Where the Forest Meets the Stars(32)

“How did they get in?”
“Who?”
“Them!”
“Wait . . . you can see them? I thought they were my hallucination.”
Lacey strode over to Jo. “You had the nerve to sneak into our house?”
“I didn’t,” Jo said. “One hundred percent of the nerve came from another source.”
“And no one is going to yell at a little girl—right, Lace?” Gabe said.
“So you’re okay now? Just like that?” Lacey said. “Couldn’t you have done that before I drove over here to do your work?”
“I never told you to come.”
“Who the hell was supposed to take care of Mom?”
“Can we push the play button on this recording later? My friends don’t want to hear it. Let’s go,” he said to Jo and Ursa.
“Where are you going?” Lacey said.
“Ursa wants to see the kittens,” he said.
“Yeah, and what about that? I told you no more cats.”
“My cats are all spayed. The mother was a stray that showed up pregnant.”
“Well, I haven’t found them yet, but I’m thinking of taking them to the river.”
Gabe charged her with startling intimidation, and she backed away until her butt hit a kitchen chair. “You do anything to those kittens and they’ll find you in the river! I mean that, Lacey!”
“You’re friggin’ nuts!” Lacey said.
“I am, so don’t mess with me! And don’t say things like that in front of this little girl ever again!”
Lacey’s sour gaze fell on Ursa. “Who is she? Mom says you feed her every day.”
To keep Ursa from hearing more, Gabe lifted her into his arms and hastened to the door. “I’m sorry,” he said in Ursa’s ear. “Don’t worry about any of that.”
Jo pushed on his back in her urgency to get out. They scurried down the gravel drive on the west side of the house. Halfway to the barn, Gabe set Ursa on her feet. “My bad,” he said. “You’re too old to be carried.”
“It’s okay,” Ursa said.
Jo glanced over her shoulder to see if Lacey was following. She wasn’t, and the cabin had disappeared behind trees that surrounded it on all sides.
“I’m sorry you two had to see that,” Gabe said when they reached the barn. “My sister is . . . she and I have never gotten along. She was in college when I was born, and she’s always been more like my mean stepmother than my sister.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Jo said.
“Can I go see them?” Ursa said.
“Go on,” he said.
Ursa ran inside. Gabe and Jo followed her to the stacks of hay at the rear of the building. “The mother cat is surprisingly tame,” Gabe said, picking up the orange tabby that had come to greet him with her meows. He held her to his chest, and she rolled her head against his fingers as he scratched behind her ears.
“She obviously wasn’t born in the wild,” Jo said.
“I know. I think someone dumped her on my property when they saw she was pregnant. People around here know I keep barn cats.”
Jo stroked the cat in his arms.
“She gave birth to the first kitten next to my toolshed, but she let me move her to the barn. The kittens are safer from predators in here because I keep the door closed at night.”
“Predators like your sister?” Jo said.
“Yeah, worse than a rat snake, right?”
“Should we hide them better?” Ursa asked.
Gabe squatted in front of her. “I won’t let her hurt them.”
“But she said—”
“I think she’ll leave tomorrow. She hates farm chores.”
Ursa took Jo’s hand and led her to a nest of multicolored kittens tucked between two big bales of hay. “I’m betting there’s more than one father,” Jo said.
“She’s discovered your deepest, darkest secret,” Gabe whispered in the mother cat’s ear.
Jo smiled at his humor. He’d looked bad when they first saw him, but he’d livened remarkably in the last ten minutes. The alien kid apparently had better instincts than Jo.
“Their eyes are open!” Ursa said, a white kitten in her hands. It mewed softly, its squinted eyes trying to make sense of her human face. “This is Juliet,” Ursa said. “Want to hold her?”
Jo cradled the kitten against her chest.
“The gray one is Hamlet,” Ursa said, pointing at a kitten. “This brown tabby is Caesar. The black-and-white one is Macbeth, and the orange one is Olivia—”
“Which play is that from?” Jo asked.
“Twelfth Night ,” Gabe said.
“Finally, a comedy.”
“And the black one is Othello,” Ursa said. “That name was Gabe’s idea because Othello is a Moor.”
Ursa took Juliet from Jo’s hands. “Juliet and Hamlet are my favorites.” She scooped Hamlet out of the nest and reclined against a hay bale with the two kittens on her chest.
Balancing the mother cat on one arm, Gabe lifted Olivia and handed her to Jo. “Have a little comedy. We need it.”
Jo warmed the tiny orange kitten until it settled down. Gabe was watching her, smiling. “How do you feel?” she asked him. But immediately she regretted asking the question that had dogged her since her diagnosis. “Are you up to having dinner with us?”
He tried to read her motives.
“Ursa and I are making burgers, sweet potato fries, and salad. But I should warn you, they’re turkey burgers. I don’t eat much red meat.”