Angry Cat's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

Inside, Mother Cat was already sitting at the table. Harriet went straight to the corner where she always kept her things. Angry Cat stayed near the door. The room felt too small. His tail twitched. Mother Cat looked at him, then at Harriet, and her ears turned back slightly. Harriet picked up the dish from the shelf and set it on the table between them. It was the one with the paw prints around the edge. She stared at it for a long moment, then said, "I've been up there before." Angry Cat's ears flattened. "What?" She didn't look at him. "To the clearing. I found it when I was younger. There was food left there—cans, dishes. Someone had been coming back." His claws scraped the floor. "Why didn't you tell me?" Harriet finally met his eyes. "Because I thought if you knew someone had tried to come back for you, it would make the anger worse." Angry Cat wanted to hiss. He wanted to knock the dish off the table. But he didn't move. The anger was there, hot and sharp, but beneath it was something else—a question he'd been carrying since the clearing. "How long?" he asked. Harriet's voice was quiet. "Years. I saw the circle of stones once when I followed Mother Cat up the hill. She was leaving food there, checking. I never told her I knew." Mother Cat's head lowered. She did not deny it. Angry Cat looked between them, his chest tight. They had both been carrying pieces of his story, and he hadn't known. He sat down across from Harriet. The dish stayed on the table between them. "So someone did come back," he said slowly. Harriet nodded. "But they stopped. The food stopped. Mother Cat kept checking, but eventually even she stopped going." Angry Cat stared at the dish. He thought about the worn toy mouse, the faded quilt, the chair that had been left behind. Someone had tried. They had failed. And now he knew. The anger didn't leave, but it shifted—no longer a wall, just a weight he could finally see the shape of. He understood now why he was the way he was. Not because someone had abandoned him without trying. But because someone had tried and couldn't stay.