“I was half way to the door when he took me by the hair. I knew I would rather die than go back into the freezer, so I made up my mind to do that. But instead, something else happened. I went away. I don’t know how. It was like my mind was a deep cave and I was pulled back into it. You walked out of the emptiness, and came to the front. I could see you, feel what you were doing. I could still hear what he was saying. But it was like watching TV. I wasn’t in our body. You were. You purred and sat in his lap and made him calm again. You were made from darkness, to save me.

No, I say. I remember being born. It wasn’t like that.

“I know the story,” Lauren says. “I can see your memories. Or what you think are your memories. You were in a ditch with your Mamacat…”

Yes, I say, relieved to hear something I recognize.

“It never happened,” Lauren says. “The mind is clever. It knows how to tell you something that you can accept, when life gets too hard. If a man who calls you kitten keeps you prisoner—why, your mind might tell you that you are a kitten. It might make up a story about a stormy night and how he saved you. But you weren’t born in the forest. You were born inside me.”

It was real, I say. It must be. My dead little kit sisters, the rain …

“It’s real in a way,” she says sadly. “There are dead kittens buried in the forest. Ted put them there.”

I think about the earth that clings to Ted’s boots, some nights when he comes in from the woods. The scent of bone on him. I can’t seem to get enough air, even when I open my mouth wide to breathe. Truth has weight. It leaves footprints in your mind. Lauren strokes me and murmurs until the blood stops pounding in my ears.

Why did you pretend to be in the freezer?

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” she says. “I had to find a way to show you that we’re one person.”

Oh, I say, helpless. I’m your psychological issue.

“Don’t feel bad,” she says. “Things got better after you came. He began to let you out regularly, feed you. You calm him. You’re his pet. You like the freezer. You feel safe in there. And the happier you made him, the kinder he was to both of us. There is no more hot water and vinegar. He sends me to sleep and you come forward.”

I help keep us here, I say. I care for him, I let him stroke us …

“You made sure we survived,” Lauren says. Warmth spreads throughout my mind. “I’m hugging you. Can you feel it?”