Chapter Ten: The Door Home
Dawn came to Mount Banana as softly as a breath.
It rose over the rim of the plateau in long, pale, rose-colored bars, and spilled across the ruined garden like milk. The smoke had gone. The fires had burned themselves out. In the clean, cold, quiet light, the scorched earth looked strangely gentle, and a thousand glowing bananas on the mountainside, dimmed now to a soft, sleepy gold, swayed in the wind like a field of tiny lanterns at the end of a festival.
Codette sat on the broken steps with her knees drawn up and her chin on her arms, and watched the sky change color.
She had not slept. None of them had. They had sat up through the long, silver, strangely peaceful hours of the night, around the little fire in the lee of the wall, passing around a single teapot and saying very little. The Cat Witch had tended the wounded. She had knelt beside Tom, with her hands over the great ugly burn on his shoulder, and a warm gold light had flowed from her fingers, and the skin had knit beneath it like a seam being sewn. She had picked splinters out of Phillip’s paws. She had washed the soot from his face with a damp cloth, humming under her breath, until he had fallen asleep with his head in her lap.
Now he lay curled up against Tom’s side, snoring faintly, with a blanket tucked around him and a long, blissful smile on his face. Tom was awake. He sat with his back against the wall, one huge arm wrapped protectively around his friend, and watched the sunrise with a dazed, quiet, faraway look.
“Well,” he said, at last. “That’s a morning.”
“It is,” said Codette.
“I’d quite like another one.”
“Another morning?”
“Another ordinary one. Where nobody tries to eat me.”
She laughed. It was a small, tired, genuine sound, and it felt good. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
She turned her head.
On the far side of the fire, at the edge of the light, Smile was sitting on an upturned crate, with his elbows on his knees and a tin mug cradled in both hands. He was staring into it. He had been staring into it, on and off, for an hour. Every now and then he would raise it to his lips, and take a cautious sip, and wince, and put it down again.
“It’s hot,” he said, to nobody in particular. “Why’s it so hot? It’s always hot. I never noticed. When I was a cat I just stuck my tongue in it and — and swore.”
“You’ve got to blow on it,” said Codette.
“Blow on it?”
“Like this.” She demonstrated.
He copied her, frowning, with great concentration. He blew across the surface of the tea, and a little ripple ran out to the rim, and he looked up with an expression of such open, startled, childlike delight that something in her chest turned over.
“Oh,” said Smile. “That’s — clever. Who thought of that?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Genius,” he said reverently. “Absolute genius.”
“Right,” said the Cat Witch.
She had been moving among them all night like a ghost, tidying, healing, setting the world to rights. Now she came and stood in the center of the circle, in her singed yellow robe, with her crooked stick in her hand and the sunrise behind her. She looked much more herself than she had at midnight. Her cheeks had a little color. Her hair, loosed from its pins, hung to her waist in a long, tumbled, honey-brown cloak. She looked about thirty years old, and very tired, and somehow, beneath the weariness, lit from inside, like a person who has put down a heavy thing she’s been carrying for a very long time.
“I’ve something to say,” she said. “To all of you. And I’d be obliged if you’d listen. It’s rather important.”
They listened.
“Last night,” said the Cat Witch, “a rule was broken.”
Nobody moved.
“Not by accident. Not by misfortune. It was broken by a choice. A very small, very quiet choice, made by two people, on a cold night, on a broken stair.” Her mouth curved. “It was the oldest rule in the Kingdom. It was written into the stone of the mountain. And it fell.” She lifted her stick, and spread her hand. “I thought I’d feel something. Grief, perhaps. Fear. A sense of terrible loss. But I find I feel nothing at all, except—”
She stopped, and laughed, a little unsteadily.
“Relief,” she said. “Rather a lot of relief.”
“What do you mean?” asked Phillip, sleepily. He had woken at some point, and lay blinking in the pale light, with his spectacles, miraculously mended, perched on his nose. “What’s different?”
“Everything, my dear.”
She turned in a slow circle, as if surveying her own domain.
“Let me tell you a secret,” she said. “I made that rule, a very long time ago, out of fear. I told myself it was wisdom. I told myself it was justice. But the truth is, I was afraid. I was afraid of what happened when one kind of creature wanted to be another. I was afraid of the war. And I let that fear spread. I wrote it into the stones. I wrote it into the minds of every cat in the Kingdom. The humans are dangerous. The humans are strange. The humans are not like us.” She shook her head. “I put it into their lullabies.”
“I read it in a textbook,” said Phillip, in a small voice.
“I know, dear. I’m so sorry.”
“There were forty-seven accounts.”
“All wrong.” The Cat Witch smiled. It was a gentle, rueful smile. “Forty-seven different ways of saying the same silly thing. That different means dangerous. That what isn’t the same as you is something to be feared. It’s the oldest falsehood in the world, and I taught it to a whole Kingdom.” She drew a long breath. “And last night a human girl and a cat, who, if the old stories were right, should have been enemies from the first moment they met, stood in the middle of a fire, and loved each other. And the whole wicked, silly structure fell down like a house of cards.”
She raised her stick.
“So,” she said. “A new law.”
The wind dropped. Even the bananas seemed to hush.
“From this day forward,” said the Cat Witch, in a clear, ringing voice, “any human who comes to the Kingdom of Pate, and is welcomed there, may walk freely in it. And any cat who wishes to travel to the human world may cross the border, and return, as often as they please.” She tapped the ground, once, with her stick. “No more taboos. No more fear. No more forbidden. Let them meet. Let them learn. Let them talk. I should think they’ll find they’ve a great deal in common.”
A soft, shimmering ripple ran out from the point of her stick, across the plateau, down the mountainside. The glowing bananas flared, and brightened, and settled. Somewhere far below, a faint, clear, silvery sound rang out, like a bell striking a note that had been waiting a thousand years to be heard.
“It’s done,” said the Cat Witch.
Tom blew his nose, loudly, on his sleeve.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve got something in my eye.”
It was the longest walk Codette had ever taken, and it was only twelve paces.
The silver door stood at the far end of the garden, between two blackened gateposts, humming gently in the dawn. Beyond it, the wet green hillside of Miller’s Woods glimmered, soft and distant, like a picture seen through a window. A cold breeze came through it, carrying the smell of autumn: damp earth, rotting leaves, wood-smoke, rain. She could hear the thin, far-off sound of a car on the road.
She stopped a yard from the threshold.
Home, she thought.
It was so close. It was so real. She could have reached out and touched it. She could have stepped through, in a single stride, and been standing on the hill where she’d started, with the whole long dream of the last month falling away behind her like a shadow.
She didn’t move.
She was thinking of her mother’s face. Not the face in the maze, bright and beautiful and false, but the real one, tired and lined and creased from worry, that she had seen in her mind a hundred times on the long road. She was thinking of the kitchen table, and her brother’s laugh, and the smell of burnt toast. She was thinking of the particular, silly, unbearable ache of missing someone, and how, in the last thirty days, it had never quite gone away.
She was also thinking that she was not the girl who had walked into Miller’s Woods.
She had known it for some time. She had felt it in the desert, in the marsh, in the dungeon of a golden palace, a slow, steady shift, like a tide going out. She was taller. She was tougher. She could light a fire with wet wood and scale a cliff in a gale and tell a lie to a king. She had a scar on her left palm, and a burn on her right wrist, and a strange, quiet, steady place at the center of her, where the fear used to live. She was not the same person.
I don’t know if I’ll fit, she thought. I don’t know if there’s room in my old life for who I’ve become.
“You’re thinking very loudly,” said a voice at her elbow.
She turned.
Smile stood beside her, in the strange pearly light. He had not come to stand close. He had stopped a respectful yard away, with his hands in the pockets of his jerkin, and his shoulders tucked up, and his chin lowered, as if he weren’t quite sure he was allowed. His white hair stood up in an untidy crest. His gold eyes were very bright. The first pale beams of morning slanted over his cheekbones, and caught in the silver crescent under his jaw, and made him look, for one moment, like something out of a very old story, a boy made of moonlight.
He was beautiful, she realized, with a small, sudden shock. Not in the way princes in storybooks were beautiful. In the way a very particular, very ordinary, very beloved face is beautiful, when you have studied it for a long time, and know by heart every line.
“I’m sorry,” said Smile, awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to — I’ll go. I’ll just — I’ll give you a minute. It’s a — it’s a private moment. You should have a private moment. I’ll stand over — over there.”
“Smile.”
“I’ll look at a tree.”
“Smile.”
“Yes?”
“Come here.”
He came.
She reached out and took his hand. It was warm and dry and slightly shaky, with long, narrow, callused fingers, and a small white scar across the knuckles that he’d had as a cat. She wove her fingers through his. She felt him go very still.
“I want to ask you something,” said Codette.
“Anything.”
“I want you to answer honestly. Not like a — not like a gentleman. Not what you think I want to hear.”
“I’ll try.”
“Do you want to come with me?”
He didn’t answer.
He stood there, with the pink light on his face and her hand in his, and for a long, long moment he was perfectly silent. His throat worked. He looked at the door. He looked at her. She watched a dozen different feelings cross his face, too quick and too deep to name, and she held her breath.
“I’ve never been anywhere I wasn’t running from,” said Smile, at last, slowly. “Not once. In my whole life. Every place I ever went, I was already thinking about the next one. About where I’d go when it got bad. About the exit.” He gave a small, shaky laugh. “I’m very good at exits. It’s my primary skill.”
“I know.”
“And I look at that door—” He tilted his head toward the shimmering rectangle. “And I think, I’ve no idea what’s behind it. I’ve never seen a car. I don’t know what a — a telephone is. I wouldn’t know how to — to eat. I’d be the most useless person on the face of the earth. I’d be a — a burden. You’d have to explain everything. Every day. Forever.”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“You’d mind a bit.”
“A very little bit.”
“I’d also quite possibly steal things.”
“I’d get over it.”
“I might not have any money.”
“I’ve got a Saturday job.”
“I might lie awake at night,” said Smile, in a smaller voice, “and think, there’s a girl in the next room, and one day she’s going to wake up and realize what a mistake she’s made.” He took a breath. “I’ve been thinking it since the Rusty Whisker. It’s a — it’s sort of a habit.”
“I’ll talk you out of it.”
“Every time?”
“Every time.”
“That’s an awful lot of work.”
“I’ve got plenty of time,” said Codette.
He laughed, a short, startled, damp sound. A tear ran down his cheek, and he scrubbed at it with the back of his wrist. “Yes,” he said, thickly. “All right. Yes. I do. I want to come. I want to come more than I’ve ever wanted anything. But I’d like you to be sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Really sure.”
“Smile.” She stepped closer. She put her free hand against his face. “I left a door open once. In the woods. I walked through it because I was curious. I didn’t know where it went. I just went anyway. And I’ve never been so glad of anything in my whole life.” She smiled. “I’d like to go through another one. With you.”
He closed his eyes.
“Right,” he said, in a ragged whisper. “Right. Well. That’s — that’s settled, then.”
“That’s settled.”
“Good.” He opened his eyes. They were shining. “Good. Because I’ve got a very small bag, and I’d have been terribly embarrassed to have to unpack it.”
There were a few things left to do.
The first was Nack.
“I’d rather not leave it hanging,” said Smile, rather anxiously, as the Cat Witch conjured a sheet of parchment out of thin air. “The moon’s round in about nine days. And he said — he was very specific about the hounds.”
“Don’t you worry about Nack, dear.”
“I’m going to worry a bit.”
“I’ll take care of it.” She tapped the parchment with her stick, and a pen sprang up in her hand, and began to write, in a quick, spidery, florid script. “Do you know, I believe the gentleman in question owes me a small favor. A very small one. Concerning a matter of a stolen goat.”
“A stolen goat?”
“It’s a long story. I never told the authorities.” She finished with a flourish, sprinkled the page with a shower of silver dust, and read it aloud. “‘To Nack, of Gutter Lane: I am given to understand that one Smile owes you forty Cat Coins. This debt is hereby cancelled. If it is not cancelled, I shall turn your boots into bananas. Yours, with the greatest affection—’” She looked up, with a bright, shining, perfectly innocent smile. “‘—the Cat Witch.’”
A short silence fell.
“I think,” said Smile, with enormous respect, “that I’d like to be you when I grow up.”
“Thank you, dear.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.” She folded the letter, sealed it, and handed it to Tom. “Tom. You’ll deliver this, I trust? On your way home?”
“On my—” Tom blinked. “I’m — I’m going home?”
“Well, dear.” The Cat Witch smiled at him, very gently. “That depends on you.”
The second thing was the wishes.
Codette hadn’t expected it. She had thought, in the quiet, dreamy, unreal hours of the night, that all that was finished. She’d had her wish. She’d made it. It was spent, a door home, a single glittering sliver of banana sunk into her palm. But the old woman had caught her arm, as they walked back toward the garden, and drawn her aside, and said, very quietly: “You haven’t used yours, you know.”
“I haven’t?”
“Not yet. It was meant to be used last night, in the fire. You tried. But it wasn’t needed. It’s still there.” She turned Codette’s hand over, and in the center of her palm, quite clearly, shone a tiny, faint, golden spark. “It’s yours, dear. Still unspent. And, as it happens, I think you’ve a better use for it.”
“What do you mean?”
“A door.” The Cat Witch sighed. “A door home. It’s a fine wish. It’s what you came for. But a door can only open one way, my dear. It opens and closes. It lets you through, and then it shuts, and the Kingdom of Pate becomes a very long way off. I could give you a door, tonight, and it would let you step into your mother’s arms. But it wouldn’t let you come back.” She looked at her gravely. “Are you quite sure that’s what you want?”
Codette hesitated.
“I’d thought,” she said, slowly. “I thought that was the point. I thought I’d — go home. And it would be over. The whole thing. I thought it was a, a dream, or a — a story. A thing that happened once.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t want it to be over.”
She hadn’t known it until she said it. It tumbled out of her in a rush, soft and surprised, and the old woman’s face broke into a slow, brilliant smile.
“Ah,” said the Cat Witch. “There we are.”
“I want—” She thought about it. She thought about a windmill, and a tavern, and a swamp. A forest hung with yarn. A very small, very stubborn cat, carrying a girl through the dark. “I want both. I want to go home. I want to see my family. I want to go to school, and eat toast, and have an ordinary life. But I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose them.” She drew a breath. “I want a road.”
“A road?”
“Not a door. A road. One that doesn’t close. A way to go back and forth. Between here and home. Whenever I want. Whenever we want.” She looked up. “Is that — can I — is that a thing that’s allowed?”
“My dear,” said the Cat Witch, “it is exactly the thing that’s allowed.”
She closed Codette’s fingers around the spark.
“Make your wish,” she said.
Codette closed her eyes.
I wish, she thought, for a way between the worlds. A path that stays open. A road that anyone, human or cat, who means well can walk.
The spark flared.
It ran up her arm like a warm, golden thread, and burst in her chest like a bell. She felt it spread through her, a great, soft, singing brightness, like sunlight through leaves. And in the garden, at the far end of the plateau, the silver door shuddered, and changed. The shimmering sheet of light thickened, and deepened, and unfolded, like a flower opening. It did not shrink. It did not fade. It rooted itself in the stone, and put out slender golden threads, and drew itself up into a tall, graceful, shining archway, carved all over with banana leaves, and glowing with a soft, steady, living light.
“There,” said the Cat Witch, with enormous satisfaction. “That’s much better, isn’t it?”
“It’s beautiful,” breathed Codette.
“It’ll stay open. As long as the two worlds want it to. It’s yours, my dear. Yours, and anyone you choose to share it with.” She patted her hand. “Do be careful with it, won’t you? It’s a very new road. It’s likely to be a little bumpy for the first few years.”
“I will.”
“Good girl.”
Behind her, Tom cleared his throat.
“Ahem,” he said. “While we’re on the subject of wishes—”
“I was going to ask,” said Tom, “if I might say something.”
He was standing in the middle of the ruined garden, with his big paws clasped in front of him and his ears pressed rather flat. He looked, thought Codette, as though he’d been rehearsing for some time. He shifted from foot to foot. He cleared his throat twice.
“Go on, dear,” said the Cat Witch.
“It’s about my wish. The strength one. The — to protect the ones I love.” He swallowed. “I’ve been thinking about it. A lot. All night. About what it means. And I think — I think I’ve been looking at it the wrong way.”
“How so?”
“I thought it was about fighting. About being strong enough to — to beat a thing. A dragon. A dog. A soldier in a helmet.” He ducked his head. “But the more I think about it, the more I think it’s about staying. About being there. About being the cat who stands at the door and says, ‘Not today.’”
“Mm.”
“And I’ve a feeling that’s a thing the Kingdom needs. Now. With the borders open, and the old fear gone. There’ll be a lot of — of people coming through. Humans. Strangers. Cats who haven’t seen a human in their lives. It’s going to be scary. There’ll be mistakes. There’ll be fights.” His voice was steadier now. “Somebody ought to be there. At the gate. At the top of the path. To make sure nobody gets hurt. To say, ‘It’s all right, come in, welcome.’ And to say, ‘No, not you,’ to the ones who mean harm.”
“A guardian,” said the Cat Witch, softly.
“Yes. That’s — that’s it. That’s the word.” He looked up. His amber eyes were wet. “I’d like to do that. If it’s allowed. I’d like to stay here, on the mountain, and guard the path. I’d like to be the one who — who looks after it. After all of you.”
There was a long pause.
“Tom,” said Codette, in a very small voice.
“I know. I know, I’m sorry. I’d miss you terribly.” His face crumpled. “But I think it’s what I’m for. I think it’s what the strength was for. And I’d be at the end of the road. I’d be right here. I’d see you every time you came.”
“That,” said the Cat Witch, in a voice not quite steady, “is the finest thing I’ve ever heard.”
She laid a hand on his shoulder.
“The Guardian of the Banana Path,” she said. “I should think that’s rather a noble title, don’t you?”
“It’s a bit of a mouthful,” said Tom, and burst into tears.
Phillip had been very quiet.
He’d sat through all of it with his notebook clutched to his chest and his lips pressed tight together, and when Tom finished, and Codette flung herself at the big tabby in a storm of sobs, he didn’t move. He sat where he was, on his upturned crate, staring at the toes of his boots. His shoulders were stiff. A single tear trembled at the edge of his spectacles, and fell.
“Phillip,” said the Cat Witch.
“I’d like to stay too,” said Phillip, in a thin, wavering voice.
Codette stopped crying.
“I’m sorry. I know that’s — I know it’s rude. I know it’s rather sudden. I only discovered it myself about three minutes ago. But I’ve been thinking.” He raised his eyes. They were swimming. “I wished for magic. I wished for the ability to use it to help. And I’ve no idea how. I can make about two hundred birds, and a very small spark, and a perfectly adequate cup of tea. I’ve never had a lesson in my life. I’d be a — a disaster — out there. I’d get everything wrong. I’d probably set something on fire.”
“You’d manage.”
“I’d be terrified.”
“So would anyone.”
“But I’d like to learn.” He drew a ragged breath. “I’d like it very much. I’d like to stay here, if you’d have me, and study. With you. For as long as it takes.” He paused. “And I’d like to write some books.”
“Books?” said the Cat Witch.
“About the humans.” He turned his head. He looked straight at Codette, and she saw, with a strange pang, that his whole small face was shining. “I read forty-seven accounts. Forty-seven. All of them wrong. All of them full of — of nonsense, and fear, and half-truths. And I believed every word. I believed it so thoroughly that when I met a girl in a yellow hood who’d saved my life three times, I nearly—” His voice cracked. “I nearly walked away from her. In the desert. Because a book told me to.”
“Phillip—”
“I don’t want any other cat to do that. Ever. I’d like to write the right ones. I’d like to put in everything I’ve learned. The yarn, and the swamp, and the — the scratching.” He blushed. “And a very long chapter on trust. And I’d like to put it in every library in the Kingdom.”
The Cat Witch drew a long breath.
“Oh, my dear,” she said. “I think you’ve just told me what the magic’s for.”
She stooped. She held out her hand, palm up, and in the center of it a small, bright light began to gather: a soft golden glow, the color of honey. It spun. It condensed. It took shape, and weight, and substance, and settled into the shape of a book.
It was small, and thick, and bound in worn green leather. Its spine was stamped with a golden banana. As Phillip took it from her, with trembling hands, it gave a faint, contented sigh, like a cat settling into a cushion.
“A living book,” said the Cat Witch. “A grimoire. It’s very old. It’s been waiting for the right reader.” She smiled. “It starts out empty. But every time you learn something new, something real, something you’ve earned by being brave, a page will appear. The ink writes itself. It remembers everything. It’ll be your companion. And your teacher. And, I should think, a very great friend.”
Phillip opened it.
The first page was blank. But as he stared at it, a line of delicate silver script began to unfurl across the cream-colored paper, one letter at a time, as though written by an invisible hand.
Chapter One, it read. In which a small scholar counts his steps, and holds on.
Phillip made a very small noise.
“It’s — it’s about me,” he whispered.
“It’s for you,” said the Cat Witch.
He closed the book and clutched it to his chest, and for a long time he said nothing at all. Then he looked up, and gave Codette the widest, shakiest, most radiant smile she had ever seen.
“I’m going to be a wizard,” said Phillip. “A real one.”
“You already are,” said Codette.
She knelt in the ash and wrapped her arms around his neck. He hugged her back, hard, with the book crushed between them, and she felt his small body shake with silent, joyful sobs.
“Can I ask one thing?” said Phillip, into her shoulder.
“Anything.”
“Will you come back? Often? And bring me books? Human ones? From the, ah, the library? I’ve heard there’s a place with — with millions.”
“I’ll bring you a whole suitcase.”
“I’d be so grateful.”
“I know.” She laughed through her tears. “I’ll bring you the good ones. With pictures.”
“Pictures,” said Phillip, in a hushed voice, as if she’d promised him a holiday.
They said goodbye in the garden.
It was a very long goodbye. It was a goodbye full of false starts, and unexpected hugs, and last-minute remembered things, and a great deal of nose-blowing. Tom pressed a small, battered tin into her hands, which turned out to contain the remains of his tea. “For luck,” he said gruffly. “It’s rubbish. But it’s mine.” Phillip gave her a small, folded paper, covered in neat, anxious handwriting, which turned out to be a list of fourteen things she’d forgotten to pack. Smile gave Tom his rope.
“I can’t,” said Tom.
“You can.”
“It’s yours.”
“It’s a good rope. It’s saved me.” Smile put it in his hands, and folded the big paws shut over it. His voice was very gruff. “You’ll need it. For the path. Tying things. Pulling people out of — of ditches. It’s practical.”
“Smile—”
“And if I ever see you without it, I’ll know you’ve been careless, and I’ll have something to say about it.”
Tom hugged him.
It was a bear hug, a great big, lifting, whooping, rib-cracking one, and Smile let out an unglamorous “oof” and thumped him vigorously on the back. When Tom finally put him down, they were both red in the face and entirely unable to look at each other.
“You’ll be all right,” said Tom, thickly.
“I’ll be fantastic.”
“You’ll be hopeless.”
“I’ll be hopelessly fantastic.”
“I’ll see you at the full moon.”
“I’ll bring biscuits.”
“Chocolate ones.”
“I’ll try.”
The Cat Witch put a hand on each of their shoulders. She looked at them for a long moment: a tall, white-haired boy in a patched jerkin; a girl in a ruined yellow hoodie; a tabby the size of a barn door; and a small, black-and-white, ink-stained scholar with a very new book. There was something in her face that Codette couldn’t quite name. It was pride, and love, and a tender, aching, wistful happiness.
“I have a gift for each of you,” said the Cat Witch.
She reached into the folds of her robe and drew out four small, round, golden badges, each no larger than a coin. They were stamped on one side with a banana, and on the other with a single, delicate, curling leaf. They glowed with a faint, warm, inward light.
“Banana badges,” she said. “They’ll find the road for you. Wherever you are. Hold one in your hand, and think of the way home, and the door will open.” She smiled. “And it’s only for those who’ve passed the trials. So you’ll know it’s safe.”
Smile took his. He turned it over, wonderingly. “Does it work on both sides?”
“Both.”
“Even in the human world?”
“Especially there.”
He pinned it carefully to the inside of his jerkin, over his heart. Codette fastened hers to the strap of her backpack. Phillip tucked his into the green book, as a bookmark. Tom stuck his on the end of his nose, and crossed his eyes, and was told, very firmly, by three separate voices, to take it off.
“We’ll be back,” said Codette.
“I know.”
“We’ll be back at the next full moon.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Sooner, if we can manage it.”
“I’d like that,” said the Cat Witch, gently. She kissed her on the forehead. “Go on, now. Your family’s waiting. And I do believe you’ve a very long day ahead.”
She turned to Smile.
“As for you,” she said.
“Yes?” said Smile, with a small, wary flinch.
“Look after her.”
He bowed his head.
“I’ll try,” he said, “with everything I’ve got.”
“I know you will, dear.” She smiled. “And let her look after you. That’s the hard part. It takes a little practice.”
“I’m very bad at it.”
“I know,” said the Cat Witch, and kissed him on the forehead too.
They walked through the door together.
It was a very strange sensation. It was like stepping through a waterfall made of warm light: a soft, gentle, shimmering pressure on every inch of her skin, a sound like bells, a brief, lovely, dizzying moment of weightlessness. She felt his hand tighten on hers. She heard him gasp. And then the light fell away, and she was standing on damp grass, in a cold, silent, gray dawn, with the smell of wet leaves in her nose and a thin drizzle falling on her face.
She opened her eyes.
It was Miller’s Woods.
It was exactly as she’d left it. The birch trees, the tangled brush, the clump of brambles where she’d torn her sleeve. A little way down the slope, a rusty gate hung open on a muddy path. Behind them, in the clearing, a tall, narrow, glimmering archway of golden light stood quietly between two oak trees, humming softly, like a refrigerator.
“Oh,” said Codette, in a very small voice.
Beside her, Smile had not moved.
He stood on the wet grass with his mouth open and his head tipped back, staring at the sky. The sky was gray. It was a flat, low, ordinary, drizzly, English gray, the color of dishwater, with a thin, cold rain falling out of it. It was, quite possibly, the most miserable sky she’d ever seen.
“It’s moving,” said Smile, in an awed whisper.
“What is?”
“The — the sky. It’s going somewhere. The clouds. They’re all going the same way. It’s — Codette, it’s not stuck.” He turned to her, his face lit up with pure astonishment. “It’s changing. It’s a different color from a minute ago. It’s—” He stopped. He put out a hand, and caught a few drops of rain in his palm, and looked at them. “And it’s wet.”
“It’s raining.”
“It’s raining. It’s real rain. I’ve seen it, of course, but I never stood in it. I was always under a — a roof.” He laughed, a wild, delighted, breathless sound. “It’s freezing.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it. It’s marvelous!”
“Smile—”
“Codette!”
It was a different voice.
It came from somewhere down the hill, thin and high and cracked, and it was shouting her name. She heard the crash of someone running through undergrowth. She heard a dog barking. She heard, over the patter of the rain, a second voice, a man’s, deep and hoarse, calling out: “Over here! Over here! I heard something! I heard her!”
She turned.
A beam of torchlight swept through the trees. It caught her face. For an instant, she stood blinking in the glare, with the rain running down her cheeks. Then the torch dropped, and clattered on the ground, and somebody screamed.
“CODETTE!”
It was her mother.
She came out of the mist at a dead run, in her old green cardigan, with her hair plastered flat to her skull and her face a white smear of terror and hope. She was wearing one slipper. She had been crying so long that her eyes were swollen almost shut. She ran across the clearing, and slipped, and nearly fell, and caught herself, and ran on, with both arms stretched out before her like a woman running into the sea.
“Mum!” cried Codette.
They collided.
It was not like the maze. The maze had been soft and warm and golden. This was hard, and wet, and solid: two bodies slamming together in the rain, a pair of arms like iron bands, a cardigan that smelled of damp wool and old tea and fear. Her mother was sobbing. Her whole body was shaking. She had Codette’s face between her hands, and was kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her hair, over and over, saying her name in a long, broken, incoherent litany.
“Oh, my girl. Oh, my darling. Oh, thank God. Thank God. Thank God.”
“I’m sorry,” Codette sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Mum, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I got lost, I—”
“Three days,” said her mother. “Three days. We’ve been looking for three days.”
Three days. The words went through her like a dart. Of course. It had not been a month. In the human world, only three days had passed. Three days of searching, three nights of terror, three long, endless, dreadful mornings with the phone silent on the kitchen table.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter now.” Her mother pressed her face into her shoulder. “You’re alive. You’re alive. You’re here. That’s all. That’s all that—”
A second pair of arms closed round the two of them, huge and warm and smelling of aftershave and coffee. It was her father. He didn’t say anything. He just held on, with his chin on the top of her head, and his whole big frame trembling like a leaf. And then there was a third, small, wiry, furious little body hurling itself against her legs, and a high, indignant voice yelling, “You’re in so much trouble! You’re in so much trouble, Cody! Mum’s been crying! Dad’s been swearing! I had to eat beans for two days!”
“Ollie,” said Codette, and burst into tears all over again.
It was a long time before anybody could speak.
They stood in a tight, wet, shaking knot in the middle of the clearing, in the rain, while the search party’s torches swung through the trees and somebody’s dog barked joyfully and the thin gray light of dawn crept up the sky. She felt each of them: her mother’s hand in her hair, her father’s arm around her shoulders, her brother’s sticky fingers wound tightly into her sleeve. She breathed in the smell of them. She closed her eyes.
I’m home, she thought.
It was so much more, and so much less, than she had imagined. It was ordinary, and dull, and wet, and cold, and the best thing in the world.
“Codette,” said her mother, at last, hoarsely, wiping her face. “Where were you? What happened? Were you — did somebody — are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re thin.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re filthy. Your hair’s—” Her mother stopped. Her eyes had caught on something over Codette’s shoulder. They widened. Her mouth fell open, very slowly. “Codette,” she said, in a strange, thin, careful voice. “Who is that?”
Codette turned.
Smile was standing at the edge of the clearing.
He hadn’t moved from the spot where she’d left him. He stood quite still, in the rain, with his hands clasped in front of him and his white hair plastered flat to his forehead. His red scarf hung in wet, bedraggled shreds. His jerkin was torn. His boots were caked in mud. He looked like something that had been dragged through a hedge backwards, and then through a lake, and then, for good measure, through an explosion.
But he was smiling.
It was a small, tentative, extremely nervous smile, and it trembled at the corners. His eyes were very wide. He was looking at the three of them, the mother, the father, the small, fierce, mud-spattered boy, with an expression of such yearning, such terror, such naked and uncomprehending hope, that Codette felt her heart turn over.
“Hello,” said Smile.
Nobody answered.
“I’m—” He hesitated. He took a step forward. He glanced at Codette, and she nodded, very slightly, and he gathered himself. “I’m so sorry to — I hope I’m not intruding. I’m Smile. It’s a — a nickname. I’m a friend of Codette’s.”
“A friend,” said her father, slowly.
“Yes, sir.”
“From school?”
“No, sir. From, ah. From a bit — from further off.”
“Mum,” said Codette. “Dad. This is Smile. He’s—” She stopped. She drew a breath. She had been rehearsing this for hours, in a thousand clever variations, and every single one of them had gone clean out of her head. She was left with only the plain, stark, simple truth. “He’s the one who helped me survive.”
There was a long silence.
Her mother looked at the boy. She looked at his wet white hair, and his torn jerkin, and his bare, scraped, shivering hands. She looked at the badge pinned to his chest, and the faint silver mark under his jaw. And she looked, for a very long moment, into his wide gold eyes.
Something in her face softened.
“You’re soaked,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re freezing.”
“I believe so. It’s — it’s a new sensation.”
“Good Lord.” She stepped forward. She took off her cardigan. It was a threadbare, bobbled, much-loved garment, the color of a very old cabbage, and she held it out to him as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Put that on. Right now. Before you catch your death.”
Smile took it.
He held it in both hands, staring at it with wondering reverence. “It’s warm,” he whispered.
“It’s a cardigan, love.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s from Marks and Spencer’s.”
“I’ll treasure it,” said Smile, with total sincerity, and put it on back to front.
It took about three weeks for the world to realize what had happened.
It took considerably longer for Smile.
He moved, officially, into the spare room above the garage, a small, slant-roofed, cluttered space that smelled of old paint and dust and had until recently been the repository for her father’s collection of broken exercise equipment. Her mother, after a great deal of whispered discussion in the kitchen, had declared that nobody who’d saved her daughter’s life was going to sleep in a shed. Her father, who had been silent and suspicious for the first week, had thawed considerably after Smile had, with an expression of grave concentration, repaired the lawnmower using nothing but a hairpin, a ball of string, and what he described as “feelings.”
He had a great deal to learn.
He learned about the vacuum cleaner on the second morning, and it nearly killed him. He had walked into the sitting room to find Codette’s mother whirling it around the carpet with a roar, and had let out a high, shrill, inhuman shriek and vaulted clean over the sofa. He was found some time later, up the curtains, spitting, with every hair on his head standing on end. “It’s a monster,” he panted. “It’s got a tail! It ate a sock!” It took three cups of tea and a very lengthy explanation to convince him it was not, in fact, alive.
He learned about automatic doors at the supermarket, which he regarded as the single greatest achievement of human civilization. He walked through them eleven times in a row, grinning like a child, until a man in a green apron asked him very politely to stop. He learned about escalators, and traffic lights, and the strange and complex etiquette of the queue. He learned that one could not simply take things from shops. This took several attempts. He learned that one could not nap on the road, in the sun, on a warm day, even if it was extremely comfortable, and that cars were, in fact, a thing to avoid.
He learned about telephones.
“It’s a little glowing rectangle,” he said, with a kind of awed disgust, on the fifth afternoon, holding her old, repaired phone as though it might bite. “And everyone in the world has one. And they all stare at it. For hours.”
“Yes.”
“And it talks to you.”
“Sometimes.”
“And there’s a little — a little picture — of everyone’s face, inside it. And you can speak to them. From a very long way away.”
“Yes.”
“How is this not magic?”
“It’s a different kind of magic.”
“It’s a worse kind,” said Smile darkly. “I’ve seen what it does to people. It makes them walk into lamp-posts.”
But he learned. He learned the way he’d learned everything else, with grim determination and a great many muttered curses and a sort of fierce, bright, unquenchable curiosity that never seemed to flag. He learned to cook an egg. He learned to ride a bicycle, in a series of spectacular, bone-jarring stages. He learned to read the fine print on a bus ticket, and to say “please” and “thank you” to strangers, and to hold a conversation on the weather for a full five minutes, with sincere interest. He learned that there were some questions you shouldn’t ask. And some you ought to ask a great deal more often.
He got a job.
It was her aunt who found it for him. Aunt Margery, whom Codette had last seen back in the summer, a brisk, red-cheeked, weather-beaten woman in a tweed skirt, owned a cattery on the far side of town, a long, low, flower-bordered complex that housed, on any given day, some forty cats. She had been short-staffed since June. She took one look at Smile, standing awkwardly in her hallway with his big hands dangling and his wild white hair, and narrowed her eyes.
“Can you handle cats?” she said.
“I’d like to think,” said Smile, with great dignity, “that I have some experience.”
It was the best decision she ever made.
The cats loved him. It was uncanny. They flocked to him from the moment he walked through the door, in a great purring, mewing, winding tide, and sat in his lap, and slept on his shoulders, and followed him about the garden in solemn, devoted lines. The shyest, most suspicious Persian in the place, who’d bitten three previous volunteers, took one look at him, climbed into his arms, and fell instantly asleep. Aunt Margery stood in the doorway, with her mouth hanging open, and said, in a faint voice, “Well, I never.”
Smile said nothing. But Codette, watching from the gate, saw him bend his head very close to the Persian’s, and murmur something so soft that she couldn’t hear it. And she saw the cat’s ears twitch, and turn, and lay flat in an expression of such pure, adoring, reverent respect that she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
He did not tell anyone what he’d said.
But from that day onwards, quite without explanation, the cats at the cattery were the best-behaved in the county.
The full moon rose on a Friday night in October.
It rose slowly, vast and gold and flawless, out of a bank of ragged cloud, and lit the whole of Miller’s Woods with a pale, silvery, enchanted glow. The wet leaves shone like tin. The air was cold and sharp and clear. Somewhere deep in the trees, an owl was hooting, in a long, low, mournful, contented voice.
They’d come straight after dinner.
Codette had told her parents they were going for a walk. It was not, strictly, a lie. Her mother, who had spent the last month in a state of constant, quiet vigilance, had looked at her for a long moment over the rim of her teacup, and sighed, and said: “Be back by ten. Ten. And take a torch.” Her father had pressed a flask of hot chocolate and a packet of biscuits into Smile’s hands, with the grave air of a man entrusting a soldier with a vital supply. “Chocolate ones,” he’d said. “The good ones. For the lads.”
“Lads?” Codette had said.
“I’ve a feeling,” said her father, with the ghost of a smile, “that you’ve got a great deal more to tell me.”
She had thrown her arms around his neck.
Now they stood in the clearing, beside the glimmering archway, in the pale blue light, with a picnic blanket and a rucksack and a torch they didn’t need. Smile was wearing a navy-blue jumper that her mother had bought him, which was slightly too big, and a pair of her father’s old corduroys, rolled at the ankle. His white hair stuck up at the back. He was fidgeting.
“What if they don’t come?” he said.
“They’ll come.”
“What if they forgot?”
“They didn’t forget.”
“What if it’s different? What if — what if they’ve changed? What if they’ve got — well — tall about it, and important, and they’ve forgotten who we are?”
“Smile.”
“It’s been three weeks.”
“It’s been three weeks. It’s the full moon. Tom’s a Guardian. He’s not going to have forgotten.”
“What if Phillip’s got a — a beard?”
“He won’t have a beard.”
“He might. You don’t know.”
“It’s been twenty-one days.”
“That’s plenty of time for a beard!”
“Smile.”
“I’m just saying.”
“I think,” said Codette, “that you’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.” He bit his lip. “I’m a little nervous.”
“I know.”
“I just want it to be—” He gestured vaguely at the glowing arch, the silver trees, the whole shining, impossible night. “I want it to be right. I want it to be like it was. I don’t want to — I don’t want to find out it was a dream.”
She slipped her hand into his.
“It wasn’t a dream,” she said.
“I know that.”
“Then trust me.”
“I do.” He squeezed her fingers. He smiled, a small, crooked, nervous smile. “That’s the whole trouble. I do, rather a lot.”
At that moment, the arch lit up.
It happened in an instant. A long, rippling, golden wave ran up the carved leaves, and the glowing curtain between the posts brightened, and deepened, and swirled like water. Something moved inside it. Something big. Two shapes, tall and short, were coming toward them through the light.
“Look out!” bellowed a deep, joyful voice. “Coming through! Mind the step! Phillip, don’t — oh, bother—”
There was a thud, a clatter, and a long, drawn-out squeak.
A very large striped cat, in a leather jerkin with a golden banana stitched on the breast, tumbled out of the archway and landed flat on his face in the leaves. A very small black-and-white one, with a thick green book clutched to his chest, landed on top of him.
“I told you to wait for me!” said Phillip, in an aggrieved voice.
“I did wait!”
“You went through first!”
“I was being chivalrous!”
“You were being heavy.”
“Hello, Tom,” said Smile.
Tom lifted his head. A single dead leaf was stuck to the end of his nose. He stared up at the two of them, standing side by side in the moonlight, tall and slim and shining, hand in hand. For a long moment he didn’t say anything at all.
Then his whole face split into the broadest, brightest, most blissful grin Codette had ever seen.
“You came,” he whispered.
“Of course we came.”
“I thought — I thought you might’ve — I thought—” He scrambled to his feet, and Phillip slid off him and thudded into the leaves. “I’ve been counting the days! Every night! I’ve been standing on the peak! Phillip’s got a — he’s made a chart!”
“It’s a very detailed chart,” said Phillip, dusting off his jerkin. “It has a legend.”
“Codette!” said Tom.
“Tom!”
She caught him in the middle of the clearing, and he caught her, in a great, spinning, lifting, whooping embrace, and for a long, glorious moment the whole night seemed to spin around them, the stars and the trees and the golden arch and the pale round moon. He smelled of woodsmoke and honey and pine. She was laughing and crying and her face was pressed into his furry shoulder, and she thought, with a surge of fierce and tender joy, I never want to let go.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she said.
“I’ve missed you more.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“I’ve missed you the most.”
“You can’t measure it!”
“I can. I’ve got a chart.”
“It’s a very detailed chart,” said Phillip, from somewhere near her elbow.
They had a picnic.
It was, Codette thought afterward, the best picnic she’d ever been to. They spread the blanket in the middle of the clearing, in the silver moonlight, with the glowing arch humming behind them and the whole wide dark wood murmuring around. They ate chocolate biscuits. They drank hot chocolate out of a flask. Tom, who had never seen a bag of crisps in his life, ate nine of them, one after another, with an expression of pure holy bliss, and then asked, in a reverent whisper, whether there were more.
“There’s a whole shop,” said Smile.
“A shop?”
“Full of them. Every flavor. Cheese and onion. Salt and vinegar. Prawn cocktail.”
“What’s a prawn?”
“It’s a — a sort of a — fish insect.”
“Fish insect,” breathed Tom.
“You’ll adore it.”
“I will,” said Tom, with intense feeling. “I’ll adore it. I’d like to go there. Right now.”
“Next time,” said Codette. “I’ll take you.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
They talked until their voices went hoarse.
Tom told them about the Banana Path: how he’d built a little stone hut at the very top, how a family of badgers had moved in next door, and how, on the third night, he had stopped a gang of rather confused tourists from the hill country from falling off a cliff. “I said, ‘Not today,’” he said, with quiet pride. “And they said, ‘Pardon?’ And I said, ‘It’s very dangerous.’ And they said, ‘Oh. Right. Thanks.’ It was a very satisfying conversation.”
Phillip told them about the library.
It was a vast, rambling, tumbledown thing, in the east wing of the Cat Witch’s reconstructed house, and he had been cataloguing it for three weeks. He had found, in a back room, a first edition of a book of poems that had been lost for eight hundred years. He had learned to levitate a teacup. He had discovered that the grimoire had a sense of humor, and liked puns. “It added a footnote on Tuesday,” he said, with some indignation. “It said, ‘Phillip is a very clever boy, but he has the handwriting of a spider in a gale.’ I was deeply wounded.”
“Was it right?” said Smile.
“Well—” Phillip fidgeted. “Technically.”
They told him about the cattery, and Aunt Margery, and the Persian, and the vacuum cleaner. They told him about the lawnmower, and the telephone, and the escalator. Tom nearly choked on a biscuit laughing. “Up the curtains?” he wheezed. “You went up the curtains? In front of her mother?”
“It was a very dangerous machine.”
“It’s a hoover!”
“It’s got a tail!”
“It hasn’t!”
“It’s a very long tail. It goes into a hole in the wall.”
“That’s the plug, you muppet!”
They told stories. They told the old stories over again: the stile, and the Yarnwood, and the sandstorm. The tale of the Rusty Whisker and the screaming star. The great escape from the golden castle, and the pond full of crocodiles. They embroidered. They exaggerated. They argued, with enormous passion and cheerful irreverence, about who had saved whom the most.
“It was me,” said Tom. “At the marsh. I fought a dog the size of a pony.”
“I threw the flowers!” said Phillip. “I did the tactical thinking!”
“I got stuck in a bush!”
“That was Tom.”
“I know it was me, I was there! I’m saying it counts!”
“I carried you through a swamp,” said Smile to Codette.
“I pulled you out of a tree,” she said.
“I licked the tree.”
“You hugged the tree!”
“We agreed we weren’t going to discuss the tree.”
“Everybody discusses the tree,” said Tom, wiping his eyes. “It’s the best story we’ve got!”
“I’ll bite you.”
“You can’t bite. You haven’t got the teeth.”
“I’ll bite you with my human ones!”
It was nearly midnight when they finally fell quiet. The moon had risen high above the trees, a flat white coin in a sea of stars. The fire, which Tom had built, with some pride, out of a pile of damp branches and a great deal of hot air, had burned down to a bed of glowing coals. Phillip had curled up on the blanket with his book as a pillow, and was asleep. Tom sat with his back against a tree trunk and his eyes half-closed, humming softly to himself, a low, rumbling, tuneless sound, like a very contented bee.
Codette sat at the edge of the circle of light with her knees drawn up and her back against Smile’s shoulder, and looked up at the sky.
It was a clear, high, glittering night. She’d never really looked at the stars before. They hung over the black trees in thick silver swarms, so many, and so bright, that it made her dizzy. She thought: the same sky. She thought: they’re all under the same sky. Everyone I love. And a great, soft, wondering gratitude rose in her chest, and she let it fill her, and held her breath.
“Codette,” said Smile.
“Mm?”
“Can I say something?”
“Of course.”
He didn’t answer straight away. She felt him shift against her back, and settle, and take a long, slow breath. She felt, through his jumper, the quick, nervous drumming of his heart.
“I’m still afraid,” he said, very quietly.
“Of what?”
“That one day you’ll wake up and — and it’ll all go wrong.” He kept his voice low, so it wouldn’t carry. “I know. I know. You’ve said it a hundred times. You said you’d talk me out of it. And you do, every time. But I lie awake at night, in that little room over the garage, and I think: one morning, she’s going to look at me across the breakfast table and she’s going to think, ‘Oh, no. It’s him. It’s the boy with the string. It’s the boy who steals teaspoons and can’t work the toaster.’” He laughed, a small, unhappy sound. “‘He’s so annoying. I can’t believe I picked him.’ And I’m going to see it in your face. And you’ll try to be kind. But I’ll know. And you’ll—” His voice cracked. “You’ll leave. And I won’t blame you. I’ll understand. I’d just — I think I’d like to be prepared.”
She turned round.
She did it slowly, without any rush. She sat up on the blanket, in the dying firelight, and faced him. His face was pale in the moon-glow. His eyes were bright, and shy, and very frightened. He wouldn’t quite meet hers.
“Smile,” she said.
“Yes?”
“You are annoying.”
He winced.
“You talk too much. You hog the bathroom. You’ve eaten three-quarters of the biscuit supply in the house. You can’t open a jar. You put the milk back in the cupboard. And you’ve lost the remote four times.”
“I—”
“You’ve also,” she said, “made my mother laugh for the first time in a month. You’ve taught my brother to whistle through his fingers. You’ve made my aunt cry. You carried a stray cat home in your jumper in the middle of a thunderstorm, and sat up with it all night.” She paused. “And you’ve never, not once, not ever, made me feel like I was too much, or too little, or not enough. You make me feel like I’m exactly the right size.”
His lips parted.
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Codette.
“You can’t promise that.”
“I just did.”
“But how do you—”
She reached out.
She took hold of the collar of his jumper, and tugged, gently, until his face was only inches from hers. She felt him go perfectly still. She saw the firelight flicker in his huge, gold, startled eyes. She saw his breath catch in his throat.
“Codette?” he whispered.
“This isn’t to save your life,” she said.
“I know.”
“It isn’t to break a curse.”
“I — yes. I’d noticed.”
“It isn’t a spell, or a wish, or a debt.” She smiled. Her heart was thundering. “I’m doing this because I want to. That’s all. Because I want to kiss the person I love. Because I’ve been thinking about it for three weeks, and I can’t stop.”
“Oh,” said Smile, faintly.
She kissed him.
It was nothing like the first time. The first time had been desperate, and salt-wet, and shaking, a last plea in the shadow of death. This was slow. This was soft. It was warm and unhurried and entirely without fear: two people, in the moonlight, with all the time in the world.
For a moment he did not move at all.
He stood frozen, like a deer in headlights, with his hands hanging helplessly at his sides and his eyes as wide as saucers. A long, trembling second passed. Then another.
And then, with a small, choked, breathless sound, something in him let go.
His arms came up. They closed around her waist, very carefully, as if he were afraid she might break, and then, all at once, not carefully at all, pulling her in against him, tight and warm and fierce. He tilted his head. His hand slid up into her hair. He kissed her back, with a kind of clumsy, trembling, reverent eagerness, like someone who has waited his whole life for a gift and cannot quite believe it is real.
The stars wheeled overhead. The fire popped. Somewhere in the dark, an owl called, once, and was still.
It might have been a minute. It might have been a year.
When they finally drew apart, they were both breathless. Smile’s cheeks were scarlet. His eyes were shining. He looked, thought Codette, like someone who had just been handed the sun, and told he could keep it.
“I—” he said.
“Yes?”
“I — hm. I think I’ve got a — a — a very strange feeling in my knees.”
“That’s normal.”
“Is it?”
“Quite.”
“Is it always like this?”
“I don’t know,” said Codette honestly. “I’ve never done it before.”
He stared at her.
“You — you haven’t?”
“Not before you.”
“Oh,” said Smile, in a very small voice. “Oh, good.”
He pulled her against him, and buried his face in her neck, and she felt him laughing, silently, helplessly, a soft, warm shiver that ran all the way down his spine. “I’m so glad,” he said, into her collar. “I’m so — I’m ridiculously — oh, I’m awfully — I don’t think I could stand it if—”
“Shh.”
“I love you,” said Smile, in a rush, as if the words had been waiting. “I love you. I love you. I should have said. I’ve loved you since the windmill. I’ve loved you since I was a cat. I don’t know how to — I don’t do this. I don’t know the words. But I love you, Codette. I do. I really, really do.”
“I know,” she said, and kissed his forehead. “I love you too.”
“Oh,” said Smile again. “That’s — good.”
From somewhere on the far side of the clearing, there came a faint, carefully suppressed sound.
It was the sound of two creatures, a very large one and a very small one, trying very, very hard not to laugh.
Codette lifted her head.
Tom was sitting against the tree, with his arms folded and his eyes closed, wearing an expression of exquisite, saintly innocence. Phillip, on the blanket, had pulled the book over his face and was shaking, in a rather obvious and violent manner, from head to foot.
“We’re not looking,” said Tom.
“We’re asleep,” said Phillip, from under the book.
“Very sound asleep.”
“Dead to the world.”
“Not applauding.”
“We’d never.”
“We’re deeply professional.”
And, softly, ever so softly, in the dark, with the greatest imaginable discretion, they began to clap.
Smile put his head in his hands.
“I hate you both,” he said, in a muffled voice.
“We know,” said Tom, joyfully.
“I’ll bite you.”
“You’ve got no teeth!”
It was nearly one o’clock when the arch began to dim.
It had been holding steady all night, a tall, silent, shimmering gateway, humming faintly in the moonlight, but now the golden light was fading, little by little, from the carved leaves, and the swirl in the center had begun to thin. Phillip woke with a start. Tom sat up, and stretched, and gave a vast, rumbling yawn.
“Time,” he said, regretfully.
“It’s always time,” said Phillip.
They gathered their things. It took longer than it should have. There were a great many last-minute hugs, and pats, and promises, and one or two false starts, and Tom’s pockets, which had somehow acquired five bags of crisps, a bar of chocolate, and a battered paperback, had to be turned out and carefully inspected. They stood at the foot of the archway in the silver light, the four of them, in a tight little circle, and said nothing at all.
“Same time next month?” said Codette.
“Obviously.” Tom blew his nose on his sleeve. “Bring the crisps.”
“I’ll bring the crisps.”
“And the biscuits.”
“And the good ones,” said Phillip. “With the pictures.”
“With the pictures.” She laughed. “I’m going to bring you every book in the library.”
“I’ll make a chart.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Tom stepped forward. He cupped her face in both his huge paws and looked at her with his big, amber, shining eyes, and for a moment she thought he was going to say something grand. Instead he just kissed her on the forehead, and then, very gruffly, he turned to Smile and seized him by the shoulders.
“Look after her,” said Tom.
“I will.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.” Smile’s voice wavered. “She’s looking after me. We’re sort of — taking turns.”
“Good lad.” Tom thumped him on the back. “Good lad.”
Phillip hugged them both, and then, rather sheepishly, hugged them again, and then trotted into the glimmering archway after Tom and stopped, halfway through, to look back.
“Codette!” he called.
“Yes?”
“I did the sum!”
“What sum?”
“The trust one! The whole equation!” His eyes shone. “It goes up. Every time you use it. It goes up! It’s the only thing in the world that does!”
“I know,” said Codette, and her eyes filled. “I know.”
“Goodnight!”
“Goodnight, Phillip.”
He waved. Tom waved. They stood together in the golden light, a very big cat and a very small one, shoulder to shoulder, with the moon in their eyes, and then, with a long, soft, silvery sigh, the archway folded in on itself like a closing flower. The light narrowed to a thread. The thread flickered. The air quivered, and stilled.
The door between the two worlds closed behind them.
It did not close like a wall. It did not close like a lock. It closed gently, with a sound like a sigh, like a book being shut at the end of a very good chapter. And as it vanished, a single tiny golden spark floated up from the place where it had been, and drifted, glittering, high into the cold night air, and was lost among the stars.
“It’s not goodbye,” said Codette.
“No,” said Smile.
“It’s a promise.”
“Yes,” said Smile, softly. He slipped his hand into hers. He drew her close. His other hand closed gently over the badge on his chest, which was glowing now, faintly, warm and steady as a heartbeat. “A promise. We’ll see them again.”
“At the full moon.”
“At every full moon.”
“For as long as we live.”
“I should think,” said Smile, with a small, crooked, brilliant grin, “that we’ll find quite a lot to talk about.”
They stood there for a long time, under the old, bright, wheeling stars, hand in hand, looking at the place where the door had been. The wind was cold. The grass was wet. In the distance, very faintly, a church clock was striking one. And somewhere out of the dark, over the black, rustling trees, a long way off, she thought she heard, soft and clear, a sound like laughter, and the beating of a great, golden, gentle wing.
“Come on,” said Codette, at last. “We’re going to be late.”
“Your mother said ten.”
“We’re already late.”
“She’ll kill me.”
“She won’t. She likes you.”
“She likes me?”
“She adores you.”
“Does she?” said Smile, in a tone of enormous wonder. “I had no idea.”
“Everyone does.”
“That’s — that’s very —” He stopped. His face lit up. “Well. That’s a new feeling.”
“Get used to it.”
“I think I’d like to.”
They walked out of the woods together, side by side, through the silvery dark, with the dead leaves whispering underfoot and the torch swinging forgotten in her hand. Behind them, in the clearing, the grass was already springing up again. The silver trees swayed in the breeze. The moon rode high.
And all through the long, bright, ordinary years that followed, whenever the great white moon rose round and full above Miller’s Woods, a girl with golden curls and a boy with a crescent-shaped smile would slip out of the house after supper, hand in hand, and make their way through the trees to a certain clearing, where a golden door was waiting.
And on the far side of that door, in a Kingdom of cats, with the sunset hanging low and gold over a hundred thousand lamplit rooftops, two old friends would be waiting for them.
Not the same as they had been. Not quite.
But the best of friends. Always.
And somewhere, at the edge of the world, under the light of the full moon, the four of them would set out together, as they always had, into the dark, and the wide, and the wonderful, to begin another adventure.
THE END
Codette in the Land of Cats