The Big Meow

The queen-ehhif was sniffling. The tom took her by both arms, holding her that way even when she pulled a little to be let go. “All I’m asking is that you give it a try. It’s not like you’re going to be sticking pins in dolls! It’s nothing so stupid or primitive. It’s a straightforward way to get the forces that actually run the Universe, the Higher Forces, to pay attention to you and get Them to do what you want Them to do, for a change, instead of just shooting off all Their energy randomly. It’s a purposeful direction of a natural power, like electricity. Some people have a talent for it and don’t even know it, never know why they have good luck and the people around them have it bad. But it can be taught, it can be learned, and when it’s learned and used, it works. Did you see what happened to Millie? Her manager ran off to Rio with her last six pictures’ wages, her agent dumped her, Charles left her and took up with her hairdresser, for Pete’s sake! – it was about as bad for her as it could get. Then she went to one of our group’s little sessions and went through the reconstruction routine. She wasn’t any more certain about it at first than you are, but she gave it her all. And two days later, RKO picked up her contract at three times what her weekly had been at Loew’s. It’s worth it, Dolores! All the Universe wants back from you, all the Forces want, is commitment. Commit yourself and you can have it all. The Strong Ones and the Great Old One they work for are willing to be on your side, but you have to stand up and commit to being strong yourself, first. Be Their friend, and They’ll be yours.”

The sniffling had stopped. Rhiow didn’t move a muscle, unwilling to misstep and make some sound that might break whatever was happening here: for in the silence of the terrace and the back of her mind, she could hear something she had heard only very occasionally before – the Whisperer, silent, breathing, listening.

“I don’t know,” the queen-ehhif said, after a long pause. But something in her voice told Rhiow she did know, she was just waiting for some one thing to push her over the edge into the choice. “What if it doesn’t – “

“It will,” the tom said. “It will. I promise. You’ve had so much that’s gone wrong. This is where it starts to go right.” He turned her face up to his gently with one hand, and lowered his head to hers.

Silence.

Many of Rhiow’s breaths later, many of the Whisperer’s, the young queen put her arms around the tom. “All right,” she said, and it was strange how close to tears she sounded again. “For you, all right. How soon?”

“Not right this minute, first thing,” the tom said. “Come on, let me get you a glass of something.”

They broke the clinch, though the tom kept one arm around the queen’s waist. “No, I have to know, I’m going to have to change some appointments – “

They walked toward the ballroom doors. “What’s today?” the tom-ehhif said.

“The sixteenth.”

Rhiow jumped down as soon as they passed and their backs were turned to her. “Tomorrow evening.”

“Where should I meet you?”

Hold still, hold still! Rhiow thought, but it was too late, they were halfway into the house already. Into the ballroom. “We meet here first and then we…”

Rhiow ran toward the doors…and the swing band struck up, an impenetrable wall of sound, especially the piercing solo clarinet that made it impossible to hear anything further. She stood a moment outside the door, watching them vanish into the largish group of ehhif who were making their way onto the dance floor.

All right, she said to the Whisperer as she sat down just outside the door, frustrated, and scrubbed one ringing ear, then the other. That was worth hearing. And now we have someone to listen to a little more closely this evening.

She sidled and headed through the ballroom, looking closely at the ehhif there: but Dolores and Ray hadn’t stayed in the room. Rhiow trotted through into the buffet, and found Urruah standing off to one side, looking at a crowd which had already grown significantly larger just in the relatively short time since they’d come. What had not changed was the broken-glass tinkle of one particular voice rising again and again over the rumble of other conversation and laughter. The jewels around Anya Harte’s throat flashed, her eyes glittered, her laughter was increasingly frequent; and the edginess and the brittleness of it grew every time her eyes came to rest on Helen Walks Softly, and the small, intent, fascinated group that had gathered around the dark woman in the wine-dark dress.

“It’s the ultimate fascination, isn’t it,” Urruah said.

“What?”

He was watching the tom-ehhifs with the amusement of someone who knows a secret. “Her. She’s got something unique, and they can’t quite identify it. That tang of something foreign and exotic…”

“In the most foreign way she could be,” Rhiow said, waving her tail slowly in agreement. “What’s another country, compared to another time?”