She knew she had to go down, she wasn’t safe here. She knew there was a place for her, a special place for the calico with the three bracelets, she believed what the ferals had told her. She was filled with excitement at what she would discover in that new world, and was terrified at what she might confront. She looked helplessly at her family and friends, confusion boiling in her heart—but something called to her, from that world. And she was glad the ferals would be with her, she would be terrified to go down alone.
She rose. She faced her parents and her dear friends. She whispered, but then she said boldly, “Good-bye. I love you. I love you all as I love the spirit who made us. I will come back to you.” Turning, not looking back again, she headed for the little hidden cave that would drop down to the rocky tunnel that would lead, by morning, into the Netherworld: the ferals were all around her, some disappeared ahead of her, racing down into the black tunnel, dropping down and down, abandoning the upper world.
They were gone. Courtney was gone.
Courtney’s friends and family went away silently, in twos and threes, back into the village where the calico would no longer be present; leaving the Pamillon estate where there would no longer be any speaking ferals. Everyone was crying, Scotty and Clyde hiding their tears.
What would occur in the world of speaking cats, in the future, no one knew.
That night, Joe and Dulcie sat together atop Wilma’s roof looking east toward the hills where hidden chasms fell down into that other world. There was fog low over the hills, veiling a thin smear of moonlight. They didn’t speak. Until Dulcie said, “We raised a strong girl. What amazing things will she do there?”
“We raised three strong kittens,” Joe Grey said. “Each has chosen a useful life, each will make their mark. This is not the end. This is the beginning.”
But there would be many nights when they would sit together brooding, looking up at the hills or out across the sea. Or they would sit with Wilma watching the moon rise, contemplating the lives that had come before and those that will come after. Knowing there was cruelty and pain in this world, but knowing this wasn’t the last life. Knowing that the true living spirit was courage, mixed with love, and Courtney had that. And, as Ryan and Clyde reminded them, the calico carried within her the genes of their own spirits. A part of Joe and Dulcie would always be with her.
About the Author
SHIRLEY ROUSSEAU MURPHY is the author of twenty-one mysteries in the Joe Grey series, for which she has won the Cat Writers’ Association Muse Medallion eleven years running, and has received ten national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year. She is also a noted children’s book author, and has received five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards. She lives in Carmel, California, where she serves as full-time household help to two demanding feline ladies.
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Also by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
Cat Shining Bright
Cat Shout for Joy
Cat Bearing Gifts
Cat Telling Tales
Cat Coming Home
Cat Striking Back
Cat Playing Cupid
Cat Deck the Halls
Cat Pay the Devil
Cat Breaking Free
Cat Cross Their Graves
Cat Fear No Evil
Cat Seeing Double
Cat Laughing Last
Cat Spitting Mad
Cat to the Dogs
Cat in the Dark
Cat Raise the Dead
Cat Under Fire
Cat on the Edge
The Catsworld Portal
By Shirley Rousseau Murphy and Pat J. J. Murphy
The Cat, the Devil, the Last Escape
The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
cat chase the moon. Copyright © 2019 by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Cover illustration © Beppe Giacobbe
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Murphy, Shirley Rousseau, author.
Title: Cat chase the moon : a Joe Grey mystery / Shirley Rousseau Murphy.
Description: First Edition. | New York, NY : William Morrow, [2018] | Series: Joe Grey mystery ; 21
Identifiers: LCCN 2018032655 | ISBN 9780062838049 (hc)
Subjects: LCSH: Grey, Joe (Fictitious character) —Fiction. | Cats--Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3563.U7619 C2 2018 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018032655
Digital Edition APRIL 2019 ISBN 978-0-06-283806-3
Print ISBN 978-0-06-283804-9
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