Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.
Hannah has returned from the castle farms in the donkey cart, bringing Layla and baby Willinod to visit Ana. Layla brought her mother a gift of a little kitten, but Hannah finds the “witchy” purpose for it detestable and so the daughters argue.
Now that Ana has been given the kitten she graciously accepts it.
“This is a wonderful gift, Layla. I have all these flowers plucked from their roots and all I can do with them is water them and watch them wither. So surely, I don’t need more dying flowers here. But a kitten is living, it is something that will be growing into a wonderful companion and something that needs me.”
“I wasn’t sure Momma and Hannah said…”
“It is exactly what I need to fill the empty place in my arms when you and little Willinod are off, home again.”
Layla doesn’t mention the intended purpose for this kitten as a witch’s vessel to transfer away the evils of this cancer. And what if that purpose were to be realized? What would happen to the cat? Would it be freed in a wilderness to wander endlessly, as was the sacred goat from an ancient tribe? Or would it be loaded up with evil and returned to the witch who spawned her, to be boiled in a caldron of curses?
I’m pretty sure the cat will have a fine long life as a farm cat, as long as she keeps her distance from the hoofs of beasts. No sooner does it have a place on Ana’s lap, but that it has a name – Inky. [in remembrance] Of course, it is Inky. In our obsessively literate house, it is the black of the oak gall inks laid onto the white parchment with a lettering brush that gives meaning to a page. When I look at the shelf of stilled and stiffened things, collected as “precious” in this house, this little Inky freshens the notion of “precious.”
The kitten is indeed, a vessel for transference, but not of evil, rather, she is a bearer of goodness and life. Ana is delighted.
Just now, Inky is captivated by the items on the precious things shelf, and a breeze sweeps in the un-shuttered window and tickles the plumage of the feathers the grandchildren collected into a clay vase. The feathers ruffle, and Inky stalks them.
In remembrance of Inky the cat from the childhoods’ of Carol Ann and Janet.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 