The Ninth Door

Chapter 2 - Big Cat

Annette

Cats. I had always wanted to own one since I was a child, but this leopard didn’t look like someone anyone could own.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered, uncertain of what I should do. One part of me wanted to scream and run out of the room to find someone who could get rid of the leopard for me. Wildlife or animal control, or something like that. Another part of me wondered if I was suddenly finally being given the chance to meet my legacy head on. Cat shifters. When was the last time they talked about them in our family? Nobody wanted to talk about them at all until I was pretty sure that it was just a grand delusion. The last part of me was afraid that I was having a breakdown. Again.

The leopard growled, startling me enough to retreat so suddenly I fell on my hip, which hit my bag on the floor. My palms pressed on the cold surface for support, feeling something sticky. The hard corners of the books inside the cloth bag jabbed into my skin and I knew that I would bruise soon enough. The big cat looked at me with oval-shaped, greenish eyes. I knew cats had always had this intelligent look, but the one it was using on me was too knowing. It was almost human.

“Tyger, tyger burning bright. In the forest of the night.” My mind wandered to one of my favorite poems, except this one here wasn’t a tiger. It was a leopard. Leopards were often tiger’s prey, and were the smallest in the Panthera or big cat group. These facts I had collected in my head rushed to me, thrilled me, and made me forget that this cat could snap or tear my neck with its sharp canines.

My visitor continued to watch me, as if I was a puzzle it was trying to solve. It didn’t leap at me as I expected it would, but then again how do leopards react when their potential prey remained immobile?

It took me long enough to realize that we were having a staring contest in the dark. I hadn’t switched on the light and yet, everything was clear to me as if I was just like the leopard watching me with its adapted retinas.

Caution.

That was what the leopard and I had in common. I remembered that among the big cats, it was the least likely to attack. Least likely, but it still could. The books never said anything about not attacking at all. So, I moved as slowly as I could, rising from the bare floor. I couldn’t be bothered with carpets and rugs, afraid that they could hide all kinds of things. What? I didn’t exactly know. I was diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder. The struggle continued. The independence and isolation were part of he challenge I made for myself. The silence was deafening.

“We can’t really blame the child.” I heard my uncle tell his wife years ago. I was nine, and catatonic half the time. I recovered but there were some parts of my memories that slipped away.

“It’s for the best.”

I startled. The leopard and I were not alone in my apartment. The childlike voice in my head was there again. It sounded like a young girl. Sometimes, her voice was comforting, but sometimes it was frightening.

“It’s for the best,” she repeated, as if the first time wasn’t enough. “Talk to the cat. It’s not just a cat. Look closely.”

I looked closely, and the room seemed to shake. I tried to focus on the leopard, which was already going off the couch to walk the bare floor toward me. My body shook violently as panic took over, and in that panic, the world ceased to exist.

**

2010

“My name is Annette Fairly,” I said aloud to the mirror.

“Say that again,” Dr. Jennifer Rhodes insisted, her brow furrowed with concern. She was right behind me, her hand on my shoulder. Her hair is tied in a bun today, not like in the braids I loved. Their beads clacked at each other whenever she moved, hypnotizing me just as well as her that strange little device she had in the background, the one she called a metronome.

“My name is Annette Fairly.” Tick. Tick. Tick.

I could say the whole thing in three beats. By saying the sentence a few more times, I gained control of my heartbeat, too. I asked Uncle Stefan to buy me my own metronome so that I could make my heart beat a little slower if I had to. He quickly did, as soon as Dr. Rhodes gave her go signal.

“Annie, how are you today?”

“I’m okay. I’m going back to school in a week.”

“So, everything good?”

“My grades are great. A pluses.”

“Everything good?” she asked again, emphasizing the first word. She knew I was always ahead in class even when I would sometimes miss days.

“Yes,” I mumbled, looking down at the hands on my lap. I had been biting my fingernails again. The tips looked jagged. Disgusting.

“Oh honey. It’s okay to say you’re not doing well. That’s why we meet so that we can talk about, see what we can do about it. You said you liked solving Math problems. It’s like that but more complicated. We have to look at the given. Then, we check how these numbers can work together so that we can get to the solution.”

“It’s not their fault.”

“Are you being bullied at school?”

“I – I sometimes scream for no reason. Other children get spooked, or they laugh.”

“But you want to go to school, right?”

“Yes, Dr. Rhodes. I like a good challenge.”

“Of course, you do. Now let’s take a look at your drawing today. You’re getting to be such an artist! I keep on forgetting to ask your uncle about who you got that talent from.”

“He’s going to say it’s from him, Dr. Rhodes. Don’t believe him!” I said, smiling at my kind doctor. I liked drawing her, with her mocha skin and warm brown eyes. Every time I felt cold, I thought of her. Most days, my chest felt cold if that even made sense. The house’s temperature was regulated. So, I shouldn’t be feeling too hot or too cold.

“Oh, not from him, huh? Okay, I’m going to ask him just so I’d hear what he has to say,” Dr. Rhodes said, dimpling at me. She was in only in her late thirties, just the right age to be my mom.

“You okay? You look like you’re thinking hard there, honey. It’s good you know, but you have to share things that are making your chest heavy. Someone has to help you carry it.”

“I know, Dr. Rhodes. What do you think of my drawing?” I asked, bringing both of us to the topic we started.

“You drew a lot of cats. Do you love cats, Annie?” Her face was kind, but I saw a glimmer of concern in her eyes.

“Yeah, I do,” I replied with no hesitation.

“Okay. So, I see some house cats right here,” she said, tracing the parts where I drew kittens by the porch of a large house. “Then, we have big cats here. Why are they so big?”

“They’re, um, lions, tigers, and leopards.”

“Leopards, just like in your favorite book.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have cats at home?”

“No. Joy has a puppy.”

“Your cousin has a puppy, but no cats?”

“No. I heard Uncle Stefan we can’t take them as pets.”

“Mm,” she hummed a little, jotting something on her notebook. I wished I could lean toward her to read what she had to say about me.

For the last few minutes of our session, we listened to some soft music, meant to lull me to a state of total relaxation. Dr. Rhodes also taught me how to massage my palms and utter mantras repeatedly to calm myself.

“I am safe. I am loved.”

“Wonderful, honey.”

“I am safe. I am loved.”

“You’re doing a good job!”

“I am safe. I am loved.”

Then, her voice no longer sounded like hers. Instead, I heard a loud, growling noise. I screamed.

**

“Are you alright, my lady?” A man was leaning down on me, his blond curls falling down his forehead. On an ordinary day, I would have thought his hair too long for him and that he needed a haircut. Today, though, was not that kind of day, especially when I noticed he was naked.

My heart pounded so hard I could feel the beats in my ears, like a metronome gone wild. Tick. Tick. Tick. I remembered being in my living room, startled by a leopard. Now, I was looking at a naked man leaning toward me while I lay on the cold floor next to my bag.

“Y-you’re naked!” I exclaimed the obvious.

“Uh. My apologies. I didn’t meant to. I don’t know why I’m here.”

“You don’t know why you’re here?” I asked, incredulous. What kind of scam was this? Was he sent her to seduce a lonely librarian – damn, assistant librarian? I blushed at the sight of the two of us, with him naked as the day he was born and I lying down on the floor with my skirt up my thigh.

“No. D-do you have a piece of cloth that I may use to cover myself?”

“Um, yes. Go upstairs. Turn right and check my closet for some men’s clothes.”

“Closet? Men’s clothes?”

“It’s a large wardrobe,” I said, shaking my head at why I wasn’t calling the police to pick up this madman. Perhaps I was the mad one?

“Wardrobe,” he repeated, running up the stairs as fast as he could. My eyes followed his naked buttocks. Then, realizing what I was doing, I squeezed my eyes shut and slapped my forehead. I hadn’t even gotten up the floor.

I picked myself up and looked around, my nose involuntarily sniffing. What was I doing? I couldn’t see the leopard anywhere and I woke up to a naked man in the house. My hand rummaged for my phone in my bag, and checked to see if Dr. Rhodes was still in my speed dial list. Shaking at the thought of going insane while all alone in this place, I pressed 6. The call immediately connected, much to my relief.

“Hello? Annette? What’s wrong?”

“I- I think I’m having a breakdown,” I said, followed by some whimpering. I told myself never to be this pathetic again, but fear overcame me and I was a limp noodle on my floor. On my knees.

“Calm down. Take deep breaths. Do you have your metronome with you?”

“I can count in my head.”

‘Okay, please do that, honey. Calm down. You’ve achieved so much on your own. You are powerful. You are safe.”

“I’m seeing things.”

“Seeing things. Like what?” I heard the caution in her voice. Like my caution. Like the leopard’s caution.

“A leopard.”

“A leopard. Where?”

“In my living room. On my couch.”

“You know that’s impossible, right, honey?”

“Yes, Dr. Rhodes. I know. I fainted, I think. Then, I woke up and saw a naked man leaning over me,” I said as calmly as possible.

She gasped.

“W-where is he right now? H-how are you feeling? Do you feel bruised?”

I knew what she meant. She was trying to be careful with me. Gentle.

“I’m not bruised down there, Dr. Rhodes. No. I don’t think he touched me. I think he’s not real.”

“Okay. Okay. So, let us take deep breaths.”

Let us, she said. She was like the closest I had to a mother. I rattled her.

Then, I heard the footsteps coming down the stairs. They weren’t subtle. They were bold. The man who was walking down my steps had nothing to hide. He was now wearing a shirt and a pair of basketball pants. They looked good on him, but somehow he looked uncomfortable.

“Did I wear them properly, my lady?” he asked.

“Is there someone there with you?” Dr. Rhodes asked, and I could hear the panic rising in her voice.

“Y-yes,” I whispered.

“Are you in trouble, Sienna?”

Dr. Rhodes was so frightened that she dared mention that name.

“What?”

“Are you in trouble, Annie?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

When I met the man’s eyes, I was somehow sure that I wasn’t in trouble, at least not the kind that Dr. Rhodes suspected.