Emerald Magic_ Great Tales of Irish Fantasy - Andrew M. Greeley [137]
The little hollow was Nuala’s private world. Hers and the cat’s. She had gathered twigs and leaves to make a carpet for the hollow so she would not sit on damp earth and stain her clothes. If she went into the house with mud on her clothes, someone might notice.
It was important that no one notice, she explained to the cat. Nuala had much rather be in the hollow than in the house. The house was filled with shadows and cold with tears, and although the windows were large, sunlight never seemed to reach all the way into the rooms. The windows were fitted with window boxes but the flowers in them had died years ago. They had never been replaced. Only a few sere, withered stems remained sticking up from the dry, caked soil.
WHEN NUALA FIRST SAW THE CAT slinking out of the garage one morning she had known immediately that it was a stray. It was easy to recognize a creature who had no loving family of its own. The animal was very thin and dirty, with patches of bare skin where the fur was rubbed away. The fur was lost to disease or fighting, perhaps, but it did not look like the sort of cat who got involved in fights. It was far too small and weak. Without enough fur to keep it warm, the cat shivered in the damp wind.
Nuala had two grown-up brothers and a sister, but they never came home. Not even to visit. They lived far away. Between them and herself had been the Dead Babies, who had been given names but were always just called the Dead Babies. There were so many of them, and their deaths were new and recent in the house every morning.
Since the cat had no family, Nuala began feeding it. She carried bits from her own meal outside in her pocket. She always fed the cat behind the garage, so it would not get in the habit of coming to the house and crying for food.Without anyone to love and care for it, the cat had stopped caring about itself.Nuala found an old hairbrush and started brushing the cat’s dirty fur, and in time the creature began washing itself. She watched, fascinated, as it licked its paws and rubbed them all over its face and neck, then twisted its body into marvelous positions so it could clean every part with its rough pink tongue.
Sometimes that tongue touched Nuala’s hand, and she was surprised at how rough it was. The pointed pink combed the cat’s fur and made it clean, until all the dirt was gone, and the cat was revealed as being a lovely cream color. The missing fur grew in again; the animal became fat and sleek, like the cats Nuala saw sitting in other people’s windows, looking contentedly out through the glass. Cats with loving homes and families.
Curled up in her hollow, Nuala would open her arms, and the cat would come into them. It would lie against her chest and purr, a deep rumbling that resonated through both their bodies. When the cat purred Nuala felt as if the two of them were singing together.
Sometimes the cat would twist around until it could look up into her face with eyes the color of green grapes. Words passed between them then. Not spoken words, but words Nuala could feel inside herself and understand. Trust, said the cat. Love, said the cat.
Nuala did not know what the cat did when she went off to school every day. She walked away from the house each morning very slowly, so the cat, if it was watching, would not think she was running away from it. There had been a time when she could ride to school on her blue bicycle with the little wire basket for her schoolbooks. But the bicycle had gone to pay for drink.
Once the bicycle was gone she walked everywhere. Other girls in her school, those she thought were her friends, had bicycles. But they soon tired of riding slowly enough so that