Fool's Moon, page 15
Brandon squeezed between the upright bars, while Ophelia flattened herself and slid on her belly through the gap between gate and ground. And just like that, they were back at their old home again.
Except that it wasn’t home … not really.
“It—It feels funny,” Ophelia mewed in surprise as she glanced around the expanse of lawn bisected by a Y-shaped concrete drive. “I—I don’t like it here anymore.”
“I know what you mean,” Brandon whispered back as he also looked about. “It’s like all the good things went away, and rats and mice filled the spaces.”
Though, of course, Ophelia knew he meant that statement symbolically, as Ruby would have said—rather like a picture on a Tarot card. There weren’t any mice or rats around. The son never would have allowed it.
She and Brandon crouched in the shadow of the gate and surveyed the familiar grounds. Tall palm trees—some that had coconuts in them, others with fluffy fronds that looked like fox tails—were planted in circles of red wood chips in various spots in the grass. At the foot of each tree were rings of yellow and red and green bushes just tall enough for a feline to easily hide in them. Lights hid in them, too, shining upward at the tree tops at night. When they were on, they were so bright that a keen-eyed feline could see every sleeping frog or lizard on every frond all the way to the sky.
A faint breeze began to blow, and the palm trees rustled, like they were trying to speak. Ophelia’s ears went straight up. Once, she had found that sound comforting. Now, however, she realized she was afraid of the voices talking through the leaves.
At least the house didn’t talk. It was the same sand-colored stucco she remembered, with red half-circle tiles on the rooftop. The same red tile in the shape of a little roof hung over some of the windows, most of which were tall and rounded on the top, like mouseholes that had been stretched up high. She’d almost forgotten how the giant wooden front door to the house was the same pinkish color as the salmon the old woman sometimes would give them.
Thinking of the fish made her stomach growl.
No time to worry about food. With that firm reminder to herself, she continued surveying. Except for the usual tree frogs and fat toads, no creature was moving about the grounds. In front of that door was a big covered space, like a room with no walls, where the cars stayed when they weren’t in their little houses in back.
And here, Ophelia spied something different.
In addition to the son’s car, she could now see a second vehicle parked there. This car was smaller and crouched low to the ground like a lizard, though it was red and not green. It didn’t have a top, just like Ruby’s blue bug car sometimes didn’t. She knew it didn’t belong to Luciana, for the housekeeper’s car was like a small gray box, with dents on one side. Maybe it belonged to the other female human … the one that Luciana had told Ruby about.
She whispered as much to Brandon, who nodded.
“That’s good. That means he’ll be busy playing with his friend while we go looking for Luciana. Come on, let’s find her.”
They slipped through the shadows and made their way through the front yard. They kept low, remembering how giant bright lights from the house sometimes lit up the darkness if a cat walked in the wrong spot. And when the lights came on, the son would always stick his head out the door to look.
Ophelia had almost forgotten how the dark green grass there felt: cool and soft and even, almost like a living rug. If they weren’t on a mission, she would have stopped and rolled about, enjoying the short-cropped blades lightly scratching against her fur. Except that the grass was wet, she realized in dismay. The raining machine that came on at night must have turned on before they got there.
Giving her fuzzy legs a reflexive shake, she followed in Brandon’s paw-steps. They both were careful to avoid the spots that turned on the lights, safely making their way to the driveway. From there, they started toward the building where the cars lived. Luciana’s small house—the cottage, the old woman had called it—was right behind it.
But as they approached the housekeeper’s quarters, Ophelia halted. A short stucco wall separated the driveway and car houses from the place where the pool was. She peered through the gate of iron sticks, half expecting to see the old woman.
She wasn’t there, of course.
Ophelia frowned. She knew that dead was dead. But she thought she could smell the old woman’s perfume. And the pool looked strange, too. As usual, it was lit from below the water’s surface, so that it glowed in the darkness, the water shimmering as the waterfall splashed about. But the glow looked different this night, almost like the pearls that the old woman used to wear when she would go out to a fancy party.
You’re imagining things.
Still, she couldn’t help but move a few steps closer to the gate—close enough now that, if she wanted to, she could stick her head between two of the metal sticks, even squeeze all the way in. Maybe she should forget about Luciana and Ruby and Brandon, and just stay here. The son wouldn’t have to know. She could hide during the day, and at night come out and dance around the edge of the pool, dipping her paw into the pearly water. If she did, maybe the old woman would come back. If she did, maybe—
No!
Shaking her head so hard that her ears flapped, she scampered away from the gate. Brandon was already at the little house where Luciana lived. He was standing on hind paws, his front paws balancing on the stucco sill as he peered in the long narrow window to the side of Luciana’s door. Deliberately shoving aside thoughts of the pool, she stood and peered inside the window, too.
“It’s dark in there,” Ophelia observed in a whisper. She meant, of course, dark for a human. “Have you seen Luciana?”
“No, but I thought I heard someone moving around. Wait. Hide!”
That last came as the door knob jiggled and turned. The pair turned and scuttled beneath one of the short, broad cat palms that ran along the stucco wall. They’d barely concealed themselves in the fronds when the door opened and Luciana stepped out.
Fourteen
Ophelia stared at Luciana in amazement. She was used to seeing the housekeeper in her uniform pants and matching long top; that, or else slacks and a blouse, or else a dress on Sundays. But tonight, Luciana was dressed like she was going on a mission, just like her and Brandon. She wore long black pants and a long-sleeved black shirt, and her hair was braided tight against her head.
“She’s all in black, just like us,” Brandon softly hissed, noticing the same thing about her appearance. “Do you think she’s going to spy on the son and his female?”
“Maybe. Let’s follow her and see.”
They waited until Luciana walked past. At first, Ophelia thought she was going to the door by the pool, but then the woman walked past the gate and continued up the driveway in the same way that Ophelia and Brandon had come. The pair exchanged puzzled glances; then, keeping deep into the shadows, they softly padded after the woman.
Luciana moved almost as quietly as a feline, slipping around to the front of the house and staying close to it as she, too, tried to avoid making the bright lights shine. Since a tall wall surrounded the property, the old woman had rarely closed the curtains at night. The curtains were open now, and Ophelia guessed that the son had kept up his mother’s habit.
By now, Luciana moved past the cars to the far window, the cats at a safe distance behind her. The window looked into what the old woman had called the parlor, though Ophelia remembered that the son had always sneered at her for that.
The nineteenth century is calling, Ma. They want their jargon back.
It was a clean and cozy room with pictures of monkeys and palm trees and pineapples, with everything in it the colors of sand and sky and water. This was where the old woman brought her guests. Felines were not allowed, the woman had kindly but firmly told her and Brandon. And, most time, they obeyed that request.
As they watched now, Luciana sidled up to that window and, nose barely past the window frame, peered inside the house. The room must have been empty, for she immediately moved to the next set of windows. Brandon and Ophelia quietly padded after her.
This time, Luciana was looking inside the movie room—the place with lots of reclining seats made of soft black cow skin and a giant glass rectangle hanging on the wall that played all sorts of interesting pictures. Anytime the pictures lit up the screen, the curtains would be drawn. But they were open now, which meant no pictures were playing. So why was she looking?
Ophelia puzzled over that even as she snuck a bit closer, trying to peek in herself. That room once had been one of her and Brandon’s favorite places to nap, for the chairs stayed cool even if it was hot outside. And because the pictures played there, the room had been made into what the son called “soundproof,” which meant it was very quiet. Of course, the son did not allow them inside that room either, but they had discovered they were almost invisible curled up in those chairs, black fur blending into black leather. And so they’d lounged there with impunity, until one time—
Ophelia softly hissed at the memory. They always had tried to follow the old woman’s rules and only scratch at the special fuzzy posts she’d given them. Brandon, however, sometimes gave into temptation and sunk a claw into something he shouldn’t. Unfortunately, the time he’d decided to try his claws on the leather seat backs, the son had chosen that moment to stop in the room to do what he called “checking the scores.” Catching Brandon in the act, he’d yelled and flung a hard-soled shoe that missed Brandon by a whisker. Though they’d managed to escape the room before the son could throw anything else, the fright had been enough that they’d never dared enter that room again.
“What’s going on?” her brother whispered now, craning his neck from his hiding spot behind a clump of fuzzy long-leafed plant that she knew was called fountain grass. “Is she watching a movie?”
“No,” Ophelia hissed back, moving a shadow closer for a better view. “The room looks empty. No, wait! I see him. I see the son … and the female human is with him!”
She padded closer still through the damp grass, knowing that Luciana was far too intent on the action within the house to notice a sleek black shadow almost at her feet. In fact, the way the housekeeper peered into the movie room looked like how Brandon had peered into her window.
At the thought, Ophelia smothered a snicker with one paw. Then she reared up on her hind legs for a better look inside the window at the female that the old woman hadn’t liked.
I won’t like her either, Ophelia had already loyally decided.
To her surprise, this was the same woman she’d seen in the picture on Ruby’s computer—the human she’d thought had looked nice. But she suspected the old woman had been right in her judgment. The female didn’t look friendly now, not with the way her thin mouth twisted as she seemed to be yelling at the son. She was tall and skinny, like she didn’t eat enough kibble, with dark hair almost as long as Luciana’s. Her nose was long, too, and pointed like a collie’s. She looked like she might have been Ruby’s age, but Ruby was far nicer.
She flicked her ears forward, trying to eavesdrop through the glass, but to no avail. The only sound she heard was the faint rustling in the fountain grass behind her as Brandon moved about for a better view. She shot him a warning look—you’re too loud, Luciana will hear!—and then turned back to the window.
Now the son looked like he was yelling back at the female, and they both were waving their arms about like branches in the wind. Ophelia was glad not to be part of it. Yowling humans made her nervous, as a feline never knew what they might do. Besides, Luciana looked worried as she stood there watching. She knew that the other humans were talking about something bad … perhaps something really bad, like what happened to the old woman in the pool.
A shudder ran down Ophelia’s fur, making her tail bristle. What had Philomena said? Beware the human rat. Maybe the female didn’t look like a collie after all. With her pointed nose, maybe she looked like a rat … which meant that if the koi fish was right, this human was bad, just like the son!
“Brandon?”
Startled, Ophelia hastily dropped back down to all four paws. The whispered word hadn’t come from her, but from Luciana. Her brother had been spotted!
Momentarily forgetting rats, Ophelia sunk into the shadows to see what would happen next. Luciana was staring over her shoulder at the clump of fountain grass, which was still rustling. And with her feline keen vision, Ophelia immediately saw the problem. Although his head and body were carefully concealed within that foliage, Brandon’s distinctive bobbed tail stuck out to one side of the bush.
Luciana had noticed the tail, too.
“Brandon,” the housekeeper whispered again, though of course she couldn’t be heard inside. “Ven aqui, gatico. Come here, little cat. I take care of you.”
Brandon popped his head up out of the fountain grass while the housekeeper began slowly moving toward him, now softly clapping her hands to summon him to her.
“What should I do?” he yowled in Ophelia’s direction. “If I let her catch me, she’ll carry me inside, and you’ll have to go back to the truck alone.”
“Oh, for kibble’s sake. Run and hide somewhere else,” Ophelia yowled back, hoping that the housekeeper thought her cries came from Brandon. “Maybe if she doesn’t get a good look at you, she’ll think you’re a different cat. Once she gets tired of searching and goes back to looking in windows, we’ll decide what to do next.”
“Me-OW!”
With that shout of agreement, he bolted from the bushy grass and back toward the driveway.
But the housekeeper, it seemed, wasn’t going to give up so easily. “Dios mío,” Luciana muttered in a voice loud enough for Ophelia to hear. “Come back, chiquitico. Good boy.”
Then, with a quick look back at the window, she took off in the same direction he’d gone. She’d gone only few hurried steps in that direction, however, when two things happened simultaneously.
Luciana slipped in the wet grass and went sprawling … and blinding white light abruptly flooded the grounds around them.
“She fell into the bad spot and made the light shine!” Ophelia yowled to Brandon as she squinted her eyes against the glare. Then, as her vision swiftly adjusted, she added, “Quick, hide before the son comes out to see what’s wrong.”
Not waiting for her brother’s response, Ophelia all but flew to the same clump of fountain grass where Brandon had been hiding moments earlier. She waited for the housekeeper to do the same. But as soon as Luciana scrambled to her feet, she dropped to the grass again with a sharp cry of pain and clutched at her ankle.
“The human is hurt,” Ophelia cried, hoping Brandon was close enough to hear. She stuck her head out of the grass for a better look at the woman. Despite the danger, she hadn’t moved.
Not good. A similarly injured feline could have simply bounded away on three good paws. But with one foot injured, the housekeeper was as helpless as a sparrow with a broken wing.
“Brandon,” she called again. “We’d better help her.”
“Too late,” her brother yowled from his spot near where the cars lived. “The son is coming outside! We’d better stay hidden until we know what’s going to happen. We can’t help Luciana if he catches us, too.”
Which made sense, Ophelia realized as she heard shouting from the direction of the front door. Peering out through the grass again, she could see that the son and his female were headed in the housekeeper’s direction now, while Luciana tried and failed again to rise.
The son did not look pleased.
“Who’s there?” he bellowed. Waving his cell phone in a threatening manner, he added, “I’m calling the police right now, so don’t try anything. Wait … who is … Luciana?”
“Si, Señor Givens,” the housekeeper gasped out. “It is me.”
“And what are you doing, skulking about?”
His bluster became confusion for a moment as he shot an unreadable look at the female beside him. Then he advanced on the housekeeper, his manner threatening. “I think she was spying on us. I won’t tolerate this! I won’t—”
“No, no, Señor Givens.” Luciana cringed back into the grass, expression suddenly fearful. “I wasn’t spying. I thought I heard the gato—the cat of the señora. You know, Brandon, the boy cat who is missing. I came out to find him, and I—I slipped in the grass.”
“I don’t hear any cats,” the son shot back. “Now tell me the truth. What were you really doing out here?”
But as Ophelia tensed, ready to spring to Luciana’s defense with tooth and claw, the pointy-nosed woman rushed forward and put a restraining hand on the son’s arm.
“Really, Terry, you’re frightening the poor woman. And look, she’s injured. Why don’t you help her inside, and we’ll discuss this like civilized people?”
Ophelia flattened her ears as she listened to this exchange. Though she wasn’t prepared to trust the female, she appeared to be a more reasonable human than the son was.
While the son grudgingly helped Luciana to her feet, the other woman stuck out a bony hand to assist and said, “We haven’t formally met yet. I’m Joan, Terry’s … friend.”
“Yes, thank you, Señorita Joan,” Luciana managed, taking the woman’s hand and then quickly letting it drop. Then, expression still fearful, she glanced over at the son, who had released her to stand on her own.
Though standing wasn’t quite the word, since she gingerly held one leg bent, toe pointed into the grass. She reminded Ophelia of one of those strange tall gray birds with long necks and pointed beaks that had sometimes landed in the yard.
Blue herons, the old woman had called them, forbidding her and Brandon to chase them. And so any time one landed, they’d had to content themselves with watching the bird balance on one long skinny leg with the other tucked high to its chest until it took flight again.
