Chapter Twenty-One
That evening, after Kiyoko and Nirav leave the Bureau (Nirav still disappears for hours at a time, rather like the feral cat I adore), Pax catches my hand. “Are you headed to the boardinghouse?”
It’s an odd question. Is he insinuating that I should go elsewhere? That I should go somewhere with him?
“No, there’s something I need to do.” It’s early, and if I hurry, I can make it to my former boardinghouse before the sun sets. I’m on a mission to find said cat, in fact. But for some reason, my face decides to smile at Pax, and his face decides to smile back.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Well, I—”
“Great. Let’s go.”
New York City at night is magical. Dangerous, maybe, but when the smells of the day dissipate, and the concrete cools, and the shadows lengthen, and the traffic sounds dwindle, there is a soft peacefulness and mystery that falls over the city like a cloak. I love wandering the city at night.
We pass a sausage cart and Pax inhales deeply, like he’s about to say something. I imagine he’s going to make some crude comment about sausages. But instead he says, “I wish I were psychic.”
I wish he’d made a crude comment about sausages. “No, you don’t.”
“I do. I can’t tell you how much peace I got when—” His voice catches, and he surprises me twice in less than fifteen seconds.
“The peace I got when William Stead passed along messages from my sister Julia. I turned my whole life around because of those messages.” He bumps me with his shoulder.
“Would you believe I wasn’t making the most honest living before that? ”
“I would indeed believe that, yes.”
Pax chuckles, and Spirit lays popping corn in my mind’s eye. I really enjoy popping corn. “How did it start for you?” he pushes. “Like, when did you know you were different?”
“I am so odd, aren’t I?”
“Odd is good.” He doesn’t elaborate.
I’m quiet for a bit, but I finally share. “I always had imaginary friends when I was little. One was good, and her name was Patty. The bad one was Judy.”
“All the bad stuff you did got blamed on Judy, huh?”
“Yes,” I laugh. “But she was real. I think? Anyway, I apparently used to talk to Patty in French. I don’t speak French but my maman and sister do.” Did.
“See? That’s cool.”
“My maman said mon père has the gift of Sight, too.”
“Your father?”
I nod. “He apparently denies it, though.” Enough about my father. “It’s not what you think it is, this ability. It’s quite maddening.”
Pax stops and grins, and I notice how one of his front teeth is chipped ever so slightly. His jagged edge. “Mad is my favorite place to be.”
We arrive at my former boardinghouse and we duck around corners, whispering, “Here, kitty! Here, Snuff!” After fifteen or so minutes, we hear a meow, see a tail flip around a garbage bin.
“Snuff!” I say, and scoop up my mangy, matted pet. Snuff grumbles, but he butts my chin with the top of his head and begrudgingly purrs. I offer him a sliver of chicken I’d saved especially for him. He gobbles it obnoxiously.
I drop him into the bottom of my burlap satchel. Snuff growls and hisses and throws an overall fit. Pax laughs. “Your cat knows some choice language,” he says.
“I imagine he does. He’s seen a lot in this city.” I offer him another piece of chicken as he grumbles and kicks in the crook of this bag. He spits but takes the chicken. He knows to take a meal when it’s offered. He and I are alike in that way, I suppose.
We head back. When we pass the sausage cart on our return trip, Pax chuckles and elbows me and tilts his head at the cart and waggles his eyebrows. The crude commentary about sausages I had been expecting.
At Miss Beverly’s, Pax waves a small, almost timid, goodbye.
Before I lose my nerve, I say, “You’re going to great lengths to charm the three of us. To charm me.”
Pax’s eyes dance. “I never invest time in something I don’t desperately want.”
He leaves. I try to decide if that’s admirable or repugnant.
I sneak the hidden key from its hook behind the window shutter.
Spirit doesn’t usually lead me to such objects as a tucked-away key, but they led me to this hiding spot a few days ago with a strong pull, I suppose because this room is paid for.
I tiptoe inside. Nirav sits on the couch in the parlor, giggling at the comics in the Sunday funny pages; they’d “mysteriously” ended up in his pocket after our visit to the library.
He beams when he sees his old pal Snuff, and that smile made the evening’s trek and awkward conversation totally worth it.
We go straight through the kitchen, and out the back door.
I gently dump Snuff into this new alley. He looks up at me with a mixture of disgust and love, a look only a cat can give.
Nirav rustles through a few garbage bins. I stroke Snuff’s back, scratch his ears. As I’m petting him, I whisper, “What exactly did you tell Kiyoko about Daisy? Those were secrets, you know.”
He barks one short, sharp meow and shows me his hind end, tail twitching.
Snuff knows every ounce of my guilt, every one of my terrible decisions. “Did you tell her everything?” I shudder.
A sprig of ivy appears to shoot out of the dirt in this dark alleyway. Poison ivy. It grows and stretches and wraps around one ankle, two. It is my guilt, my grief, this poison. Pulling me in, always. It winds and wends its way up my body, getting tighter, tighter… Snuff arches his back, hisses.
Nirav returns with a handful of crumbling salmon cakes. The ivy disappears as quickly as it sprouted. I don’t know if that was my own imagination or a sign from Spirit. I’m left breathless.
The back door of the boardinghouse bangs open, and Miss Beverly, with little regard for her guests or neighbors at this late hour, shouts, “What the hell are the two of yous doing back here?”
She eyes the situation, and her glare lands on Snuff, who devours the salmon cakes.
“A cat?!” she screeches. “Are you feeding a cat back here?”
I shake my head, but then stop, because yes, we are feeding a cat back here. “He’s eating what was in the garbage. This is Snuff.” I pick up Snuff’s front paws and place my cheek against his, and instinctively Snuff looks as adorable as possible. His whiskers twitch.
“Nope! No!” Miss Beverly shouts. “You two get inside. I catch you feeding another varmint and you are OUT, you hear me? Out!”
I nuzzle Snuff quickly and we scramble inside, Miss Beverly slamming and locking the door behind us. But oddly, Spirit shows me a stuffed toy bear, instead of the grizzly I’d expect to see.