Chapter 3: Madness
Munkustrap was always the strong one. Always the one cats relied on. He wasn't the strongest Jellicle, wasn't the fastest or the smartest. He was somewhere in the middle of me, Macavity and Tugger, and the combination was magic. He had just enough timidity to make him approachable, enough pride to make him confident, and enough ruthlessness to get things done. He was brave and good looking and loved by most. Those that didn't love him liked him. After Macavity, cats figured he would take over after father died, even though they thought he had no magic.
When I came along, in my childhood, the others picked on me for my size and my strangeness. Munkustrap was always there to stare them off, then he was off, helping someone else. He taught me how to defend myself, and before I was able to, he held Tugger through the nightmares. He mated young, and stared his family early in life. Jemima was only a few years my junior, Pawdivere came soon after. He was proud of his family, and always made sure they were as happy as he was capable of making them.
Munkustrap changed after the famine. He had lost so much weight, like the rest of us, but since it was him, it seemed so much more. He never regained his muscle tone, and his skin seemed to hang from him lifelessly. The bold black of his stripes had faded to a dull grey. The silver and white had faded as well, so much so he was almost one color. The loss of half his tail had diminished him still more, even though he had never been a vain tom. His whiskers were drooping and unkempt, his muzzle grey, like an old cat. Even his green eyes seemed deadened.
He took charge of us once more, after the loss of Tugger. Under him, we became nomads, traveling by night, following any source of food, gathering what we could, and moving on when we needed to. Over the spring, our general health improved. We were still rationing food, but we managed. We were still thin, but there was flesh under the skin now. Our remaining kits could sometimes sleep without crying out for food in their dreams.
I remember distinctly one moment, when Etcetera simply stopped. She sat down in the middle of a travel and picked up three stones. She rocked back and forth, crooning mindless nonsense at them. Pouncival could not get her to move, and it looked as if we had to leave them behind. Munkustrap silently went over to the pale queen and took the rocks. She tried to resist, but he pushed her down, where she lay, crying. He then went to Tantomile and Electra, both of whom had taken on caring for one of Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer's kits. He took the kits, who were too young to know quite what was going on, and gave them to Etcetera. She seemed to rise a bit more to the surface, though I could see she still was lost in the depths of her mind, but she came back to herself enough to hold the kits. One on either hip, she stood, and we continued on. Munkustrap said nothing throughout the entire exchange.
During the summer of that year, Grizabella gave birth to a son. It was obvious it was Tugger's, though none of us could imagine how he could have survived. None of us had even known she was pregnant. Tugger had glamoured her to hide it, and the spell lasted after he left. Munkustrap, normally the most caring of toms, glanced once at his little brother and nephew, nodded dispassionately and then walked away. Even Jemima could barely get a reaction from him. I got words, but no emotion. His green eyes looked greyer every day.
It was mid summer when Demeter developed the limp. I tried to heal it, but it came back every day. Baffled, I tried to get her to talk to me. Her eyes grew blank when she tried to answer. I did what I could, but the limp persisted.
Alonzo lost an eye. He said it was a hunting accident, but he didn't smell of game when he came back, covered in blood. Pawdivere, normally a happy boy, even through the famine, grew silent, and watched the world through frightened eyes. Try as I might, I could not get them to say anything.
Around this time, a wayward tribe of about fifteen Jellicles joined with us. They had had a better previous year than we, but their horror was no less. One of their old ones, a large grey queen with burn marks all over her, died soon after they came to us. I stood with her in her last dying moments, holding her paw as she gasped for breath. As her eyes dimmed, she heaved forward, blood spewing from her mouth. Some hit Grizabella, who was there with me. The ancient grey queen pointed at Munkustrap, her eyes black as night. "Plague!"
We thought she was screaming of what was killing her. Grizabella shut the queen's eyes as she tried to wipe off the blood. The red stain has never left her fur.
Grizabella grew ill soon after. She could still travel, but she coughed and vomited throughout the day. She handed her son over to Etcetera's care, fearing passing it on to him. She grew thinner than she already was, and her black and grey fur began to discolor. We thought at first that it was something from the famine, or something she had picked up from her food; she'd always been good at catching frogs, even though few others could stand the taste. Soon, however, it became apparent it was something else.
We had temporarily settled in the mountains near our old home. The hunting was better here, since it was harder for the humans to reach every place. Grizabella retreated to the back of one of the caves, trying to keep away from everyone. Demeter limped to her every day to give her food. One day, as I was healing her limp yet again, she began coughing up blood. Fearing some internal injury, I scanned her as best I could, and found something I had no idea how to treat. I sent her to her den, fearing the worst. We didn't see her for a week, and we all feared she had died. Munkustrap gave no indication of her status. When she finally emerged, we hardly recognized her.
Even in our wasted states, Demeter had kept some of her looks, her fur still golden and her eyes still bright. Now, she stood before us, her fur dulling, much as her mate's was, and much of it missing, falling out in patches and clumps. She would say nothing, couldn't, because it was so hard for her to breath from the swellings on her throat. In the balding patches, oozing sores, surrounded by white were beginning to appear. Again, I did all I knew how, Coricopat and Tantomile helping me, but everything stayed much the same.
On a hunch, I checked on Grizabella. She was in much the same condition, only her eyes were crusted over with something green and foul smelling. I cleaned her up the best I could, not thinking of the danger to myself. She had gone blind in one eye, and noticed a sore spreading over her ear. She'd be half deaf if she survived, I knew.
Over the course of the next few days, Alonzo, Pawdivere, Jemima, Etcetera, Admetus, myself, and several other cats either got worse or developed the symptoms. We instructed the kits to cover their faces, to stay away as much as possible, but still, some of
them caught it.
Soon, the entire tribe was ill, all except Munkustrap. He watched over us, helping me and the twins feed the worst off, speaking little, his eyes dead of emotion, his body tense. Only through the fact that he was my brother could I tell that something was troubling him deep down. It was just me and him doing the hunting, and what little we caught we had to spread thin. Some of the decisions we had to make were almost impossible. I watched one night as Munkustrap quietly broke Cassandra's neck. She was the first one that I had been unable to treat, and I knew she was dying. A spasm, unlike anything I had ever felt before, snapped through my body as her heart stopped beating. Munkustrap seemed to sense this, and turned to me. In that moment, his eyes were back to the way they had been in happier times, green as grass and bright. Silently, he kissed Cassandra on the forehead, and walked away. I followed him silently that night, spying on him as I suppressed the cough and the spasm's left over pain. Dark spots fell on the ground behind him, and only later did I realize they were tears.
He went to his den, calling Demeter to him. I saw the glimmer of hope in her eyes as she saw his face return somewhat to normal. Then I saw the fear. Confused, I hid myself with magic, and saw Pawdivere in the opposite corner, staring up at his father and hugging his knees. Then I saw it, and understood his fear.
The light in Munkustrap's eyes shifted, and his eyes unfocused, something savage I had never seen before in them. Demeter blanched in fear, and curled up into a ball, going limp as my brother fell on her. I could do nothing. I knew if I did, Munkustrap would kill me, and possible them as well.
Though they were mates, I could call what happened next nothing more than simple rape. I looked away, ashamed I could do nothing. I had seen the subtleties of Munkustrap's magic at work, and I knew he was the stronger of the two of us. I could only watch in horror as he beat her senseless, paying slightly more attention to her one leg, the one Macavity had scarred long ago. He then turned on his son, who cowered against the blows and cried. Then, in the middle of it all, Munkustrap froze. I did the same, fearing he'd sensed my presence, but that was not the case.
The strange light left his eyes, and they returned to their once normal green. He looked at his mate and son, cowering together in the corner of his den, and fell to his knees. He vomited, choking and weeping, crying out his sorrow for what he had done. He grabbed his head and howled, screaming at himself. "Why? WHY WON'T THIS END?!" Demeter limped to him, followed by Pawdivere, and they held him, just as he and myself had held Tugger all those months before. Slowly, the color and light left his eyes, and his mate and son led him to bed, where he fell asleep, muttering "sorry…so sorry…"
I managed to get Munkustrap alone one day, before we got the kills back to the cave. It took me a long time, but finally, I forced him to talk to me. His magic was getting stronger, and he couldn't control it. Beneath that, I sensed something frightening stirring in the depths of his mind. All the dead, everyone we had been forced to coerce into death, appeared in his waking dreams, and I felt the scars it was leaving on him. He wanted nothing more than to die, but knew he couldn't. He told me, beneath the trees, that he didn't understand why he had not yet grown ill. I told him that I did not know. It was the truth, but something snagged my attention, and I couldn't help but wonder, after that day.
After my discoveries, I tried to ease the pain in my brother's mind. The circumstances and his magic would have driven another cat mad, but Munkustrap had always been the strong one. I failed. It was doomed from the start. How could I not fail, when every death I felt sent me into spasms, each one more intense than the last; when every memory if the things I had forced cats I knew, cats who's knees I had bounced on in kitten-hood, the things I had forced them to do to feed the rest of the tribe. The cost of making the decision of which cat would go next weighed just as much on my mind, and try as I might, I could not dissolve my brother's pain.
I'm not sure where he was when it happened. I will never be sure, because no one else saw him either. All the cats were in the main cave, trying to get some fresh air, trying to get lethargic kits to play. A few looked almost dead. Tumblebrutus had lost sight in one eye, the one with the patch over it, and most if his fur. My mate crooned over our remaining son, cleaning the sores on his body as best she could, trying to stop his thin crying. We had thinned out even more, but no one from the new tribe had died yet. We all assumed the illness was part of the cannibalism we'd been forced into the previous winter. Listless cats lay in family groups or with friends, wondering about who knew what.
A scream jerked them out of their stupor. I've never been sure if it was mine or hers. I fell, I know, and I remember the pain, the fire in my bones and the glass shard pressure in my brain as the seizure took me over. When I came to I knew the cause. Someone had died.
Demeter lay limp near her den. Pawdivere and Jemima hunched over her, wailing. Black blood ran from her lips. I knew she was the one. I crawled to her, trying to see, trying to make sure. Then I heard the howl.
I was knocked aside as Munkustrap dove to his mate. He clutched her limp form to him, trying to wake her, screaming incomprehensively. He set her down, and before I could stop him, sent a wave of magic into her body. Nothing happened.
Wave after wave of power left my brother, and with every decrease in power, color left him faster and faster. Only his eyes shone. They glowed frightfully greener as he depleted himself.
Finally, it was gone. Munkustrap had managed, not to bring Demeter back to life, but to completely destroy himself. Magic, a slight residual glow still emanating from his mate's dead body, had completely left him. His scent had changed, and I knew it would never come back. Suddenly, more about him than just his color changed. Violently, blood spewed from his mouth, and as he coughed, we saw what his increasing powers had protected him from. The fur on his back fell away, and before our eyes, sores the size of faces oozed into existence, pus and blood dripping from them to the fast depleting fur on his chest. The sores spread, covering half his face and large patches of his body. I saw the bones of his skull through his thinning mane. He flung back, writhing in agony, trying to find some way to end it. He looked like something we should have buried, his suddenly taken over form was so intense. In that moment, I realized what the old queen had meant, in pointing at him. He was the source. Something inside him had carried this, and spread it on to the whole tribe. Then I remembered. He was the first to take the meat, the one who saved everyone else by taking that first bite. His mind, and the subconscious torture it inflicted on his magic was punishing him with this illness, and it had lashed out at those he was closest to first. I watched my brother in horror for the second time in as many weeks. He thrashed about on the floor, shrieking and yowling in agony, ripping fur and flesh from his body in an attempt to end the pain. He looked straight at me.
His eyes glowed with pain and fire. He knew. Munkustrap knew he had caused all of our suffering. Knew he had caused Demeter's and so many other's end. I saw the instant he left his mind, the older, protective brother with the mellow voice and kind word for his freaky little sibling vanished as he looked at me. I fell again, but the pain was distant, and the eye contact didn't break. I felt Munkustrap push at my mind, what was left of him holding me mentally, apologizing, as it left.
Munkustrap's eyes turned grey. Completely grey; flat, without light. The eyes of the dead. Terrified, Jemima and Pawdivere held each other, scrambling away from their father and their mother's corpse. Munkustrap stood, staring at nothing, a sickly stench and a chill air following him. He left the cave, bits of fur and blood following him, chunks of dying skin left behind where he had lain.
Plague had ended the third brother.