A Hundred Words for Hate

CHAPTER TWO

“So, what’s your story, Remy Chandler?”

Linda Somerset’s voice echoed inside Remy’s head as he drove past the Museum of Science on his way to Somerville, where he’d promised to meet Steven Mulvehill for a nightcap.

The date had gone well—nothing spectacular, but good. There were no fireworks or wedding plans or joint checking accounts in the foreseeable future, but the night had been okay. There’d been lots of small talk, conversation establishing a comfort zone for the two of them. Normally, Remy would have been bored to tears, but from Linda, it was like opening the window on a gorgeous spring day after a particularly harrowing winter.

And it had been a harrowing winter.

“So, what’s your story, Remy Chandler?”

He heard her ask the question again. She had just finished talking about everything from her fear of spiders and her love for Japanese monster movies to her failed marriage and how it had taken her a very long time to get her head straight again.

She had paused, brought her second merlot to her lips, and asked him over the rim of her glass:

“So, what’s your story, Remy Chandler?”

And strangely enough, he had told her. Not everything, of course, just the things that wouldn’t make her run screaming into the night. No, there’d be plenty of time for that business on the second date.

The second date.

The thought troubled him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want another; he’d had a pretty good time with Linda, but he just couldn’t shake the guilt.

He felt as if he were cheating: cheating on the memory of Madeline.

Remy parked his car at a meter across from the Bowman. The usual barflies were hanging out in front of the neighborhood tavern, smoking their cigarettes, even though the windchill had to be well below zero. The cigarette smoke mixed with the exhalation from their lungs formed thick clouds of white that billowed in the air before them.

Remy passed through the cloud bank and pulled open the heavy wooden door to a blast of warm air that stank of stale beer and age. He looked around and found Mulvehill hunched over the bar, contemplating the secrets of the universe in a Scotch on the rocks.

“Should you be drinking that now?” Remy asked as he joined his friend, removing his heavy leather jacket and placing it over the top of a high-backed stool. “Isn’t it a school night?”

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” the homicide detective said, gesturing for the bartender. “What do you want?”

“I’ll have whatever he has,” Remy told the proprietor as he took a seat beside Mulvehill.

“So?” Mulvehill asked, taking a careful sip of his drink, barely disturbing the ice.

“So what?” Remy replied, knowing full well what his friend was getting at.

“Didn’t you have plans tonight?” Mulvehill said with a smirk.

The bartender returned with another Scotch on the rocks and placed it on a napkin in front of Remy. “Thanks.” Remy nodded as he picked up the drink and took a long sip of the golden liquid.

“Maybe,” he said to Mulvehill as he smacked his lips and set the glass back on the napkin.

Mulvehill laughed. “Asshole,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Coming from you, that means a lot.”

“I know assholes,” Mulvehill said, pointing to himself as he stifled a laugh. “And you’re exceptional.”

Remy lifted his drink in a toast to his friend. “Why, thank you, sir,” he said. “I have at last achieved greatness.”

Mulvehill picked up his own drink in response and they both drank, silently savoring the alcohol and the friendship they shared.

“So, did she show?” the detective asked, finally breaking the silence.

“She actually did,” Remy answered, staring straight ahead at the elaborate assortment of liquor bottles behind the bar. “Imagine that.”

“Imagine.” Mulvehill nodded. “How’d it go?”

“Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?” Remy turned his gaze to his friend with a smile.

Mulvehill cringed in mock horror. “Ouch,” he said, screwing up his face in an expression of pain. “Sorry, dude.”

Remy laughed. “No, it was fine,” he said. “Nice, actually.”

“Nice?” Mulvehill asked. “What, did you go out with my mother?”

“No, that would have been hot.” Remy wiggled his eyebrows for effect.

“Now you’re just getting gross,” Mulvehill said with a disgusted look.

Remy took another sip of Scotch. “Really, we did have a nice time.”

Mulvehill watched him carefully. “Really? A nice time? The sky didn’t open up and rain toads or anything?”

Remy shook his head. “Nope, it was a nice time.” He could still feel the guilt inside, squirming around, keeping company with the essence of the Seraphim, and he hoped his friend wouldn’t notice.

“Then why does your face look like that?” Mulvehill asked, turning on his bar stool to study Remy.

“Like what?” Remy asked, feigning innocence. He leaned over the bar to get a better look at himself in the mirror behind the liquor bottles. “I’m telling you, there’s nothing wrong. I went on a date, we had a nice time, and that’s it. Nothing more.”

“You’re so full of shit you stink,” Mulvehill growled. “I’m going to need another one of these just to talk with you.” He gestured for the bartender.

“I might as well too,” Remy said, lifting his glass toward the bartender.

“So if you had such a nice time, why do you look like you ate a bad piece of fish?” Mulvehill pressed.

“Bad piece of fish?” Remy echoed. “I look that bad?”

Mulvehill nodded. “Something isn’t sitting right with you.”

The bartender brought them two fresh drinks, and was off to the other end of the bar in a flash.

“It’s stupid,” Remy said. He drained what remained of his first drink and set it down before picking up the second.

“Figured as much,” Mulvehill said. “Why don’t you share the stupidity so I can get a good laugh.”

“It’s because I had a good time,” Remy mumbled, embarrassed as he heard himself speak the words.

“You look like you’re smelling low tide at Revere Beach because you had a good time? What’s wrong with this picture?” And then Mulvehill’s expression changed. “This is about Madeline, isn’t it?”

Remy said nothing.

“Jesus, Remy,” the homicide cop said. “Can’t you cut yourself the tiniest bit of slack?”

Remy knew that Steven was right, but it didn’t change how he felt. “I know it’s crazy,” he admitted, “but I can’t shake the feeling that . . .” He stopped, staring at the ice in the bottom of his glass.

“That you’re cheating on her,” Mulvehill finished the sentence for him, his voice low and rough.

Remy nodded once. “Yeah, something like that.”

“You know that’s not true, right?”

“Yeah.” Remy nodded again.

“This isn’t helping you at all, is it?” Mulvehill said.

Remy started to laugh. “Not at all.”

Steven laughed too, picking up his drink and taking a large swig. “You’re your own worst enemy, Remy Chandler,” the homicide cop said.

“Ain’t it the truth,” Remy had to agree.

They were quiet again, the sounds of the bar swirling around them as they sat and drank. There was a tickling at the base of Remy’s brain, and suddenly he could hear a voice—a prayer—ever so softly from someone in the bar. The person was praying for his mother, who was dying. He was praying that her life would end soon.

That there would be an end to her suffering.

“So where’d you leave it?” Steven asked, the distraction an answer to Remy’s own silent prayers.

“We’re supposed to have lunch tomorrow.”

“So you’re going to see her again?”

“Yeah,” Remy said.

“Good. You shouldn’t be alone.”

“You’re alone,” Remy countered, turning to look at Steven.

“But, you see, that’s the difference between us,” the cop explained. “I’m better off alone because I’m a miserable bastard, but you . . . Let’s just say you need a good woman to keep you in check, and we’ll leave it at that.”

Steven was right.

Since the death of his wife, Remy was finding it more and more difficult to control the angelic nature that writhed and churned inside him—desperate to be released, desperate to do what he was created for.

The Seraphim was a soldier—a warrior of God—and he existed to burn away anything that was a blight in the eyes of God. A power such as that had to be controlled.

Steven knew that, and knew that it was the love of Madeline that had kept the destructive, divine power in check for all these years, a love that had kept Remy anchored to the mask of humanity he’d created for himself as he lived upon the world of God’s man.

An anchor that was now missing.

“What makes you think Linda will be able to fill that role?” Remy asked him.

Steven shrugged. “I don’t, but at least you’re out there trying . . . acting like all the other poor schmucks looking for love.”

“Except you,” Remy said.

“I eat love for breakfast and it gives me the wind something awful,” Mulvehill said with a snarl as he finished what was left of his drink. “I need a cigarette and my bed, in that order.”

He fished his wallet out from the back pocket of his pants as he slid from the stool. “I got this,” he said, pulling out some wrinkled bills and placing them on the bar. He gestured to the barkeep and took his coat from the back of his chair.

“Wow, even after I pissed you off you’re still picking up the tab,” Remy said, slipping into his own leather jacket.

“What can I say,” Mulvehill said, pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes from an inside coat pocket. “I’m generous to a fault.”

Remy followed his friend outside into the freezing cold. The smokers who had been there when he’d first arrived were long gone.

“Shit, it’s cold,” Mulvehill said as he yanked the collar of his coat up around his ears. A cigarette protruded from his lips, and he brought a lighter up to ignite its tip.

“It’s January in New England; what do you expect?” Remy commented.

“Thank you, Al fucking Roker,” Mulvehill said dryly, making Remy laugh. “Where’d you park?”

Remy pointed to his Toyota across the street. “There she be,” he said. “Where are you?”

“I walked; figured it’d be one of those exasperating nights where I needed many drinks to keep from strangling you.”

“And was it?” Remy asked.

“You were one Scotch away from being throttled,” his friend said, cigarette bobbing between his lips.

“Guess it’s my lucky night,” Remy said. “Want a ride?”

Mulvehill shook his head. “Naw, gonna walk off the buzz.” He started to back up down the street.

“Talk to you later, then,” Remy said, walking into the center of the street. There wasn’t a trace of traffic as he strolled to his car.

“Hey, Chandler,” Steven called out as Remy stuck his key in the door of his car.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Can’t imagine she wouldn’t want you to be happy,” his friend said.

“You’re probably right,” Remy answered, letting the words slowly penetrate, knowing full well whom Steven was talking about. Pulling open the car door, he waved good night before climbing inside.

Can’t imagine.

Odd jobs—that was all he could remember doing for . . .

It seemed like forever.

They called him Bob, but he had no idea where the moniker had come from. He couldn’t remember his real name.

He couldn’t remember much of anything.

Bob was waiting in front of the Home Depot with ten others, waiting for work. They would do just about any form of manual labor for a day’s pay—gardening, painting, yard cleanup . . . odd jobs.

Odd jobs.

Bob stood by himself, away from the others, as he usually did, eyeing the entrance to the parking lot.

The smell was upon him first, a wave of hot, fetid aromas—the stink of a primordial jungle, lush with thick, overgrowing life. Bob closed his eyes, suddenly feeling as though he’d moved through time and space to another location.

A place that he could almost see inside his mind. A place where he had been before.

This wasn’t the first time he’d experienced this, but it was stronger of late, the smells more specific, the imagery more precise, and he kept hoping that one day soon, he would remember more.

More than the odd jobs.

“Hey, you comin’?” a voice asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Bob opened his eyes to see a thin Hispanic man standing in front of him. The others were already climbing into the back of a silver pickup truck.

“Yes,” Bob answered quickly, the lingering scent of the forest fading from his nostrils as he joined the other day laborers.

After a short drive, they ended up in a well-to-do neighborhood, clearing an overgrown lot to make way for the renovation of an existing property. Bob knew little more than that, and really didn’t care.

He couldn’t forget the latest assault to his senses. It was right there, teasing him, telling him something he needed to know, but didn’t understand.

Almost as if the memory were in some foreign tongue.

Bob stood in the lot, a scythe in his hand, cutting a swath through a thick wall of overgrown weeds. He concentrated on the rhythmic, back-and-forth movement of the blade, trying to forget the smells, the sensations, but elusive echoes remained, just beyond his reach.

The morning sun climbed high in the sky, and his shirt was soaked with the perspiration of hard work. Heart hammering in his chest, Bob let the scythe drop and removed his shirt, exposing his well-muscled flesh to the sun’s rays.

The high-pitched sound of a child’s laugh caught his attention and he gazed back toward the well-kept yard beyond the lot. The man who owned the property—Bob didn’t remember if he had even told them his name—was spraying a gleefully shrieking little boy with a garden hose.

Bob’s eyes were riveted to the scene, locked on the image of the happy child racing around the yard, trying to avoid his father’s attempts to soak him. It was all so . . . familiar.

And suddenly, the laughing child was replaced by the image of a man and a woman . . . naked, perfect in their form. They too ran through a gently falling rain.

A rain that fell upon a garden.

The Garden.

Bob let out a scream of agony and fell to the dusty ground he’d just cleared. For years—centuries—he had waited for a time when his visions would reveal their secrets, but now he wanted them to stop.

His fellow workers crowded around him.

“Is he okay?” the home owner called out. “Should I call nine-one-one?”

The silence in Bob’s mind was nearly deafening now, and he felt that the world had stopped for him—waiting to see what was to come.

Waiting for him to remember.

The man still had the hose in his hand, a steady stream of water arcing through the air to drench the grass.

The child stood watching, wet and shivering.

Why does he shiver? Bob wondered. Does he sense what I do? Does he know it’s coming?

Something was returning after so very long away.

It was almost here . . . but what was it? The images pounded furiously in Bob’s skull, and he screamed as the visions exploded in front of him.

If only the others could see, they would be screaming as well.

He saw the Garden, in all its wondrous glory, and in its center was the Tree . . . the Tree pregnant with fruit.

Forbidden fruit.

Bob was standing before the Tree, gazing at the pendulous growths that hung from its verdant branches, and somehow he knew that a piece of fruit was missing.

The sword of fire that he clutched in his armored hand blazed all the brighter . . . hotter . . . fiercer. And he was incredibly sad, for he knew that they must be punished.

They. Must. Be. Punished.

A hand . . . a human hand dropped down upon Bob’s bare shoulder, rousing him from his vision.

But now he knew.

He gazed into the frightened eyes of his fellow workers.

“Call nine-one-one,” the Hispanic man who had brought them here called out to the man with the hose.

“No,” Bob said, reaching out to grab hold of the man’s wrist. He could already feel his body changing. His skin was on fire . . . the flesh starting to bubble, pop, and steam.

The Hispanic man started to scream, but only briefly as his body ignited as if doused with gasoline.

And then they were all screaming . . . screaming as Bob’s flesh melted away, dripping like candle wax to the parched earth that he knelt upon. There was metal beneath the faux flesh, metal forged in the furnaces of Heaven, and it glistened unctuously in the noonday sun.

Bob rose to his feet, twice as tall. Powerful muscles on his back tensed painfully, then relaxed as a double set of mighty wings unfurled, shaking off flecks of fire that hungrily consumed the dry grass around him.

The fires of Heaven raged, the cries of his fellow workers abruptly silenced as they were returned to the dust from whence they came.

Remy and Madeline were sitting side by side in two white wicker chairs on the front porch of their cottage in Maine.

This had always been their favorite time, when the day eventually succumbed to the night. Usually they’d had their supper, and then retired with a cup of coffee, or a cocktail, to the peace of the porch and the surrender of daylight.

The nocturnal bugs were tuning up, preparing a woodland symphony just for them. At least, that was what they had liked to think: a concert of clicks, buzzes, and hums for their listening pleasure only.

“Hey,” Madeline said, reaching across to give Remy’s hand a loving squeeze.

“Hey back,” Remy said, smiling at her. It was always good to see her, even though it broke his heart every time.

“Good day?” she asked, as they gazed into the darkness beyond the porch. It sounded as if every insect in the woods had something to say . . . something to sing about.

Remy was silent, not quite sure how to answer.

“What?” Madeline asked, turning to him with the smile that transformed his insides to liquid.

“Interesting day . . . and night,” he said, not looking at her.

“Is that a touch of guilt I hear in your voice?”

Remy shrugged noncommittally, even though he knew she had the answer.

“You realize that’s a waste of perfectly good guilt,” Madeline stated, continuing to rub the side of his hand with her thumb.

“Perfectly good guilt?” he repeated with a grin, finally turning to face her with a look of feigned innocence.

“Mmmmm-hmm,” she replied with a quick nod. “All that energy could be put to good use elsewhere, like returning your phone calls, or giving to that kid outside the Market Basket collecting for Pop Warner.”

“I didn’t have any change that day,” Remy protested.

“And taking Marlowe to the Common,” Madeline continued, ignoring his outburst. “Poor baby hasn’t been to the Common in days.”

“It hasn’t been days,” Remy attempted, before realizing that she was right.

“See, perfectly good guilt going to waste over me.”

“Nothing ever went to waste over you,” he said, missing her more at that moment than he had in some time, knowing that this wasn’t real, but realizing it was better than nothing.

“Ah, flattery.” She squeezed his hand. “So, what was it like?” Madeline asked. “Being out on a date after all this time?”

“Different,” Remy said. “Nerve-racking.” He started to laugh.

“What’s there to be nervous about? You always gave good date.”

“Gave good date?” Remy repeated with a chuckle.

“It’s true,” Madeline said. “You were the best I ever dated. I always had the nicest times with you.”

“You brought out the best in me.” Remy leaned forward and kissed her hand.

“See?” Madeline said. “Even now you’re giving good date.”

“This is a date?” Remy asked.

“What would you call it?” asked the woman he had loved for more than forty years. “You’ve created this place in your head so we can spend some time together, and here we are, enjoying each other’s company. I’d call it a date.”

“Well, I’m not sure what kind of date I was the other night,” Remy said, reflecting on his dinner with Linda.

“Why, did you make her run screaming from the restaurant?”

“No.”

“She didn’t eat with her hands, did she?”

“No, she knew how to use a knife and fork.”

“Phew.” Madeline rolled her eyes. “For a minute there I thought maybe—”

“She wasn’t you,” Remy interrupted quickly, his heart filled with emotion for the woman who had made him what he was.

Who had made him human.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“I don’t think I was very good company because I kept thinking that I’d rather be with you.”

“You’re so sweet,” Madeline said. She reached over and placed her warm hand against his cheek. “And I’m flattered, really, but I’m also dead, Remy. The only way we can see each other is like this. Just you and me . . . and your very active imagination.”

They were both silent for a moment, listening to the insect song.

“You didn’t bring me up, did you?” Madeline asked finally.

“No,” Remy said. “I didn’t think it would be appropriate.”

“Thank God for that,” she said with a gentle laugh.

“Hey, I’m not as hopeless as you think I am,” Remy defended himself.

Madeline leaned over and put her head on his shoulder. “You’re not hopeless at all,” she told him. “Just a little bit stubborn sometimes.”

“Ya think?” Remy asked, putting his arm around her.

They sat like that for quite some time, Remy not wanting to speak—not wanting to ruin the moment. It felt like it had when everything was perfect.

When everything was just right.

“Did you have a little bit of fun?” she asked him.

“Maybe a little,” he answered, immediately feeling that twinge of guilt.

“How much?” Madeline asked, sitting up and turning to face him. She held up her thumb and forefinger about an inch a part. “This much?”

Remy shrugged. “Maybe a little less. She had a runny nose.”

Madeline wrinkled hers. “Really?”

Remy nodded. “Yeah, it was cold, though, so I guess I should cut her some slack.”

“I guess,” Madeline agreed. “Do you think you’ll see her again?”

Remy didn’t want to answer that question.

“Remy,” Madeline said, trying to get his attention.

He looked at her then, wishing with all his heart that this could be real.

“I asked you a question,” she said, her beautiful gaze urging him to answer.

“Yes,” he finally replied, and as the words left his mouth, the sounds of the forest were suddenly—eerily—quiet. “Yes, we’re having lunch tomorrow.”

Madeline smiled then, a smile that he’d seen thousands of times, a smile that had never failed to warm him to his core, a smile that personified the love she’d felt for him, reflected back as the love he had for her.

“Good,” she said. “I like her.”

“She isn’t you.”

“And you wouldn’t want her to be,” Madeline said, slowly shaking her head. “What we had belongs to us.”

“And only us,” Remy added.

“Exactly.” She leaned forward in her chair, her lips suddenly so close to his.

“No more wasted guilt,” she whispered, as their lips touched.

Remy opened his eyes to the reality of his world.

The Maine cottage was gone, as was his wife. Instead he sat at his desk, where he had been finishing some billing when he’d closed his eyes and let his consciousness wander. An angel needed no sleep, but often he would enter a kind of fugue state to rest his weary mind and spend time with his wife.

Marlowe lay flat on his side on the rug beneath the desk, legs outstretched as if he’d been shot, his dark eyes watching Remy.

The clock at the bottom of the computer screen said that it was after three a.m., and the street outside his Beacon Hill brownstone was quiet. Maybe it was time to alleviate some more of his burdened conscience.

“Hey,” Remy said to his dog.

Marlowe sat up at full attention, head tilted, waiting for Remy to ask the question.

And he did. “Want to go to the Common for a walk?”

No more magickal words had ever been spoken.

The Labrador immediately sprang to his feet and began to anxiously pace.

“Guess that’s a yes.” Remy stood and stretched, then headed for the stairs, a very excited Marlowe at his heels.

As Remy was getting ready to take Marlowe on a nighttime walk, Fernita Green was dreaming.

She had fallen asleep in her living room chair, as she was wont to do these days, surrounded by the clutter of her life, Miles the cat curled tightly in her lap, also deeply asleep.

Sharing the dream of his mistress.

Fernita walked through the jungle, tall grasses and thick underbrush moving aside to allow her to pass.

Leading her.

Miles purred and chirped, enjoying the freedom of this place that could only be the world found on the other side of the window.

The big outside.

Something deep inside told Fernita that she knew this vast, primordial place, and this calmed her as she walked the path that appeared beneath her bare feet.

Where are my shoes? she wondered briefly, for there were far more important things to worry about. Although she could not remember what they were.

Only that she was the answer.

The jungle path abruptly stopped, a curtain of thorny vines blocking her way. Fernita stood before the obstruction, waiting for the vegetation to show her the way around, but the green did not react, softly rustling in the warm, gentle breeze that caressed this wild place.

The wild was awakened in Miles the cat, his large eyes scanning the grass and trees for signs of birds, or bugs, or squirrels—signs of prey.

But, disappointingly, there were none right then. There were only the plants here in the big outside.

The jungle closed in around her. Fernita watched with a growing sense of unease as the path she’d walked slowly filled in behind her, reclaimed by the abundant overgrowth. A twinge of panic struck, but she managed to keep it under control as she turned her attention to the wall of thick, spotted vines dangling before her.

She did not know why, but she was suddenly overcome with the desire to touch them. Before she could even question this nearly overpowering compulsion she reached out, then quickly withdrew her hand with a hiss as a thorn pierced the underside of two of her fingers and her palm. For a moment she stared at the dark blood pooling in her hand, then returned her attention to the thick vine before her.

At first she believed it to be a trick of her eyes. There was blood on the vines where she had touched them . . . where she had been stuck, but the blood seemed to be fading away, gradually absorbed into the body of the vines.

How odd.

And as the last of her blood was taken in, the vines began to sway and shake, slowly pulling up and away like the thick velvet curtains of the old movie palaces, to reveal not the white of a screen, but a dark, winding path beyond.

Fernita crouched at the opening, Miles cowering beside her, neither sure they wanted to go any farther, even though every fiber of Fernita’s being screamed that she should.

The high grass had again receded, forming a snaking passage through the abundant jungle to a clearing. And in the clearing was a tree; perhaps one of the largest trees Fernita had ever seen. She could just about make out the vast network of thick branches that grew out from its massive trunk, tapering upward into the velvet black sky.

How odd the stars appeared, almost as if they were too close.

Fernita’s eyes were just returning to the path . . . to the glorious tree, when something stepped out of the shadows to block her view.

It was huge, its body covered in golden armor that reflected the brightness of the burning sword it clutched in one of its massive, gauntleted hands.

Frozen in fear, she could only look up into its face, which was equal parts eagle, lion, and man.

What are you? she wanted to ask it, but the answer was upon her, floating up from the darkness from where it had been hidden.

Cherubim.

“You do not belong,” the creature shrieked, roared, and bellowed in one discordant voice that made her bones shake.

And Miles hissed, his body pressed flat to the grassy ground, fur standing on end as if electrified.

It pinned her there with its multiple sets of eyes, its large form casting a cold shadow across her naked form.

It was the first moment that she recognized she was unclothed, and it would have caused her much confusion if she hadn’t been in the presence of a looming weapon of Heaven.

The Cherubim lumbered ever closer; four sets of strangely beautiful wings unfurled from its armored back. Though terrified, she could not help but marvel at its fearsome beauty, staring up into its three faces as it lifted its sword of fire.

“You do not belong,” it announced again, prepared to strike.

And Fernita watched, unable to move as the fiery weapon descended, her mouth opening, not in a scream as she believed would pour forth from the depths of her very soul, but another sound that proved she was the answer.

That she did belong.

Fernita awakened from the dream, the answer to a question that had plagued her for so very long dancing upon the tip of her tongue.

For a moment it was there, but as the recollection of the jungle drifted away like the morning mist, it too was gone. And in a matter of seconds, she had forgotten that she had even dreamed at all.

Miles had moved from her lap to an open portion of windowsill, staring intensely out at the cold, predawn world, a strange trilling sound, as if he were excited by the sight of a bird or a squirrel, coming from his furry throat.

“What do you see out there, crazy cat?” she asked sleepily, as she reached out and stroked his back with old fingers, crooked with age.

Miles continued to stare, repeating the strange sound over and over again, answering the question that the old woman asked of him.

“It’s coming,” the cat told her, even though she did not understand.

“The big outside is coming.”