The Doll in the Garden

Chapter 3

The White Cat

LEFT ALONE, I ran up the steps and into the empty apartment. Coaxing Oscar into my lap, I stared out the window at the garden. I had seen a white cat, I was sure I had, but he was even bit as real as Oscar. I'd felt his nose, my fingertips had brushed his fur, I'd heard him meow. He couldn't have been a ghost.

But where had he gone? How had he just disappeared? Little goose bumps chased themselves up and down my neck as I tried to convince myself that Kristi was teasing me. She'd watched me go into the garden, she'd probably seen the white cat, and she'd wanted to scare me with ghost stories. That's all there was to it.

***

By the time Mom came home, I was thinking more about pizza than the garden or the white cat. When I heard her car in the driveway, I leaned over the porch railing to watch her balancing the pizza box and a couple of cans of soda.

"Do you need any help?" I called.

Mom shook her head, but I ran down to meet her anyway and took the sodas. The pizza smelled so wonderful I could almost taste the gooey, melted cheese and the hot tomato sauce.

Making ourselves comfortable on the steps, we divided the pizza. The sun had sunk behind the mountains, but the sky was still pink and the shadow of the garden stretched halfway across the lawn. The first star hung just below the moon. Crickets chirped from their hiding places, and a mockingbird sang a long, lovely serenade from the tree in Kristi's yard.

"Baltimore was like an oven," Mom said after we'd eaten enough pizza to take the edge off our appetites. "I was caught right in the middle of rush hour, and the traffic was awful."

"They don't have rush hour here," I told her. "Not enough people."

"Not enough rush either," Mom said. "Just peace and quiet."

I chewed my last piece of pizza and wondered if I should tell Mom what I'd learned from Kristi. I opened my mouth, but when I started talking I told her about meeting Kristi instead. Why ruin a beautiful evening talking about ghosts?

"Maybe you'll make friends with Kristi's mother," I said.

"I didn't come here to make friends, sweetie," Mom said. "I have to finish my dissertation so I can get a job teaching. The money Daddy left won't last forever."

I nodded, but I didn't agree with her. Like me, Mom had been sad for too long. She needed somebody to cheer her up, to make her happy again. I wanted her to smile and laugh and joke the way she used to before Daddy got sick.

I didn't say anything, though; I just leaned against her and felt the comfort of her arm circling me and drawing me close.

***

It wasn't till I'd gotten into bed and turned out the light that I thought about the garden and Kristi's ghost story. The moon shone in my window and slanted across my bed, and a night breeze brought the smell of roses and honeysuckle into the room. Outside, leaves rustled, but I didn't hear anything else. No sobbing, no strange cat meowing - just the sound of Mom's fingers hitting the keys of her typewriter. Feeling sure Kristi had been teasing me, I drifted off to sleep.

Much later I woke up. The house was silent, and Oscar was crouched on the windowsill at the foot of my bed. His body was tense, his ears cocked forward, and his tail lashed back and forth furiously. As I sat up, I heard him growl softly, not at me but at something outside.

Cautiously, I peeked out the window. At first I saw nothing but the moonlight whitening the grass and blackening the shadows. Then something moved near the garden, and Oscar growled again.

It was the white cat. He was creeping along the edge of a shadow, but while I watched, he paused and looked up at my window. The moonlight reflected in his eyes, making them two silver disks. When he meowed softly, Oscar lunged against the screen, tearing at the wire with his claws and growling.

' Grabbing my cat, I pulled him away from the window, but he writhed free and disappeared under the bed, still growling. As Oscar vanished, I looked fearfully outside. The white cat was gone, but the scraggly bushes moved with the breeze and the shadows they cast swayed on the grass. The sweet smell of roses filled my room, and I shivered as a gust of wind blew over me.

Before I could crawl under the covers, I heard something in the darkness. It wasn't the breeze in the leaves or a cat meowing or a night bird calling; it was unmistakably the sound of a child crying.

Truly afraid, I pulled the blanket over my head and fought against a strong urge to run to my mother's room and the safety of her bed. As if he sensed my feelings, Oscar came out from his hiding place. Purring in my ear, he curled up on my pillow, and the two of us finally fell asleep together.