Day 8 Part 4



He pulled up the patrol car at the gate, which was unsurprisingly locked. There was a foot gate which was not. He looked around, he could see no way to contact the house, there was a small post box and a larger parcel shelter and that was it. Nothing that seemed to give any way to contact the house. If ‘Services had to park up and walk, he wasn’t surprised they didn’t bother often. He radio’d in.

“391, at Silver residence. It looks to be a ten minute walk just to the front door. I will radio again before I knock.”





Eldred and Vanessa looked at each other, they had sensed the approach.



“Amanda my beautiful, go upstairs and sit with the girls, I will sit with the boy, Eldred, if you sit with the girls also. I will just have a little chat with out host to make sure he says the right thing, but we will listen, just in case, okay?”



Amanda said ‘sure thing’ and went up stairs, unusually in her human form, but quite naked. Eldred went up as well to thrall the girls to keep them quiet.



“Hello my lovely,” Vanessa said quietly to John Silver, “ someone is going to come to the door in a moment, he is a police man, now remember that you are the only one here, now, off you go and you be a good boy.”



Vanessa ran upstairs grabbing Amanda’s dress as she went. A dress laying unworn on the floor in the hall could well have aroused suspicion, especially as the occupant was male and supposedly alone. Senses on high, she heard the banging at the door, and then listened closely to the exchange.



“Hello sir, I am PC Tripp. I am just calling in to check that all is alright. There have been a few burglaries around here, and as you are alone, we thought it a good idea to make sure everything was in order sir. May I come in for a moment sir?”



“Oh, ha ha, the police, of yes, walking on the moon you are, yes indeed, I saw that, the picture was very fuzzy, we are all alone here, just us cats, yes indeed.”



‘Make sense of that,’ she thought.



“Sir thank you. The back door is this way is it sir? I would just like to make sure it is secure sir, you are very isolated here sir.”



“Oh that way is the outside it comes in that way too, but we don’t let it do we, my friends and me all just sit quietly and watch the wall paper grow, do you purr much? My friend does.”



“Sir, no I never was one for that. Do you have any French doors, that go our to the terrace sir, I would just like to make sure that they are also secure sir.”



“Terrace Stamp was my bestest friend you know he really wanted to be a Brigand, but well, it was cool to be a cat then you know.”



“Thank you sir, yes, well, I will leave now, sir and you make sure that you secure the door after me. Thank you sir.”



Vanessa listened as the police man radioed in as he walked up the drive. “Hello control, 391. All clear here at the Silver residence. He is on the at risk list isn’t he? Only he is an absolute fruit loop, seemed to think I am a cat. I am off to see Mrs Mason next, I will radio when I get to her house.”



Vanessa was relieved and went and let every one free. Amanda immediately changed to her feline form and bounded down stairs and curled around John Silvers legs, rubbing herself against him. When he sat she sat on her haunches with her left front raised and resting on his knee. To look at her you wouldn’t be able to tell if she were guarding him or protecting him. She knew, but wasn’t telling, John Silver felt safe, but then safe was a strange concept to him, as in fact were most concepts of this world.







The moon was low in the sky and nearly full, Eldred and Vanessa were abroad, running, almost flying, to the canal barges for their evening feed.



“It surprises me greatly that there are no Were’s in these parts, no glimpse of a pet save a Felcan, great prize though she is.” Eldred commented, “some hounds might help keep us safer, more secure.”



“It is my turn to tell you. You should read my memories, make more sense of them. There is no wild country left here, everything is owned and cultivated. The wild animals were tamed or destroyed perhaps two hundred years or more ago. Even now there are laws that prohibit the ownership of dogs considered to vicious for life amongst civilised men.”



“But the Felcan survives, how can that be?”



“That I do not know, but it could be that a Felcan hid amongst a private collection, perhaps scratching a keeper, who knows? She could perhaps have stayed in feline form, and none would know her true origins.”



Vanessa actually stopped running for a moment and thought, and as Eldred came back to her she said, “ I remember an incident in the paper a few years ago. A private zoo, perhaps near Taunton, it was very strange. There were a pair of big cats, I thought leopards, but perhaps panthers. In the morning when the keepers arrived they found an unknown man, naked and mauled in the pen and one animal next to him. They darted the animal to rescue to man, but never found the missing animal, a male if I recall. The man had amnesia and could recall nothing, not even his identity.”



Vanessa looked across to Eldred, “How strange that I should remember that, it was probably a little entry in a small newspaper, years ago, it meant nothing then, why would I remember it now?”



Eldred simply said, “everything you have ever experienced is remembered in your blood. Nothing is lost. If, as you say, you read that many years ago, it is there, in your blood ready for when you need it. Do you think it significant?”



“I am thinking that perhaps the mystery man always was a Felcan, and somehow changed to human form during the night. I don’t know, I wonder if he became the mystery cat that created our Felcan, Amanda?”



Eldred ran off, calling as he went, “who cares, I’m hungry.”

Popular posts from this blog