1
At night, there were no mountains.
Not because of the dark.Even on the darkest night, out among the rabbit brush and the sage, you could see the mountains like a chain of paper dolls against the stars.Light was the problem.Too much light.Light pollution from hundreds of sodium lamps made a trembling gray bubble around the city, and beyond that, nothing.
Tean’s footsteps echoed back from the empty-eyed houses around him.Three in the morning in Federal Heights, cold—not enough to see his breath, but the collar of his jacket turned up against the bite.October hanging on by its fingernails.In the distance, sirens came to life briefly and then died again.A chain-link fence rattled.Ballast buzzed overhead as he approached each streetlight.When he left them behind, he pictured bees settling into their hives.
He took the same route he always did: cutting over to Federal Heights Drive, following its curving trajectory up into the foothills, where the houses were older and significantly more expensive—half-timbered Tudors and homes with steep mansard roofs and one bizarrely ugly thing, a sprawling mixture of rubble masonry and mid-century stucco.Slowly, the city opened up beneath him in an electric array.When he reached the edge of the University of Utah’s campus, with everything dramatically lit in harsh white, he turned down into the valley again, his steps growing heavier.
Meow.
The sound caught him as he passed the pocket shadows of a university parking lot.It came again:meow.Louder.Urgent.He hadn’t worked with cats much, aside from helping a former neighbor, but he knew the basics—meowing was a sound cats made for humans, for the most part.Sometimes for attention.Sometimes out of hunger.Sometimes in distress.
Meow.
He stopped.
In the distance, the air brakes from a bus popped, and then wheels and metal grumbled as it rolled forward.The breeze, which had seemed mild before, now whistled in his ears.
Meow.
To his left.Near a pair of EV charging stations.
Go home, shower, get ready for work.In half an hour or so, dawn would start scraping back the night.
But if the cat was hurt.
His steps sounded too loud as he crossed the parking lot.Between two of the charging stations, a small shadow moved.Tean slowed to a walk, and then, when he judged he was close enough, he stopped.He reached for the flashlight on his phone, but he’d left his phone at home.
The little shape separated itself from the shadows between the charging stations and stepped out into the humming ring of the security lights.It was a domestic shorthair, a brown-and-white calico, and the fur of its face was matted with something dark.It meowed at Tean and then sat.
He approached slowly, but it didn’t matter; the cat—she—was excited to see him, standing as he drew near, arching her back for him to pet, stretching before turning and coming back for more pets.
Tean tilted his hand to the light.Blood shimmered on his fingertips.
“Come here,” he whispered.“What happened?”
The cat slithered out from under his hand, though, and padded between the charging stations.She bent and nudged something on the ground—a little pile of rags.Or crumpled paper that had blown between the charging stations and gotten caught.She looked up at Tean and meowed again.
And then rags and crumpled paper transformed into broken wings, feathers sticking out from a tiny body, a savagely twisted head.
The cat meowed again at her toy.
Tean wiped his fingers on the grass and walked.Just walked.At the light, a horn blared, and he drew back as a truck whipped through the intersection.Across the street, the orange DON’T WALK sign doubled, melted, and came back together again.This time, he looked, and the street was empty, and he crossed against the light.
When he got home, the windows of the little brick bungalow were still dark.He had to try twice to get the key in the back door.Inside, the kitchen was dark.He tramped his feet on the mat as though he’d been out in the rain.
He was shutting the door when the thump-thump began: the steady whapping of Scipio’s tail.But not from the bedroom.
The kitchen flowed into the living room, the darkness alleviated only by the light from the street that slid between the blinds, so that Tean could make out shapes: the dinette table and chairs; the sofa; the fireplace; the soft white rectangles of the windows.
“Jem,” he said.
On the sofa, the thump-thump grew louder.A body moved against the cushions, and then Jem said, “Where were you?”
“I went for a walk.”Colors floated in the darkness, and Tean blinked.“Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Jem said.He sat up, a new silhouette against the faint light.“What’s going on?”