Scarborough Fair and Other Stories Read Free Page A

the distinctly unfriendly staff here, there was no one much under the age of 80, I hardly saw how she could be in any danger. But her coat was missing and on closer inspection, I saw that her running shoes were gone as well.
    Jason had on his jacket and his own unfastened shoes and handed me a flashlight. “Where’d this come from?” I asked him.
    â€œI brought one for each of us,” he said in that very matter-of-fact way he has, then added, “I decided we might need them more than I’d need my tuxedo. Cindy had one too. I was looking to see if she was using it a minute ago.” Sometimes that boy actually seems to have a sense of humor. Not to mention that he seems to have learned what a tuxedo
is
since he turned down the girl who asked him to the prom because he thought she had to be joking.
    We heard the wind howling and moaning around the corner of the hotel as we trudged down the stairs. That seemed funny to me because usually when the wind is high, the fog gets blown away.
    Instead it was as if kidnappers had pulled a gray woolly sack over the entire area, the only distinctions from the pervading dark fuzziness were the occasional wisps or blobs of white floating through it.
    I unlocked the hotel’s outer door (they always give you a key for after hours) and we had only taken a few steps out toward the road when I glanced back. The hotel’s looming bulk had been swallowed by the fog.
    â€œCindy?” I called, trying to keep my voice pitched so that if she were near, she could find her way back to us but I wouldn’t be waking the old-age pensioners,. I couldn’t help feeling that if I had screamed my lungs out, the fog would muffle my racket as it muffled everything else.
    Jason strode past me, cupping his hands to his mouth and bellowing, “Yo, Cynthia Dawn!”
    Something scrabbled off to the right and I said, “Cindy!” sharply.
    There was an answering “Rrrow?”
    Though that is not, of course, Cindy’s normal voice you will understand, brother, why I, cat-mother of Treat and Kittibits, instantly felt relieved. I understood Cindy’s motivation for being out here. Obviously she had heard the cat crying and come out to investigate. I’d have done the same thing if I’d been aware of it. She was very possibly trying to find her way to the hotel kitchen to get it some fish or milk or something. I handed Jason the key to the outer door of the hotel and told him to go check out the kitchen and see if his sister was there. I would stay and try to entice the cat to stick around until the kids got back either with or without a tidbit.
    â€œHere, kitty,” I said, kneeling and rubbing my fingers together. “Kitty, kitty? Mrrow?”
    Now, yes, Mother, I know that not even my animal loving niece and nephew and I can save every stray cat in England, but what you don’t seem to understand is how awfully lonesome I get for my kitties when I’m away from them for any length of time. I was not cajoling the cats for their benefit as much as my own and I can safely say that Cindy’s motives were similar.
    Jason had already turned away and I heard the key turn in the lock of the door. I didn’t even look back, however, knowing that with the fog so thick it wouldn’t do me any good.
    â€œKitty?” I asked again, since I hadn’t heard it since that first time. “Cynthia? Are you out here too?”
    â€œYow,” said another, higher pitched feline voice from the other direction.
    I took a step into the fog toward it.
    It’s a good thing I was looking for a cat because I was looking down, hoping to see those coin-bright eyes reflecting the beam of my flashlight. Where the road should have been, blackness gaped. I shone my light directly into it. Water and rock, broken asphalt and jagged edges of earth and cement rimmed a hole so deep the beam couldn’t penetrate the bottom.
    The sameness of the fog and