Margot Butterwell's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

Iris led Margot to the cat plots behind the child's graves. The soil there was torn open. A gray paw pushed up through the dirt. Then a whole cat climbed free, thin and stiff, its eyes cloudy. Two more scratched at the ground nearby. Iris knelt and reached for the gray one. It hissed and backed away. "They won't come to me," Iris said. "They never did this before. Something calls them." She looked at Margot. "You know the dead. Find what pulls them." Margot watched the cats. They did not run for the gate. They circled, noses low, hunting a scent. She followed their path with her eyes. Every cat drifted toward the same spot near the child's headstone, where the wrapped bundles and candles sat. The painted van sat by the fence, its side dragons faded. Derek climbed out, ears up. Dylan followed, hands in his pockets, saying nothing. Derek had come to the graveyard with her before. Dylan, the singer from the same broke band, had ridden along this time. He looked at the digging cats and did not flinch. "They want something," Derek said. "Dogs do that. Circle a smell till they find it." "Food," Dylan said. One word. He pointed at the offerings by the stone. Margot went closer. Among the candles lay a small dish. Dried fish. Someone had left it for a lost pet, a grave offering meant with love. But it had drawn the buried cats up through the dirt, out of their rest, hunting a last meal. "It's the food," Margot told Iris. "The offering. They smell it. It won't let them sleep." Iris stared at the dish. "I can't take an offering off a grave. It isn't mine." Margot understood. Iris kept the ground whole. She would not steal from the dead any more than she'd let Margot dig. But the cats could not rest while the smell pulled them. "Then we give them what they really need," Margot said. "Not fish. Rest." She fetched her pot and pan from the van. Derek gathered sticks for a small fire by the fence. Margot cooked, slow, the way her grandmother taught her. Cheese browned between bread. Broth warmed with a pinch of her enchanted herbs. Her food gave eaters what they needed. These cats needed to lie down and stay down. She set torn pieces near the graves. One by one the cats crept over. They ate. Their cloudy eyes softened. They circled their open plots, curled up, and went still. The clawing stopped. The dirt settled. Iris pressed the earth flat over each one. "They're quiet," she said. "You did it right." She looked at Margot a long moment. "You cook for the dead too, not just the grieving." Margot wrapped her pot. She had proven her food could settle the dead, not only comfort the living. That was a wound no guild had ever thought to heal. Her tavern could hold both, if she lived to build it.