McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales - Michael Chabon [42]
The Witch’s Revenge wore a silk dress and gloves and a heavy veil, and ran her errands in a fine carriage, Small at her side. She bought a piece of land to build a house on, and she sent Small off to school every morning, no matter how he cried. But at night she took off her clothes and slept on his pillow and he combed her red and white fur.
Sometimes at night, she twitched and moaned, and when he asked her what she was dreaming, she said, “There are ants! Can’t you comb them out? Be quick and catch them if you love me.”
But there were never any ants.
One day when Small came home, the little cat with the white front paws was gone. When he asked The Witch’s Revenge, she said that the little cat had fallen out of the cage and through the open window and into the garden and before The Witch’s Revenge could think what to do, a crow had swooped down and carried the little cat off. They moved into their new house a few months later, and Small was always very careful when he went in and out the doorway, imagining the little cat, down there in the dark, under the doorstep, under his foot.
Small got bigger. He didn’t make any friends in the village, or at his school, but when you’re big enough, you don’t need friends. One day while he and The Witch’s Revenge were eating their dinner, there was a knock at the door. When he opened the door, there stood Flora and Jack, looking very shabby and thin. Jack looked more than ever like a bundle of sticks.
“Small!” said Flora. “How tall you’ve become!” She burst into tears, and wrung her beautiful hands. Jack said, looking at The Witch’s Revenge, “And who are you?”
The Witch’s Revenge said to Jack, “Who am I? I’m your mother’s cat, and you’re a handful of dry sticks in a suit two sizes too large. But I won’t tell anyone if you won’t tell, either.”
Jack snorted at this, and Flora stopped crying. She began to look around the house, which was sunny and large and well appointed.
“There’s room enough for both of you,” said The Witch’s Revenge, “if Small doesn’t mind.”
Small thought his heart would burst with happiness to have his family back again. He showed Flora to one bedroom and Jack to another. And then they went downstairs and had a second dinner, and Small and The Witch’s Revenge listened, and the cats in their hanging cage listened, while Flora and Jack recounted their adventures.
A pickpocket had taken Flora’s purse, and they’d sold the witch’s automobile, and lost the money in a game of cards. Flora had found her parents, but they were a pair of old scoundrels who had no use for her. (She was too old to sell again. She would have realized what they were up to.) She’d gone to work in a department store, and Jack had sold tickets in a movie theater. They’d quarreled and made up, and then fallen in love with other people, and had many disappointments. At last they had decided to go home to the witch’s house and see if it would do for a squat, or if there was anything left to carry away and sell.
But the house, of course, had burned down. As they argued about what to do next, Jack had smelled Small, his brother, down in the village. So here they were.
“You’ll live here, with us,” Small said.
Jack and Flora said they could not do that. They had ambitions, they said. They had plans. They would stay for a week, or two weeks, and then they would be off again. The Witch’s Revenge nodded and said that this was sensible.
Every day Small came home from school and went out again, with Flora, on a bicycle built for two. Or he stayed home and Jack taught him how to hold a coin between two fingers, and how to follow the egg as it moved from cup to cup. The Witch’s Revenge taught them to play bridge, although Flora and Jack couldn’t be partners. They quarreled with each other as if they were husband and wife.
“What do you want?” Small asked