Cat in a Cauldron

Chapter 4 - The New Cat

The rest of the summer passed by far too quickly. At first, Cat was kept busy trying to make the house her home. When she learned the way to the nearest mall in Victorville, about a half-hour from Phelan, she proceeded to buy as many posters of her favorite things as she could find. The walls of the master bedroom quickly found themselves plastered with images from all of her favorites: the Avengers, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Hemsworth. Anybody who walked into her room would be overwhelmed by the sheer nerdiness of it, and that was just the way Cat liked it.

After she got used to the flow of her job at McDonalds and the paychecks started to come in every other Friday, Cat went out and bought a new bedspread. It was black, lacy, with red and gold fleur de lis.

From there, Cat moved on to Beast. She bought him a dark green collar with a gold tag that gave his name and current address. He wore it with pride, after she had explained to him that it would help him find his way back to his kingdom if ever he got too far away. She bought him a food bowl, real cat food, and a cat box, and then asked the PetSmart clerk if there was anything else she needed for a kitten. He was a nice guy, probably her age, and he immediately went into the care of a new kitten. He told her that she should probably take Beast to the vet and have him checked out, just for any shots he may need, any health issues he might have, and to think about getting him fixed. From there, the clerk said that it might be helpful to get a scratching post to save the couches and cat toys for Beast's energy. Cat added a catnip-filled plush mouse and a short pillar wrapped in frayed rope to her cart.

Beast took to the mouse toy instantly, and he carried it all over the house. Cat was rather surprised he could hold the thing in his tiny jaw- it was just as big as his head. The cat box seemed to be a waste after a few days of Beast simply slipping between her legs and out the door to do his business. Eventually, Cat learned that whenever he ran to the door and scratched lightly at the wood, he wanted out. She neglected to mention how dog-like that was for fear of offending him.

Cat found a treadmill in the garage, and decided it wouldn't hurt to work out for a bit every morning. Her hours for work were erratic, changing week for week, but for the majority, they scheduled her for the afternoons, leaving her the whole morning to find something to do.

Throughout summer, Cat avoided the neighbors. She didn't want to meet them, to get close to them. Despite all the other factors that had been at work that night back in Salem, Cat was still terrified to face Redbloods again. Some wall had broken inside her, and she was scared to cross back over it.

Her anti-social behavior was really just a precaution. She never saw the neighbors anyway. The ones whose driveway created the south border of the property were never around. They had a big black dog, a massive Chow, that reminded Cat painfully of Will, but his owners couldn't be seen.

The northern fence separated the property from an open field, belonging to the neighbors that lived to the northeast. There was a gate connecting their horse corral with Cat's, but the padlock was secure. They had two beautiful horses: one a chestnut that looked like a quarter horse, the other a brown and white paint Arabian. Like any other girl, Cat had gone through a horse-crazed stage in her childhood, and she probably knew more about equines than any east-coast girl should. The Arab was a mare, high-strung and trained on barrel racing, which Cat could tell by how she would charge through the trinity pattern in the corral. The Quarter horse had to be a gelding because the owners let him run with the mare. He was also a barrel racer, though less energetic about it than the Arab. Some days, Cat would climb into the strange tree just outside her own corral and watch the horses play.

Eventually, August came around, pulling Cat out of her summer daze and into the fervor of prepping for school that would start in the middle of the month. She always scrunched up her nose at the thought that this school started so early. Back in Salem, classes at Red Anchor began on September 1st, or whenever the first weekday of September was.