“I’ll have to get the cat.”
“Well, get it. Bring it with you.”
Glory got the cat. Without clothes on it, I couldn’t tell, really, whether it was like my dream cat or some other cat. We walked up the hill to my house. Billy Ray and Mayleen always fussed about my living where I did. I had told them, “Joseph built the little house for me, Billy Ray. You build a similar house over on your side of the river, I’ll split my time fifty-fifty.”
“I’m safe,” I told Maybelle. “I told him that five years ago, and Billy Ray’s still working on the plans.”
When we got into my house, I got the kettle started on the wood cookstove. My little kitchen was squeezed in between the big cookstove and the sink, just big enough to turn around in, a one-person-only space. The rule was if I cooked, Glory cleaned up, and vice versa. The only other rooms were the bedroom and bathroom at the back, next to the warm closet behind the stove that held the big water tank. James pumped it full each morning, and the cookstove chimney went up through a smaller tank to make hot water.
When I put our forks and mugs on the table, I asked, “What’s the cat’s name?”
“Falija,” Glory said.
I couldn’t remember whether that name had been in my dream or not, and it didn’t bear worrying about. I said, “It’s time for strawberry jam. Are you going to pick for me this year?”
“Sure. Lou Ellen’ll help.” Glory set Falija on her lap and scratched her fur around her ears.
I continued my examination of Falija. “That’s a very strange cat. Could be a Manx, since it doesn’t have much of a tail.”
“It’s a new kind,” Glory said.
I supposed she was right. It was a new kind to me, at any rate.
“It’s more…omnivorous, like people,” Glory said. “The…lady told me so.”
Falija was standing on her hind legs with her front ones on the table, making the little prruup prruup noises. “She’s hungry,” Glory announced. “Can I fix a plate for her?”
I nodded, fascinated by this little animal. Glory found some leftover oatmeal in a pot on the stove, an apple in a bowl, and a chicken leg in the refrigerator. She cut everything up in pieces and put it on a plate. The moment Falija saw it, she jumped off the chair and cleaned the plate, including the pieces of apple, eating slowly and neatly, while I scrambled eggs and made toast.
When the cat had finished eating, Glory fetched a little bowl of water and Falija washed. First she took a little drink, then she dipped her paw in the water and washed her face, and dipped and washed down her neck and around her ears, and then she dried off the paw on the rug.
“That’s not any ordinary cat,” I said around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “Gloriana, tell me truthfully, where did you get that creature?”
Glory looked out the window for a while, then she looked me in the eye. “A lady gave me some money to take care of her for a while and keep her safe. She’s very smart, Grandma.”
“She’s a mutation of some sort,” I half whispered, as though I were afraid someone would hear me.
“That’s what everybody says I probably am, because I don’t look anything like all the rest of the Judsons. Every single one of them has light hair and blue or green eyes but me, including you, and Aunt Mayleen and Mama, and they’re only Judsons by marriage.”
I stared out the window. “Oh, somewhere in the line, there’s always a dark-haired ancestor.”
“Well, it’s nobody recent,” said Gloriana. “And nobody else is my size, either.”
Falija climbed onto my lap. She had claws, but when she climbed, she just barely caught the clothes. Her claws didn’t touch the skin, and there she was on my lap, turning around and around, and settling down to have a nap, still going prruup prruup prruup and opening those huge eyes to stare at me. I stroked her, very softly, while her little pawlike hands pressed and released against my leg, kneading and kneading.
“She certainly acts like a mammal,” I said. “That’s what kittens do with their feet at the mother’s mammaries, pressing and kneading that way. It’s like baby goats and lambs and calves, butting at the udder. But, Glory, those paws, those eyes, she’s not a real cat. Some kind of marsupial, maybe? Her hind legs and pelvis aren’t built like a cat’s, and neither is her head. She has a much higher skull than a cat…”
“Maybe she’s just a newly discovered species.”
“No species I ever learned about while I was at school. No kind I’ve ever read about, either. Of course, there’s no special reason she should be terrestrial.” I gave Glory a hard, searching look. “I’d be inclined to say she’s neither Tercian nor Earthian.”
“I’ve told you the truth,” Glory said, turning red. “And you can see for yourself she’s just a baby and needs taking care of. And that’s what I’m going to do.”
“All right,” I said, “But Gloriana, you promise me something. If you need help with this little one, you come straight here to me! Promise, now.”
Since I was already the one Gloriana went to when she was in trouble, I figured it would be an easy promise.
When Glory had finished with our dishes, Falija was asleep, so we sat out on my little porch while Gloriana went back to wondering why she was so different from all the other Judsons.
“And something else,” she said. “How come my mama and Lou Ellen’s mama don’t look alike when they’re identical twins?”
“They used to look alike,” I said. I fetched the album from the bookshelves inside. “See there, that’s when they were babies. You couldn’t tell the difference between them.” The picture was of Maybelle and Mayleen as babies, sitting back to back on a picnic bench, like a pair of bookends. “It wasn’t that they were
