Lori’s mom smiled fondly at the little boy. “It sounds like you can’t make up your mind there, sweetheart.”
“Well, it was all good,” he stated emphatically.
The adults chuckled and Noel met Lori’s eyes. “What about you, Lori?” he asked with a crooked smile on his face. “Did you have a favourite at the zoo?”
Lori narrowed her eyes at him, clearly wondering what he was up to. She shrugged and looked at the ground in thought. “No, I don’t think so,” she responded cautiously. “I guess the zebras were probably one of my favourites.”
Rita snorted in amusement. “Big surprise. I suppose the wild horses were high-ranking, too.”
The group laughed again at her gentle mocking. Everyone knew Lori’s love of horses would put them high on the list.
“No, I know what Lori liked best,” Anne stated as she handed her daughter a plate of food.
Noel saw Lori stiffen slightly and wondered about it.
“She liked the snow leopards – one came right over to her when we were leaving and do you think Jesse could get her away from the thing? Not a chance – it was like she was hypnotized!”
Lori looked as though some deep, hidden secret had been exposed to the world and an uncomfortable silence descended on the group. She looked at Noel with more confusion on her face than ever; he gave her a look of reassurance, trying to let her know he understood and sided with her without being too obvious.
“Did I?” she finally asked quietly. “I wasn’t aware of that.”
“Really?” Anne demanded. “I can’t believe you don’t remember it. It was just plain weird, the way you acted there.”
Noel didn’t take his eyes from Lori’s face; he felt he was holding her up as she sorted through the implications of what Anne had said. In the end, she did nothing but shrug and smile, though. “Oh, well,” she stated with a note of defiance in her voice. “I guess the snow leopards were my favourite then.”
She moved towards the table and picked up a plate. “Now who wants some of this potato salad? I guarantee it’s the best you’ll ever have.”
**********
“Hey, kiddo. That Oriental salad was amazing,” Shannon said as she came into the kitchen where Lori was starting to put leftovers into plastic containers for the fridge.
“Thanks, Shannon. I’ll give you the recipe if you want it.”
Lori saw Shannon look out the back window where the entire group – adults and children included – were now lying sluggish in lawn chairs. The enormous amount of food and fresh air had obviously done them all in. She walked back to Lori and began helping her put things away.
“Please. Mark even liked it which is saying something for him and cabbage!”
They laughed together and then Lori saw Shannon check to make sure they were alone and outside of hearing range from the group outside.
“What’s up with the two Noel brought along? That woman is an Amazon!”
Lori smiled as she scraped the potato salad remains into a container. “Yeah, she’s pretty tall, isn’t she? Beautiful, though.”
Shannon conceded with a nod. “She is, yeah. And really...anyone is a giant compared to me, but what’s with the outfit? The scarf and robe?”
Lori shrugged, not meeting Shannon’s eyes. “Oh, that. Noel said she’s Muslim – that’s part of her traditional dress. It’s called her hijab.”
“Oh, that explains it. I was wondering why she disappeared there for awhile and why none of them were eating meat. Are they all Muslims then?”
Lori shook her head. “No, I think they’re just vegetarians,” she laughed. “There’s a difference you know,” she added as she winked at Shannon. “I haven’t been able to figure out what Noel is – he keeps evading my questions – and Jeret told me he practices Buddhism, so I guess they’re just a mix.”
Shannon gave a small grunt of amusement. “A mix of oddballs,” she mumbled but there was no real animosity in the statement – just a feeble attempt at humour.
Lori looked to make sure no one had heard, even though she knew they were alone in the house. “Shannon! That’s not very nice. Besides, I like them – they all seem very friendly.”
Her friend lifted a shoulder in response. “I suppose. I like Noel better than I thought I was going to, anyway. But they are a little strange – you have to admit.”
Lori rinsed off a metal spoon she’d been using and dried it with a dish towel. “They’re different – I don’t know about ‘strange.’”
“You don’t think it’s strange that Noel told me that mountain lion was yours? To me, that sounds pretty strange.”
Lori set the spoon down on the counter and looked at the petite woman next to her. “He did?”
“Yeah – he actually said the cougar was yours. I asked him if he’d let it go himself and was coming to get it and he said it wasn’t his – it was yours.”
“You did what?” Lori asked, her eyebrows rising in astonishment. “Shannon, how could you?”
Shannon turned to look at her friend with a grin on her face. “Come on, Lori – you know me. I’m not going to pull any punches. He was perfectly okay with it – don’t worry. But I still can’t figure out what he meant.”
Lori twisted the towel in her hands, her thoughts going in a thousand directions at once. The cougar was hers? How could that be? She thought she had it all figured out when she had been talking to Jesse. She thought that maybe what Noel had been trying to say all along was that the mountain lion was a symbol of Cody – or maybe that it was Cody, come back to tell her everything was okay. She could live with that – she wasn’t 100% sure if she believed in that, but it would have been a comfort to know her husband was still around.
But if Noel said the cougar was hers...what did that mean? And with Anne making fun of her reaction to the snow leopard and her dream about it, too...well, she thought if any cat was “hers” it would be that one.
Lori passed a hand over her eyes, rubbing her temples in confusion. Why was everything so complicated? Why couldn’t Noel just tell her what was going on? He could obviously share things with Shannon!
“Hey,” Shannon said, breaking in on her thoughts. “I wouldn’t stress about it – he probably just said it to shut me up and stop accusing him. Honestly. You keep worrying over silly things like that and your grey patch is going to get bigger.”
Lori felt the spot at the side of her head and sighed. “You want to talk about strange,” she started. “How’s this? I bought dye and coloured this a week ago. A week ago, Shannon. And it’s already come back grey again. I thought hair colour was supposed to last longer than that?”
Shannon set down a bowl of leftover salad and walked over to inspect Lori’s scalp. “That is weird,” she muttered, pulling at the strands. “You wouldn’t even know you touched it – it’s like the colour slid right off the hair.”
“I know!” Lori said in frustration. “And it was the best stuff on the market, too – the kind you recommended. I can’t figure it out.”
Shannon patted Lori in sympathy and stepped back. “Well, let me do it for you after everyone leaves tonight – maybe you just didn’t follow the instructions right.”
**********
It was much later that Noel finally got a chance to speak with Lori. Much to his chagrin, Shannon and Mark had stayed until well past dark while Shannon dyed Lori’s hair again. He hoped Lori didn’t waste any more money on the stuff when she saw it wasn’t going to “help.”
While Lori’s friends had taken up residence in her kitchen, Noel had taken Jeret and Lynta back to the barn loft and they had chatted for awhile.
“The temps are getting cooler at night,” Jeret pointed out when he and Lynta were settled on the couch. “It’s probably a good thing your work here is done, since I imagine this place could get pretty cold in the winter.”
Noel slid into the chair with a cup of hot chocolate and cinna
mon balanced in his hand and nodded. “I imagine it could, but the hay and the horses downstairs would probably help.”
Bear had curled up in Lynta’s lap and was purring loudly enough that Noel could hear him across the room. “Where are you going next, Noel? Are you staying nearby?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m hoping to speak with her yet tonight and that’s all I’ll be able to do for now, I think. If she wants to join us, she’ll call me and then we can start.”
“Have you heard anymore reports of cats like this?” Jeret asked before taking a sip of his own cocoa.
“No – this one was much stronger, as you’re aware. I don’t think the others will be so easy to find....so....exceptional. I’ll need you two to keep your eyes and ears open and let me know if you receive any messages.”
His two companions nodded and Lynta stroked Bear with a long-fingered hand. “So I’ll ask again – where are you going next?”
“I think back to Toronto – if you’ll have me, Jeret?”
The blond nodded in reply.
“Will there be work at the zoo for me?”
“I can arrange it,” Jeret assured. “The lions have been particularly restless again lately – it’s not like I’ll have to make up an excuse to have a big cat behaviouralist come back to study them.”
“Good,” Noel said, noticing from the window that Mark was heading to his truck. “It looks like her company will be leaving soon – I want to make sure I catch her before she goes to bed. I’ll see you in a few days, Jeret?” he asked, standing up and swallowing the rest of his cocoa.
Jeret nodded in answer then started to get up, too.
“No, don’t hurry on my account,” Noel said, waving his friend back down to the couch. “Finish your drinks and take your time. I have a feeling I’m going to be up there awhile,” he added as he looked to the house.
Chapter 12
In fact, he and Lori were just settling onto a rocker bench on her front porch when Jeret and Lynta made their way to the Prius.
“Good night, you two,” he called from the porch. “Safe journey.”
“Good night,” they waved back. “Good night, Lori – thank you for having us.”
“It was my pleasure,” Lori said next to Noel. “And I mean that sincerely!”
Noel smiled and began gently rocking the bench they both sat on. The hybrid car was quiet as it pulled out of her drive and headed towards the road; only the muffled popping of gravel under the tires indicated their departure.
“A big day,” Noel said softly as Jeret’s lights faded into the distance.
“Yes,” Lori confirmed. “My head’s swimming from all the conversations.”
“I can imagine,” he said with a smile.
“I have questions,” she stated.
“I can imagine,” he said with a bigger smile.
He rocked the bench a few more times, his boots pushing lightly against the wooden boards of the porch. “It looked earlier like you really wanted to talk with me. After you spoke to Jesse.”
“I did. He said something that I was sure was one of those messages you were talking about. Or at least I thought it was a message – until I spoke to Shannon.”
“Oh?”
He could feel her nod next to him in the darkness as they continued to rock back and forth.
“Jesse told me that Cody used to dream about mountain lions. That’s more than just a coincidence, isn’t it?”
Noel had to keep his heart from racing with a few deep breaths. “It’s not a coincidence.”
“Okay. So, I know this sounds silly, but I thought maybe you were trying to tell me that the cougar was Cody – reincarnated, like. But then Shannon said you said the cougar was mine, so now I’m confused again.”
“I told Shannon that the cougar was yours, meaning that it didn’t belong to me. I didn’t mean that it was yours literally, though.”
She was silent next to him for so long that he decided to help her out a bit. He didn’t want her dismissing the idea completely because she had one part of it wrong. “Lori, I want you to think back on the months since June for me, alright?”
She turned to look at him out of the corner of her eye, the moonlight limning her face. “Okay.”
“What has been a common thread through all of it? The dreams you’ve had? The places you’ve gone? The things that have left an impression? The events that have happened here?” Noel ran his thumb and forefinger over his beard then impulsively put the same arm up on the back of the bench – behind her - angling to face her better.
She was thinking through all he had said and didn’t notice his shift of position.
“Cats,” she said softly, in amazement.
“Cats,” he confirmed, breathing a silent prayer of gratitude into the night air.
“Noel, what’s going on?”
“We’re not really sure yet.”
“We?” she asked.
“Lynta and Jeret have been having the same kinds of experiences.”
“Oh,” she breathed.
“It’s like we’re being...called...by a particular cat to...well, to wake up. All of us have been ‘visited’ in some way – Jeret’s was a jaguarundi and Lynta’s a lynx. Mine was a black panther that showed up in my dreams.”
Lori started visibly and gasped which made him stop abruptly.
“What?” he asked, looking at her intently. “What is it?”
“I had a dream about a black panther this month. It was in the loft. I was sitting near it and....” She trailed off and his eyes burrowed into her, willing her to say more, but she wouldn’t.
“I don’t understand,” she said finally. “Why am I seeing so many different cats?”
Noel shook his head, trying to figure it out himself. “I don’t know. You haven’t been like the others.”
“So the cougar is mine then?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think he was Cody’s.”
He felt her jerk next to him and began rocking the bench again, trying to soothe her as they discussed her dead husband.
“The mountain lion was looking for him, was coming to Cody. When I told him that Cody was gone, the cougar...” Noel paused, realizing how ridiculous this would sound to her. “Well, the cougar ‘thanked’ me and said his search was over.”
“Wait a minute,” Lori said, her voice harder with disbelief. “You were talking with it?”
“Yes. I know that sounds crazy. But I’ve been able to do that since I was a little kid, Lori. I can communicate with them and they with me. It’s not that different from what you do with horses, you know. I’ve just perfected the process so the messages are much clearer.”
She shook her head like a horse trying to rid itself of a persistent fly. “So what did the cougar want?”
“Aside from seeking out Cody, I don’t know. I don’t know why the jaguarundi came to Jeret or why the lynx is visiting Lynta. I’m not even sure what exactly the black panther wants, but I know that we are being called to pay attention to something. Something important. And now you’ve been included.”
“But you just said the cougar wasn’t here for me!”
Noel left his right arm over the back of the bench but tentatively reached out with his left hand and rested it on her knee, drawing her complete attention.
“The cougar wasn’t. But there’s been another for you. Hasn’t there?”
Her grey-green eyes stared deeply into his and he had to forcibly silence his tongue. How could she not see it? Every time she looked in the mirror, how could she not recognize it?
Those glorious eyes widened in disbelief as she understood.
“The snow leopard, you mean?” she whispered.
He nodded, holding her gaze.
“It’s yours,” he confirmed quietly. As though of its own volition, his hand came up and lightly traced the creamy white skin under one of her eyes then skimmed across the hair she had again
tried to disguise with black colorant.
“We’re all being...touched...in some way, Lori. We’re taking on the characteristics of our cat. My hair and eyes used to be a much lighter brown – they’ve turned black. And Jeret tells me that around the time the jaguarundi visited him the first time, his ears started to get smaller – he noticed because of his piercings – they’re sitting different on his ears now. And with Lynta it’s the exact opposite – her ears are getting longer and have definite points to them now. She’s able to disguise it because of her hijab, but it’s quite noticeable otherwise.”
Noel dropped his hand, amazed at the electricity that was pulsating up his fingers from where he had touched her.
She cleared her throat and put her own fingers to her hair. “You mean my hair is changing because of a snow leopard?” Her voice cracked with incredulity.
“I don’t know. All I can say is don’t be surprised if that patch of grey is back the next time you wash your hair. These changes seem to be quite...persistent.”
Lori winced and shook her head. “But what does it mean, Noel?”
He sighed in frustration. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. If I had this answer, I would give it to you. Right now, Jeret, Lynta and I are just trying to make contact with others who are going through the same thing. We’re hoping that if we can find enough like us, that maybe somebody will have the answers.”
He curled the hand that had touched her into a fist and rubbed it along his thigh in aggravation. “All I can ask from you at this point is to keep watching – record your dreams, make note of things that seem odd, if you remember stuff from your childhood that you think might have significance, write it down. And above all else, pay attention to your kittens and Bear.”
That brought her up short. “What? Why?”
“Because this has something to do with cats – they’re trying to tell us something. And the little ones – the domesticated ones – are trying to let us know just as much as the big ones.”
“You’re serious.”
“Lori, believe me – I know this seems unreal. Imagine what I felt like when I was the only one going through it! At least now I know there are others who are being called, too. Jeret works at the Toronto Zoo – I didn’t want to tell you that before because I wanted to make sure it was really happening to you – not something that you were experiencing because I suggested it. When I’m not getting ‘called out’ to find others, I help him there. And the cats at the zoo are getting stirred up; they’re sending me messages all the time. But usually it’s just to go out and find others.”