One-Eyed Cat Read Online Free Page A

has it been eleven months? Indeed, it has! And you have a birthday soon! James, you’re looking well.”
    â€œI’ll tell the housekeeper to make up the bed in your old room,” Papa said.
    Mama gave him a warning look. “It’s the witching hour,” she said. “Mrs. Scallop’s time off. You don’t want to insult her.”
    â€œI’ll do it myself,” Papa said.
    â€œWe all will,” Uncle Hilary said, putting his arms around Ned and Papa and hugging them.
    â€œHilary,” murmured Mama, “you change the day.” Her head dropped against the back of the wheelchair; she smiled up at her brother.
    She had been so nearly motionless for so many years, stuck in that chair, or wherever else Ned’s father carried her, that Ned thought he’d seen everything about her. He knew her face better than anyone else’s face. But he’d not seen that smile before. It seemed to tell him that she and Hilary knew a special thing that Ned couldn’t know—and perhaps his Papa couldn’t know, either. Ned felt jarred by anger as though someone had shoved him.
    â€œHow was dinner at the Brewsters’? Cold mashed potatoes and dry cake?” Mama asked him. He looked at the fine creases at the corners of her eyes, at the gleam of her rather large teeth. Her smile was for him now. He nodded. His anger was gone. But he felt a touch of strangeness, as though Uncle Hilary’s presence had changed the day for him, too.

II
    The Gun
    Uncle Hilary said as they went into the hall that it was splendid to be away from the hurly-burly of the city, and he told Papa he was lucky to live in an atmosphere of such meditative silence.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Ned asked.
    â€œA place where you can think,” Papa said, smiling at Ned as he halted in front of a closet and collected bed linen for Uncle Hilary.
    Papa and Uncle Hilary went on to the spare bedroom, but Ned paused, noticing that the door which led to the back staircase was open a crack. Mrs. Scallop’s room was there, off the narrow landing. He thought he glimpsed her sitting on the edge of the iron bedstead, her stout short legs not reaching the floor. He was pretty sure she had been listening to them, that she often eavesdropped, and that whatever she heard filled her up like a big supper.
    He stood for a while at the doorway of the spare room and listened to the pleasant rumble of his father’s and uncle’s voices. It was a comforting noise. The old house was so often silent. Uncle Hilary was talking about the essay he was writing about some place in the south of France. They were tucking the ends of a blanket under the mattress. Uncle Hilary suddenly leaned toward Papa and asked, “How is she really, James? She looks worn. Pain, I suppose. Isn’t there anything they can do—” He looked up and saw Ned and fell silent.
    â€œNed knows all about his mother’s condition,” Papa said, looking gravely at Ned. “It’s a help to me that he does,” he added.
    Ned was glad Papa had spoken like that to Uncle Hilary. He didn’t know if his words were true, though. He knew Mama’s illness got worse at times; he knew there were times, too, when she was better, when she might even be able to walk a little ways with the help of a cane. But Ned didn’t really understand how their life could have so entirely changed six years ago. It almost seemed as though, overnight, they’d moved into another house in another part of the world, a house whose walls and floors were made of glass that might, if Ned wasn’t very careful, shatter.
    Thoughts about his mother were filling up his head, perhaps because Uncle Hilary had come. He hardly ever saw anyone with her except Papa. Mrs. Scallop didn’t spend much time in her room lately except to make the bed or dust a bit or bring her the tray with her meals. Mama was very still when Mrs. Scallop was in the