“Come on, then,” I whisper and she follows me down the stairs, purring already. I let myself out the front and try not to crunch too much on the gravel in the driveway. The rain’s stopped but a fog has come on; the faraway streetlights down our road give the world a blank white glow. Mary Mags does a silent little cat run ahead of me, exiting out our driveway and softly on towards the entrance of the Field.
Where Jared’s car is parked.
In my lifetime, we’ve had 1) the undead, 2) those soul-eating ghosts, 3) the vampire cycle of romance and death, and 4) whatever might be happening now with the body of Finn and the terrified deer, if they’re even connected (they’re probably connected). When Jared’s grandad was a teenager, they had Gods.
The indie kids back then, who were probably called hipsters or something, fought and some of them died and a crack opened in the ground and ate a whole neighbourhood, but of course the Gods and Goddesses were defeated in the end because we’re all still here. They were sent back to wherever they’d come from, and the world, as it always does, got on with pretending it never happened. The crack was put down to a volcanic earthquake, and history forgot.
Except for one Goddess, who had met Jared’s future grandad (called Herbert, clearly not a hipster) and liked what she saw. They married. They had a daughter, Jared’s mom – there’s a whole story there, but Jared’s even more private about this than liking guys. (Jared’s secretive about everything.
Jared isn’t even his first name, it’s his middle. His first is so totally awful, no one knows it but me.) Anyway, Jared’s half-Goddess mom married Jared’s dad and they had their son, born two months and two days before I was. His grandma and his mom aren’t around any more. Grandma went back to her realms when Herbert died and his mom runs this international charity trying to save lions, tigers and leopards from extinction. I think she might still be technically married to Jared’s dad, but she hasn’t been around since Jared was a kid. Which just leaves Mr Shurin, who teaches junior high Geography. We had him in the eighth grade.
Jared told me he thinks of himself as “three-quarters Jewish, one-quarter God”, which he also said makes him ask lots of questions he doesn’t really know the answers to. He had a bar mitzvah. It was so much fun.
Mostly, though, he doesn’t talk about it, the God thing, which you probably wouldn’t either if your grandmother was the Goddess of Cats and you were a great big eighteen-year-old gay linebacker trying to live a normal, non-indie kid life. It might have been different if she’d been, like, Goddess of Fire or War or Prosperity or something. Still, I’ve known Jared my whole life and he’s never once acted resentful about the way cats, well, worship him. He treats them kindly, patiently, he gives them recognition, and he sends them on their way.
He can also heal them.
“Now you know there are limits here, right?” he says, putting a hand on my cheek. “You’re not feline and I’m only the grandson of the real deal.”
“I know,” I say.
“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up about what I can do.”
“I haven’t.”
“I would if I could.”
I laugh a little, then wince at the ache. “That’s what everyone knows about you, Jared. You always would if you could.”
“Well,” he says, “people think they know a lot of stuff. This might hurt.”
There’s a sudden heat on my cheek that feels like it’s pulling at my stitches and light comes faintly from the palm of Jared’s hand. I try not to flinch as it gets hotter, but then he stops. He peels back the bandage. “Looks a little better,” he says. “I don’t think I can do anything about the scar, though.”