Have You Seen The Cat?

Ophelia counted three rules: on her fingers, on the passing cars, on the birds that flew into her window.

The first went like this: do not go into the woods at night. The trees whispered wicked secrets to one another, spurred on by the shadowed moon. When they were not whispering to each other, they were calling to her, trying to lure her into the dark. The words sunk into her ears and seeped into her skin. They hummed sugary good-byes and mournful greetings that carried through the breeze.
The second went like this: ignore the trees’ voices. They beckoned for the salt of her skin and the iron in her blood. When she walked home, along Route 54 away from town, the crows chittering with promises of fruit and golden necklaces. Fabricated songs became just as alluring as sincere ones when the sun sank into the distant mountain.
The third went like this: she looks out for herself, and no one else. It was the only way she could survive. The trees swallowed her father, a carpenter and blues singer, last winter under the light of a bleary sun. Tricked to think it was a moon, the trees sang until Ophelia’s father was locking the back door behind him and floating to the tree line. His daze wasn’t broken by her thumping on the window, plump tears drying on stiff onto her cheeks. The forest heaved merrily for days afterward, a smug twinkle in the murmur of leaves and the blooming of wildflowers. The trees knew Ophelia sat on her porch, scabbed knees pulled under her dress, keeping watch for her father to reappear. The trees tittered in the burst of birds from the canopy when she stopped waiting for him outside. Ophelia repeated the rules every three hours.
She counted her three rules on the passing cars: silver, red, brown. Before stepping on her front porch, she counted them on the tea bags: earl gray as one, hibiscus as two, lemon-ginger as three. The counting started when she opened the door in the morning and Goose dashed through her open legs. His silky fur slipped past the frame and around the cracked screen door. The calico cat, dappled brown, white, and black, trotted into the forest. The final turn of his head echoed in her head, the pink of his nose and ears appearing when she closed her eyes.
She called for Goose in the middle of her yard, her toes curling into the dewy grass. Goose! Come back, please!
Ophelia scratched her calf with her foot and watched a beetle crawl over her toe. The cat did not reappear at the tree line. A sting in her throat accompanied the whiz of a car that drove by on the highway. Goose liked to knock over potted succulents and rip apart curtains. He had never slipped into the forest before, always sticking to the blackberry bushes growing against the wood of the porch.
Ophelia should have left the cat there. Old as he was, with his eyes closed so tightly he could barely see, it would be more work to bring him back than it would to turn around and go back inside.    
She counted her rules on the blackened bark of the nearest trees. One, two, three. She stepped closer. Stepping past the tree line knocked the breath out of her lungs and the trees sucked it greedily out of the air. One, two, three.
She followed the cool hands through the woods. They caressed her face as she walked further away from her house. The tall, looming trees covered the sky with dark, sharp leaves. They did not rustle in the breeze. She continued on, letting the cold presence guide her forward. Her breath clouded in front of her eyes, her nose turning prickly with cold. She gripped her arms with her hands, rubbing the rising bumps.
The hands pulled at her hair, tugging to get her to move faster. She stumbled over the brush and the roots that stuck intentionally from the ground. Her ankle hurt. She walked faster still. A pounding in her chest and a frenzy in her body told her she needed to go faster, faster, faster.
Ophelia broke away from the hands, the bite of nails scratching against her cheeks and neck from where they had grabbed her. She ran through the woods, racing past reaching branches and through thickets of bright, red berries. They winked at her as she passed.
The warm spring day at the edge of the forest slowly leached away. The air grew cool as if she had stepped into autumn a month before it arrived. The wood was a mix of green, black, and brown. She did not dare look closely at the trees. Her eyes would be the first things gone if they looked where they were not supposed to.
        She heard the small ring of Goose’s bell. It whispered through the trees as if coming from everywhere and nowhere. She moved forward, afraid to look back at the trees that closed in behind her. The air turned sharp and thick, a warning accumulating with the dew and the moss. Tension hung in the air, taunting her. It was as if Ophelia were blind to the very thing in front of her. Perhaps the woods already took her eyes and she had not realized that she was stumbling through the trees blind.
        She reached a hand out in front of her but did not see it. She stumbled before righting herself. She walked forward. Her ankles no longer caught on roots or brush and they no longer stung. Ophelia walked through the woods as if it were parting for her. She took a deep breath, a stinging feeling crawled its way up her chest. She could not see, but she could still walk. She would find that stupid cat and bring him home.
        With a final step, Ophelia found she could see again. She stood at the edge of a clearing with a murky pond in the middle of it. Her eyes stung when she looked up at a gloomy sun, one reserved only for her and the woods. The clearing was surrounded by looming trees that reached towards the pond. Hunched at the edge of it was a boy. His stark blond hair was snow and shadow. She heard the tinkling of Goose’s bell, coming from the slowly rising boy. 
        His wide smile turned towards Ophelia. The shine in his eyes did not match the cheeriness of his grin. He held Goose’s bell between his two fingers. It rang again as the boy shook it. Ophelia did not see her cat anywhere.
        “Hello,” she said, trying her best at being decent. “Have you seen a cat around here?”
         The boy’s smile did not falter, but his eyes changed in a way Ophelia did not recognize. “A cat? I can’t say I have.”
        Ophelia thought she knew how to spot a liar, but the words from the boy seemed completely candid while being entirely dishonest. His murky eyes swirled treacherously as she took a step towards him. His skin was the color of the trees as if he could sink right in without anything noticing.
“Why do you have his bell?” Ophelia asked, pointing towards the silver between his fingers.
The sound of the bell echoed through the clearing when he shook it. “I’ve had this for much longer than you’ve been here.”
Ophelia did not like the boy and his unfaltering grin, pulling at his cheeks like he could never take it off. “The cat was here before me.”
“Yes?” the boy said. He took a step back into the pond. His jerky movements echoed the twisting roots that erupted from the ground. Ophelia did not realize he was barefoot until his toes sunk into the curdled mud.
“Yes,” she confirmed, “so I think you took his bell.”
The boy looked around absentmindedly before slowly turning back to her. “Whose bell?”
Ophelia did not like him at all. “My cat’s bell.”
“I haven’t seen a cat,” he said, his eyes staring into her own, making the air around her much colder than it had been moments before.
“I think you’re lying,” she said.
The boy took another step backward. “That’s a funny thing.”
“It’s not really,” Ophelia said. She took a step towards him and something sparked in his eyes as a return. “I want to know where my cat is.”
“I haven’t seen a cat,” the boy said.
“You’ve already said that. I don’t believe you.”
The boy rang the small bell. “I’m telling you all I’m saying.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Ophelia said, the words scraping out of her throat.
“It doesn’t have to,” the boy said. “You should be listening.”
“I am listening and all you’ve been saying is a lie!”
The boy took another step back. Then another. The water brushed his waist. His smile did not waver as the cool water soaked his clothes. The water greeted him as if he belonged there. It beckoned him home, kissing his skin and swirling through the air.
“Don’t you know, girl?” the boy laughed. His eyes were not eyes.
Ophelia crossed her arms defensively. His words no longer carried through the clearing; they were a breath against her ears.
“Don’t I know what?”
He laughed again. His mouth returned to its normal grin, his skin became the bark on the trees, rough against the dreary sun.
He took another step back. “Don’t you know?”
Ophelia wanted to scream at him, but her chest stung too much. She did not think her words would reach him, not with the way the thick air filled her lungs and rushed into her nose. The boy had Goose and she wanted him back.
“What are you doing?” she asked quietly. “Please give me back my cat.”
“I haven’t seen a cat,” was her only response.
The murky water pushed against his chin, staining his skin with green and brown and blue.
Ophelia spoke when the water grazed his lips. “Don’t you know you’ll drown if you keep going?”
“Don’t you know? Don’t you know?” he crooned before letting out a gurgled laugh. “Don’t you know?”
He took a step back and then another. He continued to sink below the water until the pond smoothed. His stark hair did not appear above the water again. No bubbles rose from beneath the surface. Ophelia was not sure he had ever been breathing in the first place.
Without the boy, the clearing felt unnaturally quiet. The trees waited patiently in the ground, waiting for something Ophelia was beginning to understand. They no longer sang or danced. The water of the pond stood still and undisturbed as if the boy had never really been there at all.
It was so much colder than it had been when she first stepped into the forest. The biting air nipped at her ears and arms, turning her lips blue and ears hot. Her tongue felt stiff and numb as she called out to Goose one last time. She could not hear the chiming of his bell; it was long since drowned.
Her lungs burned. She did not know if it was because of the bite or the thickness in the air. She would never see Goose again. Her knees grew weak and her eyes tired. They tore and made the trees look wilted as they ebbed from her vision.
She could not stand in the woods anymore. There were too many things pushing against her and too many silent things that watched. The air crowded her, stopping her from pulling the breath into her lungs. The mud below her feet (when did it become mud?) sunk into her shoes, soaking her feet. The breeze rustled through her hair and passed her body. The melancholy sun watched her watch it. She wondered if it was actually a moon.
The sorrowful grass did not protest when her feet scuffed against it. The pond remained undisturbed. The boy had been gone for so long. She could hardly remember the color of his skin or the way his eyes locked on her and stayed. Ophelia had been gone for so long. She was having trouble remembering what exactly she stood there for.
The wind must have been cold. Sharp and blue, it snapped through the air. Her warm skin could not feel it.
She took a step towards the pond. And then another, and then another.

***

Ava Campbell is a high school senior from Arizona. This is her first published story. Besides short fiction, she writes the occasional bad poem and has been working on a novel for the past nine months. She is currently struggling to read all the books on her bookshelf. Besides writing, Ava enjoys running, thrifting, and crossword puzzles.