No, I say. I think we’re lucky to have been born. And we’re luckier still to be alive. But I don’t know what being born or being alive means anymore. What am I? It seems like everything I knew is wrong. I thought I saw the LORD, once. He spoke to me. Did that happen?

“There are no gods except Ted’s gods,” she says. “The ones he makes in the forest.” The cold feather strokes on, up my tail, down my spine.

We won’t let that happen, I say. We are going to get out of here.

“You keep saying that,” she snaps. For a moment she sounds like the old Lauren, shrill and unkind. Then she softens again. “What will you do when we’re free? I’m going to wear a skirt and pink barrettes in my hair. He never lets me.”

I want to eat real fish. (Privately, to myself, I think, I will go and find my tabby love.) What about your family? I ask Lauren. Maybe you can find them.

After a pause she says, “I don’t want them to see me like this. It’s better if they keep thinking I’m dead.”

But where will you live?

“Here, I guess.” Her voice sounds like it doesn’t matter. “I can manage without Ted. I want to be alone.”

Everyone needs someone, Lauren, I say sternly. Even I know that. A person to stroke you and tell you nice things and get annoyed with you sometimes.

“I have you.”

That’s true, I say, in surprise. I hadn’t thought. I tickle her strongly with my tail and she laughs. Luckily, I am an optimist and I think we’re going to need that.

Lauren sighs, the way she does when she’s about to say something I won’t like. “It has to be you,” she says. “When the time comes. You know that, right, Olivia? You have to do it. I can’t use the body.”

Do what? But I know.

She doesn’t answer.

I won’t, I say. I can’t.

“You have to,” she says sadly. “Or Ted will put us under the ground like the other kittens.”