Free Cat Magic by Whitley Strieber

himself. “Were her birds there?”
    “Her birds?”
    “The seven ravens. They’re almost always with her. If they were there, so was she.”
    As the boy approached, the towel around his shoulders, Mandy realized that he was younger than he had seemed. Perhaps he was sixteen. Adolescent down brushed his top lip. “I’m Robin,” he said. Mandy knew she was coloring;Robin was very, very beautiful, in all the ways she enjoyed in the male. His muscles were firm but not knotty. His skin was smooth, yet he did not look soft. And his genitals were, well, very much there.
    He had been waiting for some moments before she realized that he was holding out his hand. She took it, pumped it once. He held firmly to her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. She felt the warmth of his breath on her skin. He smiled slightly, glancing down at his own turgidity. Mandy battled not to shake, and she inwardly cursed the heat she could feel in her cheeks. “I’m Amanda Walker,” she said evenly.“The illustrator. I’m doing the Grimm’s project with Miss Collier.”
    He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about it. Perhaps Ivy can help you. My sister.” He took a step closer to her. She could see his teeth behind his half-opened lips. His smile was so subtle that it managed to imply passion and politeness at the same time. Nothing could be read in his obsidian eyes, which contrasted oddly with the blond hair and sunny Nordic skin.
    “My sister is sunning herself in the maze, where the breeze can’t get to her.”
    Mandy had not realized that the great tangle of cedar in the center of the garden was, or had been, a maze. She was glad to turn away from the young man, though. He had a nerve not even wrapping his towel around himself.
    Close up, the maze smelled strongly of cedar oil. Mandy found the entrance and went a short distance in.
    Robin’s renewed splashes were absorbed by the thick and long-untended growth. There remained only the faint screaming of the crows. The creosote path was so overgrown that Mandy had to go on her hands and knees to make any progress.
    It wasn’t a difficult maze, because the way in was marked by a string. No wonder; there was no fun to be had struggling through these weedy corridors full of spiderwebs and sticky cedar balls.
    At the center of the maze was a complete surprise, a delightful secret garden. It was perhaps thirty feet square, and peopled by statuary. All the figures were characters from Constance Collier’s books: there was Pandoric, the wicked homed boy; opposite him his mother Drydana, who had the power to turn herself into a woodpecker. At opposite ends of the garden were Braura the huge maiden bear, rearing up, her bronze claws gleaming in the sun, facing Elpot, the King of the Cats, who had one shredded ear and knew among other dungs how to fly. In the middle, on a marble pediment, stood the Fairy Queen, the tiny Leannan , Constance Collier’s greatest creation, beautifully sculpted, with her trim waist and alabaster arms, her firm nose and delicate lips, and her wide gray eyes. The sculptor had captured not only Miss Collier’s description of her character but the deeper wildness that sent the Leannan racing through her forests, “the wild huntress screaming so shrilly that it froze the footsteps of whom she sought.”
    “Excuse me. Who are you, may I ask?”
    “Oh, I’m sorry! The statue—I’m Amanda Walker. The illustrator. I’m here for my appointment with Miss Collier.”
    “You were meeting her in here?”
    “Well, not actually in this spot. But here, yes, at the estate.”
    Ivy rummaged among the things that had been spread out around her, pulled out a blue-faced watch. “It’s 10:30. She’s still with my father.”
    “Do you know if she was expecting me?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve been here almost all morning.”
    Ivy was every bit as handsome as her brother. Mandy found her presence, though, even more disturbing. There was something confusing