THE STATUARY CATS

Copyright 2006 Bart Stewart

(Beginning a few pages in …)

Newcomers took the guided tour. Old friends of the Harnes family made their own way around the two floors of grand galleries, laden with 18th and 19th century oil paintings, colossal tapestries, and ancient bronze and stone statuary. Eclectic was the word for this sprawl. There was very little in the way of a central theme. Unkind writers had called it an accumulation, not a collection at all. Antique musical instruments with forgotten names were on display, and framed autographs of long gone authors turned up among other unexpected items.

Mrs. Eddens was unconcerned about getting cat fur on her gown, or on anything else, and carried her long-haired pet in her arms as she made her way up the grand staircase to the second floor. She knew the layout well. She had known not only the parents of Teddy and Lisette but also Miles Harnes, the grandfather, in his final days. It was Miles who had established their vast fortune through currency trading and land speculating after World War I. She paused at the top of the stairs and looked across the hall to the sunlit room of French doors that had been his office.

The door stood half open. Down the hall the familiar galleries were spilling over with the voices of guests. She peered inside the old office. No one there. This space was not usually part of the art tour, she knew. Its artifacts were of more sentimental than aesthetic value. These were the trophies and personal effects of Miles Harnes, including souvenirs of his extensive travels during the 19th century. There should be some interesting items here, and some of no small value.

Elaborately carved Maori canoe paddles were crossed on the back wall. The massive stuffed head of a broad-lipped white rhinoceros jutted out above them. One wall was mostly made up of draped French doors. Mrs. Eddens stepped inside, stroking her cat’s chin until he closed his eyes and purred.

Magnificent old Moroccan rugs covered a marble tiled floor. There was an ornate oak desk, seemingly quite old, that dominated the far end of the room. Display cases covered the walls on three sides around the desk, their shelves crammed with curiosities.

The items on display were pleasing to the eye, but Mrs. Eddens had no idea what many of them were supposed to be. The fading, typewritten labels placed in front of the various objects were not always comprehensible. There were some odd juxtapositions here, too. A display of Japanese netsuke sat next to what looked like greasy old machine parts. The label said only, “Gearing from the Morgana.”

A leaf of incunabulum sat in its frame. Proclamations from governments of certain defunct nations stood waiting to be read. The silver plated skull of an infant had a label written by hand, in ideographs she had never seen before.

She passed along, left to right, and came to where the glass door of a case was standing partially open. She raised her left index finger, touched her long red fingernail onto the glass, and pushed it closed. Its magnetic catch clicked shut and Mrs. Eddens saw what was stored inside.

A pair of nearly identical seated cat figures, each nearly three feet in height, dominated the display case. She gasped slightly on seeing them. They were carved from some kind of black stone, possibly onyx, and seemed to be lightly glazed. The eyes were done in a different stone, a cloudy quartz. There was an old label for them, too.

“Statuary Cats. Ancient. Variations on Bast? Acquired Ankara, Turkey, 1902.”

They were reminiscent of the Egyptian cat deity, Bast. But Mrs. Eddens’ familiarity with art was enough to know that images of Bast usually featured a ceremonial pendant around the neck, and would likely have more decorative features in the Egyptian style. These figures were not even placed on pedestals, or bases of any kind. They were merely sitting side by side on the shelf. They had a certain regal, imperious effect, with their heads held high and ears swept back. They were distinctive. The longer she regarded them, the more evocative they seemed.

From his place snuggled at her breasts, Mrs. Eddens’ cat abruptly stopped purring.

His green eyes popped open wide, and his head made an instantaneous pivot to face the artworks. Mrs. Eddens glanced down to see his head moving slowly down and back, as he began recoiling. His white fur flared out, and now he was a squirming, growling armful of energy.

“Stop that!” she cried out.

Her cries turned to shrieks as the animal dug its claws into the bare skin of her upper chest, and powered itself over her shoulder and off to the floor. The leather leash was still wrapped around Mrs. Eddens’ wrist. He nearly pulled her over from her high heels as he struggled to run away. Then he was on his back, chewing the leash in a frenzy.

Halfway up the staircase outside, Ted Harnes and a young woman were stopped cold by the screams. They watched, wine glasses in hand, as the white angora shot out of the office, skidded on the hard wood floor, and hit solidly into the wall at the top of the staircase. Trailing his leash behind him, apparently dazed, he staggered past them down the steps. A sound of muffled sobbing grew louder, and Mrs. Eddens appeared at the banister. Ted’s eyes fell onto her upper chest and shoulder, which trickled thin streams of blood.

(Skipping ahead a few pages …)

The old Miles Harnes office suite was cold tonight; the heating vents were kept closed in this rarely used room. Lisette turned on what lights were available, and went to the desk. She sat her wine down and turned her attention to the center display case. The Statuary Cats sat side by side on their shelf, staring straight ahead in stony majesty. She regarded them silently for a long moment. There had always been something about them.

She considered calling a housekeeper to hold the cats while she examined them. They were sure to be heavy. But as late as it was, it would mean rousing someone from bed. And she would tell them -- what? She herself was not entirely sure what she was looking for.

A door of glass was held closed with a magnet. She pulled it open and leaned in for a close inspection of the stonework, first of one cat then the other.

Great detail was visible throughout. Muscle definition was clear to see. All over the glazed surface were faint etchings representing fur. The black stone had a vague swirling pattern in it, which the ancient artist had apparently followed to set the pattern of the fur. Bearing in mind what she had read in the Mindy Linton papers, Lisette squatted down and tilted one of the figures. She aimed her flashlight at its underside and saw that this area was not smooth and flat as she had assumed it would be. Each of the cat statues had carved representations of genitals. Lisette was amused to see that they were a male and a female.

It was so strange to learn something new about items that had been sitting around her home for her entire life. She rose and took a long pull from her glass of wine and thought it over. Turning back, she lifted out one of the weighty stone figures. It was not as cold as she expected. Hefting the thing up and down in her arms, she guessed it might weigh fifty pounds. She turned it upside down and looked at the remarkable attention the artist had given to a side of the object that no one was ever intended to see. Who could know what religious trip had motivated that, she thought.

She turned the statue upright again, cradling it like a baby while she passed the flashlight beam over its various features. The nostrils and ear openings penetrated deep inside the head, out of sight. And those eyes ...

Where did the artist find stone like that? Curving striations made for a whirlpool effect in the quartz, if it was quartz. The eyes were fascinating. She had never examined them this closely before, and had never guessed that these old souvenirs, as they were called, could have such stark beauty. She held the beam near to the brilliant eyes.

Exquisite.

She drew in closer, and then pulled back with a start. It looked as if a bug had gotten into the figure, in back of the quartz eyes, and had moved suddenly. She looked again more closely, and squinted in the dazzling reflection of the light on the stone until she had to pull back, blinking.

It was then that she saw its mouth was open.

The lips had parted, as though they were flesh. The mouth had opened. Black fangs pointed downward from behind the upper lip. Lisette froze at the sight and took in half a gasp. She felt her fingertips sinking into the back of the cat, which was now pliable, no longer as stone.

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Read the entire story in Tales of Real and Dream Worlds.