The Gray Cat

When a young girl leaves home in search of a cat, she discovers a terrible secret from her past.

The cat vanished through the fence, slipping past Maisie’s hand like smoke. She stepped toward the wrought-iron bars—as if to pass through—but hesitated. The fence stretched out of sight in both directions, disappearing beyond a bend in the road. Pale afternoon shadows danced along the cold metal.

Maisie had been following the cat for what felt like an eternity. She was starting to worry that she wouldn’t make it home in time for dinner. Her mom didn’t want her to have a cat. She knew she would have to sneak him into the house. Maisie imagined building a tiny fort for him in the basement, a pile of pillows and blankets nestled between the water heater and the stairs. If her mom wouldn’t let her keep Shadow (for that is what she named the cat), she decided she would run away from home.

She continued her search along the fence. It was the same one she remembered seeing when they went to visit Grandma. Maisie knew there was a gate not much further ahead, an old rusty relic that swung in the wind, its rusted hinges a keening, mournful cry. 

The road curved out of sight, disappearing behind a blind bend. For a second, she thought she saw Shadow darting through the gate and cutting across the road. But then she heard a car barreling down, bright red, its engine like thunder. It whipped around the curve and came down on her. Maisie felt panic slicing through her, and before she could react, a searing pain. The blue endless sky came crashing to the earth.

But there was no car. And no Shadow. She felt only an unsettling feeling, as if it had all happened before. But the road was empty, and the long grass hummed with the snare drum of a thousand invisible insects.

She walked for a long time, the evening sun falling into the earth. At last she came to a small parking lot, which Maisie recognized from when they came to visit Grandma. There was a single car in the gravel lot, a small blue coupe.

A man emerged from the car. He had a collapsable cane with a hook on one end and he wore a black flannel shirt that was buttoned tightly across his chest. His hair was white and short, his eyes a pale blue. Maisie didn’t recognize him. Nor the car, which glimmered with a freshly-waxed sheen. The man carried a bouquet of yellow flowers in his other hand.

“Have you seen my cat?” Maisie said, approaching the stranger. “He’s gray and his name is Shadow. Mom says I can’t have a kitten, but Shadow’s a full-grown cat. Do you think she’ll let me keep him?”

The man shivered, pulling at his shirt. He glanced at Maisie and then quickly averted his eyes, as though alarmed to meet her gaze.

“I’m looking for my cat. Have you seen him?”

But the man said nothing to her. He walked through the parking lot toward the fence, his feet dragging the gravel stones. Maisie followed him, walking a pace behind.

“Where are you?” the man shouted. “I can’t find the entrance.”

“I’m right here,” Maisie said. “We have to find the gate. That’s how you get in.” The two walked in silence. Maisie pointed to the flowers in the man’s hand. “Are you here to see your grandma, too?”

The man stopped and looked around. Maisie thought it was rude that he would not look directly at her. A breeze stirred the flowers in his hands and three bright yellow petals fell to the ground. “Where are you?” the man called out again.

“I’m right here,” Maisie said, exasperated. “We are looking for the gate which leads to Grandma. I can’t go home until I get my cat, and I’m not even sure that I will be able to go home because Mom said I can’t have a kitten. But he’s a full-grown cat! Have you seen him?” 

The man said nothing. He stopped, his eyes following the old, twisted metal of the fence.

“It’s this way!” Maisie glided past him, floating along the fence until she came, at last, to the gate. It towered over her, its iron bars twisting together in elaborate patterns. The posts, made of the same cold metal, were like giant obelisks. Flanking either side of the entrance were two enormous lion statues, gilded with flaking gold. The gate was solid black, and the bars were linked so tightly it looked like a hole in space, like a portal between worlds.

Maisie crossed the threshold and entered the graveyard.

The gravestones closest to the entrance were newer, their freshly-hewn stones blazing white in the dwindling light of dusk. Scattered through the graveyard were clusters of birch trees, their leaves shimmering and clattering in the wind.

“Here kitty kitty,” Maisie called as she walked among the stones. “Here kitty kitty.” She floated toward the far corner of the graveyard where a tall oak tree stood watch over a cluster of small graves, like a teacher shepherding her children. These graves were much older, their ancient stones leaning precariously to the side, their faces so worn you could not read the names that had once been new. 

Grandma’s grave was just past the tree, in a quiet, shady spot. Maisie couldn’t remember her grandma, but she remembered coming here every year with her mom to leave flowers. There was a portrait of her that hung in their house, her light brown eyes fringed with smiling wrinkles, her high cheekbones glimmering in the glare of the photographer’s camera.

Maisie sat down beside the grave. “Hi Grandma,” she said. “I”m looking for a cat, a gray cat who came into the graveyard a little while ago. Have you seen him? Mom says I can’t have a kitten, but I hope she will let me keep Shadow. If she won’t, then I’ll have to figure something out. Maybe I’ll come live here with you.” Grandma didn’t say anything, but the oak tree stirred, disrupted by a restless wind.

Maisie heard a strange noise. She turned and saw the man from the car. His cane rested against a gravestone and he held the yellow flowers  in one hand. His other arm was draped around a woman’s shoulders. Though she couldn’t see her face—her gaze was turned downward, looking at a small gravestone,—Maisie thought there was something familiar about her. 

The man placed the flowers against the tiny gravestone, and the woman looked up, her eyes shining with tears. Maisie saw the same face that had gazed down at her from the portrait—the same soft brown eyes and sharp chin. It was Grandma, she realized, somehow come alive again. She walked toward the couple, but as she came closer, she realized it was not her Grandma—there was something wrong about her face. The eyes were the same, but they were not surrounded by that familiar cluster of wrinkles. Her cheekbones were different, too, soft and round, and there was a dimple on her left cheek. It wasn’t her grandma, it was her mom—but somehow aged by decades. For this woman who looked like her mom was almost as old as Grandma in her portrait. But it was unmistakably her mom: she had the same hair, cut short and styled the same way she had always styled it, though it was now gray instead of black. It was the eyes that gave her away. They were the same eyes as her grandma’s, but in her mom they had not that laughing, simple-minded joy but a wearied, time-beaten sadness.

“Mom?” Maisie said as she approached the couple.

The woman turned around and stared straight at Maisie. 

“Are you ok?” the man.

“Can I take my cat home?” Maisie said. “I know you told me I couldn’t have a kitten, but he’s a full-grown cat. That’s ok, right?”

“No,” her mom said.

“Oh,” said Maisie. “I mean, I suppose—”

“I thought I heard something,” her Mom interrupted her.

“It’s probably Whiskers! I was going to call him Shadow, but I think Whiskers is a better name. It suits him.”

The man took his arm from around her mom’s shoulders and looked toward Maisie, not quite meeting her eye. “Me, too,” he said. “I could have sworn I saw something near the car. This place unsettles me, more than most graveyards.”

“Maybe it was the gate,” Maisie said. “It creaks a lot and you can hear it anywhere in the graveyard. I know because I come here a lot—visiting Grandma and searching for Mr. Whiskers.”

Her mom turned to the man and said, “I still miss her so much. Even after all these years. The grief has never left, only settled in deep. A permanent visitor. It’s like I can still her her voice if I come here and listen closely. It feels like she’s still here with me. Though I know it’s impossible.”

“I feel Grandma here, too,” Maisie said. “I like to talk to her. I’m sorry I’ve been gone all day. I’ve just been following Whiskers. He came through here not long ago. Did you see him?”

“Just now,” her mom said. “Did you hear that?”

“You heard him? Where?” Maisie turned around, scanning the graveyard.

Her mom and the man were silent for a few moments. Maisie was listening, too, hoping to catch the sound of a cat rustling through the grass.

“I hear only the wind,” said the man.

Her mom turned and looked directly at Maisie. “You’re still here,” she said. She glanced at the tiny gravestone. “I can feel it.” She started to cry, her small body shaking.

Maisie didn’t like to see her mom so upset. She’s sad because I won’t come home until I find my cat, Maisie thought. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you said I couldn’t have a cat, but Mr. Gray is very important to me. The most important thing in the world. I’m sorry if I made you sad.” That final word hung in the air like the last, lingering leaf at autumn’s end.

Maisie saw a flash of movement near the gate. “There he is!” She said, flying away in that direction.

The old man and woman stood at the tiny gravestone for a little longer. The woman dried her tears, and the man pulled her into a hug. They walked back to their car, the fading light giving way to darkness, the two of them supporting each other.

But Maisie couldn’t find the cat. She found only a couple of squirrels chasing each other through the trees, their nails clapping against the bark. “Here kitty kitty,” she said, drifting among the gravestones. She heard nothing but the wind whispering with the voice of trees. She walked among them, the bone-white birches covered with black spots that looked like eyes—eyes that never blinked, never stopped staring. It was like all the trees in the graveyard were trying to tell her something, but she could not understand their words.

Maisie wondered that her mom should look so old. And who was that man with her? Her mom had promised her should would never remarry after her dad left. She had said Maisie was all she needed—they would get through it together. Maybe she changed her mind. If she could change her mind about that, Maisie thought, she could change her mind about the cat.

The sun slipped beyond the day’s grasp, but Maisie remained. “Here kitty kitty,” she said to the trees, to the stones, to the descending darkness. She came upon the yellow flowers the man had left behind, and in the twilight, she could see the gravestone upon which they rested. She could tell the marble was no longer new but faded. Maisie could remember the day it appeared, the granite glittering in the morning sun, its edges sharp, freshly cut. The words crisp and clear. Though its edges were now worn and its surface faded, Maisie could still read her name on the little gravestone.

She wanted to go home, wanted nothing more than to tell her mom that she was sorry. Sorry for worrying her, sorry for disappearing all day. But she had to find the gray cat, first. Her mom must let her keep him.

Darkness came and found Maisie circling her grave, wandering in the same way she had wandered for the last ten thousand nights, crying “here kitty kitty” in vain, her feet leaving no marks upon the grass, her body casting no shadows amongst the rows of fading gravestones, beneath which their residents sleep an eternal, dreamless sleep.