Black cat, cross my path
Good fortune bring to home and hearth
When I am away from home
Bring me luck wherever I roam
- Old English
Charm
As the year slips by, the garden has taken on a colourful autumnal hue
as red, gold and yellow leaves;
deep red crab apples
and pink Rowan berries decorate the trees in a seasonal display.
The nights are drawing in and the bright sunny skies during the day make way for clear starlit skies at night.
The
harvest moon has become a witching moon as it bathes the garden in a pool of
white light.
Cobwebs stretch between the
Verbena,
sparkling and shimmering in the early mornings.
I have however detected a change
of ambience in the garden recently.
Other happenings alerted me to
disturbances in the garden – such as pots knocked over on to their side. I
sensed that something had changed.
Evie has been part of the garden
since my arrival at La Petite Maison; her sweet little presence bringing as
much life to the garden as do the birds, bees and butterflies.
Like me she is a herb lover and indulges herself by sniffing delicately at the cat mint before rolling around in a state of escatsy, (a Freudian typo which should read ecstasy!)
She is a talking cat and converses freely to me in rather
human sounding mews.
In Feng
Shui
cats are drawn to harmony. Therefore a happy cat is the sign of a happy, harmonious
home. So when she was no longer there,
following faithfully at my heels, watching my activities
and catnapping on the
lawn as I worked close by in the flower beds, I missed her dreadfully and worried as
to what had happened.
Enlightenment came one lunchtime, when a black shadow crossed the lawn
and slipped stealthily down the lavender and nepeta lined path towards the back door.
The shadow materialised into a lithe young black cat nonchalantly making its way along the path, before coolly and calmly stopping to sit on the top step staring audaciously at me as I stood at the back door.
The green eyes held my gaze
challengingly. The cat showed no fear and did not attempt either to run or to come
closer. This cat was a stranger to me - I had never seen it before, although I
was acquainted with most of the cats in the area – none of whom with the
exception of Evie show any real interest in me and use the garden only as a
short cut to get to where they are going.
As it sat motionless on the step,
I realised it was staring me out, but when I made a move towards it, the cat silently slipped by me and melted away along the side of the house before vanishing under the
hedge.
I saw the cat again several times
over the next few days; again it made no attempt to befriend me and stayed
slightly elusively out of reach, just staring intently at me as though
attempting to read my thoughts.
On one occasion as I looked out of window, I found the cat peering into the newly constructed pond (inspired by Charleston, although not yet finished) in the front garden.
Slowly it stepped on to the granite rock that is submerged just below the water as a stepping stone for any unfortunate creature that accidentally falls into the pond.
Cautiously it lapped at the water and
for a moment perched gracefully on the rock with all four paws in the water,
and then slowly pivoted and climbed out of the pond.
From a neighbouring garden I heard the faint sound of a woman's voice calling 'Belle..." The cats ears pricked up and I voiced the thought aloud as to whether the cat could in actual fact really be called Beltane! The cat turned it's head at the sound of the word and intently fixed almond shaped green eyes upon me.
Of course a more obvious
name for this cat would naturally be Salem.
Here in the UK, as in Australia and other
parts of the world where black is a protective colour, black cats are though to
be lucky. It is believed that their colour gives them the power to ward off
negative forces. So any superstition of black cats and bad luck did not bother me.
However what did bother me was that there was still no sign of Evie.
A full week went passed after
I had last seen her, until late one afternoon when I caught a glimpse of her in the front garden.
Relieved
and overjoyed I called to her. Quite unlike her normal happy self, she was as
nervous as a kitten and shied away from me, tongue-tied and not uttering any of her usual chatty little mews. Eventually, after a lot of coaxing she came
close and I was able to pick her up, stroking her soft fur and cuddling her.
I carried her to the summer house
where she has spent many happy hours sleeping or curled up in the dry as she
watched the raindrops fall with a splash into the pond.
For a few minutes she sat on my
lap and then…. her manner changed, she froze for a moment before jumping off my
knee, ears back and on high alert. A sleek black shadow emerged at the side of
the summer house.
Evie hunched down outside the
summer house and began to make a noise like an old barn door creaking in the
wind.
I waved my hands ineffectively at
the black cat. It ignored me and walked elegantly along the top of the trellis; executed a neat pirouette and returning to the top of the fence dropped lightly to
the ground below and began to circle Evie. I watched semi-hypnotised as the cat
silently approached us. I clapped my hands in an attempt to break the spell,
but suddenly the cat sprang like a panther and chased Evie across the garden
and around the house.
Running after them, I found Evie
crouched beneath a car parked on the opposite side of the road. As I called to
her from the bottom of the drive and attempted to coax her out, I was aware of
a presence immediately behind me. It was the black cat – staring at me. It remained beside me and made no attempt
to leave the driveway to pursue Evie.
My intuition tells me that this cat
is on a mission. It is intent on driving Evie away and moving into the garden
in her place.
What to do? I cannot drive cats away if they choose to come to me;
it is just not in my nature, but I simply cannot have Evie driven out and the tranquillity
of the garden disturbed. I have a feeling too that this back cat may know something about poor missing Freddie!!!!
xxx
