Her grandmother’s house was on the corner of Meridian and Forty-Sixth Street. It was a neighborhood of stately houses, and though Rosalinda’s was no more or less grand than the next, it had an otherworldly feel about it, as though it belonged to another time, another place. Ivy crawled up the walls, forming a patchwork of green against the pale yellow stucco. It reminded Rose of a map, where the ivy was the sea and the stucco made up the continents. Perhaps it was like one of those very old historical maps that showed monsters swimming through unknown seas with the inscription Here There Be Dragons. But instead: Here There Be Grandmother. Grandmother Rosalinda.

If anyone wanted Rose to settle in, it didn’t help that she had to ring the bell to be let into the house. It sure didn’t make it feel like home. Her mother had trusted her with a key to their house back on Sylvan Lane.

Everything was wrong here. She walked up the three steps and rang the bell. At the same moment, a cat leaped onto the broad top step. Its fur was tawny bronze, just the color of the changing leaves.

“Now where did you come from, cat?” Rose whispered. She noticed it had only three legs. The cat cocked its head to one side and looked her up and down as if to ask Rose the same question. Its limpid green eyes flashed with a slit of gold light. On this crisp day, the creature seemed to be the essence of fall. September, that’s what you should be called, Rose thought. Then there was the loud click of the lock being turned in the door. The cat was gone! Betty stood in the doorway.

“Oh, hello, Rose.” Betty blinked as if Rose were a stranger trying to collect money for some cause or asking that a petition be signed to protect the habitat of an endangered toad. Or maybe Betty had a fleeting moment of thinking that Rose was simply an unexpected guest, which was exactly what she had been just twelve days before.

“Betty, there was a pretty cat here just a second ago.”

“Oh, that three-legged one. Yes, it hangs around. I don’t believe in feeding cats. They can become a nuisance.” She pursed her lips and shook her head in disapproval.