Sarah set out at sunrise, ignoring the scurries of the field mice and the chirping of birds all around. She hunted instead for what she was certain would turn out to be a dead body. Why “certain”? There were exactly six reasons why, and this would become the seventh.
First, there was Tiger. He was actually very sweet–named for his stripes, not his personality. He was Sarah’s first love, and they would have made adorable kittens together: All calico girls like Sarah and tiger-striped boys like him. But before the pair grew close enough, Tiger discovered his human family’s cache of rat poison. When he vomited blood, his humans took him to the pet urgent care, and Sarah never saw him again.
Then, there was Jefe, who came in strong and swept Sarah off her paws. Sad and perhaps wanting to be rescued, Sarah was easy prey for that suave feline. But again, it was not to be. His black fur made him practically invisible at night, and he was struck by a car while crossing the road… to visit Sarah. Sarah suspected that the driver had been distracted by the glow of her cat eyes in the dark. When Jefe streaked in front of the car, he went unnoticed until it was much too late. Sarah would have carried guilt over his death, even if all the other deaths hadn’t happened. But they kept coming, and the common denominator was her.
Third came Swifty the Mouser–Sarah thought his name was a little on the nose–, who swiped some flowers and brought them to her, the sap glistening where his sharp teeth had dug into the stems. No one had warned Swifty about lilies. Sarah ran when she identified the flower, but The Mouser ran faster, even with the awkward burden of a gift in his mouth. Sarah climbed a tree, and Swifty finally had to drop the poisonous bouquet in order to chase after her.
She was surprised that he didn’t die right away. Instead, she had time to explain the danger to him. Swifty believed her at first, and his tail poofed into the poster picture of primal fear. But when he remained upright and apparently well, he made light of her warning. “I know you’re afraid of flowers,” he joked.
It took days before he couldn’t walk and weeks before he died. “Kidney failure,” she heard one of his adult humans explain to a child. Swifty had stolen the flowers from a van that was delivering to a church. Maybe it was his own curse that killed him, but it felt to Sarah like it was her fault. He fell in love with her, and he was doomed. It was only a matter of how he would go.
Next was Sylvester, who was a little clumsy. He leapt out of the family car window, left open for the drive because his humans didn’t appreciate the depths of his silliness. What a needless, horrible way to go. In retrospect, he hadn’t been Sarah’s smartest choice, but her heart was so battered at this point, she had reason to be reckless in love.
Numbers Five and Six… Sarah had trouble remembering their names. They came along at about the same time, and Sarah had an apathetic thought that perhaps two of them at once, a break in the pattern, might end the curse somehow. She was demanding and a little testy with these toms, feeling somewhat detached from them both, and this had the result of making them work hard to “win” her. Each one’s attachment to Sarah grew in proportion to his efforts, unfortunately.
In Sarah’s mind, these deaths were definitely her fault. Numbers Five and Six got into a brawl over her one sunset. They discovered one another around the corner from the bird feeders at her home. As their match tumbled about the yard, they failed to notice a long shadow circling over them. That shadow stretched beneath a hawk, who managed to kill them both.
Sarah, unable to get her owner’s attention, couldn’t open the door herself. Of course, she had no plan for how she would end the fight, if she did go out. Still, it horrified Sarah to watch the entire bloodbath from the kitchen window. She held vigil long after their bodies had been carried off. In disbelief, she sat as if paralyzed, not blinking, not licking, and not purring. She simply stared out the window, willing a different world to appear.
When Nice Lady called for her, it broke the spell. Sarah settled numbly on the lap of her owner. In the living room, Nice Lady hadn’t heard a thing over her superhero action movie.
Finally, the seventh suitor was named Rascal. He was a rebel, accustomed to trouble, and he assured Sarah that he could watch his own back. (He often commented that he liked watching her remarkable calico backside even more.) Rascal refused to heed her warnings. He simply reassured her that he knew about all the usual poisons, and he showed her how carefully he could cross the road. Little by little, he earned Sarah’s trust. She couldn’t pinpoint when her heart had made a place for him, but now that he had missed a date, it hurt so much, so deeply. Sarah had to look for him. She had to be sure. After all, what could kill Rascal?
Sarah padded on silent paws through the tall weeds, following a creek toward Rascal’s barn, and there she found the most unlikely tableau. A wanderer, a long-haired and dirty maine coon, was prowling around Rascal’s body, sniffing at his mouth. The stranger’s coat looked as if someone had taken all Sarah’s colors and thrown them into a new pattern of tiger stripes–most prominently the darker browns and blacks–on fur twice the length of her own and encrusted with tan dirt. He wore white in the pattern of a breastplate not unlike Sarah’s chest, except that her fur was clean and luminous. But what caught Sarah’s interest was the extra black hairs extending from the tips of his ears, reminding her of the super-sized radio antennae on police vehicles. “Fish bone,” the filthy cat murmured to himself, then looked as if he were about to leave the body there.
“What did you say?” Sarah meowed out to him.
The wanderer noticed her for the first time and gave her an obvious once-over. Sarah’s markings were striking, so she got this reaction often. “Fish bone,” he repeated, once he was done gawking. “He choked on it.”
“How can you tell? I don’t see a fish.” Sarah answered. She hadn’t ruled out that the maine coon was lying. Perhaps he had killed Rascal. A stalker murderer–which would naturally look like this dirty cat—would simplify the explanation of what was happening, and maybe it wouldn’t all be her fault. The guilt was such a crushing weight, she wished that just one jealous being was causing all her pain. If it was this dirtball, she could put an end to all the death. She eyed him with a view to finding the truth, but she came up empty. The stranger wore that long, dirt-filmed fur like a disguise, hiding the cat from view.
“Take a sniff,” he explained. “It smells of fish and gastric juice. This cat choked on a fish bone.” As he explained, he made eye contact with Sarah, and, all at once for the eighth time, the poor calico lady-cat was smitten. Those warm, caring amber eyes drew her in, but her brain protested that she would not do this and be responsible for another death! She hardened herself with the most steely resolve of which she was capable. She would not fall in love again.
Sarah tried to focus on his unappetizing flaws, taking a few experimental sniffs and then sneezing just as many times in quick succession. The tom’s fur was caked in dust from the road. It was tough to believe he smelled much besides his own stink, but he fancied himself some kind of forensic sniffer. “Who are you?” she asked, making no attempt to sound friendly, all the while aware that with proper grooming, his sleek blacks, browns, oranges, and that white chest would probably be stunning. Sarah involuntarily imagined herself helping with that, then violently pushed the thought away.
“They call me Coon Dog,” was his answer. That snapped her out of her fight against daydreaming. Coon Dog? It sounded like a bad joke. Sarah had bigger problems, though, so she simply passed him with a wide berth to mourn Rascal… another dead sweetheart. If she were a good cat, she would shut down Coon Dog’s interest in her. Otherwise, he would end up just like Rascal.
Coon Dog allowed her to pass without contest or meowing, which Sarah appreciated. It was quite a surprise to hear him shuffling nearer. Sarah had it in mind to cast him a threatening glare and realized he’d already sat next to her, as if he could tell Sarah was in a dangerous mood, better not left alone. He just had to be nice and irresistible, didn’t he? Sarah tried hard to be annoyed about it.
“Was he a friend?” Coon Dog wanted to know.
“Fiance,” she answered curtly. Sarah hoped he would hear her tone and think of his own safety.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but his eyes narrowed as if he were suspicious. “Do you have someone who can look after you?” he asked, but it sounded as if he wanted to know something else.
He imagined that Sarah was in shock, that she’d never been through something so difficult. The idea caused Sarah to repress an unwanted smile. Her tail stopped lashing in annoyance then, and her ears fell in grief. Sarah sagged and found herself lying next to Rascal. Then, she noticed the smell Coon Dog had described.
Just when Sarah thought she could form the words to tell Coon Dog she was fine, two strays, Maisie and Moxie, slowed from their obvious hurry to arrive somewhere and rubbernecked at the scene. “Oh no, Sarah! Not another one! Mrroooow! I didn’t mean to put it like that,” Maisie said, and maybe she was telling the truth. But there would be no rest for the gossip mill today. “Are you alright, girl?”
“Yes, thank you.” Sarah answered, bolt upright now and carefully not touching the newcomer. On a whim of optimism, Sarah hoped that perhaps Maisie cared about her and wasn’t just digging for details to share around Big Barn, a place so full of mice, it served as a sort of cafe for the area cats. Maisie and Moxie were undoubtedly following the creek to Big Barn when they had come across this spectacle.
Moxie took apparent enjoyment in the situation. Shaking her head, she admonished, “It’s not like you didn’t know this would happen. Take care and leave some alive for the rest of us.” Moxie had never been in love, not mutually anyway, and she was getting older. Sarah thought that was why the feline took so much pleasure in putting her down.
Maisie had the tact to act embarrassed. “Moxie, that’s not nice.”
“Yeah, Moxie,” Coon growled in a warning tone, finally calling attention to himself. “Why don’t you move along instead of making a bad situation worse?”
Moxie sniffed at him and then pulled her head back as if repelled by him. Then, her calculating head swivelled, adding the stranger’s presence plus Sarah’s presence, and she warned, “Be careful, whoever you are. Hers always die.” Then she and Maisie padded along the way Sarah had come down the creek bed. Sarah figured the busybodies were on their way to Big Barn already.
Needing to feel connection with someone, Sarah complained to Coon, “They can’t just let me grieve. My private life will fuel their idle prattle for as long as it takes to find something else to gossip about. Their type can’t live without someone else’s pain to feed off of.”
Coon looked confused, but Sarah had no idea where she’d lost him until he asked, “Who cares what they think?” His voice carried genuine puzzlement.
He had a point, she supposed. Why did Sarah care what people said about her? But the ugly truth was that she did care. Her cat parents lived close enough to Big Barn that they heard the gossip, too. They were hurting on her behalf, and they were going to be constantly reminded that her fortune had worsened again. It somehow made the curse heavier to bear, because people knew she was carrying it. She wasn’t just guilty of all this death, but she was a burden to her littermates, other siblings, cousins, and parents. They carried some of the tarnish of Sarah’s reputation by association. Why couldn’t she just be the cat for whom things were going well? Couldn’t God help her out just once, she wondered. She knew God heard her, but He didn’t seem to be replying on this particular subject.
Coon seemed to be waiting for Sarah to speak. “Is there something you want?” Sarah asked, adding “Why are you here?” before he could respond to her first question.
Coon had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m an investigator.”
“Police?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, feline police,” he clarified, but it sounded to Sarah like he was just getting a story straight. “I’m from Philadelphia,” he answered with pride.
Sarah didn’t know where Philadelphia was compared to Medina. “Is that far?” She asked.
He shrugged. “A few hills over.”
“And they sent you here to investigate?”
He shrugged again, but Sarah was impressed. She’d only seen police on TV or driving by. She didn’t know there were police cats, like there were police dogs, but she thought it was a smart idea.
When Sarah looked about uncertainly, grasping for focus on the situation at hand, Coon asked, “What do you want to do?”
It seemed that he was offering to help. Then something caught his eye as he looked past Sarah’s tail. Up the hill, sitting and looking down on the cats, a basset hound had appeared. This shook Sarah, partly because she hadn’t heard it approach, and mostly because it looked like the same basset hound Sarah had encountered on another fateful day.
Gathering her courage, Sarah yowled, “Who are you?” It seemed to be the question of the morning.
The dog blinked at Sarah, which she interpreted as either boredom or a non-answer. Carefully stalking toward the ungainly beast, Sarah was surprised to hear Coon’s objection, “Leave him be.” As if Sarah were the one being nosy! The dog was spying and being as creepy as possible!
Sarah didn’t want to get into a fight with Coon, and she didn’t want to stay under the observation of a dog. It was time to leave. “It was nice to meet you,” she said. “See you around.” And she took in one last look at Rascal, unwilling to grieve in front of a crowd.
“What do you want done with the body?” Coon pressed.
“His owner will want to know what happened. Let her find him. We aren’t far from his home now,” Sarah answered. As if her slitted eyes could read his soul, Sarah glared at Coon Dog to see whether he would really leave Rascal alone. At his nod, Sarah broke eye contact and let her springy paws fly her away to privacy.
As she ran through the tall weeds uphill, putting distance between her and the creek, the hound apparition, Coon Dog, and her seventh lost suitor, Sarah stumbled off balance because her tail kept tucking between her legs. Setting all four paws firmly on the ground before taking off again, she remembered the last time she had seen… if not that hound then one just like him.
It had been about a year ago. Sarah remembered the vet’s office by smell, the smell that always hit her before the entrance door even swung open. Trembling that day, she had observed the other animals in the waiting room: Two of them were cats in hard plastic carriers like hers, one of them an angelic white and short-haired cat, the other a smoke-colored Scottish fold with intense, preternatural yellow eyes.
There was a quiet dog with droopy ears that made him appear–not so much sad as weary. Weary of the world, Sarah thought, just when she recalled the breed name, basset hound. His owner sat with shoulders slumped by a similar knowing. Sarah had been inexperienced and carefree at the time. Still, she had wondered what it was they knew.
Unspeakable things happened when the vet took Sarah away from her owner–poking and sticking, pulling, bleeding, and so many things she had to put out of mind as soon as they were done. Reunited with her human afterwards, Sarah was relieved not only because the torture was over but because Nice Lady, her human, praised her. She was a “good kitty,” one who hadn’t made a fuss. Sarah had been called a bad cat before with her first family, and it was no way to live. The best thing they had done for Sarah was return her to the shelter, giving her a second chance at a happy adoption. Maybe she was unusual for a cat, but she stretched under the praise of her Forever Human like it was sunshine.
Recalling the trip now, Sarah settled her haunches into the tall weeds. That trip to the vet might have been the moment when her life had taken a skid sideways.The basset hound and both cats had been in the waiting room again at checkout. The other two cats were in carriers, lined up behind Sarah and her owner. The dog was sitting with his owner in the same spot, perhaps still waiting for his round of probing.
The Scottish fold with the intense eyes asked for Sarah’s name, so she gave it.
“That’s a stupid name for a stupid cat,” and Sarah felt stupid as she struggled to understand the Scottish brogue. “So typical of humans. They once worshipped us as gods, and that’s what we deserve. Well, that’s what I deserve. I don’t know about you. Sarah.” He made the name sound like something vulgar, but then everything sounded vulgar in a Scottish accent. “Ye two-legged creature with a goose’s heid and a hen’s hart!” All the while, his voice resonated in reflection of his exaggerated self-importance.
Something possessed Sarah then. Curiosity, perhaps. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Angra Mainyu,” he enunciated, wanting his name to be known correctly, Sarah supposed. It sounded like a yawn and some throat clearing.
“Don’t listen to him,” the angelic white cat cautioned. “His owner called him ‘Angus’. I heard it, and he’s only jealous because his owner won’t give him treats. He was … not a good kitty,” she tactfully explained. Her little meows were higher pitched and musical. She seemed to sing, “My name is Candy.”
Sarah gave Candy a slow blink by way of a thank-you, and Candy slow-blinked back. Angus, however, was not to be thwarted. It seemed that the goal of his day was to be as destructive as possible.
“Candy? What a sweet name for a cat with mince for brains! I was talking to the scooper, not the litter,” Angus retorted. “And ye, Sarah, geeza brek!” Sarah played the phrase in her mind a few times to finally conclude that Angus wanted her to give ‘us’ a break, whoever ‘we’ were. “Ye should be ashamed to be called a good kitty, but instead, yer pleased! Ye should be praised regardless of yer behavior, and ye should never work fer that praise.” He intoned work with the kind of meow Sarah usually reserved for car rides, such as the one that brought her to the vet. Would this arrogant cat think better of her, if he knew she’d raised a fuss privately?
Sarah didn’t get the chance to tell him. Angus continued, boring those intense yellow eyes into her. “We are gods, and I will make you see that we have power. I curse ye to have only the company of humans, never of a loving cat, ye traitor to all cats. If anyone happens to fall in love with ye, they will surely DIE before ye have a chance to make kittens,” he hissed. “Ye will always be alone or wish ye had stayed alone!”
Candy nervously shifted her weight, causing her carrier to seesaw in her human’s hand. “He’s only jealous! And he can’t curse you! He’s just some cat named Angus,” Candy explained, and it sounded a lot like she only hoped Angus couldn’t curse anyone, Sarah thought. Worries took root in her despite Candy’s best efforts. Angus’s words shifted some kind of weight onto Sarah’s chest, making it noticeably harder to breathe.
When Nice Lady carried her back out into the cold winter day, the last thing Sarah saw out the back door of her carrier was that pensive dog. He looked tearful now, blinking big watery eyes at Sarah. She struggled to pull air into her lungs, as if the organs wouldn’t stretch. Maybe it was a short panic attack, Sarah reasoned with hindsight. How could this have kicked off a string of seven unfortunate accidents, seven wonderful tom cats dead because of her? Would she ever shed that crushing weight of doom?
***
Coon turned from the beautiful calico, running away to hide her heartache. The basset hound had moved without making a sound of approach, and Coon’s eyes widened to find the hound mere feet away now. “Proud of yourself?”
The hound did not reply to the implied accusation. “Follow the rumors to a place called Big Barn. Your investigation will culminate there. The truth will be known. Then I will lead you to the treasure your father left in a nearby river. There, your fortunes will reverse permanently,” the mournful dog promised in his slow drawl. “Yours, your father’s, and the kind, courageous cat, Sarah,” he clarified in a rumble that sounded a little like a car engine running out of gas.
Coon wasn’t surprised when the hound disappeared. He wouldn’t be surprised to discover that he’d been speaking with an angel of death.
***
The dog had first appeared to Coon in just the same way earlier that day, seeming to blink into existence as Coon sat in his yard, waiting to be let back inside his house at sunrise. The hound had skipped introductions and simply announced, “The prayer of your father and the prayer of a courageous, good kitty named Sarah have both met with favor. What they prayed for will not be granted at this time. But God will show His favor to them. They will no longer desire what they prayed for,” the hound ominously predicted. “Follow me to the lady-cat, a very good kitty whom you will set free from a demon, when your father sends you on a journey today. We will also collect his stockpile from the river,” the hound said.
Coon had several questions, but he decided to start with the most basic one. “We’re traveling together, so should I know your name?” Coon asked.
“Toby,” the dog answered and disappeared.
Coon’s father was just then using his ears and his nose to pick his way across the yard. He was blind and therefore hid from humans, certain that they would take him to the vet and put him down, if they got their hands on him. His eyelids had sealed shut, seared by an explosive burst from a house fire. Raphael approached carefully now, all of his fur intact and well-groomed, thanks to good nutrition, pride, and his son’s assistance.
Coon closed the distance to his father. It was painful to watch him picking his way gingerly along the yard, trying not to run into things.
“Who was that?” Raphael asked. “What did he want?”
Coon was relieved that his father hadn’t picked up any words from the conversation. “Just a dog looking for directions.”
“Well that’s a coincidence,” his father replied. “I came out here to send you on a trip, to give you directions.” He smiled to himself, as if the old cat found himself clever. Coon didn’t try to shake that small dignity his father held.
“Where to, Dad?” he encouraged.
“Well, I’m old and … let’s say I might not be around forever. Before I’m gone, I want you to go find a cache of catnip seeds I left tied up at the bottom of a river.”
Now that was a treasure worth finding, Coon thought. “The bottom of a river? Why?” Coon was amazed at every part of his father’s speech. Other than blindness, there was nothing wrong with Raphael, no reason to think he didn’t have at least seven lives left, if not eight. Then again, perhaps this was a clue to the prayer God would be answering creatively.
“Where else would you hide something you don’t want other cats to find?” The older cat smiled like he had a canary in his mouth, obviously pleased with himself.
Coon Dog had his mission: Go get his dad’s things, which would mean getting wet, and find the good kitty named Sarah. First, he fed his father a nice mouse from the field, and then he set off, coming across Rascal’s body and meeting the unreachable but beautiful calico.
***
Recalling all of this, Coon followed Sarah’s wishes and left the unfortunate body for Rascal’s human to put to rest. Coon set off in the same direction Moxie and Maisie had gone, eager to follow through on his investigation, discover the truth and move things forward. After all, he had a reasonable idea what Sarah and Raphael had prayed for, a guess based on how unhappy each of them were.
What would Sarah pray for, while she looked for her seventh suitor’s body? It seemed obvious that Coon’s father expected to die for some reason and wanted to tie up loose ends. Both cats were lonely and probably both felt like a burden. The only thing missing was an easy way to trade off the rest of their nine lives. It saddened Coon, but he had hope. The hound told him they wouldn’t wish for it anymore, and the prayers would be answered a different way. Coon just had to keep going.
It seemed that Toby–or maybe God, who presumably sent the hound–was trying to restore, if not their whole lives, then at least hope for Sarah and Coon’s father. Well, Coon thought, it was going to take a lot more than catnip seeds to make that happen. Toby seemed like an old dog, so whatever tricks he had already learned were the only ones he’d ever know. Coon Dog hoped they would be enough and obeyed the hound. Why? Because like his father and Sarah, Coon was an extraordinary and deeply good kitty, too.
TO BE CONTINUED…