An Acceptable Agreement: Part II

True to her word, Skye returned the next day with a new cat which the school's students straightaway named Young Tom. Only Meghan refused to accept the new arrival. "We don't need a Young Tom! He doesn't belong here, you'll see." She pushed the cat away when one of the others tried to pass it to her and went outside to sit by herself on the back stoop.

Jera hoped Skye was right and that Meghan would come to accept the death of the old cat in time. Meanwhile she waited to see if Young Tom could help control the rodents. But after only a few days it became apparent that things were not improving. In fact after his first day at the Bardic Hall, Young Tom refused to walk out the back door. If Jera or Ashe carried him outside and set him on the stoop where his predecessor had stood guard, the minute his paws touched the ground the cat would arch its back, hiss and spit at some unseen foe and then dash back inside to hide behind a piece of furniture.

After a week, Jera brought Young Tom back to the manor.

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"Can't we set wards or something?" Jera looked across the table at her husband Ashe. They were eating a late dinner with a few of the older students and Master Harper Mark. "You know, to make the rats stay away?"

Ashe shook his head with regret. "I've already set wards here against the energies that seem to be increasing within The Hook. But they are ones for protection, not wards to repel. If I add more to what I've already set then we run the risk of drawing more attention to ourselves from whatever it is that is out there. I'd rather save my strength for more dangerous intruders than rats, love."

A student named Padraig had been following the conversation with interest. "What about music? Couldn't we play something that would drive them away or kill them?"

Ashe glanced down the table at the younger man and shook his head. "We could, but we will not. Something like that was tried once by one of my ancestors and it so upset the Balance that every Sithryn Bard since Lianos and Alor swears an oath never to commit such an act. I will tell you their tale after we finish dinner."

Of course, that made the students eat as quickly as possible and shortly after most of them had gone to the study to wait for Ashe to begin. A few stayed behind with Jera to help clean up the dishes and as they cleared the table Meghan came walking into the kitchen. She grabbed a few scraps and put them on a plate, then headed for the back door. Padraig reached out to teasingly ruffle the girl's dark hair. "Going to put out food for your dead cat?"

"Tom's not gone! You just can't see him because you're so dumb you're headblind!" She stalked out the back door and set the plate down, then returned inside to walk back to her bedroom as Padraig shook his head.

Jera frowned. This was something else that had gone on too long now, and as she followed the others into the other room before Ashe began his tale, she resolved to have another talk with Meghan.

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The next day was a busy one so it wasn't until mid afternoon that Jera reminded herself of her resolution and sought Meghan out. She found the girl where she expected she would, sitting alone on the back doorstep next to where Tom would laze in the warm sun. "Can we talk, Meghan?"

The girl looked up warily. "Why? Are you going to tell me Tom's dead again?" She crossed her arms angrily as Jera sat down beside her.

"Meghan, there comes a time when all things reach the end of their Road. Tom had a good life here with us, but he was old and his body would not let him do the things he could do when he was younger. He was loved and he died peacefully. Can you not be happy for him that he's free to roam the Summer Lands?"

The girl's eyes teared up, and she angrily wiped at them. "You're right, Tom died. But I'm right, too. He isn't gone." Meghan pointed at the saucer of milk behind them and Jera looked at it.

The milk on the saucer rippled, and as Jera watched in wide eyed astonishment, it began to slowly disappear as if a cat was licking it up.

Then Tom began to purr.

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"Did you actually see the cat?" Skye Blackthorn looked around the yard. "Is it here now?"

Jera shook her head. "No, it's not here now, but I did see Tom, or at least Tom as he is now. It's hard to explain. Once I saw the milk move, I used my gift and could sense something there, a presence. All this time none of us paid attention to what Meghan was saying because we thought it was the fantasy of a grieving child. But now?" She sighed. "Ashe and I owe the girl an apology."

"I see. That would explain why your new cat was ...umm…spooked. But how can this happen?"

"Ashe thinks perhaps it's because of all the forces at work now in The Hook, that perhaps the wards he set interacted with them and Tom's spirit was kept here."

Skye smiled slightly. "There is another alternative, you know. It could be he is held here by that little girl's love, and perhaps by his for her. Stranger things have happened." She took another look around. "But as wondrous as your news is, what about your problem with the rats?"

"I think I know the answer to that now." She started back indoors. "But first I have to find Meghan."

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The rats returned that night near sunset as they had for several days now, and as Jera had hoped, the rat king was one of them. She waited for them to creep inside the shed, then moved with elven quickness to shut the door behind all but one of the creatures. That straggler stood still, frozen to the spot as hissing and yowls rose from behind the door and then abruptly ceased. Jera opened the door to reveal the bodies on the wooden floor. One moved a bit as if it were being played with by unseen paws.

Jera looked down to where the rat king still stood frozen. "Go, and never come back."

The rodent flinched, then turned and ran faster than any rat Jera had ever seen. She grinned. "I think we've reached an acceptable agreement."

The rats did not return after that night or at least none that did lived long enough to be a nuisance. As for Tom, his presence seemed to grow stronger as others began to accept that he was once more guarding the Hall.

A few weeks later, Jera once more sat on the back doorstep warming herself in the late autumn sun. The scraps on the plate beside her had already vanished in dainty bites and a low purring sound made the elf laugh. She glanced over at the two shadows on the wall. One was hers. The other was that of a large cat fastidiously cleaning its paws. Guided by this, Jera reached out her hand, and a few seconds later it was bumped by the head of a ghostly cat that wanted his chin scratched.

Smiling, Jera obliged.