The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (73 page)

Strange Tidings

Day Two, Friday, 12:27
am…

Garfield sat on all fours,
in the snow, above the entrance of the cave. He was perched at the
highest point of the rock pile, having begun his watch only half an
hour ago. He had closed his eyes, though he could see much farther
than any mere human. He could peer through the murk, the wind and
the snow and see for almost an acre in all directions before
him.

Instead, he chose not to
gaze about the landscape. He was using his nose and ears, clearing
his mind of thought, letting his other senses dominate his
consciousness – all the sounds and smells of the night filled his
brain. He quickly determined each one, a continuing method of
categorization, hundreds and hundreds of sensations within seconds.
As he did this, his mind’s eye reached out further, a thing he
couldn’t have dreamed of doing before he’d been transported to the
Melded World. His dramatic alterations hadn’t been merely of the
body. They had involved a massive evolution of his brain as
well.

Blindingly fast, he
recognized the changes to the land about him. Since he had last
kept watch, in less than twelve hours, a great number of things had
emerged in this combined plane that hadn’t been there before. He
felt plants, trees and insects, creatures of the wing and of the
land by the thousands burst into existence. Some he was able to
recognize at once. They were from his world. On the other side of
the coin, he identified an equal number he’d never heard or smelt
before. These were alien to him, much more strange than the
million, million scents and noises he’d heard, both as the
household feline of the past and as the lion-like beast we was
today. These were odd. They felt wrong to him, as if the sounds
themselves were made incorrectly. He couldn’t quite formulate his
initial reaction to them into a coherent thought, because he didn’t
know what they were. But, every time a new creature or plant came
into being, one he didn’t know – could not know - it made his skin
crawl like he was infested with fleas and ticks.

Such had been the case,
when he heard the unnatural sucking of a bird-like creature,
feasting on a nearby branch. Those sounds shouldn’t have come from
a bird!

Earlier, he’d watched it
swoop down upon an unsuspecting field mouse. He had been utterly
surprised to see the birdish creature swallow the tiny rodent
whole. This wasn’t accomplished through a beak or an over-sized maw
of any sort. Rather, the strange bird had consumed the smaller
animal through a slug-like aperture in its chest! It had flown to a
nearby branch and sat there sucking at the remains of the absorbed
mouse, its’ gooey chest pulsating, in and out, with each successive
gurgle as it fed.

Plaaa! That was definitely
not normal!
Times upon the Melded World
were about to get extremely hostile. Garfield’s instincts were
telling him so.

The wind and snow had
stopped. Then, it had started again when he’d returned to the
outdoors from the warmth and camaraderie of the cave. The
temperature had dropped significantly with the setting of the sun,
but none of it touched Garfield. His thick, striped coat kept him
warm, oblivious to the chill about the land. Still, the temperature
about him was low enough for him to feel its’ icy bite with every
breath. This was going to be a cold night, indeed. He let his mind
continue to wander, feeling no immediate threat. Other than the
grotesque bird-slug, there wasn’t much moving out here at his hour.
There wasn’t anything close enough to the cave. All remained
subdued. The cold was seeing to that. The land was caught in its’
frozen grip. Even the emergence of species from his world and the
other had slowed as the night progressed.

As was the norm when his
thoughts roamed, he invariably came to think of his past life.
This, of course, led him to remembering his former nature, of being
hand fed and babied, of frolicking about with other equally spoiled
felines, filling the yards of his old neighborhood. He wasn’t quite
sure if he was angry with himself or not. Possibly, disdainful
would’ve been a more suitable term describing his true feelings
about his lazy past. He didn’t like to think upon it, but the
thought always came, every time. He disliked the fact he’d been…
fat - in both mind and body. Not obese or watermelon-ish. No, not
like that, but he’d been a glutton, far down the road toward sloth.
He had continually taken advantage of his master.

Now, it made him feel
uncomfortable. His behavior had been unnecessary and uncouth. It
had been selfish, the sort of stuff a spoiled kitten knew in the
world would do, before the experience and knowledge necessary to
call itself a true feline was realized.

So much had
changed.

Now, his master needed him
to be his best, without fault, completely reliable and it made him
feel all the more shameful of his treatment of Anthony and the Lady
with the Long Hair.

Garfield had watched
Anthony this past day, mostly when Anthony didn’t know he did so.
He could see the stress and the fear in him, though he was
desperately trying to hide from the rest of them. He knew the boy
had taken responsibility over his sisters. The weight, being so new
to him, was a bit overwhelming at best. The boy had borne it
heavily upon his shoulders.

Yet, he hadn’t shirked
from the task either. The instant it was bestowed upon him, he had
accepted this newfound role without any resistance whatsoever.
Though he must’ve known it was going to be hard.

This was the crux of what
nagged at Garfield’s mind. In the past, he hadn’t respected Anthony
for being the caring, loving, attentive master he’d been when back
before this deranged Snow Creature, this Snowman, had pulled them
all from their old world, stranding them here on this bleak, frozen
land. He’d expected -. No, he had demanded, his master’s love as if
he were the center of the universe.

Now, everything the boy
had loved and cherished was gone. It had been taken from him in the
cruelest, most abrupt manner.

With so much at stake,
with so much change, how would he respond? He was no longer a mere
housecat. He, like the children, had been chosen. He’d been given a
second chance. What was he going to do with it?

It didn’t take him long to
answer his own query.

He would embrace his new
role and act with the honor and the sense of responsibility a great
man, or a great cat, would convey when faced with such a dire
challenge. Anthony had stepped forward. He had risen for the sake
of his litter. He had silently vowed to protect them from all
things bad, whatever the cost. Because of it, Garfield would do the
same. Out of the high regard he held for the boy, because of his
maturity and his strength. Garfield could do no less. Anthony
deserved that, after so long, after so much neglect. He deserved
it.

Absently, he hoped that
one day, should they make it through the perils of this place, he
would have a son as mighty of heart and as brave of soul as Anthony
Herrera. It was a good wish.

Well
, thought Garfield,
I will not let
him down any longer. I will be at my best, without fault, and
completely reliable… for him. I will try to ease some of the strain
he feels.
I will try!

The fluttering of wings
suddenly brought him back to the present. Garfield opened his eyes
to see the bird-slug take to wing. He was astonished to see the
creature had grown since he’d last laid eyes upon it and that
hadn’t been all that long ago.
How did it
increase its’ size so quickly?
Again, he
shivered with revulsion, but didn’t move more. He was unwilling to
give away his location over something as insignificant as a bird.
However bizarre it may have been.

Off hand, he wondered how
big a creature such as a bird-slug might grow if it had an ample
food supply.
Come on, Garfield, get it
together! You have a job to do.

He heard the snap of a
twig somewhere in the distance. He trained his powerful eyes toward
the sound, squinting through the fog of the storm and the swirling
snow dancing on the wind. He heard the slushy footfalls of what
sounded like a medium-sized, four-legged animal, but was unable to
see it from his elevated perch.

Now was the time to move,
he decided.

He crept carefully toward
the left side of the snow-covered pile of boulders, serving as a
lookout, cautiously making his way down the jumble of rock. He
sniffed at the air, but smelled nothing unusual. He made no
sound.

He reached the bottom in
half a minute, was able to see slightly better with a more level
view of the ground. He was quickly able to make out a shadow
walking slowly, some sixty or seventy feet in front of him, about
equidistant from the entrance of the cave. It seemed to pause in
place for a moment, bending its head toward the ground, as if it
was trying to catch the scent of something. Garfield eased his way
a bit closer, every one of his senses heightened to the
fullest.

To his surprise, the
shadow stood upright, man-like. Garfield realized he’d been
stalking a being that had been
crawling
on all fours, not walking
upon them as he’d first surmised.

The huge cat inched his
way to his right, placing himself in between the man-thing and the
cave. He sniffed at the air again, tasting its’ currents with his
nose. The wind blew a very man-ish smell his way. It was something
he’d smelled on many occasions as a household cat – the body odor
of a human being - male, of middle years. This wasn’t the smell of
a child or even a teenager. This was different, an older, more rich
sort of scent, muskier than the sharpness of a young human.
Who in their right mind would be walking out here
at night
, he thought as he slunk back down
on his belly, amongst the packed powdery snow covering every inch
of the landscape.

Then another thought
crossed his mind. He was about to act upon it when the man yelled
the top of lungs…

“
Give me back my son, you
pinché bastards!”

…
Garfield watched, unsure,
but curious. The man threw his hands over his head and ran off
deeper into the night, flailing about, ripping through bushed and
shrubs as he plowed forth, uncaring whether he was hurt or
not.

In a few seconds, he was
gone. The silence of the night returned. Garfield frowned after the
fleeing man, concerned. Kodiak had told him there would only be the
twelve Chosen who would survive the Rending. There would only
be
children
living in the Melded World, none of them would be beyond
their teenage years. His memory had not failed him. He had
remembered her lecture down the every last word. Yet, there was a
man here as well - a grown human being, not a minion of Storm. A
human!

Another thought bubbled to
the surface of his mind and he could feel the certainty of it as
well.
Something else was happening,
something unexpected.
He frowned anew at
the prospect. He abhorred surprises of any kind, but he couldn’t
shake the feeling they were all in store for a big one.

Even hours later, after he
had followed behind the strange man and learned a bit about him,
the thought plagued him and soured his mood even more.

Impossible as
that
may seem. After
all, he was such an agreeable feline.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

The Hand

Day Two, Friday, At the
Same Time…

He sat upon a rough-hewn,
three-legged stool before what was currently serving as his desk.
It was really no more than four uneven, wooden planks bound tightly
together with stout, leather straps, nailed atop the trunk of a
medium sized tree, serving to keep the whole thing upright. There
hadn’t been sufficient time to procure proper furnishings and other
like creature comforts. His typical finery and like accoutrements
would be arriving soon from Storm, so he didn’t let the crudity
surrounding him rankle. There were other things, much more
important and pressing items to consider.