Free Excessica Anthology BOX SET Winter by Edited by Selena Kitt Page B

offshore. That particular winter,
however, was bitterly cold, even by the standards of the Danish segment of the
North Sea. I mean, when was the last time you can recall seeing the salt water
of a busy harbor freezing over, strong enough that you could safely skate to
Fanø, an island popular with summer tourists and a 20-minute ferry ride out of
Esbjerg?
    It was our first
Christmas together and we were infatuated with each other. I doubt if we'd have
noticed purple snow falling from green clouds…that was, until the Christmas cat
dragged us back to reality.
    He was nothing
special to look at. He'd been ‘around the block' a few times, and had quite
possibly lost more fights than he'd won, from his appearance. No collar or
signs of recently having possessed one, so we assumed he was feral—but at
the same time he seemed to have taken more care with his grooming and
appearance than you'd expect from someone who habitually ‘slept rough'.
    It was late on
Christmas Eve when he first came calling. We were living on the first floor of
a set of walk-up apartments, three apartments on each of three floors. There
was also a basement with shared laundry & storage facilities.
    There was no key
needed for the street door, and he must have simply walked in when an
opportunity presented itself for him to escape from the cold. There was a fine
old echo in the hallways and stairwell, so he didn't have to exert himself
unduly to be heard.
    Well, of course,
we made a fuss of him. Who wouldn't, especially at that particular time of year
when nobody—not even an animal—should be lonely or without a family
around them? It wasn't until later that we actually asked ourselves…did he
somehow sense that our door—physically no different from all the
others—was the one at which he could be certain of a genuine welcome?
    As everybody
does, we had, of course, bought far more than we could possibly eat over the
holiday period, even taking into account the fact that food shops were going to
be closed for much longer than was the norm. An extra mouth to feed was neither
here nor there, although we had not specifically planned any feline provender.
However, the shops were by this time closed and there was no window of
opportunity to buy more.
    He wasn't a
shorthair breed. To look at him, you'd have thought at first that he was
permanently dusty, but on closer inspection, this proved not to be the case.
His fur was black, but in layer upon layer, as if he had been living wild for
some considerable time, allowing his fur to thicken and provide natural
protection against the elements.
    Although I can't
find any source references, I am certain I remember as a child being told a
folk tale. Its message was that at midnight on Christmas Eve, animals all over
the world are briefly granted human speech.
    When we first
heard his voice outside the door, it was neither petulant nor angry. That might
sound stupid. How can any animal give any hint of emotion in their call? I've
never really understood it myself, but I'm convinced in my own mind that a cat
can express emotions very clearly and distinctly by the tone of voice they use
in a given situation.
    He sounded
somehow both sad and lonely, but also dignified, polite, requesting assistance
rather than demanding sanctuary, if that makes any sense at all—probably
not, to anyone who hasn't experienced something of a similar nature.
    There are people
who could never be anything other than cat-friendly, feline by their very
nature, and I admit that my wife and I fit very definitely into this category.
Our hearts melted immediately when we saw him. There was never any question of,
"Do we or don't we...?" Of course, we took him in.
    He approved of the
apartment and the children—two boys, barely old enough to crawl,
certainly not old enough to understand the concept of an unexpected Christmas
guest. He also approved of the Christmas tree and all the decorations, which he
obviously decided were mostly intended