“I wasn’t there.” She wagged her tail.
“Have you heard anything at all?”
“The fat orange cat.” I knew which fat orange cat she was talking about. I’d seen him scrounging for food, constantly on the move. Throughout my centuries as a cat, I learned to communicate to animals telepathically through images. Cats were the most telepathic of all; they usually understood quickly. Dogs are arrogant. They dislike cats and struggle with the concept that I can communicate with them. Another reason I began naming the animals that lived on the street. It helped them accept me as a friend. I had never spoken to the orange cat but I knew he’d be where food would be found. The large tomcat was outside the Dunkin Donuts, rummaging through a garbage can. All I could see was his fluffy hind side sticking out of the trash bin as his long tail wagged ferociously. He popped his head out of the garbage with a half a donut on his head and hissed at me. “Hush up,” I said.
He didn’t understand. “Do you hear me talking to you?” He turned his head sideways looking very confused and stupid.
That’s when I realized he wasn’t the brightest cat in the alley. I began to talk slower. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Me,” he replied.
“OK, what does that mean?”
He shook the donut off his head. “Me,” he said again, nibbling at it.
I looked into his thoughts. In them he was laying on his back eating a piece of pizza surrounded by discarded hotdog buns. “You’re hungry?”
He shook his head and said, “Me hungry.”
“OK, we have that settled. I can catch you a delicious mouse,” I said showing him an image of a mouse.
Mouse, he understood and jumped out of the garbage dumpster to rub against me and bite my neck. “Me hungry, me hungry, me hungry, me hungry.”
“What should I call you? We need to establish names first. My name is Terra. Can you say Terra?”
“Me hungry Terra.”
“OK, very good. Now what do you look like? What is your name? Your name is very important. It says a lot about who and what you are. It gives you a presence, a place. It leaves behind who you were. We must choose a name that is appropriate.”
I looked around but he was gone. “Orange cat, where did you go?” I walked down the alley, searching for him.
I could see his silhouette through a cracked stained glass window lying in a pile of furniture. He looked fuzzy, pixilated. He smiled his pixilated grin at me. “Pixel, that’s your name.”
He popped his head out from around the window. “Me Pixel, Pixel,” he repeated.
“You are Pixel, we established that. Were you in this alley the other night?”
“Me Pixel.”
I sighed. “We’re going to have to work on this.” Using my telepathy, I showed him an image of Lionel. He understood.
“Did you see what happened to Lionel?”
Pixel didn’t understand.
“Did you see bad things?”
There was something blocking his thoughts. I couldn’t see them. I thought at first it was his inability to summon up images, even basic ones like the other cats. It was more than that. He was hiding something. “Pixel, let’s get you something to eat.”
“Pixel hungry,” were his final words as he followed me.
Pixel and I headed back to the cabin. The Abigail girl was waking up. She hadn’t eaten any of the mice I had left her. So I ran to the stream and caught several fish. I threw one to Pixel who made short work of his. I carried the other triumphantly to the Abigail girl. She found flint strike and started a fire. She gathered up some twigs. She cleaned the fish. Pixel waited for his share patiently by the fire. “Who is this?” she asked.
“This is Pixel,” I told her.
“Me Pixel,” Pixel said, pleased with himself, puffing up his white chest.
She appeared surprised. “I can understand him, too.”
“You’re hearing him through me.”
“Oh, of course, I forgot. You’re a witch,” she said.
“Witch?” Pixel asked.
“Don’t worry about it, Pixel,” I said before turning to the Abigail girl. “I think Pixel knows what happened to Lionel but he’s not telling.”
She gave Pixel a stern look. Pixel cleaned his paws and then his belly, rolling over on his back, rocking back and forth in his ignorant bliss.
“Don’t mind Pixel, he’s not very bright.”
“What did Pixel see?”
“It’s not what he saw, it’s what he heard. He keeps humming a song that Lionel played, a Delta blues song.”
“Lionel was a musician?”
“Yes, a very talented guitar player, singer, songwriter much like yourself.”
She smiled. “Thank you, I appreciate that. Not too many people have said that to me.”
“Lionel played a song for me the night he was murdered.”
“Sing me the melody. What are the lyrics?” she asked.
“The world is turning while the angels keep watch. It’s the last line I heard before I fell asleep. That’s what has been bothering me. I don’t know how I could sleep through…” I hesitated feeling a sudden guilt. I could have saved him. I could have fought off whoever did that to him. Something or someone kept me asleep.
She repeated, “Angels keep watch. It does sound like a Delta blues lyric.”
“Lionel loved the blues. He said he had swamp water running through his veins.”
“I think I would have liked Lionel,” Abigail said.
I nodded. “Lionel was very humble. Even though he was a man of means at one time, he chose to live on the streets.”
“Why would he do that?” She asked.
“Lionel watched over people.”
“What do you mean watched over people?”
“All beings have a purpose. Some are given that purpose, others find it. Lionel found his, he took care of people. The people who need the most care are the street folk. He made sure we had a place to sleep, food to eat. He kept us safe. He was able to do that because people trusted him. I don't think he would have earned that trust if he hadn’t lived amongst us.”
“I don’t understand.”
“To understand Lionel you have to understand where he came from,” I said. “He was a preacher from a small parish in Louisiana, a leader in the community. It could have been any small town in America where hard-working folks attend church on Sunday. A family of sorts and Lionel their father.” I paused, remembering Lionel sharing his stories. “But under that idyllic parish lay a darkness, a curse. There are places in this world that keep a dark silence, a knowing you might say. Lionel’s parish was such a place. Members of his congregation started disappearing. At first they thought it bad luck. The swamp is a dangerous place in itself but the bayou folk know differently. They understand black magic. They have a name for when evil takes good folk. They call it the reckoning. But life continued as it must. On Sunday he preached God’s mercy to a dwindling congregation. He kept the faith for the faithful and gave his parish hope. Whatever magic was in Lionel saved his parish. A few years later, he fell in love and married. When he learned she was with child, he nearly burst with joy so he said. His joy was short-lived because his young bride died giving birth to his child. And his first born, a boy child, was stillborn. The reckoning came for Lionel and then the rains came, it took his parish, it took his aunt and uncle. It took everyone Lionel knew. The levee broke and took them all. The reckoning took them all leaving only Lionel behind.”
She sat down in the rocking chair beside the fire. I jumped up on her lap and began to purr, an emotion I couldn’t control. “I can’t accept what you’re telling me,” she said.
“I told you your reality is never going to be the same. There’s a lot of magic out in the world. Not all of it is good. You can choose to accept it or pretend it doesn’t exist. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s there. The reckoning followed Lionel. It took his life.”