folk who rove the back streets. Wary they are, but they do come to her call.
Merlin's anger brings the youngest two-legs over fast. "Puff, are you bothering poor Merlin? Get down, Puff. Merlin's sick."
Her littermate calls over a shoulder. "Get him ready. Ms. Black is here to see him."
Both two-legs firm their lips and shake their heads.
"She's very upset, isn't she?"
"She's always upset. She's crazy about that cat. Look how she always gets one of us to come and sit for him when she goes away. And brings us gifts, too."
"He's a neat cat. Dr. Colt and Dr. Bell are worried about him. He's how old-thirteen? And he had this last year, too?"
"Dr. Bell says it's worse this time."
"It hasn't been a good week," sighs the elder two-legs. "That carriage-snatcher… there's lots of crazies. You haven't been here long enough to remember, but I do. Forest Hills used to be safe. You expected trouble in Manhattan, but not here. Now, we have people climbing in windows, and people grabbing babies right off Austin Street. Did you see how many people brought their kids in to office hours today? They're scared to leave them out of their sight."
"They drove Fenster and Purvis crazy. Puff ignored them."
"That's Puff for you. He was a good donor for Merlin today. Come on, Merlin. Good cat, pretty cat. Here we go. Want to see your mommy?"
The youngest two-legs lifts him from the cage. He protests and struggles a little. But "Merlin… Merlin…" they practically sing his name, and he is calm again. He rests his head against the shoulder of the she who holds him, and lets her run gentle hands over his fur. It is still glossy, with its ordered markings of night and moonlight, but I think it will dry out fast. I also think that the Soulsinger is enjoying the attention.
"Shame on you, Puff, upsetting Merlin."
The door swings wide. Borne out to see his two-legs, oh, very well, his human, Merlin flicks a sly, triumphant glance at me.
I follow him out. Once again, Merlin's she is talking, with salt water running down her hairless face. She smells scared and sad. As he sees her, he tries to lunge from the arms of the one who-holds him. As his two-legs sees him, her whole face shines. She does not smell as unhappy as she had.
"Merlin!" she calls. "There's my good cat."
The two-legs shut the door upon them. She, too, smelled unhappy. Fenster, who shares the foodbowls with me, trots up and paws at her knees. The two-legs swoops her up and holds her like a human kitten, seeking comfort. Fenster, the slut, purrs.
"Kitty!" squalls a two-legs kitten. I flee beneath a table and shut my eyes. Over and over the bells ring. There are a lot of critical cats coming in tonight, a lot of two-legs-well, enough-people speaking in soft, nervous voices.
"I didn't want to come out, but what could I do when Samantha was so sick?"
"We're picking up Dook. He was just fixed."
"They had cops patrolling Seventy-first. It's good to see cops on the beat again."
"I hope they catch that…"
The people growl in anger and in hope.
I lick the last traces of bitter water from my mangled ruff and wait.
The light beneath the door grows, waking me from my nap. One of the sisters carries Merlin, who protests separation from his human, back to the inner lairs. Merlin's two-legs stands before Dr. Bell: both females, but how different. Merlin's human is soft, long-furred, the wrappings that two-legs hide their bodies with carefully arranged and sparkly with the toys their females like. Dr. Bell is thinner, less carefully groomed: a lean barn dweller facing off against an indoor drowser upon cushions.
Their feelings hurt. Merlin's human fears and aches; Dr. Bell wants only to escape to the inner lairs and the Free Folk who watch and do not ask hard questions. Clearly, she forces herself to remain and meet the other female's eyes. Both females' mouths move in sounds that, ordinarily, I would ignore. But Merlin has stuck a thorn in my feelings as well as my curiosity. I can not turn away.
"I know you're on the cat's side," says Merlin's human. "So am I. I want him back, of course I do. But I want what's best for him. You're the doctor. What you say to do, I'll do." Her eyes fill, but her voice is quite steady.
Dr. Bell flicks an eyebrow up in surprised respect at this pampered-looking female. "We're trying our best. It's not leukemia or feline AIDS. It could be his spleen or his liver. We just don't know yet. But I have to say, it doesn't look too good."
The human looks down. "I know," she whispers. She makes the hand and voice gestures of respect that two-legs use. "Thank you, Doctor," she says and turns to go.
"You might wait a minute till you calm down," Dr. Bell suggests. "So you can watch out on the way home. God only knows what's out there."
Which is why I like it here, her undervoice tells me clearly. I cure pain. And the cats I work with are decent; they don't turn on their own kind.
Merlin's human nods thanks. She draws a deep breath and forces calm upon her face the way we lower our inmost eyelids when we gaze into the sun.
"Who's this?" she asks.
To my surprise, it is me she is talking about this time. I stroll out from beneath the table to let her admire me.
"That's Puff. He was Merlin's donor this morning."
The next instant, Merlin's human is down on her knees before me. She is quick in her movements, and her hand gestures are graceful, almost like paws. "Oh, the brave cat, good cat. But look, his ruff is shaved, and it was so pretty," she croons at me. She glances up at the one called Dr. Bell. "Puffs a hero-cat."
If she keeps that up, I think I may have a hairball, just to teach her. I raise a forepaw to clean it and ignore her outstretched hands.
"Puff's a little standoffish tonight."
"Is he all right? Did you take a lot of blood from him?"
Dr. Bell nods. "A good bit. He was scared."
"Poor Puff. Thank you, Puff. Tell me," again, she appeals to the other two-legs. "May I bring Puff treats when I come tomorrow? Whatever happens, I'm grateful to him."
Still talking, she Wraps heavy clothes about her and vanishes into the night beyond the lights where the critical cats and the noisy kittens of both breeds wait.
If I had come to her, she might have felt better. What is that to me? She is just another noisy two-legs. Still, there had been that promise of treats…
I head for the inmost lairs. Merlin lies upon the sunshine pad. He is breathing too fast, but purring as he breathes. I paw the cage lock open and come in beside him, nuzzling his side. His eyes blink open, lazy, satisfied. Seeing his human has eased him; he seems stronger and happier. I am angry at myself that I care.
"She groomed me; we don't like it when my fur is matted. She praised me and sang my name. Said I was a good cat and whatever I did was fine. I wish I were going home; I could run it to suit myself now. Such a good human." He shuts his eyes, musing on what would have appeared to be the most delightful of Dreamtrails, but what I know has to be that idiot human of his.
"Did you see Her?" he asks eagerly.
"I saw her," I admit. "She thanked me and would have stroked my back. But I was washing. Tell me, does she keep her word? She promised me food for helping you."
"That sounds like her," Merlin says, pleased. "She'll bring you treats. And she understands what we Free Folk like-tender beef in tiny cans; fat salmon and cream and things you can steal off plates."
If he keeps it up, I think again that I will have a hairball, and never mind the respect due to Soulsingers.
"You have made me strong for now, my brother," he praises me. "She will be afraid without me."
"Why is she afraid?" I hate to ask it, but my curiosity stretches and leaps. "She is sleek and well." Not like you, I think. "And she is old enough to be as wise as a female who has raised many litters."
Merlin shrugs, a ripple of massive shoulders on which the fur already has begun to wilt. "Humans fear more than we… pain, voices, fights. Even the pieces of paper that they carry scare them. My human more than most."
He looks up. For a moment, the pain he has suppressed this evening twists his face and drives the wisdom from his eyes. It is not just body pain. "If she conquers her fears, she will be a Soulsinger, too. That is a hard choice for humans, who do not respect the soul art as we do. She fears, but I know she wants to slay her fear. I do not want to leave her till she does. I do not think I could hunt in peace if I left her now."
The moment passes, and his eyes are deep and bright again as the autumn moon. "She will go to ground tonight, just like we do when we hurt. But she should not be left alone. Tonight, I shall watch her dreams. You shall help me, if you will. Have you never stalked a human's thoughts? I promise, my brother, you will find this an interesting game."
Once the two-legs turn down the lights and leave, we huddle together and hunt down the trail of Merlin's human's thoughts. She dodges in and out of the crowd of two-legs, watchful of the huge, foul-smelling things that honk and screech and have two-legs in them playing mating calls. She looks carefully away from the kittens trundled in their carriers by cautious two-legs.
Merlin was all the child I had, the thought lingers like rain in her thoughts. Not was, is. But for how long? Her eyes keep blurring. At that her fear nips her more shrewdly, like a rat. It is not safe to walk the streets with blurring eyes. It has not been a good year, she thinks. Faces shift and go… some clearly remembered; some blurred by years longer than the lifespan of Free Folk.
It is no kindness, the long memories of two-legs, I realize, and I wonder at the thought. Merlin shifts beside me and tries to chirp reassuringly. This far away, his two-legs does not hear him.
She does not look at the little suns that light up the sparkly toys behind clear walls. She does not sniff at the thousand intriguing food smells-or wince at the stenches of foul waters and foul air, or the wild two-legs whom not even a besotted Soulsinger would ever call "human" again.
At a gate scent-marked a long time ago by such two-legs, Merlin's human pauses. To my surprise, she calls, not in the speech of the Free Folk, but in what sounds like it.
"I told you she feeds the Folk who wander," Merlin's "voice" nudged me.
"Does she know what she is saying?" I ask. Merlin grimaces at me.
"She doesn't need to."
Two thin Folk drop from the undergrowth sloping up toward tracks on a bridge and trot toward her. "He's sick, fellows. Red Brother, wish me luck, will you?" The larger cat starts toward her; a smaller one bats him away. Both withdraw.
"I see your point," she whispers. "I didn't bring any food, and I smell sad. I guess I'm not very good company for you today. Sorry."
She turns and trots toward her lair, her eyes flicking in all directions as she crosses the street into a darkened square. Fears squeak in her thoughts: of the two-legs who leap from cars, the ones who pounce from hiding in the bushes, the ones who rush up in the street, or who linger in the halls. From her pouch, she pulls a jangling clutter of metal, an image of the Free Folk dangling from it, and uses it to get into her lair. I am surprised that any two-legs respects the Goddess of the Folk, much less bears Her image.
She sighs with relief when the door shuts behind her. Odd how doors mean prison to the Free Folk and safety to… all right, I won't call them two-legs.
Her lair is small, scent-marked as though Merlin were a full male, and full of toys. Stacks of paper lie on shelves, ready to be tumbled into cozy nests; warm wraps lie on chairs and cushions; a dark cave full of things that bear her scent yawns open.
Merlin's mind flickers into mischief. "'Shoes,' she says those are. For her hind paws. When I don't like my litter, I mark them to teach her better. She calls me 'rotten cat' and laughs. I don't do it much. It is a dirty trick."
He leads me on a thought tour of the tiny lair. "My dishes… and my box… and that's where I nap, on the fancy rug below the window. Someone sent it just for me from halfway round the world."
A bell rings, and the human stops it. "No, they haven't found the thief," she tells it. "None of the papers even have a picture of him. But they found the first kid. All right, thank God. I'd like to find that crazy myself." Her voice turns hard and angry. If she were one of us, her hackles would rise and her tail would lash like a mother in the kittening box with her litter when a stranger gets too close.
"Yes, I'll be careful. Yes, the door's locked. Stop worrying about me. I've got a sick cat to worry about. I have to visit him tomorrow. No, they don't know what's wrong with Merlin." Her voice quivers and breaks. "I'm scared he won't make it."
Beside me, Merlin's body tenses as if he wants to hurl himself through space and land beside her. Her hand goes out as if she seeks the comfort of his fur. Her face twists.
"Just thirteen. Yes, I know, it's old, but they live to be twenty, sometimes… Thanks for thinking of us. He's a hell of a cat, and he's putting up a fine fight. Whatever's best for him. I'll take care. Bye."
She lays down the bell and walks over to the cold box.
"Sliced turkey in there," Merlin says.'"She bought it for me."
Ignoring the delicacy, she pours herself some bitter water. I wrinkle my nose. Merlin shrugs. "It's like catnip, but they lap it up," he explains.
She sits in a chair before a table on which rests a box that holds a window screen. She touches it, and it lights and purrs. She rests her fingers on a pad and moves them, clacking, back and forth. Suddenly, she glances down, looking. "I always come and sit on her lap when she tries to make songs…" Merlin tells me. She tightens her muzzle and blinks her eyes. Salt water runs from them.
The Soulsinger beside me yearns forward, but he is beginning to tire. His body sags and cools.
"Come back," I coax. "You cannot hunt her dreams all night."
"I cannot leave yet. Something is going to happen. I know it. Help me stay."
I am Puff. I walk alone. I cannot imagine caring that much about any of the Free Folk, let alone a two-legs. But the big soulsinger already has my blood; he might as well have the strength of my heart, too. I crouch by his side and let my spirit flow toward him. He sighs and the cold at his heart eases.
Again, we hunt forward. The human prepares to sleep. When her breathing slows, Merlin nudges his spirit-self forward beside her head and extends a seven-toed insubstantial paw to touch her face. It melts against her skin. Merlin looks unhappy again. But the human smiles as if she feels the touch. Satisfied by that, Merlin purrs and settles his dreamself by his human's side.
When I feel his breathing steady where his body crouches by mine, I reach out. Like a tabby tugging a stray kit back against her side, I ease his spirit back into his flesh. Then, as if an eyelid I didn't know I had opened, I find that I can see within my companion. None of his bones are broken; no organs are diseased; no blood flows. Yet matters are all awry; his body has turned on itself, devouring its own strength.
I am surprised that his heart is only the size it is. It seems as if it should be much bigger.
"Gently done," comes the familiar undervoice. I start.
Merlin turns his head slightly, wincing at the pain of the thorn in his neck. "As if you had known how to hunt a human's thoughts thus all your lives. Do you know, deny it as you may, you are in the right place, my brother Puff? Puff, as you're called, with your fur like smoke and your face with a smoke smudge across its muzzle, floating across minds to heal them. The humans are not the only healers here."
The Soulsinger looks up at me, his eyes glinting too brightly. "They were not total fools, the humans who named you. But let me give you your true name now; your inner name."
He jerks his head so our noses touch, and I feel his pain jolt through me. I know I do not want to hear this, but those eyes hold me. " 'Healer' I name you. Be the healer of souls you were born to be."
No! Careful not to yowl, I back away. I do not want to be a soul healer. I do not want to care so much-or care at all. I have already done too much. I am Puff who stands aloof, who takes my food and whatever else I can. I give as little as I can, and I go my own way.
"Who understands more than 'now'?" he asks me. "Who fears for humans, even when he most scorns them? Who watches the sick Kindred and fails to hold aloof-even from one as sick as I?"
No! I start to yowl as I back out of his cage, then mute my cry lest I wake the sick kindred. I do not want to be like Merlin whose body fails and who yearns for the Dreamtrails-but who forces himself to stay and watch… because he loves. I do not want to heal bodies or souls and run the risk of failure, or of fear. It is too hard, too much for me.
The whole lair is empty, except for the breathing of the Folk. Many are caged. I sense their fear as if it were my own.
Fenster and Purvis lie curled up together. They blink when I try to edge into their warm huddle. I do not think they are altogether pleased.
"You have always gone your own way, slept your own sleep, dreamed your own dreams. Why should we welcome you?" Fenster asks.
How happy they look, wrapped in warmth and the forever "now" of happy Folk. Please let me share, I ask. It comes out as a kitten's whimper.
"Because I am alone, and I'm frightened," I confess.
Kinder far than I, they lick my shoulder till I sleep. I fear that Merlin stays awake, watching his two-legs dream.
I vow to myself I would stay away. But morning finds me again at Merlin's cage. He is cooler, weaker, and his eyes have dulled.
"Good morning, Healer," he mocks me. "Making your rounds like the human doctor?"
I show him my teeth. "Keep that up, and you can haunt your human's dreams alone today."
But I lie, and I know it.
"Rest," I tell him. "I will follow your trails for you until she returns."
I no longer doubt that she will do so.
Lazy Puff, the two-legs would call me. But I am not lazy. I hunt the strangest trail I have ever known as I track Merlin's two-legged she.
It is hard, the life they have, these people. They ride, all crammed, standing together, on fearsome wagons through runs worse than the maze of any mouse, deep beneath the ground: places of fearful sounds and smells. They do not look at each other because, if they do, they may fight.
We know the rules for who goes belly up, who slinks away, and when. These two-legs have no such rules that I can see.
And yet, I saw a male offer a female heavy with young a seat, saw people pull back to give kittens room to breathe. Merlin's human sits, too, blinking at a paper that she holds. "Child Snatcher At Large," huge letters shout at her above a darkened square. She shuts the paper and blinks. An old male leaning on a stick limp into the wagon, and she rises for him. I sense his surprise and his pleasure. She has courtesy, this she of Merlin's. He has trained her well.
Courtesy and neat hands; and yet she fears and remembered her fears. It must be hard for any two-legs, harder still for one with the rudiments of proper conduct.
Noise in the lair forces me back. I leap from Merlin's cage just as Dr. Colt comes in. He too is neat-footed-for a two-legs male. He lifts Merlin from the cage, and the Soulsinger yowls.
"Did that hurt, boy?" he asks. Why does he have to treat the Soulsinger, whose mind and spirit outshine him as catnip outshines sawdust, like a kitten? But Merlin lowers his head to rub against his hand. "Wish I knew what you had." He is suddenly grave.
I run out. All that day, I dream in a chair, not even noticing when people draw close and pet me. "Puffs gotten friendly. Think he's all right?" someone asks.
"He's not friendly. He's sleeping," replies the female who carried Merlin to his human. "Aren't you, Puff?"
I'm not. Instead, as often as I was drawn back to my lair, I send my spirit forth in dreams to hunt the strange trails of a two-leg's-a human's-mind. It is like setting weight on a leg too recently broken. It hurts, but I have to try it.
So much the humans have that they fear-not just dogs or claws or hunger; not even rogues like the mad two-legs who stole human kittens. But of being cold inside, as I was last night, without friends to curl up beside, of long, long years of being cold. They live far longer than we do. I used to hate them for it. Now, I know it is nothing I should envy.
Fears and sounds and scents boil about me, a frightening brew that causes even a human to freeze in her footsteps. Abruptly, I am a kitten again, jerked from my mother and littermates, dumped in a bag, then left on cold stone.
These two-legs feel that way every day, I realize, and yet they go about their lives not complaining, just as we do not complain when we are ill. Things get better, or they do not.
"How are you?" they greet each other.
"Fine," they reply, though they are not.
They are not cowards, though they are often fools.
Except the rare ones: the singers and healers of souls. I am not fit to be one of that breed. I will admit it-I fear the task. Yet I cannot look away.
When Merlin's human returns that evening, she arrives with red eyes and a sack that looks most gratifyingly heavy. I think I scent catnip. The cans in the sack are the tiny, delectable ones.
"These are for Puff," she declares. "I promised I would, and here they are. Besides, I may not need them. And if I do, I'll buy more. Lots more."
Everyone makes comforting sounds. No one is fooled. Whatever else they are, two-legs-I mean "people"-are not always stupid.
"Chicken," I tell Merlin, licking my lips. "Very good, too. Don't you want any?" I would have given all of mine if he had eaten.
He blinks his eyes shut. They are glazing. Any other cat would have turned his face to the wall, abandoned his traitor body, and set out on the Dreamtrails long before.
"Do you want more strength?" I ask. I do not want the bitter water and the thorn and the weakness again, but they might make him strong for a little while.
"It would be wasted." Even with the sunshine pulsing through the pad beneath him, he is cold. "She thanked me and said I was free to go. But I am not!"
"Don't you want to go?" I ask.
Merlin sighs. "I want the pain to stop. It would be good to be young again and leap into the air for the joy of it once more. I want to see those trails I've dreamed of and learn whether the water is as sweet, the birds as fat and slow as instinct tells me. But the Dreamtrails will be very lonely without humans."
He meets my eyes.
"Do you still deny your inner name is Healer?"
There is something he wants of me-hope, perhaps?
I put my head upon my front paws. "I looked, Singer. I did. I cannot help you any more than they can. But your spirit is too strong to slip away. You must choose, or they will send you."
"Not yet," Merlin tells me. "The thing I dreamt lies in wait, and I must track it to its lair. That is my gift, as sharing strength in yours. Help me hunt."
I hunker down by the big cat. He smells old now and sick. His fur is dull, and his mouth dry. But the spirit that leaps forth to hunt his human's thoughts is-young and spry.
"You won't admit it, but I think you like her," he says, his whiskers set at a smug angle. "Most Free Folk do."
When we next track her thoughts, she is walking down a street, her eyes following the movements when a movement catches them. From a narrow way between two lairs darts a two-legs, lean and thin and fast. Though his jaws do not foam, I know he is mad. A long thorn glints in one hand. Quickly, he stalks his quarry: a female pushing another's kitten in a wheeled box. No sooner seen than pounced upon.
The female human screams and falls, blood steaming in the cold air. The kitten sets up a thin wailing as the mad two-legs snatches it up. The other people stand trapped as one of us might alone at night on a road with two suns racing toward you and a horn blaring.
"He's got a knife!" someone whispers.
"Call 911."
"'Fraid to move."
The mad two-legs starts to back off, clutching the two-leg infant he has stolen. He kicks the wheeled box away.
"No," whispers Merlin's human. Again, she is afraid. The smell of the other's blood turns her sick.
"No," she says again. She cannot take her eyes from the mad one's thorn. She cannot shut out the smell of the blood, the thin wail of the human kitten. She can not run away. She is afraid to move, afraid to die. The fear builds up and up past bearing. And then-
"No!" she screams, a yowl of battle fury that would have done any of the Free Folk proud. "Oh, no, you don't!"
She tugs her pouch from her shoulder, runs forward, swings it, and lashes down with it upon the arm that holds the thorn. The thorn drops. It rings upon the dirty stone.
"Get the knife!" she screams. Carrying his prey, the mad one starts to run off.
"No!" Merlin howls. "Let's stop him!" He flings his spirit self clear of his body toward his human. I yowl and follow him. In that instant, our strength burns through the ties that hold him to his flesh and her to her fear. She shrieks and hurls herself forward, stumbling on her foolish "shoes," and toppling forward. At the last instant, she reaches out and grasps the madman's knees.
"Help!" she gasps. Blood pours down her muzzle. The mad one begins to thrash. As small as Merlin's human is, she cannot hold him long. Merlin and I pour our strength into her, and her grasp tightens. Her eyes blaze like the full moon in a fighting cat's eyes, sweeping round the people who stand, still too afraid to move, and kindling them.
"Great tackle, lady!” yells a burly male and leaps in to help. Two others join him.
"I'll call 911!"
And Merlin's human, creeping forward fast, snatches the baby from the mad two-legs, clutches it to her breast as if it were her own, and runs to the female who lies bleeding on the ground.
"The baby's fine," she tells the woman. "But you're not." She hands the baby over to a friend, then reaches about her neck and pulls free a wrapping much like Merlin has to wear. "So much for this scarf," she mutters and begins to wind it about the hurt one's arm.
She has the blood flow stopped when a pack of male humans arrives, as alike in what they wear as littermates can be in markings.
"Police," she says. "Thank God."
She wipes at the blood on her muzzle. When the men came up to her, she speaks calmly. We can see them shake their heads and purse their lips in admiration.
"Lady, you've got guts," one tells her as he writes down her name.
"She's not afraid, did you see that?" Merlin exults. "She's not afraid! Not any more! Not ever again!"
His spirit leaps in the air for joy…
… and comes down in nothingness. "Free!" he whispers. "At last I'm free to hunt!"
His eyes fill with awe and wonder. "How beautiful it is. And look-!"
I see him leave his body behind and race toward the deep, darkness of a stand of trees I have only seen in my dreams. I follow him in thought. Within the Dreamtrails would be patches of sun and shadow, clear, clean streams, and fat, stupid fowl and fish. He will hunt until he tires and sleep on soft grass, then rise to hunt again or roll in a meadow, letting the sun shine upon the fur of his underbelly. There will be mates for him, and kittens. He will be young again, forever.
Still, he had feared to be alone. Well, perhaps I could follow. And I do want to see. I hurl myself forward, but a door I cannot see slams before my nose, and I go sprawling. My thoughts reel, but I think I hear Merlin meow with joy at the sight of a tall, stocky human male, whose face I had seen in his human's dreams and whom she had mourned as gone ahead. He comes walking beside a creature that dwarfed us all in size and length of fangs: one of the Free Folk of the very longest time ago.
"Look at the furball, Steelsheen," booms the human. "I think I know this one."
So humans do hunt the Dreamtrails, companioned by the eldest Folk of all.
Merlin runs toward him and is swept onto his shoulder where he chirps and purrs like a kitten. They disappear into the lush shadows…
… and I awake beside the cage in which Merlin's husk lies cast aside.
I nose open the door and begin to groom him. He and his human had been vain of his fur; when she returns, as I know she will, it would hurt her to see him with a matted coat.
The vision at the last of Merlin entering the Dreamtrails dazes my senses, or I would hear my people come in.
"Puff? What are you doing in… ohhh, Merlin slipped away. Do you think Puff Knew?"
"That one? He doesn't care. Not Puff." Pain quivers in the young human's voice as she moves me gently aside and reaches to straighten Merlin's body's limbs. "Not like this one. What a neat cat. Well, I'm not looking forward to seeing Ms. Black come in, are you? At least Dr. Colt will have to be the one to tell her, not me."
She shuts the door to the cage and moves away, walking slowly, her shoulders bent. I smell sadness on her. It hurts me, too.
I pad toward her, slip between her legs, and sit before her feet. I mew.
"Why, Puff! What is it, lad?"
I mew again, arch up, and paw at her knee.
"You want to be picked up? You, Puff? Feeling all right?"
Again I cry. She bends and lifts me. To my surprise, the teeth of pain that clench me loosen a little. I begin to purr. As if the sound eases some pain-rat gnawing her, she holds me tighter-though never too tight-and lays her face against my head. Her skin is warm. Under the masking scents of bitter waters, it smells sweet, like a faint dream of my mother and my littermates.
I put up a paw as I had seen Merlin do and pat her face. Salt water falls upon my fur, but for once, I do not care.
We both still feel the pain, but it is less-for both of us. Then, she sets me down.
"Thank you, Puff. I needed to hold someone."
Another of the things that humans say; this time, I know she means it. I need it, too. She was a healer, or she would be. Well, I am a healer, too. We are all in our rightful places-though she does not know yet just how right they are. Well, she is young for a human; she will learn. I will see to it.
I trot out where the humans and their sick friends wait. If they can take comfort from me, they are welcome to it. Perhaps it will ease the pain I feel: so little time to know a Soulsinger; but losing him aches like a clawed nose.
So much they know, these humans, and so little. So much they take from us-and so much they give.