WILLIAM WINDSON
By Ruth Asch
Word count: 1740
Rating: G
Summary: A cat makes friends with a wind.
When William was a cat, he was a fine looking animal. Smokey blue-grey with a silvery sheen to his short fur, and luminous green eyes. Playful and powerful, he was adored by the lady who lived with him: Miss Edna Carbury. She brought him home as a kitten when she realised that her house was not quite a home, despite all the book-characters who nestled on its walls, and the children’s voices which echoed in her head long after school closed as she sat marking piles of exercise books. William was a companion, and the affection and interest he gave her were purrrrfect.
In the evenings, William was a loving housecat – a little eccentric, but then so was she. He would converse with Edna (though she was always the talker, he the listening kind); he would purr when she sang, or sway as she tentatively danced away the memories of her youth. When she was away teaching, and often through the hunting hours of night, he would prowl and leap through the communal garden, and neighbouring gardens, and stalk the walls between. It was a built-up area, fraught with stone-throwing children, cars, and many pugnacious beasts of both feline and canine variety. But the real difficulty was that Miss Carbury, whose salary did not stretch to luxury, lived in a small apartment up on the fifth floor. When she left in the morning, the front door of the block was open and William could leave through the cat-flap, down the stairs (or occasionally, when invited, the lift) and away outside. At night Edna liked to keep a window open, and what she did not know was that, having settled her in bed, William would take the opportunity to descend by creeper and drain-pipe till he reached freedom – always making sure to return before her alarm clock rang in the morning.
William had been born in September, when the change-of-season wind blew; of impeccable Korat breed, his parents hailed from Thailand, brought over by immigrants to start a new life. It may have been the meteorological restlessness of the atmosphere at his birth, a distant homeland calling, or simply his nature, but this was a cat who, though closely bound by affection, always wished to go somewhere… a bit farther. He felt the skittering of leaves in his legs, the breeze through his fur, and some strange heat in his heart all year round whenever he was still for a while, but he never told Edna.
Nobody doubts cats’ ability to understand their human housemates, and most of those believe they understand their cats; what few people know is that some cats also communicate with the winds. These creatures of the air are even more independent and reticent than the most willful feline, but when they so choose, (it is always, by etiquette, the winds who speak first) there is a certain affinity between them. So it was that, one day, when Miss Carbury was out, William heard a whispering voice just as a small breeze started up.
“My name is Hwyth.”
“?!”
“Hwyth Trueth… I am the breeze – a wind-child.”
After a wondering pause, William asked, “Are you from Greece? From the halls of Aeolus? Miss Edna read to me of those. I should like to visit Greece….”
“No, silly. The winds entrapped by Aeolus in your books were Grecian. We are related – Aura, queen of Hellenic breezes, is my grandmother – but the winds are many, and though we may lap the globe, we share the territory on-duty. I am from the southwest of these British isles.”
“My people are from Thailand, but I have never been there. I was born near here. I should love to fly and see wonders, as you do, provided I could return quickly home, of course. Do tell me about it all.”
“You must catch me first!”
Laughing gustily, Hwyth led William a mad prance through the empty playground and up a tree before telling him a story. And so began a deep friendship. From that day, people remarked upon William’s more-eccentric-than-ever behaviour, as well as his intelligent expression, and the beauty of his coat.
For a couple more years, all was very well. William’s solitary frisking became a dance with Hwyth, and he listened less for late-returning footsteps or potential prey, than for stories which gleamed in his eyes. At home, life went on as usual, and Miss Carbury was delighted by his newfound lightness. Then came a change in mood and pace as she prepared for retirement: colourful threads and tingles of excitement appearing in the calm atmosphere of the apartment at the same time as a melancholy sort of patina began to settle on things.
Once she had retired, the old lady sensibly kept herself busy, often going out for the equivalent of school hours to museums and parks and concerts. She would have loved to take William, but he was not inclined to walk to heel or sit in a basket, so he stayed home, patrolling his patch and imagining visits to exotic places as described by Hwyth.
But then Miss Carbury began to feel not quite herself. And she grew steadily worse, not better…until it became clear to William that she was very unwell, indeed. More and more she stayed home and seemed to want him there, for company. More and more he felt her pain and tried to console her. Hwyth would buffet him when he turned for home early, or call him to play through the open window when he stayed in the flat a whole day at a time, but William only looked wistful and returned, heavy limbed, to sit kneading his paws on Edna’s lap.
There came a time when Edna was in bed during the day. At first she encouraged William to go out as usual, but as she grew worse and worse she clung to him for comfort: the feel of soft fur on her fingertips when all other nerves were aching, the weight of warmth on her legs or against her chest when the world seemed cold about and inside her were so precious that William never left her side for more than a very short while. He hated to feel her so. Yet he missed Hwyth and the outside dreadfully, and several times, at Hwyth’s call, found himself crouched to spring out of the window before he realised what he was doing, and tore around the apartment instead, coiling temptation back inside before settling down again, assuring himself that it would not be long before he could enjoy roaming again.
But when the doctor or a rare visitor came to Edna, they would close the window to protect her from damp English draughts. So it was a terrible thing when the old cat-flap broke and, in a good-natured attempt to mend it, a nephew of hers nailed it too tight to open at all. As long as Edna was too weak to do much, William was stuck.
Still Edna did not get better. Her few relatives kept their distance, for they had moved abroad, and as Miss Carbury did not like to bother people, nobody stayed to take care of her. She lavished William with affection, but little else, and as she faded…he did, too. He would go and sit by the window, which was open just a crack (he could not move it further) and meow loudly until, eventually, Hwyth heard him and came by. Hwyth would listen to William’s sadness and his account of what was happening, and blow him breaths of well-wishing. But the long stories and the romps were impossible and the little breeze was not strong enough to push a window open.
Hwyth saw how things were, and as the cat and his mistress grew weak, the wind-child went to seek help from older, stronger relatives.
“Hold on, William! They’ll rescue you…you’ll see!”
William, relieved, expected a great storm and waited for it with excitement, and not a little fear. But even the winds are bound by laws, and hurricane-brewing out of season, for personal reasons, is strictly forbidden.
When nothing happened, William, hollow with more than one type of hunger, let out a great yearning for the friendship and the freedom he had lost, then settled down quietly by the window at Edna’s cold, unmoving feet, to die.
But at midnight that night – a full-moonlit night – if anyone had been out walking nearby, they would have noticed a strange turbulence in the placid air, as though winds had dropped into the area from several directions at once. There was a great susurring of leaves in street and park, and trembling of the light between; draughts blew softly in all directions as though people in floating costumes passed rapidly around, preparing some great event. Then gradually the breezes synchronized, and dust and petals were swept up off the ground and turned in concert – a steady wind whirlpool of potpourri cloud just in front of the window, behind which the grey cat lay.
And inside the room, one would have seen something still more marvelous. A dull-furred, bony animal, curled roughly on the bottom of a dark bed, twitched and raised its head, ears cupped, turquoise eyes gazing eagerly toward the window. As the aerial choreography continued outside, the cat seemed to revive. William drew himself up, tail high, coat fluffed, glimmering gently. Then he seemed to gain a radiance of his own…the smoke-grey’s pale irridescence of white and blue grew stronger, and more translucent. He shone with vitality until, imperceptibly, gradually, he disappeared into the moonlight in the window.
And then there was – nothing. But someone with the ears to hear it might have overheard:
“See! We came to rescue you, my friend.”
“Hwyth! How did you make me disappear? And become…”
“We didn’t. You did that, by forgetting yourself entirely for the sake of someone loved. We did the rest, with a little magic. You are one of us now; we shall call you William Windson. Let’s fly!”
And so, the lately departed Edna Carbury’s cat vanished. None of her neighbours thought twice about it. But if you listen carefully on a windy day – in the park, or on the street, or perhaps getting into a lift – you might hear a soft mew float through the air. And that is William Windson.