The Second Gate

The tabby regards me with copper eyes.

“You’re new to Second Gate.” A simple statement, not a question. She plucks a blade of cat grass from her basket and slips it between her incisors.

I take a slow half-turn, the dandelions swaying against my belly. “Second Gate? What is that?”

I feel her paw on my shoulder, twisting me around until my sight fills with an impossible rock formation at the end of vast river. It’s inaccurate to say it’s just a menhir because of its sheer size, but it’s the word that comes to mind. It helps to first imagine this wonder on a more realistic scale.

Picture this: an obsidian menhir with two triangular protrusions at the top creating a vague feline shape. It’s round eyes are glimmering rubies. Now grow the menhir. Grow, grow, grow until it’s base is as wide as the mouth of the river it sits upon, and it’s head reaches so high into the sky that a haze of blue softens the obsidian shine and gleaming rubies.

“That’s the Second Gate.”

“How is the river not flood—” Before I can finish my question, she twists me again

“That’s the village of Second Gate.” I don’t bother to ask how that amalgamation of junk in the distance is classified as a village. She twists me all the way back around.

“And I’m Harley.”

“Rotten Orange,” I say, shaking off the touch of her white paw. She was getting too close to my back. Ever since the battle with the Dark One, I can’t abide any touches to the area. Despite defensively angling my back away from her, she shuffles around to get a look at it.

“Ah, a warrior’s mark,” she says, the tip of the cat grass disappearing in her mouth as she chews it up.

I crane my head around, expecting to see patchy fur and scale-y pink scars. My fur had grown back, but then, in my old age, it had fallen out in clumps from the worst of the scarring.

Instead, the fur is grown back but where I used to be all orange with dark orange stripes, there is a patch of black fur so shiny and dark that I’m reminded of the menhir. When the wind blows, there is a ripple of iridescence across the black fur. The mark almost looks like a pair of wings, but perhaps that is the angle of my view.

“A warrior’s mark? Sounds impressive,” I say to Harley, puffing out my chest.

“Really makes you look like a rotten orange,” she shoots back casually, another piece of cat grass hanging from her mouth, bobbing up and down with her chewing. “But yes, it is impressive. Some cats’ first lives aren’t so easy.”

“A lot of cats’ first lives aren’t easy or long,” I mumble.

Harley shrugs one shoulder, a hint of chagrin. “Ah, I had a good life indoors, so admittedly…” She shrugs again, leaving her sentence to dangle.

“I had a good life too,” I say, feeling defensive. A great life, I think, the memory of the Old Man and Hulk vibrant and painful like catching a glimpse of the blazing sun.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Harley says. “I just meant that I was, you know, just an indoor cat.”

I’m about to say there’s nothing wrong with being sheltered, but maybe she realizes I’m about to utter something inadvertently patronizing because she cuts me off. “Let’s get closer to the river. Tilly is about to come through. Then we’ll cut across after the yarn herd passes and go towards the village.”

Suddenly, I’m thirsty, and the deep blue water of the river invites me to go ahead of Harley. I don’t ask what a yarn herd is because I’ll apparently witness it soon.

At the edge of the river, I plop back onto all four feet so I can lean over and lap at the sweet smelling water. Before my first sip, I see my reflection.

I’m no longer old. I see myself as a youth. Not a kitten, but perhaps I’m one and half or two years old again, fully grown but at my prime. I watch my ears flick— my fully intact ears.

“Hey!” I shout, leaping back up to two feet. I bend in half, looking between my back legs. “They’re back! I’ve got my—”

“—balls! Make way for yarn balls!” A loud voice echoes over a rumbling sound that approaches quickly. The ground beneath our feet shakes as Tilly and the yarn herd crest the hill that shadows the patch of dandelions where I had woken.

“Make way for yarn balls!” Tilly shouts, her yowling loud enough that the rumble of the yarn herd can’t drown out her whooping.

I’m both surprised and not to say that a yarn herd is exactly what is sounds like. It’s a herd of yarn balls of all colors rolling down the hill and towards the village. However, the yarn balls are as large as cattle, and they seem to have a mind of their own. Some of the yarn balls try to veer out of the group but Tilly keeps them in line with a crack of a whip.

Tilly, a cream color cat with dark points on face, paws, and tail, wears an over-sized cowboy hat, heeled boots, and a leather belt with a star shaped buckle. Her steed looks like a pony made of twine, like a novelty cat-scratcher come to life. She swings her whip over her head, snapping it at yarn balls that start to roll away from the herd.

Harley waves as Tilly and the herd passes, the dandelions and cat grass rolled flat in their wake, creating a road for us to follow to the village. The rumbling is gone and I realize this world is so quiet. Our footsteps barely make any noise.

“So,” I say, glancing back at the towering menhir, “What is the Second Gate?”

Harley peeks back and lowers her voice reverently. “That’s the second gate we pass through to our third life.”

My back tingles as if the ruby eyes of the menhir perceive me. I keep my eyes forward and each step feels awkward, like I’ve turned my back to a predator. “So, the nine lives thing?”

“That’s right. Nine lives. Nine gates.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like the Second Gate before.”

Harley shrugs. “Each life is a different world, and each world has a different gate. I know a little about it, but, truthfully, it’s not something I care to worry about. There’s scholars in town, and maybe the warriors know a bit more too about the gates and whatnot.”

Scholars, warriors, yarn herders like Tilly, gatherers like Harley— I figure these are some of the cat professions available in this new life. As the village grows closer, I wonder how I’ll spend my time in the village of Second Gate. One thing is certain. After my first life, I want a calm second life.