Disclaimer: Sure I own cats. Over half a dozen at present, and probably more on the… Oh, I see what you mean. No, that would be that Webber fellow.

Author's note: Before anyone writes to correct me, I am aware that at least one detail of the following story is historically impossible. (For the sake of avoiding even minor spoilers, I won't say which one; it will be left, as they say, as an exercise for the reader.) But I didn't find that out until I'd already fallen in love with the detail, and there does seem to be precedent in this fandom for indulging in minor anachronisms (e.g., the car boot in the 1998 set, which cannot possibly date to within one feline lifetime of Queen Victoria's reign). Anyway, possible or not, I hope you enjoy.

"So this is this, and that is that," Old Pancashash chanted skyward, the voices of all the British Jellicles behind her as she flung the ancient injunction toward the Heaviside layer. "And that's how you ad-dress a cat!"

The early-morning updrafts caught up the chorus of feline harmonies and lifted it free of the dawn-pinked junkyard; its echoes rose up into the clouds that shrouded the City that cool spring morning, and thence into the highest reaches of the firmament – higher than the highest mountains, up through stratosphere and mesosphere, into that region of fierce light and deathly cold where the most recent Jellicle Choice was at that moment being refashioned from a small grey tabby into an embryonic lord of Nature. Lemonsnatch, his name had been; what he would be called in his new life, of course none of the cats could guess. But if the Last Song was well and truly sung, and reached his ears before he wholly shed his felinity, its counsel would weave itself into the soul he was to gain, and he would, when born anew, retain some of the grace and faithfulness of a Jellicle Cat.

Or so, at least, the cats believed – and none more zealously than Deuteronomy the Rectory Cat. From his earliest kittenhood, when Smudge the Wise had spotted the ions in his fur and taken it upon herself to instruct him in the Jellicle Lore, his heart and his fancy alike had been given wholly to the mystic feline subculture into which he had been born. Even when he was doing no more than chasing dust bunnies under the parsonage sofa, or lying curled up and purring in the lap of the curate's little daughter, the awareness was never far from his mind that he, who was doing these things, was an Aurora-born alumnus of Heaven and Hell, and the wonder and the pride of it was liable at any moment to sweep him right off his paws.

And it is only fair to him to add that, besides the dignity and majesty of his birthright, he also had a healthy awareness of its responsibilities. Feline, fearless, faithful and true – these were solemn words to him, and he strove to live up to them on every occasion. So now, as the Jellicle Cats of Britain began to disperse and prepare for the return to their various homes, he went about the crowd approaching this one and that one, making sure that all his brethren were as well and happy as might be, there under the sun and the Heaviside layer.

"Fine Ball this year, eh, Deuteronomy?" said Hackamore Jones, his voice rich with the genial, placid superiority of St. James's Street. "I only hope things will be as gay in my son's time."

There was a sardonic mew behind him, and he turned to see Riddlemarie, an elegant Scottish Fold belonging to one of Miss Pankhurst's leading admirers, seated on a nearby sheet of tin. "Just your son, Hackamore?" she inquired sweetly. "I should think that a cat as prolific as you could spare at least a little concern for your daughters."

"Oh, get on, you great lop-eared shrew-chaser," said a stout calico farm-cat from the Suffolk downs. (Her everyday name was Annie Jane; Deuteronomy could never remember her particular one.) "Gentleman's got a right to be proud of little Bustopher without getting all your mistress's nasty Suffragette ramp down on his head."

Riddlemarie bristled, and her voice took on a bit of St. James's Street itself. "It hardly constitutes 'ramp'," she said, "to insist upon our sex's equal dignity with toms. If we wish to see the instinctive reverence for mere physical force give way to a more enlightened social organisation, we must purge ourselves of all retrogressive attitudes that would hinder that happy consummation."

"Fine by me, little lady," said the Cockney alley-cat Scrumfell, leering suggestively in Riddlemarie's direction. "I'll never be looking to keep an attitude that hinders consummations – and I've nothing against getting daughters, neither."

As Riddlemarie searched for a reply to this, a long, lean ginger tom loped up next to Deuteronomy, and surveyed the whole tableau with an insinuating chuckle. "Dear me," he murmured. "These little colloquies of ours do go in all sorts of directions, don't they, Deuteronomy?"

Deuteronomy's flesh crept instinctively, as it always did at the sound of that soft, lazy drawl, but his physiognomy remained as bland and placid as ever. "And why not?" he said. "It takes all sorts of cats to make up the Jellicles' number. You, Macavity, know that as well as anyone."

"True, very true," said Macavity. Then he added, as if to himself, "Or true for now, at least."

Deuteronomy cocked his head. "Pardon?"

Macavity seemed momentarily nonplussed at having been overheard, but he recovered his usual savoir-faire swiftly enough. "Oh, nothing," he said. "Only you must see that the day is coming when all these local eccentricities of temper will have been swept away by the onrush of human progress. If we could see the Jellicle Ball of a hundred years hence, Deuteronomy, I daresay that all the cats there would appear to us to be wholly interchangeable, so similar will they be in form, colour, role, and basic sentiments alike."

"You think so, do you?" said Deuteronomy.

"Surely," said Macavity. "All the tools are already in place: steamships, aeroplanes, wireless telegraphs – all the things that tend to smooth out the chaotic and unmanageable vagaries of the world. It only remains to perfect and apply them, and the men of the coming century will surely do that. How could they not?" (His eyes glowed, as he spoke, as with the glory of a great vision.) "Once placed on that road, who could fail to follow it to the end?"

"I could," said Deuteronomy mildly.

Macavity blinked, and stared at Deuteronomy for a moment as though he had never seen him before; then he laughed. "Yes, I daresay you could, at that," he said. "But I hope, Deuteronomy, that you won't leave your little village just yet to go rushing off to Whitehall and placing yourself athwart the modern world. The Oldest Inhabitant would be quite desolated, I'm sure.

"And speaking of your village reminds me why I came looking for you," he added. "It seems there's a kitten here from your part of Shropshire who needs a more experienced cat to help her transvect back home. Apparently she just came into her Jellicle gifts a few days ago, and, though the call of the Jellicle Moon was strong enough for her to find her way here without trouble, she isn't quite confident in her ability to return by daylight. Of course, I'm not going that way myself, but I told her that you might…"

"Oh, yes, of course," said Deuteronomy. "Where is she?"

"Over by the rusted oil barrels," said Macavity, pointing with his tail. "A small, fluffy-headed creature with a dark-striped grey coat. Name of Jellylorum, I believe."

So Deuteronomy went to investigate, and found little Jellylorum sitting in the shadow of one of the largest barrels, gazing up admiringly at the handsome young theatre cat whom Deuteronomy always wanted to call Radicchio. (Between his sleek charcoal fur and his quite un-English flamboyance, an Italian vegetable seemed far more suitable to him than "Asparagus" ever could be.) He was regaling her with a dramatic recitation of The Owl and the Pussy-Cat, and a beautiful friendship was so plainly in the offing that Deuteronomy was loath to interrupt them. After all, there was no need for either he or Jellylorum to hurry home; what was the good of being a cat, if one couldn't disappear mysteriously from human ken for hours on end?

So he lay down and just watched for a while as Gus declaimed to the little queen, "What a beautiful Pussy you are – you are – you are!" (Such an old mountebank he was, honestly – but the kitten seemed to be enjoying it.) And then, as he was reaching the bit about the land where the Bong-tree grows, there came a faint little cough from just beyond Deuteronomy's right shoulder; the Rectory Cat glanced back curiously, and then turned abruptly and made a hasty obeisance to the old, bony, jet-black queen standing behind him.

"Have you a moment, Deuteronomy?" said Old Pancashash. "I'd like a private word with you, if I may."

Deuteronomy, of course, was the last cat in Britain to refuse the Old One, so it wasn't long before the two of them were curled up confidentially beneath an overhanging sheet of weather-beaten steel siding near the eastern edge of the junkyard. Then there was a long moment's silence, for Deuteronomy wouldn't presume to begin the exchange, and Old Pancashash seemed reluctant to put her thoughts into words.

"Deuteronomy," she said at last, her old voice creaking like a barn wall in a high wind, "do you know what I am?"

Deuteronomy cocked his head in puzzlement. "Of course," he said. "You are the Old One."

"Yes," said Old Pancashash. "And what is the Old One, Deuteronomy?"

The gravity of her tone made Deuteronomy afraid to give an answer out of his own head, so he threw back his mind to the days of his catechesis, and responded in the exact words that Smudge had taught him as a kitten. "The Old One," he said, "is she who comes and goes in the spirit and the power of the Everlasting Cat – the great Grimalkin, forebear of all the Jellicles, who was given life in the great Cathedral over a thousand years ago. In her is the Jellicle clan united; through her is the path to the Heaviside layer kept open; by her is the Jellicle Choice made, every year at the Jellicle Ball."

Old Pancashash smiled. "Well spoken," she said. "I see you've received a proper education, Deuteronomy. Then answer me this, as well: Is the Old One mortal?"

"The Old One is both mortal and immortal," Deuteronomy replied. "Mortal as all cats are mortal, for even Grimalkin Everlasting could not elude the grave forever; immortal in that she does not live only her own life, but shares in the lives of all the Old Ones before and after her, which line shall not fail so long as one Jellicle Cat yet lives."

"Indeed," said Old Pancashash, and sighed – a soft, rustling sound, like November leaves blowing over London cobbles. "Mortal as all cats are mortal. And so there comes a time, Deuteronomy, when the Old One, like any cat, must make provision for her mortality."

Then Deuteronomy understood, and his eyes widened with dismay. To him, in his lore-consumed youth, Old Pancashash had been the living symbol of all that was noble in the Jellicle heritage; to imagine a world without her was like hearing that cream, or sunlight, or the warmth of little girls' hands must shortly perish from the earth. Yet it was true, as he had said, that every individual Old One was mortal – and surely Old Pancashash did not lack the innate feline gift of sensing when her death was upon her.

"Is that so?" he said. "We shall be sorry to lose you, Old One. How soon until the time comes?"

Old Pancashash smiled wearily. "I think it ought to have come a fortnight ago," she said. "But I held it at bay until tonight, so that I could select my successor from among all the Jellicles of Britain. The mantle of the Old One can only be given in person, and I didn't wish to be limited in my choices by the distance these old legs could walk."

"Of course, yes," said Deuteronomy. "But, if you'll forgive me, Old One, why are you now telling all this to me? Surely, you ought to be out finding the successor you seek, before he returns home with the morning sun."

Old Pancashash didn't respond in words; rather, she simply gazed at him, her eyes glowing meaningfully in the shadows, until the impossible thought entered his head. "Oh, no," he said. "Old One, you can't mean… you mustn't mean… an empty-headed, indolent old rustic like me? Surely there were dozens of cats at the Ball tonight who ought to have the Everlasting's spirit before me. Why not Perkinabeck, or Quiss Quill-a-vine, or… or…"

"Or Macavity?" said Old Pancashash mildly.

That possibility hadn't occurred to Deuteronomy, and the thought of it brought him up sharply. "Well… no," he said slowly. "No. Me before Macavity."

Old Pancashash smiled. "You before anyone, Deuteronomy," she said. "And that's just why. The first requirement of an Old One, as of any leader, is that he be able to tell a true-hearted and upright cat from a plausible pretender – and all the more when the chief pretender is as suave and deceitful a cat as Macavity." Her expression darkened, and she added, "I wonder, sometimes, where I went wrong with him."

"You?" said Deuteronomy.

"Yes," said Old Pancashash. "Macavity is my son – not in the sense that all Jellicles are the Old One's children, but literally the son of my body." She sighed. "I was so proud of him, when I first saw him in the basket: a beautiful little ball of golden fur, just like his father – and then as he grew, and showed himself so quick of mind, so nimble of limb, so charming of manner… well, I'm afraid I rather spoiled him. It took me nearly a year to even suspect the dark heart that lay behind that winsome visage – which, for a doting mother, may perhaps not be so bad; from what I've seen tonight, many of his Jellicle brethren haven't spotted it yet.

"But you'd seen it, Deuteronomy," she continued, her voice resonant with pride. "I saw it in your eyes two Balls ago, when the two of you first met – and then last year, and then again tonight. And I saw, as well, how readily you recognised the true worth of such cats as Cressida or Hittypit, despite their unprepossessing exteriors. You see the heart, Deuteronomy, where most cats would never think to look deeper than the coat and whiskers. That is the eye of a true Old One – and, because of it, you need only say the word, and the rest of an Old One's spirit is yours.

"Though I must warn you of one thing," she added. "If you accept me, you make an enemy, and a dangerous one, of Macavity. I'm sure he means to succeed me himself; nothing could be more to his liking than to turn the Jellicle Choice into a reward for his own agents – and, as I've taken care not to betray my change of feeling toward him, he has as much reason to expect my favour as he has to desire it. To see another cat standing where he meant to stand – and that cat, by his own admission, just the sort of rustic bumpkin whom Macavity would most tend to despise – will surely fill his black heart with white-hot rage, and his brilliant mind with a hundred schemes of revenge. Not that I doubt you'll be equal to the danger; unless I miss my guess, you'll soon have won the loyalty of nearly all the Jellicle clan, and they have a way of providing the unexpected just when one needs it. But the decision is yours, and you ought to know all that it will mean.

"So, Deuteronomy: do you accept?"

Deuteronomy was silent for a moment, as he absorbed the tremendousness of the offer. To be what Old Pancashash was; to bear in himself the past and future of all his race; to lead the Jellicle Cats in their annual revels, and elevate those of them whom he saw fit to a life beyond any cat's imagining – it was an honour, and a responsibility, beyond any he had ever dreamed of.

It would also, he reflected, be the sacrifice of an honour of which he had sometimes dreamed. Like any Jellicle Cat, he had fancied now and then that perhaps someday he would himself be chosen to go to the Heaviside layer – but, if he accepted Old Pancashash, he would have to forgo such fancies, as it was strictly against the Jellicle Law for the Old One to Choose himself. But that was a small sacrifice at most; like the peril of incurring Macavity's wrath, it wasn't enough to make him turn away from what seemed, if he trusted Old Pancashash's wisdom (and why should he stop now?), to be his duty to the clan he loved.

"I accept, Old One," he said solemnly.

Old Pancashash's eyes shone with the joy and relief of one whose trust has proven well-placed. She reached out and laid her paw on his forehead; then she raised her head, as one who saw the Heaviside layer itself within the overhanging sheet of siding, and cried, with all the force her aged body could muster, "Vivat!"

With that word, it was as though a dike was opened, and all that the seed of the Everlasting Cat had ever been or would ever be poured itself in one roaring tumult into Deuteronomy's soul. He gasped, and shut his eyes against the barrage, struggling to retain his sense of his own being even as it absorbed – or was absorbed into? – the beings, lives, activities, and thoughts of a hundred hundred cats in every age between the Aurora's descents. From Grimalkin's first sniffs at the Cathedral's pews to the nameless final Jellicle's last contemplation of the Octant, all became part of him, and he, half-slain yet trusting, became part of all – and then, suddenly, it was over, and he was, and needed become no further.

He felt the paw lift from his brow, and opened his now myriadfold eyes to behold the single cat sitting before him. For single she now unquestionably was: no longer the mystic matriarch who had buried a hundred husbands, but only a common black queen, old, frail, weary, and content.

"Come, Old One," she said. "Let us present you to your progeny."

At the other end of the junkyard, Riddlemarie and Annie Jane had concluded (though hardly resolved) their dispute, and they and the others had just been preparing to return home when Gus and Jellylorum had emerged from the oil barrels with a mild grievance. It seemed that Jellylorum's promised escort back to Shropshire had failed to materialise, and Gus was running out of poems suitable for a kitten's ears.

The other cats were quite surprised by Deuteronomy's uncharacteristic truancy, and Hackamore uneasily broached the possibility that he had been surprised by a landslide in the junk piles, and been injured or trapped beneath some fallen piece of metal. Such things did happen now and then, and the cats all sniffed the air for the scent of blood, and strained their ears and whiskers for some vibration of anguished whimpering.

So preoccupied were they with this, indeed, that those who came toward them out of the sunrise made it very near indeed before they were noticed. It was Jellylorum who happened to turn in the right direction, and the sight of those two cats, the Old One and another – and of which was Old and which was other – drew an alarmed mew from her; the others, hearing, turned and followed her gaze, and the same awestruck dismay fell upon them in turn. "Well, of all things…" murmured Hackamore.

"Can it be?" Gus breathed. "Really?"

"Yes…" said Riddlemarie slowly.

"No!" Macavity half-snarled.

"Ho! Hi!" Annie Jane rubbed her face with the back of her paw. "Oh, my eye!"

"I believe!" Jellylorum whispered, earnestly if nearly at random.

But Pancashash smiled, and laid herself down in obeisance at her companion's feet. "It is," she said. "Old Deuteronomy."