wing. No cats. The only living creature she saw was a soaked rat climbing from the stream, which was chalky with ash. Setting foot on a patch of still-smoking ground, it made an anguished noise and leapt back into the water, then swam off to vanish beneath a collapsed bridge.
She was alone. She knew this, though she could not have explained how, or even what, she knew. We, who are more familiar with the gods of our land than she, might have said that the garden’s and the residence’s kami were gone—dead or angry or distracted, or something else that men cannot understand. But her people were new to the Eight Islands, and neither knew nor cared about our gods. She knew only that the heart of her home was gone.
She climbed down, carefully feeling her way along the soot-slick branches. She paused on the lowest and then dropped the final distance. The earth was hot enough that she shifted from paw to paw trying to find a comfortable place to set her feet. Around the base of the hinoki cedar was a scattering of dead birds fallen in the night, but her thirst was stronger than her hunger. Startling with every step, she walked down to the little stream. She found a place where she could crouch without burning her paws and lapped at the water. A taste like sulfur caught at the back of her throat, but she drank.
She returned to the dead birds. She pushed the closest one with a paw but it was already rigid despite the heat. She wrinkled her nose and turned away. The next bird had been badly burned, its eyes melted away, its clawed feet curled against its breast. It was unpleasantly crunchy, and she turned away from this one as well. The third was a late-season nestling, scarcely a mouthful.
The fourth she ate. The meat was smeared with ashes that ground against her teeth, but she was too hungry to care. The blood in its veins was stagnant but warm and helped ease the sulfur taste at the back of her throat. Feathers were always bitter, and she clawed them from the bird when she could; otherwise spat them out as she ate. She tried to groom the blood and feathers and ash from her fur, but her mouth was dry. After cleaning her forepaws and face, she gave up and explored her world’s remains.
The continuing silence frightened her. She had always lived in a cloud of noises large and small. Leaves rustled, birds sang, water chattered over rocks in the stream; the people in the north wing had yelled and whispered and snored through their days. Now she heard noises outside the grounds, but the silence within seemed absolute. She listened to her own rasping breath and a steady fast thump like a small drum: her heart beating. She niyaan ed again. The sound did not carry, muffled by ashes.
One of her aunts had slipped beneath the walkway, so the little cat searched there. She found no one, only a smoking shape that might once have been a cat, pressed into a depression in the ground. She sniffed carefully and caught the memory of a scent, the black-and-white cat, The Cat Who Talked to Moths. “Aunt?” she asked. When the tortoiseshell tapped with a paw, the shape that might have been a cat crumbled.
She searched throughout the grounds and the destroyed structures, but she found no other cats.
Beside the north wing, she found a dead woman caught beneath a beam that had fallen in such a way that half the wood was untouched and the other end burned away to a blunt point. The woman had been pinned and died there, of the smoke or injuries. A ghost knelt over the corpse, patting it as one might try to wake a child and sobbing, “Get up, get up!” Though there was no wind, its hair and clothes moved like water weeds in a storm.
Cats see ghosts, of course, and speak with them, too, when they have not yet passed on to wherever they must go. Can you doubt it? “Where are the other cats?” the tortoiseshell asked.
The ghost looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “Help me wake up.”
The tortoiseshell said, “You’re dead. I don’t think
She was alone. She knew this, though she could not have explained how, or even what, she knew. We, who are more familiar with the gods of our land than she, might have said that the garden’s and the residence’s kami were gone—dead or angry or distracted, or something else that men cannot understand. But her people were new to the Eight Islands, and neither knew nor cared about our gods. She knew only that the heart of her home was gone.
She climbed down, carefully feeling her way along the soot-slick branches. She paused on the lowest and then dropped the final distance. The earth was hot enough that she shifted from paw to paw trying to find a comfortable place to set her feet. Around the base of the hinoki cedar was a scattering of dead birds fallen in the night, but her thirst was stronger than her hunger. Startling with every step, she walked down to the little stream. She found a place where she could crouch without burning her paws and lapped at the water. A taste like sulfur caught at the back of her throat, but she drank.
She returned to the dead birds. She pushed the closest one with a paw but it was already rigid despite the heat. She wrinkled her nose and turned away. The next bird had been badly burned, its eyes melted away, its clawed feet curled against its breast. It was unpleasantly crunchy, and she turned away from this one as well. The third was a late-season nestling, scarcely a mouthful.
The fourth she ate. The meat was smeared with ashes that ground against her teeth, but she was too hungry to care. The blood in its veins was stagnant but warm and helped ease the sulfur taste at the back of her throat. Feathers were always bitter, and she clawed them from the bird when she could; otherwise spat them out as she ate. She tried to groom the blood and feathers and ash from her fur, but her mouth was dry. After cleaning her forepaws and face, she gave up and explored her world’s remains.
The continuing silence frightened her. She had always lived in a cloud of noises large and small. Leaves rustled, birds sang, water chattered over rocks in the stream; the people in the north wing had yelled and whispered and snored through their days. Now she heard noises outside the grounds, but the silence within seemed absolute. She listened to her own rasping breath and a steady fast thump like a small drum: her heart beating. She niyaan ed again. The sound did not carry, muffled by ashes.
One of her aunts had slipped beneath the walkway, so the little cat searched there. She found no one, only a smoking shape that might once have been a cat, pressed into a depression in the ground. She sniffed carefully and caught the memory of a scent, the black-and-white cat, The Cat Who Talked to Moths. “Aunt?” she asked. When the tortoiseshell tapped with a paw, the shape that might have been a cat crumbled.
She searched throughout the grounds and the destroyed structures, but she found no other cats.
Beside the north wing, she found a dead woman caught beneath a beam that had fallen in such a way that half the wood was untouched and the other end burned away to a blunt point. The woman had been pinned and died there, of the smoke or injuries. A ghost knelt over the corpse, patting it as one might try to wake a child and sobbing, “Get up, get up!” Though there was no wind, its hair and clothes moved like water weeds in a storm.
Cats see ghosts, of course, and speak with them, too, when they have not yet passed on to wherever they must go. Can you doubt it? “Where are the other cats?” the tortoiseshell asked.
The ghost looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “Help me wake up.”
The tortoiseshell said, “You’re dead. I don’t think