The rain had stopped and the heavy clouds parted to reveal diamond sections of inky black sky. The horizon was growing lighter, but the moon was still bright, high up between the nighttime clouds. Muse delicately shook rainwater from her paws as she stood outside the alley, gazing at the moon. Contempt was back asleep and Muse was restless. She stood for a moment while the moon gleamed, then moved down the street, avoiding the puddles, flicking droplets of water from her paws as they dampened.
A breeze stirred the slender trees that lined the street, and the clouds shifted, obscuring the moon, and the shadows on the sidewalk lost their definition. Muse breathed the wet, cold air, and trotted into the wide street, watching bright flecks of asphalt reflect the lamp light. The flecks grew brighter; the moon was back out. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, a different moonlight haunted her. It was a moonlight that was not reflected by asphalt but by dewdrops on the ends of long reeds, and of shimmering lake water, and water bugs that skated in the surface. It was a nighttime whose darkness was pure, and not diluted by city lights, but only by the ineffectual fireflies, and lit up by distant flashes of heat lightning.
"Your thoughts," said Watch, appearing beside her. Muse was not startled.
I was remembering a dream I have sometimes. A meadow, so wide. Not wide like this street but so wide that this street would seem only like a path.
"The country," said Watch.
Is that the country? The grasses are long and there are no lights, like these, and the days are wet and humid. And there are mice to catch, not rats, not rats like in the city.
"You're dreaming," said Watch, "of the country. Probably from when you were a kitten."
I don't remember my kittenhood, confessed Muse. I don't remember anything other than living here. But my dream! If I could find a place like in my dream, I could be happy. But where? Nowhere near here. Everything is city, here.
Watch looked at Muse out of the side of his dark eyes. He watched her small ribcage rise and fall as she looked desperately at the moon hiding halfway under a cloud. "The country is your peace," he said. Muse glanced at him, at his eyes with no reflection, and looked back to the sky.
But how. She barely thought it.
"Just wait." Watch nodded to himself and turned to go, his tail twitching. "Just wait until morning."