MaCavity sat on the junkyard car boot and watched the kittens dance. Electra and Etcetera, Victoria and Jemima were laughing and composing a routine, and having fun, by the look and sound of it. Himself, he was happy just to stretch out lazily at the side of the arena and watch the dance take form.
His mind wandered and he thought back to the nightmare of the night before. Most of the details had escaped him now; wisps of dream that had evaporated as he'd gone about his day. But one small detail had become lodged in his mind: that mask! Mac gazed into the middle distance as he tried to reconstruct the look of the mask in his mind's eye, but couldn't. What colour was it again? he asked himself. Failing to recall, he shook his head and paid attention to the half-conceived dance again.
It seemed that not all of the kittens were having such a good time; Victoria struggled to co-ordinate herself and lagged slightly behind the others, forgetting twists until the whirl of her companions reminded her, taking four steps and not three, and bungling the snake movements Electra had suggested they add to the routine. He could see she was beginning to get frustrated.
Mac said nothing, but he understood part of the kitten's problem: she, like he, was tall for her age. A heavier body and longer limbs tended to make some aspects of dancing more difficult. The trick, he knew, was either to dance solo or dance slowly, but he didn't have the heart to tell her just yet while she was getting the social life she needed from her enthusiastic, giggling surrogate sisters. He stretched, extending his claws and yawning; I might take her to one side when she's a little older and more independent, and give her a few tips then, he decided.
Then a flurry of exchange caught his attention: Victoria started to cry as, for the fourth or fifth time, Jemima executed a stylish cartwheel-cum-axial turn. "I can't do it!" she wailed, tears accompanying the admission. Etcetera, for once, seemed to register the other cat's upset and came to her. Mac saw Etcetera approach to give Victoria a comforting hug, only for the smudgey kitten to harshly push away the tidier-looking pale tabby. Victoria stormed off.
Just as she did this, Mistoffelees crested the edge of the east junkpile. He saw his sister looking upset, and hurried down to her. "My sister, what's wrong?" he asked gently. She seemed to wilt, and hugged him. Concerned, he hugged back.
"I can't dance!" she sniffed.
Etcetera, who hadn't been far behind, caught up with her and touched her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Vic."
"Go away!" Vic turned to Etcetera and hissed. Mac could see she really was quite upset.
Then Misto seemed to take control of the situation: "Kittens, will you please tell me what happened? Vic?" he prompted, and, sniffling, she began to relate the events.
Mac tuned out Vic's words; he already knew more or less what she was going to say, and she'd be all right. Instead, he found his attention wondering to Misto, and the thought of that mask again. I'd like another look at that mask, he thought. I don't think it'll give me nightmares again, and it was quite a cool thing. Maybe I can..?
Misto, it seemed, would be busy sorting out the kittens' dispute for a while. Mac looked over his shoulder in the direction of the magic cat's lair. He'd be able to get there, look at the mask and move on, wouldn't he? Just for the challenge, just for the fun. He was slick enough not to get caught, surely? He decided right then, he would try.
He levered himself up and trotted around the piles of rubbish.
CATS
It didn't take him long to arrive, and within a couple of minutes he was standing outside the curtain to the hideout. Mac felt a smoothing in the air, a slow reverence that surprised him. He felt, to his surprise, a sense of respect for the mask he knew lay within. Somehow it felt like an icon of the nightmare, sinister but harmless, like the villain in a bedtime story. Taking a deep breath, he scooped back the curtain and entered the dark cavern.
Everything was more or less as he had expected; the middle of the room was still empty, the walls were still made of old pieces of MDF, the backs of fridges and compressed rubbish. The lockable box in the corner was still there with its tattered plastic human dancer, and the table was still in place. Mac felt a tingle of anticipation as he saw the mask. Slightly intoxicated with the occasion, he approached, and reached out a paw for it.
It was cold and stony, smooth and polished, and weighty. It glowed with light, reflecting dully from its semi-precious flesh. He turned it over and over, looking at it from all angles. It occurred to him that the mask must have another half, that this was only part of the sculpture; the edge was ragged. Broken once, long ago.
Holding it made him feel peaceful, and he felt a notion to close his eyes and just... hold the mask for a moment. Planting his feet wide enough that he wouldn't fall over, he rocked back on his heels, closed his eyes, and enjoyed what he knew was only an imagined communion with the mask.
The sky raced past him, the wind warm and gentle; he was encased in the blue of a balmy, cloudless day. The vision was a pleasant one and Mac imagined this must be what it felt like for summer swallows catching insects for their chicks.
The speed increased, and he saw lines of vapour whip past him, and a faint breeze started to register on his face and ears. The speed increased.
The sky around him began to turn from its benevolent blue to something darker. Mac knew instinctively it wasn't a stormy darkness, although he didn't know how he knew this. The sky turned red.
Mac had no idea where he was going; his instincts didn't seem to say he was headed anywhere and there wasn't anything else in the sky apart from him. Whenever he thought to look downwards at the ground, something discouraged him; he seemed to forget to do so. He continued to look forward; he still felt calm.
"BOO!" The mask appeared, big and amber and shiny and very close, and from nowhere. It didn't race toward him or come in from the side or from below, it was just suddenly there.
Mac nearly dropped the mask, just catching it in time to put it back on the table. Although he couldn't see anything different in the hideout, he fetl suddenly he wasn't alone. There's something in here with me! he thought with horror.
He sprinted outside, thumping the curtain out of the way and covering the ground in panicked strides. Through his panic, he dimly heard laughter, deep and evil, feline but monstrous. He continued to run.
Finally he stopped, reluctantly slowing down in the middle of one of the city's green parks. There were people here, and that suited him fine. He didn't want to be alone, but he didn't strictly speaking want company. Shaking, he looked for a high vantage point, found one in the shape of a tree branch, and clambered up for privacy while he gathered his thoughts.
The mask had reacted to him! Horror infused every fibre of his body; the mask was alive! Mac gripped the branch, feeling helpless as he let the realisation sink in.
But as the horror slowly ebbed, he began to feel irritated. The mask, as its way of frightening him, had boo'ed him. Boo! Mac exclaimed to himself. That's a word to frighten kittens! It would hardly even scare Etcetera! Slowly, panic gave way to anger that the mask had used such a cheap scare trick on him.
And that laughter. Etheral certainly, it had been a vindictive response to his panic. The nerve!
Slowly his heartbeat returned to its normal rate and he felt safe enough to come down to ground level. He ignored the humans, and most of them ignored him. He had no idea what had happened back there, but he resolved that he wasn't going to be frightened by some stupid mask!
He wouldn't visit Misto's lair again, though. He felt he'd done enough illicit venturing in that direction.
CATS
Bombalurina padded quietly through the streets. As she walked, she looked up and around, at the broken window above the pastry shop, at the bloated orange squid hanging in the window of the Peking Restaurant, at the ever-present black sacks of rubbish outside most of the establishments. She'd been away from the Jellicle tribe for just over three months, and as she approached, she still felt the conflicting feelings of sadness and joy at her impending arrival.
The gateway to the junkyard came slowly into view; however, rather than walking between the iron pillars, she hopped up onto the tree that stood beside the wall. From here, she galloped down the inside of the wall and landed in silence on the muddy ground. The area the Jellicles met in was a few rubbish-piles away, and she ran between them, avoiding men in fluorescent overalls as she went.
CATS
MaCavity approached the junkyard again slightly shamefully, feeling that he'd done something wrong. Don't be silly, he thought, nobody knows I was there.
Apart from some disembodied monster...
Oh, don't be foolish, Mac! You imagined it!
I didn't! I heard it!
What you heard was a projection. You frightened yourself like a kitten jumping at a shadow. You heard the wind, that is all-
Is that Bomba?
And it seemed it was. The scarlet queen, his distant cousin and restless traveller, had come back to the yard. Noticing that several of the other cats had stopped to watch her dance, he settled down, too.
Bombalurina danced mostly on the spot, turning and lifting and dipping like a flame. There was something else in her dance, though, something that was less fire-like. Slower, damper. Mac tilted his head as he tried to put his finger on it.
"She's back!" Jennyanydots whispered in his ear happily. He flinched, and looked at her. She was smiling.
"She is!" he agreed. "When did she come? Has she spoken to anybody yet?"
"Not yet, my love. She only just arrived; she started dancing right away. Alonzo didn't fare too well when he tried to dance with her, though."
Mac blinked at Jenny. "Oh?" and turned back, curious.
As he watched Bomba continue to dance, Jenny explained how Alonzo had attempted to join the dance with her to form a duet, and how Bomba had reacted. Her expression had seemed to become distant, Jenny told him, and eventually she'd dissolved the dance and she'd stepped away from him. When it was clear Alonzo understood he wasn't wanted, he left. Bom had then recommenced her dance, her movements flickering between anger and sadness. Mac wasn't sure what to say; instead, he observed a while longer, wondering what was wrong with his cousin.
Presently, the red queen seemed to be slowing down. She came to face the kittens, who'd been watching agog and pointing at various moves she'd made, excitedly chattering to eachother. As Bomba found a comfortable spot at the border of the clearing and sat down, Electra came closer.
"You were amazing, Bom! Where did you learn those moves?"
"Yeah!" Etcetera agreed, "Where did you go? What did you do?"
"Did you meet any other cats?" Jemima asked.
Jenny nudged Mac and, smiling, led him down closer to Bom so they too could hear her story.
"Well, kittens," Bom began, "I've been a long way and done so much. There's too much to tell you all at once, but maybe I should start by telling you about the friends I made in London Zoo. The tigers have a beautiful dance from their homelands, and they taught it to me on a cloudy night..."
CATS
Mac drifted on the verge of sleep. He could no longer feel the bed around him and his thoughts were vague. With a subtle dipping feeling, his consciousness seemed to make the switch from wakefulness to slumber.
There was fog around him. He stood in the cold, outdoors somewhere. he wondered how he'd got there; last thing he remembered, he'd settled down to sleep in his basket. He tried to squint through the vapour to get a clue as to his whereabouts.
There were vague piles around, much like the heaps of refuse of the Jellicle's meeting place. The piles were of a different form however, different heights to the ones he was used to. Maybe this was a different junkyard?
He sensed the arrival of another cat. It approached slowly. It's fur looked grey, even accounting for the haze. Its eyes were closed. Without a word, it came within talking distance and sat opposite him.
Mac wanted to ask who this cat was, but somehow it didn't occur to him to open his mouth and speak. Instead, he just stared, and tried to pick out details of the other cat's face. The thick fog provided just enough cover to frustrate his efforts.
"You've been on a treasure hunt," the cat said simply in a smooth, male voice. Was that a trace of humour in its voice?
Mac didn't know what the stranger was talking about. "Who are you?" he asked.
"You like to break the rules, don't you?" it said. "You looked into the magic cat's lair and found the treasure."
Mac suddenly felt guilty. "You knew I'd done that?" he asked.
"Yes indeed," came the calm reply. "You went in regardless of it being forbidden. You broke the rules."
"B-but Misto's never said not to go in," Mac stammered, suddenly feeling an intense need to justify his actions. "He's never said I couldn't go in. There were no rules," his words faded away as he realised he seemed to be playing right in to the stranger's paws.
"And with that justification, you did what you wanted to do." It shifted its weight from one side of its rear to another; a non-verbal punctuation that made clear he knew what Mac had done.
Mac couldn't think of anything to say; he stared at the cat guiltily, still trying to make out the details of his face and largely failing.
"What would you do with power?"
This seemed a strange way to phrase a question and Mac didn't reply for a moment, just tried to work out how the conversation had got this far. As he sat in confusion, a dream he'd had a while ago came to him in which a disembodied mask had slammed into his body, infusing him with a sense of power.
"I said: 'what would you do with power'?" the stranger repeated.
Mac had a fleeting sense that he would have asked what the cat meant if the circumstances had been different, but instead found himself saying, "No, I don't want power! I wouldn't want to do anything with it!" Immediately he felt a sense of honour in saying this - of course he wouldn't want power! All he wanted was a full food bowl and his friends and the protection of the Jellicles' patriarch and the love of a queen and, and...
That sense of power infused him again, leeching into him as if through the tendrils of fog. He swooned; he thought of the queens of the tribe and found himself thinking about them differently. Rather than feeling a sensual bliss at their charms and a slight fear at their austerity, he thought of them as if weighing them up, their strengths, their weaknesses. Jenny, the ageing queen who seemed to come alive when he was around, plumb reservoirs of confidence in his presence, suddenly seemed like nothing to him; Demeter and her casual flirtations with Munkustrap and strong connections to various other parts of the tribe, now seemed more within his reach, and more desirable; Bombalurina one to watch; too much the outspoken one.
What is this! I can't think of my tribemates like this!
What would he do with power? Climb the heights of influence within the tribe like some previously-unscaleable wall; manipulate the toms, however strong, into wretched submission; be the master of them all. Father all the kittens and leave no familial inheritance for the other males; to take Deuteronomy's place and be able to smile benignly - ha! The old fool's face floated before him and irritated Mac with its patronising look - on all the other cats. To have every cat, with every skill they had, at his disposal. His to command. His to crush at any sign of dissent.
Just... His.
He shook his head and brought himself back to earth - the stranger was still sitting in front of him. He seemed not to be confused or irritated at Mac's reverie. He seemed not to have noticed at all.
"What would you do with power?" the stranger asked once again.
Mac looked away to think. "I don't know what I'd do," he said. And, despite the appeal of the power in his thoughts a moment ago, he still couldn't see what he'd do with it. Why have it? For what? "Why do you ask?"
The cat's ear twitched. "What would you do with power?" It asked.
Mac frowned. "You already asked me that. Who are you?"
"What would you do with power?"
"Who are you?"
"What would you do with power?" The question seemed to be whispered from all around Mac; he stole a look around.
"What would you do with power?" the voice became many, disembodied whispers.
"Why are you asking me?" Mac shouted into the air around him, trying to make out the shapes of cats, anything, in the distant darkness. He could see nothing. He couldn't even sense cats there. But they must be there if they were whispering to him, surely?
"What would you do with power?"
Mac had had enough and turned to face the stranger again. "Why won't you make them st-"
The stranger's face was completely visible. Only it didn't have a face, it had a mask. Half a mask, unnaturally bright among the drab surroundings.
Mac awoke with a start.
TO BE CONTINUED...
