Chapter 14

 It was nightfall by the time they set off from Mary’s, only Hemp with Missy now. After discussing their discovery and then asking Twine-Sky more about the missing Louisa they’d forced themselves to sleep to be as well-rested as possible. Moon had woken them up with a cry, feverish and shivering. He’d stared at his littermate and at Missy with uncomprehending eyes for a moment, caught in the grip of a dream-vision, before he’d blinked it away. He’d looked so sickly that Hemp had put his paw down and told Moon to go back to their Owners without him, and Moon hadn’t even put up a protest as Twine-Sky promised to accompany him to the edge of their block.

    Missy and Hemp, meanwhile, set off into the other direction and towards the zoo block where Pinecone was allegedly currently staying with her group. Twine-Sky had told them the story of Louisa, a sister of Mary’s block who had been trying to kit for quite some time. Her Owners hadn’t liked it, and every time Louisa had been with kit, they had killed the unborn before they could see the light of day. It had driven Louisa mad with grief, Twine-Sky had said, and she had withdrawn more and more. Another orange cat, a stray brother by the name of Tadpole, had tried to console her when he’d been visiting Mary’s once, and told her of Pinecone who protected helpless orange sisters and brothers. Louisa had become interested, and Twine-Sky had accompanied her to meet with the older cat a few times. They had seemed to get along quite well, and Louisa had visibly brightened, until one day she’d just been… gone. She never came back.

    Pinecone and her cats had chosen somewhere close to the zoo where the local block cats never ventured, on the side of the dens filled with water and many fish that the cats could not reach. Incredibly close to it, there was something halfway between a tunnel and a street for the cars. Once they’d reached that part, Twine-Sky had said, they have to go into the tunnel and search for the part of the wall that was broken and concealed with cloth. They had to pass inside to reach Pinecone’s territory.

—

    They had, in fact, reached the cloth-covered hole inside of the tunnel. It had taken them too long to do so; Missy surmised that Moon should be back in his Owners’ den by now. It was so close to the zoo that a cat could hear the people and other animals inside if they strained their ears and if no car passed by, and Missy was shivering with dampness and anticipation. Hemp mentions that it could be a trap.

    “Maybe. But it makes sense, doesn’t it?” The carrion scent is around everywhere because on this side of the zoo there are large cars standing still with fish and meat, waiting to be let into the zoo’s den. Those cars pass through the tunnel Missy and Hemp are currently standing in, and she can only imagine that the foul scent seeps into the cats’ territory across the cloth. Hemp tries to convince her that if could be a false lead. Missy sighs, flicks her tail.

    “We still have to go inside, you know that, right?” Missy meows. Hemp groused but nodded and then shouldered past Missy and through the entrance, Missy close behind him.