“But who or what could have killed it?” Henry read, his baritone rising and full of deep feeling. “There was no man or other creature to be seen. Suddenly the boy observed that the mouths of all the cats he had drawn the night before, were red and wet with blood. Then he knew that the goblin had been killed by the cats which he had drawn. And then also, for the first time, he understood why the wise old priest had said to him:—‘Avoid large places at night;—keep to small!’
“Afterward that boy became a very famous artist. Some of the cats which he drew are still shown to travellers in Japan.”
Henry closed the book and gazed fondly at its cover, then handed it back to me. He stood and kissed me on the forehead, and as he did, I had the hopeful and anxious notion that Wil might spring out from behind the closet door and ask for another story. But Wil kept silent and the door stayed closed. Henry said good night and headed for the stairs.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said, turning back. “I saw the white deer, just now, when I was coming in from the studio. She was standing at the edge of the wood, like she was waiting for someone. She ran off when she saw me.”
“Did she seem all right?” I asked, suddenly wondering if he’d known Wil was here all along, if this had been some kind of test, a test I’d failed miserably.
“Fine,” he said, no hint of any motive in his voice. “Magical.”
“Thanks for the story, Uncle Henry.”
“Good night, Zo’,” he said, and went downstairs.
I heard him slide his supper out of the oven, switch off the kitchen lights, and come back up the stairs. Wil stayed put. I turned over like I was sleeping as Henry padded by my room and headed up to his own. I waited till I heard his work clothes hit the floor and water running in his tub. When I felt sure he wouldn’t hear, I crept out of bed, put my ear to the door, and whispered Wil’s name, but he didn’t answer. “Wil,” I whispered again, but no answer came.
I opened the door slowly. Wil lay sound asleep in his own small place, curled up on his side between my red boots and my sneakers, his head resting on his sack. He looked like a kid of five or six. I set the little book on the floor beside him and took the extra blanket off my bed to cover him. He didn’t stir. I left the door open, but just a crack. I hoped he’d stay for the night where it was safe, and wake me—and Henry too—before he left again.
I only wish he had.
The cat couldn’t sleep. After the boy stole into the house and up the stairs, he worried. And when the boy crept out again and he and the deer raced off together into the woods, the cat kept thinking he heard strange noises coming from the trees.
It was bitterly cold, even on the porch. The water was frozen in his bowl and the stars glistened overhead like bits of ice. He stared through the window in the small door the man’s helper had made beside the big one. He looked up the hillside of steps the girl was always climbing or coming down. He knew she was up there. It was beyond him what could be worth such effort, but something was, something that took her away from him every night. He wished she would come down to him now.
Lately she spent more and more time with her ever-multiplying kind. Traitor girl. Didn’t she see the boy for the trouble he was? Smell it? The cat’s anxiety grew. He tapped the little door with his paw. Nothing. He tapped it again. It swung open a little. He gave it a good swat. It swung in, then out, then closed. He pushed it open with his nose and sniffed the warm, girl-scented air, then drew back, afraid. Stupid door. He curled up in front of it, tried to sleep.
Not long after, as if she’d heard him, the girl crept down the stairs. The big door opened and she slipped outside, bundled in clothes and wrapped in a thick blanket. He looked up at her, meowed.
She spoke to him sweetly, bent down, put out her hand. He lost all caution. He sniffed it, licked her fingers, let her softly scratch his head, under his chin, down his back.
She caressed him, rubbed his belly and ears, whispered to him softly, then curled up warm against him. They lay awake together for a long time, watching the wood’s edge, listening.
At dawn she got up and walked to the trees, seemed to search for something, then returned to him, shivering and shaking her head. She went inside, propped open the little door, and lay down on the floor at the foot of the stairs. From there she called to him over and over in her high, soft voice, and after a while he couldn’t bear it and went in to her. She laughed as he hugged the walls, kept one wary eye on the little open door, and bolted through it like a shot when the man came sleepily down the stairs.
He let me touch him, Uncle Henry! she cried. I just had to be patient, is all. Till he saw he could trust me.
The man smiled a little, as though she had said something important, and gently rubbed the top of her head.
After the man went to his workshop, the girl stayed in the hall. She left the little
