Elspeth Starkenburg's Arc

Chapter 1 of 10

Elspeth wanted one thing that would stay: the barn cat asleep against her pillow each night. But the cat ran every time she came close. It was a white calico with orange and grey patches, and it slept in the barn near Amalia's cottage. Elspeth had watched it for three days. Each time she reached out, it bolted under the boards. Her father used to say animals came to you if you stopped chasing. She missed him every day. She still thought of his chair, of the worn spot on its left arm where his hand had rested. She could not bring him back. She could bring the cat back, maybe, if she was patient. Today she carried a homemade toy. A feather hung from a string tied to a plain stick. She had knotted the string herself. She stood at the barn door and did not step inside. The cat watched from a hay pile. Its eyes were wide. Elspeth crouched low and looked at the dirt instead of the cat. She dragged the feather slow across the ground. "I won't grab you," she said. "I promise." The feather twitched. She flicked it, and it hopped like a bug. The cat's ears turned forward. Elspeth kept her hand still on the stick and let the feather do the moving. One paw came out from the hay. Then the other. The cat crept closer, low to the ground, eyes fixed on the feather. Elspeth held her breath. She wanted so badly to reach out. She didn't. She dragged the feather a little nearer to her knee. The cat pounced. It caught the feather in both paws and rolled onto its side, biting the string. It landed against Elspeth's shoe. It did not run. It stayed, wrestling the feather, close enough to touch. Elspeth did not touch it. She only watched. A name came to her while she watched the orange patch on its side. It looked like the skin of the apples on the tree behind the cottage. "Apple," she whispered. "I'll call you Apple." The cat let go of the feather. It sat up and looked at her, one whisker still bent from playing. Then it did something new. It rubbed its head once against her ankle, quick and light, and trotted back to the hay pile. Elspeth stayed crouched a long time after it left. Her heart pounded. The cat had chosen to come. She had a name for it now, and a way to reach it. But the cat had gone back to the barn. It had not followed her home. Getting close was only the start. Now she had to make the cat leave the barn behind and come to the cottage, where the pillow waited.