"She-" Zee began, then stopped himself, blushing. "Well, Bartholomew," he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper, "I don't know how to say this, but…"
"What?"
He eyed the sleeping cat. "She's never, you know, said anything, has she?"
Charlotte's eyes popped out. Zee blushed again.
"Well," he protested, "weirder things have happened today." Charlotte could not argue with that. "Anyway. She doesn't talk… and she doesn't, you know, understand us?"
Charlotte considered. "I don't think so." She leaned down and whispered in the kitten's ear, "Do you understand us, baby?"
Mew was mum. Charlotte stroked her for a while, then looked at Zee and shrugged. "One thing we know, though…"
"What's that?" he asked.
Charlotte tilted her head. "Whoever she is, she's on our side."
Zee considered, then nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, she is." He smiled a little, and Charlotte could not help but smile too. Zee put his hand on the kitten and started stroking her neck; she stretched and yawned and turned over for a belly rub. Charlotte yawned too. Perhaps she could sleep a little tonight-it was only 4 A.M., no school tomorrow, she could get lots of sleep still. And there were certainly no more adventures scheduled for the night. If any Charlotte/shadow-stealing freak wanted to break into her house, surely it would have happened by now. She stretched and was about to tell Zee when he suddenly muttered, "Hey, what's this?"
"What?"
Zee had been running his cupped hands along Mew's front legs (something that she quite liked), but he'd stopped and was holding her right leg in his hand. Mew was gazing at him with a distinctly perplexed look. "Here. On her paw"
Charlotte looked. The bottom of Mew's paw was covered in a chalky substance. Charlotte pressed on the paw to extend the claws, and they, too, were covered in what looked like dried white mud.
"From being outside?" Charlotte asked.
Zee wet his finger and rubbed the paw He smelled his finger.
"I think it's… clay," he whispered. "And here, look!" Trapped on her claws were a few black silk threads. Charlotte and Zee gazed at each other.
Charlotte gulped. "There was a crash earlier, and she was yowling…" She sat up suddenly and grabbed Zee's hand. "Zee," she whispered urgently, "they were trying to get in the house!"
If, the next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Mielswetzski were surprised to find Zee sleeping on the floor of his room with pink bedding from Charlotte's bed, while Charlotte slept in Zee's bed, they did not say anything. (Charlotte had been perfectly happy to sleep on the floor, but Zee would have none of it. He went into Charlotte's room, got the comforter and the pillow, and made himself a nest on the floor. He would brook no argument; Zee was nothing but polite until you tried to infringe on his gentlemanliness.) If they were surprised that both of the children slept until eleven o'clock, they didn't mention it, either. Much to Zee and Charlotte's relief
When the two both stumbled downstairs at about eleven fifteen, they found Mr. Mielswetzski at the kitchen table reading the paper.
"I drove to work this morning to find they'd cancelled school," Mr. Mielswetzski explained. He motioned to the paper- the headline read, MYSTERIOUS FLU STRIKES AREA YOUTH, CLOSES SCHOOLS. Charlotte gulped. "Some kids there are sick too," he added. "Of course, nobody bothered to call the teachers." He stood up and smiled. "So, sleepyheads. Nice to be off for a day, huh? Do you want pancakes?"
Charlotte's stomach turned, and she shook her head. "Thanks, but I'm not really hungry, Dad."
"No pancakes? Suit yourself Zachary?… No? Okay! So, did you kids sleep well?"
Charlotte and Zee exchanged a look. "Not really," Charlotte said. "I had a really bad dream. I went downstairs for some water, and Zee was up too."
"I was!" Zee agreed.
"Yeah, and he let me sleep in his room." Her eyes grew wide. "It was a really, really bad dream."
"My poor girl," Mr. Mielswetzski clucked. "Sounds like everyone had trouble sleeping. I think Mew knocked something over, too, did you hear the crash? It scared the dickens out of me, I thought we were being robbed! Still can't figure out what she knocked over…"
"Uh-huh," Charlotte whimpered, pouring herself some orange juice.
"But then I went out like a light. I don't know what it was. Couldn't sleep, and then about one o'clock I was out like a baby! Your mother, too!"
"Uh-huh," Charlotte whimpered, pouring herself some cereal. She poured a bowl for Zee, too, who didn't seem very capable of doing much by himself that morning. He had slumped in a chair, and he looked as though some of his bones were on the verge of snapping in two. Charlotte poured him a nice big glass of juice, too.
She wasn't the only one to notice. "Are you all right, Zach?" her father asked. "You look a little frazzled this morning."
Zee paled-which was fairly impressive, as he had been pretty pale this morning to begin with. He looked at Charlotte helplessly.
"Probably from sleeping on the floor!" she said quickly. "Poor Zee, on the floor all night!… So, is Mom in her office?"
This Charlotte could do. She could come up with a convincing story in no time flat-yes, that Mr. Metos dinner had strained her powers a little bit, but she was under duress, okay? She could pour two bowls of cereal and a nice tall glass of orange juice for her freaked-out cousin and weave stories with a golden tongue. It was a small gift, a small space in the world that she could manage and call her own. It had nothing to do with staring down clay-made monsters or freaky, mind-controlling, power-hungry Underworld guys, but it was something, and in that moment she was safe.
"Well," Mr. Mielswetzski said, clapping his hands together. "We all have a day off! What shall we do?"
Charlotte sighed. "I don't know, Dad. I'm pretty tired. I think I'm going to read."
"Zachary?"
"Um, thank you, Uncle Mike," he said quietly. "I'm knack-beat, myself. I've got a pile of homework to do too."
"You kids are boring today!" Mr. Mielswetzski exclaimed. "Well… I'll go bother your mother." And that he did.
For the rest of the day Charlotte and Zee sat in Zee's room, pretending to read/do homework, and waited for some sign of Mr. Metos. Charlotte occasionally checked her shadow to make sure it was still there. Bartholomew stayed with them, sometimes sleeping, sometimes running in circles around the room or batting around the plastic cap from Charlotte's soda.
"Good footwork," Zee muttered, watching Mew.
They could not deny that she seemed genuinely to be a cat. As opposed to something else-a demon or a god or a descendant of somebody or something. She was just a cat. An amazing (and incredibly cute) cat. Charlotte had heard that cats were able to sense ghosts; maybe her behavior was perfectly cat-like. She would have to ask Mr. Metos when…
"When do you think he'll come?"
"I don't know," Zee said, shaking his head. There was no need for him to ask whom she was referring to.
Charlotte looked back down at her book and stared at the words for a moment, then looked up. "He's going to come soon, right? Today or tomorrow?"
"I don't know," Zee said.
"I wonder how he's getting down there. And how he'll get back."
"I don't know," Zee said.
"I wonder what he's going to do."
"I don't know," Zee said.
"What if he doesn't come?"
"I don't know," Zee said quietly. "I don't know"
They sat through the afternoon, into the early evening. Charlotte kept wanting to ask questions, and Zee kept wanting to sit quietly and think in his Zee way, so they compromised; Charlotte asked questions, and Zee stopped even trying to answer. Mrs. Mielswetzski popped in to say hello at one point. A few moments later Charlotte heard her say to Mr. Mielswetzski, "Those two are getting along so well! I was worried there for a while, but…"