Coming Home

not be very bright, but it is light nonetheless. Not like the blinding, death-like darkness in the coal mine in Spitsbergen.

“Lights on,” Karl said quietly. The headlights came on quickly, revealing relief in all the faces. When Becky switched on her light is when she saw the cat on the dirt floor next to the rock wall that was wet with condensation. She heard a strange noise that seemed to be coming from the cat. She felt wobbly from the minute of silence, from the trip down some vast, empty rabbit hole, and was trying to get her bearings, flexing her hands and neck, adjusting her coat.

that when Becky was set on something, there was no argument in the world that would dissuade her. It was either let her go alone, or go with her. And she definitely would have gone back to that creepy old mine and climbed the fence, alone, in search of this cat she’d supposedly seen. A cat. Becky was fond of animals. Mostly dogs. Her family had always had dogs. And some cats as well. But she’d always preferred the dogs, thinking the cats were slightly on the demonic side. She’d once told him she’d heard that if you died and were just lying there on the floor and the cats got hungry, which they always seemed to be, they would begin eating you.

“You saw a cat? Really?”

It was Karl.

“Kitty!?” Becky said, surprised, causing the group to look.

“How unusual.

“Where?” someone asked. The moment Becky had spoken, the cat had disappeared. It didn’t run off. It just disappeared. It had been looking at her. Then it wasn’t there. No one else saw it, including Andy.

“You saw a cat? Really?” It was Karl. “How unusual. “There’s nothing for them in here. Nothing grows. Nothing lives, not a mouse ever to be seen. Never seen a cat in here.”

And now, around midnight, they were back, having snuck into the mine, climbed the fence like a couple of teenage thrill-seekers, much to Andy’s dismay. But he’d learned

Living with cats, she often said, was like living with wild animals. Dangerous wild animals that had split personalities. In the house they were laid back, often cuddly, engaging, even entertaining. Let them out and they were killers, murdering birds and rabbits, endlessly trying to chase down squirrels. Bloodthirsty creatures that seemed to be amused by their quarry’s convulsions.

Then why, Andy wondered, why get up in the middle of the night and go looking for some stray cat, some feral cat that would probably tear you up if it could? That was the thing. She had been wide awake, with her mind wrapped around it and not about to let go. Obsessing