The Catswold Portal (31 page)

S
he was afraid of taking the elevator by herself. She got out of the station wagon nervously as Braden paused in traffic. She entered the brick office building, pushed the elevator button, and steeled her nerve to slip inside. She was glad she was alone and not among strangers. She rode up feeling skittery, wanting to climb the wall. She tripped as she left the moving box and thought the door would close on her. Unnerved, she fled to find Mathew Rhain's office.

A blond, tight-lipped secretary took her name. Melissa turned her back on the woman and stood looking at the watercolors of sailing ships that decorated the waiting room. When Mathew Rhain came out of the inner office she froze, so startled she found it hard to speak.

Rhain was a short, stocky man with hair the color of red clay. He had a broad, freckled face and broad, short-fingered hands. He was taller than an elven man, and he greeted her with the smooth manners of an upperworlder; but Mathew Rhain had elven blood.

Why would a Netherworlder be living and working in the upperworld?

But why shouldn't he? McCabe had. Mag had, once. No one knew how many Netherworlders had escaped the tyrannies of enslaved nations to live in the free world above.

Rhain studied her with intense interest, as curious about her as she was about him. He took her hand, searching her face. “You are McCabe's daughter. Even if West hadn't told me, I would see it.” He drew her into his private office and closed the door. The room was furnished with colored leather chairs, an oriental rug, and more sailing ships, in paintings, and as models arranged along the tops of the bookshelves. On a table at one end of the room lay three black leather binders.

Rhain seated her at the table. “McCabe was my good friend. I wish he could know that you are well—that you are here.”

She squeezed his stubby, square hand. “Braden said you would want some proof of who I am, but I'm afraid I don't have any proof.”

“I think I can arrange some proof. These are McCabe's journals. I have kept them safe since he died.”

“Was there—anything besides the journals?”

He settled a quiet look on her. His eyes were rust colored, with little lights that softened them. “There was nothing else. John Kitchen has McCabe's paintings, those that were left, and what few books survived the earthquake. Perhaps he has other things. Do the Kitchens know you've—returned?”

She supposed Braden had explained to him about her memory. She said, “Not yet. Braden says they are in Europe.”

“They're expected back in a few weeks.”

She said, “Have you lived in the city long? Did you know my father long?”

“My grandfather and McCabe's grandfather were friends, in the gold fields. I—have lived in many places.” He reached for the leatherbound books. “You may find the journals difficult to open.” He sat down opposite her, watching her. Reaching to open the first journal, she understood why she would need no identification. The journals were sealed. She glanced up at Rhain. If she wanted to open her father's journals she must use Netherworld powers. She must put all her trust in this sandy-haired elven man if she were to find any clue to the Amulet.

She was afraid—of being discovered, of Braden learning about her.

But she must do this.

The books had dates on the front, written on a white label in a bold script. She chose the volume that would cover the year Timorell came up into the upperworld. Not looking at Rhain, she made a silent spell for opening.

The cover freed itself. She opened McCabe's journal then looked up to meet Rhain's eyes. Their secrets were shared, and she knew he must trust her now, as she was forced to trust him. He rose, and left her, shutting the door behind him.

She touched the velum page, admiring McCabe's neat, square script. She meant to flip through until she found McCabe's description of Timorell, but the journal fell open to that page as if McCabe had gone back often to this passage where he first saw Timorell.

Melissa paused, feeling her pulse pound. Why would Timorell commission a sculpture in a museum strange to her, in a world strange to her?

Unless she had a special use for that sculpture. She tried to remember an iron or bronze cat with the artist's name Smith.

In the succeeding pages, she found no further mention of the sculpture. Braden had come in; the two men sat at the other end of the office deep in conversation. She felt unnerved to see him talking comfortably with a Netherworlder:
how strange that the two worlds kept pushing together, flowing together. She had thought of Braden as totally removed from the realms of the Netherworld, but now that separation seemed less severe.

Melissa turned forward to the last two entries.

The empty pages that followed should have been filled with their lives together, with their love, with their baby growing up, learning to walk and talk, learning to live as McCabe and Timorell did, both as cat and as human.

She imagined too vividly her father falling from a rooftop, twisting, fighting himself, then hit by falling bricks. She tried not to see Timorell sprawled under the fallen bookcase in the wrecked apartment. She was trembling with pain for them, wanted to weep for them.

When Rhain rose, she said, “I must give the journals back.”

“It is only a formality. They have been safe here for a long time.”

She laid her hand over the volumes, closing them with a silent spell. She rose, handing them to him. Their eyes met, sharing their secret.

T
he coast was ragged and wild. Waves crashed against the dark, wet cliffs. Occasional cypress trees thrust out of the stone, trees as gnarled and bent as if giant hands had twisted them. Seaspray leaped on the wind, beading Melissa's blowing hair, dampening Braden's shirt. They stood together looking straight down the rocks at the sea where the water heaved and fell. Dark kelp beds soughed up and down, and surface breakers crashed thundering against the pitted stone. The smell of salt and iodine made Melissa tip her tongue out to taste the sharp scent. Braden watched her, powerfully immersed in her animal pleasure at the wildness of sea and wind. She seemed as totally engrossed as if she had never seen the sea. Each time gulls wheeled over them her hands moved involuntarily, as if she wanted to fly with them—or snatch them from the wind and hold them.

Driving down from San Francisco they had stopped at Half Moon Bay for lunch, had sat at a window table facing the beach, eating clam chowder and French bread. Outside the glass, the deserted white sand stretched to an empty sea, and even that flat expanse had held her. She had seemed fascinated with the wheeling gulls; her mouth had curved up with pleasure when gulls screamed by their window. Now he watched her, charmed by her eagerness, wanting to show her everything, to share with her the village where he had grown up, its red-roofed cottages, its hilly, winding streets, its little restaurants and galleries. Wanting her to love the inn that had been his home, wanting her to be a part of it.

Within an hour he was showing her Carmel, the narrow,
shop-lined alleys, the Monterey pines marching down the divided main street. The inn stood a block from the shore; he could see that she liked its white stucco walls and red tile roof, and its balconies bright with potted red geraniums. Mrs. Trask kept it just as neat and welcoming as it was the day she bought it from Gram. He parked and reached behind the seat for their bags and his painting things. Melissa swung out, took her bag and his and went ahead up the brick walk, looking.

 

The lobby pleased her; she entered slowly. Sunlight through tall windows played over the white walls and potted ferns. The large cool room was high ceilinged, its brown tile floors bare, its white wicker chairs cushioned in pale blue. Only the proprietress looked out of place, black as a raven in her long black dress and thick black stockings and flat black shoes. Mrs. Trask was a hard-looking old woman with gray, grizzled hair knotted behind her head. But when she saw Braden and cried out a greeting and hugged him, her face changed; she was all smiles and warmth. “I save your usual room. Is enough space for easel. Do you bring a cloth to cover my floor?”

Braden nodded and grinned, hugging her.

The woman looked at Melissa shyly, perhaps comparing her to Alice, but then she smiled and took Melissa's hand in a warm, engulfing grip.

Their room was on the third floor. Its wide corner windows looked down over the village to the sand and sea. Its tile floors showed off white embroidered rugs, and the thick white spread was embroidered with flowers; crewel work, Braden said. He unfolded his drop cloth in a corner and set up his easel, then grabbed her in a hug. “I don't know whether to take you to bed, or swimming. Either way, take your clothes off.”

 

It was much later that they swam. The sea frightened her and was ice cold. Behind them the beach was nearly deserted except for a few walkers; no one else was swim
ming. The waves hit her so hard she could hardly stand. Beyond the waves, Braden swam strongly, and she wouldn't be outdone. She followed, thankful Mag had made her learn in the swift Sesut River. But they came out soon, freezing, and lay warming on the sand, holding hands, feeling the heat build, thinking of lovemaking until they rose and returned to the inn.

They entered the inn through the rear patio where they could hose off their feet. The bricks had just been washed. The round tables were pushed together and the chairs piled on top, and a man in coveralls was setting mouse traps behind the potted geraniums. Mrs. Trask sat at a table cutting up raw bacon for mouse-bait. Her face looked angry and sullen, as if she trusted no one, but again when she smiled the sun came out. Melissa wondered if she had had a very hard life.

The old woman looked them over. “You have goose bumps. No one swims in that water—water like ice. Foolish, Braden. People drown in that water.” She saw Melissa staring at the traps, and smiled.

“Mouse somewhere. It overruns us. I tell Arnol, either we must catch him or we have to have a cat. I never see mouse so bad.”

 

And there were mice; that night in the small hours when Braden slept, she heard scratching in the wall and lay trying to decide exactly where. The sound drew her, teased her; she was afraid of the way it made her feel. She rose at last and stood looking out toward the sea where the breakers rolled white in the moonlight, trying to hear only the pounding waves, trying to ignore the scratching in the walls behind her.

But soon she could smell the mouse, too, and her muscles tensed, and she felt the dropping feeling that heralded change. She resisted change, but all her senses were honed on the mouse. Its smell was too strong to bear. Its scratching teased and tormented.

Maybe she could change to the calico for just a moment.
Braden slept so soundly. As she watched the wall where it was scratching, it suddenly darted out into the room and reared up in the moonlight, scenting out with a twitching nose.

She moved silently, stalking it.

Halfway across the room she stopped, clenched her fists, and turned away. She got back in bed and curled down close to Braden. He half woke and pulled her close, then slept again. She lay awake for the rest of the night, knowing that she must control this. Knowing that being with Braden constantly, never apart to turn into the calico and hunt, was going to cause problems. She had no way to work off her killing instincts. Quite suddenly, her love for him had pulled her into a gentle, passionate prison.

In the morning when she kept yawning, she said the moon had kept her awake. They had breakfast on the inn's patio, then got to work. He drew her on the beach beside a wrecked boat with shattered glass in the windows, then before a shop with leaded windows that mirrored a red, flowering tree. That evening after dinner he chose his favorite from the day's four drawings, stretched a canvas, and blocked in a painting. He had brought books for her—she read California history and some poetry, but the poetry made her uncomfortable. It was too much like reading spells.

They had the windows open because the smell of turpentine bothered her. When he came to bed they made love in the cool breeze; their passion echoed the pounding pulse of the sea, as if they partook of the spirit of the earth itself, elemental and primal. That night she more easily ignored the mouse, snuggling close to Braden, though again the nervy little beast came into the room with them as if irresistibly drawn to the contemplation of its own death.

And the next day, giddy with the excitement of wind and waves, as they walked on the rocks above the churning sea, she did something so stupid and foolish that she wallowed afterward in remorse.

Mrs. Trask had packed a lunch for them, and they drove down to Point Lobos, where gigantic stone slabs jutted into
the sea. Among the wet, reflecting slabs of water-sculptured stone Braden posed her. The sea light, running and changing across the rocks, excited her, made her giddy. The sea made her wild—she wanted to run beside it, she wanted to chase the waves. She felt fidgety and impatient as they carried their lunch up a rock escarpment. Braden climbed slow and sure-footed, but Melissa, on the rocks above him, could not resist the razor-thin crest. She didn't mean to run, but suddenly she was running and leaping along the crest, laughing, giddy.

His shout stopped her. “For Christ sake! Get the hell down from there! What the hell are you doing!”

She stared down at him, deflated, ashamed, enraged at herself.

“What the hell were you doing? You could have fallen, killed yourself.” He held her too tight. “You scared the hell out of me.”

She was quiet while they ate. She knew she was being sullen, and she didn't like sullenness in herself.

But she didn't like being so constricted. She had been perfectly safe on the rocks; she hadn't been in danger. She felt contrary, willful. She wanted to run; she was crazy to be free a moment, just to run in the wind. Being cooped up within herself, having no chance to work off her pent-up wildness made her irritable.

It was mid-afternoon when Braden left her to walk around a point looking for the next place to work. She snatched the moment of freedom and ran crazily along the top of the cliff; and suddenly a rock broke under her feet. She fell headlong, clutching.

She righted herself in mid-air and landed lightly at the bottom of the cliff, on the rocks where the waves were crashing. Her tennis shoes slipped on the wet surface and she almost went in. As she turned, starting back up the cliff, she saw Braden on the rocks above her staring down at her, his face twisted with disbelief.

She came on up the cliff, sick and afraid. Why had she done that? So stupid. So tragic and stupid. He said nothing.
She couldn't look at his face. She wanted to run away from him, but she couldn't.

He shoved the sketch pad into the canvas bag, dropped the charcoal and pastels in without even putting them in the little wooden sketch box. “Let's go.” She went silently ahead of him to the car, and got in without speaking.

He started the car then turned toward her. He grabbed her suddenly, pulling her across the seat, holding her so tightly she gasped.

“Do you want to tell me what you were doing back there? You could have killed yourself.” He held her away, and looked and looked at her. “Do you want to tell me how you did that? Like…Christ, like an acrobat—twisting like that—landing on your feet…”

“I don't know how I did it. I—I was afraid. You were right, the rocks are dangerous. I was afraid. I just—tried to right myself. I don't know how I did it.” She looked at him helplessly.

He held her closer, kissed her fiercely. “Christ, Melissa. I love you, for Christ sake. You can't—you might have been killed. Why…?”

But he didn't finish, he only looked at her, holding her. She clung to him, remorseful and lost.