41. The Magic of Cats #2
The low growl that came from the other end of the hallway sounded like a cross between a lion and a hellhound.
Minerva didn’t want to look. She knew she shouldn’t look.
Meeting a predator’s gaze was almost as bad as turning your back and running.
Which was precisely what she felt like doing at the moment.
“What is it, Gemini? Do you see something there?” Maida asked. “I don’t see anything. It’s so dark. Should I turn on the light?”
Minerva’s great niece fumbled on the wall, feeling for light switches where Minerva knew well there were none.
The cat growled again.
“Hang on,” Maida said. She tucked the book she was carrying under her other arm and felt her way along the wall on the other side of the hall. Now she was getting closer to the switch outside the mudroom.
She heard a wet, smacking sound. Presumably the cat, licking its chops. It made her very bones shiver.
Minerva found she could no longer resist. She tilted her chin up and risked a glance over her shoulder.
Two glowing orbs—one a celestial blue and the other a cosmic starlit gold, reflected at her.
Long silvery whiskers fanned out in plumes to either side of the crouching feline, twitching like antennae.
She was only going to get one shot with the lasso and she would not screw it up.
Everything happened so quickly, and yet somehow in slow motion as well.
With her left hand she lobbed the jam jar, aiming squarely at the cat’s head and putting as much shoulder into it as her slight frame could manage. She was going for maximum impact.
She missed by a mile. She heard the plink of glass hitting the ground and the disappointing susurrus of the minuscule jar rolling away. Gemini lunged forward to catch the jar in her giant paws, batting and pouncing on it like one of her toys.
“What have you got there now?” Maida stepped forward, straining to see.
There was no time to waste. She had to do it while the cat was distracted.
Unfortunately, there was no way she would be successful unless she turned her back.
Without allowing herself to second guess the decision, Minerva swung the small lasso above her head.
She was determined to loop the cord around the doorknob on her first and likely only attempt.
“There’s the switch,” Maida said, fumbling with the levers along the wall. Nothing happened. “That’s strange,” she mused. “I wonder if the power is out.”
“I’ll be right back, Gem. I’m going to go see if there’s any candles in the mudroom,” Maida said.
One…Two…Three…
Minerva kept one eye open, and squinted the other one half shut, like a marksman, trying to create a sightline.
But as she was half blind, with only one eye open, she had barely a quarter’s worth of the sight she needed.
At the last moment, she closed both eyes tight and let go, saying a prayer, chanting a spell, making a wish.
Suddenly, she was airborne, swinging from the taut rope that she was now clinging to with all four paws and her tail.
The adrenaline surge hit even harder and sweeter than Rosie’s snickerdoodles.
She’d done it! She’d lassoed the doorknob.
It was a miracle! Such an adventure, at her age!
What a story this would make. Zephyr would be so proud, if only she could tell him.
She pulled herself up the rope, claws over tail.
But the next instant, the loop slid down off the smooth metal skull and she was all tangled up and falling towards the cold stone floor. Too fast. Too hard. She braced herself for the impact, eyes squinched shut.
When the impact came, it was not the blow she expected. Instead, she crashed against something soft, warm and…wet? Something that stank of fish breath.
Gemini landed gracefully in front of the door.
She stood up on her rear paws, placing the front two against the door, just below the doorknob.
Her sharp white teeth held Minerva caged in her mouth.
One of them grazed Minerva’s right leg, another was pressed up against her ribs.
A few millimeters in any direction and she’d be done for.
She didn’t dare move her body, but she did turn her head to protest.
“Put me down!” she demanded. “Do you know who I am? You must know that I’m trying to help here. Not just myself. I’m trying to help Maida and Arthur, and Rosie,” she squeaked.
At the sound of Rosie’s name, Gemini’s pupils widened and contracted.
“That’s right.” Minerva risked wriggling her right arm and tail free. “Also, I’m just a scrawny little mouse. Why would you want to eat me when you’ve got such delicious kibble waiting for you upstairs?”
Gemini tilted her head up towards the doorknob and loosened her jaws enough for Minerva to sit upright.
“Please,” Minerva decided to try a different tack, “I promise to share all my snacks with you. I know how to get the refrigerator open. Do cats like cheese?”
Abruptly, the cat nudged her forward, bringing her nose to nose with the door to the Archives.
“Wait? Are you trying to help me get into the Archives?” Minerva asked. It was a good thing she was already sitting down. How had she gotten it so wrong? This lovely beast didn’t want to eat her. It wanted to be her friend!
Gemini began to purr so loudly and deliciously that suddenly Minerva didn’t mind her terrible breath.
The good vibrations tickled her toes and her nerves.
The louder the cat purred, the less her bones ached.
More than this, she felt a sense of hope returning.
How was it she’d never appreciated the magic of cats before?
When she reached for her own tail, she felt a renewed sense of purpose.
“Let’s do this, Gemini.” Minerva poked the eyeballs, stuck her tail up the skull’s nose and reached out with both hands to wiggle the death head’s eyeteeth. She heard the click of the lock, and was grateful for Gemini’s grace as the door swung open.
The great furry beast carried her all the way down the stairs and deposited her gently on the oriental rug by the landing.
“Thank you, Gemini. I think what I’m looking for is actually in the vertical files at the back,” Minerva said.
The cat settled down in a sphinx-like pose, watching the door. She gave Minerva two slow blinks from her mismatched eyes and nodded.
One thing was for sure, Minerva decided. If she ever found a way out of this mess, she was going to have to reconsider her attitude towards cats.