Page 2 of Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter

“Let’s get started on the application,” he said, politely pulling out a chair for me at the rickety table. He drew a wrinkled bundle of papers and a pencil from his vest pocket. “What sort of charity do you run? I don’t need specifics, just a general idea. I’ve got it—you knit sweaters for orphans, hein?”

Here was the moment. I steeled myself and said, “It’s an—animal charity.”

“Ah!” he said. “You raise money for the elephants or some such? I’ve heard elephants are having a time of it these days.”

I had the sense that he had not given much thought to elephants before now. “Not elephants, no. Cats.”

“Cats?” he repeated, and never have I seen a look more blank. “What about them?”

Despite the cold, I felt a prickle of sweat along my hairline. I’d practiced the conversation in my head, and yet still I felt it drifting off course and towards the same conclusion the others had. “The city has a large cat population—”

“That it does,” he said, frowning. “I had a colony set up shop behind a building of mine. Unsanitary little things. So you take care of them, do you? It’s not a bad idea, though they do keep the rats down.”

“Ah,” I said with a forced laugh. “We—yes, we take care of them. Though not in that way. My organization takes them in, cleans them up, ensures they’re adoptable, then tries to find them a comfortable home.”

“You take them in?” His blank expression seemed to be slowly transforming into one of horror. “Where?”

I suppose I should have known at this point that the situation was beyond repair, but desperation propelled me to continue, and also I have a tendency to babble when under stress. “Cats are extremely clean creatures. And as companion animals, particularly for the elderly, as well as the ill and infirm—well, their value to society cannot be overstated. Indeed, I once visited a hospital with a resident cat who—”

“You take these animals in,” he repeated, more slowly this time. “And you want to house them here?”

I swallowed. My silence was answer enough.

“Oh, no,” he said. “No, no, no. That will not do.”

He stood abruptly, taking the papers and pencil back and tucking them into his pocket, his eyebrows descending to their former latitude.

“Mine is only a small organization—” I began.

“Very good, mademoiselle,” he said, giving me a tight smile as he moved towards me, one arm politely extended as he shooed me from the shop with an efficiency that suggested extensive practice. “Best of luck getting your charity off the ground.”

“We’ve been in business for over five years,” I said, even as I was swept ever closer to the exit. “My current landlord can—”

“Mind the step,” he said, opening the door. And then, with an abruptness that left me breathless, I was standing on the landing, and the door had closed in my face.

I wandered for a time after that, my feet choosing the direction, paying little attention to my surroundings. I believe it was the cold that shocked me out of my daze; the sun had set, and the sky was a wash of navy and violet, the street lanterns flickering to life. I looked up, startled to find myself in the heart of the old city, standing outside a café just beginning to bustle with the evening crowds, men and women in their good hats and coats. Somehow, I was approaching an intersection with Rue des Hirondelles, where there was the shop for rent that M. Levasseur had unnecessarily warned me away from.

At the thought of M. Levasseur—not to mention impossibly out-of-reach rents—I felt my vision grey. I gazed into the café window, which was lightly steamed, many of its confections arrayed in little baskets in easy view of passersby. I must have stared at an egg tart for a solid minute, stomach rumbling, before I reminded myself of my budget—there would be no egg tarts until I found a place to live and work, and perhaps for some time after that, depending on the cost of my new accommodations.

I then spent another period of time staring at a chocolate brioche.

The bells of the basilica began to sound, though it wasn’t until the narrow street was filled with their ghostly echoes that I realized the time. I turned from the café and hurried home, avoiding a knot of young people who seemed half drunk already, two of the girls clasping hands and spinning in a circle, laughing, their skirts and coats fanning about them.

It wasn’t a long walk from the bustle of the restaurant district, but it felt it. The cobblestones grew more uneven, forcing me to mind my step, and the buildings leaned towards each other. My neighbourhood was mostly working-class apartments made from the customary grey limestone, with the odd grocer or café thrown in; about half were out of business, partly because the tram lines didn’t come this far. I stopped outside what should have been an unexceptional little place with dingy stonework and a rusty iron door, but was now quite an eye-catcher, given that two of the windows were shattered, their shutters blackened as if by fire. Between them was what looked a little like a lunar crater, about ten feet wide and imperfectly boarded up—I’d had a terrible time of that because the hole was so jagged and uneven, the scorched stones peeling back on either side as if they’d melted and re-formed. On the door was a sign that read:

Les Amis des Chats—Refuge Animalier

Cat Friends—Animal Shelter

I had not been the worst affected—that honour went to the sandwich shop across the street, which had seen all its windows shattered, its foundation cracked, and its door blown backwards into the shop. The owner—an elderly man named Hamad who, despite his gruff and unsmiling demeanour, had routinely brought leftover deli slices for the cats—had been unable to afford the repairs. Now it sat abandoned, empty windows yawning like dark mouths.

I could hear His Majesty yowling at me before I even put my hand on the doorknob. How the beast sensed when I came within fifty feet of the building was a mystery I’d never solved; either he did it by smell or—more likely, knowing His Majesty—some unholy sixth sense.

I unlocked the door, locked it firmly behind me, then pushed through the wooden gate I’d installed beyond the antechamber. His Majesty was coiled about my legs in an instant, loudly protesting the delay in his supper. Banshee, somewhat less intemperate, stood and goggled at me from the middle of the room with her perpetually confounded expression. The shelter cats, who occupied an array of cages in the next room, also began to register their protests, though I knew Élise had been attending to them for most of the afternoon.

“I know,” I said, pausing to disentangle His Majesty from my ankles. “I’m sorry—I was distracted by pastry. You wouldn’t understand, of course. If it doesn’t bleed, it isn’t food.”

I wiped my feet on the welcome mat, which was embroidered with the shelter’s motto, A cat is the soul of a home, in French and English, which we also had on our stationery. Then I fed the two of them—His Majesty first, of course; he would accept nothing less.