'For God's sake put her down,' cried Deborah. 'You're strangling her! You'll crush her neck!'
He looked back, eyes wild, the veins standing out in his head. Only moments before she had been pleading with him to watch out for the claws, and, moments before that, to stop the fight.
'If I kill her,' he said between his teeth, 'God's my witness, I'll not shed a tear!'
The animal had long since ceased struggling and now hung limp in his grasp, seemingly lifeless except for periodic hissing sounds that came from deep within her throat.
Marching up the steps and into the kitchen, Freirs sheepishly holding the screen door for him, Sarr yanked open the bathroom door and hurled the animal inside. He slammed the door shut, propping the chair back in place before it.
'Sorry,' said Freirs. 'I'm the one who let her out.'
'It's all right now,' said Sarr. Wearily he sprawled onto one of the kitchen chairs, his hand and wrist a mass of lacerations. He was breathing deeply. 'It's all right.' He paused, composing himself. 'Have you already turned on the water?'
'Uh, no, I was about to, but I-'
Sarr shook his head. 'Don't. Put off your bathing till the end of the day. I want to leave her in there for a spell. God's my witness, I swear my mother was right. The devil's in that animal.'
Deborah had come into the kitchen and now stood behind him, caressing his neck. 'Can you imagine?' she said to Freirs, 'she just attacked poor 'Riah for the second time today.'
They had put her in the bathroom last night, after she'd been located among the trunks and old books of the storeroom in Freirs' building. She had been strangely tractable at the time, nestling in Sarr's arms, making no protest as he'd closed the door on her. T almost hate to do it,' he had said, 'the way she's acting now. But when I think of what she did to Mother-'He shook his head.
This morning, when they'd come downstairs at seven, she'd been gone. Apparently she had learned to turn the knob on the bathroom door by swatting at it with her paw. She had still been in the house, though, for, in addition to the screen door, the heavy wooden kitchen door was closed. As Sarr and Deborah had descended the stairs, followed by the six cats who'd shared their bed, they had seen Bwada race up from the root cellar and pounce on Azariah.
'And now she's gone and done it again,' said Deborah, with a shudder. 'Make sure that chair's braced tight against the door.'
From the bathroom came a disconsolate miaow.
'You're staying in there!' Deborah shouted angrily. 'We'll see how you like it!'
A miaow again, but drawn out this time into a long, ugly caterwauling that sounded disconcertingly like human speech.
The three eyed one another uneasily.
'She's not been sounding like herself lately,' said Sarr. 'There's a kind of- hoarseness. At first I thought it was the accident. Now I'm not so sure.'
Freirs nodded. 'Yesterday, when I found her in the storeroom, there was something funny about her.'
'Funny?'
'She licked her lips – you know the way an animal will do – but it looked like she had something in her mouth.'
Sarr shrugged. 'Maybe she did. That place is full of mice.'
Deborah laughed. 'Or maybe she's got a frog in her throat!'
'I don't know,' said Freirs, shaking his head. 'I'm not too familiar with cats, inside or out, but I'd say she's got something in there. Something wrong. A tumor, maybe, a growth of some kind. I'd take a look at her, if I were you.'
'I'll do that,' said Sarr, 'as soon as we let her out tonight. I'm even thinking of taking her to that vet over in Flemington. There isn't much else I can do.' He stared gloomily at his hands and fell silent. At last he looked up. 'Well, there's one thing. I wonder if you'd excuse us for a few minutes, Jeremy. I want Deborah here to join with me in prayer.'
'Oh, yes, of course.'
'And you know,' said Sarr, 'maybe when we're done I should give a look to her mouth. No reason to wait till tonight. Better to get to the source of the trouble right away.'
Freirs wandered into the living room and leafed boredly through an Old Farmer's Almanack while Deborah sat down across from her husband. The two of them propped their elbows on the table and clasped their hands. Freirs looked in at them once; they were silent, their eyes tightly shut.
He drifted back into the living room and waited, listening to the ticking of the clock.
Was there another sound?
Yes, he heard it now. A low, grating sound was coming from the other room.
It came again, followed by the frantic scrape of chairs and Sarr's angry swearing. Freirs rushed into the kitchen in time to see Sarr yank open the bathroom door.
'The window!' Deborah cried, pointing. Its screen gaped outward, crisscrossed by two wide slashes.
The room was empty.
She wasn't in the storeroom this time, or in any of her usual hiding places. Sarr amp; I searched the workroom in the barn amp; the chicken coop too, on a platform six feet above the floor. Plenty of dust amp; fat buzzing bluebottles, but no sign of the cat. Even took a peek into the old smokehouse, as much as the wasps there would let us. We looked for her till dinnertime, in fact, but she was gone without a trace.
It began to rain during dinner amp; I hung around the house till it stopped. When I got back here I attempted to relax by reading Algernon Blackwood's 'Ancient Sorceries.' One of his lesser tales, perhaps, but I found it anything but relaxing. It's about a town inhabited by a band of feline witches – were-cats, I guess you'd call them – amp; it's done unpleasant things to my imagination.
Close to midnight now, amp; despite the day's heat, the coldest night we've had so far. Think I'll have some trouble getting to sleep; tonight the whole atmosphere seems weird, worse than ever I recall. Thunder coming regularly – more rain on the way, no doubt – amp; lightning with it, obviously close by. But why, then, is there so much more thunder than lightning?
A bright flash that time -1 felt the whole room shake, right down to the floor. Wish I were inside the farmhouse tonight. Wish I weren't sleeping alone.
Can hear the two of them in there singing their nightly prayers now. A rather comforting sound, I must admit, even if I can't share the sentiments.
Maybe I'll be able to fall asleep if I pretend He looked up. There'd been a rustling at the window by his bed, the one that faced the woods. He turned to look, but he was blinded by the desk lamp beside him, and the window was a great square of blackness.
Suddenly a flash of lightning lit the sky. Freirs shouted and drew back. A humped grey shape was pressed against his screen, outlined in the light. The eyes were wide, unblinking, cold as a snake's. The mouth hung partly open. There appeared to be something crouched inside it…
All this he saw in the flash of lightning, while the pale little face of Absolom Troet smirked down at him from the picture on the wall. An instant later the darkness returned. He heard something drop heavily from the screen and pad off into the underbrush, to the echoing rumble of thunder. The next time lightning flashed, the view held only the forest.
July Fifteenth
I woke up to the sound of Sarr's axe. You could probably hear it all over the farm. He was off among the trees at the edge of the property, chopping stakes for Deborah's tomatoes.
Went out and joined him for a while. I told him about seeing Bwada last night, amp; he said that she hadn't come home. Good riddance, say I. Helped him chop some stakes while he was busy peeling off bark. Christ, that axe gets heavy fast! My arm hurt after three lousy stakes, amp; Sarr had already chopped fifteen or more. Obviously what I need is more exercise, but think I'll wait till my arm's less tired.
I left Sarr to his business amp; went up to the house. Guess I got there a bit earlier than usual, because' Deborah was still running her bathwater, amp; just as I came up out of the cellar with a jug of milk she walked through the kitchen with nothing but a towel wrapped around her. She jumped; so did I. Don't know which of us was more surprised. I took one look at those creamy white shoulders, which I'd never actually seen before, amp;
