My memory came back slowly. I had been trying to move the gods. They have laid in their resting place for a year or so now. They really shouldn’t stay in one place more than a couple months—after that, they start drawing people to them. So I was on my way to dig them up. But the forest has its own ideas, especially at night. I should have remembered that. The ground shrugged, the roots turned under my feet. Or maybe I was too drunk. Anyway I fell. The last thing I recall is the crunching sound my shoulder made as it met the earth.

My face is scratched and my arm has black flowers all over it. It won’t straighten. I made a sling out of an old T-shirt. I don’t think it’s broken. Getting hurt makes the body and brain weird, even if you don’t feel the pain. My thoughts are everywhere right now.

When I went downstairs earlier Olivia couldn’t leave me alone. Curious I guess. She licked my face. She has a real taste for blood, that cat.

OLIVIA

“Here, kitten.” Ted leans in the doorway, black against the light. Something is wrong with the way he’s standing. He kind of falls into the house then turns to lock the door, hands shaking. It takes him a few tries to get all the locks.

“I had a weird one, kitten,” he says. His arm is bent at the wrong angle. He coughs and a little fleck of blood dances through the air. It lands on the orange carpet and rests, a dark globe.

“Got to sleep,” he says and goes upstairs.

I lick the dark spot on the carpet, taking in the faint taste of blood. Oooooeeeeeeeeee, ooooooeee. The whine is back.

Today when I leap up to my viewing spot, the tabby is already there, sitting on the unkempt verge by the sidewalk. The sight of her makes my heart burn. I purr and bat the glass with a paw. Her coat is all fluffed up with the cold. She looks twice her size. She pays me no mind, sniffs delicately around the oak tree in the front yard, at a patch of ice on the sidewalk. And then, finally, she looks straight at me. Our eyes hold. It’s glorious; I could drown in her. I think she’s waiting for me to break the silence. Of course, now I can’t think of a single thing to say. So she turns away and it’s agony but then it gets worse. That white cat comes strolling along the sidewalk. That big one with the bell on his collar. He speaks to her and tries to rub her cheek with his. I am hissing so hard that I sound like a kettle.