And then for a second time Phil was gulping his heart, for in the center of a mantelpiece over a real fireplace, and midway between a gilded icon and a tin Mexican devil-mask, there posed most sublimely still of all, with forelegs straight as spears… the green cat.
As Phil walked hypnotically forward, he heard Sacheverell say gently, “No, that is not his true self, but his simulacrum, his ancient Egyptian harbinger, a figure of Bast, the Lady of Life and Love.”
And as Phil came closer, he saw it truly was the bronze statue of a cat, encrusted with verdigris almost exactly the hue of Lucky’s coat. Coming up beside him, Sacheverell explained, “As soon ashe came, I routed out all our relics of Bast. Most of them are in there,” he indicated the black velvet curtains, “around the altar. But a few are here.” And he pointed out, beside the bronze statue, a small mummy case and inside it the linen-banded mummy of a cat, looking like a little sack with a blob at the top. As Sacheverell was explaining the tiny Canopic jar of preserved cat entrails beside it, a six-toed Siamese wandered up and sniffed the mummy thoughtfully.
Finally Phil found his voice. “Then you actually do have Lucky?”
Sacheverell’s high curved eyebrows curved still higher. “Lucky?”
“The green cat,” Phil added.
Sacheverell’s face grew serenely grave. “No one has the green cat,” he reproved Phil. “It would not be permitted. He has us. We are his humble worshippers, his primal hierophants.”
“But I want to see him,” Phil said.
“That will be permitted,” Sacheverell assured Phil, “when he wakes and the world changes. Meanwhile, compose yourself, er… Phil Gish, you say? Phil… philo… love… an auspicious name.”
“Why the mucking hell is this green cat so important, anyhow? What is it?”
The two men turned. Juno was still standing on the threshold. She was swayed forward a little, hugging her elbows, yet had her shoulders squared and was glaring at them surlily, like a rebellious schoolgirl.
“The green cat is love,” Sacheverell told her softly. “The love that blossoms even from hate.”
There was another interruption. This one took the form of a coy, girlish snicker. Phil turned to the side of the room he had not yet inspected closely, the one facing the fireplace. In it was a deep, wide bay window closely shuttered with gray jalousies, as were all the other windows in the room except for one fronting on darkness beside the fireplace. In the bay was a semicircular couch on which Mary Akeley sprawled adolescently, still in black sweater and stiff, red skirt.
“You know,” she said, “I just can’t get used to the idea of loving everything. Sacheverell says I’ve got to be nice to my little people and stop sticking hatpins in them and things, but it’s hard.”
For a morbid moment Phil thought she was referring to the cats. Then he saw that there were a series of narrow shelves behind her, starting at the top of the couch and going halfway up the bay and that these shelves were crowded with dolls. Moving closer, he saw they were not ordinary dolls, but extremely realistic human figures, most of them about six inches high. He had never seen dolls so perfectly formed or realistically dressed. There must have been two or three hundred. They stood behind Mary like the cross-section of a crowded three-level street in some tiny living world. In front of the couch was a low table crowded with blocks of wax, molds, micro-tools and magnifiers, several partially completed figurines and piled squares of fabrics so delicate they must have been woven specially.
“You like my little people?” he heard Mary ask him. “Most everyone does. I got started out making striptease dolls, but these that are all my own are so much more fun. Sacheverell, I think they like having pins stuck through them. I think that’s the way they want to be loved.”
“Perhaps, my dear,” Phil heard Sacheverell say with an affectionate chuckle, “but we’ll have to wait to see howhe feels about it.”
And then Phil saw that the dolls represented actual individual people, were apparently perfect statuettes of them – so perfect that for a moment he found himself wondering which was the real world: the big one or this tiny one of Mary’s. He recognized President Barnes, the USSR’s Vanadin, square-jawed John Emmet of the Federal Bureau of Loyalty, several TV and handie stars, Sacheverell, about eight versions of Mary herself, Jack Jones in black tights, Juno in maroon ones, Dr. Romadka and – he caught his breath – Mitzie Romadka in an evening frock very much like the one he’d seen her wearing.
“Recognizing friends?” Mary asked softly, her young face which was so predominantly nose and chin poking up inquisitively toward his.
Footsteps clumped. Phil realized that Juno had finally come into the room and was standing behind him looking at the dolls. Mary looked past him with an innocent smile. “They’re awfully cute, aren’t they?” she remarked.
Juno said, “Ugh!”
“Try to be joyful,” Sacheverell kindly admonished with a little wag of his finger. “Try hard. Soon it will be ever so much easier. I mean, whenhe wakes. I must go now and see if there has been any change. Amuse yourselves.” And having lightly set them that stupendous task, he hurried from the room, his green robes whistling against the black velvet curtains.
“Sacheverell’s been as efficient as can be ever sincehe came,” Mary observed. “A great little manager. I’ve never seen him so peppy before about anything. He’s gone in for other things, you know,” she prattled on. “Semantic Christianity, neo-Mithraism, Bhagavad-Gita, Gospel according to St. Isherwood, Bradburian Folkism, Cretan Triple-Goddess, devil worship and Satanism – those are the two thatI like – and I don’t know what all else. Every time he finds himself a new one, he gets very enthusiastic, but not like this. I’ve never seen him so serious. Ever since Jack handed him the green cat, all cute and curled-up and sleeping -”
“It wasn’t sleeping,” Phil cut in almost sharply. “It had been knocked out by a stun-gun.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mary went on. “Jack just found him sleeping. Well, as soon as Sacheverell touched him, Sacheverell told us that the world was going to change and there was going to be a new era of love and understanding, and ever since then he’s been as busy as a little bee. Soon as we got home, he whirled around and got out all the Bast things. I told Sacheverell that because Bast was a lady goddess, maybe we shouldn’t call himhe. But Sacheverell told me no, that was the way it was and the way it had to be. And I guess maybe he’s right, because when Sacheverell carried him through here sleeping, all the little cats went for him in a big way, and the little girl cats went for him even more than the little boy cats. And anyway, I always trust Sacheverell’s notions because he’s so good at esping and telepathing that he makes half our living by it.”
At that moment there was a strangled grunt and Phil heard the clumping begin again behind him. Mary smiled slyly and followed Juno with her eyes, but kept on babbling.
“And you know,” she said, “I guess there is something to what Sacheverell says about an era of love and understanding, because these little cats used to fight all the time, but ever sincehe’s been in the house they’ve been as peaceful as anything – a regular little cat UN without Russia and the satellites. Even I feel sweeter, which is a real test, though it’s going to break my heart not to be able to hate people.” She sighed. “Still, if everybody’s going to have to love people, I’ll just have to face it, and I better start practicing right now.”
Phil, who had been leaning toward her, jerked up at that. Her face was just a bit too like a young crone, despite her inviting lips and creamy skin, but she merely reached behind her and took down the doll of Juno. “Even loveher,” she said.