She needed Jimmie. Right now, at this minute. She needed someone to help her. She was so shaky, felt far more disconnected from the world than when she woke sometimes in the small hours disoriented and terrified. As if she had been out of bed, out of the house. But of course she had dreamed that. Waking, she cowered away from Jimmie, frightened that she would wake him, frightened that he would see her so distraught.
Once when she woke up just before dawn, cold with fear for no reason, she had been shocked at the taste of blood in her mouth, so sharp and metallic a taste that she ran into the bathroom gagging-a taste as if she had eaten something unspeakably vile-and had thrown up into the commode.
Her only escape from those nighttime terrors, as well as from her recurring sense of confinement, was to walk the hills high above the village, to wander the steep winding lanes. Buffeted by the wind, standing in the cold, thrusting wind looking out at the sea and sky and the wide sweep of hills falling away below her, she could ease away those vague, invasive moments.
Alone among the hills she would feel peace descend, a quiet calm. Alone on the hills, she could be herself. And sometimes, up there on the hills, a delight filled her so intense it turned her wild-not a sexual wildness, but a longing to run, a strange and powerful urgency to leap away racing in the wind, free as some animal, wild and primitive, alive.
She could never explain those moments to Jimmie. The two times that she had tried, he was enraged. The second time, he slapped her. Almost as if he feared her joyous feelings, feared her happy, solitary rambles. As if he feared, most of all, her sense of freedom.
Had she been walking the hills when she found her way here into this alley? But why would she come here? There was nothing uplifting or exciting here. And why couldn’t she remember?
Hesitantly she approached the gate, trying to avoid broken glass and filth beneath her bare feet.
With cold, clumsy fingers she lifted the latch and pushed the gate open.
The narrow street was flanked by eucalyptus trees; their scent, and the rattle of their leaves in the sea breeze tended, at once, to ease her anxiety.
To her left above the trees, and quite close, rose the tan stucco tower of the old mission. And she could smell bread baking; she turned, and recognized up the street the blue roof of Hoffman’s Bakery. Yes, she was south of the village. She was on Valley Street, five blocks from the beach, but clear across the village from home.
She left the alley nervously, afraid she would be seen ragged and filthy. But, burning to get home, soon was running, and to hell with what people thought.
Just before Tarver Street she swerved to avoid a man leaving Mullen’s Laundry. He stepped directly in front of her, and when she tried to go around he blocked her and grabbed her arm. She tried to jerk away; she started to shout for help, then thought she recognized him. He waited expectantly, as if she should know him.
Yes, it was Lee Wark, she knew him from the agency. Wark was a freelance car buyer-he furnished the agency with many of its used foreign cars.
What did he want with her? She tried to back away, but he held her arm tightly. His eyes frightened her. She wanted to cry out, but she couldn’t seem to speak. When he didn’t loose his grip she went limp, and stood relaxed, watching him, waiting for the moment she could jerk away and run.
He was wearing a tan windbreaker and a tan print shirt. His clothes were respectable enough, but his slouched shoulders dragged wrinkles into the jacket, making it hang like a rag. His long rough hair, and the thick, skin-colored salve he had on his face, made him look dirty. She felt trapped by his eyes, light brown eyes, small and unpleasant, no hint of human warmth. Still he hadn’t spoken. She felt so cold, felt strange. She didn’t understand what was happening. He had begun to whisper, words she couldn’t make out, perhaps a foreign language, maybe his native Welsh. His unintelligable words terrified her; she jerked away, kicking at him. He grabbed her again. She hithim in the face and twisted, broke away and ran.
He shouted, pounding after her. She prayed for a shop to duck into, but she was beside a tall, solid fence. She bolted for the shops ahead, but Wark grabbed her from behind, spinning her around to face him.
His voice was so low she had to strain to hear. But now she wanted to hear, suddenly she needed to hear, she longed to hear every whispered word. His words made a rhyme, soft and foreign and musical, words flowing all together. Sweet, so sweet, like music. His hands were huge. Immense hands jerking her up, dangling her off the ground. He was a giant swinging her in the air, throwing her soft furry body like a toy. She tried to scream and heard a cat screaming. She dug her claws into Wark’s arm and leaped into his face, clawing and biting, wild with rage, hungry for the taste of his blood, relishing the feel of his tender flesh tearing under her claws.
He struck her. She fell twisting, hit the sidewalk on four paws running, dodging pedestrians’ feet, running from him. Her vision filled with shoes and pant legs. She skidded past the wheels of parked cars and beneath bushes, then across a street. Huge cars exploded toward her; tires squealed as she fled between them.
The village she sped through was both familiar and totally foreign. She saw streets and buildings she recognized. But mostly she saw the bottoms of windows just above her, the thresholds of doors, saw feet and wheels and skirt bottoms. She dodged between potted trees, seeing little more than the pots, leaped beneath newspaper racks. The smells from the pavement were sharp, smells of people, of dogs. The sidewalks were so hard under her paws; every crack and pebble telegraphed itself through her body by way of her flying paws. She heard her pursuer pounding behind her. But his footsteps grew fainter.
When she at last reached home, she had lost him. Or he had simply stopped following. She didn’t think until later that Wark already knew where she lived, that he had stopped by the house several times on business, once to consult Jimmie about a restored MG that Wark had bought for the agency.
Wark knew where she lived. He could find her any time.
Shivering, she crawled beneath the rhododendron bushes that edged the front lawn, the bushes she had so painstakingly planted, digging the deep holes herself, working in the peat moss and manure. Jimmie hated yard work.
Beneath her flowering bushes she lay licking the pain in her side where Wark had hit her. Slowly her breathing eased. She lifted an exploring paw and touched her long whiskers. What a strange, electrical sensation that made, the charge racing all through her. Her whiskers were little, stiff antennae sending intricate alarm messages through her entire body.
She flexed her claws, liking the feel of that, and she was amused to see Wark’s blood on them. Casually she licked it off.
How sharp were the smells in the garden, the spicy geranium, the bitter scent of the lantana growing along the sidewalk. Her ears flicked forward, then back, catching each hint of sound. She could hear clearly the sharp, bright, tin whistle call of a wren several blocks away. She could hear the loud rustle of a lizard across the yard, one that had got itself trapped in a discarded candy wrapper.
Each sound was many-layered, not flat and muffled as it had come to her as a woman. Even the breeze had far more tones than she had ever imagined, as did the pounding waves on the distant shore.
For the first time in her life, her senses were totally alive, as if she had just awakened from some somnambulant half-life. As she rose to prowl the garden, her pads telegraphed every turn of earth, every degree of warmth or chill or dampness. Wandering, she stared over her shoulder at her lashing tail, and she liked the feel of that, too. Tail lashing seemed as sexy and liberating as dancing.
She should have been terror-stricken at her transformation, should be screaming with horror, trying to escape the thing she had become. Instead she felt only delight.