The Green Witch

Chapter Eleven

     That night, lying in her bed in her new room, Tala was awakened by a cry of terror.

     <Fear! Pain! Fear! Pain!>

     <Gotcha!> another voice cried with satisfaction. <Now we'll have some fun.>

     It was the cat, she realised, and it had caught a mouse. She almost called out a demand for the cat to release the mouse but stopped herself just in time. There was a chance the Crone didn't know where she was living yet but she was probably asking all the animals in the area if there was a girl that could talk to them and the cat, like all cats, would betray her in a moment for a reward. She didn't dare reveal itself to it. She buried her head under the pillow, therefore, in an attempt to block out the voices.

     It didn't work, though. green voices could go through anything. Only distance stopped them. The mouse's cries of pain and terror came through plainly and Tala could do nothing but weep in sympathy. Why did cats have to be so cruel? she wondered. Why not just kill the mouse and have done with it? Neither the cat nor the mouse knew the other could think, of course. They could both talk to green witches and to others of the same species, but not to animals of other species. The cat probably had no idea that it was causing suffering to another sapient being, but Tala had a very good idea that it wouldn't have cared if it did. She'd read the minds of many cats over the years and, so far as she could tell, they were totally incapable of mercy or compassion.

     Finally, the mouse's cries of terror were too much for her to bear, though, and so she climbed out of bed and pulled on the nightie she'd found in the wardrobe beside the window. She would find the cat, she decided, and make it release the mouse 'accidentally', as I'd she'd just happened to be passing. She couldn't tell what direction the voices were coming from, but they grew louder as she padded softly along the corridor and so she continued in that direction, listening intently.

     <Lovely, the way it squirms and wriggles,> the cat was thinking, and the joy in its thoughts sickened her. <Fat, juicy and plump. It'll taste so good when I bite into it.> The thought was accompanied by a louder cry of pain from the mouse as if the cat was pressing its teeth into it. Not hard enough to break the skin. Not yet. Just enough to make it squirm harder, to increase the cat's pleasure.

     <Monster's got Long Whiskers,> came the thoughts of another mouse. <Poor Long Whiskers.>

     <There's nothing we can do,> another mouse said, the voice so filled with anguish and grief that it tore Tala's heart. She found herself contemplating the fact that the natural world was full of killing, pain and anguish. Predators killing prey all over the world, all the time. Everyone knew it, of course, but only green witches could actually hear the cries of pain and grief. Normal people were so lucky, she thought. They could just ignore it. Pretend it wasn't happening. She didn't have that luxury.

     She crept down the stairs, the voices still growing louder ahead of her as she went, until she came to the kitchen. The moon was shining in through the window and there was the cat, the mouse held in its paws, illuminated by a slanting shaft of silver light. The cat had the mouse's head in its jaws, but then it looked up to stare at her curiously.

     Tala marched over to it, reaching out to grab the cat, but the cat jumped out of her reach, the mouse held securely in its jaws. It ran through into the clean living room and Tala followed after it. No point trying to chase it, she knew. Any cat could elude any human easily, but perhaps she could entice it into coming to her.

     "Here puss puss puss puss puss," she whispered, holding her hands out to it. She saw its eyes, glinting in the darkness, staring at her in puzzlement. <Why is the human chasing me? What does it want?>