Kit and Pan grew immediately very still, shivering at Dulcie’s solemn look. When, gently and softly, Dulcie told them about Misto, Pan had slunk away into the hall by himself, where he curled up against the wall, nose to tail, rigid and grieving.
It was a long time more, after Pan finally joined them again, stoic and resigned, that Wilma had called the Damens. That she and the three cats got in the car and headed for Ryan and Clyde’s house.
Now, driving the few blocks from the Damens’ to the Firettis’, Wilma stroked Pan softly. “Don’t grieve, please don’t, Pan. Don’t let Misto see you grieve, he doesn’t want that.” And, to Kit, “Please don’t cry, my dear, he doesn’t want sadness. Misto himself is not sad—except to be parting from you. He is certain he is parting for only a little while; he is so very sure this is not a forever good-bye. He does not believe there is an end to the spirit.”
But even so, Pan tucked his nose deeper under his paw, and Kit laid her face against him. Wilma said, “Misto has known other lives. I believe him,” she said softly. “He will be bright-eyed when he speaks of waking in vast eternity again, of finding himself once more approaching a new life.” She paused at a stop sign, then turned onto the Firettis’ street, passing the softly lit dome of the clinic, approaching the lighted cottage that sat deep in Mary’s garden.
“Grieving would only make him sad,” Wilma said. “Let him tell you of the wonders, of how his released spirit will see the vastness of the earth, see the sweep of centuries again as no living creature can see them. Let him tell you more of his earlier lives, of the wonders that await us all, of how we will all be together again. Don’t spoil that for him.”
Parking in the Firettis’ drive, she picked up Dulcie and stroked Pan. “Misto’s vision is so clear, so real, it must be true. His view of what lies in the past is too detailed to be only an old cat’s dreams. Let him tell you with happiness. Love him, Pan. Tell him you know you will be together again. Don’t spoil his parting, don’t hurt him with your own sadness.”
17
The four cats padded quietly into the Firettis’ cottage, where Mary stood in the open doorway. Ryan, Clyde, and Wilma lingered behind, then silently joined Mary and John where they’d been lounging by the fire, John in tan pajamas and a brown terry-cloth robe, Mary in a velvet housecoat printed with small nasturtiums. As she drew humans and cats to the couch, Pan alone approached the bedroom. The others waited in silence, filled with his grieving.
In the bedroom Pan reared up to look. Misto did not recline now on the Firettis’ big double bed; he lay curled up in a roomy retreat of his own. A child’s crib lined with soft blankets had been drawn up against the big bed, the bars removed on that side so he could pad back and forth as he pleased. So he could settle alone with no movement to disturb him, or could curl up against Mary and John, warm and close. Now, as Misto lay sleeping, Pan’s heart twisted for the big yellow tom. Misto seemed so small suddenly, so frail. Padding across the covers of the big bed, Pan lay down with his front paws just touching Misto’s blanket.
They lay thus for a long time, father and son, Pan wrapped in silence and thin, elderly Misto so deeply asleep, his once-golden fur turned straw-colored from his illness. Pan, seeing his father so old and frail, felt his heart nearly break.
He could hear from the living room Dr. Firetti telling Dulcie that she mustn’t go traipsing across the rooftops anymore until after the kittens came. As he wondered idly how many times John had repeated his cautions, scolding the pregnant tabby, suddenly Misto’s eyes opened. The old cat had awakened to John’s voice, perhaps, or maybe to some inner perception—maybe to the sudden scent of his son reaching him through his dreams. Seeing Pan, he rose up out of the blankets, his amber eyes growing as bright as the eyes of a young cat, gleaming with life now, and with joy. Pan moved close to him in a tender feline embrace, father and son reunited, paws and fur all atangle, old cat and young together once more. For a long time neither spoke, the only sound their rumbling purrs. They didn’t see Kit, Dulcie, and Joe look in from the door and then turn away again. Kit, leaving the bedroom, stifled her longing to leap up and hold the old cat close, too, and snuggle him. Her own love for him could wait.
But then from the bedroom Misto, scenting her, called out weakly. “Kit? Kit, let me see you. Let me see how the Netherworld has treated you.”
Kit came slipping in and up on the bed and into the blankets of the crib, easing down close to Misto. The old cat looked her over and licked her face. “You look strong and fine, the Netherworld treated you well.” Kit smiled and nuzzled him; and there Kit and Pan remained, beside Misto, for the rest of the night.
Joe Grey and Dulcie, Wilma, Ryan, and Clyde soon slipped away home, leaving John and Mary to read by the fire, leaving Kit and Pan and Misto reunited, snuggled in Misto’s bed.
The three were quiet for only a little while before Misto stirred again and sat up as if he felt stronger, as if the closeness of Pan and Kit had brought him new life. No one imagined such a strengthening would last, but, “Tell me,” the old cat said, “I want to hear your journeys, I want to see that amazing land as you saw it.”
Listening to the crackle of the fire from the living room and watching its flickering reflections on the bedroom ceiling, Kit and Pan told Misto the wonders of those green-lit lands and the amazing beasts, the winged dragons, the white-feathered harpy, the dwarves and selkies and all the magical folk.
“We took a wrong turn at first,” Pan said, “where the tunnel split into five branches. Three crossed a sunken river on narrow stone bridges. The clowder cats argued; they weren’t sure which bridge, which path. We went a long way in the wrong direction and came out into the dark and fallen lands . . .”
“We didn’t mean to go there,” said Kit, “into that ruined part of the Netherworld. It is moldering and empty except for the grim old castles with their haughty rulers. The cruel royalty keep armies close around them, they are whip-masters over the peasants. The poor have nothing, nor do they care anymore. Why should they work when all they grow and any sheep or goats they raise are taken by the kings and they are left to starve?”
“They have turned to crime,” Pan said. “They think they have no choice, but they are courting even more evil. We moved through peasant villages where we saw no one, the cottages all collapsed, pasture walls fallen, fields fallow and untended. Not even a starving chicken remained, only mice and rats, scavenging. We hunted those, as did the peasants themselves; how thin were those poor folk, all weak and listless.”
“The magic is dead,” Kit told him. “We didn’t want to be there.” She tucked her bushy tail tight around her, her ears down as sadness filled her. “Dark spells rule them now. Greed rules that land.”
“We headed away,” Pan said, “seeking the one lone land that, the clowder cats said, had survived in brightness. Kate told us that, too. But she had approached on her own journey from another direction. We asked, from those who dared speak to us, which path, which tunnel. We asked from those brave enough to approach us.”
“We found the way at last,” Kit said, “beyond the Hell Pit and up the mountains. It was a hard journey—until the Harpy found us,” she said with a little smile. “The brash and loving Harpy. Oh, my,” Kit said. “A great, tall woman with a bird’s head, with bird’s legs and white-feathered wings, and she is all covered with white feathers. She is strong, she dines on the kings’ flying lizards. She took us on her back, all of us at once, our claws deep in her feathers to hang on, and she rose up to the stone sky on those great wings. She sailed up and up the mountains and over and down again in the green light, winging down into that clear, free land, into Zzadarray.