"She needs somebody with her, father," she said maturely.
The coverlet was pulled from him. "But she's asleep, pumpkin," he argued. "You should let her sleep and come down and eat your supper."
"She may be asleep, but she's all alone in a scary place," the little girl told her father. "I don't want her to be sad. You don't get well when you're sad. You told me that yourself."
"Uhm, yes, well," he floundered, unable to counter her argument. "She's wearing a collar," he remarked. Tarrin felt a tug on the black metal collar around his neck, the transformed shaeram. "I'll ask around and see if anyone has lost a cat. If we can get her home, maybe she'll get well faster. And you can eat your dinner."
Dinner was brought up to the little girl, who managed to outlast her parents on that score. He could smell roasted beef just in front of his nose, but his desire to be no more was so strong that even the primal force of hunger could lift him from the pillow.
As Tarrin's will ebbed away, even his will to die, he retreated farther and farther into himself, fleeing from the pain, finding the oblivion he so desperately sought inside his own mind. He found an easier way, a simpler way, to find peace. He opened his mind to the Cat, and allowed its awareness to join with his seamlessly, completely. The Cat knew only of now, that moment. The past and the future were irrelevent, meaningless to it. It was the now that mattered, and in that eternal now, Tarrin could find peace, refuge from the pain, from the guilt, from the agonizing, nightmarish memories of what he had done.
Tarrin had feared his instincts, loathed them, tried to control them. He found peace by surrendering to them. And in that surrender, the sentient being that was Tarrin was suspended, pushed by the wayside, taking up that dark place in their mind where the instincts had once lurked. It was dark there, and there was only the impressions of senses, a vague awareness of reality…and there was no pain. Caught up in the eternal now that was the way of the thinking of the cat, there was no past, no pain from the past, no future, no fear of what it would bring. There was only now, and in that now, there was no pain.
In that instant, that eternal now, Tarrin was the observer, the lurker, and the Cat was the one in control.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
The room was a large, airy one, full of light and brightness and cheer. He was on a large bed, propped on a pillow. It was warm, and safe, and he felt secure in his surroundings. A plate of meat was sitting just away from his nose, but he was so weak that he could not fight off the coverlet to reach it. The Human in him knew the words that were the things he could see, could understand the sounds that the human made, and he used that knowledge. He was a pragmatic creature; though the Human seemed both alien and a part of him at the same time, he had no fear of it, and was not afraid to allow its greater understanding of things guide it.
The little human made a bevy of delighted sounds when she saw his open eyes, sitting down beside him and hand-feeding him the much needed meat. He felt safe in the presence of the little human, safe and protected, as safe as he would feel curled up against his mother's stomach.
That thought caused a pang of hurt through the Human in him, but he could not understand why.
He accepted the little mother's preening sedately. He was warm, and safe, and there was no hurt or hunger. He was content. He closed his eyes and purred his contentment.
However much he wanted unfeeling sleep, the reality of life would not allow Tarrin to slip away.
Tarrin's attempt to submerge himself into the Cat had worked, but only up to a point. He too shared the Cat's eternal now of existence. In mere hours, he lost his feelings against the memory of what happened, and that was what caused his rational mind to flow back up from the darkness. What was past was past, and it was of no moment.
That first night, as Janette slept contentedly with him laying at the foot of her bed, Tarrin's rational mind rejoined the Cat in the world of the outside. Unlike his attempts to quell or control the Cat, the Cat welcomed his awareness as a brother, and made room for him in the forefront so that they both may live the life that was theirs. It was a poignant lesson to his rational mind, about how badly he had misjudged the instincts that were inside him. They were not all evil and destructive. He still didn't trust himself, but he had come to the conclusion that, so long as he was not put in a position where he would be challenged, he would be content.
And living out his life as a little girl's pet seemed to him to be an excellent way to go about it.
The Cat didn't mind; all it was worried about was food, shelter, and protection, and those existed in this place.
It was perfect. It fulfilled all his physical needs while providing him a place to create a new life for himself, a life free of the pain and guilt that had nearly destroyed him. Janette's house was a good place to hide, and it was a place where he could find a simpler existence, free of the pressures and failures of his past.
The next morning, the matronly, gray-bunned maid opened the door and called to the girl, waking her up. She yawned and stretched, then looked right at Tarrin. "Good morning, little kitty," she called, reaching down and picking him up. Tarrin decided that he rather liked being held and cuddled, because the girl's touch was surprisingly gentle, and there was a selfless giving love in her touch that was impossible to ignore.
In her nightclothes, she trudged down the stairs to the small room where her parents were taking their breakfast. The mother flashed the daughter a stern look the minute she noticed her. "Do you have to carry that creature around?" she demanded.
"She doesn't know her way around yet," Janette countered artfully. For such a young girl, not even ten, she seemed to know exactly what to say to play her parents like a lute. "And besides, she was sick yesterday. I don't want her getting tired."
"I think the cat can walk on her own, pumpkin," her father said, trying a different tactic. "And it's important for animals to exercise while they're getting well. It makes them get well faster."
"Really?" she said. "Then I'll take her out into the garden after breakfast."
"That may be a good idea," he said.
"Maybe it will run away," the mother murmured under her breath to her husband.
"I think I'll call you Shadow, little kitty," the little girl said with a smile, handing him a piece of breakfast sausage.
"Don't get too attached to her, pumpkin," the father warned. "I'll ask around and find out who owns her today. She may be going home."
"Then I'll go visit her," she said diffidently.
But the trip "home" never materialized that day. It was spent with the little girl coddling him outrageously, walking with him around the gardens, and inside it was a game with a little wooden doll tied to a string. Despite having a human awareness, the Cat in him absolutely could not resist attacking that little wooden doll, and Janette was inexhaustible in her desire to drag it for him. They played like that for hours and hours, until a call to dinner interrupted the game.
The humans ate as Tarrin laid sedately by the fireplace in the main room. He was content. And he was content to stay where he was as long as he could.
"What do you mean, you can't find him!" the Keeper, Myriam Lar, raged to her Council. It was the day after Tarrin's flight from the Tower. The Keeper had already made some very grim plans for Jesmind, though from what she'd managed to piece together, it wasn't really anyone's fault. Jesmind happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even Tarrin's parents agreed that she had made no attempt to fight, only to try to reason with Tarrin. "That weave was to hide him from his enemies, not to hide him from us!"
But Tarrin's disappearance was of the most dreadful concern. They needed him. Allia wouldn't be enough, they needed him. And now he was out in the city, either trying to kill himself or trying to kill everyone he could get his paws on. Either way, it was a dangerous and deadly situation.