Halloween Cat's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Halloween Cat dragged the bone map across the field and stopped to catch his breath. When he looked down, his stomach dropped. In the chase, dirt had packed into the etched lines. The path he needed was gone under a brown smear. He pawed at it. The grime only spread. Without the lines, the charm had nothing to point along. He turned in a slow circle. Grass stretched every way, flat and empty. He had the map and could not read it. He licked the bone, trying to clean it. His tongue came away gritty. He pressed it to the charm, hoping the glow would burn the dirt off. The light flared, but the smeared line stayed dark. He walked one way, then doubled back, then tried another. Every direction looked the same. The high ground he had glimpsed before was nowhere now. He had run too far and lost it. A shape moved at the edge of the grass. Halloween Cat crouched over the bone. The shape came closer, low and quiet. It was a hound, tall at the shoulder, its coat dark and shifting like smoke in wind. Thin wisps curled off its tail. Its eyes glowed pale gold. The kitten's fur stood up. He thought of the shadow that stole his lives and nearly bolted. But the hound did not lunge. It stopped a few paces off and lowered its head toward the bone. It sniffed the smeared line. Then it lifted its nose and looked past him, toward the far side of the field. It took three steps that way and stopped. It looked back at him. Halloween Cat did not move. The hound huffed and walked the same three steps again, then waited. It was showing him a direction. The map had failed, but this creature knew the ground. It could smell what the dirt had hidden. He pressed the charm to the bone one more time. The glow leaned the same way the hound had gone. That was enough. The hound's nose and his charm agreed. He clamped the bone in his teeth and followed. The hound kept ahead, never fast, always glancing back. They crossed the flat field and reached a slope the grass had hidden. At the top, the land rose into a ridge of broken stones and leaning posts. Halloween Cat's heart beat hard. Old graves. His family's ground, or close to it. The hound stopped at the slope's foot and would come no farther. Its gold eyes fixed on the stones above. A low growl rose in its throat, aimed not at the kitten but at the ridge. Then Halloween Cat felt it too. Something cold waited up there among the graves. The smeared map no longer mattered. He had found the way. Now he had to climb toward whatever had been waiting for him all along.