Chapter 9
This stream was familiar. This rock that sat in the stream, cutting a wake through the middle of the water, looked just like Muse's dream rock, which cut the water the same way. This tree, fallen on an angle with roots curling like wood shavings out of the ground, was the same. I've been here before, Muse realized with awe.
These grasses smelled familiar, and as Muse took a tentative bite of one long blade, a green juicy tart taste she recognized filled her mouth.
The train tracks were far behind her. Muse had leapt out when the moment felt right and simply followed her heart, and the stream. She had let the stream lead her along its winding, irregular path, knowing the direction was right, greeted around every bend by something more and more familiar: the slope of that hill, the face of that mountain, the cave overhead, in the mountain wall, which she'd never climbed into but knew from the ground. The way those birds all alit on the same tree, and then fled again so the branches relaxed back into the air as the weight was born away on a hundred pairs of wings.
She was nearing a grove that she recognized so intensely that it made her heart ache. The flowering trees wove their uppermost branches together in a roof, and soft leaves carpeted the ground beneath. Muse entered the cool, musty grove, every scent pooling familiarly in her nose. She fought off tears that would constrict her throat, wanting only to breathe and breathe the first breaths that actually smelled like home.
She lifted her head to the leaning brown trees and rubbed her body along one of the trunks. How familiar, the way the bark parted her fur and scratched pleasantly along her spine. How familiar, the tree which….
Muse stopped in her tracks and all her breath escaped her. Curled under a leafy bush was another cat, asleep. Her small, wizened face was marked with delicate stripes, like Muse's own, and her tail wrapped snugly around her body. She looked old and thin and loose, but content in her sleep.
Mama.
The old cat opened her eyes and gazed at Muse.
"Oh I am dreaming," she said softly. "Or finally dying. My kitten, my silent one, coming to bear me away. My Muse."
Oh Mama, I'm home.
"I'm dreaming." The old voice quavered and tears slipped down her face, a face as small-boned as Muse's. Muse stepped closely to her and buried her face in her mother's neck, purring gently. "Oh Muse." The cat cried harder now. "Oh you're real, you are real."
Neither spoke for a while. They looked at each other, neither of them shy, both unembarrassed to stare right into the other's eyes for minutes on end.
"How did you come back?" asked Muse's mother, after a long time of memorizing the face of her daughter, changed now that it was grown.
I found my way, Mama. I thought I was looking for a dream, but I know now they were my memories.
Mama nodded wisely. "Guardian angels guided you."
I don't know if they were guardian angels, but I had friends who helped. One was looking for something, too.
"Angels take strange shapes," said Mama solemnly. "They don't always have wings."
Muse smiled. Then these had whiskers. But either way, I'm back.
"Do you remember all this? You were so young, only a kitten, when you were taken away."
Was I taken away? I remember so little.
Mama's head drooped. "Most of my kittens, yes. Taken away. Found by humans, who were camping out here in the country, and made into pets, taken away. Or, some of my kits found trains and rode them into different lives. Most of my kittens…." Her voice faded away.
Mama, don't be sad. They wouldn't have gone if they hadn't been looking for what they knew would make them happy. And if they turned out not to be happy, well, then they come back. Just like me. Muse nuzzled her mother's cheek.
"I do hope they're happy. I won't see them return though…. I won't see the sun rise tomorrow, I don't think."
Don't say that Mama.
"No." Mama smiled straight at Muse. "It is okay. I am old, and I am content. I have given life to as many kittens as I could make happy, and now one has come home to me. My life is complete."
Muse choked back her tears.
"Do you know," Mama said thoughtfully. "You have a sister here still. And she will need help."
A sister? Who…?
"Why, Elixabeth. And Elixabeth has her hands full, right about now." Mama winked at her daughter. "Go find her. You might be surprised."
Muse hesitated. Will you be here when I get back?
"Of course, darling. I'm not going anywhere yet." She smiled again and then whispered, "I've waited long enough for a day like this, and I intend to enjoy it for as long as I can."
Muse still lingered. "Go on." Mama nudged her with her nose. "Go to your sister. She's just beyond the stream there. Go on. I'll be here."