CHAPTER 13
My first thought was that I had hit my head. It didn’t actually hurt, but I rubbed it anyway. Everything had gone oddly dim, as if clouds had obscured the sun. I looked around the room, puzzled by the darkness that obscured the door and the wall and pooled thickly across my writing table.
I took two steps toward my table, half expecting the shadows to evaporate, but they did not. A pewter-gray stain covered the top of the table, as thick as spilled ink. I stretched out my hand to touch the surface and my skin was the proper color, but the wood was not. Nor was the wall behind it, for that matter. In fact, it looked as if a coat of paint had been applied to the desk, wall, floor, and half the chair—but not the other half, which looked perfectly ordinary. The dividing line was as sharp as a ruler: wood grain on one side, flat gray on the other.
I leaned heavily on the chair, suddenly feeling the need for support.
“Concussion,” I muttered to myself. Was it odd to diagnose a concussion while having one?Odd or not, it’s exactly the sort of thing that you would do.
I should probably have gotten help, in case I was about to faint, but the door to my room had also been painted deep gray, and the shadows were even darker there, deepening into a yawning blackness that was not at all comfortable to look at.
I rubbed my head again, feeling for a lump, but couldn’t find one.
“I rather like to be held,” said a thin, acerbic voice in the vicinity of my elbow, “but I object to being dangled like a wet towel. Either hold me properly or put me down.”
I was so startled that I nearly dropped the cat. The cat expressed his displeasure by sinking his claws into my side, twisting around, and climbing upward, until he had settled with his rump in the crook of my arm and his paws on my chest, where he clung like a small, malevolent infant.
“Yes, yes,” he said, when I stared at him. “It’s a talking cat, oh, how astonishing. In order, then—yes, I’m talking; no, it’s not a trick; and I’m sure it’s none ofmybusiness if other cats can talk or choose not to.”
Since this actually did dispose of my first three questions, I was left with my mouth hanging open and nothing coming out. After a moment I swallowed hard and said, “I’ve gone mad.”
“That,” said the cat, “is also none of my business.”
I sat down on the bed with a thump. It, at least, appeared quite normal. The cat thrust his round skull underneath my chin, and I began petting him mechanically. His purr nearly rattled my teeth in my jaw.
“Could I be dreaming?” I asked aloud.
Without pausing his purr, the cat sank a single claw into my shoulder. I let out a yelp and grabbed for his paw, but he had already withdrawn the claw. “No,” he said, his voice layering over top of the purr like a thin glaze over cake.
I sat with my arms full of cat while my thoughts stuttered and chased one another in useless circles.Imusthave hit my head. Talking cats and shadows on everything—I should go and find someone and tell them that I am hallucinating and to fetch a doctor at once.
I told myself this very firmly and then did not move. The prospect felt somehow embarrassing, as if it were in very poor taste to hallucinate.I hate to be a bother,I thought vaguely, and then, irritably,Ahangnailis a bother. You’re hearing cats talk!
Only the one cat, really…
It does not matter how many cats there are! Any nonzero number of talking cats is significant!
Nevertheless, I did not seem to be moving. The cat stretched his head back so that I could attend to the itchy place underneath his chin.
It occurred to me as I scratched that the cat’s mouth didn’t move when he talked.No, of course it wouldn’t. Cats don’t have the right anatomy to actually make human speech. Their lips and throats are all wrong. Whatever he’s doing, it’s not coming in through my ears.
“How is it, exactly, that I can hear you talking?” I asked.
“I expect it’s because I’m a mirror-cat.”
“I see.” I considered this from all angles before deciding that I had no idea what he was talking about. “And what is a mirror-cat?”
The cat readjusted himself, setting tiny pinpricks itching along my collarbone. “There was once a kitten,” he said, “who had a hole for a right eye.” His tail flicked against my wrist. “A man tried to drown the kitten in a pond that reflected the sky and the stars. But a kind woman reached into the pond and grabbed the kitten and pulled him out again.” Another flick. “But by chance, she grabbed his reflection and pulled out the kitten who had a hole for a left eye instead. She didn’t notice, of course. Humans rarely do.”
“And that was you?” I asked, glancing down to make certain that the cat was, indeed, missing his left eye and not his right.
“I did not tell you the story because I think it makes compelling listening.” He turned his head so that the empty socket seemed to gaze into my face. “And since I am a mirror-cat and you have gone into the mirror, a number of peculiar things are possible.”
“Gone into the mirror?” I looked over at the mirror, baffled, but it looked exactly the same as it always had, except that the shadows behind it were unusually deep. “What do you mean?”
“You’re not very observant, are you?” The cat yawned, showing a ribbed pink gullet. “But you’re not bad at petting cats, so I suppose some allowances must be made. You fell through the mirror just now, while you were holding me. We’re on the other side of the silver now.”
“The other side of…” I pinched the bridge of my nose. Sincethis meant that I was no longer petting the cat, his purr trailed off, disgruntled. “This is absurd. Mirrors don’t have other sides. They’re just glass.”
