With Eyes Like Those

With Eyes Like Those

I've always lived in the castle. Beg your pardon? I was born there, of course. My mother was a student's cat, because there are only student's cats and teacher's cats, and I am sure if she were a teacher's cat, I'd have heard about it. And you know how cat dads work. Oh no? I am Mrs. Norris, but there are loads of Mr. Norris' out there.

I don't remember what my mother looked like much, except for her belly. It was pink-skinned, and tasted sweet of milk. I can mostly remember the purring and the closeness of kittens bodies pressed up against mine. Odd, sounds nice when I say it, the treacherous, good-for-nothing queen. But kittens like to be warm and feel the purring bodies of their mummies or any other mummy for that matter, so I guess I can let her have that one. That's the only one though.

She moved us a lot, of course. What, you don't know? Queens do that, move their kittens, to keep them safe, from toms that aren't their father, and from other things that lurk in castles that like to eat kittens. Oh, you don't know what they are? I shan't tell you then, if you don't already know, then you obviously aren't meant to know, are you? When you get moved, though, you're alone for a long time, and for a kitten that is very unpleasant, after all. They like to feel the heat of their mummy's belly and brothers' and sisters' bodies. My brother's and sister's were all bigger than me, I remember that, and they were very warm, even without my traitorous mother. They didn't purr though, they cried. I suppose I can't blame them, I imagine I cried too. She moved us to the dungeon once, into a little hole in the hallway, where a piece of the mortar had broken away and a filthy little student and taken the stone out of the wall. Probably to see what was behind it. Of course, there wasn't anything behind it but a hole, just a nice size hole for a queen and her kittens. I suppose the student was looking for a secret passage or something. I don't know how he was expecting to fit into it, with just one stone missing. Perhaps he thought very well of himself, and figured he could transfigure himself into something and crawl though. Stupid git. The dungeon was cold, and in the hole it wasn't much warmer. I had to cuddle up with my brothers and sisters to keep warm, but when my mother was there, she would block the entrance to the hole with her body, and that made it much warmer. Then we would suck at her belly and she would purr and we'd be warm. When the students passed by, they made an awful racket. My mother backed into the hole, with all of us stuck behind her, and watched the feet pass by. Sometimes one of the horrible things would bend down and look in the hole, and she would hiss at them and scratch at their hands. "Mean cat," they'd say.

"Atrocious little monsters," I say.

But she couldn't always be there. She had to meet with her misters and hunt to find food. She would bring us back little spiders and beetles to practice hunting on. My brothers and sisters were bigger than I was, they would pounce on it first and leave nothing for me. My mother never said anything about it. Survival of the fittest, and all that rot. Well, look who's surviving now. She let us nurse less and less, and took us out to find food of our own. I caught some mice, I'm very good at catching mice, you know. But the dungeon is cold, and I caught one. My eyes glued shut, and it was difficult to breath. "It's time to move," my mother, the unfit louse, said. And she picked up each of the kittens, and came back to get the next one to take them to her new hiding place.

I was the last one. I waited and I waited and she never came. I couldn't open my eyes to see out of the hole, so I waited some more. But she never came. Lots of time passed, I heard the students, nasty things, walk by from their classes several times, but the faithless bag of bones never came back. So I cried. It hurt to cry, my lungs ached every time I let one out, but I couldn't see, and the disloyal wench had to come and get me. Perhaps she had forgotten where the hole was. Perhaps the disgusting students had frightened her into another hole, and she was waiting to come and get me. Then, something warm grabbed me, and for a moment, relief washed over me. She'd come back!

"I got it!" said a voice, and I realized that one of the horrendous students had reached in the hole and grabbed me. I spit and I hissed and I lashed out with my claws, even though it hurt to move so with my lungs burning the way they were. "Open it, open it!" I heard the voice say, and I was dropped into something. It smelled musty and old, I could see through my eyelids that it was darker than outside the hole and my feet couldn't get a good hold. Then, I was placed on the ground, but when I tried to run, there was something in the way, the musty smelling something that wouldn't let me go any further than a few inches. It was close, like the hole, I could feel I was surrounded on all sides. "I'll teach you to scratch me, you little twit," said the voice, and a burning pain pierced my side. I skidded across the floor, the pain was so great I couldn't take in any breath. Three more times, pain grabbed my body, once in my leg, once in my head, and once again in my side, and I skidded across the floor, still inside whatever it was they had dropped me into. Sparks flew in front of my eyes and I felt a warm liquid come out of my mouth, a liquid I had never tasted before, and I was afraid.

Then another voice came through the musty smell and closeness, "Stop!" it hissed. "Stop it you horrible little toads! Detentions for all of you!" I was picked up again, and taken out of the musty thing. "Look at it!" the new voice hissed. "You awful things." I was in warm hands. I didn't claw or hiss, I couldn't have even if I wanted to. "I will have to take her to Professor Kettleburn, now," said the voice, "A week's detentions for all of you!"

I could feel the person holding me move, he held me up against him and stroked my head. "It'll be alright, now," he said, "Kettleburn will fix you and you'll be fine. Those nasty brutes won't bother you again." His voice was rough, but the way he spoke touched me. My mother, the disloyal hag, had never spoken to me so nicely.

"I can't believe students would do such a thing, kicking her in a bag you say, Filch? Oh my," said a voice, whom I assumed must have been Kettleburn's. "Rinse her eyes with this five times a day, and give her a drop of this potion each evening. Don't let her move much, and she should be fine."

And then I was in a warm place, and the man who had rescued me held me all night long and crooned in that rough voice, "It'll be alright lovey, you'll see. No nasty students to hurt you now." He wiped my eyes five times a day, and he gave me the potion each evening. He fed me mashed up fish from his finger, so that as I licked, I could taste his skin underneath. It was salty and fishy and tasted good.

It was three days before I saw him for the first time. As he was wiping my eyes, I was finally able to open one, and then the other. He kept wiping them, even after I had opened them, and I cried for him to stop. "What's the matter, lovely," he said, "oh!" He gasped, and held me up so my face was in front of his. "I knew you had beautiful eyes," he said.

I blinked, having to pull at my lids hard to keep them from sticking again.

"Oh, they're like lamp lights," he said, "I bet eyes like yours could see in the darkest of places."

I cried softly, and he put me down on his lap and began to wipe my eyes again. In between each wipe, I would open them, and look into the darkest corners of the room. And I saw everything.