And now, when she looked down at the coffee table, at the small silver tray of business cards, they said: Ulrich Seaver, SEAVER’S ANTIQUES. The cards were all in gold and silver as elegant as the shop. He was saying, “First we’ll go to the San Francisco gallery, you will be the star, and that show is already scheduled. We’ll get a nice start there, I’ll have the brochures printed by then, I already have the copy ready.”
How could he “have the show already scheduled”—whatever exactly that meant—before he was sure he could catch her or even find her? When he couldn’t be sure at all that she would be his star?
She was certain, by now, that he didn’t know she could speak. She could tell by his expression that he didn’t imagine she understood him, his look didn’t change as if he expected her response. He didn’t wait to see her brighten with joy at what he told her. He was talking only so his voice would reassure her, hoping that his gentle tone would make her feel safe and loved.
Or maybe he was talking, too, to congratulate himself on the project that lay ahead. That he thinks lies ahead, she thought warily.
Maybe it was her color, her markings, that he thought would charm people, like the pictures in the library books.
Could he be connected to that shaggy library prowler? If they were both interested in the old tapestries . . . Maybe Seaver had pored over them just as the prowler had? Were they partners? But where was that man now? And how would those pictures make her famous anyway? For people to see her, then see the same cat in the old tapestries? Why would anyone care? And how strange that the two would be connected, this bald, sleek, well-dressed man, and the library prowler as shaggy as a street person?
He looked at her solemnly. “I wish you could understand me, my dear. I wish you could answer me, could tell me how excited you would be at our new adventure. What an amazement that will be, what fun we’ll have.”
Yes, Courtney thought with another shiver, and what would you do if I did speak? What would you do with me then? And the fear returned, the bright glamour fading to mist.
She stiffened as he rose, but he only turned away. “I will leave you to explore, my dear.” He opened the pale cream draperies to the foggy dawn. “You will find breakfast in the kitchen. A sand box in the laundry room. You will see the gallery later, you will see the paintings and tapestries of you that I have so far collected, and photos of those I have ordered. Those pieces will remain at the New York gallery when they arrive.” He held out his hand to see if she would be gentle or if she would try to scratch again. She swallowed her uncertainty, swallowed her resurging temper, and sniffed hesitantly at his fingers. He smiled with satisfaction, as if they had finally made friends, then he went downstairs to the shop, locking the door behind him.
Free to roam the apartment, she first checked every window but they were all locked tight. In the kitchen, on a tray on the floor, there was fresh salmon and clean water. She didn’t want to eat, her stomach was already roiling. But her fear had made her thirsty, and she drank. She wished, for the first time in her short life, that she could take human form as some speaking cats could do. If she could become a human person she could get out of there in a second, could break a window with a chair, open it, turn back into a cat and be gone across the rooftops.
But she couldn’t change. That was a rare skill indeed, belonging to only a few of her kind.
In less than a year of kittenhood, she had learned a lot, from her mama and Joe Grey, from Kit and Pan and from their human friends; had learned a lot when Wilma read to her. Her and Dulcie’s tall, gray-haired housemate was an ex–federal parole officer, she knew about the human world and, somehow, she knew how to share it in easy terms with a little cat.
Well, and she had learned from her brothers, too. She could fight as hard as Striker and Buffin. She would fight Seaver again even harder if he tried to harm her. Though he hadn’t so far. Even when she left him good and bloodied he hadn’t hit her, and she didn’t think he would.
She had learned to fight from her brothers and from her pa, and learned to swear from them, too. If he touched her with cruel intent just once, she would fight as hard as they, she would kill the bastard, she would shred Ulrich Seaver.
He said she would be happy and famous and that he had wonderful plans for her, but now those words, so softly spoken, made her feel sick again; her emotions swung back and forth until she didn’t know what she believed. The sense of luxury, of being loved by this kind-appearing, elegant stranger, slowly vanished as she prowled the apartment searching for a way out. Searching, the fear returned; she was all at sixes and sevens, she didn’t know what she believed.
She entered the bedroom last, after she’d prowled the living room and through the big open kitchen with an eating area that looked out on the street. The bedroom had a view of Ocean Avenue, and a connected small, bright bathroom. It was these rooms that held her, staring with surprise.
In the bathroom, a lady’s powder box, bottles of lady’s makeup, and a few lace-edged towels. And in the bedroom, in one of two closets, ladies’ clothes, finely tailored suits and blouses, sleek dresses; lovely shoes with low heels. A woman’s expensive purses on the top shelf, everything neat and dust-free.
A woman lived with him, but where was she? Seaver hadn’t mentioned her, not once. When he referred to “we,” she had thought he meant herself: Courtney and Seaver. But had he meant the woman? A wife? There was no picture of her on the dresser, no framed wedding pictures as there were in her own human friends’ homes. Maybe his wife had just taken a trip, leaving him to tend the shop. Or maybe she had gone herself to try to capture the calico cat for whom they had such plans.
Thinking about this, she hopped to the bedroom window to look down on the main street. It was then that she saw the cats below and her human friends, saw almost everyone she knew down on the streets among the shoppers, saw them searching for her. Saw Pan stalking the rooftops, saw Kit across the street peering in among the shadowed peaks—saw her own parents prowling a little garden between buildings; they appeared to be calling her name but she knew they were softly mewling, that was all they dared to do.
She saw Charlie Harper enter a dress shop, maybe to put up a poster. She was carrying a thick roll of heavy paper, her red hair reflecting in the windows. Courtney watched Ryan and Clyde, Joe’s housemates, tacking up posters, too, or taping them to windows. Both were wearing old jeans, faded T-shirts, and baseball caps, ordinary and unremarkable.
Each poster had a big calico drawing of her, her own face, her own right front leg with the three black bracelets, a picture as lifelike as if she were looking in a mirror. That was Charlie Harper’s drawing, sharply reproduced above the words reward: one thousand dollars.
One thousand dollars! Oh my! She backed away, shocked that anyone would lay out money like that. She might be young but she read the paper and she listened to her human friends. She didn’t know what the stock market was except it was all about trading and Clyde said even a thousand dollars was a “nice piece of money.” Was she worth a thousand dollars? And she was more confused than ever.