City of Lies - Lian Tanner [28]
Missing something.…
She wasn’t sure what roused her several hours later. It could have been the hard floor. Or the cockroaches. Or the cold. The fire had almost died down, and the blanket that Pounce had given her was threadbare. Only her ankles were warm, where the cat lay across them.
On the other side of the little room, both boys were snoring softly. Goldie drew the useless blanket up to her chin. Her mind drifted to Ma and Pa, and she quickly pushed them away and thought of Toadspit and Bonnie instead.
Missing something, whispered the little voice.
Goldie sighed. Maybe she was missing something, but she had no idea what it could be.
She rolled over, trying to get comfortable, and woke the cat. It stood up and stretched. Its unpracticed purr rattled in her ear.
It was hard to imagine that this was the same wild creature that had refused to take food from her hand. Goldie scratched its neck, and it pressed against her in such a friendly fashion that her worry and loneliness receded a little.
“Cat,” she whispered. “You were in the bread shop with me. What am I missing?”
The purr grew louder. Goldie’s feet grew suddenly colder. “Hey!” she said. “Give that blanket back!”
She put out her hand, but the cat dragged the blanket out of reach. Dropped it on the ground and stared at it. Tapped it playfully.
“It’s too cold for games.” Goldie scrambled after the blanket, wrapped it around herself and lay down again, trying to get warm.
Missing something, whispered the little voice.
Mouse grunted in his sleep, and Goldie found herself thinking about the odd fingertalk the little boy used. She’d never seen anything quite like it. It was very different from the fingertalk that she and Toadspit knew—
Her thoughts shuddered to a halt. The words tolled like a bell inside her.
Fingertalk.
Toadspit.
The cat.
The blanket.
The storeroom.
Missing something.…
“Shivers!” She sat up.
Pounce poked his head from beneath a tattered quilt and growled, “Whassa matter?”
“Nothing,” said Goldie, although her head was spinning and she could hardly keep from shouting out loud.
“If yer gunna slit our throats, wait till I’m asleep again.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing,” said Goldie.
Pounce snorted, and in a minute or so his breathing was slow and heavy. Goldie stared at the glowing coals, but in her mind’s eye she was seeing the last storeroom in the bread shop. The one with the burlap bags thrown willy-nilly across the floor.
But what if they weren’t willy-nilly? What if that one was curled up like a fist? Like the fingertalk sign for the letter “G.” And the one next to it was the letter “R.” And the one next to that …
Goldie’s heart almost tripped over itself with excitement. Her friends had been there in that little room. They had been moved, but before they were taken away, Toadspit—clever Toadspit, brilliant Toadspit—had found a way to leave her a message.
In the dying light of the fire, she traced the letters on the dusty floor.
G. R. N. C. T.
She stared at them for a long moment. Then her eyes widened, and she traced them again, with a gap between them.
GRN CT
And again—only now she added letters.
GREEN CAT
For a moment she felt dizzy with triumph. But then she sat back, puzzled. Green cat? How could that help her? What could it possibly mean?
She scratched her arm, wondering if there were fleas in the blanket that Pounce had given her, and looked at the letters again.
They must mean something. Toadspit wouldn’t have left a message unless it was important.
“Green cat,” she whispered, gazing at the fire. “Green … cat.”
And then it came to her. Her first day in Spoke—the day when she saw the man in the horse mask and the old woman selling meat scraps. And a cloak as green as a parrot …
She traced the letters again. But this time, with her pulse thundering in her ears, she added words.
GREEN CLOAK. CAT MASK.
On the other side of the little room, the fire sputtered