Young Jessie Petrie scooted herself up in her bed with effort, cautious of the IV in her left arm, rising up enough to survey her entire room. Rascal had not responded to her call; was he okay?
It was unlikely he had left the room; her door was closed. And even now, weak as he was, he always came when she called.
As her eyes roamed the room, they fell up the mirror above her dresser. For the hundredth time, she beheld herself – her dwindling hair, her spindly arms, her tired eyes – and she ached for Rascal all the more.
“Rascal!” she called again, louder this time.
With supreme effort, the grayish tabby pushed off the carpeted floor and hauled himself onto the bed, willing but winded by the effort. He was, after all, a good seven years older than she.
He climbed the pillow she was leaning against, cuddled next to her gaunt face and her diminishing spill of golden curls, and his tail wandered up and to the side, falling across her face in the way that had amused her so when she was tiny and now utterly endeared him to her.
Happy and comforted, Jessie eased herself back down into bed, and Rascal nestled tiredly into the crook of her arm.
A barrage of knocks assaulted Isabel McPhee’s front door, and she rose from her chair in the back sunroom to traverse the living room floor. Along the way, she passed the black-and-white Olan Mills portrait of her departed Harvey, propped up next to his old ash tray on the end table next to the worn love seat her Australian terrier claimed as his headquarters. She gave the portrait a satisfied sneer, her disdain as fresh today as the day he’d passed in karmic misery.
In its cage near the front window, a white dove cooed at her passing, and she gave it a warm smile. Crowding her feet as she reached for the handle of the front door, her calico Persian cat registered interest in any incipient invasion.
“Miss McPhee! Miss McPhee!” came a chorus of small voices as the door eased back.
The old woman peered out onto her spacious front porch, taking in the image of three youngsters, all aged somewhere between seven and nine. On a good day, she remembered all their names – they stopped by often, despite the entreaties of their parents, who considered her prohibitively odd for contact with their children. The neighborhood had ignored her with increasing resolve in the years since Harvey’s passing (still considered “mysterious” by some of the block’s more malicious vodka slurpers), and that suited Isabel just fine; with the exception of the children, she had no interest in any company beyond her many furry cohabitants.
“Come in, come in!” she smiled broadly, motioning them through the door. As always, they scrambled for the couch. The older one, the girl with the curly blonde hair, was of course not among them; Isabel had heard about the cancer, and once again felt a sharp pang of empathy for the sweet-spirited Jessie.
The terrier entered the room, pausing at the sight of the children. He let out a low growl.
“Out!” Isabel cried, startling the children.
She moved toward her balalaika, hanging on the wall behind the dining room table. “Who wants a song?” The children loved to drop by for an impromptu concert on the sofa.
“Oh, we don’t have time, Miss McPhee!” declared Sophie, whose bangs were straight as a teacher’s ruler. “We need your help for something else!”
Isabel stopped, surprised, and settled herself into her tea chair, opposite the sofa.
“Whatever is the matter?” she asked.
“Miss McPhee, it’s Jessie’s cat Rascal!” answered Taylor, who always wore the same Batman t-shirt. “He won’t eat and he won’t get up and Jessie’s older brother says he won’t last much longer!”
“He said that means Rascal is gonna die,” said the third child, little Gretchen with the bright red hair. “Is that true, Miss McPhee?”
The old woman sighed. Didn’t parents teach their children anything anymore?
“Oh, sweetie,” she said with a kind expression, “it very well may be, yes. Rascal is as old as Jessie’s brother; they bought him the year he was born, when he was just a kitten.”
She leaned in close.
“My angels, that’s how it is with pets,” she said softly. “Why, even Mister Hunsecker over there won’t be with us forever.”
“But Miss McPhee, Jessie needs Rascal! She’s been so sick, and Rascal makes her feel better!”
“-and you can do magic! We know you can!”
Isabel leaned back in her tea chair and considered.
“I’ll tell you what,” she said, somewhat conspiratorially. “Rascal has a bed in Jessie’s room, yes?”
“Uh-huh, next to her dresser!”
“And you children still visit Jessie?”
“Not every day,” Sophie replied. “Her mom says she needs her rest.”
“Well, the next time you visit, do something for me: bring me a couple of Rascal’s hairs from his bed, and scoop up a bit of the leavings from his food dish. Then bring them to me. Can you do that?”
They looked at each other in confusion, but nodded.
As the children scampered on their way, Isabel took Mister Hunsecker into her arms.
“You and I need to have a conversation, my old friend...”
Isabel lit a candle and set it on the coffee table, then poured a few drops of something amber from a small bottle into a spoon. She heated the spoon over the candle, then poured the amber liquid into a piece of bread, then called Mister Hunsecker to her lap. As they had discussed, she fed him the bread.
Still holding him, she dropped Rascal’s hairs, which the children had provided, into a silver cup. Preparing a few more drops of the amber liquid, she poured them over the hairs, then sprinkled an ambiguous herb into the mix, finally adding a few saliva-riddled bits of food.
Closing her eyes, she stroked Mister Hunsecker with one hand and held the silver cup over the candle flame as she spoke a lengthy incantation. Mister Hunsecker fell promptly asleep.
When her work was done, she embraced her fatigue, glancing dismissively at Harvey’s portrait.
“And don’t you forget it,” she smirked.
Jessie’s mother was in tears for the second time in a day. Rascal’s passing had left her distraught, and she had no way to tell her dying daughter. Terrified that the blow would devastate her little girl, she hadn’t yet mustered any words.
And then the children had shown up. With a beautiful calico Persian. And a note from Isabel McPhee.
Her gratitude had set off the second flood of tears, and she watched from the bedroom door as Sophie placed the beautiful cat on the bed. It made its way to Jessie, who (though weak) was sitting up in bed, and climbed the pillow she was leaning on, cuddling next to the remnants of her glowing curls.
His tail made its way up and over his side, tickling her face in the way that so endeared her...
“Rascal!” she cried out. “Oh, Rascal!”
The other children glowed. Jessie’s face was pure joy.
The weeks passed, and with the autumn came a growing sadness.
When the children appeared again on Isabel McPhee’s doorstep, they were distraught.
She gathered them in and put them on the sofa, ducking into the kitchen for fresh-baked cookies and juice; she had known, of course, that they would come.
Carrying a tray as she returned, she saw the terrier stared from a corner. Isabel stared back, daring him to growl.
She passed Harvey’s portrait, allowing herself a momentary surge of bile, a wisp of satisfying hatred for the odious cheating husband who had humiliated her and mistreated her and stolen her mother’s money and denied her children and submerged her in the world’s unwanted pity with his very justified passing.
She returned to the moment, setting down the tray on the coffee table.
“Oh, Miss McPhee,” said little Gretchen, “they say Jessie is getting sicker!”
“I heard my parents talking,” said Taylor. “They said... you know... that Jessie won’t... you know...” His voice trailed off.
Sophie started to speak, but could manage only a tear.
Isabel paused and considered. Jessie was a year older than Sophie, the oldest of the three, and they had looked up to her, before she’d taken ill. She was generous to a fault, even spending her own birthday money on the younger children when the ice cream truck passed. She had watched Jessie stand up for them against the unruly older boys on the corner playground. She had long admired how gentle Jessie had always been with Rascal, understanding that Rascal was older than other cats and in need of extra care.
She nodded to herself with resolve.
“Children,” she said, “do you remember a while back, when I had you bring me some of Rascal’s hair?”
They all nodded.
“Well, now I want you to do something else for me, if you will,” she continued. “I need you to bring me something of Jessie’s.”
Sophie shook her head.
“Oh, no Miss McPhee,” she said, wiping the tear away. “Mrs. Petrie won’t let anyone into her room anymore. The doctor said no one must disturb her.”
Isabel nodded. “That’s okay, love,” she smiled. “If I give you some fresh bread to take to Jessie’s mother, and you ask how Jessie is feeling, she may let you into the house for a few minutes, yes?”
Sophie looked at the others, then nodded. “Maybe.”
“Well, here’s what you do next. Taylor, when you’re inside, ask Mrs. Petrie if you may use the bathroom. Then, when you are in the bathroom, find a comb that looks like it might be Jessie’s. Wrap it in tissue very carefully, then bring it to me.”
Gretchen’s eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open.
“Miss McPhee!” she cried, “do you mean, steal it?”
Isabel reached out and stroked the shiny red hair.
“No, no, love, we are only borrowing it,” she assured the little girl. “What you’re doing must be a secret, it’s true, but you must trust what I say: it’s very, very important that we do this!”
Darkness fell over the neighborhood. Again Isabel lit the candle; again she poured the amber liquid. The Australian terrier watched from a shadowed corner as she fed the bread to the dove on her shoulder, then extracted the few golden hairs from the comb.
She repeated her incantation.
Harvey stared from his picture frame. Completing her ritual, she glared back at him.
You lying, philandering sack of shit! she thought at him for the thousandth time. You worthless, miserable bucket of dog puke! She flipped him off with contempt, and more than a little delight.
The following morning, Isabel watched from her picture window as the men carried the lifeless little girl from the house on a gurney. Weeping, neighbors stood a respectful distance from the house.
Had she not prepared against the heartbreaking moment, Isabel would herself have shed more than a few tears for the beautiful child who had so brightly illuminated this little hamlet for the past few years.
But prepared she was, and joyfully so. She opened the cage and let the dove alight on her finger, then flowed through the house to the sunroom. She opened the window and extended her hand into the morning air.
“Fly, beautiful girl!” she said, and the dove looked back at her, then spread its wings.
“Fly, Jessie!”
Behind her, the terrier began barking in protest. Isabel whirled, beset with both anger and glee. The dog kept barking.
“Quiet, you! Hush!” she cried, picking up the squirt gun on the table next to the day bed.
The dog stared at her, and the barking dropped to a growl.
“Silence, Harvey! Do as I say!”
And she fired a stream of cold water into the terrier’s whining face.
The sullen beast fell silent, then slunk behind the bed, cowering.
Isabel McPhee turned back to the window, staring into the morning sky, and watched her little angel soar out of sight, as Harvey looked on with longing.
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