"Come on, Kit. Don't dawdle." He turned to wait for her. The kit was so small and thin, but so bright-eyed and alive. Her gaze at him was as brilliant as stars exploding. She galloped up and trotted happily beside him, her head high, her long, bushy tail waving.

Down into the village they wandered. Joe Grey couldn't hurry her. She had to stop at every new scent, had to look into every shop window, examine every tiny patch of garden.

"I was here before," she said. "When I rode that dog. I jumped off and ran. This is not like big-city streets. Not like the alleys where I was before."

She stood up to peer in through the glass at a display of brightly painted pottery, yearning toward it, lifting a paw as if to touch it, much as Dulcie would do. She stopped to sniff a hundred smells, and to pat a hundred shadows.

Down the oak-shaded, flower-decked streets she and Joe Grey walked, dawdling, creating endless delays, until they arrived at last at the small, brick-paved alley behind George Jolly's Deli.

Despite the late hour, a light burned in the deli kitchen, and Joe could hear cooking sounds, a spoon scraping a bowl; George Jolly was working late preparing his delicious salads and marinades and sandwich spreads.

Jolly must have just set out fresh plates for the village cats; the nicely presented feast had not yet been sampled. No other cat was present.

The kit said, "This is not for cats to eat."

"This is for cats to eat."

The kit smelled each individual serving-salmon, caviar, an assortment of cheeses.

"Go on, Kit. You're not hungry?"

The kit gave him a questioning look, then set to gulping and smacking, sucking up the feast with a fine, robust greed.

She came up for air with cheese on her nose and chopped egg in her whiskers.

And now, her first hunger sated, she looked around her at the little shops that faced the alley, admiring their mullioned doors and stained-glass windows. Her round eyes widened at a bright red-and-blue rocking horse, at the little potted trees beside the shop doors, at the decorative wrought-iron lamps that lit either end of the cozy alley, at the tall jasmine vine heavy with yellow blossoms. She smiled. Then she ate again, rumbling and shaking with purrs.

Dulcie found them there, Joe Grey washing his whiskers and guarding the sleeping kit. The kit lay sprawled on the bricks, softly snoring, her little stomach distended, her face smeared with chopped egg, one paw twitching now and then as if, in dream, she still pawed at the delectable morsels of salmon and sliced Brie.

"Guess what she did," Joe said, as proud as a parent.

"Made a pig of herself."

"Besides that. Something-incredible. She found the brake line and the billfold. Harper has them."

"She didn't!" Dulcie began to wash the kit's face. "Oh, she is clever."

The kit woke, yawning.

"Did you really find those things, Kit? How did you know…?"

"In a crevice," the kit said. "They smelled of that man that came running, the man that hurt Pedric. He was there before. A long time ago he hid those things. Then he hurt the old man, and I didn't like him.

"Then today you hid that white bag. It smelled of him." The kit looked up at them with round yellow eyes. "When he came running into the cave, I thought he would see the bag. But the woman was there. He saw her instead. He hurt her; he hurt that kind woman."

"She's all right," Dulcie told her. "She'll be all right."

"I saw her go in that big car."

"Ambulance. That's an ambulance. The paramedics took good care of her. But why…?"

"After the loud noises and blood and he dragged her over the cliff and everyone was shouting and those dogs barking, I went to the cave. Then the man came and"- she looked at Joe-"you were behind him. He was happy to find the bag. And you looked happy. So I quick brought those things out of the crevice and put them for him to find."

"You were in the cave the whole time," Joe said.

The kit purred.

"You have done more than you can guess," Joe told her. "But what was Lucinda doing in there?"

"She likes the cave. She is peaceful there. She likes to be quiet there."

The kit swished her long, bushy tail. "I never knew a human. The others say humans are bad. Out on the hill, where the others could see, I stayed away from her. But in the cave, when she came today, I went close to look at her. She petted me."

"Did you-talk to her?" Dulcie asked.

"Oh no." The kit looked shocked, her yellow eyes widening. Neither Dulcie nor Joe had ever seen a cat with eyes so round; the kit's little thin face was vibrant with life, with the deep, shifting lights of amusement and intelligence.

"Why do the others haze you?" Dulcie said.

"I don't know. I don't care; they will go away soon. They don't like the quakes. They will go where the earth doesn't shake."

"And where would that be?" Joe said.

"They don't know. They mean to search until they find such a place."

"And will you go with them?" Dulcie asked softly.

The kit was silent.

"Will you stay here alone, then? On Hellhag Hill?"

She didn't speak.

Dulcie was very still. A terrible longing filled her. "Would you go home with me?" she whispered.

But still the little, mottled kit did not reply.

"Oh," Dulcie said. "You will go to Lucinda?"

"I will go-with the one who needs me," said the kit. "With the lonely one who needs me."

Dulcie turned away and began to wash, trying not to show her disappointment.

The kit patted at Dulcie's paw. "I can't be with humans the whole time. Humans can't climb and hunt." She snuggled close to Dulcie. "I have no one to teach me to hunt."

Dulcie brightened. She sat up straighter, lashing her tail with pleasure.

Joe Grey was embarrassed to hear himself rumbling with purrs.

"And when will you go there, to Lucinda?" Dulcie said.

"When the other humans are gone. Those people that, she says, fill up her house. And when that old man comes back from the hos-hospital, and they are together."

"Together? What do you mean, together?"

"Of course, together." The kit glanced up the hill to the Moonwatch Trailer Park. "Maybe together there in that little house with wheels."

Dulcie stared at her, puzzled.

"They are friends," said the kit. "They need one another. The time is now for them to be together. To start new," she said, "just like me.

"The time is now for me to go away from the clowder. I have been with them long enough. The time is now for me to start another new way to live."

"Then you had best come home with me," Dulcie said in a businesslike manner, "until it's time for you to go to Lucinda."

The kit rubbed against Dulcie's shoulder, extravagantly purring.

And so the nameless kit joined the great and diverse community of Molena Point cats who had fallen, in this one of their nine lives, into an earthly heaven; so the tattered kit was brought home to Molena Point's bright and nurturing village; now she had only to find herself a name, and find her true calling in the world.