Munkustrap – Part Twelve
**The documented portion of the meeting with Quaxo has been removed for personal reasons.**
Thus I think whatever open relationship I intended with Demeter finally got off the ground. We began talking more and more on a regular basis. She told me about her past, asked me several aspects about Jellicle life, debated the many mysteries in werecat history, but never did she speak of Macavity. Never him. Nor did I pry. That was between her and Bombalurina alone. Sometimes I would ask, wanting to know more about this unseen terror, but never did she answer. It made me wonder, as well. If Bombalurina and Demeter were so tortured by this cruel Jellicle, why not take advantage of their positions now and take their well-deserved revenge? Bombalurina tried to tell me it wasn't that simple, but I couldn't understand. I wanted to. Genuinely. But they wouldn't talk about him. Sometimes Demeter would have her frequent nightmares about the Mystery Cat, the Hidden Paw, as they called him, and come crawl into bed with me again to wait for dawn.
There was, however, perhaps the only time she ever did talk about him, such a situation. Demeter—in werecat form...she felt safer—was curled under the thick blankets while I stretched out at the other end in my robe. It was well past midnight, but neither of us could sleep. She'd had one of her nightmares, and though she'd been lying curled up there for some while now, I could still hear her rapid breathing. It was a good half hour before she said anything.
"He'll come back," she rasped in barely a whisper. "He'll come back for me..."
"Who?" I asked, though I already knew the answer. I glanced across at her through the darkness, though in the light filtering in from the window I could only make out the curve of her spine beneath the blankets and the triangular outline of her ears. They swiveled backwards at the sound of my voice, but the rest of her was still.
"Macavity."
Hearing her say his name out loud was like hearing the click of a timer that would begin the gas chamber. I sat up, gaze now fixed on her intensely, and reached out to stroke her spine like any normal cat. "Don't talk like that, Des. He doesn't know where you are. You're safe here."
"He could find out," was her fearful reply, cringing away from me. "He always does. He knows..."
I didn't know what else to say. It had been months now that Desere had come into my care, and if Macavity had wanted to try anything it seemed logical to me that he would have done it when his anger was fresh. But then, if I knew better, I would know that werecats are hardly ever ruled by logic. Sighing, I leaned back against the headboard, the only sound in the room seeming to be the pound of her heart. It seemed to quiet down, but Demeter shot upright with that jerky suddenness that accompanied her paranoia. Staring wide-eyed out the window, still turned away from me, her shoulders heaved with pants.
"He'll come back," she rasped. "And he'll kill anyone who gets in his way. He'll kill you, Hunter, just to get to me." Her feline head fell, ears pressed back, her sobs cutting the still air. "Just my being here puts all of you in danger..."
"Demeter..." This time she didn't cringe at my touch, allowing me to crawl over and sit beside her with one arm about her gold-furred shoulders. She kept her face lowered. "If it came to that, I would do anything to protect you."
"No!" she suddenly snapped. "No! Don't even think about dying for me, Hunter. It wouldn't do any good. He'll find me...as long as I'm here all of you are in danger." Her body shuddered with the sob. "I can't stay."
I listened to her cry in her quiet, reserved way for a long while after, unable to do much except gently rub her fur and offer her that silent support of just being there. She turned her face into me, burying her eyes and muzzle into my robe. I put my other arm around her then, lowering my face to rest among the downy softness of her furry mane, breathing in her scent. "You're not leaving."
Her tears slowed after that, but still she said nothing. We both perhaps knew she wouldn't leave, no matter what supposed danger her presence put us in. She had nowhere to go, and I wouldn't let her go to an unprotected existence on the streets. I started singing Memory for her, and sad a song as it may be I knew it relaxed her. It was our favorite.
Excepting for that deep-rooted fear for Macavity and anything pertaining to him, Demeter was quite a strong-willed and brave little queen. We would go for morning or evening walks in Central Park in one of two forms and she would bound on ahead, pouncing insects or leaves or teasing little dogs, or break out into beautiful songs and bits of dance in the city-scented air. When night was coming on she would stay closer, clinging to my arm, peering into the darkness with a growing fear that wouldn't diminish until we were back at the penthouse. There it would be books in front of the fireplace usually until we retired.
Most of all was her loneliness. It vanquished. It was probably some inner reserve of strength in her own self that did it rather than me, but whatever the source, I could see that her loneliness was gone. She smiled so much more often. She didn't clam up and curl herself into a protective ball of fur. I would no longer see her sitting in the study just staring into space, tears in her eyes. But overall the entire feeling within that apartment we shared was much more relaxed and friendly. And as much as I wished for it, I could never tell what Demeter really thought about me. Of course I would have liked to know...to know if she viewed me as just another Jellicle or one who was genuinely growing to care for her like his own daughter. And it was true. Knowing not in the least what having a family was like, it was strange in the way I began to view Demeter as different from other female Jellicles. She seemed so mentally fragile, so precious, that the slightest harsh word or action would shatter her emotionally like a porcelain doll. Her physical durability was not a worry as she could fight and dance with the best of them, but rather what grew between Demeter and I was pure feeling. There was a satisfaction in that I loved but couldn't explain. I'm not even going to try.
Of course I was glad to see Desere overcoming her loneliness, but as grateful for her friendship as I was I knew she could never dissipate mine. The loneliness inside me was a continuous dull throb, eased perhaps by the new companion but not erased. It was after a number of contemplative lapses before I finally reached a conclusion on that. It was the realization that I wanted someone to love. The emptiness left inside me in Adelle's wake was a vast one that couldn't be filled by any friendship or family relation. It was a crave for that same satisfaction as when I'd courted Adelle. I wanted someone to love, I didn't care who; just a person who I could love openly, freely, and who would love me, filling up this absence of feeling. In the grand scheme of things it didn't really seem that much to ask...
It wasn't something I advertised, but I often did ask Heaviside for such a thing. Mumbled prayers or thoughts here and there, which surprised me. I had never thought I was a very religious Jellicle. Of course I'd read about the Heaviside Layer and Everlasting Cat from A to Z. I knew the rituals and songs that accompanied the Jellicle ceremonies but had long since fallen out of practice, but perhaps a mix of these knowledges and my fear of divinity made at least a subconscious part of me cling to that Jellicle faith. But even after coming out of a contemplative lapse I couldn't be sure about my exact feelings towards religion. On one hand I saw things in life, in my surroundings, that couldn't have happened without Heaviside's intervention. Little things, things probably no one noticed except myself, were small reassurances that the Everlasting Cat was still present and flexing her claws of power in the world. But I never made any conscious connection between them in my mind. They might have all been coincidences, these miniature miracles, but I couldn't think that they were entirely. Yet on the other hand, ruling the majority of my thoughts, was common sense and the chaos theory: that the world was just one revolving ball of random factors that sometimes fit together and sometimes didn't. All logical and rational, there was no such thing as Bastet, or the Everlasting Cat, or whatever she may be called. These two halves constantly feuding in the back of my head gave me something to ponder over, at least, and try to find an answer.
Whatever the truth may be, as much as I wished and prayed, I didn't expect to find my fantasy female anytime soon. If ever. Nor did I have the slightest idea what she would even be like should I find her. And what I did I know about love, anyway? If anything I knew how to hide it. Hide that and all my other feelings under the facade of Hunter Blakeney. Perhaps that was a good thing for a leader...
Hunter Blakeney...
And what to make of him? It was now plain as day to me and every Jellicle on the island that there was a distinct difference between Hunter Blakeney and Munkustrap. The idiot role that I played in society was a different character entirely than the one covered in fur. An act...it was all an act. Yet sometimes I wondered...how much of it actually was an act? I had begun to notice, I don't know when, that even by myself I would laugh in that inane manner or catch myself paying too much attention to insignificant things, like the design of my coat. Those were things Hunter would do...the idiot...the fop...the brat I used to be. The dividing line between Hunter and Munkustrap was suddenly very blurred, and it worried me. I didn't take much joy in acting like a nincompoop...it was tiresome, really, constantly laughing outrageously, making stupid jokes, having to ask the same question over and over again... I guess I shouldn't complain. There are people who have more things to worry about.
But some things can't be ignored...like the dreams. The dreams I've spoken about before that plagued me when I was younger never completely went away. Though they decreased in frequency, their intensity didn't lessen. I thought they were just normal night fancies like most dreams, but their reality was unbelievable. There was one particular type of dream that I can remember having often. Though the place, time, and subject changed often, the one common thing that connected these dreams were my eyes. Every time, even in the dream, I would be trying to open my eyes and couldn't. No matter how hard I tried, they were heavy as lead. Even if I did manage to force them open, they wouldn't stay that way for long. Now that I think about it those dreams were actually quite irritating. I had thought these were purely symbolic in their meaning: I was Jellicle Leader and I wanted to keep my eyes open on everything.
Others I thought were outright silly, though they had their own meaning. One in particular that was recurring took place on a large open plain. On that plain stood a man and a cat, facing, each tense and suspicious of the other. Then a crack would appear between them on the ground. The crack would grow wider and deeper, turning into a canyon and then an abyss. The two kept glaring from either side of the divide, confused, angry, yearning, until they were just about to lose sight of each other. But just before that happened they both leaped, meeting mid-air, and when they clashed turning into a full formed werecat who landed proudly in the bottom of the canyon just as it became unreachable between all men and all animals. A ring of truth is there, about werecats being somewhere in between the kingdoms of humans and animals, but a union of both? It had always seemed that Jellicles were described in the records as a species of their own, not a mix of two others by some means of sorcery or science. Demeter agreed with me on that, though I didn't tell her about the dreams.
Demeter had been living with me for about a year now, and as unbelievable as it sounded she had never celebrated a Jellicle Ball. Apparently Macavity "wasn't like that." (From what I'd heard of him, after all, what was there to celebrate?) So when the air turned warm with spring and the final moon phase came rolling on around, like two parents Bombalurina and I escorted Demeter to her first Jellicle Ball.
And what a spectacle it was!
Should I live to be a hundred I'll never lose my wonder in the annual celebration. That unification...that ecstasy...the Heaviside-blessed wonder of it all. Everlasting Cat...if I describe it once more I could put a werewolf to sleep. But it's like an addiction! That intoxicating euphoria that sweeps over one's senses as they raise their clawed hands up to Lady Luna, curl their tails in the light of her favor, is a sensation unlike any other elation. A sensation I never tire of. The sky was a deep royal blue as the three of us padded along towards our designated junkyard, tails held high and senses alert. The full moon above, the last one of the spring season, had a glow all its own, turning the clouds that floated past it into lustrous silver carriages on which rode the very stars. The air was warm and still; not a breeze to disturb our balance. We were shadows ourselves as we slid with divine grace in between long barbwire fences and making our winding paths through the heaps of junk until the clearing came into sight.
It was here that we stopped. Staying hidden in the shadows, more silent than night and tenfold as stealthy, our slitted feline eyes swept over the area, noting every detail of the junkyard, every crevice and curve of the uneven flooring. Gazing down at my gold-furred ward I could feel the excitement radiating from her: her whiskers quivering, tail rigid, her pulse growing quicker with each passing moment. It was a contagious emotion. I could feel it already: that rush, that pull, that unity direct from Heaviside's moonlight that was spreading its claws over the junkyard, seeking out the cats that I knew were there but could not yet see, enticing us with the utmost temptations to come and begin the dance of revelry. In this night we cats were a single body. We were one.
I could feel the presence of the others as I stepped out gingerly into the moonlight, silver paws making not a sound as I stepped over the garbage, head held high with the pride of my race. It was a pride we all felt. This was not a junkyard to us, it was our paradise. Our kingdom where we werecats could dance and sing without care. There was a safety in that knowledge, a comfort that ran deep and true. I stopped in my slow, majestic pace in the center of the clearing, shifting to werecat form, turning my golden eyes up to the moon: our goddess. I felt the light of Heaviside and the Everlasting Cat sweep over me, penetrating my fur and inside me. It was entirely magical, this penetration I welcomed. It was like being uplifted, spiritually, emotionally, even physically. I gave myself over to it.
Lifting my head, I opened my throat and sang out the lines which had been sung before by so many others:
"Jellicle Cats come out tonight! Jellicle Cats come one, come all!
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright! Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball!"
Since becoming Jellicle Leader I had managed to somehow avoid the interaction that the other Jellicles took on at the annual Ball. Let me say: it was no easy task. The silvery light of the moon pouring over the junkyard, that distant unheard music, the sight of the other Jellicles dancing as I sat back and watched from my platform perch, turned the entire night into a wondrous fantasy world I would gladly loose myself in. I can remember when I was younger and I would let myself fall into those maddening flows of energy and power that bound us Jellicles together for those few precious hours. It was all so wonderful... Even sitting there on my platform, watching over the area as I felt was my duty, sometimes I could close my eyes and feel myself swept along with them. I didn't have to be down there dancing for my soul to join the tribe in the annual Ball. I was there. When the time came I lent my voice to the celebration of werecats, but never was there a moment when my conscience wasn't joining the electric dance.
Yet sometimes I had to interfere. Fights would often break out among the toms, and whether under the influence of the full moon or not I would find myself sweeping down among them, snarling and swiping to get them apart. Nothing ever really came of it. Other times, when the moon was at its highest and the energy inside us ready to burst, I could see them pair off. As much as I felt otherwise, I could do nothing to stop them. I never tried. Some were able to resist the rush of sensation and the urges to mate, and would go off by themselves until the moment had passed. Others embraced it gladly, fearing nothing as they felt too feral and too feline to worry about anything. Here, also, I would keep my distance. I would turn away, unable to escape the rush, either, and deal with the private fantastic images in my mind until the moon's power began to lessen. Sometimes I didn't even remember.
It was about that time. Stretched out on my side, head propped on my paws, I felt the same fires of the Jellicle Ball well up inside me. Closing my eyes, the junkyard spread out before me was still as gorgeous as ever. The silver moonlight lit up the area with a dull glow, the light waves weaving and flowing like liquid that I could touch. The moon overhead was a blood red hue, bubbling and boiling with the same heat, its beams leaping down upon me in fiery stabs of pleasure-pain. When I opened my eyes again I saw them, swinging off in pairs, their dancing slowing but no less graceful or beautiful. Mating Dances, I've always heard them called. No Jellicle is ever taught any kind of Mating Dance, just as no kitten is ever taught the Jellicle Ball. It's rooted down, deep in our instinctual selves, that rises up when the time is needed. My eyes landed on Demeter.
Standing out beautifully against the silvery darkness in her golden fur, I saw her kick, leap, and lunge without stopping, that ever-present sad and forlorn expression gone from her face as she now danced in pure ecstasy. That was a relief, seeing her finally dance freely with that lightness of spirit and not weighed down by sorrows or bad memories. I was happy for her, dancing beside Bombalurina, their differences obvious but so close...and when the time came, I also noticed the attention Plato was paying her.
Plato...a tom very close to Demeter's age, a little older, perhaps, looked nothing like his father that I remembered, yet reminded me so much of him. As a Jellicle his fur was thick and shaggy, the majority colored a dull ratty brown speckled with silver, his paws black, and his face dominantly white with brown patches over his eyes and muzzle. Taller than Demeter, I watched as he approached her from behind, his liquid movements seeming nothing less than a dance as he crouched to rub the side of his head against her hip. I thought nothing of it, at first, lying there lazily, watching Demeter jerk away. She hissed at him, and for a moment he hesitated, but not for long.
Demeter seemed as entranced with these new sensations as I had been years ago with Bombalurina. Slowly her threatening menace faded, her eyes half closed as though hypnotized by the moon's power, and with the same tender caresses of a familiar lover she welcomed the tom as he advanced again. I watched without conscious recognition Demeter reach up to touch his face, his whiskers, in return Plato's black hands slipped around her lithe waist, their tails curling together, and he lifted her up into his arms. The dance continued, and I watched. The other shapes and forms of cats around me became a dull blur of color and movement, blending into a background collage as Plato and Demeter stood prominent in it, their dancer's bodies entwined in the Mating Dance. I could feel that same thing, that distinct burn in my flanks that accompanied these urges. I wanted to run out there and yank Demeter away from him, but whether it was for her sake or mine I don't know. That elemental madness was quickly overtaking my actions when I watched Plato turn away, lowering the gold queen down to the ground, and quite possibly the only thing that saved me from making a grave mistake was, again, Bombalurina.
I hadn't noticed her approaching until she slid down to a crouch beside me, settling her furry chin over my shoulder to gaze out in the same direction. Her scent was a perfume in itself, triggering more of those chemical fires deep in my gut. Her downy soft tail curled around to flick my whiskers, the purr in her chest reverberating against my back. Her closeness didn't make things any easier. I closed my eyes, blocking both the images of Plato and Demeter but unable to get Bombalurina's out of my mind.
"You shouldn't do this to yourself," she whispered, sending an uncomfortable tingle down my side. Her voice was low, slurred, detached...as though drunk. But that wasn't it. I knew that if I tried to speak I would sound the same. I shifted a little, hoping she'd move away, but she remained. Bombalurina probably didn't realize it, but by just being there, purring, in this rush of madness and moonlight she was being more sensual and seductive than anything else I could name. I rolled onto my back, pulling her on top of me and holding her there. The wanting was eased then, if only a little, but rather than stare into her white-furred face I gazed up past her tumbling red mane to the moon. It was swelled now, the size of Big Ben's face, colored the purest of ivory white. Staring at it, it seemed to shimmer with radiating power. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, totally overcome. Heaviside give me strength...
"I can't allow it," I mumbled. She nuzzled her cheek against mine, her breath, her scent stifling my senses. That was so easy to say...and Bombalurina...if only she wasn't so blasted gorgeous! What was even more difficult was that I couldn't tell her intentions...whether she was swept up by the moon's power then or whether it was just me...I didn't know. The uncontrollable feeling of masculinity, of being male, a tom, was beginning to take its toll. Some distant part of my mind that remained rational was afraid that if I kept letting myself go with this I wouldn't be able to resist. "How do you manage," I somehow mumbled, stroking her mane, "to keep from having kittens...with...?"
The grin she returned was as enticing as it was mischievous. "That's my secret," she purred, inviting me on with a feline lick. A well-kept secret, too. While most females resorted to the effective human means of reproduction control to keep from bringing too many kittens into the world (after all, we do live by human society and human means), Bombalurina as far as I knew didn't. Maybe she was barren, I don't know...it doesn't matter...
"Please, Bal...just leave me alone with my fantasies..."
"As though it's my place to regulate your thoughts."
I can say it now, because as I write this I'm in a completely rational state of mind, but anything that happened immediately after those few words is indescribably hazed. I can't remember...but I doubt anything happened. Bombalurina slipped away as vivacious and silent as she came, and I rolled back over, gazing dizzily out over the area until I found Plato again. He was standing, alone, seeming bewildered as a large slash covered the length of his cheek, watching Demeter slink away into the darkness.
There was a triumph in seeing that which brought a smile under my whiskers. Demeter had resisted. It seemed only proper for her...the gold-furred female who was petrified of males in that way, strong-willed and determined in her manner. I was proud of Demeter, having kept her wits about her and not won over by the madnesses of the Jellicle Ball. Not that there would have been anything wrong with that...I'm not one to speak...but even though at least once in every Jellicle's life it seemed inevitable they would have a Mating Dance with someone they may not even remember by morning, Demeter was different. It was her first Ball, a better Jellicle than I as she'd sustained when I dropped my watch over her. Incredible...her first Ball...
But this was a Ball that was to be interrupted.
It was like a blow to the head, like the energy that had covered the island that the vampires had brought, suddenly snapping. The energy the Jellicle Ball held over our minds broke with the suddenness of an explosion, and with all the same effect. The Twins sensed it first. Suddenly halting in their synchronized dance, their ever-somber faces whipped with a mutual hiss and bristle of their manes at the junk surrounding the place. Others followed: Mistoffelees, Cassandra, and so on. I stood up immediately, mind ringing with "Intruder!" and ready to fight any werewolf that dared to show its face on our sacred night, in our private celebration, who dared to violate our safety. But that wasn't what had interrupted us.
It was her! The ragged old woman from the audition. I knew she was a Jellicle then, after she had sung that beautiful Memory, and now it was only confirmed as her scent was unmistakable. That faint trace of roses, faded roses, mingled with her human scent as she limped out into view. Her werecat form was no better than when I'd last seen her outside the theatre. Dirty, disheveled, her fur was thin and ratty, colored what seemed to be a red-silver tabby, though it was difficult to tell for her coat was so tattered and torn. Her tail, incredibly thin and almost entirely black from some stain, hung limp and dragging the ground behind her. Her face, though feline, was still that of faded royalty: gray-furred though scarred and matted as much as her lighter bedraggled mane. She was unmistakable.
She appeared as though from the night itself, striding toward us with that hunched, cross-armed, slow manner. Yet as she drew nearer, she regained that proud gait, lifting her shoulders back and her chin up as one by one the gathered Jellicles turned on her, hissing, bristling. I couldn't explain it myself, but there was something about her presence, her scent, the sight of her, that I despised. It was radiating dislike that emitted from all of us, a mutual hate for this withered old thing. Yet I couldn't understand...I had wanted so much to speak with her at the theatre that day. Now, just as the moon bound our feline minds together for the dance, it bound our feelings, and leaping down from my perch I stalked towards her.
But the hatred was not universal. Some of the younger cats, more free-minded and rebellious in spirit, were curious and excited at the new arrival. I could feel their eyes on me, their mixed emotions pricking my whiskers, as I approached. First on all fours, I rose up to two to stand towering over her. Yet as I neared, the feelings grew stronger. I could see her now, her eyes that burning with those familiar yet distant gleams of life, outshining any of her dirty mane or limp, hanging fur coat. Closer, much closer, I could also make clearer her scent. It was rancid... I hadn't been able to determine it last time because of my human form, but now...great Heaviside! Her scent was caked in age, in travel, and in a musky perfume too horrible to place. It stank of rats, of filth, of a profession to vulgar to put in name, and most of all...death. Alive and watching now, this female rank of a vile death that surrounded her. It made me hesitate to go any further.
"What are you doing here?" I finally rumbled, ears flat and tail curled up in the scorpion-like manner of aggression. It wasn't a conscious action, but my legs crouched, widening, taking their stance as though it were a rival tom I faced and not a withered old queen. The female parted her feline muzzle as though to speak, but stopped, seeming to gaze over me before she spoke. Even then, her proud demeanor showed no flaw.
"I came to celebrate," she said, her voice harsh but as clear and crisp as when she sang. It made me wonder how...how could a creature so wretched in appearance show such pride? As before, I saw nothing to provide any background to her stubborn pride. Only that faded appearance that meant once great beauty, and that voice...that voice... The pride was all inside her, yet it seemed almost forced, as though even she knew there was nothing to back it up with. How could I still swear I knew her from somewhere? "I am as much Jellicle as you are," she went on, barking with that same regalness.
"You not wanted here," I said, not of my own will, but the will of the entire tribe. I couldn't conclude what I thought of her then. My mind was not my own.
"I have the right," she went on to stay, stepping forward to glare into my face. The choking scent of death sent me back a step.
"Get the wench outta here!" yelled a sharp voice behind me. Tugger. The old Jellicle's expression collapsed, her attention darting behind me to the others. Keeping my gaze fixed solely on her I could see it, slow but sure: her pride being beaten down and clawed to pieces as one by one the others followed Tugger's lead. Hissing, growling, yeowling insults and threats, the younger generations took up the example set by the adults, who for some reason unknown to me had the most reason to hate this female. Even Jennyanydots, the kind Old Gumbie Cat as her song dubbed her, broke her line with the others to dash forward, hissing a feline warning as she kept a group of kittens from growing too bold. The old queen looked back up to meet my eyes only fleetingly, then her battered muzzle lowered, her thin, sickly arms tightening in the hug around her as though for protection.
"I came only to join you," she whispered, barely audible even to werecat senses. "I mean no harm."
"You've done plenty of that already," Jennyanydots hissed behind me, such a tone I'd never heard from her before. Like being hit with a physical blow the withered old queen cringed at Jenny's voice. Her mouth parted, gasping a breath as though in pain. Her eyes returned to mine. What pride had been forced there earlier was gone. Her dull, sad gray eyes were naught but sorrow, and as though waking up from a dream I began to see those eyes in light of my own thought. Their sadness...it pricked my heart to see them consciously. And I knew them. I knew her. Somewhere...
"Who are you?" I growled, voice a bit quieter than I'd expected. "I know you..."
Her eyes shot down. "Don't say such things," she growled, a scratched whisper. "You know me only from the theatre."
A lie. I knew it. I knew this queen! I knew her voice...her touch...her feelings, but...Heaviside! Where? When? Who was she? I could feel my spine begin to ache from where I'd held it arched, unknowingly getting stiffer and stiffer as I stared down at her. I reared back up, my arms lowering slowly to my side. My eyes never left her. She was...she was...something. She was beauty. She was sorrow. She was a familiar stranger, a famous has-been, a proud mendicant who was drawing me in the more I delved into her features. I saw her face tilted down at that angle, her faded mane falling down in greasy, tangled curls over her golden feline eyes. I saw the swirling ridges of barely-there fur that colored her cheeks and muzzle, short as bristles but downy soft to the touch, I knew. Their faded sheen was marred in tiny scars, smudged fur, bent whiskers that eliminated any trace of that feline fluidity, that sleekness. Her lips were parted, trembling with the first symptom of tears, the tips of her yellowed fangs just barely visible between them. Around her neck...her thin, scrawny neck...a ring of fur was worn and rubbed away. A collar mark. I could see myself touching her face, caressing that downy softness and hidden beauty with the coordination of an infant...a kitten... My breath was suddenly ragged, choking in my own throat as she looked up under that ridge of tattered mane fur. Her eyes...irises dark as pitch, their golden color that of ancient bronze...I wanted her. To know her...speak with her...touch her...break this line of hatred that was a barrier between us and extend my black clawed hands...but it wouldn't be me to break the silence.
Demeter's golden fur brushed my flank as she passed by, her steps silent over the uneven ground, her body posture yearning towards the withered queen in some fractional display of the longing I felt. I heard Bombalurina gasp behind me as Demeter extended her hand, its delicate golden color shining like the sun of the other female's dark shadow. And, like a shadow, she retreated from it, the old gray queen cringing away from this beam of friendly, welcoming sunlight that was Demeter. But Demeter's face...her arched dancer's body, was pain. Longing and pain. I could see it tearing at her as it tore at my heart. Mixed feelings for this outcast who I knew yet didn't. Her voice wasn't heard over the breeze...but it rang in my mind deafening roar.
"Grizabella..."
The one breath that it took to sigh that one word, the name of the wretch before us, took an hour before it finally died on the wind. With the sound of that name went the last ounce of pride Grizabella could muster, and her insides collapsed. Her breath heaved in a stifled sob, her feline eyes glistening with crystal tears that followed the grooves down her cheeks as they fell. My heart was aching, pouring out a kind of sympathy such as I've never felt for this Jellicle. Yet it was a pain my body didn't feel, and I did nothing.
Like Adelle...
They say it's an advantage for a leader to not let his emotions show in difficult times. To remain detached, observant, rational...
Bulls**t.
My eyes followed, pity among a pride of scorn, as the Norma Desmond of all Jellicles took up her limp again, striding past me, past Demeter, keeping her eyes turned away from the rest of us. That barrier, that wall of division, between our two sides won us over, and as she stalked back into the darkness from which she came I could see our differences. We were Jellicles. We were perfect in every way desirable to our race. She was a Jellicle, and she was not. Fallen from grace, she was offensive to see, her past deeds a deciding blow to her condemnation. In our perfect light she seemed everything we weren't, and we hated her for it. I hated her. She wouldn't tell me how I knew her...no one could tell me what it was she had done to deserve such a fate as being outcasted from our tribe, carrying with her this pestilence of a presence and the aura of a horrible death. I saw her fade into darkness...the twist of her left leg as she limped each time weight was put upon it...her black tail dragging the ground. I felt my heart reach out for her, yearning, longing to reach after and pull her back. Again, Demeter moved for me.
I whispered her name as she again crouched before me, reaching after the old Jellicle, but Demeter didn't hear me. The silence in the night was absolute, stifling us, our movements, our voices. Not a piece of junk in the area dared break that silence as Grizabella limped away. None of us who watched, hating, yearning, but always silent, moved. It was an eternity before Grizabella was gone entirely, only her scent lingering in the air, that foreboding death that chilled my blood.
The full moon had abandoned us behind clouds. The Jellicle Ball was over. Slowly, already feeling her tense, I reached out to touch Demeter's shoulder.
"Let's go..."
By the time we dragged ourselves back to the penthouse apartment building night was waning. As was our usual way of coming and going in secret, a custom I had started years ago at age seventeen, Demeter and I still in werecat form silently made the long ascent up the fire escape. It made me wonder why I remained on the top floor of such a tall building...the climb was exhausting. But that was as far as I could think. The events of the night were still a jumble in my mind, like a dream: vague and unorganized with no real linking factor. In the time it took me to scale those metal platforms and ladders before Demeter I had perhaps only distinctly recognized two subjects that crossed my mind. But it was as though a physical wall was separating one part of my mind from another, leaving these thoughts bouncing all over with no place to settle. All the better. I fear now that if I'd been able to ponder those thoughts then I would have found such conclusions that I wouldn't like. Such as how Demeter knew Grizabella's name...
We reached the penthouse without having said a word to each other. Even after slipping open the windows to one of the many rooms that were never locked for such reasons, Demeter and I slid inside silently, an awkward feeling remaining between us that was physically felt. We both knew it concerned that old queen Grizabella, what we thought about her interruption, but neither of us cared enough to share. Perhaps we weren't even sure. I knew I wasn't.
Desere retired immediately to her room and I to mine, hardly bothering with a shower before I changed from my set of forever fur into a more comfortable robe. Leaning gratefully over the bathroom mirror I splashed water onto my face, its coldness a welcome sensation after the absence of physical feeling for so long. The clock read almost two in the morning. Despite the exertions in the junkyard and the emotional turmoil I wasn't tired. Instead I stared at myself: my haggardness and graying hair continuous signs of aging. I was told once that Jellicles age slower than humans on the average, some combinations of the cat's influence keeping our kind youthful and vibrant even in older years, but I had seen very little evidence of it. I could still dance and sing as though I was twenty...but the rest of me... I was barely forty then, but I was certainly feeling it.
I didn't have the right to complain. Unwilling and unable to sleep I went down to my usual place in the study, turned on the radio at a gentle level and opened my journal to record the night's events. The one thing I left entirely out of this book of records I kept were my emotions. It was completely historical. Sometimes I would slip in a personal note here or there, a sketch of a face or outline, a doodle of a map, but largely the book was for reference. Sometimes I would go back and read it from the beginning, each volume as it began to build up, surprising myself at how little of it I actually remembered. Perhaps one day these records would come into use...reveal some vital information to a later generation of Jellicles. I could only hope.
I paused a moment after I'd finished the entry, gazing down with my chin in my hand at the dull sketch I'd completed of Grizabella. Something in particular about the sketch caught my attention...
Drawn in that same hunched forward, cross-armed, limping posture she'd displayed that night, her black and white face outlined in ink was gazing up at me. I held my pen back at a distance, studying the marks I'd made without consciously realizing it. Those eyes again...the windows of all souls...they stared out at me with a superiority that I'd seen only twice before from this queen: at the theatre before she knew who I was, then earlier tonight when she first entered the junkyard. Before her shame was brought down upon her and her forced pride clawed apart. Those eyes seemed to be swallowing me, my expression, taking it all in with royal immunity with an analyzing, critical mind but giving nothing in return. All emotion disappeared inside those slanted, feline eyes. If I stepped inside those eyes, into their bottomless depths, I would disappear in their strength. That's what I saw: strength. A strength that surpassed any I could ever hope to gain. It was strength that had kept this female Jellicle alive through all she had suffered, all she had born that brought her to shame and guilt. But what had she done? How could I know her?
Questions that would remain unanswered.
Her eyes, her face, the entire expression of this Grizabella was pacifying. She could take what was thrown at her, absorb it and forget it to keep going as though nothing had happened. She had to. The hatred and anger I had felt radiating from Jennyanydots and the others towards her was an onslaught of contempt and scorn, too great a thing to be fought off by oneself. But no...Grizabella was an actress, hiding her emotion for as long as she could sustain until it became too much. It was only then that she revealed what she truly was: old, broken, yearning to be accepted and understood. To be loved. It struck me only then. It was as though that drawing had come to life and rose up, glaring at me with those golden eyes. I saw something reflected in their amber depths, their strength and sorrow, something that shocked me so deeply I literally drew back with a horrified gasp and slammed the book shut.
I saw myself.
Suddenly snapping back to myself, I hadn't realized I had stopped breathing. Gasping out a stale breath and dizzily inhaling a new one, I swept up the journal and flung it back into the depths of one of the desk's drawers, closing it resolutely. Even then I didn't feel satisfied. Something had been penetrated inside me by the sight of myself in those eyes, something that disturbed me and haunted my mind like a pestilence. Something I'd never known before. I sat there, head in my hands, trying to determine why I felt as though something inside me had suddenly been torn aside, parted, ravished to the core and now stood exposed to the elements. Raw and throbbing. The feeling centered around my heart...the area of my chest where I imagined my heart to be, but was so deep and penetrating it couldn't be pinpointed. It was merely there, aching, trembling at being finally penetrated. It frightened me, this feeling that could be brought on from a mere drawing. Such intensity from an ink image on paper that was a mere representation of a living being. Grizabella... The mere thought of her name rekindling that throb in my chest, irritated that ache of exposure and penetration of something that until now had been entirely unadulterated. Why did she do this to me? How could I feel as though I knew her so intimately and yet hate her with that scornful contempt? I loved her...I hated her...I was intrigued by her...
Why was that?
My attention suddenly turned to the radio, where a Cindy Lauper song had come to playing: "Money changes everything!"
I turned it off. It was not the best of times for an onslaught of urges to strike me then, in the midst of my weakness and confusion. They came so suddenly, with such force that I leaned against the desk to brace myself. I thought of Grizabella...of Bombalurina...of Demeter just down the hall in her room...
No! No, I wouldn't allow myself to think any further. I tossed myself up from the desk and paced the room without rest, shifting from one form to the other without need, dancing wildly in short bursts to spend the energy, but the persistent stabs of flame refused to leave. Each time I passed by the door I would glare at it, sometimes with human eyes, sometimes with whiskers, and think of Demeter. Then I would pass on by, frustrated with myself and Heaviside.
Exactly opposite as when I'd arrived, the urges ignited a sort of sugar rush inside me, making my thoughts run with an exhilarated speed, connected in some logical way that couldn't be explained in words. Fueled on by those inward flames I shifted to cat form and leaped off the walls, clawed the curtains, swatted at objects on my desk until they tumbled to the floor. Rolling on my back I yeowled my agonies to the ceiling, knowing perhaps Desere could hear me but uncaring. This fit of catlike behavior was not uncommon, and certainly a better spend of energy than some alternatives.
By four o'clock in the morning I was slumping dejectedly over the arm of the stuffed desk chair, dog tired and feeling absolutely sorry for myself. My claws hooked on the material, penetrating but unable to gouge the thick leather. I suddenly found myself wondering which was worse: a life without love or sudden death. I was a Jellicle...a leader...I was probably condemned to both. I don't know what brought on those feelings of sudden despair, but as the fiery urges began to die down I was one exhausted cat, ready to very willingly fall asleep as I was.
Heaviside wouldn't have it. The sky was not yet light with dawn when I shot up ramrod straight, knowing something was inside the penthouse that shouldn't be there. What...why...how...I don't know. Nor did I care. Perhaps it was some barely audible sound in a distant room, or some change in the air and stir of dust as a window was opened, or even just divine intervention that alerted me to this unwanted presence. In werecat form I bolted up to full wakefulness and dashed from the room, nearly tearing the door from its hinges as I shoved my way through into the hallway, where every gut instinct I possessed was telling me to go.
It was in the hallway that I heard Desere's scream. A scream...no. No, that's not it. The sound she made then from the end of the hall—her private room—was an ungodly screech of mortal terror that was never before uttered by a living creature. It fell on my ears with the effect of a sonic explosion, freezing the air, activating my insides to take immediate action as just as quick the shriek came it was cut short by something, another presence...the one that shouldn't be there.
Bursting through the door to Desere's room was when I first smelled it. Smelled him. That acrid scent of evil, of vile corruption too satanic to speak of. The scent of Macavity. He was there, easily eight feet tall as he loomed over a werecat-formed Demeter on her bed, his hands around her wrists as though he were pulling her up to him, his tail arched and curled up in a rigid stimulated manner. I saw him and burst, fear forgotten, and roared his name so that he whipped to face me, Demeter collapsing back down.
I could see his eyes, the momentary gleam of his fangs and those sickly yellow catlike eyes as they slitted dangerously. My claws flexed until they felt ready to tear free of their sheaths. I wanted to fight him. Beat him. Kill him. I wanted it so suddenly with every fiber of my being, for violating the one place I held as safe, for existing at all. Something to take out upon all these feelings I'd been developing inside me since the sun had fallen.
I opened my mouth to roar, but in a movement too fast for my eyes to follow he leaped at me and had my face locked in his black hands. His wild eyes were wide in fury, and he opened his cavernous feline mouth and drew back his black lips over a long, sharp set of sabre fangs. His strength had me down on my knees, his face thrusting toward mine in what would have normally looked like a kiss. But our faces never brushed.
Our mouths were perhaps half an inch apart when I felt the air being emptied from my lungs. Wheezing, I coughed in natural reaction, but realized too late that I couldn't draw breath again. I gagged, my body convulsing in want for air as my lungs were completely empty. I realized what he'd done then: the werecat had stolen my breath. I groped blindly at his grip on my face, trying to claw him away with my feline hands. His eyes filled my vision, which after only a few moments was beginning to blur.
It wasn't five seconds of that embrace that he flung me down to the floor. I faintly heard a maniacal laugh, a crash of window, and Desere's mortal scream before my air-starved blood took hold and I passed out.
Sometimes it pays to go visit Heaviside once in awhile. When a Jellicle, any Jellicle, is rendered unconscious they automatically shift down to their most vulnerable form: this case being that of a domestic cat. How long I was unconscious wouldn't be revealed until I woke much later, but during that time my subconscious self took a vacation of its own and journeyed to a place beyond my physical surroundings. Weightless, blind, deaf, mute, there was only sensation. It could only be described as Heaviside...a Jellicle's paradise, a werecat's Heaven.
In this place there is only sensation and feeling. Emotion. Love, first and foremost. Love is all-encompassing there, in that dark Eden. The love I yearned for in everyday life...the love as I felt for Adelle, for Bombalurina, for Bustopher and Jennyanydots. A love so fulfilling I could willingly stay there forever, wrapped in this warm blanket of everlasting, fulfilling love. It was all so sweet...so divine...it was a pity I could only visit such a place on a rare occasion. But there was no doubt...I knew this was Heaviside.
Love, sensuality, compassion, security, grace, ecstasy...all these and more are wrapped up in one pitch darkness that extends forever in the Heaviside I experienced. I didn't want to leave it. I didn't want to wake up to cold, hard reality and leave this place of paradise. I didn't want to...
But I was needed elsewhere.