A Tale of Horror

It's getting close to Halloween. And while I like a good tale of horror as much as the next person, that doesn't mean I appreciate featuring in one in real life.

But for a few minutes this evening, I did.

It was a little after 7:00, and I was cleaning up after a very busy Sunday afternoon. I happened to look into the living room here at the House of the Flying Furballs, and noticed that Rhadwen, my ten-year-old calico, was perched up on the sill of one of the little windows next to the fireplace. The window was open, the screen was up, and she was more outside than in.

"Rhadwen!" I called. "Wennie! Turn around!!"

No reaction.

I walked over and saw that she was hanging head and shoulders over the edge of the outer sill. Trying to make up her mind whether to jump down and explore. That's what I figured it was. It's a fur piece, so to speak, to the ground at that point; she probably was considering whether it would be worth it at her age.

Well, I wasn't going to give her the opportunity to try. I grabbed her by her furry middle and hauled her inside.

Yeeoouwwwwoauwwww!!!!! she didn't appreciate that! She howled at the indignity. Worse for her, the dog was on the scene, playing officious big brother and making sure justice was done.

She didn't claw me: I had hold of her so she couldn't. I gave her a little more food in her dish to soothe her ruffled feelings and to give thanks for not having to go out in the rain to chase her. Then I started back to my sweeping.

But wait a minute. When I'd pulled Rhadwen in through the window, she hadn't turned around and yowled at me. There was something about it that hinted she was irate at something outside.

And a few minutes before, when I'd gone out front to light my jack-o'-lantern for the first time, I'd heard something in my front bushes. I'd dismissed it then as me myself having brushed against them, but now . . .

Aw-oh! Where one cat can sit and perch and stare, two other cats can be through and away. The kittens. Where were the kittens?

"Gwenith! Huw!" I searched all over the house, from middle to top to bottom. No sign of the floofy pale pink tabby or the sleek brown and gray. Not in the box spring in the Kitten Room, not under my bed in the bedroom, not under the table in the study, not under the stairs in the basement. There were no kittens to be found, in litter box or in empty packing box, in dropcloth or ironing basket: my little cats had disappeared.

They're good at disappearing, of course. They'd disappeared all afternoon when I had company over. But now there was a strong possibility they'd apparated themselves right off the premises, through that gaping screenless window.

So out I went, tramping miles and miles through the freezing, merciless rain in the blazing cold night, searching relentlessly for my lost kittehs.

Well, no, actually, it was around 60 degrees outside this evening and I only went round to the side of the house under the living room window. But it was dark and staring to rain.

No sign of my little cats. "Huw! Gwenith!" Huw I hoped would come stalking up to me. Gwenith is more skittish: what would she do if she were spooked? But Rhadwen's behaviour told me they might be-- please, God!-- were out there. "Gwenith! Huw!"

But I found nothing.

I looked in the front border. Nothing.

Maybe it would help if I located a flashlight? Yes, perhaps.

Thus equipped, I tried again. The rain was starting to come down harder. I had to find my kittehs. "Huw!! Gwenith!!" I called. "Gwenith! Huw!"

All of a sudden, under the weeping cherry, a moving gray-striped shadow, a flash of white breast.

"Huw! Baby, come here!"

He wouldn't come. He moved deeper into the vegetation.

I moved closer, made a grab. Missed! "Huw! Please! Come here! Where's your sister?"

He turned tail and ran into the front border. I followed, stepped over the sheet-covered dahlias, and tried to secure him again. His wet body slipped through my grasp and behind the Alberta spruce.

"Huw, please!!"

I came around again, just as he made a break for it to head for the neighbors' spirea. Aaaghh!! Got him! He was slick and wet and squirmy, but I gathered him into my arms and carried him into the house, placing him in the custody of Llewellyn who doubtless gave him what-for for his illicit escapade.

But his littermate was still out there. I had to assume that. Back out into the rain.

"Gwenith! Gwen!" Had she squeezed into the neighbors' yard? She's supple enough. Had she heard the call of the wild and taken off to parts unknown? I combed and recombed the wet bushes on both sides of the little side yard, while in the neighborhood all around me the heedless households were huddled around their televisions, watching whatever it was the Steelers and the Giants were doing to one another. Dismayed, I steeled myself for the possibility that I'd have to go petitioning up and down the street for the neighbors to keep an eye out for my missing cat.

It was time to bring out the big guns: Some fragrant gushiefood in a little dish. Oh, please, please, let a bribe work! It does indoors, when she hides in the attic storage space! Please don't let her be so confused and disoriented she won't come!

One last look in the yard under the guilty window, one last admittance of futility. I set the dish down on the front step near the lighted jack-o'-lantern and hoped she'd be willing to come.

But then, I don't know what it was, something moved me to look in the bushes on that side of the house. I shone my flashlight behind each, and there, behind the boxwood shrub closest to the gate to the back yard, was an tawny oval furry shape, a dry tawny oval furry shape, huddled next to the house, the head invisible, hiding in the foliage.

"Gwenith!"

She didn't budge.

I went and got the food. "Gwenith!"

She still didn't budge.

Here was a reversal, but a happy one. I had just one chance to secure her, and I took it. She squirmed, just a little, but seemed just as glad as not to be rescued and brought inside.

She and her brother got a serving of fragrant gushiefood to reward them for-- well, for being alive and found, and their big sister Rhadwen got some, too, for staring out that open window and clueing me into what was going on.

As to why the living room window was open at all, that's another tale in another blog. But diolch a Dduw! my scary story ended happily.

Very happily, when I think how it's supposed to get below freezing and maybe snow tonight. Thinking of that is a real horror story.